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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ae1b71 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #50496 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50496) diff --git a/old/50496-0.txt b/old/50496-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 2e6a41e..0000000 --- a/old/50496-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3339 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mrs Albert Grundy--Observations in Philistia, by -Harold Frederic - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you’ll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Mrs Albert Grundy--Observations in Philistia - -Author: Harold Frederic - -Release Date: November 19, 2015 [EBook #50496] -Last Updated: November 6, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS GRUNDY *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -MRS ALBERT GRUNDY--OBSERVATIONS IN PHILISTIA - -By Harold Frederic - - -[Illustration: 0007] - - - - -_Presenting in Outline the Comfortable and Well-Regulated Paradox over -which She Presides, and showing its Mental Elevation_ - - -I suppose about the name there is no doubt. For sixty years we -have followed that gifted gadabout and gossip, Heine, and called it -Philistia. And yet, when one thinks of it, there may have been a mistake -after all. Artemus Ward used to say that he had been able, with effort, -to comprehend how it was possible to measure the distance between the -stars, and even the dimensions and candle-power, so to speak, of those -heavenly bodies; what beat him was how astronomers had ever found out -their names. So I find myself wondering whether Philistia really is the -right name for the land where She must be obeyed. - -If so, it is only a little more the region of mysterious paradox and -tricksy metamorphosis. We think of it always and from all time as given -over to Her rule. We feel in our bones that there was a troglodyte Mrs -Grundy; we imagine to ourselves a British matron contemporary with the -cave bear and the woolly elephant But her very antiquity only makes it -more puzzling. - -There is an old gentleman who always tries to prove to me that the -French are really Germans, that the Germans are all Slavs, and that the -Russians are strictly Tartars: that is to say, that in keeping-count -of the early races as they swarmed Westward we somehow skipped one, and -have been wrong ever since. There must be some such explanation of how -the domain which She sways came to be called Philistia. - -I say this, because the old Philistia was tremendously masculine. It was -the Jews who struck the feminine note. They used to swagger no end when -they won a victory, and utilise it to the utmost limit of merciless -savagery; but when it came their turn to be thrashed they filled -the very heavens with complaining clamour. We got no hint that the -Philistines ever failed to take their medicine like men. - -Consider those splendid later Philistines, the Norsemen. In all their -martial literature there is no suggestion of a whine. They loved -fighting for its own sake; next to braining their foes, they admired -being themselves hewn into sections. They never blamed their gods when -they had the worst of it. They never insisted that they were always -right and their enemies invariably wrong. They cared nothing about all -that. They demanded only fun. It was their victims, the Frankish and -Irish monks, who shed women’s tears and besought Providence to play -favourites. - -And here is the paradox. The children of these Berserker loins are -become the minions of Mrs Grundy. By some magic she has enshrined -Respectability in their temples. In one division of her empire she makes -Mr Helmer drink tea; in another she sets everybody reading the _Buchholz -Family_; in her chosen island home her husband on the sunniest Sundays -carries an umbrella instead of a walking-stick. Fancy the wild delirium -of delight with which the old Philistines would have raided her -homestead, chopping down her Robert Elsmeres, impaling her Horsleys, and -making the skies lurid with the flames of her semi-detached villa! Yet -we call her place Philistia! - -I know the villa very well. It is quite near to the South Kensington -Museum. The title “Fernbank” is painted on the gate-posts. How -well-ordered and comfortable does life beyond those posts remain! Here -are no headaches in the morning. Here white-capped domestics move with -neat alertness along the avenues of gentle routine, looking neither to -the policeman on the right nor fiery-jacketed Thomas Atkins on the left. -Here my friend Mr Albert Grundy invariably comes home by the Underground -to dinner. Here his three daughters--girls of a type with a diminishing -upper lip, with sharper chins and greater length of limb than of -old--lead deeply washed existences, playing at tennis, smiling in -flushed silence at visitors, feeding contentedly upon Mudie’s stores, -the while their mamma spreads the matrimonial net about the piano or -makes tours of inspection among her outlying mantraps on the lawn. Here -simpers the innocuous curate; here Uncle Dudley, who has seen life in -Australia and the Far West, watches the bulbs and prunes the roses, and, -I should think, yawns often to himself; here Lady Willoughby Wallaby’s -card diffuses refinement from the summit of the card-basket in the hall. - -To this happy home there came but last week--or was it the week -before--a parcel of books. There were four complete novels in twelve -volumes--fruits of that thoughtful arrangement by which the fair reader -in Philistia is given three distinct opportunities to decide whether she -will read the story through or not. Mrs Albert is a busy woman, burdened -with manifold responsibilities to Church and State, to organised -charities, to popularised music, to art-work guilds and the Amalgamated -Association of Clear Starchers, not to mention a weather-eye kept at -all times upon all unmarried males: but she still finds time to open -all these packets of new books herself. On this occasion she gave to -her eldest, Ermyntrude, the first volume of a novel by Mrs --------. It -doesn’t matter what fell to the share of the younger Amy and Floribel. -For herself she reserved the three volumes of the latest work of Mr ---------. - -She tells me now that words simply can _not_ express her thankfulness -for having done so. It seems the selection was not entirely accidental. -She was attracted, she admits, by the charmingly dainty binding of -the volumes, but she was also moved by an instinct, half maternal -prescience, half literary recollection. She thought she remembered -having seen the name of this man-writer before. Where? It came to her -like a flash, she says. Only a while ago he had a hook called _A Bunch -of Patrician Ladies_ or something of that sort, which she almost made -up her mind not to let the girls read at all, but at last, with some -misgivings, permitted them to skim hastily, because though the morals -were rocky--perhaps that wasn’t her word--the society was very good. -But this new book of his had not even that saving feature. Respectable -people were only incidentally mentioned in it. Really it was quite _too_ -low. The chief figure was a farm-girl who for the most part skimmed -milk or cut swedes in a field, and at other times behaved in a manner -positively unmentionable. Mrs Albert told me she had locked the volumes -up, after only partially perusing them. I might be sure _her_ daughters -never laid eyes on them. They had gone back to the library, with a note -expressing surprise that such immoral books should be sent into any -Christian family. What made the matter worse, she went on, was that -Ermyntrude read in some paper, at a friend’s house, that this man, -whoever he may be, was the greatest of English novelists, and that this -particular book of his was a tragic work of the noblest and loftiest -order, which dignified the language. She was sure she didn’t know what -England was coming to, when reporters were allowed to put things -like that in the papers. Fortunately she only took in _The Daily -Tarradiddle_, which one could always rely upon for sound views, and -which gave this unspeakable book precisely the contemptuous little -notice it deserved. - -It was a relief, however--and here the good matron visibly brightened -up--to think that really wholesome and improving novels were still -produced. There was that novel by Mrs --------. Had I read it? Oh, - -I must lose no time! Perhaps it was not altogether so enchanting as that -first immortal work of hers, which had almost, one might say, founded -a new religion. True, one of the girls in it worked altar-cloths for a -church, and occasionally the other characters broke out into religious -conversation; but there were no clergymen to speak of, and the charm -of the other’s ecclesiastical mysticism was lacking. “To be frank, the -first and last volumes were just a bit slow. But oh! the lovely second -volume! A young Englishman and his sister go to Paris. They stumble -right at the start into the most delightful, picturesque, artistic -set. Think of it: Henri Régnault is personally introduced, and delivers -himself of extended remarks----” - -“I met an old friend of Regnault’s at the Club the other day,” - I interposed, “who complained bitterly of that. He said it was -insufferable impudence to bring him in at all, and still worse to make -him talk such blather as is put into his mouth.” - -Mrs Albert sniffed at this Club friend and went on. That Paris part of -the book seemed to her to just palpitate with life. It was Paris to the -very letter--gay, intellectual, sparkling, and oh! so free! The young -Englishman at once set up a romantic establishment in the heart of -Fontainebleau Forest with a French painter-girl. His sister was almost -as promptly debauched by an elderly French sculptor. But you never lost -sight of the fact that the author was teaching a valuable moral lesson -by all this. Indeed, that whole part of the book was called “Storm -and Stress.” And all the while you saw, too, how innately superior the -national character of the young Englishman was to that of the French -people about him. One _knew_ that in good time _he_ would have a moral -awakening, and return to England, marry, settle down, and make money in -his business. Side by side with this you saw the entire hopelessness -of any spiritual regeneration in the French painter-girl or any of -her artistic set. And this was shown with such delicate art--it was so -_perfect_ a picture of the moral contrast between the two nations--that -the girls saw it at once. - -“Then the girls,” I put in--“that is to say, you didn’t lock _this_ book -up?” - -Mrs Albert lifted her eyebrows at me. - -“How do you mean?” she asked. “Do you know who the author is? The idea! -Why, the papers print whole columns about _anything_ she writes. Every -day you may see paragraphs about the mere prospect of books she -hasn’t even begun yet. I suppose such blatant publicity must be very -distressing to her, but the public simply insist upon it. _The Daily -Tarradiddle_ devoted an entire leader to this particular book. I assure -you, all my friends are talking of nothing else--many of them people, -too, whom you would not suspect of any literary tastes whatever, and who -_never_ read novels as a rule. But they don’t regard _this_ as a novel. -They think of it--I quote Lady Willoughby Wallaby’s exact words--as an -exposition of those Christian principles which make our England what it -is.” - - - - -_Setting forth the Untoward Circumstances under which the Right Tale was -Unfolded in the Wrong Company_ - - -Much has been written about that variety of “cab-wit” which occurs to -a man on his way home from dinner: the brilliant sallies he might have -made, the smart retorts which would so bravely have reversed the balance -of laughter had they only come in time. We are less frank about the -other sort. No one dwells in type upon the manner in which we marshal -our old jokes and arrange our epigrams as we drive along to the house of -feasting. - -No doubt the practice of getting up table-talk is going out. The -three-bottle men took it to the grave with them, along with the -snuff-box, and the toupee, and the feather-bed, and other amenities -of the Regency. There never was but one diner-out in the London of my -knowledge who was at pains to prepare his conversations, each for its -special occasion and audience, and he, poor man, broke down under -the strain and disappeared from view. The others are too lazy, too -indifferent, too cocksure of themselves, to go to all this bother. The -old courtly sense of responsibility to the host is perished from among -them. But none the less, the least dutiful and diligent of all their -number does ask himself questions as the whirling rubber tyres bear him -onward, and the cab-mirror shows him the face of a man to whom people -ought to listen. - -The question I asked myself, as I drove past the flaring shop windows -of Old Brompton Road the other evening, was whether the Grundys would -probably like my story of Nate Salsbury and the Citizen of South Bend, -Indiana. A good deal depended upon the decision. It was a story which -had greatly solidified my position in other hospitable quarters; it -could be brought in _apropos_ of almost anything, or for that matter of -quite nothing at all; it had never been printed, so far as I know, in -any of those American comic papers which supply alike the dining-rooms -of Mayfair and the editorial offices of Fleet Street with such humour -as they come into possession of; and I enjoyed telling it. On the other -hand, the Grundys were old friends of mine, who would never suspect that -they had missed anything if I preserved silence on the subject of South -Bend, and who would go on asking me to dinner whether I told new tales -or not; moreover, their attitude towards fresh jokes was always a -precarious quantity, and I had an uneasy feeling that if I told my story -to them and it failed to come off, so to speak, I should never have the -same confidence in it again. - -When I had entered the drawing-room of Fernbank, shaken hands with -Mrs Albert Grundy and Ermyntrude, and stolen a little glance about the -circle as I walked over to the fireplace, it had become clear that the -story was not to be told. Beside the half-dozen of the family, including -the curate, there was a tall young man with a very high collar, -shoulders that sloped down like a Rhine-wine bottle, and a stern -expression of countenance. Uncle Dudley whispered to me, as we held our -hands over the asbestos, that he was a literary party, and the son of -old Sir Watkyn Hump, who was a director in one of Albert’s companies. -The other guests were a stout and motherly lady in a cap and a purplish -smile, and a darkling young woman with a black velvet riband around her -thin neck, and a look of wearied indifference upon her face. This effect -of utter boredom did not visibly diminish upon my being presented to -Miss Wallaby. - -I have an extremely well-turned little brace of sentences with which to -convey the intelligence to a young lady that the honour of taking her -down to dinner has fallen upon me--sentences which combine professions -of admiring pleasure with just a grateful dash of respectful -playfulness; they brought no new light into Miss Wallaby’s somewhat -scornful _pince-nez_. Decidedly I would not tell my South Bend story -_that_ night! - -But all the same I did. What led up to it I hardly know. It was at the -ptarmigan stage, I remember--or was it a capercailzie?--and young Mr -Hump had commented upon the great joy of living in England, where one -could enjoy delicious game all the year round, instead of in a country -like America, where the inhabitants notoriously had nothing but fried -salt pork to eat for many months at a time. Perhaps it was not worth -while, but I ventured the correcting remark that there was no season of -the year when one couldn’t have eighteen edible varieties of wild birds -in America for every one that England has ever heard of. Mr Hump preened -his chin about on the summit of his collar and smiled with superior -incredulity. The others looked grave. Mrs Grundy whispered to me -warningly, over her left shoulder, that Mr Hump had made America his -special subject, and wrote most vigorous and comminatory articles about -it almost every week. I was painfully conscious that Miss Wallaby’s cold -right shoulder had been still further withdrawn from me. - -Well, it was at this grotesquely inauspicious moment that I told my -story. It is easy enough now to see that it was sheer folly, madness -if you like, to do so. I was only too bitterly conscious of that when I -reviewed the events of the evening in my homeward cab. It was _apropos_ -of nothing under the wide sky. But at the moment, I suppose, I hoped -that it would relieve the situation. In one sense it did. - -Baldly summarised, this is the tale. Years ago the admirable Nate -Salsbury was on a “one-night-stand” tour with his bright little company -of comedians through the least urban districts of Indiana, and came upon -South Bend, which is an important centre of the wagon-making industry, -but is not precisely a focussing point of dramatic traditions and -culture. - -In the vestibule of the small theatre that evening there paced up and -down a tall, middle-aged, weasel-backed citizen, his hands plunged deep -in his pockets, doubt and irresolution written all over his face. As -others paid their money and passed in he would watch them with obvious -longing; then he would go and study once more the attractive coloured -bill of the Company, with its bevy of pretty girls in skirts just short -enough to disclose most enticing little ankles; then once more he would -resume his perplexed walk to and fro. At last he made up his mind, and -approached Salsbury with diffidence. “Mister,” he said, “air you the -boss of this show?” “What can I do for you?” asked Nate. “Well--no -offence meant--but--can I--that is to say--will it be all right to -bring a lady to your show?” “That, sir, depends!” responded the manager -firmly. “Well,” the citizen went on, “what I was gittin’ at is this--can -I be perfectly safe in bringin’ _my wife_ here?” - -“Sir,” said Salsbury with dignity, and an eye trained to abstain from -twinkling, “it is no portion of my business to inquire whether she is -your wife or not, but if she comes in here she’s got to behave herself!” - -A solitary note of laughter fell upon the air when I had told this -story, and on the instant Uncle Dudley, perceiving that he had made -a mistake, dropped his napkin, and came up from fishing for it on the -floor red-faced and dumb. All else was deadly silence. - -“I--I suppose they really weren’t married at all?” said the curate, -after a chilling pause. - -“Marriage, I regret to say, means next to nothing in most parts of -America,” remarked Mr Hump, judicially. “The most sacred ties are there -habitually made the subject of ribald jests. I have been assured by -a person who spent nearly three weeks in the United States some years -since that it is an extremely rare experience to meet an adult American -who has not been divorced at least once. This fact made a vivid -impression on my mind at the time, and I--ahem!--have written frequently -upon it since.” - -“I suppose the trouble arises from their all living in hotels--having no -home life whatever,” said Mrs Albert, with a kindly air of coming to my -rescue. - -“Who on earth told you that?” I began, but was cut short. - -“I confess,” broke in Miss Wallaby, with frosty distinctness of tone and -enunciation, “that the assumption upon which the incident just related -is based--the assumption that the la--woman referred to would probably -misconduct herself in a place of public resort--seems to me startlingly -characteristic of the country of which it is narrated. It has been truly -said that the most valuable test of a country’s actual, as distinct -from its assumed, worth, is the respect it pays to its women. Both at -Cheltenham and at Newnham the idea is steadily inculcated--I might -say insisted upon as of paramount importance--that the nation’s real -civilisation rests upon the measure, not alone of chivalrous deference, -but of esteem and confidence which my sex, by its devotion to duty, and -its intellectual sympathy with broad aims and lofty purposes, is able to -inspire and command.” - -“But I assure you,” I protested feebly, “the story I told was a joke.” - -“There are some subjects,” interposed Lady Willoughby Wallaby, the -fixed smile lighting up with an angry, winter-sunset glow her inflamed -countenance--“there are some subjects on which it is best not to joke.” - As she spoke she wagged a mitted thumb at her hostess, and on the -instant the ladies rose. Mr Hump hastened round to hold the door open -as they filed out, their heads high in air, their skirts rustling -indignantly over the threshold. Then he followed them, closing the door -with decision behind him. - -“Gad, Albert,” said Uncle Dudley, reaching over for the port, “I don’t -wonder that the pick of our young fellows go in for marrying American -girls.” - -“Pass it along!” remarked the father of Mrs Albert’s three daughters, in -a voice of confirmed dejection. - - - - -_Annotating Sundry Points of Contact found to exist between the Lady and -Contemporary Art_ - - -Scene.--_Just inside the door of a studio._ - -Time.--_Last Sunday in March, 5 p.m._ - -1st Citizeness. O, thank you _so_ much! - -2nd do. _So_ good of you to come! - -1st do. I _so_ dote upon art! - -2nd do. So kind of you to say so! - -1st do. Thank you _so_ much for asking us! - -2nd do. Delighted, I’m sure! Thank _you_ for coming! - -1st Citizeness. Not at all! Thank you for--for thanking me -for--Well--_good-bye_. (_Exit--with family group_.) - -Husband of 2nd Citizeness (_with gloom_). And who might _those_ thankful -bounders be? - -2nd Citizeness (_wearily_). O, don’t ask _me!_ I don’t know! From -Addison Road way, I should think. - -1st Citizeness (_outside_). Well! If _that_ thing gets into the Academy! - -Family Group. Did you notice the ridiculous way her hair was done? Did -you ever taste such tea in your life? How yellow Mrs. General Wragg is -getting to look in the daylight. Yes--there’s our four-wheeler. (_Exeunt -omnes._) - - -The above is not intended for presentation upon any stage--not even -that of the Independent Theatre. It has been cast into the dramatic -mould merely for convenience’ sake. It embodies what I chiefly remember -about Picture Sunday. - -It has come to be my annual duty--a peculiarly hardy, not to say -temerarious, annual--to convoy Mrs Albert Grundy and her party about -sections of Chelsea and Brompton on the earlier of the two Show -Sabbaths. I drifted into this function through having once shared an -attic with a young painter, whose colleagues used to come to borrow -florins of him whenever one of his pictures disappeared from any shop -window, and so incidentally formed my acquaintance. My claim nowadays -upon their recollection is really very slight. I just know them well -enough to manage the last Sunday in March: even that might be awkward if -they were not such good-natured fellows. - -But it would be difficult to persuade Mrs Albert of this. That good lady -is wont, when the playfully benignant mood is upon her, to describe me -as her connecting link with Bohemia. She probably would be puzzled to -explain her meaning; I certainly should. But if she were provided with -affidavits setting forth the whole truth--viz., that my entire income -is derived from an inherited part-interest in an artificial-ice machine; -that there are two clergymen on the committee of my only club; that I am -free from debt; and that I play duets on the piano with my sister--still -would she cling to the belief that I am a young man with an extremely -gay, rakish side, who could make thrilling revelations of Bohemia if I -would. Of course, I am never questioned on the subject; but I can see -that it is a point upon which the faith of Fernbank is firmly grounded. -Often Mrs Albert’s conversation cuts figure-eights on very thin ice when -we are alone, as if just to show me that _she_ knows. More than once -I have discovered Ermyntrude looking furtively at me, as the wistful -shepherd-boy on the plains of Dura might have gazed at the distant haze -overhanging bold, unspeakable Babylon. I rarely visit the house but -Uncle Dudley winks at me. However, nothing is ever asked me about the -dreadful things with which they suppose me to be upon intimate terms. - -It seemed for a long time, on Sunday, as if an easy escape had been -arranged for me by Providence. At two o’clock, the hour appointed for -our crusade, a heavy fog overhung everything. Looking out from the -drawing-room windows, only the very nearest of the neatly trimmed -firs on the lawn were to be distinguished. The street beyond was utter -blackness. - -At three o’clock the ladies took off their bonnets. It was really too -bad. Uncle Dudley, strolling in from his nap in the library, suggested -that with a lantern we might visit some of the nearer studios: “not -necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.” Mrs -Albert turned a look of tearful vexation upon him, before which he fled. - -“There’s this consolation,” she remarked presently, holding me with an -unwavering eye: “if we are to be defrauded out of our expedition to-day, -that will furnish all the more reason why you should take us next -Sunday--_the_ Sunday. You have often talked of having us see the -Academicians at home--but we’ve never been.” - -“I remember that there has been talk about it,” I said; “but hardly that -the talk was mine. Truth is, I don’t know a single Academician, even by -sight.” - -It was clear that they did not believe me. Mrs Albert continued: “Lady -Wallaby expressed surprise, only last evening, that we should consent to -go about among the outsiders. She and her daughter _never_ do.” - -“Outsiders!” I was tempted into saying. “Why, they can paint the head -off the Academy!” - -Miss Timby-Hucks simpered outright. “You do say such droll things!” she -remarked, somewhat obscurely. “Mamma always declares that you remind her -of the _Sydney Bulletin_.” - -“Whom _do_ you take to the Academy Show Sunday?--or perhaps I oughtn’t -to ask,” came from Ermyntrude. - -“No, we have no right to inquire,” said Mrs Albert; and I turned to the -window and the enshrouded lawn once more. - -All at once the fog lifted. The bonnets were produced again. Nearly -three hours of daylight remained to us. Tidings that the horse was too -lame to be taken out only staggered Mrs Albert for the briefest fraction -of time. There were still four-wheelers in Gilead. Besides, if the -driver happened to be sober, he would know the streets so much better -than their stupid coachman. This would be of advantage, because time -was so limited. We should have to just run in, say “How-d’ye-do,” take -a flying look round, and scamper out again, Mrs Albert said. By firmly -adhering to this rule, she estimated that we might do sixteen or -seventeen studios. - -Heaven alone knows how many we did “do.” Nor have I any clear -recollections of what we saw. A confused vision remains to me of long -hall-ways lined with frames and packing-cases; half-an-acre, more or -less, of painted canvas, out of which only here and there a pair of -bright eyes, a glowing field of poppies, or the sheen from a satin gown, -fixed itself disconnectedly on the memory; hordes and hordes of tall -young women helping themselves to tea and cakes; and always the pathetic -figure of the artist’s wife, or sister, tired to very death, standing by -the door with a wearied smile on her lips, and the polite falsehood, -“So good of you to come!” on her tongue. I wondered, I remember, if she -never forgot herself and said instead, “So kind of you to go!” But under -Mrs Albert’s system there was no time to wait and see. - -Once, indeed, we dallied over our task. Mrs Albert encountered a lady -from Wormwood Scrubs of her acquaintance, who was indiscreet enough to -mention that she had been asked to stop here for supper. The news -spread through the petticoated portion of my group as by magic. Miss -Timby-Hucks came over and asked me, so audibly that the artist-host -had to blush and turn away, if I didn’t think it would be a deliciously -romantic experience to sup in one of these lofty studios, with the -gaslight on the armour, and the great, solemnly silent pictures looking -down upon us as we ate. Mrs Albert lingered for some time looking at -this artist’s work with her head on one side, and eyes filled with rapt, -dreamy enjoyment--but nothing came of it. - -It was after we had been back in Fern-bank for an hour or more--our own -cold repast nearly over--that Mrs Albert thought of something. She laid -down her fork with a gesture of annoyance. “It has just occurred to me,” - she said; “we never went to that Mr Whistler’s, whose pictures are on -exhibition in Bond Street. Everybody’s talking about him, and I did so -want not to miss his studio.” - -“I don’t think he has a Show Sunday,” I said. “I never heard of it, if -he has.” - -“O no, it is only these last few weeks that anybody has heard of him,” - -Mrs Albert replied. “I read the first announcement about his beautiful -pictures in _The Daily Tarradiddle_ only the other day.” - -“Whistler? Whistler?” put in Uncle Dudley. “Why, surely _he’s_ not new. -Why--I remember--he was mixed up in a law-suit, wasn’t it, years ago?” - -“O no, Dudley,” responded Mrs Albert; “I was under that same impression, -till Lady Wallaby set me right. It seems that was another man -altogether--some foreign adventurer who pretended to be able to paint -and imposed upon people--don’t you recall how _The Tarradiddle_ exposed -him?--and Mr Burnt-Jones had him arrested, or something--O, quite a -dreadful person. But _this_ Mr Whistler is an Englishman. I read in _The -Illustrated London News_ that he represented modern British Art. That -alone would make it quite clear it was a different man. I did so want to -see him! Lady-Wallaby tells me she has heard he is extremely amusing in -his conversation--and quite presentable manners, too.” - -“Why don’t you ask him to dinner?” said Mr Albert Grundy. “If he’s -amusing it’s more than most of the men you drum up are.” - -“You seem to think _everybody_ can be asked to dinner, Albert,” the -lady of the house replied. “Artists don’t dine--unless they are in the -Academy, of course. Tea, yes--or perhaps supper; but one doesn’t -ask people to meet them at dinner. It’s like actors--and--and -non-commissioned officers.” - - - - -_Affording a Novel and Subdued Scientific Light, by which divers -Venerable Problems may be Observed Afresh_ - - -It is my opinion,” said Uncle Dudley, stretching out his slippered -feet, and thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat--“it -is my opinion that women are different from men.” - -“Several commentators have advanced this view,” I replied. “For example, -it has been noted that the gentle sex cross a muddy street on their -heels, whereas we skip over on our toes.” - -“That is interesting if true,” responded Uncle Dudley. “What I mean is -that all this talk about the human race is humbug. There are _two_ human -races! And they are getting wider apart every few minutes, too!” - -“Have you mentioned this to any one?” I asked. - -Uncle Dudley went on developing his theme. “I daresay that for millions -of years after the re-separation of the sexes this difference was too -slight to be noticed at all. The cave man, for instance--the fellow who -went around hunting the Ichthyosaurus with a brick tied on the end of an -elm club, and spent the whole winter underground sucking the old bones, -and then whittling them up into Runic buttons for the South Kensington -Museum: I suppose, now, that his wife and sister-in-law, say, didn’t -strike him as being specially different from himself--except, of course, -in that they only got plain bones and gristle and so on to eat, whereas -all the marrow and general smooth-sailing in meats went his way. _You_, -can’t imagine _him_ saying to himself: ‘These female people here are not -of my race at all They are of another species. They are in reality as -much my natural enemies as that long-toed, red-headed, brachycephalous -tramp living in the gum-tree down by the swamp, who makes offensive -gestures as I ride past on my tame _Ursus spelous_’--now, can you?” - -I frankly shook my head. “No, I don’t seem to be able to imagine that. -It would be almost as hard as to guess off-hand where, when, and how you -caught this remarkable scientific spasm.” - -Uncle Dudley smiled. He rose, and walked with leisurely lightness up -and down in front of the chimney-piece, still with his palms spread -like little misplaced wings before his armpits. He smiled again. Then he -stopped on the hearth-rug and looked down amiably upon me. - -“Well--what d’ye think? There’s something in it, eh?” - -“My dear fellow,” I began, “what puzzles me is----” - -“O, I don’t mean to say that I’ve worked it all out,” put in Uncle -Dudley, reassuringly. “Why, I get puzzled myself, every once in a while. -But I’m on the right track, my boy; and, as they say in Adelaide, I’m -going to hang to it like a pup to a root.” - -“How long have you been this way?” I asked, with an affectation of -sympathy. - -Uncle Dudley answered with shining eyes. “Why, if you’ll believe me, it -seems now as if I’d had the germs of the idea in my mind ever since I -came back to England, and began living here at Fernbank. But the thing -dawned upon me--that is to say, took shape in my head--less than a -fortnight ago. It all came about through being up here one evening with -nothing to read, and my toe worse than usual, and Mrs Albert having been -out of sorts all through dinner. Somehow, I felt all at once that I’d -got to read scientific works. I couldn’t resist it. I was like Joan -of Arc when the cows and sheep took partners for a quadrille. I heard -voices--Darwin’s and--and--Benjamin Franklin’s--and--lots of others. I -hobbled downstairs to the library, and I brought up a whole armful of -the books that Mrs Albert bought when she expected Lady Wallaby was -going to be able to get her an invitation to attend the Hon. Mrs -Coon-Alwyn’s Biological Conversaziones. Look there! What do you say to -that for ten days’ work? And had to cut every leaf, into the bargain!” - -I gazed with respect at the considerable row of books he indicated: -books for the most part bound in the scarlet of the International Series -or the maroon of Contemporary Science, but containing also brown covers, -and even green “sport” varieties. - -“Well, and what is it all about?” I asked. “Why have you read -these things? Why not the reports of the Commission on Agricultural -Depression, or Lewis Morris’s poems, or even----” but my imagination -faltered and broke. - -“It was instinct, my boy,” returned Uncle Dudley, with impressive -confidence. “There had been a thought--a great idea--growing and -swelling in my head ever since I had been living in this house. But -I couldn’t tell what it was. As you might say, it was wrapped up in -a cocoon, like the larvæ of the lepidoptera--ahem!--and something was -needed to bring it out.” - -“When I was here last you were trying Hollands with quinine bitters,” I -remarked casually. - -“Don’t fool!” Uncle Dudley admonished me. “I’m dead in earnest. As I -said, it was pure instinct that led me to these books. They have made -everything clear. I only wanted their help to get the husk off my -discovery, and hoist it on my back, us it were, and bring it out here in -the daylight. And so now you know what I’m getting at when I say: Women -are different from Men.” - -“That is the discovery, then?” I inquired. - -Uncle Dudley nodded several times. Then he went on, with emphasised -slowness: “I have lived here now for four years, seeing my sister-in-law -every day, watching Ermyntrude grow up to womanhood and the little girls -peg along behind her, and meeting the female friends who come here -to see them--and, sir, I tell you, they’re not alone a different sex: -they’re a different animal altogether! Take my word for it, they’re a -species by themselves.” - -“Miss Timby-Hucks is certainly very much by herself,” I remarked. - -My friend smiled. “And not altogether her own fault either,” he -commented. “But, speaking of science, it’s remarkable how, when you once -get a firm grip on a big, central, main-guy fact, all the little facts -come in of their own accord to support it. Now, there’s that young -simpleton you met here at dinner a while ago: I mean Eustace Hump. -Do you know that both Ermyntrude and the Timby-Hucks, and even Miss -Wallaby, think that that chap is a perfect ideal of masculine wit and -beauty? You and I would hesitate about using him to wad a horse-pistol -with: but there isn’t one of those girls that wouldn’t leap with joy if -he began proposing to her; and as for their mothers, why, the old ladies -watch him as a kingfisher eyes a tadpole.” - -“Your similes are exciting,” I said; “but what do they go to show?” - -“My dear fellow, science can show anything. I haven’t gone all through -it yet, but I tell you, it’s wonderful! Take this, for instance”--he -reached for a green book on the mantel, and turned over the leaves--“now -listen to this. The book is written by a man named Wallace--nice, -shrewd-looking old party by his picture, you can see--and this is what -he says on page 285: ‘Some peahens preferred an old pied peacock; a -Canada goose paired with a Bernicle gander; a male widgeon was preferred -by a pintail duck to its own species; a hen canary preferred a male -greenfinch to either linnet, goldfinch, siskin, or chaffinch.’ Now, -do you see that? The moment my eyes first lighted on that, I said to -myself: ‘Now I understand about the girls and Eustace Hump.’ Isn’t it -clear to you?” - -“Absolutely,” I assented. “You ought to read a paper at the Royal -Aquarium--before the Balloon Society, I mean.” - -“And then look at this,” Uncle Dudley went on, with animation. “Now, -you and I would ask ourselves what on earth such a gawky, spindling, -poor-witted youngster as that thought he was doing among women, anyhow. -But you turn over the page, and here you have it: ‘Goat-suckers, geese, -carrion vultures, and many other birds of plain plumage have been -observed to dance, spread their wings or tails, and perform strange -love-antics.’ Doesn’t that fasten Hump to the wall like a beetle on a -pin, eh?” - -“But I am not sure that I entirely follow its application to your -original point,” I suggested. - -“About women, you mean? My boy, in science everything applies. The woods -are full of applications. But seriously, women _are_ different. As I -said, in the barbarism at the back of beyond this divergence started. -With the beginning of what we call civilisation, it became more and -more marked. The progress of the separation increases nowadays by -square-root--or whatever you call it. The sexes are wider apart to-day -than ever. They like each other less; they quarrel more. You can see -that in the Divorce Courts, in the diminished proportion of early -marriages, in the increasing evidences of domestic infelicity all about -one.” - -I could not refrain from expressing the fear that all this boded ill for -the perpetuity of the human race. - -Uncle Dudley is a light-hearted man. He was not depressed by the -apprehensions to which I had given utterance. Instead he hummed -pleasantly to himself as he put Wallace back on the shelf. He began -chuckling as a moment later he bethought himself to fill our glasses -afresh. - -“Did I ever tell you my cat story?” he asked cheerily, testing the knob -to see that the door was shut. “Once a little boy came in to his father -and said: ‘Pa, we won’t be troubled any more with those cats howling -about on our roof at night. I’ve just been looking out of the upstairs -window, and they’re all out there fighting and screaming and tearing -each other to pieces. There won’t be one of them alive by morning!’ Then -the father replied: ‘My son, you imagine a vain thing. When increasing -years shall have furnished your mind with a more copious store of -knowledge, you will grasp the fact that all this commotion and dire -disturbance which you report to me only signifies more cats.’” - -At this juncture the servant came in with the soda-water. We talked no -more of science that evening. - - - - -_Touching the Experimental Graft of a Utilitarian Spirit upon the -Aesthetic Instinct in our Sisters_ - - -I HAD strolled about the galleries of Burlington House for a couple of -hours on Press Day, looking a little at pictures here and there, but for -the most part contemplating with admiration the zeal and good faith of -the ladies and gentlemen who stopped, note-book in hand, before every -frame: when some one behind me gave a friendly tug at my sleeve. I -turned, to find myself confronted by a person I seemed not to know--a -small young woman in an alpine hat and a veil which masked everything -about her face except its dentigerous smile. Even as I looked I was -conscious of regret that, if acquaintances were to be made for me in -this spontaneous fashion, destiny had not selected instead a certain -tall, slender, dark young lady, clad all in black and cock’s-plumes, -whom I had been watching at her work of notetaking in room after room, -with growing interest. Then, peering more closely through the veil, I -discovered that I was being accosted by Miss Timby-Hucks. - -“You didn’t know me!” she said, with a vivacious half-giggle, as we -shook hands; “and you’re not specially pleased to see me; and you’re -asking yourself, ‘What on earth is she doing here?’ Now, don’t deny it!” - -“Well, you know,” I made awkward response--“of course--_Press_ day----” - -“Ah, but I belong to the Press,” said Miss Timby-Hucks. - -“Happy Press! And since when?” - -“O it’s nearly a fortnight now. And most _interesting_ I find the work. -You know, for a long time now I’ve been _so_ restless, _so_ anxious to -find some opening to a real career, where I might be my genuine self, -and be an active part of the great whirling stream of existence, and -concentrate my mind upon the actualities of life--don’t you yourself -think it will be _just_ the thing for me?” - -“Undoubtedly,” I replied without hesitation. “And do you find focussing -yourself on the actualities--ah--remunerative?” - -“Well,” Miss Timby-Hucks explained, “nothing of mine has been printed -yet, you see, so that I don’t know as to that. But I am assured it -will be all right. You see, I’m _very_ intimate with a cousin of Mrs -Umpelbaum, who is the wife of the proprietor of _Maida Vale_, and in -that way it came about. Lady-reporters never have any chance, I am told, -unless they have friends in the proprietor’s family, or know the editor -extremely well. It all goes by favour, like--like----” - -“Like the dearest of all the actualities,” I put in. “But how is it they -don’t print your stuff?” - -“I haven’t written any, as yet. The difficulty was to find a subject,” - Miss Timby-Hucks rejoined. “O that awful ‘subject’! I thought and thought -and thought till my head was fit to burst. I went to see Mrs Umpelbaum -herself, and asked her to suggest something. You know she writes a great -deal for the paper herself. She said they hadn’t had any ‘Reminiscences -of Carlyle’ now for some weeks; but afterwards she agreed with me that -would not be quite the thing for one to _begin_ with. She couldn’t -suggest anything else, except that I should have a chat with my -dressmaker. Very often in that way, she said, lady-reporters get the -most _entertaining_ revelations of gossip in high life. But it happened -that just then it was not--not exactly convenient--for me to call upon -my dressmaker; and so _that_ suggestion came to nothing, too.” - -“I had no idea lady-journalism was so difficult,” I remarked, with -sympathy. - -“O indeed, yes!” Miss Timby-Hucks went on. “One can’t expect to be _en -rapport_, as we journalists say, with Society, without spending a great -deal of money. There is one lady-reporter, Mrs Umpelbaum told me, who -has made quite a leading position for herself, solely through -hairdressers and American dentists. But I don’t mind admitting that that -would involve more of an outlay than I could afford, just at the -moment.” - -“So you never got a subject?” I asked. - -“Yes; finally I did. I was over at the Grundys’, telling my troubles, -and Uncle Dudley--you know, being so much with the girls, I always -call him that--Uncle Dudley said that the fashionable thing now -was interviews, and that lady-journalists did this better than -gentlemen-reporters because they had more nerve. By that I suppose he -meant a more delicate nervous organisation, quicker to grasp and absorb -fine shades of character. But that hardly helped me, because whom was I -to interview, and about what? _That_ was the question! But Uncle Dudley -thought a moment, and was ready with a suggestion. Everything depended, -he said, upon making a right start. I must pick out a personality and -a theme at once non-contentious and invested with popular interest His -idea was that I should begin by interviewing Mr T. M. Healy on ‘The -Decline of the Deep-Sea Mock-Turtle Fisheries on the West Coast of -Ireland.’ If I could get Mr Healy to talk frankly on this subject, he -felt sure that I should chain public attention at a bound.” - -“Superb!” I cried. “And did you do it?” - -“No,” Miss Timby-Hucks confessed; “I went to the House and sent in my -card, but it was another Irish Member who came out to see me--I think -his name was Mulhooly. He was very polite, and explained that since -some recent sad event in one of the Committee Rooms, fifteen I think -its number was, it was the rule of his party that, when a lady sent in -a card to one Member, some other Member answered it. It prevented -confusion, he said, and was not in antagonism to the expressed views of -the Church.” - -“Talking of nothing,” I said, leading the way over to a divan, on which -we seated ourselves: “you seem to have finally secured a subject. I -assume you are doing the Academy for _Maida Vale_.” - -“Yes,” replied Miss Timby-Hucks with gentle firmness; “you might say I -have _done_ it. I have been here since the very minute the doors opened, -and I’ve gone twelve times round. I wish I could have seen you earlier. -I should so like to have had your opinion of the various works as we -passed.” - -“It is better not,” I commented. “There are ladies present.” - -The lady-reporter looked at me for a furtive instant dubiously. Then -she smiled a little under her veil. “You _do_ say such odd things!” she -remarked. “I am glad to see that a great many ladies _are_ present. -It shows how we are securing our proper recognition in journalism. -I believe there are actually more of us here than there are -gentlemen-reporters--I should say gentle-men-critics. And it is the -same in art, too. You can see--I’ve counted them up in my catalogue -here--there are this year two hundred and forty-four lady-artists -exhibiting in this Academy three hundred and forty-six works of art. -Think of that! Fifty of them are described as Mrs, and there are one -hundred and ninety-four who are unmarried.” - -“Think of _that!_” I retorted. - -“And there are among them,” Miss Timby-Hucks went on, “one Marchioness, -one Countess, one Baroness, and one plain Lady. I am going to begin my -article with this. I think it will be interesting, don’t you?” - -“I’d be careful not to particularise about the plain Lady,” I suggested. -“That might be _too_ interesting.” - -She was over-full of her subject to smile. “No, I mean,” she said, “as -showing how the ranks of British Art are being filled from the -very highest classes, and are appealing more and more to the female -intellect. I don’t believe it will occur to any one else to count up in -the catalogue. So that will be original with me--to enlighten my sex as -to the glorious part they play in this year’s Academy.” - -“But have you seen their pictures?” I asked, repressing an involuntary -groan. - -“Every one!” replied Miss Timby-Hucks. “They are all good. There isn’t -what I should call a bad one--that is, a Frenchy or immoral one--among -them. I shall say that, too, in my criticism; but of course I shall have -to word it carefully, because I fancy Mr Umpelbaum is a foreigner of -some sort--and you know they’re all so sensitive about the superiority -of British Art.” - -“It is their nature; they can’t help it,” I pointed out. “They try their -best, however, to master these unworthy emotions. Sometimes, indeed, -their dissimulation reaches a really high plane of endeavour.” - -“They have nothing at all on the Continent like our Royal Academy, I am -told,” said Miss Timby-Hucks. “That isn’t generally known, is it? I had -thought of saying it.” - -“It will be a safe statement,” I assured her. “You might go further, -and assert that no other country at any stage of its history has had -anything like the Royal Academy. It is the unique blossom of British -civilisation.” - -Miss Timby-Hucks seemed to like the phrase, and made a note of it on -the back of her catalogue. “Yes,” she continued, “I thought of making -my criticism general, dealing with things like that. But I’ve got -some awfully interesting figures to put in. For example, there are -sixty-eight Academicians and Associates exhibiting: they have one -hundred and thirty-five oil paintings, sixteen water-colour or -black-and-white drawings, eight architectural designs, and twenty-three -pieces of sculpture--a total of one hundred and eighty-two works of art, -or two and sixty-seven hundredths each. I got at that by dividing the -total number of works by the total number of Academicians. Do you think -any one else will be likely to print that first in a daily paper? Mrs -Umpelbaum told me that _Maida Vale_ made a special point of new facts. I -don’t think I shall say much about the pictures themselves. -What _is_ there to say about pictures by the Academicians? As I told -mamma this morning, they wouldn’t be Academicians if they didn’t paint -good pictures, would they? and good pictures speak for themselves. Of -course, I shall describe the subjects of Sir Frederic’s pictures--by the -way, what _is_ a Hesperides?--and some of the others: I’ll get you to -pick out for me a few leading names. But I shall make my main point the -splendid advance of lady-artists--I heard some one say in the other room -there’d never been half so many before--and the elevating effect this -has upon British Art. In fact, mightn’t I say that is what makes British -Art what it is to-day?” - -“It is one of the reasons, undoubtedly,” I assented, as I rose. “There -are others, however.” - -“Ees, I know,” said Miss Timby-Hucks: “the diffusion of Christian -principles amongst us, our high national morality, and the sanctity of -the English home. Mrs Albert said only last night that these lay at the -very foundation of British art.” - -“Mrs Albert is a woman of discernment,” I said, making a gesture of -farewell. - -But Miss Timby-Hucks on the instant thought of something. Her eyes -glistened, her two upper front teeth gleamed. “O, it’s just occurred -to me!” she exclaimed, moving nearer to my side, and speaking-in -confidential excitement. “I know now how that lady-reporter manages with -the hairdressers and dentists. She doesn’t pay them money at all. She -mentions their names in the papers instead. How dull of me not to have -thought of that before! Why--yes--I will!--I’ll put my dressmaker among -the Private View celebrities!” - -One likes to be civil to people who are obviously going to succeed in -the world. I forthwith took Miss Timby-Hucks out to luncheon. - - - - -_Relating to Various Phenomena attending the Progress of the Sex along -Lines of the Greatest Resistance_ - - -My own idea,” said Uncle Dudley, “is that women ought to be confined to -barracks during elections just the same as soldiers.” - -“I was quite prepared to find _you_ entertaining views of that -character,” remarked Miss Wallaby, with virginal severity. “Men who -have wandered about the less advanced parts of the earth, and spent long -periods of time in contact with inferior civilisations, quite generally -do feel that way. Life in the Colonies, and in similar rude and remote -regions, does produce that effect upon the masculine mind. But here -in England, the nerve-centre of the English-speaking race, the point -of concentration from which radiate all the impulses of refinement and -culture that distinguish our generation, men are coming to see these -matters in a different light. They no longer refuse to listen to the -overwhelming arguments in favour of entire feminine equality----” - -“Oh, _I_ admit _that_ at once,” broke in Uncle Dudley. “But do women -nowadays believe in equality among themselves? In my youth they used to -devote pretty well all their energies to showing how much superior they -were to other women.” - -“I spoke of the masculine attitude,” said Miss Wallaby, coldly. “Viewed -intelligently, the gradations and classifications which we maintain -among ourselves, at the cost of such infinite trouble and personal -self-sacrifice, are the very foundation upon which rests the -superstructure of British Society.” - -“I admit that, too,” Uncle Dudley hastened to put in. “Really, we are -getting on very nicely.” - -Miss Wallaby ignored the interruption altogether. “The point is,” she -went on, “that the male mind in England is coming--with characteristic -slowness, no doubt, but still coming--to recognise the necessity of -securing the very fullest and most complete participation of my sex in -public affairs. As the diffusion of enlightenment progresses, men will -more and more abandon the coarse and egoistic standards of their days of -domination by brute force, and turn instead to the ideals of purity and -sweetness which Woman in Politics typifies. It has been observed that -one may pick out the future rulers of England in each coming generation -by scanning the honour-lists of Oxford and Cambridge. How happy a day it -will be for England, and civilisation, when this is said of Girton and -Newnham as well!” - -“I spent a summer in the State of Maine once, some years ago,” - said Uncle Dudley. “That’s the State, you know, where they’ve had a -Prohibition law now for nearly forty years. The excess of females -over males is larger there, I believe, than it is anywhere else in the -world--owing to the fact that all the young men who are worth their salt -emigrate to some other State as soon as they’ve saved up enough for a -railway-ticket. The men that you do see lounging around there, in the -small villages, are all minding the baby, or sitting on the doorstep -shelling peas, or out in the backyard, with their mouths full of -clothes-pins, hanging up sheets and pillow-cases on the line to dry. The -women there take a very active part in politics--and every census shows -that Maine’s population has diminished. Shipbuilding has almost ceased, -farms are being abandoned yearly, the State is mortgaged up to its -eyebrows, and you get nothing but fried clams and huckleberry-pie for -breakfast--but, of course, I suppose there _is_ a good deal of purity -and sweetness.” - -Miss Wallaby rose and walked away from us; the black velvet riband -around her neck, the glint of gas-light on her eyeglasses, the wearied -haughtiness on her swarthy, high-nosed face, seemed to unite in saying -to us that we were very poor creatures indeed. - -“She’s been down to the Retired Licensed Victuallers’ Division of -Surrey, you know,” exclaimed Uncle Dudley, “making speeches in favour of -the sitting Member, old Sir Watkyn Hump.” - -“Ah, that accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nut,” I remarked. - -“Well, no,” my friend mused aloud, “I fancy _young_ Hump accounts for -that. See--she’s gone and cut him out from under the Timby-Hucks’s -guns.” - -It was at one of Mrs Albert Grundy’s evenings at home, and Uncle Dudley -and I now had possession of a quiet corner to ourselves. From this -pleasant vantage-ground we indolently surveyed the throng surrounding -Mrs Albert at the piano end of the room, and stretching off through the -open double doors into the adjoining chamber--a throng of dazzling -arms and shoulders, of light-hued satins and fluffy stuffs, of waving -feathers, and splendid piles of braided hair, and mostly comely faces -wreathed in politic smiles. Here and there the mass of pinks and whites -and creams was broken abruptly by a black coat with a hat under its -sleeve. Dudley and I idly commented upon the fact that almost all these -coats belonged to undersized elderly men, generally with spectacles -and a grey beard, and we noted with placid interest that as they came -in--announced in stentorian tones as Mr and Mrs So-and-so--their wives -as a rule were several inches taller and many many years younger than -themselves. - -Then it was entertaining, too, to watch Mrs Albert shake hands with -these newcomers. She knew just at what angle each preferred that -ceremony, keeping her knuckles well down in welcoming the more -sophisticated and up-to-date people from about Cromwell Road and the -Park, but elevating them breast-high to greet those from around Brompton -way, and hoisting them quite up to the chin-level with the guests -from beyond Earl’s Court, who were still in the toils of last year’s -fashions. - -“Smart woman, that sister of mine!” said Uncle Dudley. “See the way -she’s manoeuvred her shoulder around in front of the Timby-Hucks’s nose, -so as to head her off from getting in and being introduced to the Hon. -Mrs Coon-Alwyn. And--hello! by George, she’s won!--there’s the Dowager -Countess of Thames-Ditton coming in! You’ll never know the anguish, my -boy, that was caused by the uncertainty whether she would come or not. -Emily hasn’t been able to eat these past four days, expecting every -moment the knock of the postman bringing her ladyship’s refusal to come. -The only thing that enabled her to keep up, she said, was fixing her -mind resolutely on the fact that the aristocracy are notoriously -impolite about answering invitations. But now, happy woman--her cup is -fairly running over. This is a great night for Fernbank. -And--look!--hanged if that girl isn’t trying to edge her way in there, -too! See how prettily Emily managed that? Oh, Timby-Hucks! Timby-Hucks! -you’ve put your foot in it this time. You’ll never figure on the -free-list for _this_ show again.” - -Misfortune indeed claimed Miss Timby-Hucks for its very own. Mrs Albert -had twice adroitly interposed her well-rounded shoulders between that -enterprising young woman and social eminence--the second time with quite -obvious determination of purpose. And there, too, behind the door, young -Mr Hump bent his sloping shoulders and cliff-like collar humbly over -Miss Wallaby’s chair, listening with all his considerable ears to her -selected monologues. Ah, the vanity of human aspirations! - -Casting an heroic glance over the field of defeat, Miss Timby-Hucks’s -eye lighted upon our corner, and on the instant her two upper front -teeth gleamed in a smile of relief. At all events, _we_ were left--and -she came towards us with a decisive step. - -“I’ve hardly seen you since the Academy,” she said in her sprightly way -to me, after we had all shaken hands, and she had seated herself between -us on the sofa. - -“And how did your article come out?” I asked politely. - -“Oh, it never came out at all,” she replied. “It seems it got left over -too long. The editor _said_ it was owing to the pressure of interesting -monkey-language matter upon his columns; but _I_ believe it was just -because I’m a lady journalist, and so does the cousin of Mrs Umpelbaum, -the proprietor’s wife. It must have been that--because, long after the -editor gave this excuse, there were the daily papers still printing -their criticisms, ‘Eleventh Notice of the Royal Academy,’ ‘The Spring -Exhibitions--Fourteenth Article,’ and so on. I taxed him with it--told -him I heard they had some still left, that they were going to begin -printing again after the elections were over--but he said it was -different with dailies. All _they_ needed were advertisements and market -reports, and police news, and telegrams about the Macedonian frontier, -and they could print art criticisms and book reviews whole years after -they should have appeared, because nobody ever read them when they were -printed--but weeklies had to be absolutely up to date.” - -“Evil luck does pursue you!” I said, compassionately. “So you haven’t -got into print at all?” - -“O I’m not a bit cast down,” replied Miss Timby-Hucks, with jaunty -confidence. “There’s no such word as fail in my book. The way to succeed -is just to keep pegging away. I know of one lady-journalist who went -every day for nine weeks to interview the Countess of Wimps about her -second son’s having been warned off Newmarket Heath. Every day she was -refused admittance--once she got into the hall and was put out by a -brutal footman--but it never unnerved her. Each morning she went again. -And she would have succeeded by this time, probably--only the Countess -suddenly left England to spend the summer in Egypt.” - -“Yes, Wady Halfa _has_ its advantages, even in July,” said Uncle Dudley. -“It is warm, and there are insects, but one is allowed by law to kill -them--in Egypt.” - - - - -_Illustrating the operation of Vegetables and Feminine Duplicity upon -the Concepts of Maternal Responsibility_ - - -I FELT that I was on sufficiently intimate terms with Mrs Albert Grundy -to tell her that she was not looking well. She gave a weary little sigh -and said she knew it. - -Indeed, poor lady, it was apparent enough. She has taken of late to -wearing her hair drawn up from her forehead over a roll--the effect of -mouse-tints at which Nature is beginning to hint, being frankly helped -out by powder. Everybody about Fernbank recognises that in some way -this reform has altered the whole state of affairs. The very servant -who comes to the door, or who brings in the tea-things, seems to carry -herself in a different manner since the change has been made. Of course, -it is by no means a new fashion, but it was not until the Dowager -Countess of Thames-Ditton brought it in person to Fernbank that Mrs -Albert could be quite sure of its entire suitability. Up to that time it -had seemed to her a style rather adapted to lady lecturers and the wives -of men who write: and though Mrs Albert has the very highest regard for -literature--quite dotes on it, as she says--she is somewhat inclined to -sniff at its wives. - -We all feel that the change adds character to Mrs Albert’s face--or -rather exhibits now that true managing and resourceful temper, which was -formerly obscured and weakened by a fringe. But the new arrangement has -the defects of its qualities. It does not lend itself to tricks. -The countenance beneath it does not easily dissemble anxiety or mask -fatigue. And both were written broadly over Mrs Albert’s fine face. -“Yes,” she said, “I know it.” - -The consoling suggestion that soon the necessity of giving home-dinners -to the directors in her husband’s companies would have ended, and -that then a few weeks out of London, away somewhere in the air of the -mountains or the sea, would bring back all her wonted strength and -spirits, did no good. She shook her head and sighed again. - -“No,” she said, “it isn’t physical. That is to say, it _is_ physical, but -the cause is mental. It is over-worry.” - -“Of all people on earth--_you!_” I replied reproachfully. “Why think -of it--a husband who is the dream of docile propriety, a competency -broadening each year into a fortune, a home like this, such servants, -such appointments, such a circle of admiring friends--and then your -daughters! Why, to be the mother of such a girl as Ermyntrude-------” - -“Precisely,” interrupted Mrs Albert. “To be the mother of such a girl, -as you say. Little you know what it really means! But, no--I know what -you were going to say--_please_ don’t! it is too sad a subject.” - -I could do nothing but feebly strive to look my surprise. To think -of sadness connected with tall, handsome, good-hearted Ermie, was -impossible. - -“You think I am exaggerating, I know,” Mrs Albert went on. “Ah, you do -not know!” - -“Nothing could be more evident,” I replied, “than that I don’t know. I -can’t even imagine what on earth you are driving at.” - -Mrs Albert paused for a moment, and pushed the toe of her wee slipper -meditatively back and forth on the figure of the carpet. - -“Yes, I _will_ tell you,” she said at last. “You are such an old friend -of the family that you are almost one of us. And besides, you are always -sympathetic--so different from Dudley. Well, the point is this. You know -the young man--Sir Watkyn’s son--Mr Eustace Hump.” - -“I have met him here,” I assented. - -“Well, I doubt if you will meet him here any more,” Mrs Albert said, -impressively. - -“The deprivation shall not drive me to despair or drink,” I assured her. -“I will watch over myself.” - -“I dare say you did not care much for him,” said Mrs Albert. “I know -Dudley didn’t. But, all the same, he _was_ eligible. He is an only son, -and his father is a Baronet--an hereditary title--and they are _rolling_ -in wealth. And Eustace himself, when you get to know him, has some very -admirable qualities. You know he _writes!_” - -“I have heard him say so,” I responded, perhaps not over graciously. - -“O, _regularly_, for a number of weekly papers. It is understood that -quite frequently he gets paid--not of course that that matters to -him--but his associations are distinctly literary. I have always felt -that with his tastes and connections his wife--granting of course that -she was the right kind of woman--might at last set up a real literary -_salon_ in London. We have wanted one so long, you know.” - -“Have we?” I murmured listlessly, striving all the while to guess what -relation all this bore to the question of Ermyntrude. I built up in my -mind a hostile picture of the odious Hump, with his shoulders sloping -off like a German wine-bottle, his lean neck battlemented in high -starched walls of linen, and his foolish conceited face--and leaped -hopefully to the conclusion that Ermyntrude had rejected him. I could -not keep the notion to myself. - -“Well--has she sent him about his business?” I asked, making ready to -beam with delight. - -“No,” said Mrs Albert, ruefully. “It never got to that, so far as I can -gather--but at all events it is all over. I expect every morning now -to read the announcement in the _Morning Post_ that a marriage has been -arranged between him and--and--Miss Wallaby!” - -I sat upright, and felt myself smiling. “What!--the girl with the black -ribbon round her neck?” I asked comfortably. - -“It would be more appropriate round her heart,” remarked Mrs Albert, -with bitterness in her tone. “Why, do you know? her mother, for all that -she’s Lady Wallaby, hasn’t an ‘h’ in her whole composition.” - -“Well, neither has old Sir Watkyn Hump,” I rejoined pleasantly. “So it’s -a fair exchange.” - -“Ah, but _he_ can afford it,” put in Mrs Albert. “But the -Wallabys--well, I can only say that I had a right to look for different -treatment at _their_ hands. How, do you suppose, they would ever have -been asked to the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn’s garden-party, or met Lady -Thames-Ditton, or been put in society generally, if I had not taken an -interest in them? Why, that girl’s father, old Sir Willoughby Wallaby, -was never anything but chief of police, or something like that, out in -some Australian convict settlement. I _have_ heard he was knighted by -mistake, but of course my lips are sealed.” - -“I suppose they really have behaved badly,” I said, half -interrogatively. - -“Badly!” echoed the wrathful mother. “I will leave you to judge. It was -done here, quite under my own roof. You know Miss Wallaby volunteered -her services, and went down into the Retired Licensed Victuallers’ -Division of Surrey to electioneer for Sir Watkyn. Do you know, I never -suspected anything. And then Miss Timby-Hucks, she went down also, but -they rather cold-shouldered her, and she came back, and she told me -things, and _still_ I wouldn’t believe it. Well then--three weeks -ago--my Evening At Home--you were here--the Wallabys came as large as -life, and that scheming young person manoeuvred about until she got -herself alone with Eustace and my Ermyntrude, and then she told her a -scene she had witnessed during her recent election experiences. There -was a meeting for Sir Watkyn at some place, I can’t recall the name, -and there were a good many of the other side there, and they hooted and -shouted, and raised disturbance, until at last there was one speaker -they would not hear at all. All this that girl told Ermyntrude -seriously, and as if she were overflowing with indignation. And then she -came to the part where the speaker stood his ground and tried to make -himself heard, and the crowd yelled louder than ever, and still he -doggedly persisted--and then someone threw a large vegetable marrow, -soft and very ripe, and it hit that speaker just under the ear, and -burst all over him!” - -“Ha-ha-ha!” I ejaculated. “The vegetable marrow in politics is new--full -of delightful possibilities and seeds--wonder it has never been thought -of before.” - -“Yes,” said Mrs Albert, with a sigh. “Ermyntrude also thought it was -funny. She has a very keen sense of humour--quite too keen. _She_ -laughed, too!” - -“And why not?” I asked. - -“Why not?” demanded Mrs Albert, with shining eyes. “Because the story -had been told just to trap her into laughing--because--because the -speaker upon whom that unhappy vegetable marrow exploded was--_Eustace -Hump!_” - - - - -_Containing Thoughts upon the Great Unknown, to which are added -Speculations upon her Hereafter_ - - -It is not often that I find the time to take part in Mrs Albert -Grundy’s Thursdays--the third and fifth Thursdays of each month, from 4 -to 6.30 P.M.--but on a certain afternoon pleasant weather and the sense -of long-accrued responsibility drew me to Fernbank. - -It was really very nice, after one got there. Perhaps it would have been -less satisfactory had escape from the drawing-room been a more difficult -matter. Inside that formal chamber, with its blinds down-drawn to shield -the carpet from the sun, the respectable air hung somewhat heavily about -the assembled matronhood of Brompton and the Kensingtons. The units in -this gathering changed from time to time--for Mrs Albert’s circle is a -large and growing one--but the effect of the sum remained much the same. -The elderly ladies talked about the amiability and kindliness of -the Duchess of Teck; and argued the Continental relationships of the -Duchesses of Connaught and Albany, first into an apparently hopeless -tangle of _burgs_ and _hausens_ and _zollerns_ and _sweigs_, then -triumphantly out again into the bright daylight of well-ordered and -pellucid genealogy. The younger wives spoke in subdued voices of more -juvenile Princesses on the lower steps of the throne, with occasional -short-winged flights across the North Sea in imaginative search of a -suitable bride for the then unwedded Duke of York, if an importation -should be found to be necessary--about which opinions might in all -loyalty differ. The few young girls who sat dutifully here beside -their mammas or married sisters talked of nothing at all, but -smiled confusedly and looked away whenever another’s glance, caught -theirs--and, I daresay, thought with decent humility upon Marchionesses. - -But outside, on the garden-lawn at the rear of the house, the _Almanach -de Gotha_ threw no shadow, and the pungent scent of jasmine and lilies -drove the leathery odour of Debrett from the soft summer air. The gentle -London haze made Whistlers and Maitlands of the walls and roof-lines and -chimney-pots beyond. The pretty girls of Fernbank held court here on the -velvet grass, with groups of attendant maidens from sympathetic -Myrtle Lodges and Cedarcrofts and Chestnut Villas--selected homesteads -stretching all the way to remote West Kensington. They said there was -no one left in London. Why, as I sat apart in the shade of the ivy -overhanging the garden path, and watched this out-door panorama of the -Grundys’ friendships, it seemed as if I had never comprehended before -how many girls there really were in the world. - -And how sweet it was to look upon these damsels, with their dainty -sailor’s hats of straw, their cheeks of Devon cream and damask, their -tall and shapely forms, their profiles of faultless classical delicacy! -What if, in time, they too must sit inside, by preference, and babble -of royalties and the peerage, and politely uncover those two aggressive -incisors of genteel maturity when they were asked to have a third cup -of tea? That stage, praise heaven, should be many years removed. We will -have no memento mori bones or tusks out here in the sunlit garden--but -only tennis balls, and the inspiring chalk-bands on the sward, and the -noble grace of English girlhood, erect and joyous in the open air. -# Much as I delighted in this spectacle, it forced upon me as well a -certain vague sense of depression. These lofty and lovely creatures were -strangers to me. I do not mean that their names were unknown to me, or -that I had not exchanged civil words with many of them, or that I might -not be presented to, and affably received by, them all. The feeling was, -rather, that if it were possible for me to marry them all, we still to -the end of our days would remain strangers. I should never know what to -say to them; still less should I ever be able to guess what they were -thinking. - -The tallest and most impressive of all the bevy--the handsome girl -in the pale brown frock with the shirt-front and jacketed blouse, -who stands leaning with folded hands upon her racket like an indolent -Diana--why, I punted her about the whole reach from Sunbury to Walton -during the better part of a week, only last summer, not to mention -sitting beside her at dinner every evening on the houseboat. We were so -much together, in truth, that my friends round about, as I came to know -afterwards, canvassed among themselves the prospect of our arranging -never to separate. Yet I feel that I do not know this girl. We are -friends, yes; but we are not acquainted with each other. - -More than once--perhaps a dozen times--in driving through the busier -of London streets, my fancy has been caught by this thing: a -hansom whirling smartly by, the dark hood of which frames a woman’s -face--young, wistful, ivory-hued. It is like the flash exposure of -a kodak--this bald instant of time in which I see this face, and -comprehend that its gaze has met mine, and has burned into my memory a -lightning picture of something I should not recognise if I saw it again, -and cannot at all reproduce to myself, and probably would not like if I -could, yet which leaves me with the feeling that I am richer than I was -before. In that fractional throb of space there has been snatched an -unrehearsed and unprejudiced contact of human souls--projected from one -void momentarily to be swept forward into another; and though not the -Judgment Day itself shall bring these two together again, they know each -other. - -Now that I look again at the goddess in the pale-brown gown, these -unlabelled faces of the flitting hansoms seem by comparison those of -familiar companions and intimates. - -I get no sense of human communion from that serene and regular -countenance, with its exquisite nose, its short upper-lip and glint of -pearls along the bowed line of the mouth, its correctly arched brows and -wide-open, impassive blue eyes. I can see it with prophetic admiration -out-queening all the others at Henley, or at Goodwood, or on the great -staircase of Buckingham Palace. I can imagine it at Monte Carlo, flushed -a little at the sight of retreating gold; or at the head of a great -noble’s table, coldly poised above satin throat and shoulders, and -stirring no muscle under the free whisperings of His Excellency to the -right. I can conceive it in the Divorce Court, bearing with metallic -equanimity the rude scrutiny of a thousand unlicensed eyes. But my fancy -wavers and fails at the task of picturing that face at my own fireside, -with the light of the home-hearth painting the fulness of her rounded -chin, and reflecting back from her glance, as we talk of men and books -and things, the frank gladness of real comradeship. - -But--tchut!--I have no fireside, and the comrades I like best -are playing halfcrown whist at the club; and these are all nice -girls--hearty, healthful, handsome girls, who can walk, run, dance, -swim, scull, skate, ride as no others have known or dared to do since -the glacial wave of Christianity depopulated the glades and dells of -Olympus. They will mate after their kind, and in its own good time along -will come a new generation of straight, strong-limbed, thin-lipped, -pink-and-white girls, and of tow-headed, deep-chested lads, their -brothers--boys who will bully their way through Rugby and Harrow, -misspell and misapprehend their way into the Army, the Navy, and the -Civil Service, and spread themselves over the habitable globe, to rule, -through sheer inability to understand, such Baboos and Matabele and mere -Irishry as Imperial destiny delivers over to them. - -The vision is not wholly joyous, as it with diffidence projects itself -beyond, into that further space where new strange other generations -walk--the girls still taller and more coldly tubbed, the boys astride -a yet more temerarious saddle of dull dominion. Reluctant prophecy -discerns beneath their considerable feet the bruised fragments of many -antique trifles--the _bric-à-brac_ of an extinct sentimental fraction -that had a sense of humour and could spell--and, to please mamma, the -fig-leaves have quite overspread and hidden the statues in their garden. -But power is there, and empire; they still more serenely loom above the -little foreign folks who cook, and sing to harps and fiddles, and paint -for their amusement; such as it is under their shaping, they possess the -earth. - -So, as the sun goes down in the Hammersmith heavens, I take off my hat, -and salute the potential mothers of the New Rome. - - - - -_Glancing at some Modern Aspects of Master John Gutenberg’s ingenious -but Over-rated Invention_ - - -It was very pleasant thus to meet Uncle Dudley in the Strand. Only here -and there is one who can bear that test. Whole legions of our friends, -decent and deeply reputable people, fall altogether out of the picture, -so to speak, on this ancient yet robust thoroughfare. They do very well -indeed in Chelsea or Highgate or the Pembridge country, where they are -at home: there the surroundings fit them to a nicety; there they produce -upon one only amiable, or at the least, natural, impressions. But to -encounter them in the Strand is to be shocked by the blank incongruity -of things. It is not alone that they give the effect of being lost--of -wandering helplessly in unfamiliar places. They offend your perceptions -by revealing limitations and shortcomings which might otherwise have -been hidden to the end of time. You see suddenly that they are not such -good fellows, after all. Their spiritual complexions are made up for the -dim light which pervades the outskirts of the four-mile radius--and go -to pieces in the jocund radiance of the Strand. It is flat presumption -on their part to be ambling about where the ghosts of Goldsmith and -Johnson walk, where Prior and Fielding and our Dick Steele have passed. -Instinctively you go by, looking the other way. - -It was quite different with Uncle Dudley. You saw at once that he -belonged to the Strand, as wholly as any of our scorned and scornful -sisters on its comers, competing with true insular doggedness against -German cheeks and raddled accents; as fully as any of its indigenous -loafers, hereditary in their riverside haunts from Tudor times, with -their sophisticated joy in drink and dirt, their large self-confidence -grinning through rags and sooty grime. It seemed as if I had always -associated Uncle Dudley with the Strand. - -He was standing in contemplation before a brave window, wherein American -cheese, Danish butter, Norwegian fish, Belgian eggs, German sausages, -Hungarian bacon, French vegetables, Australian apples, and Algerian -fruits celebrate the catholicity of the modern British diet. He turned -when I touched his shoulder, and drew my arm through his. - -“Sir,” said Uncle Dudley, “let us take a walk along the Strand to the -Law Courts, where I conceive that the tide of human existence gets the -worst of it with unequalled regularity and dispatch.” - -On his way he told me that his gout had quite vanished, owing to his -foresight in collecting a large store of the best medical advice, and -then thoughtfully and with pains disregarding it all. He demonstrated to -me at two halting places that his convalescence was compatible with rich -and strong drinks. He disclosed to me, as we sauntered eastward, his -purpose in straying thus far afield. - -“You know Mrs Albert is really a kindly soul,” he said. “It isn’t in her -to keep angry. You remember how sternly she swore that she and Fernbank -had seen the last of Miss Timby-Hucks. It only lasted five weeks--and -now, bless me if the girl isn’t more at home on our backs than ever. -She’s shunted herself off, now, into a new branch of journalism--it -seems that there are a good many branches in these days.” - -“It has been noticed,” I assented. - -“She doesn’t write any more,” he explained, “that is, _for_ the papers. -She goes instead to the Museum or somewhere, and reads carefully every -daily and weekly journal, I believe, in England. Her business is to pick -out possible libels in them--and to furnish her employers, a certain -firm of solicitors, with a daily list of these. They communicate with -the aggrieved people, notifying them that they _are_ aggrieved, which -they very likely would not otherwise have known, and the result is, of -course, a very fine and spirited crop of litigation.” - -“Then that accounts for all the recent----” - -“Perhaps not quite _all_,” put in Uncle Dudley. “But the Timby-Hucks is -both energetic and vigilant, and she tells me she is doing splendidly. -She is very enthusiastic about it, naturally. She says that while -the money is, of course, an object, her real satisfaction is in the -humanitarian aspects of her work.” - -“I am not sure that I follow,” I said doubtingly. - -“No, I didn’t altogether myself at the start,” said Uncle Dudley, “but -as she explains it, it is very simple. You see business is in a bad -way in London--worse, they say, than usual. The number of unemployed is -something dreadful to think of, so I am told by those who have thought -of it. There are many thousands of people with no food, no fire, no -clothes to speak of. Most people are discouraged about this. They can’t -see how the thing can be improved. But Miss Timby-Hucks has a very -ingenious idea. Why, she asks, do not all the Unemployed sue all the -newspapers for libel? Do you catch the notion?” - -“By George!” I exclaimed, “that is a bold, comprehensive thought!” - -“Yes, isn’t it?” cried Uncle Dudley. “I am immensely attracted by it. -For one thing, it is so secure, so certain! Broadly speaking, there are -no risks at all. I suppose there has never yet been a case, no matter -what its so-called merits, in which the English newspaper hasn’t been -cast in damages of some sort Nobody is too humble or too shady to get -a verdict against an editor or newspaper proprietor. Miss Timby-Hucks -relates several most touching instances where the wolf was actually at -the door, the children shoeless and hungry, the mother prostrated by -drink, rain coming through the roof and so on--and everything has been -changed to peace and contentment by the happy thought of bringing a -libel suit. The father now wears a smile and a white waistcoat; the -drains have been repaired; the little children, nicely washed and -combed, kick each other’s shins with brand new boots, and sing -cheerfully beneath a worsted-work motto of ‘God bless our Home!’ I find -myself much affected by the thought.” - -“You had always a tender heart,” I responded. “I suppose there would be -no trouble about the Judges?” - -“Not the least in the world,” said Uncle Dudley, with confidence. “Of -course the Bench would have to be greatly enlarged, but there need be no -fear on that score. There is a mysterious but beneficent rule, my boy, -which you can always count upon in this making of judges--no matter how -hail-fellow-well-met an eminent lawyer may be, no matter how intimate -his connection with newspapers, how large his indebtedness to them for -his career--the moment he gets on the Bench he catches the full, fine, -old-crusted judicial spirit toward the Press. The scales fall with a -bang from his eyes, and he sees the editor and newspaper proprietor -as they really are--designing criminals, mercenary reprobates, social -pests--to be lectured and bullied and put down. O, you may rely on the -Judges! They are as safe as a new Liberal peer is to vote Tory.” - -“But the ‘power of the Press’?” I urged. “If the newspapers combine in -protest, and----” - -“You talk at random!” said Uncle Dudley almost austerely. “I should say -the most certain, the most absolutely reliable, element in the whole -case is the fact that newspapers do not combine. Whenever one editor -gets hit, all the others grin. One journal is mulcted in heavy damages: -the rest have all a difficulty in dissembling their delight. You read in -natural history that kites are given to falling upon one of their kind -which gets wounded or decrepit, and picking out its eyes. Well, kites -are also made of newspapers.” - -“And juries?” I began to ask. - -“Here we are,” remarked Uncle Dudley, turning in toward the guarded -portals of the great hall. - -“I have a friend among the attendants here, a thoughtful and discerning -man. I will learn from him where we may look for the spiciest case. He -takes a lively interest in the flaying of editors. I believe he was once -a printer. He will tell us where the axe gleams most savagely to-day: -where; we shall get the most journalistic blood for our money. You were -speaking of juries. Just take a look at one of them--if you are not -afraid of spoiling your luncheon--and you will see that they speak for -themselves. They regard all newspapers as public enemies--particularly -when the betting tips have been more misleading than usual. They stand -by their kind. They ‘give the poor man a chance’ without hesitation, -without fail. They are here to avenge the discovery of movable types, -and they do it. Come with me, and witness the disembowelling of a daily, -the hamstringing of a sub-editor--a publisher felled by the hand of the -Law like a bullock. Since the bear-pits of Bankside were closed there -has been no such sport.” - -Unhappily, it turned out that none of the Judges had come down to the -Courts that day. There was a threat of east wind in the air. “You see, -if they don’t live, to a certain age they get no pensions, and their -heirs turn a key in the lock on the old gentlemen in weather like this,” - explained Uncle Dudley, turning disappointedly away. - - - - -_Detailing certain Prudential Measures taken during the Panic incident -to a Late Threatened Invasion_ - - -I HOPE,” said Mrs Albert, “that I am as free to admit my errors in -judgment as another. Evidently there has been a mistake in this matter, -and it is equally obvious that I am the one who must have made it. I did -not need to have this pointed out to me, Dudley. What I looked to you -for was advice, counsel, sympathy. You seem not to realise at all how -important this is to me. A false step now may ruin everything--and you -simply sit there and grin!” - -“My dear sister,” replied Uncle Dudley, smoothing his face, “the smile -was involuntary. It shall not recur. I was only thinking of Albert’s -enthusiasm for the----” - -“Yes, I know!” put in Mrs Albert; “for that girl with the zouave -jacket----” - -“_And_ the scarlet petticoat,” prompted Uncle Dudley. - -“_And_ the crinoline,” said the lady. - -“O, he did not insist upon that. I recall his exact words. ‘Whether this -under-garment,’ he said, ‘be made of some stiff material like horsehair, -or by means of steel hoops, is a mere question of detail.’ No, Albert -expressly kept an open mind on that point.” - -“I agree with you,” remarked Mrs Albert coldly, “to the extent that he -certainly does keep his mind on it. He has now reverted to the subject, -I should think, at least twenty times. I am not so blind as you may -imagine. I notice that that Mr Labouchere also keeps on referring, every -week, to another girl in _her_ zouave jacket, whom _he_ remembers with -equal fondness, apparently.” - -“Yes,” put in Uncle Dudley, “those words about the ‘stiff material like -horsehair’ _were_ in _Truth_. I daresay Albert simply read them -there, and just unconsciously repeated them. We often do inadvertent, -unthinking things of that sort.” - -Mrs Albert shook her head. “It is nothing to me, of course,” she said, -“but I cannot help feeling that the middle-aged father of a family might -concentrate his thoughts upon something nobler, something higher, than -the recollection of the charms of a red petticoat, thirty years ago. -That is so characteristic of men. They cannot discuss a question -broadly----” - -“Think not?” queried Uncle Dudley, with interest. “You should listen at -the keyhole sometime, after you have led the ladies out from dinner.” - -“I mean personally, in a general way. They always particularise. Albert, -for example, allows all his views on this very important question to be -coloured by the fact that when he was a young man he admired some girl -in a short red Balmoral petticoat. Whenever conversation touches -upon any phase of the whole subject of costume, out he comes with his -tiresome adulation of that particular garment. Of course, I ask no -questions--I should prefer not to be informed--I try not even to draw -inferences--but I notice that Ermyntrude is beginning to observe the -persistency with which her father----” - -“My good Emily,” urged Uncle Dudley, consolingly, “far back in the -Sixties we all liked that girl; we couldn’t help ourselves--she was -the only girl there was. And we think of her fondly still--we old -fellows--because for us she was also the last there was! When she went -out, lo and behold! we too had gone out, not to come back any more. When -Albert and I babble about a scarlet petticoat, it is only as a symbol of -our own far-away youth. O delicious vision!--the bright, bright red, the -skirt that came drooping down over it, not hiding too much that pretty -little foot and ankle, the dear zouave jacket moulding itself so -delicately to the persuasive encircling arm----” - -“Dudley! I really must recall you to yourself,” said Mrs Albert. “We -were speaking of quite another matter. I am in a very serious dilemma. -First of all, as I explained to you, to please the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn -I became one of the Vice-Presidents of the Friendly Divided Skirt -Association. You know how useful she can be, in helping to bring -Ermyntrude out successfully. And of course everybody _knew_ that, even -if we _did_ have them _made_, we should never _wear_ them. That was -_quite_ out of the question.” - -“And then?” asked Uncle Dudley. - -“Well, then, let me see--yes, next came the Neo-Dress-Improver League. -I never understood what the object was, precisely; it was a kind of -secession from the other, led by the Countess of Wimps, and I needn’t -tell you that she is of the _utmost_ importance to us, and there was -simply _nothing_ for me to do but to become a Lady Patroness of _that_. -You were in extremely nice company--there were seven or eight ladies of -title among the Patronesses, our names all printed together in beautiful -little gilt letters--and you really weren’t committed to anything that -I could make out. No--_that_ was all right. I should do the same -thing again, under the circumstances. No, the trouble came with the -Amalgamated Anti-Crinoline Confederacy. That was where I was too hasty, -I think.” - -“That’s the thing with the protesting post-cards, isn’t it?” inquired -Uncle Dudley. - -“That very feature of it alone ought to have warned me,” Mrs Albert -answered with despondency. “My own better sense should have told me -that post-cards were incompatible with selectness. But you see, the -invitations were sent out by the authoress of _The Street-Sprinkler’s -Secret_, and that gave me the impression that it was to be literary--to -represent Culture and the Arts, you know; and that appealed to me, of -course, very strongly.” - -“I have always feared that your literary impulses would run away with -you,” Uncle Dudley declared gravely. - -“It is my weak side; I don’t deny it,” replied his sister. “Where -letters and authorship, and that sort of thing, you know, are concerned, -it is my nature to be sympathetic. And besides, the Dowager Lady -Thames-Ditton was very pronounced in favour of the movement, and I -_couldn’t_ fly in the face of that, could I? I must say, though, that I -had my misgivings almost from the first. Miss Wallaby told the Rev. Mr -Grayt-Scott that a lady she knew had looked over quite a peck or more of -the post-cards which came in one day, and they were nine-tenths of them -from Earl’s Court.” - -“Yes,” remarked Uncle Dudley, “I think I have heard that the post-card -reaches its most luxuriant state of literary usefulness in that -locality. It was from that point that they tried to rush the -Laureateship, you know.” - -“Well, you can imagine how I felt when I heard it. It is all well enough -to be literary--nobody realises that more than I do--and it is all very -well to be loyal--of course! But one draws the line at Earl’s Court--at -least, that part of it. I say frankly that it serves me right. I should -have known better. One thing I cannot be too thankful for--Ermyntrude -did not send a post-card. Some blessed instinct prompted me to tell her -there was no hurry about it--that I did not like to see young girls -too forward in such matters. And now--why--who knows--Dudley! I have an -idea! Ermie shall join the Crinoline Defence League!” - -“I see--the family will hedge on the crinoline issue. Capital!” - -“You know, after all, we may have to wear them. It’s quite as likely as -not. The old Duchess of West Ham is President of the League, and she is -very influential in the highest quarters. Her Grace, I understand, _is_ -somewhat bandy, but she has always maintained the strictest Christian -respectability, and her action in this matter will count for a great -deal. Just think, if she should happen to take a fancy to Ermyntrude! -That Miss Wallaby has thrust herself forward till she is actually a -member of the Council, and she is going to deliver an address on ‘The -Effect of Modesty on National Morals.’ She told our curate that at -one of the meetings of the Council she came within an ace of being -introduced to the Duchess herself. Now surely, if _she_ can accomplish -all this, Ermie ought to be able to do still more. Tell me, Dudley, what -do _you_ think?” - -“I think,” replied Uncle Dudley musingly, “I think that the scarlet -petticoat, _with_ the zouave jack----” - -Mrs Albert interrupted him with sternness. “Don’t you see,” she -demanded, “that if it _does_ come, the dear girl will share in the -credit of bringing it in, and if it doesn’t come, I shall have the -advantage of having helped to stave it off. Whichever side wins, there -we are.” - -Uncle Dudley rose, and looked thoughtfully out upon the fog, and stroked -his large white moustache in slow meditation. “Yes--undoubtedly,” he -said at last, “there we are.” - - - - -_Dealing with the Deceptions of Nature, and the Freedom from, Illusion -Inherent in the Unnatural_ - - -There was once a woman--obviously a thoughtful woman--who remarked that -she had noticed that if she managed to live till Friday, she invariably -survived the rest of the week. I did not myself know this philosopher, -who is preserved to history in one of Roscoe Conkling’s speeches, but -her discovery always recurs to me about this time of year, when February -begins to disclose those first freshening glimpses of sunlight and blue -skies to bleared, fog-smudged and shivering London. Aha! if we have won -thus far, if we have contrived to get to February, then we shall surely -see the Spring. At least the one has heretofore involved the other--and -there is confident promise in the smile of a noon-day once more able to -cast a shadow, albeit the teeth of the east wind gleam close behind that -smile. - -It was a day for a walk--no set and joyous rural tramp, indeed, with -pipe and wallet, and a helpful spring underfoot in the clean hard -roadway, and an honest, well-balanced stick for the bell-ringing gentry -who shall come at you on wheels from behind--but just an orderly, -contemplative urban ramble, brisk enough for warmth, but with no hurry, -and above all no destination. And it was a day, moreover, for letting -one’s fellow-creatures pass along with scant notice--a winter-ridden, -shuffling, mud-stained company these, conscious of being not at all -worth examination--and for giving eye instead to the house-fronts in the -sunshine, and radiant chimneypots and tiles above them, and the signs of -blessed, unaccustomed blue still further up. There was, it is true, an -undeniable disproportion between the inner look of these things, and -this gladness of the heart because of them. Glancing more closely, one -could see that they were not taking the sun seriously, and, for their -own part, were expecting more fogs next week. And farther westward, when -stucco, brick, and stone gave way to park-land, it was apparent at sight -that the trees were flatly incredulous. - -They say that in Ireland, where the mildness of climate has in the past -prompted many experiments with exotic growths, the trees not really -indigenous to the island never learn sense, but year after year are -gulled by this February fraud into gushing expansively forth with -sap and tender shoots, only to be gripped and shrivelled by the icy -after-hand of March. The native tree, however, knows this trick of old, -and greets the sham Spring with a distinctive, though well-buttoned-up -wink. In Kensington Park region one couldn’t be sure that the trees -really saw the joke. It is not, on the whole, a humourous neighbourhood. -But at all events they were not to be fooled into premature buds and -sprouts and kindred signs of silliness. Every stiffly exclusive drab -trunk rising before you, every section of the brown lacework of twigs up -above, seemed to offer a warning advertisement: “No connection with the -sunshine over the way!” - -Happily the flower-beds exhibited more sympathy. Up through the mould -brave little snowdrops had pushed their pretty heads, and the crocuses, -though with their veined outer cloaks of sulphur, mauve, and other tints -still wrapped tight about them, wore almost a swaggering air to show -how wholly they felt at home. Emboldened by this bravado, less confident -fellows were peeping forth, though in such faltering fashion that one -could scarcely tell which was squill, which narcissus or loitering -jonquil. Still, it was good to see them. They too were glad that they -had lived till February, because after that comes the Spring. - -And it was better still, as I turned to stroll on, to behold coming -toward me down the path, with little swinging step, and shapely head -well up in air, none other than our Ermyntrude. - -I say “our” because--it is really absurd to think of it--it seems only a -few months ago since she was a sprawling tom-boy sort of a little girl, -who sat on my knee and listened with her mouth open to my reminiscences -of personal encounters with unicorns and the behemoth of Holy Writ. She -must be now--by George! she _is_--not a minute under two-and-twenty. And -that means--_hélas!_ it undoubtedly means--that I am getting to be an -old boy indeed. At Christmas-tide--I recall it now--Mrs Albert spoke of -me as the oldest friend of the family. It sounded kindly at the time, -and I had a special pleasure in the smile Ermyntrude wore as she, -with the others, lifted her glass towards me. I won’t say what vagrant -thoughts and ambitions that smile did not raise in my mind--and, lo! -they were toasting me as an amiable elderly friend of the Fernbank -household. No wonder I am glad to have lived till February! - -Ermyntrude had a roll of music in her hands. There was a charming glow -on her cheeks, and a healthy, happy, sparkle in her eyes. She stopped -short before me, with a little exclamation of not displeased surprise! - -“Why, how nice to run upon you like this,” she said, in high spirits. -“We thought you must have gone off to the Riviera, or Algiers, or -somewhere--for your cold, you know. Mamma was speaking of you only -yesterday--hoping that you were taking care of yourself.” - -“Had I a cold?” I asked absently. The air had grown chillier. We walked -along together, and she let me carry the music. - -“O--you haven’t heard,” she exclaimed suddenly, “such news as I have for -you! You couldn’t ever guess!” - -“Is it something about crinoline?” I queried. “Your mother was telling - -“Rubbish!” said Ermyntrude gaily. “I’m engaged!” - -The wind had really got round into the East, and I, fastened my coat -at the collar. “I am sure”--I remarked at last--“I’m sure I -congratulate--the happy young man. Do I know him?” - -“I hardly think so,” she replied. “You see, it’s--it’s what you might -call rather sudden. We haven’t known him ourselves very long--that is, -intimately. You may have heard his name--the Honourable Knobbeleigh -Jones. It’s a very old family though the title is somewhat new. His -father is Lord Skillyduff, you know.” - -“The shipping man?” I said, wearily. - -“Yes. He and papa are together on some board or other. That is how we -came to know them. Papa says he never saw such business ability and -sterling worth combined in one man before--I’m speaking of the father, -you know. He began life in quite a small way, with just a few ships that -he rented, or something like that. Then there was a war on some coast in -Africa or Australia--it begins with an A, I know--oh, _is_ there a place -called Ashantee?--yes, that’s it--and he got the contract to take out -four shiploads of hay to our troops--it would be for their horses, -wouldn’t it?” - -“Yes: the asses connected with the military branch are needed at -home--or at least are kept there.” - -“Well, after he started, he got orders to stop at some place and wait -for other orders. He did so, and he waited four years and eight months. -Those orders never came. The hay all rotted, of course: the ships almost -moulded away: I daresay some of the crew died of old age--But Mr Jones -never stirred from his post. Finally, some English official came on him -by accident--quite! and so he was recalled. Papa says very few men would -have shown such tenacity of purpose and grasp of the situation. Mamma -says his fidelity to duty was magnificent.” - -“Magnificent--yes,” I commented; “but it wasn’t war.” - -“Oh, bless you! there _was_ no war _then_,” explained Ermyntrude. “The -war had been ended for _years_. And all that while the pay for shipping -that hay had been going on, so that the Government owed him--I think -it was £45,000. Of course he got more contracts, and then he was made a -baronet, and could build his own ships; and now he is a lord, and papa -says the War Office would be quite helpless without him.” - -“And the son,” I asked; “what does he do?” - -“Why, nothing, of course!” said Ermyntrude, lifting her pretty brows a -little in surprise. “He is the eldest son.” - -“I didn’t know but he might have gone in for the Army, or Parliament, or -something,” I explained weakly: “just to occupy his mind.” - -She smiled to herself--somewhat grimly, I thought. “No,” she said, -assuming a serious face, “he says doing things is all rot, if you aren’t -obliged to do them. Of course, he goes in for hunting and shooting and -all that, and he has a houseboat and a yacht, and one year he was in the -All-Slumpshire eleven, but that was too much bother. He hates bother.” - -We had come out upon the street now, and walked for a little in silence. - -“Ermie,” I said at last, “you mustn’t be annoyed with me--this is one of -my sentimental days, and you know as an old friend of the family I’ve -a certain right of free speech--but this doesn’t seem to me quite good -enough. A girl like you--beautiful and clever and accomplished, knowing -your way about among books, and with tastes above the ruck--there ought -to be a better outlook for you than this! I know that type of young -man, and he isn’t in your street at all. Come now!” I went on, gathering -courage, “look me in the face if you can, and tell me that you honestly -love this young man, or that you really respect his father, or that you -candidly expect to be happy. I defy you to do it!” - -I was wrong. Ermyntrude did look me in the face, squarely and without -hesitation. She halted for the moment to do so, and her gaze, though not -unkindly, was full of serious frankness. - -“There is one thing I do expect,” she said, calmly. “I expect to get -away from Fernbank.” - - - - -_Suggesting Considerations possibly heretofore Overlooked by -Commentators upon the Laws of Property_ - - -You will find Dudley up in what he calls his library,” said Mrs Albert -in the hallway. “I’m _so_ sorry I must go out--but he’ll be glad to see -you. And--let me entreat you, don’t give him any encouragement!” - -“What!” I cried, “encourage Uncle Dudley? Oh--never, never!” - -“No, just be firm with him,” Mrs Albert went on. “Say that it mustn’t be -thought of for a moment. And Oh--by the way--it’s as well to warn you: -_don’t_ ask him what he did it for! It seems that every one asks him -that--and he gets quite enraged about it now, when that particular -question is put. As like as not he’d throw something at you.” She spoke -earnestly, in low, impressive tones. - -“Wild horses should not drag it from me,” I pledged myself. “I will not -encourage him: I will not enrage him; I swear not to ask him what he did -it for. But--if you don’t mind--could I, so to speak, bear the shock of -learning what it is that he _has_ done?” - -“You haven’t heard?” Mrs Albert asked, glancing up at me, with an -astonished face, as I stood on the stairs. When I shook my head, she put -out her hand to the latch, and opened the door, as if to heighten the -dramatic suspense. Then she turned and looked me in the eye with solemn -intentness. “What has he done?” she echoed in a hollow voice: “You go -upstairs and see!” - -The door closed behind her, and I made my way noiselessly, two steps at -a time, to the floor above. Some vague sense of disaster seemed to -brood over the silent, half-lighted stairway and the deserted landing. -I knocked at Uncle Dudley’s door--almost prepared to find my signal -unanswered. But no, his voice came back, cheerily enough, and I entered -the room. - -“Oh, it’s you!” said my friend, rising from his chair. “Glad to see -you,”--and we shook hands. Standing thus, I found myself staring into -his face with a rude and prolonged fixity of gaze, under which he first -smiled--a strange, unwholesome sort of smile--then flushed a little, -then scowled and averted his glance. - -“Great heavens!” I exclaimed at last. “Why, man alive, what on earth -possessed you to--” - -“Come now!” broke in Uncle Dudley, with peremptory sternness. “Chuck -it!” - -“Yes--I know”--I stammered haltingly along--“I promised I wouldn’t ask -you--but--” - -“But the original simian instincts triumph over your resolutions, eh?” - said my friend, crustily. “Yes, I know. I’ve had pretty nearly a week of -it now. That question has been asked me, I estimate, somewhere about six -hundred and seventy-eight times since last Thursday. It’s only fair to -you to tell you that I have registered a vow to hit the next man who -asks me that fool of a question--‘What did you do it for?’--straight -under his left ear. I probably saved your life by interrupting you.” - -Though the words were fierce, there was a marked return of geniality -in the tone. I took the liberty of putting a hand over Uncle Dudley’s -shoulder, and marching him across to the window. - -“Let’s have a good look at you,” I said. - -“I did it myself; I did it with my little hatchet; I did it because -I wanted to; I had a right to do it; I should do it again if the -fit struck me----” Thus, with mock gravity, Uncle Dudley ran on as I -scrutinised his countenance in the strong light. “And furthermore,” he -added, “I don’t care one single hurrah in Hades whether you like it or -not.” - -“I think on the whole,” I mused aloud--“yes, I think I rather do like -it--now that I accustom myself to it.” - -Uncle Dudley’s face brightened on the instant. “Do you really?” he -exclaimed, and beamed upon me. In spite of his professed indifference to -my opinion, it was obvious that I had pleased him. - -“Sit down,” he said--“there are the matches behind you--hope these -aren’t too green for you. Yes, my boy, I created quite a flutter in the -hen-yard, I can tell you. Did my sister tell you?--she nearly fainted, -and little Amy burst out boo-hooing as if she’d lost her last friend. -When you come to think of it, old man, it’s really too ridiculous, you -know.” - -“It certainly has its grotesque aspects,” I admitted. - -Uncle Dudley looked up sharply, as if suspecting some ironical meaning -in my words. “You really do think it’s an improvement?” he asked, with a -doubtful note in his voice. - -“Of course, it makes a tremendous change,” I said, diplomatically, “and -the novelty tends perhaps to confuse judgment: but I must confess the -result is--is, well, very interesting.” - -My friend did not look wholly satisfied. “It shows what stupid people we -are,” he went on in a dogmatic way. “Why, the way they’ve gone on, you’d -think I had no property rights in the thing at all--that I was merely a -trustee for it--bound to give an account to every Tom-Dick-and-Harry who -came along and had nothing better to occupy his mind with. And then that -eternal, vacuous, woollen-brained ‘What did you do it for?’ Oh, that’s -got to be too sickening for words! And the confounded familiarity of the -whole thing! Why, hang me, if even the little Jew cigar dealer down on -the corner didn’t feel entitled to pass what he took to be some friendly -remarks on the subject. ‘Vy,’ he said, ‘if I could say vidout vlattery, -vot a haddsobe jeddlebad you ver, and vy did you do dot by yourself?’ It -gets on a man’s nerves, you know, things like that.” - -“But hasn’t anyone liked the change?” I asked. - -Uncle Dudley sighed. “That’s the worst of it,” he said, dubiously. -“Only two men have said they liked it--and it happens that they are both -persons of conspicuously weak intellect. That’s rather up against me, -isn’t it? But on the other hand, you know, people who are silliest about -everything else always get credit for knowing the most about art and -beauty and all that. Perhaps in such a case as this, I daresay their -judgment might be better than all the others. And after all, what do -_I_ care? That’s the point I make: that it’s _my_ business and nobody -else’s. If a man hasn’t got a copyright in his own personal appearance, -why there is no such thing as property. But instead of recognising this, -any fellow feels free to come up and say: ‘You look like an unfrocked -priest,’ or ‘Hullo! another burglar out of work,’ and he’s quite -surprised if you fail to show that you’re pleased with the genial -brilliancy of his remarks. I don’t suppose there is any other -single thing which the human race lapses into such rude and insolent -meddlesomeness over as it does over this.” - -“It _is_ pathetic,” I admitted--“but--but it’ll soon grow again.” - -Uncle Dudley laughed a bitter laugh. “By Jove,” he cried, “I’ve more -than half a mind not to let it. It would serve ‘em right if I didn’t. -Why, do you know--you’d hardly believe it! My sister had a dinner party -on here for Saturday night, and after I’d--I’d done it--she cancelled -the invitations--some excuse about a family loss--a bereavement, my boy. -Well, you know, treatment of that sort puts a man on his mettle. I’m -entitled to resent it. And besides--you know--of course it does make -a great change--but somehow I fancy that when you get used to it--come -now--the straight griffin, as they say--what do _you_ think?” - -“I’m on oath not to encourage you,” I made answer. - -“There you have it!” cried Uncle Dudley: “the old tyrannical conspiracy -against the unusual, the individual, the true! Let nobody dare to be -himself! Let us have uniformity, if all else perishes. The frames must -be alike in the Royal Academy, that’s the great thing; the pictures -don’t matter so much. You see our women-folk now, this very month, -getting ready to case themselves in ugly hoops which they hate, at the -bidding of they know not whom, because, if they did not, the hideous -possibility of one woman being different from another woman would darken -the land. A man is not to be permitted the pitiful privilege of seeing -his own mouth, not even once in fifteen years, simply because it -temporarily inconveniences the multitude in their notions as to how he -is in the habit of looking! What rubbish it is!” - -“It _is_ rubbish,” I assented--“and you are talking it. Your sister who -fainted, your niece who wept, your friends who averted their gaze in -anguish, the hordes of casual jackasses who asked why you did it, the -kindly little Jew cigar man who broke forth in lamentations--these are -the world’s jury. They have convicted you--sorrowfully but firmly. You -yourself, for all your bravado, realise the heinousness of your crime. -You are secretly ashamed, remorseful, penitent. I answer for you--you -will never do it again.” - -“And yet it isn’t such a bad mouth, either,” mused Uncle Dudley, with -a lingering glance at the mirror over the mantel. “There is humour, -delicacy of perception, affection, gentleness--ever so many nice -qualities about it which were all hidden up before. The world ought to -welcome the revelation--and it throws stones instead. Ah well!--pass -the matches--let us yield gracefully to the inevitable! It shall grow -again.” - -“Mrs Albert will be so glad,” I remarked. - - - - -_Narrating the Failure of a Loyal Attempt to Circumvent Adversity by -means of Modern Appliances_ - - -If his name was Jabez, why weren’t we told so, I’d like to know?” - demanded Mrs Albert of me, with a momentary flash in her weary glance. -“What right had the papers to go on calling him J. Spencer, year after -year, while he was deluding the innocent, and fattening upon the bodies -of his dupes? To be sure, now that the mask is off, and he has fled, -they speak of him always as Jabez. Why didn’t they do it before, while -honest people might still have been warned? But no--they never did--and -now it’s too late--too late!” - -The poor lady’s voice broke pathetically upon this reiterated plaint. -She bowed her head, and as I looked with pained sympathy upon the -drooping angle of her proud face, I could see the shadows about her lips -quiver. - -A sad tale indeed it was, to which I had been listening--here in -a lonesome corner of the cloistral, dim-lit solitude of the big -drawing-room at Fernbank. It was not a new story. Kensington has known -it by heart for a generation. Bloomsbury learned it earlier, and before -that it was familiar in Soho--away off in the old days when the ruffling -gentry of Golden Square fought for the chance of buying ingenious John -Law’s South Sea scrip. And even then, the experience was an ancient and -half-forgotten memory of Bishopsgate and the Minories. It was the old, -old tragedy of broken fortunes. - -Mrs Albert was clear that it began with the Liberator troubles. I had -my own notion that Mr Albert Grundy was skating on thin ice before the -collapse of the building societies came. However that may be, there was -no doubt whatever that the cumulative Australian disasters had finished -the business. There were melancholy details in her recital which I lack -the courage to dwell upon. The horse and brougham were gone; the -lease of Fernbank itself was offered for sale, with possession before -Michaelmas, if desired; Ermyntrude’s engagement was as good as off. - -“It won’t be a bankruptcy,” said Mrs Albert, lifting her face and -resolutely winking the moisture from her lashes. “We shall escape -that--but for the moment at least I must abandon my position in society. -Dudley is over to-day looking at a small place in Highgate, although -Albert thinks he would prefer Sydenham. My own feeling is that some -locality from which you could arrive by King’s Cross or St Paneras would -be best. One never meets anybody one knows there. Then, when matters -adjust themselves again, as of course they will, we could return -here--to this neighbourhood, at least--and just mention casually having -been out at our country place--on the children’s account, of course. And -Floribel _is_ delicate, you know.” - -“Oh well, then,” I said, trying to put buoyance into my tone, “it isn’t -so had after all. And you feel--Albert feels--quite hopeful about things -coming right again?” - -My friend’s answering nod of affirmation had a certain qualifying -dubiety about it. “Yes, we’re hopeful,” she said. “But a fortnight ago, -I felt positively sanguine. Nobody ever worked harder than I did to -deserve success, any way. I only failed through gross treachery--and -that, too, at the hands of the very people of whom I could never, -_never_ have believed it. When you find the aristocracy openly actuated -by mercenary motives, as I have done this past month, it almost makes -you ask what the British nation is coming to!” - -“Dear me!” I exclaimed, “is it as bad as that?” - -“You shall judge for yourself,” said Mrs Albert gravely. “You know -that I organised--quite early in the Spring--the Loyal Ladies’ Namesake -Committee of Kensington. I do not boast in saying that I really -organised it, quite from its beginnings. The idea was mine; practically -all the labour was mine. But when one is toiling to realise a great -ideal like that, one frequently loses sight of small details. I ought to -have known better--but I took a serpent to my bosom. I was weak enough -to associate with me in the enterprise that monument of duplicity and -interested motives--the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn. Why, she hadn’t so much as -an initial letter to entitle her to belong----” - -“I am not sure that I follow you,” I put in. “Ladies’ Namesake -Committee--initial letter--I don’t seem to grasp the idea.” - -“It’s perfectly simple,” explained Mrs Albert. “The idea was that all -the ladies--our set, you know--whose name was ‘May’ should combine in -subscribing for a present.” - -“But your name is Emily,” I urged, thoughtlessly. - -“Oh, we weren’t exactly literal about it,” said Mrs Albert; “we -_couldn’t_ be, you know. It would have shut out some of our very best -people. But I came very near the standard, indeed. My second name is -Madge. You take the first two letters of that, and the ‘y’ from Emily, -and there you have it. Oh, I assure you, very few came even as near it -as that--and as I said to Dudley at the time, if you think of it, even -_her_ name isn’t _really_ May. It’s only a popular contraction. But that -Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn, she had no actual right whatever to belong. Her -names are Hester Winifred Edith. She hasn’t even one _letter_ right!” - -“Ah, that was indeed treachery!” I ejaculated. - -“Oh, no, that, was not what I referred to,” Mrs Albert set me right. “Of -course, I was aware of her names. I had seen them in the ‘Peerage’ -for years. It was what she did after her entrance that covers her -with infamy. But I will narrate the events in their order. First, we -collected £1100. Of course, our own contribution was not large, but -Ermyntrude and I hunted the various church registers--we don’t speak of -it, but even the Nonconformist ones we went through--and we got a -tremendous number of Christian names more or less what was desired, and -our circulars were sent to _every one_, far and near. As I said, we -raised quite £1100. Then there came the question of the gift.” - -Mrs Albert uttered this last sentence with such deliberate solemnity -that I bowed to show my consciousness of its importance. - -“Yes,” she went on, “the selection of the gift. Now I had in mind a most -appropriate and useful present. Have you heard of the Oboid Oil Engine? -No? Well, it is an American invention, and has been brought over here by -an American, who has bought the European rights from the inventor. He is -in the next building to Albert, in the City, and they meet almost -every day at luncheon, and have struck up quite a friendship. He has -connections which might be of the _utmost_ importance to Albert, and -if Albert could only have been of service to him in introducing this -engine, there is literally _no telling_ what might not have come of it. -Albert does not _say_ that a partnership would have resulted, but I can -read it in his face.” - -“But would an oil engine have been--under the circumstances--you know -what I mean----” I began. - -“Oh, _most_ suitable!” responded Mrs Albert with conviction. “It is -really, it seems, a very surprising piece of machinery. After it’s once -bought, the cheapness of running it is simply _absurd_. It does all -sorts of things at no expense worth mentioning--anything you want it to -do. It appears that if it had been invented at that time, the pyramids -in Egypt could have been built by it for something like 130 per cent, -less than their cost is estimated to have been--or something like that. -Oh, it is quite extraordinary, I assure you. Albert says he could stand -and watch it working for hours--especially if he had an interest in the -company.” - -“But I hadn’t heard that there were any new pyramid plans on just -now--although, when I think of it, Shaw-Lefevre did have some -Westminster Abbey project which----” - -“No, no!” interrupted Mrs Albert. “One of the engine’s greatest uses is -in agriculture. It does _everything_--threshes, garners, mows, milks--or -no, not that, but almost _everything_. No self-respecting farmer, they -say, dreams of being without one--that is, of course, if he knows about -it. You can see what it would have meant, if one had been thus publicly -introduced on the princely farm at Sandringham. All England would have -rung with demands for the Oboid--and Albert feels sure that the American -man would have been grateful--and--and--then perhaps we need never have -left Fernbank at all.” - -My poor friend shook her head mournfully at the thought - -“And the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn?” I asked. - -The fire came back into Mrs Albert’s eye. “That woman,” she said, -with bitter calmness, “was positively not ashamed to intrude her own -mercenary and self-seeking designs upon this loyal and purely patriotic -association. Why, she did it almost openly. She intrigued behind my back -with whole streetsful of people that one would hardly know on ordinary -occasions, paid them calls in a carriage got up for the occasion with -a bright new coat of arms, made friends with them, promised them heaven -only knows what, and actually secured nineteen votes to my three for the -purchase of a mouldy old piece of tapestry--something about Richard -III and Oliver Cromwell meeting on the battlefield, I think the subject -is--which belonged to her husband’s family. Of course, my lips are -sealed, but I have been _told_ that at Christie’s it would hardly have -fetched £100. I say nothing myself, but I can’t prevent people drawing -certain deductions, can I? And when I reflect also that her two -most active supporters in this nefarious business were Lady -Thames-Ditton--whose financial difficulties are notorious--and the -Countess of Wimps---- whose tradespeople--well, we won’t go into -_that_--it does force one to ask whether the fabric of British society -is not being undermined at its very top. In this very day’s paper I -read that the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn has hired a yacht, and will spend the -summer in Norwegian waters--while we--we----” - -The door opened, and we made out through the half-light the comfortable -figure of Uncle Dudley. He was mopping his brow, and breathed heavily -from his long walk as he advanced. - -“Well?” Mrs Albert asked, in a saddened and subdued tone, “Did you see -the place?” - -“There are five bedrooms on the two upper floors,” he made answer, “but -there’s no bath-room, and the bus doesn’t come within four streets of -the house.” - - - - -_Introducing Scenes from a Foreign Country, and also conveying Welcome -Intelligence, together with some Instruction_ - - -It was at a little village perched well up on one of the carriage-roads -ascending the Brocken, a fortnight or so ago, that I received a wire -from Uncle Dudley. It was kind of him to think of it--all the more as he -had good news to tell. “Family lighted square on their feet,” was what -the message said, and I was glad to gather from this that the Grundys -had weathered their misfortunes, and that Mrs Albert was herself again. - -The thought was full of charm. It seemed as if I had never realised -before how fond I was of these good people. In sober fact; I dare say -that I had not dwelt much upon their woes during my holiday. But now, -with this affectionately thoughtful telegram addressing me as their -oldest friend, the one whom they wished to be the first to share the joy -of their rescued state, it was easy enough to make myself believe -that my whole vacation had been darkened with brooding over their -unhappiness. - -It had not occurred to me before, but that was undoubtedly why I had -not liked the Harz so much this year as usual. Now that I thought of -it, walking down the birch-lined footpath towards the hamlet and the -telegraph office, the place seemed to have gone off a good deal. In -other seasons, before the spectre of cholera flooded its sylvan retreats -with an invading horde of Hamburgers, the Harzwald had been my favourite -resort. I had grown to love its fir-clad slopes, its shadowed glens, its -atmosphere of prehistoric myth and legend, as if I were part and product -of them all. Its people, too, had come much nearer to my breast than -any other Germans ever could. I had enjoyed being with them just because -they were what the local schoolmaster disdainfully declared them to -be--_Erdzertrümmerungsprozeszuribekanntevolk_--that is to say, people -entirely ignorant of the scientific theories about geological upheavals -and volcanic formations, and so able cheerfully to put their trust in -the goblins who reared these strange boulders in fantastic piles on -every hill top, and to hear with good faith the shouts of the witches as -they bounded over the Hexentanzplatz. Last year it had seemed even worth -the added discomfort of the swarming Hamburgers to be again in this -wholesome, sweet-aired primitive place. But this year--I saw now -clearly as I looked over Uncle Dudley’s message once more--it had not -been so pleasant. The hotel boy, Fritzchen, whom I had watched year -after year with the warmth of a fatherly well-wisher--smiling with -satisfaction at his jovial countenance, his bustling and competent ways, -and his comical attempts at English--had this season swollen up into -a burly and consequential lout, with a straw-coloured sprouting on his -upper-lip, and a military manner. They called him Fritz now, and he gave -me beer out of the old keg after I had heard the new one tapped. - -The evening gatherings of the villagers in the hotel, too, were -not amusing as they once had been. The huge lion-maned and grossly -over-bearded _Kantor_, or music-master, who came regularly at nightfall -to thump on the table with his bludgeon-like walking stick, to roar -forth impassioned monologues on religion and politics, and to bellow -ceaselessly at Fritzchen for more beer, had formerly delighted me. This -time he seemed only a noisy nuisance, and the half-circle of grave old -retired foresters and middle-aged _Jàger_ officers who sat watching -him over their pipes, striving vainly now and again to get in a word -edgewise about the auctions of felled trees in the woods, or the -mutinous tendencies of the charcoal-burners, presented themselves in the -light of tiresome prigs. If they had been worth their salt, I felt, they -would long ago have brained the Kantor with their stoneware mugs. Even -as I walked I began to be conscious that a three weeks’ stay in the Harz -was a good deal of time, and that the remaining third would certainly -hang on my hands. - -By the time I reached the telegraph station I had my answer to Uncle -Dudley ready in my mind. He liked the forcible imagery of Australia and -the Far West; and I would speak to him at this joyful juncture after -his own heart. It seemed that I could best do this by giving him to -understand that I was celebrating his news--that I was, in one of his -own phrases, “painting the town red.” It required some ingenuity to work -this idea out right, but I finally wrote what appeared to answer the -purpose:--“_Brocken und Umgebung sind roth gemalen_”--and handed it in -to the man at the window. - -He was a young man with close-cropped yellow hair and spectacles, -holding his chin and neck very stiff in the high collar of his uniform. -He glanced over my despatch, at first with careless dignity. Then he -read it again attentively. Then he laid it on the table, and bent -his tight-buttoned form over it as well as might be in a severe and -prolonged scrutiny. At last he raised himself, turned a petrifying gaze -on through his glasses at me, and shook his head. - -“It is not true,” he said. “Some one has you deceived.” - -“But,” I tried to explain to him, with the little German that I knew -scattering itself in all directions in the face of this crisis, “it is a -figure of speech, a joke, a----” - -The telegraph man stared coldly at my luckless despatch, and then at me. -“You would wish to state to your friend, perhaps,” he suggested, “that -they seem as if they had been coloured with red, owing to the change in -the leaves.” - -“No, no,” I put in. “It must be that they _have_ been painted, _are_ -painted, or he will not me understand.” - -“But, my good sir,” retorted the operator with emphasis, “they are _not_ -painted! From the door gaze you forth! What make you with this nonsense, -that Brocken and vicinity are red painted?” - -“Well, then,” I said wearily, oppressed by the magnitude of the task, -“I don’t know how to word it myself, but you can fix it for me. Just say -that I am _going_ to paint them red--that will do just as well. - -“But you shall not! It is forbidden!” exclaimed the official, holding -himself like a poker, and glaring vehemence through his glasses. “It -is strongly forbidden! When you one brush-mark shall make, quick to -the prison go you. In Germany have we for natural beauty respect--also -laws.” - -Reluctantly, but of necessity, I abandoned metaphor, and in a humble -spirit telegraphed in English to Uncle Dudley at his club that I was -very glad. Even as my pen clung in irresolution on the paper over -this word “glad,” the impulse rose in me to add: “_Tired of Harz. Am -returning immediately_.” - -“When the same here is,” remarked the operator, moodily studying the -unknown words, “in Brunswick stopped it will be.” - -I translated it for him, and added, “I go from here home, to be where -officials their own business mind.” - -He nodded, not unamiably, and replied as he handed me out my change: -“Yes, I know: England. So well their own business there officials mind, -that Balfour to Argentina easily comes.” - -Walking up the hillside again, already quite captive to the fascination -of the morrow’s homeward flight, I met at the turn of the path a family -party--father, mother, and two girls in the younger teens--seated along -the rocky siding, and gazing with a common air of dejection upon a -portentous row of bags and portmanteaus at their feet. The notion that -they were Hamburgers died still-born. Nothing more obviously un-German -than these wayfarers was ever seen. - -“I hope, sir,” the man spoke up as I approached, “that I am right in -presuming that you speak English!” - -I bowed assent, and even as I did so, recognised him. “I hope _I_ am -right,” I answered, “in thinking that I have met you before--at Mr -Albert Grundy’s in London--you are the American gentleman with the Oboid -Oil Engine, are you not?” - -“Well, by George!” he cried, rising and offering his hand with frank -delight, and introducing me in a single comprehensive wave to his wife -and daughters. “Yes, sir,” he went on, “and I wish I had an Oboid here -right now--up in the basement of that stone boarding-house on the knoll -there--just for the sake of heating up, and shutting down the valves, -and blowing the whole damned thing sky-high. That would suit me, sir, -right down to the ground.” - -“Were strangers here, sir,” he explained in answer to my question: “we’d -seen a good deal of the Dutch at home--I mean _our_ home--and we thought -we’d like to take a look at ‘em in the place they come from. Well, sir, -we’ve had our look, and we’re satisfied. We don’t want any more on our -plate, thank you. One helping is an elegant sufficiency. Do you know the -trick they played on us? Why, I took a team of horses yesterday from a -place they called Ibsenburg or Ilsenburg, or some such name, and had -it explained to my driver that he was to take us up to the top of the -Brocken, there, and stop all night, and fetch us back this morning. When -we got up as far as Shierke, there, it was getting pretty dark, and the -women-folks were nervous, and so we laid up for the night. There didn’t -seem anything for the driver to do but set around in the kitchen and -drink beer, and he needed money for that, and so I gave him some loose -silver, and told him to make himself at home. We got the words out of a -dictionary for that--_machen sie selbst zu Heim_ we figured ‘em out to -be--and I spoke them at him slowly and distinctly, so that he had no -earthly excuse for not understanding. But, would you believe it, sir, -the miserable cuss just up and skipped out, horses, rig and all, while -we were getting supper! And here we were this morning, landed high and -dry. No conveyance, nobody to comprehend a word of English, no nothing. -We haven’t seen the top of their darned mountain even.” - -“What I’m more concerned about, I tell Wilbur,” put in the lady, “is -seeing the bottom of it. If they had only sense enough to make valises -and bonnet-boxes ball-shaped, we could have rolled ‘em down hill.” - -“There’ll be no trouble about all that,” I assured them, and we talked -for a little about the simple enough process of getting their luggage -carried down to the village, and of finding a vehicle there. I, indeed, -agreed to make one of their party on quitting the Harz, that very -afternoon. - -“And now tell me about the Grundys,” I urged, when these more pressing -matters were out of the way. “I got a wire to-day saying--hinting that -they are in luck’s way again.” - -“Is that so?” exclaimed the American, at once surprised and pleased. -“I’m glad to hear it. I can’t guess what it might be in. Grundy’s got -so many irons in the fire--some white hot, some lukewarm, some frosted -straight through--you never can tell. The funny thing is--he can’t tell -himself. Why, sir, those men of yours in the City of London, they don’t -know any more about business than a babe unborn. If they were in New -York they’d have their eyeteeth skinned out of their heads in the shake -of a lamb’s tail. Why, we’ve been milking them dry for a dozen years -back. And yet, you know, somehow----” - -“Somehow--?” I echoed, encouragingly. - -“Well, sir, somehow--that’s the odd thing about it--they don’t stay -milked.” - - - - -_Disclosing the Educational Influence exerted by the Essex Coast, and -other Matters, including Reasons for Joy_ - - -Sit down here by the fire--no, in the easy chair,” said Ermyntrude, -with a note of solicitude in her kindly voice. “Mamma won’t be home for -half an hour yet, and I want a nice, quiet, serious talk with you. Oh, -it’s going to be extremely serious, and you must begin by playing that -you are at least one hundred and fifty years old.” - -“That won’t be so difficult,” I replied, not without the implication of -injury. “It will only be adding a few decades to the venerableness that -I seem always to possess in your eyes.” - -“Oh!” said Ermie, and looked at me inquiringly for a moment. Then she -seated herself, and gazed with much steadiness into the fire. I waited -for the nice, serious talk to begin--and waited a long time. - -“Well, my dear child,” I broke in upon the silence at last, “I hoped to -have been the very first to come and tell your mother how deeply glad I -was to see you all back again in Fernbank. But that wretched rheumatism -of mine--_at my age_, you know------” - -I was watching narrowly for even the faintest sign of deprecation. She -did not stir an eyelash. - -“Yes,” she suddenly began, still intently gazing into the fire; “papa -has got his money all back, and more. That is, it isn’t the same money, -but somebody else’s--I’m sure I don’t know whose. Sometimes I feel sorry -for those other people, whoever they are, who have had to give it up -to us. Then, other times, I am so glad simply to be in again where it’s -warm that I don’t care.” - -“The firelight suits your face, Ermie,” I said, noting with the pleasure -appropriate to my position as the oldest friend of the family, how -sweetly the soft radiance played upward upon the fair young rounded -throat and chin, and tipped the little nostrils with rosy light. - -“Fortunately,” she went on, as if I had not spoken, “some Americans took -the house furnished in September for three months--I think, poor souls, -that they believed it was the London season--and so we never had to -break up, and we were able to get back again in time for Uncle Dudley to -plant all his bulbs. They seem to have been very quiet people. Mamma -had a kind of notion that they would practise with bucking horses on -the tennis-lawn, and shoot at bottles and clay pigeons here in the -drawing-room. The only thing we could find that they did was to paste -thick paper over the ventilator in the dining-room. And yet a policeman -told our man that they slept with their bedroom windows open all night. -Curious, isn’t it?” - -“I like to have one of these ‘nice, quiet, serious talks’ with you, -Ermie,” I said. - -Even at this she did not lift her eyes from the grate. “Oh, don’t be -impatient--it will be serious enough,” she warned me. “They say, you -know, that drowning people see, in a single instant of time, whole years -of events, whole books full of things. Well, I’ve been under water for -six months, and--and--I’ve noticed a good deal.” - -“Ah! is there a submarine observation station at Clacton-on-Sea? Now you -speak of it, I _have_ heard of queer fish being studied there.” - -“None queerer than we, my dear friend, you may be sure. Mamma was right -in choosing the place. We never once saw a soul we knew. Of course, it -is the dullest and commonest thing on earth--but it exactly fitted us -during that awful period. We were going at first to Cromer, but -mamma learned that that was the chosen resort of dissolute theatrical -people--it seems there has been a poem written in which it is called -‘Poppy land,’ which mamma saw at once must be a cover for opium-eating -and all sorts of dissipation. So we went to Clacton instead. But what -I was going to say is this--I did a great deal of thinking all through -those six months. I don’t say that I am any wiser than I was, because, -for that matter, I am very much less sure about things than I was -before. But I was simply a blank contented fool then. Now it’s different -to the extent that I’ve stirred up all sorts of questions and problems -buzzing and barking about me, and I don’t know the answers to them, and -I can’t get clear of them, and they’re driving me out of my head--and -there you are. That’s what I wanted to talk with you about.” - -I shifted my feet on the fender, and nodded with as sensible an -expression as I could muster. - -“That’s why I said you must pretend to yourself that you are -very old--quite a fatherly person, capable of giving a girl -advice--sympathetic advice. In the first place--of course you know that -the engagement with that Hon. Knobbeleigh Jones has been off for ages. -Don’t interrupt me! It isn’t worth speaking of except for one point. -His father, Lord Skillyduff, was the principal rogue in the combination -which plundered papa of his money. Having got the Grundy money they had -no use for the Grundy girl. Now, he justified his rascality by pleading -that he had to make provision for _his_ daughters, and everybody said -he was a good father. Papa goes in again through some other opening, and -after a long fight brings out a fresh fortune, which he has taken away -from somebody else--and I heard him tell mamma that he was doing it for -the sake of _his_ daughters. People will say _he_ is a good father--I -know _I_ do.” - -“None better in this world,” I assented cordially. - -“Well, don’t you see,” Ermyntrude went on, “that puts daughters in the -light of a doubtful blessing. Papa’s whole worry and struggle was for -us--for _me_. I was the load on his back. I don’t like to be a -load. While we were prosperous, there was only one way for me to get -down--that is by marriage. When we became poor, there was another -way--that I should earn my own living. But this papa wouldn’t listen to. -He quite swore about it--vowed he would rather work his fingers to the -bone; rather do anything, no matter what it was, or what people thought -of him for doing it, than that a daughter of his should take care -of herself. He would look upon himself as disgraced, he said. Those -lodgings of ours at Clacton weren’t specially conducive to good temper, -I’m afraid; for I told him that the real disgrace would be to keep me in -idleness to sell to some other Knobbeleigh Jones, or to palm me off on -some better sort of young man who would bind himself to work for me all -his life, and then find that I would have been dear at the price of -a fortnight’s labour--and then mamma cried.--and papa, he swore -more--and--and--” - -I stirred the fire here, and then blushed to rediscover that it was -asbestos I was knocking about. “How stupid of me!” I exclaimed, and -murmured something about having been a stranger to Fernbank so long. - -Ermyntrude took no notice. “I made a pretence of going up to London on -a visit,” she continued, “and I spent five days looking about, making -inquiries, trying to get some notion of how girls who supported -themselves made a beginning. I talked a little with such few girls that -I knew as were in town, and I cared to see--guardedly, of course. They -had no idea--save in the way of the governess or music teacher. I’d cut -my throat before I’d be either of those--forced to dress like ladies on -the wages of a seamstress, and to smile under the insults of tradesmen’s -wives and their louts of children. An actress I might be, after I had -starved a long time in learning my business--but before that mamma would -have died of shame. Then there are typewriters, and lady journalists -and telegraph clerks--I am surly enough sometimes to do that last to -perfection--but they all have to have special talents or knowledge. As -for saleswomen in the shops--there are a dozen poor genteel wretches -standing outside ready to claw each other’s eyes out for every vacancy. -I went over Euston Road way at noon, and I watched the work-girls come -out of the factories and workshops, and they had such sharp, knowing, -bullying faces that I knew I should be a helpless fool among them. And -watching them--and watching the other girls on the street... in the -Strand and Piccadilly--I told you I was going to talk seriously, my dear -friend--it all came to seem to me like a nightmare. It frightened me. -These were the girls whose fathers had failed to provide for them--that -was absolutely all the difference between them and me. I had looked -lazily down at marriage as a chance of escaping being bored here at -Fernbank. They were all looking fiercely up at marriage as the one only -chance of rescue from weary toil, starvation wages, general poverty and -misery. In both cases the idea was the same--to find some man, no matter -what kind of a man, if only he will take it upon himself to provide -something different. You see what poor, dependent things we really are! -Why should it be so? That’s what I want to know.” - -“Oh, that’s all you want to know, is it?” I remarked, after a little -pause. “Well, I think--I think you had better give me notice of the -question.” - -“I have tried to read what thinkers say about it,” she added; “but they -only confuse one the more. There is a Dr Wallace whom the papers speak -of as an authority, and he has been writing a long article this very -week--or else it is an interview--and he says that everything will be -all right, that all the nice women will marry all the good men, and that -the other kinds will die off immediately, and everybody will be oh, so -happy--in a ‘regenerated society.’ That is another thing I wanted to -ask you about. He speaks--they all speak--so confidently about this -‘regenerated society.’ Do you happen to know when it is to be?” - -“The date has not been fixed, I believe,” I replied. - -The early winter twilight had darkened the room, and the light from the -grate glowed ruddily upon the girl’s face as she bent forward, her chin -upon her clasped hands, looking into the fire. - -“There is another date which remains undetermined,”’ I added, faltering -not a little at heart, but keeping my tongue under fair control. “I -should like to speak to you about it, if I may take off my lamb’s-wool -wig and Santa Claus beard, and appear before you once more as a -contemporary citizen. It is this, Ermie. I am not so very old, after -all. There is only a shade over a dozen years between us--say a baker’s -dozen. My habits--my personal qualities, tolerable and otherwise, -are more or less known to you. I am prosperous enough, so far as this -world’s goods go. But I am tired of living----” - -I stopped short, and stared in turn blankly at the mock coals. A -freezing thought had just thrust itself into the marrow of my brain. She -would think that I was saying all this because her father had regained -and augmented his fortune. I strove in a numb, puzzled way to retrace -what I had just uttered--to see if the words offered any chance of -getting away upon other ground--and could not remember at all. - -“Tired of living,” I heard Ermyntrude echo. I saw her nod her head -comprehendingly in the firelight. She sighed. - -“Yes, except upon conditions,” I burst forth. “I weary of living alone. -There hasn’t been a time for years when I didn’t long to tell you -this--and most of all at Clacton, if I had known you were at Clacton. -You have admitted yourself that _nobody_ knew you were there.” The words -came more easily now. “But always before I shrank from speaking. There -was something about you too childlike, too innocent, too--too----” - -“Too silly,” suggested Ermie, with an affable effect of helping me out. - -Then she unlocked her fingers, and, still looking into the fire, -stretched out a hand backward to me. “All the same,” she murmured, after -a little, “it isn’t an answer to my question, you know.” - -“But it is to mine!” I made glad response, “and in my question all the -others are enwrapped--always have been, always will be. And, oh, darling -one----” - -“That is mamma in the hall,” said Ermyntrude. - - - - -_Describing Impressions of a Momentous Interview, loosely gathered by -One who, although present, was not quite In it_ - - -Mrs Albert has smiled upon my suit to be her son-in-law. - -The smile did not, however, gush forth spontaneously at the outset. When -the opportunity for imparting our great news came, we three were in the -drawing-room, and Mrs Albert, who had just entered, had been allowed to -discover me holding Ermyntrude’s passive hand in mine. She cast a swift -little glance over us both, and seemed not to like what she saw. I -was conscious of the impression on the instant that Ermyntrude did not -particularly like it either. An effect of profound isolation, absurd -enough, but depressingly real, suddenly encompassed me. I began talking -something--the words coming out and scattering quite on their own -incoherent account--and the gist of what they made me say sounded in my -ears as if it were a determined enemy who was saying it Why should I be -speaking of my age, and the fact that I had held Ermie on my knee as a -child, and even of my rheumatism? And did I actually allude to them? -or only hear the clamorous echoes of conscience in my guilty soul, the -while my tongue was uttering other matters? I don’t know, and the fear -that Ermie would admit that she really hadn’t been paying attention has -restrained me from asking her since. - -But Mrs Albert was paying attention. She held me with a cool and -unblinking eye during my clumsy monologue, and she continued this steady -gaze for a time after I had finished. She stirred the small and shapely -headgear of black velvet and bird’s-wing which she had worn in from -the street, just by the fraction of a forward inch, to show that she -understood what I had been saying--and also very much which I had left -unsaid. - -“Hm--m!” the good lady remarked, at length. “I see!” - -“Well, mamma, having seen,” Ermyntrude turned languidly in her chair to -observe, lifting the hand which still rested within mine into full and -patent view, and then withdrawing it abruptly--“having seen, and been -seen, there’s really nothing more to do, is there?” - -“She is very young,” said the mother, in a tentative musing manner which -suggested the thought that I, on the other hand, was very much the other -way. - -Ermyntrude sniffed audibly, and rose to her feet. “I am -three-and-twenty,” she said, “and that is enough, thank you.” There was -something in it all which I did not understand. The sensation of being -out of place, as in the trying-on room of a dressmaker’s, oppressed me. -The sex were effecting sundry manouvres and countermarchings peculiar to -themselves--so much I could see by the way in which the two were talking -with their eyes--hut what it was all about was beyond me. The mother -finally inclined her head to one side, and pursed together her lips. -Ermyntrude drew herself to her full stature, threw up her chin for a -moment like one of Albert Moore’s superb full-throated goddesses, and -then relaxed with that half-cheerful sigh which we express in types -with “heigho!” It was at once apparent to me that the situation had -lightened--but how or why I cannot profess to guess. Uncle Dudley, to -whom I subsequently narrated what I had observed, abounded in theories, -but upon reflection they do not impress, much less convince, me. Here -is in substance one of the several hypothetical conversations which -he sketched out as having passed in that moment of pre-occupied and -surcharged silence: - -Mother [_lowering brows_]. You may be sure that at the very best it will -be Bayswater. - -Daughter [_with quiver of nostrils_]. Better that than hanging on for a -Belgravia which never comes. - -Mother [_disclosing the tips of two teeth_]. It is a chance of a title -going for ever. - -Daughter [_curling lip_]. What chance is ever likely _here?_ - -Mother [_lifting brows_]. He’s as old as Methusaleh!” - -Daughter [_flashing eyes_]. That’s my business! - -Mother [_little trembling of the eyelashes_]. You will never know how I -have striven and struggled for you! - -Daughter [_smoothing features_]. Merely the innate maternal instinct, my -dear, common to all mammalia. - -Mother [_beginning to tip head sidewise_]. It is true that Tristram is -docile, sheep-like, simple---- - -Daughter [_lifting her chin_]. And old enough to be enchained at my feet -all his life. - -Mother [_head much to one side_]. And he has always been extremely -cordial with _me_---- - -Daughter [_chin high in air_]. And not another girl in my set has had a -proposal for _years_. - -Mother [_brightening eye_]. We shall be in time to buy everything at the -January sales! - -[Mother _smiles;_ Daughter _sighs relief. The imaginations of both -wander pleasantly off to visions of sublimated Christmas shopping, in -connection with the trousseau and betrothal gifts. General joy._] - -As I have said, this is Uncle Dudley’s idea, not mine. My own fancy -prefers to conjure up a tenderer dialogue, in which the mother, all fond -solicitude, bids the maiden search well her heart, and answer only its -true appeal, and the sweet daughter, timid, fluttering, half-frightened -and wholly glad, flashes hack from the depths of her soul the rapt -assurance of her fate. But Dudley was certainly right about the ending, -as the first words Mrs Albert uttered go to show. - -“Don’t forget to remind me, then, about presents for the Gregory -children,” she said all at once, in a swift sidelong whisper at -Ermyntrude. Then she turned, and as I gazed wistfully upon her face, -it melted sedately, gracefully, a little at a time, into the smile I -sought. - -“My dear Tristram,” she began, and her voice took on a coo of genuine -kindliness and warmth as she went on, “of course Albert and I have had -other views--and the dear girl is perfectly qualified to adorn the -most exalted and exclusive circles--if I do say it myself--but--but -her happiness is our one desire, and if she feels that it is getting--I -_would_ say, if you and she are quite clear in your own minds--and we -both have the greatest confidence in your practical common-sense, and -your _honour_--and we have all learned to be fond of you--and--and I am -really very glad!” - -“Most of all things in the world, dear lady, I hoped for this,” I had -begun to say, with fervour. I stopped, upon the discovery that Mrs -Albert was not listening, but had turned and was conferring with her -daughter in half-audible asides. - -“Mercy, no!” the mother said. “They’d know in a minute that it had been -a present to us. That old Mrs Gregory is a perfect _lynx_ for detecting -such things. I suppose their boys are too big for tricycles, else your -father knows a dealer who----” - -My own Ermie looked thoughtful. “It won’t seem queer, you think, -our bursting in upon them with Christmas presents like this--without -provocation?” she asked. - -“My dear child, queer or not queer,” said Mrs Albert, “it is imperative. -You know how much depends upon it--there are plenty of others who would -be equally useful in various ways, but not like the _Gregorys_--and -if there were there’s no time now. If this could have happened, now, a -fortnight ago, or even last week----” - -“Yes, but it didn’t,” replied Ermyntrude. “It only happened to-day.” She -turned to me, with a little laugh in her eyes. “Mamma complains that we -delayed so long. We have interfered with the Christmas arrangements.” - -“If I had only known! But--I claim to be treated as one of the family, -you know--I couldn’t quite grasp what you were saying about the -Gregorys. I gather that our--our betrothal involves Christmas presents -for them, but I confess I don’t know why. Or oughtn’t I to have asked, -dear?” - -For answer Ermyntrude looked saucily into my face, twisted her dear -nose into a pretty little mocking grimace, and ran out of the room. Mrs -Albert vouchsafed no explanation, but talked of other matters--and there -were enough to talk about. - -It was not, indeed, till late in the evening, when Uncle Dudley and -I were upon our last cigar, that I happened to recall the mystifying -incident of the Gregorys. - -“That’s simplicity itself,” said Uncle Dudley. “The Gregorys own one of -the tidiest country seats in Nottinghamshire--lovely old house, sylvan -arbours, high wall, fascinating rural roads--in the very heart of county -society, too--O, a most romantic and eligible place!” - -“Well, what of it? What has that to do with Ermyntrude and me and Santa -Claus?” - -“If you will read the _Morning Post_ the day after your wedding, my -dear, dull friend, you will learn that Colonel Gregory has placed at -the disposal of a certain bridal couple for their honeymoon his ideal -country residence. The paper will not state why, but I will tell you in -confidence. It will be because the bride’s mother is a resourceful and -observant woman, who knows how to plant at Christmas that she may gather -at Easter.” - -“I hate to have you always so beastly cynical, Dudley,” I was emboldened -to exclaim. - -Uncle Dudley regarded me attentively for an instant. He took a -thoughtful sip at his drink, and then began smiling at his glass. When -he turned to me again, the smile had grown into a grin. - -“You are belated, my boy,” he said. “You ought to have married into the -Grundys years ago. You were just born to be one of the family.” - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mrs Albert Grundy--Observations in -Philistia, by Harold Frederic - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS GRUNDY *** - -***** This file should be named 50496-0.txt or 50496-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/4/9/50496/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/50496-0.zip b/old/50496-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index d98001e..0000000 --- a/old/50496-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/50496-8.txt b/old/50496-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index da5ab86..0000000 --- a/old/50496-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3338 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mrs Albert Grundy--Observations in Philistia, by -Harold Frederic - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Mrs Albert Grundy--Observations in Philistia - -Author: Harold Frederic - -Release Date: November 19, 2015 [EBook #50496] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS GRUNDY *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -MRS ALBERT GRUNDY--OBSERVATIONS IN PHILISTIA - -By Harold Frederic - - -[Illustration: 0007] - - - - -_Presenting in Outline the Comfortable and Well-Regulated Paradox over -which She Presides, and showing its Mental Elevation_ - - -I suppose about the name there is no doubt. For sixty years we -have followed that gifted gadabout and gossip, Heine, and called it -Philistia. And yet, when one thinks of it, there may have been a mistake -after all. Artemus Ward used to say that he had been able, with effort, -to comprehend how it was possible to measure the distance between the -stars, and even the dimensions and candle-power, so to speak, of those -heavenly bodies; what beat him was how astronomers had ever found out -their names. So I find myself wondering whether Philistia really is the -right name for the land where She must be obeyed. - -If so, it is only a little more the region of mysterious paradox and -tricksy metamorphosis. We think of it always and from all time as given -over to Her rule. We feel in our bones that there was a troglodyte Mrs -Grundy; we imagine to ourselves a British matron contemporary with the -cave bear and the woolly elephant But her very antiquity only makes it -more puzzling. - -There is an old gentleman who always tries to prove to me that the -French are really Germans, that the Germans are all Slavs, and that the -Russians are strictly Tartars: that is to say, that in keeping-count -of the early races as they swarmed Westward we somehow skipped one, and -have been wrong ever since. There must be some such explanation of how -the domain which She sways came to be called Philistia. - -I say this, because the old Philistia was tremendously masculine. It was -the Jews who struck the feminine note. They used to swagger no end when -they won a victory, and utilise it to the utmost limit of merciless -savagery; but when it came their turn to be thrashed they filled -the very heavens with complaining clamour. We got no hint that the -Philistines ever failed to take their medicine like men. - -Consider those splendid later Philistines, the Norsemen. In all their -martial literature there is no suggestion of a whine. They loved -fighting for its own sake; next to braining their foes, they admired -being themselves hewn into sections. They never blamed their gods when -they had the worst of it. They never insisted that they were always -right and their enemies invariably wrong. They cared nothing about all -that. They demanded only fun. It was their victims, the Frankish and -Irish monks, who shed women's tears and besought Providence to play -favourites. - -And here is the paradox. The children of these Berserker loins are -become the minions of Mrs Grundy. By some magic she has enshrined -Respectability in their temples. In one division of her empire she makes -Mr Helmer drink tea; in another she sets everybody reading the _Buchholz -Family_; in her chosen island home her husband on the sunniest Sundays -carries an umbrella instead of a walking-stick. Fancy the wild delirium -of delight with which the old Philistines would have raided her -homestead, chopping down her Robert Elsmeres, impaling her Horsleys, and -making the skies lurid with the flames of her semi-detached villa! Yet -we call her place Philistia! - -I know the villa very well. It is quite near to the South Kensington -Museum. The title "Fernbank" is painted on the gate-posts. How -well-ordered and comfortable does life beyond those posts remain! Here -are no headaches in the morning. Here white-capped domestics move with -neat alertness along the avenues of gentle routine, looking neither to -the policeman on the right nor fiery-jacketed Thomas Atkins on the left. -Here my friend Mr Albert Grundy invariably comes home by the Underground -to dinner. Here his three daughters--girls of a type with a diminishing -upper lip, with sharper chins and greater length of limb than of -old--lead deeply washed existences, playing at tennis, smiling in -flushed silence at visitors, feeding contentedly upon Mudie's stores, -the while their mamma spreads the matrimonial net about the piano or -makes tours of inspection among her outlying mantraps on the lawn. Here -simpers the innocuous curate; here Uncle Dudley, who has seen life in -Australia and the Far West, watches the bulbs and prunes the roses, and, -I should think, yawns often to himself; here Lady Willoughby Wallaby's -card diffuses refinement from the summit of the card-basket in the hall. - -To this happy home there came but last week--or was it the week -before--a parcel of books. There were four complete novels in twelve -volumes--fruits of that thoughtful arrangement by which the fair reader -in Philistia is given three distinct opportunities to decide whether she -will read the story through or not. Mrs Albert is a busy woman, burdened -with manifold responsibilities to Church and State, to organised -charities, to popularised music, to art-work guilds and the Amalgamated -Association of Clear Starchers, not to mention a weather-eye kept at -all times upon all unmarried males: but she still finds time to open -all these packets of new books herself. On this occasion she gave to -her eldest, Ermyntrude, the first volume of a novel by Mrs --------. It -doesn't matter what fell to the share of the younger Amy and Floribel. -For herself she reserved the three volumes of the latest work of Mr ---------. - -She tells me now that words simply can _not_ express her thankfulness -for having done so. It seems the selection was not entirely accidental. -She was attracted, she admits, by the charmingly dainty binding of -the volumes, but she was also moved by an instinct, half maternal -prescience, half literary recollection. She thought she remembered -having seen the name of this man-writer before. Where? It came to her -like a flash, she says. Only a while ago he had a hook called _A Bunch -of Patrician Ladies_ or something of that sort, which she almost made -up her mind not to let the girls read at all, but at last, with some -misgivings, permitted them to skim hastily, because though the morals -were rocky--perhaps that wasn't her word--the society was very good. -But this new book of his had not even that saving feature. Respectable -people were only incidentally mentioned in it. Really it was quite _too_ -low. The chief figure was a farm-girl who for the most part skimmed -milk or cut swedes in a field, and at other times behaved in a manner -positively unmentionable. Mrs Albert told me she had locked the volumes -up, after only partially perusing them. I might be sure _her_ daughters -never laid eyes on them. They had gone back to the library, with a note -expressing surprise that such immoral books should be sent into any -Christian family. What made the matter worse, she went on, was that -Ermyntrude read in some paper, at a friend's house, that this man, -whoever he may be, was the greatest of English novelists, and that this -particular book of his was a tragic work of the noblest and loftiest -order, which dignified the language. She was sure she didn't know what -England was coming to, when reporters were allowed to put things -like that in the papers. Fortunately she only took in _The Daily -Tarradiddle_, which one could always rely upon for sound views, and -which gave this unspeakable book precisely the contemptuous little -notice it deserved. - -It was a relief, however--and here the good matron visibly brightened -up--to think that really wholesome and improving novels were still -produced. There was that novel by Mrs --------. Had I read it? Oh, - -I must lose no time! Perhaps it was not altogether so enchanting as that -first immortal work of hers, which had almost, one might say, founded -a new religion. True, one of the girls in it worked altar-cloths for a -church, and occasionally the other characters broke out into religious -conversation; but there were no clergymen to speak of, and the charm -of the other's ecclesiastical mysticism was lacking. "To be frank, the -first and last volumes were just a bit slow. But oh! the lovely second -volume! A young Englishman and his sister go to Paris. They stumble -right at the start into the most delightful, picturesque, artistic -set. Think of it: Henri Rgnault is personally introduced, and delivers -himself of extended remarks----" - -"I met an old friend of Regnault's at the Club the other day," -I interposed, "who complained bitterly of that. He said it was -insufferable impudence to bring him in at all, and still worse to make -him talk such blather as is put into his mouth." - -Mrs Albert sniffed at this Club friend and went on. That Paris part of -the book seemed to her to just palpitate with life. It was Paris to the -very letter--gay, intellectual, sparkling, and oh! so free! The young -Englishman at once set up a romantic establishment in the heart of -Fontainebleau Forest with a French painter-girl. His sister was almost -as promptly debauched by an elderly French sculptor. But you never lost -sight of the fact that the author was teaching a valuable moral lesson -by all this. Indeed, that whole part of the book was called "Storm -and Stress." And all the while you saw, too, how innately superior the -national character of the young Englishman was to that of the French -people about him. One _knew_ that in good time _he_ would have a moral -awakening, and return to England, marry, settle down, and make money in -his business. Side by side with this you saw the entire hopelessness -of any spiritual regeneration in the French painter-girl or any of -her artistic set. And this was shown with such delicate art--it was so -_perfect_ a picture of the moral contrast between the two nations--that -the girls saw it at once. - -"Then the girls," I put in--"that is to say, you didn't lock _this_ book -up?" - -Mrs Albert lifted her eyebrows at me. - -"How do you mean?" she asked. "Do you know who the author is? The idea! -Why, the papers print whole columns about _anything_ she writes. Every -day you may see paragraphs about the mere prospect of books she -hasn't even begun yet. I suppose such blatant publicity must be very -distressing to her, but the public simply insist upon it. _The Daily -Tarradiddle_ devoted an entire leader to this particular book. I assure -you, all my friends are talking of nothing else--many of them people, -too, whom you would not suspect of any literary tastes whatever, and who -_never_ read novels as a rule. But they don't regard _this_ as a novel. -They think of it--I quote Lady Willoughby Wallaby's exact words--as an -exposition of those Christian principles which make our England what it -is." - - - - -_Setting forth the Untoward Circumstances under which the Right Tale was -Unfolded in the Wrong Company_ - - -Much has been written about that variety of "cab-wit" which occurs to -a man on his way home from dinner: the brilliant sallies he might have -made, the smart retorts which would so bravely have reversed the balance -of laughter had they only come in time. We are less frank about the -other sort. No one dwells in type upon the manner in which we marshal -our old jokes and arrange our epigrams as we drive along to the house of -feasting. - -No doubt the practice of getting up table-talk is going out. The -three-bottle men took it to the grave with them, along with the -snuff-box, and the toupee, and the feather-bed, and other amenities -of the Regency. There never was but one diner-out in the London of my -knowledge who was at pains to prepare his conversations, each for its -special occasion and audience, and he, poor man, broke down under -the strain and disappeared from view. The others are too lazy, too -indifferent, too cocksure of themselves, to go to all this bother. The -old courtly sense of responsibility to the host is perished from among -them. But none the less, the least dutiful and diligent of all their -number does ask himself questions as the whirling rubber tyres bear him -onward, and the cab-mirror shows him the face of a man to whom people -ought to listen. - -The question I asked myself, as I drove past the flaring shop windows -of Old Brompton Road the other evening, was whether the Grundys would -probably like my story of Nate Salsbury and the Citizen of South Bend, -Indiana. A good deal depended upon the decision. It was a story which -had greatly solidified my position in other hospitable quarters; it -could be brought in _apropos_ of almost anything, or for that matter of -quite nothing at all; it had never been printed, so far as I know, in -any of those American comic papers which supply alike the dining-rooms -of Mayfair and the editorial offices of Fleet Street with such humour -as they come into possession of; and I enjoyed telling it. On the other -hand, the Grundys were old friends of mine, who would never suspect that -they had missed anything if I preserved silence on the subject of South -Bend, and who would go on asking me to dinner whether I told new tales -or not; moreover, their attitude towards fresh jokes was always a -precarious quantity, and I had an uneasy feeling that if I told my story -to them and it failed to come off, so to speak, I should never have the -same confidence in it again. - -When I had entered the drawing-room of Fernbank, shaken hands with -Mrs Albert Grundy and Ermyntrude, and stolen a little glance about the -circle as I walked over to the fireplace, it had become clear that the -story was not to be told. Beside the half-dozen of the family, including -the curate, there was a tall young man with a very high collar, -shoulders that sloped down like a Rhine-wine bottle, and a stern -expression of countenance. Uncle Dudley whispered to me, as we held our -hands over the asbestos, that he was a literary party, and the son of -old Sir Watkyn Hump, who was a director in one of Albert's companies. -The other guests were a stout and motherly lady in a cap and a purplish -smile, and a darkling young woman with a black velvet riband around her -thin neck, and a look of wearied indifference upon her face. This effect -of utter boredom did not visibly diminish upon my being presented to -Miss Wallaby. - -I have an extremely well-turned little brace of sentences with which to -convey the intelligence to a young lady that the honour of taking her -down to dinner has fallen upon me--sentences which combine professions -of admiring pleasure with just a grateful dash of respectful -playfulness; they brought no new light into Miss Wallaby's somewhat -scornful _pince-nez_. Decidedly I would not tell my South Bend story -_that_ night! - -But all the same I did. What led up to it I hardly know. It was at the -ptarmigan stage, I remember--or was it a capercailzie?--and young Mr -Hump had commented upon the great joy of living in England, where one -could enjoy delicious game all the year round, instead of in a country -like America, where the inhabitants notoriously had nothing but fried -salt pork to eat for many months at a time. Perhaps it was not worth -while, but I ventured the correcting remark that there was no season of -the year when one couldn't have eighteen edible varieties of wild birds -in America for every one that England has ever heard of. Mr Hump preened -his chin about on the summit of his collar and smiled with superior -incredulity. The others looked grave. Mrs Grundy whispered to me -warningly, over her left shoulder, that Mr Hump had made America his -special subject, and wrote most vigorous and comminatory articles about -it almost every week. I was painfully conscious that Miss Wallaby's cold -right shoulder had been still further withdrawn from me. - -Well, it was at this grotesquely inauspicious moment that I told my -story. It is easy enough now to see that it was sheer folly, madness -if you like, to do so. I was only too bitterly conscious of that when I -reviewed the events of the evening in my homeward cab. It was _apropos_ -of nothing under the wide sky. But at the moment, I suppose, I hoped -that it would relieve the situation. In one sense it did. - -Baldly summarised, this is the tale. Years ago the admirable Nate -Salsbury was on a "one-night-stand" tour with his bright little company -of comedians through the least urban districts of Indiana, and came upon -South Bend, which is an important centre of the wagon-making industry, -but is not precisely a focussing point of dramatic traditions and -culture. - -In the vestibule of the small theatre that evening there paced up and -down a tall, middle-aged, weasel-backed citizen, his hands plunged deep -in his pockets, doubt and irresolution written all over his face. As -others paid their money and passed in he would watch them with obvious -longing; then he would go and study once more the attractive coloured -bill of the Company, with its bevy of pretty girls in skirts just short -enough to disclose most enticing little ankles; then once more he would -resume his perplexed walk to and fro. At last he made up his mind, and -approached Salsbury with diffidence. "Mister," he said, "air you the -boss of this show?" "What can I do for you?" asked Nate. "Well--no -offence meant--but--can I--that is to say--will it be all right to -bring a lady to your show?" "That, sir, depends!" responded the manager -firmly. "Well," the citizen went on, "what I was gittin' at is this--can -I be perfectly safe in bringin' _my wife_ here?" - -"Sir," said Salsbury with dignity, and an eye trained to abstain from -twinkling, "it is no portion of my business to inquire whether she is -your wife or not, but if she comes in here she's got to behave herself!" - -A solitary note of laughter fell upon the air when I had told this -story, and on the instant Uncle Dudley, perceiving that he had made -a mistake, dropped his napkin, and came up from fishing for it on the -floor red-faced and dumb. All else was deadly silence. - -"I--I suppose they really weren't married at all?" said the curate, -after a chilling pause. - -"Marriage, I regret to say, means next to nothing in most parts of -America," remarked Mr Hump, judicially. "The most sacred ties are there -habitually made the subject of ribald jests. I have been assured by -a person who spent nearly three weeks in the United States some years -since that it is an extremely rare experience to meet an adult American -who has not been divorced at least once. This fact made a vivid -impression on my mind at the time, and I--ahem!--have written frequently -upon it since." - -"I suppose the trouble arises from their all living in hotels--having no -home life whatever," said Mrs Albert, with a kindly air of coming to my -rescue. - -"Who on earth told you that?" I began, but was cut short. - -"I confess," broke in Miss Wallaby, with frosty distinctness of tone and -enunciation, "that the assumption upon which the incident just related -is based--the assumption that the la--woman referred to would probably -misconduct herself in a place of public resort--seems to me startlingly -characteristic of the country of which it is narrated. It has been truly -said that the most valuable test of a country's actual, as distinct -from its assumed, worth, is the respect it pays to its women. Both at -Cheltenham and at Newnham the idea is steadily inculcated--I might -say insisted upon as of paramount importance--that the nation's real -civilisation rests upon the measure, not alone of chivalrous deference, -but of esteem and confidence which my sex, by its devotion to duty, and -its intellectual sympathy with broad aims and lofty purposes, is able to -inspire and command." - -"But I assure you," I protested feebly, "the story I told was a joke." - -"There are some subjects," interposed Lady Willoughby Wallaby, the -fixed smile lighting up with an angry, winter-sunset glow her inflamed -countenance--"there are some subjects on which it is best not to joke." -As she spoke she wagged a mitted thumb at her hostess, and on the -instant the ladies rose. Mr Hump hastened round to hold the door open -as they filed out, their heads high in air, their skirts rustling -indignantly over the threshold. Then he followed them, closing the door -with decision behind him. - -"Gad, Albert," said Uncle Dudley, reaching over for the port, "I don't -wonder that the pick of our young fellows go in for marrying American -girls." - -"Pass it along!" remarked the father of Mrs Albert's three daughters, in -a voice of confirmed dejection. - - - - -_Annotating Sundry Points of Contact found to exist between the Lady and -Contemporary Art_ - - -Scene.--_Just inside the door of a studio._ - -Time.--_Last Sunday in March, 5 p.m._ - -1st Citizeness. O, thank you _so_ much! - -2nd do. _So_ good of you to come! - -1st do. I _so_ dote upon art! - -2nd do. So kind of you to say so! - -1st do. Thank you _so_ much for asking us! - -2nd do. Delighted, I'm sure! Thank _you_ for coming! - -1st Citizeness. Not at all! Thank you for--for thanking me -for--Well--_good-bye_. (_Exit--with family group_.) - -Husband of 2nd Citizeness (_with gloom_). And who might _those_ thankful -bounders be? - -2nd Citizeness (_wearily_). O, don't ask _me!_ I don't know! From -Addison Road way, I should think. - -1st Citizeness (_outside_). Well! If _that_ thing gets into the Academy! - -Family Group. Did you notice the ridiculous way her hair was done? Did -you ever taste such tea in your life? How yellow Mrs. General Wragg is -getting to look in the daylight. Yes--there's our four-wheeler. (_Exeunt -omnes._) - - -The above is not intended for presentation upon any stage--not even -that of the Independent Theatre. It has been cast into the dramatic -mould merely for convenience' sake. It embodies what I chiefly remember -about Picture Sunday. - -It has come to be my annual duty--a peculiarly hardy, not to say -temerarious, annual--to convoy Mrs Albert Grundy and her party about -sections of Chelsea and Brompton on the earlier of the two Show -Sabbaths. I drifted into this function through having once shared an -attic with a young painter, whose colleagues used to come to borrow -florins of him whenever one of his pictures disappeared from any shop -window, and so incidentally formed my acquaintance. My claim nowadays -upon their recollection is really very slight. I just know them well -enough to manage the last Sunday in March: even that might be awkward if -they were not such good-natured fellows. - -But it would be difficult to persuade Mrs Albert of this. That good lady -is wont, when the playfully benignant mood is upon her, to describe me -as her connecting link with Bohemia. She probably would be puzzled to -explain her meaning; I certainly should. But if she were provided with -affidavits setting forth the whole truth--viz., that my entire income -is derived from an inherited part-interest in an artificial-ice machine; -that there are two clergymen on the committee of my only club; that I am -free from debt; and that I play duets on the piano with my sister--still -would she cling to the belief that I am a young man with an extremely -gay, rakish side, who could make thrilling revelations of Bohemia if I -would. Of course, I am never questioned on the subject; but I can see -that it is a point upon which the faith of Fernbank is firmly grounded. -Often Mrs Albert's conversation cuts figure-eights on very thin ice when -we are alone, as if just to show me that _she_ knows. More than once -I have discovered Ermyntrude looking furtively at me, as the wistful -shepherd-boy on the plains of Dura might have gazed at the distant haze -overhanging bold, unspeakable Babylon. I rarely visit the house but -Uncle Dudley winks at me. However, nothing is ever asked me about the -dreadful things with which they suppose me to be upon intimate terms. - -It seemed for a long time, on Sunday, as if an easy escape had been -arranged for me by Providence. At two o'clock, the hour appointed for -our crusade, a heavy fog overhung everything. Looking out from the -drawing-room windows, only the very nearest of the neatly trimmed -firs on the lawn were to be distinguished. The street beyond was utter -blackness. - -At three o'clock the ladies took off their bonnets. It was really too -bad. Uncle Dudley, strolling in from his nap in the library, suggested -that with a lantern we might visit some of the nearer studios: "not -necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith." Mrs -Albert turned a look of tearful vexation upon him, before which he fled. - -"There's this consolation," she remarked presently, holding me with an -unwavering eye: "if we are to be defrauded out of our expedition to-day, -that will furnish all the more reason why you should take us next -Sunday--_the_ Sunday. You have often talked of having us see the -Academicians at home--but we've never been." - -"I remember that there has been talk about it," I said; "but hardly that -the talk was mine. Truth is, I don't know a single Academician, even by -sight." - -It was clear that they did not believe me. Mrs Albert continued: "Lady -Wallaby expressed surprise, only last evening, that we should consent to -go about among the outsiders. She and her daughter _never_ do." - -"Outsiders!" I was tempted into saying. "Why, they can paint the head -off the Academy!" - -Miss Timby-Hucks simpered outright. "You do say such droll things!" she -remarked, somewhat obscurely. "Mamma always declares that you remind her -of the _Sydney Bulletin_." - -"Whom _do_ you take to the Academy Show Sunday?--or perhaps I oughtn't -to ask," came from Ermyntrude. - -"No, we have no right to inquire," said Mrs Albert; and I turned to the -window and the enshrouded lawn once more. - -All at once the fog lifted. The bonnets were produced again. Nearly -three hours of daylight remained to us. Tidings that the horse was too -lame to be taken out only staggered Mrs Albert for the briefest fraction -of time. There were still four-wheelers in Gilead. Besides, if the -driver happened to be sober, he would know the streets so much better -than their stupid coachman. This would be of advantage, because time -was so limited. We should have to just run in, say "How-d'ye-do," take -a flying look round, and scamper out again, Mrs Albert said. By firmly -adhering to this rule, she estimated that we might do sixteen or -seventeen studios. - -Heaven alone knows how many we did "do." Nor have I any clear -recollections of what we saw. A confused vision remains to me of long -hall-ways lined with frames and packing-cases; half-an-acre, more or -less, of painted canvas, out of which only here and there a pair of -bright eyes, a glowing field of poppies, or the sheen from a satin gown, -fixed itself disconnectedly on the memory; hordes and hordes of tall -young women helping themselves to tea and cakes; and always the pathetic -figure of the artist's wife, or sister, tired to very death, standing by -the door with a wearied smile on her lips, and the polite falsehood, -"So good of you to come!" on her tongue. I wondered, I remember, if she -never forgot herself and said instead, "So kind of you to go!" But under -Mrs Albert's system there was no time to wait and see. - -Once, indeed, we dallied over our task. Mrs Albert encountered a lady -from Wormwood Scrubs of her acquaintance, who was indiscreet enough to -mention that she had been asked to stop here for supper. The news -spread through the petticoated portion of my group as by magic. Miss -Timby-Hucks came over and asked me, so audibly that the artist-host -had to blush and turn away, if I didn't think it would be a deliciously -romantic experience to sup in one of these lofty studios, with the -gaslight on the armour, and the great, solemnly silent pictures looking -down upon us as we ate. Mrs Albert lingered for some time looking at -this artist's work with her head on one side, and eyes filled with rapt, -dreamy enjoyment--but nothing came of it. - -It was after we had been back in Fern-bank for an hour or more--our own -cold repast nearly over--that Mrs Albert thought of something. She laid -down her fork with a gesture of annoyance. "It has just occurred to me," -she said; "we never went to that Mr Whistler's, whose pictures are on -exhibition in Bond Street. Everybody's talking about him, and I did so -want not to miss his studio." - -"I don't think he has a Show Sunday," I said. "I never heard of it, if -he has." - -"O no, it is only these last few weeks that anybody has heard of him," - -Mrs Albert replied. "I read the first announcement about his beautiful -pictures in _The Daily Tarradiddle_ only the other day." - -"Whistler? Whistler?" put in Uncle Dudley. "Why, surely _he's_ not new. -Why--I remember--he was mixed up in a law-suit, wasn't it, years ago?" - -"O no, Dudley," responded Mrs Albert; "I was under that same impression, -till Lady Wallaby set me right. It seems that was another man -altogether--some foreign adventurer who pretended to be able to paint -and imposed upon people--don't you recall how _The Tarradiddle_ exposed -him?--and Mr Burnt-Jones had him arrested, or something--O, quite a -dreadful person. But _this_ Mr Whistler is an Englishman. I read in _The -Illustrated London News_ that he represented modern British Art. That -alone would make it quite clear it was a different man. I did so want to -see him! Lady-Wallaby tells me she has heard he is extremely amusing in -his conversation--and quite presentable manners, too." - -"Why don't you ask him to dinner?" said Mr Albert Grundy. "If he's -amusing it's more than most of the men you drum up are." - -"You seem to think _everybody_ can be asked to dinner, Albert," the -lady of the house replied. "Artists don't dine--unless they are in the -Academy, of course. Tea, yes--or perhaps supper; but one doesn't -ask people to meet them at dinner. It's like actors--and--and -non-commissioned officers." - - - - -_Affording a Novel and Subdued Scientific Light, by which divers -Venerable Problems may be Observed Afresh_ - - -It is my opinion," said Uncle Dudley, stretching out his slippered -feet, and thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat--"it -is my opinion that women are different from men." - -"Several commentators have advanced this view," I replied. "For example, -it has been noted that the gentle sex cross a muddy street on their -heels, whereas we skip over on our toes." - -"That is interesting if true," responded Uncle Dudley. "What I mean is -that all this talk about the human race is humbug. There are _two_ human -races! And they are getting wider apart every few minutes, too!" - -"Have you mentioned this to any one?" I asked. - -Uncle Dudley went on developing his theme. "I daresay that for millions -of years after the re-separation of the sexes this difference was too -slight to be noticed at all. The cave man, for instance--the fellow who -went around hunting the Ichthyosaurus with a brick tied on the end of an -elm club, and spent the whole winter underground sucking the old bones, -and then whittling them up into Runic buttons for the South Kensington -Museum: I suppose, now, that his wife and sister-in-law, say, didn't -strike him as being specially different from himself--except, of course, -in that they only got plain bones and gristle and so on to eat, whereas -all the marrow and general smooth-sailing in meats went his way. _You_, -can't imagine _him_ saying to himself: 'These female people here are not -of my race at all They are of another species. They are in reality as -much my natural enemies as that long-toed, red-headed, brachycephalous -tramp living in the gum-tree down by the swamp, who makes offensive -gestures as I ride past on my tame _Ursus spelous_'--now, can you?" - -I frankly shook my head. "No, I don't seem to be able to imagine that. -It would be almost as hard as to guess off-hand where, when, and how you -caught this remarkable scientific spasm." - -Uncle Dudley smiled. He rose, and walked with leisurely lightness up -and down in front of the chimney-piece, still with his palms spread -like little misplaced wings before his armpits. He smiled again. Then he -stopped on the hearth-rug and looked down amiably upon me. - -"Well--what d'ye think? There's something in it, eh?" - -"My dear fellow," I began, "what puzzles me is----" - -"O, I don't mean to say that I've worked it all out," put in Uncle -Dudley, reassuringly. "Why, I get puzzled myself, every once in a while. -But I'm on the right track, my boy; and, as they say in Adelaide, I'm -going to hang to it like a pup to a root." - -"How long have you been this way?" I asked, with an affectation of -sympathy. - -Uncle Dudley answered with shining eyes. "Why, if you'll believe me, it -seems now as if I'd had the germs of the idea in my mind ever since I -came back to England, and began living here at Fernbank. But the thing -dawned upon me--that is to say, took shape in my head--less than a -fortnight ago. It all came about through being up here one evening with -nothing to read, and my toe worse than usual, and Mrs Albert having been -out of sorts all through dinner. Somehow, I felt all at once that I'd -got to read scientific works. I couldn't resist it. I was like Joan -of Arc when the cows and sheep took partners for a quadrille. I heard -voices--Darwin's and--and--Benjamin Franklin's--and--lots of others. I -hobbled downstairs to the library, and I brought up a whole armful of -the books that Mrs Albert bought when she expected Lady Wallaby was -going to be able to get her an invitation to attend the Hon. Mrs -Coon-Alwyn's Biological Conversaziones. Look there! What do you say to -that for ten days' work? And had to cut every leaf, into the bargain!" - -I gazed with respect at the considerable row of books he indicated: -books for the most part bound in the scarlet of the International Series -or the maroon of Contemporary Science, but containing also brown covers, -and even green "sport" varieties. - -"Well, and what is it all about?" I asked. "Why have you read -these things? Why not the reports of the Commission on Agricultural -Depression, or Lewis Morris's poems, or even----" but my imagination -faltered and broke. - -"It was instinct, my boy," returned Uncle Dudley, with impressive -confidence. "There had been a thought--a great idea--growing and -swelling in my head ever since I had been living in this house. But -I couldn't tell what it was. As you might say, it was wrapped up in -a cocoon, like the larv of the lepidoptera--ahem!--and something was -needed to bring it out." - -"When I was here last you were trying Hollands with quinine bitters," I -remarked casually. - -"Don't fool!" Uncle Dudley admonished me. "I'm dead in earnest. As I -said, it was pure instinct that led me to these books. They have made -everything clear. I only wanted their help to get the husk off my -discovery, and hoist it on my back, us it were, and bring it out here in -the daylight. And so now you know what I'm getting at when I say: Women -are different from Men." - -"That is the discovery, then?" I inquired. - -Uncle Dudley nodded several times. Then he went on, with emphasised -slowness: "I have lived here now for four years, seeing my sister-in-law -every day, watching Ermyntrude grow up to womanhood and the little girls -peg along behind her, and meeting the female friends who come here -to see them--and, sir, I tell you, they're not alone a different sex: -they're a different animal altogether! Take my word for it, they're a -species by themselves." - -"Miss Timby-Hucks is certainly very much by herself," I remarked. - -My friend smiled. "And not altogether her own fault either," he -commented. "But, speaking of science, it's remarkable how, when you once -get a firm grip on a big, central, main-guy fact, all the little facts -come in of their own accord to support it. Now, there's that young -simpleton you met here at dinner a while ago: I mean Eustace Hump. -Do you know that both Ermyntrude and the Timby-Hucks, and even Miss -Wallaby, think that that chap is a perfect ideal of masculine wit and -beauty? You and I would hesitate about using him to wad a horse-pistol -with: but there isn't one of those girls that wouldn't leap with joy if -he began proposing to her; and as for their mothers, why, the old ladies -watch him as a kingfisher eyes a tadpole." - -"Your similes are exciting," I said; "but what do they go to show?" - -"My dear fellow, science can show anything. I haven't gone all through -it yet, but I tell you, it's wonderful! Take this, for instance"--he -reached for a green book on the mantel, and turned over the leaves--"now -listen to this. The book is written by a man named Wallace--nice, -shrewd-looking old party by his picture, you can see--and this is what -he says on page 285: 'Some peahens preferred an old pied peacock; a -Canada goose paired with a Bernicle gander; a male widgeon was preferred -by a pintail duck to its own species; a hen canary preferred a male -greenfinch to either linnet, goldfinch, siskin, or chaffinch.' Now, -do you see that? The moment my eyes first lighted on that, I said to -myself: 'Now I understand about the girls and Eustace Hump.' Isn't it -clear to you?" - -"Absolutely," I assented. "You ought to read a paper at the Royal -Aquarium--before the Balloon Society, I mean." - -"And then look at this," Uncle Dudley went on, with animation. "Now, -you and I would ask ourselves what on earth such a gawky, spindling, -poor-witted youngster as that thought he was doing among women, anyhow. -But you turn over the page, and here you have it: 'Goat-suckers, geese, -carrion vultures, and many other birds of plain plumage have been -observed to dance, spread their wings or tails, and perform strange -love-antics.' Doesn't that fasten Hump to the wall like a beetle on a -pin, eh?" - -"But I am not sure that I entirely follow its application to your -original point," I suggested. - -"About women, you mean? My boy, in science everything applies. The woods -are full of applications. But seriously, women _are_ different. As I -said, in the barbarism at the back of beyond this divergence started. -With the beginning of what we call civilisation, it became more and -more marked. The progress of the separation increases nowadays by -square-root--or whatever you call it. The sexes are wider apart to-day -than ever. They like each other less; they quarrel more. You can see -that in the Divorce Courts, in the diminished proportion of early -marriages, in the increasing evidences of domestic infelicity all about -one." - -I could not refrain from expressing the fear that all this boded ill for -the perpetuity of the human race. - -Uncle Dudley is a light-hearted man. He was not depressed by the -apprehensions to which I had given utterance. Instead he hummed -pleasantly to himself as he put Wallace back on the shelf. He began -chuckling as a moment later he bethought himself to fill our glasses -afresh. - -"Did I ever tell you my cat story?" he asked cheerily, testing the knob -to see that the door was shut. "Once a little boy came in to his father -and said: 'Pa, we won't be troubled any more with those cats howling -about on our roof at night. I've just been looking out of the upstairs -window, and they're all out there fighting and screaming and tearing -each other to pieces. There won't be one of them alive by morning!' Then -the father replied: 'My son, you imagine a vain thing. When increasing -years shall have furnished your mind with a more copious store of -knowledge, you will grasp the fact that all this commotion and dire -disturbance which you report to me only signifies more cats.'" - -At this juncture the servant came in with the soda-water. We talked no -more of science that evening. - - - - -_Touching the Experimental Graft of a Utilitarian Spirit upon the -Aesthetic Instinct in our Sisters_ - - -I HAD strolled about the galleries of Burlington House for a couple of -hours on Press Day, looking a little at pictures here and there, but for -the most part contemplating with admiration the zeal and good faith of -the ladies and gentlemen who stopped, note-book in hand, before every -frame: when some one behind me gave a friendly tug at my sleeve. I -turned, to find myself confronted by a person I seemed not to know--a -small young woman in an alpine hat and a veil which masked everything -about her face except its dentigerous smile. Even as I looked I was -conscious of regret that, if acquaintances were to be made for me in -this spontaneous fashion, destiny had not selected instead a certain -tall, slender, dark young lady, clad all in black and cock's-plumes, -whom I had been watching at her work of notetaking in room after room, -with growing interest. Then, peering more closely through the veil, I -discovered that I was being accosted by Miss Timby-Hucks. - -"You didn't know me!" she said, with a vivacious half-giggle, as we -shook hands; "and you're not specially pleased to see me; and you're -asking yourself, 'What on earth is she doing here?' Now, don't deny it!" - -"Well, you know," I made awkward response--"of course--_Press_ day----" - -"Ah, but I belong to the Press," said Miss Timby-Hucks. - -"Happy Press! And since when?" - -"O it's nearly a fortnight now. And most _interesting_ I find the work. -You know, for a long time now I've been _so_ restless, _so_ anxious to -find some opening to a real career, where I might be my genuine self, -and be an active part of the great whirling stream of existence, and -concentrate my mind upon the actualities of life--don't you yourself -think it will be _just_ the thing for me?" - -"Undoubtedly," I replied without hesitation. "And do you find focussing -yourself on the actualities--ah--remunerative?" - -"Well," Miss Timby-Hucks explained, "nothing of mine has been printed -yet, you see, so that I don't know as to that. But I am assured it -will be all right. You see, I'm _very_ intimate with a cousin of Mrs -Umpelbaum, who is the wife of the proprietor of _Maida Vale_, and in -that way it came about. Lady-reporters never have any chance, I am told, -unless they have friends in the proprietor's family, or know the editor -extremely well. It all goes by favour, like--like----" - -"Like the dearest of all the actualities," I put in. "But how is it they -don't print your stuff?" - -"I haven't written any, as yet. The difficulty was to find a subject," -Miss Timby-Hucks rejoined. "O that awful 'subject'! I thought and thought -and thought till my head was fit to burst. I went to see Mrs Umpelbaum -herself, and asked her to suggest something. You know she writes a great -deal for the paper herself. She said they hadn't had any 'Reminiscences -of Carlyle' now for some weeks; but afterwards she agreed with me that -would not be quite the thing for one to _begin_ with. She couldn't -suggest anything else, except that I should have a chat with my -dressmaker. Very often in that way, she said, lady-reporters get the -most _entertaining_ revelations of gossip in high life. But it happened -that just then it was not--not exactly convenient--for me to call upon -my dressmaker; and so _that_ suggestion came to nothing, too." - -"I had no idea lady-journalism was so difficult," I remarked, with -sympathy. - -"O indeed, yes!" Miss Timby-Hucks went on. "One can't expect to be _en -rapport_, as we journalists say, with Society, without spending a great -deal of money. There is one lady-reporter, Mrs Umpelbaum told me, who -has made quite a leading position for herself, solely through -hairdressers and American dentists. But I don't mind admitting that that -would involve more of an outlay than I could afford, just at the -moment." - -"So you never got a subject?" I asked. - -"Yes; finally I did. I was over at the Grundys', telling my troubles, -and Uncle Dudley--you know, being so much with the girls, I always -call him that--Uncle Dudley said that the fashionable thing now -was interviews, and that lady-journalists did this better than -gentlemen-reporters because they had more nerve. By that I suppose he -meant a more delicate nervous organisation, quicker to grasp and absorb -fine shades of character. But that hardly helped me, because whom was I -to interview, and about what? _That_ was the question! But Uncle Dudley -thought a moment, and was ready with a suggestion. Everything depended, -he said, upon making a right start. I must pick out a personality and -a theme at once non-contentious and invested with popular interest His -idea was that I should begin by interviewing Mr T. M. Healy on 'The -Decline of the Deep-Sea Mock-Turtle Fisheries on the West Coast of -Ireland.' If I could get Mr Healy to talk frankly on this subject, he -felt sure that I should chain public attention at a bound." - -"Superb!" I cried. "And did you do it?" - -"No," Miss Timby-Hucks confessed; "I went to the House and sent in my -card, but it was another Irish Member who came out to see me--I think -his name was Mulhooly. He was very polite, and explained that since -some recent sad event in one of the Committee Rooms, fifteen I think -its number was, it was the rule of his party that, when a lady sent in -a card to one Member, some other Member answered it. It prevented -confusion, he said, and was not in antagonism to the expressed views of -the Church." - -"Talking of nothing," I said, leading the way over to a divan, on which -we seated ourselves: "you seem to have finally secured a subject. I -assume you are doing the Academy for _Maida Vale_." - -"Yes," replied Miss Timby-Hucks with gentle firmness; "you might say I -have _done_ it. I have been here since the very minute the doors opened, -and I've gone twelve times round. I wish I could have seen you earlier. -I should so like to have had your opinion of the various works as we -passed." - -"It is better not," I commented. "There are ladies present." - -The lady-reporter looked at me for a furtive instant dubiously. Then -she smiled a little under her veil. "You _do_ say such odd things!" she -remarked. "I am glad to see that a great many ladies _are_ present. -It shows how we are securing our proper recognition in journalism. -I believe there are actually more of us here than there are -gentlemen-reporters--I should say gentle-men-critics. And it is the -same in art, too. You can see--I've counted them up in my catalogue -here--there are this year two hundred and forty-four lady-artists -exhibiting in this Academy three hundred and forty-six works of art. -Think of that! Fifty of them are described as Mrs, and there are one -hundred and ninety-four who are unmarried." - -"Think of _that!_" I retorted. - -"And there are among them," Miss Timby-Hucks went on, "one Marchioness, -one Countess, one Baroness, and one plain Lady. I am going to begin my -article with this. I think it will be interesting, don't you?" - -"I'd be careful not to particularise about the plain Lady," I suggested. -"That might be _too_ interesting." - -She was over-full of her subject to smile. "No, I mean," she said, "as -showing how the ranks of British Art are being filled from the -very highest classes, and are appealing more and more to the female -intellect. I don't believe it will occur to any one else to count up in -the catalogue. So that will be original with me--to enlighten my sex as -to the glorious part they play in this year's Academy." - -"But have you seen their pictures?" I asked, repressing an involuntary -groan. - -"Every one!" replied Miss Timby-Hucks. "They are all good. There isn't -what I should call a bad one--that is, a Frenchy or immoral one--among -them. I shall say that, too, in my criticism; but of course I shall have -to word it carefully, because I fancy Mr Umpelbaum is a foreigner of -some sort--and you know they're all so sensitive about the superiority -of British Art." - -"It is their nature; they can't help it," I pointed out. "They try their -best, however, to master these unworthy emotions. Sometimes, indeed, -their dissimulation reaches a really high plane of endeavour." - -"They have nothing at all on the Continent like our Royal Academy, I am -told," said Miss Timby-Hucks. "That isn't generally known, is it? I had -thought of saying it." - -"It will be a safe statement," I assured her. "You might go further, -and assert that no other country at any stage of its history has had -anything like the Royal Academy. It is the unique blossom of British -civilisation." - -Miss Timby-Hucks seemed to like the phrase, and made a note of it on -the back of her catalogue. "Yes," she continued, "I thought of making -my criticism general, dealing with things like that. But I've got -some awfully interesting figures to put in. For example, there are -sixty-eight Academicians and Associates exhibiting: they have one -hundred and thirty-five oil paintings, sixteen water-colour or -black-and-white drawings, eight architectural designs, and twenty-three -pieces of sculpture--a total of one hundred and eighty-two works of art, -or two and sixty-seven hundredths each. I got at that by dividing the -total number of works by the total number of Academicians. Do you think -any one else will be likely to print that first in a daily paper? Mrs -Umpelbaum told me that _Maida Vale_ made a special point of new facts. I -don't think I shall say much about the pictures themselves. -What _is_ there to say about pictures by the Academicians? As I told -mamma this morning, they wouldn't be Academicians if they didn't paint -good pictures, would they? and good pictures speak for themselves. Of -course, I shall describe the subjects of Sir Frederic's pictures--by the -way, what _is_ a Hesperides?--and some of the others: I'll get you to -pick out for me a few leading names. But I shall make my main point the -splendid advance of lady-artists--I heard some one say in the other room -there'd never been half so many before--and the elevating effect this -has upon British Art. In fact, mightn't I say that is what makes British -Art what it is to-day?" - -"It is one of the reasons, undoubtedly," I assented, as I rose. "There -are others, however." - -"Ees, I know," said Miss Timby-Hucks: "the diffusion of Christian -principles amongst us, our high national morality, and the sanctity of -the English home. Mrs Albert said only last night that these lay at the -very foundation of British art." - -"Mrs Albert is a woman of discernment," I said, making a gesture of -farewell. - -But Miss Timby-Hucks on the instant thought of something. Her eyes -glistened, her two upper front teeth gleamed. "O, it's just occurred -to me!" she exclaimed, moving nearer to my side, and speaking-in -confidential excitement. "I know now how that lady-reporter manages with -the hairdressers and dentists. She doesn't pay them money at all. She -mentions their names in the papers instead. How dull of me not to have -thought of that before! Why--yes--I will!--I'll put my dressmaker among -the Private View celebrities!" - -One likes to be civil to people who are obviously going to succeed in -the world. I forthwith took Miss Timby-Hucks out to luncheon. - - - - -_Relating to Various Phenomena attending the Progress of the Sex along -Lines of the Greatest Resistance_ - - -My own idea," said Uncle Dudley, "is that women ought to be confined to -barracks during elections just the same as soldiers." - -"I was quite prepared to find _you_ entertaining views of that -character," remarked Miss Wallaby, with virginal severity. "Men who -have wandered about the less advanced parts of the earth, and spent long -periods of time in contact with inferior civilisations, quite generally -do feel that way. Life in the Colonies, and in similar rude and remote -regions, does produce that effect upon the masculine mind. But here -in England, the nerve-centre of the English-speaking race, the point -of concentration from which radiate all the impulses of refinement and -culture that distinguish our generation, men are coming to see these -matters in a different light. They no longer refuse to listen to the -overwhelming arguments in favour of entire feminine equality----" - -"Oh, _I_ admit _that_ at once," broke in Uncle Dudley. "But do women -nowadays believe in equality among themselves? In my youth they used to -devote pretty well all their energies to showing how much superior they -were to other women." - -"I spoke of the masculine attitude," said Miss Wallaby, coldly. "Viewed -intelligently, the gradations and classifications which we maintain -among ourselves, at the cost of such infinite trouble and personal -self-sacrifice, are the very foundation upon which rests the -superstructure of British Society." - -"I admit that, too," Uncle Dudley hastened to put in. "Really, we are -getting on very nicely." - -Miss Wallaby ignored the interruption altogether. "The point is," she -went on, "that the male mind in England is coming--with characteristic -slowness, no doubt, but still coming--to recognise the necessity of -securing the very fullest and most complete participation of my sex in -public affairs. As the diffusion of enlightenment progresses, men will -more and more abandon the coarse and egoistic standards of their days of -domination by brute force, and turn instead to the ideals of purity and -sweetness which Woman in Politics typifies. It has been observed that -one may pick out the future rulers of England in each coming generation -by scanning the honour-lists of Oxford and Cambridge. How happy a day it -will be for England, and civilisation, when this is said of Girton and -Newnham as well!" - -"I spent a summer in the State of Maine once, some years ago," -said Uncle Dudley. "That's the State, you know, where they've had a -Prohibition law now for nearly forty years. The excess of females -over males is larger there, I believe, than it is anywhere else in the -world--owing to the fact that all the young men who are worth their salt -emigrate to some other State as soon as they've saved up enough for a -railway-ticket. The men that you do see lounging around there, in the -small villages, are all minding the baby, or sitting on the doorstep -shelling peas, or out in the backyard, with their mouths full of -clothes-pins, hanging up sheets and pillow-cases on the line to dry. The -women there take a very active part in politics--and every census shows -that Maine's population has diminished. Shipbuilding has almost ceased, -farms are being abandoned yearly, the State is mortgaged up to its -eyebrows, and you get nothing but fried clams and huckleberry-pie for -breakfast--but, of course, I suppose there _is_ a good deal of purity -and sweetness." - -Miss Wallaby rose and walked away from us; the black velvet riband -around her neck, the glint of gas-light on her eyeglasses, the wearied -haughtiness on her swarthy, high-nosed face, seemed to unite in saying -to us that we were very poor creatures indeed. - -"She's been down to the Retired Licensed Victuallers' Division of -Surrey, you know," exclaimed Uncle Dudley, "making speeches in favour of -the sitting Member, old Sir Watkyn Hump." - -"Ah, that accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nut," I remarked. - -"Well, no," my friend mused aloud, "I fancy _young_ Hump accounts for -that. See--she's gone and cut him out from under the Timby-Hucks's -guns." - -It was at one of Mrs Albert Grundy's evenings at home, and Uncle Dudley -and I now had possession of a quiet corner to ourselves. From this -pleasant vantage-ground we indolently surveyed the throng surrounding -Mrs Albert at the piano end of the room, and stretching off through the -open double doors into the adjoining chamber--a throng of dazzling -arms and shoulders, of light-hued satins and fluffy stuffs, of waving -feathers, and splendid piles of braided hair, and mostly comely faces -wreathed in politic smiles. Here and there the mass of pinks and whites -and creams was broken abruptly by a black coat with a hat under its -sleeve. Dudley and I idly commented upon the fact that almost all these -coats belonged to undersized elderly men, generally with spectacles -and a grey beard, and we noted with placid interest that as they came -in--announced in stentorian tones as Mr and Mrs So-and-so--their wives -as a rule were several inches taller and many many years younger than -themselves. - -Then it was entertaining, too, to watch Mrs Albert shake hands with -these newcomers. She knew just at what angle each preferred that -ceremony, keeping her knuckles well down in welcoming the more -sophisticated and up-to-date people from about Cromwell Road and the -Park, but elevating them breast-high to greet those from around Brompton -way, and hoisting them quite up to the chin-level with the guests -from beyond Earl's Court, who were still in the toils of last year's -fashions. - -"Smart woman, that sister of mine!" said Uncle Dudley. "See the way -she's manoeuvred her shoulder around in front of the Timby-Hucks's nose, -so as to head her off from getting in and being introduced to the Hon. -Mrs Coon-Alwyn. And--hello! by George, she's won!--there's the Dowager -Countess of Thames-Ditton coming in! You'll never know the anguish, my -boy, that was caused by the uncertainty whether she would come or not. -Emily hasn't been able to eat these past four days, expecting every -moment the knock of the postman bringing her ladyship's refusal to come. -The only thing that enabled her to keep up, she said, was fixing her -mind resolutely on the fact that the aristocracy are notoriously -impolite about answering invitations. But now, happy woman--her cup is -fairly running over. This is a great night for Fernbank. -And--look!--hanged if that girl isn't trying to edge her way in there, -too! See how prettily Emily managed that? Oh, Timby-Hucks! Timby-Hucks! -you've put your foot in it this time. You'll never figure on the -free-list for _this_ show again." - -Misfortune indeed claimed Miss Timby-Hucks for its very own. Mrs Albert -had twice adroitly interposed her well-rounded shoulders between that -enterprising young woman and social eminence--the second time with quite -obvious determination of purpose. And there, too, behind the door, young -Mr Hump bent his sloping shoulders and cliff-like collar humbly over -Miss Wallaby's chair, listening with all his considerable ears to her -selected monologues. Ah, the vanity of human aspirations! - -Casting an heroic glance over the field of defeat, Miss Timby-Hucks's -eye lighted upon our corner, and on the instant her two upper front -teeth gleamed in a smile of relief. At all events, _we_ were left--and -she came towards us with a decisive step. - -"I've hardly seen you since the Academy," she said in her sprightly way -to me, after we had all shaken hands, and she had seated herself between -us on the sofa. - -"And how did your article come out?" I asked politely. - -"Oh, it never came out at all," she replied. "It seems it got left over -too long. The editor _said_ it was owing to the pressure of interesting -monkey-language matter upon his columns; but _I_ believe it was just -because I'm a lady journalist, and so does the cousin of Mrs Umpelbaum, -the proprietor's wife. It must have been that--because, long after the -editor gave this excuse, there were the daily papers still printing -their criticisms, 'Eleventh Notice of the Royal Academy,' 'The Spring -Exhibitions--Fourteenth Article,' and so on. I taxed him with it--told -him I heard they had some still left, that they were going to begin -printing again after the elections were over--but he said it was -different with dailies. All _they_ needed were advertisements and market -reports, and police news, and telegrams about the Macedonian frontier, -and they could print art criticisms and book reviews whole years after -they should have appeared, because nobody ever read them when they were -printed--but weeklies had to be absolutely up to date." - -"Evil luck does pursue you!" I said, compassionately. "So you haven't -got into print at all?" - -"O I'm not a bit cast down," replied Miss Timby-Hucks, with jaunty -confidence. "There's no such word as fail in my book. The way to succeed -is just to keep pegging away. I know of one lady-journalist who went -every day for nine weeks to interview the Countess of Wimps about her -second son's having been warned off Newmarket Heath. Every day she was -refused admittance--once she got into the hall and was put out by a -brutal footman--but it never unnerved her. Each morning she went again. -And she would have succeeded by this time, probably--only the Countess -suddenly left England to spend the summer in Egypt." - -"Yes, Wady Halfa _has_ its advantages, even in July," said Uncle Dudley. -"It is warm, and there are insects, but one is allowed by law to kill -them--in Egypt." - - - - -_Illustrating the operation of Vegetables and Feminine Duplicity upon -the Concepts of Maternal Responsibility_ - - -I FELT that I was on sufficiently intimate terms with Mrs Albert Grundy -to tell her that she was not looking well. She gave a weary little sigh -and said she knew it. - -Indeed, poor lady, it was apparent enough. She has taken of late to -wearing her hair drawn up from her forehead over a roll--the effect of -mouse-tints at which Nature is beginning to hint, being frankly helped -out by powder. Everybody about Fernbank recognises that in some way -this reform has altered the whole state of affairs. The very servant -who comes to the door, or who brings in the tea-things, seems to carry -herself in a different manner since the change has been made. Of course, -it is by no means a new fashion, but it was not until the Dowager -Countess of Thames-Ditton brought it in person to Fernbank that Mrs -Albert could be quite sure of its entire suitability. Up to that time it -had seemed to her a style rather adapted to lady lecturers and the wives -of men who write: and though Mrs Albert has the very highest regard for -literature--quite dotes on it, as she says--she is somewhat inclined to -sniff at its wives. - -We all feel that the change adds character to Mrs Albert's face--or -rather exhibits now that true managing and resourceful temper, which was -formerly obscured and weakened by a fringe. But the new arrangement has -the defects of its qualities. It does not lend itself to tricks. -The countenance beneath it does not easily dissemble anxiety or mask -fatigue. And both were written broadly over Mrs Albert's fine face. -"Yes," she said, "I know it." - -The consoling suggestion that soon the necessity of giving home-dinners -to the directors in her husband's companies would have ended, and -that then a few weeks out of London, away somewhere in the air of the -mountains or the sea, would bring back all her wonted strength and -spirits, did no good. She shook her head and sighed again. - -"No," she said, "it isn't physical. That is to say, it _is_ physical, but -the cause is mental. It is over-worry." - -"Of all people on earth--_you!_" I replied reproachfully. "Why think -of it--a husband who is the dream of docile propriety, a competency -broadening each year into a fortune, a home like this, such servants, -such appointments, such a circle of admiring friends--and then your -daughters! Why, to be the mother of such a girl as Ermyntrude-------" - -"Precisely," interrupted Mrs Albert. "To be the mother of such a girl, -as you say. Little you know what it really means! But, no--I know what -you were going to say--_please_ don't! it is too sad a subject." - -I could do nothing but feebly strive to look my surprise. To think -of sadness connected with tall, handsome, good-hearted Ermie, was -impossible. - -"You think I am exaggerating, I know," Mrs Albert went on. "Ah, you do -not know!" - -"Nothing could be more evident," I replied, "than that I don't know. I -can't even imagine what on earth you are driving at." - -Mrs Albert paused for a moment, and pushed the toe of her wee slipper -meditatively back and forth on the figure of the carpet. - -"Yes, I _will_ tell you," she said at last. "You are such an old friend -of the family that you are almost one of us. And besides, you are always -sympathetic--so different from Dudley. Well, the point is this. You know -the young man--Sir Watkyn's son--Mr Eustace Hump." - -"I have met him here," I assented. - -"Well, I doubt if you will meet him here any more," Mrs Albert said, -impressively. - -"The deprivation shall not drive me to despair or drink," I assured her. -"I will watch over myself." - -"I dare say you did not care much for him," said Mrs Albert. "I know -Dudley didn't. But, all the same, he _was_ eligible. He is an only son, -and his father is a Baronet--an hereditary title--and they are _rolling_ -in wealth. And Eustace himself, when you get to know him, has some very -admirable qualities. You know he _writes!_" - -"I have heard him say so," I responded, perhaps not over graciously. - -"O, _regularly_, for a number of weekly papers. It is understood that -quite frequently he gets paid--not of course that that matters to -him--but his associations are distinctly literary. I have always felt -that with his tastes and connections his wife--granting of course that -she was the right kind of woman--might at last set up a real literary -_salon_ in London. We have wanted one so long, you know." - -"Have we?" I murmured listlessly, striving all the while to guess what -relation all this bore to the question of Ermyntrude. I built up in my -mind a hostile picture of the odious Hump, with his shoulders sloping -off like a German wine-bottle, his lean neck battlemented in high -starched walls of linen, and his foolish conceited face--and leaped -hopefully to the conclusion that Ermyntrude had rejected him. I could -not keep the notion to myself. - -"Well--has she sent him about his business?" I asked, making ready to -beam with delight. - -"No," said Mrs Albert, ruefully. "It never got to that, so far as I can -gather--but at all events it is all over. I expect every morning now -to read the announcement in the _Morning Post_ that a marriage has been -arranged between him and--and--Miss Wallaby!" - -I sat upright, and felt myself smiling. "What!--the girl with the black -ribbon round her neck?" I asked comfortably. - -"It would be more appropriate round her heart," remarked Mrs Albert, -with bitterness in her tone. "Why, do you know? her mother, for all that -she's Lady Wallaby, hasn't an 'h' in her whole composition." - -"Well, neither has old Sir Watkyn Hump," I rejoined pleasantly. "So it's -a fair exchange." - -"Ah, but _he_ can afford it," put in Mrs Albert. "But the -Wallabys--well, I can only say that I had a right to look for different -treatment at _their_ hands. How, do you suppose, they would ever have -been asked to the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn's garden-party, or met Lady -Thames-Ditton, or been put in society generally, if I had not taken an -interest in them? Why, that girl's father, old Sir Willoughby Wallaby, -was never anything but chief of police, or something like that, out in -some Australian convict settlement. I _have_ heard he was knighted by -mistake, but of course my lips are sealed." - -"I suppose they really have behaved badly," I said, half -interrogatively. - -"Badly!" echoed the wrathful mother. "I will leave you to judge. It was -done here, quite under my own roof. You know Miss Wallaby volunteered -her services, and went down into the Retired Licensed Victuallers' -Division of Surrey to electioneer for Sir Watkyn. Do you know, I never -suspected anything. And then Miss Timby-Hucks, she went down also, but -they rather cold-shouldered her, and she came back, and she told me -things, and _still_ I wouldn't believe it. Well then--three weeks -ago--my Evening At Home--you were here--the Wallabys came as large as -life, and that scheming young person manoeuvred about until she got -herself alone with Eustace and my Ermyntrude, and then she told her a -scene she had witnessed during her recent election experiences. There -was a meeting for Sir Watkyn at some place, I can't recall the name, -and there were a good many of the other side there, and they hooted and -shouted, and raised disturbance, until at last there was one speaker -they would not hear at all. All this that girl told Ermyntrude -seriously, and as if she were overflowing with indignation. And then she -came to the part where the speaker stood his ground and tried to make -himself heard, and the crowd yelled louder than ever, and still he -doggedly persisted--and then someone threw a large vegetable marrow, -soft and very ripe, and it hit that speaker just under the ear, and -burst all over him!" - -"Ha-ha-ha!" I ejaculated. "The vegetable marrow in politics is new--full -of delightful possibilities and seeds--wonder it has never been thought -of before." - -"Yes," said Mrs Albert, with a sigh. "Ermyntrude also thought it was -funny. She has a very keen sense of humour--quite too keen. _She_ -laughed, too!" - -"And why not?" I asked. - -"Why not?" demanded Mrs Albert, with shining eyes. "Because the story -had been told just to trap her into laughing--because--because the -speaker upon whom that unhappy vegetable marrow exploded was--_Eustace -Hump!_" - - - - -_Containing Thoughts upon the Great Unknown, to which are added -Speculations upon her Hereafter_ - - -It is not often that I find the time to take part in Mrs Albert -Grundy's Thursdays--the third and fifth Thursdays of each month, from 4 -to 6.30 P.M.--but on a certain afternoon pleasant weather and the sense -of long-accrued responsibility drew me to Fernbank. - -It was really very nice, after one got there. Perhaps it would have been -less satisfactory had escape from the drawing-room been a more difficult -matter. Inside that formal chamber, with its blinds down-drawn to shield -the carpet from the sun, the respectable air hung somewhat heavily about -the assembled matronhood of Brompton and the Kensingtons. The units in -this gathering changed from time to time--for Mrs Albert's circle is a -large and growing one--but the effect of the sum remained much the same. -The elderly ladies talked about the amiability and kindliness of -the Duchess of Teck; and argued the Continental relationships of the -Duchesses of Connaught and Albany, first into an apparently hopeless -tangle of _burgs_ and _hausens_ and _zollerns_ and _sweigs_, then -triumphantly out again into the bright daylight of well-ordered and -pellucid genealogy. The younger wives spoke in subdued voices of more -juvenile Princesses on the lower steps of the throne, with occasional -short-winged flights across the North Sea in imaginative search of a -suitable bride for the then unwedded Duke of York, if an importation -should be found to be necessary--about which opinions might in all -loyalty differ. The few young girls who sat dutifully here beside -their mammas or married sisters talked of nothing at all, but -smiled confusedly and looked away whenever another's glance, caught -theirs--and, I daresay, thought with decent humility upon Marchionesses. - -But outside, on the garden-lawn at the rear of the house, the _Almanach -de Gotha_ threw no shadow, and the pungent scent of jasmine and lilies -drove the leathery odour of Debrett from the soft summer air. The gentle -London haze made Whistlers and Maitlands of the walls and roof-lines and -chimney-pots beyond. The pretty girls of Fernbank held court here on the -velvet grass, with groups of attendant maidens from sympathetic -Myrtle Lodges and Cedarcrofts and Chestnut Villas--selected homesteads -stretching all the way to remote West Kensington. They said there was -no one left in London. Why, as I sat apart in the shade of the ivy -overhanging the garden path, and watched this out-door panorama of the -Grundys' friendships, it seemed as if I had never comprehended before -how many girls there really were in the world. - -And how sweet it was to look upon these damsels, with their dainty -sailor's hats of straw, their cheeks of Devon cream and damask, their -tall and shapely forms, their profiles of faultless classical delicacy! -What if, in time, they too must sit inside, by preference, and babble -of royalties and the peerage, and politely uncover those two aggressive -incisors of genteel maturity when they were asked to have a third cup -of tea? That stage, praise heaven, should be many years removed. We will -have no memento mori bones or tusks out here in the sunlit garden--but -only tennis balls, and the inspiring chalk-bands on the sward, and the -noble grace of English girlhood, erect and joyous in the open air. -# Much as I delighted in this spectacle, it forced upon me as well a -certain vague sense of depression. These lofty and lovely creatures were -strangers to me. I do not mean that their names were unknown to me, or -that I had not exchanged civil words with many of them, or that I might -not be presented to, and affably received by, them all. The feeling was, -rather, that if it were possible for me to marry them all, we still to -the end of our days would remain strangers. I should never know what to -say to them; still less should I ever be able to guess what they were -thinking. - -The tallest and most impressive of all the bevy--the handsome girl -in the pale brown frock with the shirt-front and jacketed blouse, -who stands leaning with folded hands upon her racket like an indolent -Diana--why, I punted her about the whole reach from Sunbury to Walton -during the better part of a week, only last summer, not to mention -sitting beside her at dinner every evening on the houseboat. We were so -much together, in truth, that my friends round about, as I came to know -afterwards, canvassed among themselves the prospect of our arranging -never to separate. Yet I feel that I do not know this girl. We are -friends, yes; but we are not acquainted with each other. - -More than once--perhaps a dozen times--in driving through the busier -of London streets, my fancy has been caught by this thing: a -hansom whirling smartly by, the dark hood of which frames a woman's -face--young, wistful, ivory-hued. It is like the flash exposure of -a kodak--this bald instant of time in which I see this face, and -comprehend that its gaze has met mine, and has burned into my memory a -lightning picture of something I should not recognise if I saw it again, -and cannot at all reproduce to myself, and probably would not like if I -could, yet which leaves me with the feeling that I am richer than I was -before. In that fractional throb of space there has been snatched an -unrehearsed and unprejudiced contact of human souls--projected from one -void momentarily to be swept forward into another; and though not the -Judgment Day itself shall bring these two together again, they know each -other. - -Now that I look again at the goddess in the pale-brown gown, these -unlabelled faces of the flitting hansoms seem by comparison those of -familiar companions and intimates. - -I get no sense of human communion from that serene and regular -countenance, with its exquisite nose, its short upper-lip and glint of -pearls along the bowed line of the mouth, its correctly arched brows and -wide-open, impassive blue eyes. I can see it with prophetic admiration -out-queening all the others at Henley, or at Goodwood, or on the great -staircase of Buckingham Palace. I can imagine it at Monte Carlo, flushed -a little at the sight of retreating gold; or at the head of a great -noble's table, coldly poised above satin throat and shoulders, and -stirring no muscle under the free whisperings of His Excellency to the -right. I can conceive it in the Divorce Court, bearing with metallic -equanimity the rude scrutiny of a thousand unlicensed eyes. But my fancy -wavers and fails at the task of picturing that face at my own fireside, -with the light of the home-hearth painting the fulness of her rounded -chin, and reflecting back from her glance, as we talk of men and books -and things, the frank gladness of real comradeship. - -But--tchut!--I have no fireside, and the comrades I like best -are playing halfcrown whist at the club; and these are all nice -girls--hearty, healthful, handsome girls, who can walk, run, dance, -swim, scull, skate, ride as no others have known or dared to do since -the glacial wave of Christianity depopulated the glades and dells of -Olympus. They will mate after their kind, and in its own good time along -will come a new generation of straight, strong-limbed, thin-lipped, -pink-and-white girls, and of tow-headed, deep-chested lads, their -brothers--boys who will bully their way through Rugby and Harrow, -misspell and misapprehend their way into the Army, the Navy, and the -Civil Service, and spread themselves over the habitable globe, to rule, -through sheer inability to understand, such Baboos and Matabele and mere -Irishry as Imperial destiny delivers over to them. - -The vision is not wholly joyous, as it with diffidence projects itself -beyond, into that further space where new strange other generations -walk--the girls still taller and more coldly tubbed, the boys astride -a yet more temerarious saddle of dull dominion. Reluctant prophecy -discerns beneath their considerable feet the bruised fragments of many -antique trifles--the _bric--brac_ of an extinct sentimental fraction -that had a sense of humour and could spell--and, to please mamma, the -fig-leaves have quite overspread and hidden the statues in their garden. -But power is there, and empire; they still more serenely loom above the -little foreign folks who cook, and sing to harps and fiddles, and paint -for their amusement; such as it is under their shaping, they possess the -earth. - -So, as the sun goes down in the Hammersmith heavens, I take off my hat, -and salute the potential mothers of the New Rome. - - - - -_Glancing at some Modern Aspects of Master John Gutenberg's ingenious -but Over-rated Invention_ - - -It was very pleasant thus to meet Uncle Dudley in the Strand. Only here -and there is one who can bear that test. Whole legions of our friends, -decent and deeply reputable people, fall altogether out of the picture, -so to speak, on this ancient yet robust thoroughfare. They do very well -indeed in Chelsea or Highgate or the Pembridge country, where they are -at home: there the surroundings fit them to a nicety; there they produce -upon one only amiable, or at the least, natural, impressions. But to -encounter them in the Strand is to be shocked by the blank incongruity -of things. It is not alone that they give the effect of being lost--of -wandering helplessly in unfamiliar places. They offend your perceptions -by revealing limitations and shortcomings which might otherwise have -been hidden to the end of time. You see suddenly that they are not such -good fellows, after all. Their spiritual complexions are made up for the -dim light which pervades the outskirts of the four-mile radius--and go -to pieces in the jocund radiance of the Strand. It is flat presumption -on their part to be ambling about where the ghosts of Goldsmith and -Johnson walk, where Prior and Fielding and our Dick Steele have passed. -Instinctively you go by, looking the other way. - -It was quite different with Uncle Dudley. You saw at once that he -belonged to the Strand, as wholly as any of our scorned and scornful -sisters on its comers, competing with true insular doggedness against -German cheeks and raddled accents; as fully as any of its indigenous -loafers, hereditary in their riverside haunts from Tudor times, with -their sophisticated joy in drink and dirt, their large self-confidence -grinning through rags and sooty grime. It seemed as if I had always -associated Uncle Dudley with the Strand. - -He was standing in contemplation before a brave window, wherein American -cheese, Danish butter, Norwegian fish, Belgian eggs, German sausages, -Hungarian bacon, French vegetables, Australian apples, and Algerian -fruits celebrate the catholicity of the modern British diet. He turned -when I touched his shoulder, and drew my arm through his. - -"Sir," said Uncle Dudley, "let us take a walk along the Strand to the -Law Courts, where I conceive that the tide of human existence gets the -worst of it with unequalled regularity and dispatch." - -On his way he told me that his gout had quite vanished, owing to his -foresight in collecting a large store of the best medical advice, and -then thoughtfully and with pains disregarding it all. He demonstrated to -me at two halting places that his convalescence was compatible with rich -and strong drinks. He disclosed to me, as we sauntered eastward, his -purpose in straying thus far afield. - -"You know Mrs Albert is really a kindly soul," he said. "It isn't in her -to keep angry. You remember how sternly she swore that she and Fernbank -had seen the last of Miss Timby-Hucks. It only lasted five weeks--and -now, bless me if the girl isn't more at home on our backs than ever. -She's shunted herself off, now, into a new branch of journalism--it -seems that there are a good many branches in these days." - -"It has been noticed," I assented. - -"She doesn't write any more," he explained, "that is, _for_ the papers. -She goes instead to the Museum or somewhere, and reads carefully every -daily and weekly journal, I believe, in England. Her business is to pick -out possible libels in them--and to furnish her employers, a certain -firm of solicitors, with a daily list of these. They communicate with -the aggrieved people, notifying them that they _are_ aggrieved, which -they very likely would not otherwise have known, and the result is, of -course, a very fine and spirited crop of litigation." - -"Then that accounts for all the recent----" - -"Perhaps not quite _all_," put in Uncle Dudley. "But the Timby-Hucks is -both energetic and vigilant, and she tells me she is doing splendidly. -She is very enthusiastic about it, naturally. She says that while -the money is, of course, an object, her real satisfaction is in the -humanitarian aspects of her work." - -"I am not sure that I follow," I said doubtingly. - -"No, I didn't altogether myself at the start," said Uncle Dudley, "but -as she explains it, it is very simple. You see business is in a bad -way in London--worse, they say, than usual. The number of unemployed is -something dreadful to think of, so I am told by those who have thought -of it. There are many thousands of people with no food, no fire, no -clothes to speak of. Most people are discouraged about this. They can't -see how the thing can be improved. But Miss Timby-Hucks has a very -ingenious idea. Why, she asks, do not all the Unemployed sue all the -newspapers for libel? Do you catch the notion?" - -"By George!" I exclaimed, "that is a bold, comprehensive thought!" - -"Yes, isn't it?" cried Uncle Dudley. "I am immensely attracted by it. -For one thing, it is so secure, so certain! Broadly speaking, there are -no risks at all. I suppose there has never yet been a case, no matter -what its so-called merits, in which the English newspaper hasn't been -cast in damages of some sort Nobody is too humble or too shady to get -a verdict against an editor or newspaper proprietor. Miss Timby-Hucks -relates several most touching instances where the wolf was actually at -the door, the children shoeless and hungry, the mother prostrated by -drink, rain coming through the roof and so on--and everything has been -changed to peace and contentment by the happy thought of bringing a -libel suit. The father now wears a smile and a white waistcoat; the -drains have been repaired; the little children, nicely washed and -combed, kick each other's shins with brand new boots, and sing -cheerfully beneath a worsted-work motto of 'God bless our Home!' I find -myself much affected by the thought." - -"You had always a tender heart," I responded. "I suppose there would be -no trouble about the Judges?" - -"Not the least in the world," said Uncle Dudley, with confidence. "Of -course the Bench would have to be greatly enlarged, but there need be no -fear on that score. There is a mysterious but beneficent rule, my boy, -which you can always count upon in this making of judges--no matter how -hail-fellow-well-met an eminent lawyer may be, no matter how intimate -his connection with newspapers, how large his indebtedness to them for -his career--the moment he gets on the Bench he catches the full, fine, -old-crusted judicial spirit toward the Press. The scales fall with a -bang from his eyes, and he sees the editor and newspaper proprietor -as they really are--designing criminals, mercenary reprobates, social -pests--to be lectured and bullied and put down. O, you may rely on the -Judges! They are as safe as a new Liberal peer is to vote Tory." - -"But the 'power of the Press'?" I urged. "If the newspapers combine in -protest, and----" - -"You talk at random!" said Uncle Dudley almost austerely. "I should say -the most certain, the most absolutely reliable, element in the whole -case is the fact that newspapers do not combine. Whenever one editor -gets hit, all the others grin. One journal is mulcted in heavy damages: -the rest have all a difficulty in dissembling their delight. You read in -natural history that kites are given to falling upon one of their kind -which gets wounded or decrepit, and picking out its eyes. Well, kites -are also made of newspapers." - -"And juries?" I began to ask. - -"Here we are," remarked Uncle Dudley, turning in toward the guarded -portals of the great hall. - -"I have a friend among the attendants here, a thoughtful and discerning -man. I will learn from him where we may look for the spiciest case. He -takes a lively interest in the flaying of editors. I believe he was once -a printer. He will tell us where the axe gleams most savagely to-day: -where; we shall get the most journalistic blood for our money. You were -speaking of juries. Just take a look at one of them--if you are not -afraid of spoiling your luncheon--and you will see that they speak for -themselves. They regard all newspapers as public enemies--particularly -when the betting tips have been more misleading than usual. They stand -by their kind. They 'give the poor man a chance' without hesitation, -without fail. They are here to avenge the discovery of movable types, -and they do it. Come with me, and witness the disembowelling of a daily, -the hamstringing of a sub-editor--a publisher felled by the hand of the -Law like a bullock. Since the bear-pits of Bankside were closed there -has been no such sport." - -Unhappily, it turned out that none of the Judges had come down to the -Courts that day. There was a threat of east wind in the air. "You see, -if they don't live, to a certain age they get no pensions, and their -heirs turn a key in the lock on the old gentlemen in weather like this," -explained Uncle Dudley, turning disappointedly away. - - - - -_Detailing certain Prudential Measures taken during the Panic incident -to a Late Threatened Invasion_ - - -I HOPE," said Mrs Albert, "that I am as free to admit my errors in -judgment as another. Evidently there has been a mistake in this matter, -and it is equally obvious that I am the one who must have made it. I did -not need to have this pointed out to me, Dudley. What I looked to you -for was advice, counsel, sympathy. You seem not to realise at all how -important this is to me. A false step now may ruin everything--and you -simply sit there and grin!" - -"My dear sister," replied Uncle Dudley, smoothing his face, "the smile -was involuntary. It shall not recur. I was only thinking of Albert's -enthusiasm for the----" - -"Yes, I know!" put in Mrs Albert; "for that girl with the zouave -jacket----" - -"_And_ the scarlet petticoat," prompted Uncle Dudley. - -"_And_ the crinoline," said the lady. - -"O, he did not insist upon that. I recall his exact words. 'Whether this -under-garment,' he said, 'be made of some stiff material like horsehair, -or by means of steel hoops, is a mere question of detail.' No, Albert -expressly kept an open mind on that point." - -"I agree with you," remarked Mrs Albert coldly, "to the extent that he -certainly does keep his mind on it. He has now reverted to the subject, -I should think, at least twenty times. I am not so blind as you may -imagine. I notice that that Mr Labouchere also keeps on referring, every -week, to another girl in _her_ zouave jacket, whom _he_ remembers with -equal fondness, apparently." - -"Yes," put in Uncle Dudley, "those words about the 'stiff material like -horsehair' _were_ in _Truth_. I daresay Albert simply read them -there, and just unconsciously repeated them. We often do inadvertent, -unthinking things of that sort." - -Mrs Albert shook her head. "It is nothing to me, of course," she said, -"but I cannot help feeling that the middle-aged father of a family might -concentrate his thoughts upon something nobler, something higher, than -the recollection of the charms of a red petticoat, thirty years ago. -That is so characteristic of men. They cannot discuss a question -broadly----" - -"Think not?" queried Uncle Dudley, with interest. "You should listen at -the keyhole sometime, after you have led the ladies out from dinner." - -"I mean personally, in a general way. They always particularise. Albert, -for example, allows all his views on this very important question to be -coloured by the fact that when he was a young man he admired some girl -in a short red Balmoral petticoat. Whenever conversation touches -upon any phase of the whole subject of costume, out he comes with his -tiresome adulation of that particular garment. Of course, I ask no -questions--I should prefer not to be informed--I try not even to draw -inferences--but I notice that Ermyntrude is beginning to observe the -persistency with which her father----" - -"My good Emily," urged Uncle Dudley, consolingly, "far back in the -Sixties we all liked that girl; we couldn't help ourselves--she was -the only girl there was. And we think of her fondly still--we old -fellows--because for us she was also the last there was! When she went -out, lo and behold! we too had gone out, not to come back any more. When -Albert and I babble about a scarlet petticoat, it is only as a symbol of -our own far-away youth. O delicious vision!--the bright, bright red, the -skirt that came drooping down over it, not hiding too much that pretty -little foot and ankle, the dear zouave jacket moulding itself so -delicately to the persuasive encircling arm----" - -"Dudley! I really must recall you to yourself," said Mrs Albert. "We -were speaking of quite another matter. I am in a very serious dilemma. -First of all, as I explained to you, to please the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn -I became one of the Vice-Presidents of the Friendly Divided Skirt -Association. You know how useful she can be, in helping to bring -Ermyntrude out successfully. And of course everybody _knew_ that, even -if we _did_ have them _made_, we should never _wear_ them. That was -_quite_ out of the question." - -"And then?" asked Uncle Dudley. - -"Well, then, let me see--yes, next came the Neo-Dress-Improver League. -I never understood what the object was, precisely; it was a kind of -secession from the other, led by the Countess of Wimps, and I needn't -tell you that she is of the _utmost_ importance to us, and there was -simply _nothing_ for me to do but to become a Lady Patroness of _that_. -You were in extremely nice company--there were seven or eight ladies of -title among the Patronesses, our names all printed together in beautiful -little gilt letters--and you really weren't committed to anything that -I could make out. No--_that_ was all right. I should do the same -thing again, under the circumstances. No, the trouble came with the -Amalgamated Anti-Crinoline Confederacy. That was where I was too hasty, -I think." - -"That's the thing with the protesting post-cards, isn't it?" inquired -Uncle Dudley. - -"That very feature of it alone ought to have warned me," Mrs Albert -answered with despondency. "My own better sense should have told me -that post-cards were incompatible with selectness. But you see, the -invitations were sent out by the authoress of _The Street-Sprinkler's -Secret_, and that gave me the impression that it was to be literary--to -represent Culture and the Arts, you know; and that appealed to me, of -course, very strongly." - -"I have always feared that your literary impulses would run away with -you," Uncle Dudley declared gravely. - -"It is my weak side; I don't deny it," replied his sister. "Where -letters and authorship, and that sort of thing, you know, are concerned, -it is my nature to be sympathetic. And besides, the Dowager Lady -Thames-Ditton was very pronounced in favour of the movement, and I -_couldn't_ fly in the face of that, could I? I must say, though, that I -had my misgivings almost from the first. Miss Wallaby told the Rev. Mr -Grayt-Scott that a lady she knew had looked over quite a peck or more of -the post-cards which came in one day, and they were nine-tenths of them -from Earl's Court." - -"Yes," remarked Uncle Dudley, "I think I have heard that the post-card -reaches its most luxuriant state of literary usefulness in that -locality. It was from that point that they tried to rush the -Laureateship, you know." - -"Well, you can imagine how I felt when I heard it. It is all well enough -to be literary--nobody realises that more than I do--and it is all very -well to be loyal--of course! But one draws the line at Earl's Court--at -least, that part of it. I say frankly that it serves me right. I should -have known better. One thing I cannot be too thankful for--Ermyntrude -did not send a post-card. Some blessed instinct prompted me to tell her -there was no hurry about it--that I did not like to see young girls -too forward in such matters. And now--why--who knows--Dudley! I have an -idea! Ermie shall join the Crinoline Defence League!" - -"I see--the family will hedge on the crinoline issue. Capital!" - -"You know, after all, we may have to wear them. It's quite as likely as -not. The old Duchess of West Ham is President of the League, and she is -very influential in the highest quarters. Her Grace, I understand, _is_ -somewhat bandy, but she has always maintained the strictest Christian -respectability, and her action in this matter will count for a great -deal. Just think, if she should happen to take a fancy to Ermyntrude! -That Miss Wallaby has thrust herself forward till she is actually a -member of the Council, and she is going to deliver an address on 'The -Effect of Modesty on National Morals.' She told our curate that at -one of the meetings of the Council she came within an ace of being -introduced to the Duchess herself. Now surely, if _she_ can accomplish -all this, Ermie ought to be able to do still more. Tell me, Dudley, what -do _you_ think?" - -"I think," replied Uncle Dudley musingly, "I think that the scarlet -petticoat, _with_ the zouave jack----" - -Mrs Albert interrupted him with sternness. "Don't you see," she -demanded, "that if it _does_ come, the dear girl will share in the -credit of bringing it in, and if it doesn't come, I shall have the -advantage of having helped to stave it off. Whichever side wins, there -we are." - -Uncle Dudley rose, and looked thoughtfully out upon the fog, and stroked -his large white moustache in slow meditation. "Yes--undoubtedly," he -said at last, "there we are." - - - - -_Dealing with the Deceptions of Nature, and the Freedom from, Illusion -Inherent in the Unnatural_ - - -There was once a woman--obviously a thoughtful woman--who remarked that -she had noticed that if she managed to live till Friday, she invariably -survived the rest of the week. I did not myself know this philosopher, -who is preserved to history in one of Roscoe Conkling's speeches, but -her discovery always recurs to me about this time of year, when February -begins to disclose those first freshening glimpses of sunlight and blue -skies to bleared, fog-smudged and shivering London. Aha! if we have won -thus far, if we have contrived to get to February, then we shall surely -see the Spring. At least the one has heretofore involved the other--and -there is confident promise in the smile of a noon-day once more able to -cast a shadow, albeit the teeth of the east wind gleam close behind that -smile. - -It was a day for a walk--no set and joyous rural tramp, indeed, with -pipe and wallet, and a helpful spring underfoot in the clean hard -roadway, and an honest, well-balanced stick for the bell-ringing gentry -who shall come at you on wheels from behind--but just an orderly, -contemplative urban ramble, brisk enough for warmth, but with no hurry, -and above all no destination. And it was a day, moreover, for letting -one's fellow-creatures pass along with scant notice--a winter-ridden, -shuffling, mud-stained company these, conscious of being not at all -worth examination--and for giving eye instead to the house-fronts in the -sunshine, and radiant chimneypots and tiles above them, and the signs of -blessed, unaccustomed blue still further up. There was, it is true, an -undeniable disproportion between the inner look of these things, and -this gladness of the heart because of them. Glancing more closely, one -could see that they were not taking the sun seriously, and, for their -own part, were expecting more fogs next week. And farther westward, when -stucco, brick, and stone gave way to park-land, it was apparent at sight -that the trees were flatly incredulous. - -They say that in Ireland, where the mildness of climate has in the past -prompted many experiments with exotic growths, the trees not really -indigenous to the island never learn sense, but year after year are -gulled by this February fraud into gushing expansively forth with -sap and tender shoots, only to be gripped and shrivelled by the icy -after-hand of March. The native tree, however, knows this trick of old, -and greets the sham Spring with a distinctive, though well-buttoned-up -wink. In Kensington Park region one couldn't be sure that the trees -really saw the joke. It is not, on the whole, a humourous neighbourhood. -But at all events they were not to be fooled into premature buds and -sprouts and kindred signs of silliness. Every stiffly exclusive drab -trunk rising before you, every section of the brown lacework of twigs up -above, seemed to offer a warning advertisement: "No connection with the -sunshine over the way!" - -Happily the flower-beds exhibited more sympathy. Up through the mould -brave little snowdrops had pushed their pretty heads, and the crocuses, -though with their veined outer cloaks of sulphur, mauve, and other tints -still wrapped tight about them, wore almost a swaggering air to show -how wholly they felt at home. Emboldened by this bravado, less confident -fellows were peeping forth, though in such faltering fashion that one -could scarcely tell which was squill, which narcissus or loitering -jonquil. Still, it was good to see them. They too were glad that they -had lived till February, because after that comes the Spring. - -And it was better still, as I turned to stroll on, to behold coming -toward me down the path, with little swinging step, and shapely head -well up in air, none other than our Ermyntrude. - -I say "our" because--it is really absurd to think of it--it seems only a -few months ago since she was a sprawling tom-boy sort of a little girl, -who sat on my knee and listened with her mouth open to my reminiscences -of personal encounters with unicorns and the behemoth of Holy Writ. She -must be now--by George! she _is_--not a minute under two-and-twenty. And -that means--_hlas!_ it undoubtedly means--that I am getting to be an -old boy indeed. At Christmas-tide--I recall it now--Mrs Albert spoke of -me as the oldest friend of the family. It sounded kindly at the time, -and I had a special pleasure in the smile Ermyntrude wore as she, -with the others, lifted her glass towards me. I won't say what vagrant -thoughts and ambitions that smile did not raise in my mind--and, lo! -they were toasting me as an amiable elderly friend of the Fernbank -household. No wonder I am glad to have lived till February! - -Ermyntrude had a roll of music in her hands. There was a charming glow -on her cheeks, and a healthy, happy, sparkle in her eyes. She stopped -short before me, with a little exclamation of not displeased surprise! - -"Why, how nice to run upon you like this," she said, in high spirits. -"We thought you must have gone off to the Riviera, or Algiers, or -somewhere--for your cold, you know. Mamma was speaking of you only -yesterday--hoping that you were taking care of yourself." - -"Had I a cold?" I asked absently. The air had grown chillier. We walked -along together, and she let me carry the music. - -"O--you haven't heard," she exclaimed suddenly, "such news as I have for -you! You couldn't ever guess!" - -"Is it something about crinoline?" I queried. "Your mother was telling - -"Rubbish!" said Ermyntrude gaily. "I'm engaged!" - -The wind had really got round into the East, and I, fastened my coat -at the collar. "I am sure"--I remarked at last--"I'm sure I -congratulate--the happy young man. Do I know him?" - -"I hardly think so," she replied. "You see, it's--it's what you might -call rather sudden. We haven't known him ourselves very long--that is, -intimately. You may have heard his name--the Honourable Knobbeleigh -Jones. It's a very old family though the title is somewhat new. His -father is Lord Skillyduff, you know." - -"The shipping man?" I said, wearily. - -"Yes. He and papa are together on some board or other. That is how we -came to know them. Papa says he never saw such business ability and -sterling worth combined in one man before--I'm speaking of the father, -you know. He began life in quite a small way, with just a few ships that -he rented, or something like that. Then there was a war on some coast in -Africa or Australia--it begins with an A, I know--oh, _is_ there a place -called Ashantee?--yes, that's it--and he got the contract to take out -four shiploads of hay to our troops--it would be for their horses, -wouldn't it?" - -"Yes: the asses connected with the military branch are needed at -home--or at least are kept there." - -"Well, after he started, he got orders to stop at some place and wait -for other orders. He did so, and he waited four years and eight months. -Those orders never came. The hay all rotted, of course: the ships almost -moulded away: I daresay some of the crew died of old age--But Mr Jones -never stirred from his post. Finally, some English official came on him -by accident--quite! and so he was recalled. Papa says very few men would -have shown such tenacity of purpose and grasp of the situation. Mamma -says his fidelity to duty was magnificent." - -"Magnificent--yes," I commented; "but it wasn't war." - -"Oh, bless you! there _was_ no war _then_," explained Ermyntrude. "The -war had been ended for _years_. And all that while the pay for shipping -that hay had been going on, so that the Government owed him--I think -it was 45,000. Of course he got more contracts, and then he was made a -baronet, and could build his own ships; and now he is a lord, and papa -says the War Office would be quite helpless without him." - -"And the son," I asked; "what does he do?" - -"Why, nothing, of course!" said Ermyntrude, lifting her pretty brows a -little in surprise. "He is the eldest son." - -"I didn't know but he might have gone in for the Army, or Parliament, or -something," I explained weakly: "just to occupy his mind." - -She smiled to herself--somewhat grimly, I thought. "No," she said, -assuming a serious face, "he says doing things is all rot, if you aren't -obliged to do them. Of course, he goes in for hunting and shooting and -all that, and he has a houseboat and a yacht, and one year he was in the -All-Slumpshire eleven, but that was too much bother. He hates bother." - -We had come out upon the street now, and walked for a little in silence. - -"Ermie," I said at last, "you mustn't be annoyed with me--this is one of -my sentimental days, and you know as an old friend of the family I've -a certain right of free speech--but this doesn't seem to me quite good -enough. A girl like you--beautiful and clever and accomplished, knowing -your way about among books, and with tastes above the ruck--there ought -to be a better outlook for you than this! I know that type of young -man, and he isn't in your street at all. Come now!" I went on, gathering -courage, "look me in the face if you can, and tell me that you honestly -love this young man, or that you really respect his father, or that you -candidly expect to be happy. I defy you to do it!" - -I was wrong. Ermyntrude did look me in the face, squarely and without -hesitation. She halted for the moment to do so, and her gaze, though not -unkindly, was full of serious frankness. - -"There is one thing I do expect," she said, calmly. "I expect to get -away from Fernbank." - - - - -_Suggesting Considerations possibly heretofore Overlooked by -Commentators upon the Laws of Property_ - - -You will find Dudley up in what he calls his library," said Mrs Albert -in the hallway. "I'm _so_ sorry I must go out--but he'll be glad to see -you. And--let me entreat you, don't give him any encouragement!" - -"What!" I cried, "encourage Uncle Dudley? Oh--never, never!" - -"No, just be firm with him," Mrs Albert went on. "Say that it mustn't be -thought of for a moment. And Oh--by the way--it's as well to warn you: -_don't_ ask him what he did it for! It seems that every one asks him -that--and he gets quite enraged about it now, when that particular -question is put. As like as not he'd throw something at you." She spoke -earnestly, in low, impressive tones. - -"Wild horses should not drag it from me," I pledged myself. "I will not -encourage him: I will not enrage him; I swear not to ask him what he did -it for. But--if you don't mind--could I, so to speak, bear the shock of -learning what it is that he _has_ done?" - -"You haven't heard?" Mrs Albert asked, glancing up at me, with an -astonished face, as I stood on the stairs. When I shook my head, she put -out her hand to the latch, and opened the door, as if to heighten the -dramatic suspense. Then she turned and looked me in the eye with solemn -intentness. "What has he done?" she echoed in a hollow voice: "You go -upstairs and see!" - -The door closed behind her, and I made my way noiselessly, two steps at -a time, to the floor above. Some vague sense of disaster seemed to -brood over the silent, half-lighted stairway and the deserted landing. -I knocked at Uncle Dudley's door--almost prepared to find my signal -unanswered. But no, his voice came back, cheerily enough, and I entered -the room. - -"Oh, it's you!" said my friend, rising from his chair. "Glad to see -you,"--and we shook hands. Standing thus, I found myself staring into -his face with a rude and prolonged fixity of gaze, under which he first -smiled--a strange, unwholesome sort of smile--then flushed a little, -then scowled and averted his glance. - -"Great heavens!" I exclaimed at last. "Why, man alive, what on earth -possessed you to--" - -"Come now!" broke in Uncle Dudley, with peremptory sternness. "Chuck -it!" - -"Yes--I know"--I stammered haltingly along--"I promised I wouldn't ask -you--but--" - -"But the original simian instincts triumph over your resolutions, eh?" -said my friend, crustily. "Yes, I know. I've had pretty nearly a week of -it now. That question has been asked me, I estimate, somewhere about six -hundred and seventy-eight times since last Thursday. It's only fair to -you to tell you that I have registered a vow to hit the next man who -asks me that fool of a question--'What did you do it for?'--straight -under his left ear. I probably saved your life by interrupting you." - -Though the words were fierce, there was a marked return of geniality -in the tone. I took the liberty of putting a hand over Uncle Dudley's -shoulder, and marching him across to the window. - -"Let's have a good look at you," I said. - -"I did it myself; I did it with my little hatchet; I did it because -I wanted to; I had a right to do it; I should do it again if the -fit struck me----" Thus, with mock gravity, Uncle Dudley ran on as I -scrutinised his countenance in the strong light. "And furthermore," he -added, "I don't care one single hurrah in Hades whether you like it or -not." - -"I think on the whole," I mused aloud--"yes, I think I rather do like -it--now that I accustom myself to it." - -Uncle Dudley's face brightened on the instant. "Do you really?" he -exclaimed, and beamed upon me. In spite of his professed indifference to -my opinion, it was obvious that I had pleased him. - -"Sit down," he said--"there are the matches behind you--hope these -aren't too green for you. Yes, my boy, I created quite a flutter in the -hen-yard, I can tell you. Did my sister tell you?--she nearly fainted, -and little Amy burst out boo-hooing as if she'd lost her last friend. -When you come to think of it, old man, it's really too ridiculous, you -know." - -"It certainly has its grotesque aspects," I admitted. - -Uncle Dudley looked up sharply, as if suspecting some ironical meaning -in my words. "You really do think it's an improvement?" he asked, with a -doubtful note in his voice. - -"Of course, it makes a tremendous change," I said, diplomatically, "and -the novelty tends perhaps to confuse judgment: but I must confess the -result is--is, well, very interesting." - -My friend did not look wholly satisfied. "It shows what stupid people we -are," he went on in a dogmatic way. "Why, the way they've gone on, you'd -think I had no property rights in the thing at all--that I was merely a -trustee for it--bound to give an account to every Tom-Dick-and-Harry who -came along and had nothing better to occupy his mind with. And then that -eternal, vacuous, woollen-brained 'What did you do it for?' Oh, that's -got to be too sickening for words! And the confounded familiarity of the -whole thing! Why, hang me, if even the little Jew cigar dealer down on -the corner didn't feel entitled to pass what he took to be some friendly -remarks on the subject. 'Vy,' he said, 'if I could say vidout vlattery, -vot a haddsobe jeddlebad you ver, and vy did you do dot by yourself?' It -gets on a man's nerves, you know, things like that." - -"But hasn't anyone liked the change?" I asked. - -Uncle Dudley sighed. "That's the worst of it," he said, dubiously. -"Only two men have said they liked it--and it happens that they are both -persons of conspicuously weak intellect. That's rather up against me, -isn't it? But on the other hand, you know, people who are silliest about -everything else always get credit for knowing the most about art and -beauty and all that. Perhaps in such a case as this, I daresay their -judgment might be better than all the others. And after all, what do -_I_ care? That's the point I make: that it's _my_ business and nobody -else's. If a man hasn't got a copyright in his own personal appearance, -why there is no such thing as property. But instead of recognising this, -any fellow feels free to come up and say: 'You look like an unfrocked -priest,' or 'Hullo! another burglar out of work,' and he's quite -surprised if you fail to show that you're pleased with the genial -brilliancy of his remarks. I don't suppose there is any other -single thing which the human race lapses into such rude and insolent -meddlesomeness over as it does over this." - -"It _is_ pathetic," I admitted--"but--but it'll soon grow again." - -Uncle Dudley laughed a bitter laugh. "By Jove," he cried, "I've more -than half a mind not to let it. It would serve 'em right if I didn't. -Why, do you know--you'd hardly believe it! My sister had a dinner party -on here for Saturday night, and after I'd--I'd done it--she cancelled -the invitations--some excuse about a family loss--a bereavement, my boy. -Well, you know, treatment of that sort puts a man on his mettle. I'm -entitled to resent it. And besides--you know--of course it does make -a great change--but somehow I fancy that when you get used to it--come -now--the straight griffin, as they say--what do _you_ think?" - -"I'm on oath not to encourage you," I made answer. - -"There you have it!" cried Uncle Dudley: "the old tyrannical conspiracy -against the unusual, the individual, the true! Let nobody dare to be -himself! Let us have uniformity, if all else perishes. The frames must -be alike in the Royal Academy, that's the great thing; the pictures -don't matter so much. You see our women-folk now, this very month, -getting ready to case themselves in ugly hoops which they hate, at the -bidding of they know not whom, because, if they did not, the hideous -possibility of one woman being different from another woman would darken -the land. A man is not to be permitted the pitiful privilege of seeing -his own mouth, not even once in fifteen years, simply because it -temporarily inconveniences the multitude in their notions as to how he -is in the habit of looking! What rubbish it is!" - -"It _is_ rubbish," I assented--"and you are talking it. Your sister who -fainted, your niece who wept, your friends who averted their gaze in -anguish, the hordes of casual jackasses who asked why you did it, the -kindly little Jew cigar man who broke forth in lamentations--these are -the world's jury. They have convicted you--sorrowfully but firmly. You -yourself, for all your bravado, realise the heinousness of your crime. -You are secretly ashamed, remorseful, penitent. I answer for you--you -will never do it again." - -"And yet it isn't such a bad mouth, either," mused Uncle Dudley, with -a lingering glance at the mirror over the mantel. "There is humour, -delicacy of perception, affection, gentleness--ever so many nice -qualities about it which were all hidden up before. The world ought to -welcome the revelation--and it throws stones instead. Ah well!--pass -the matches--let us yield gracefully to the inevitable! It shall grow -again." - -"Mrs Albert will be so glad," I remarked. - - - - -_Narrating the Failure of a Loyal Attempt to Circumvent Adversity by -means of Modern Appliances_ - - -If his name was Jabez, why weren't we told so, I'd like to know?" -demanded Mrs Albert of me, with a momentary flash in her weary glance. -"What right had the papers to go on calling him J. Spencer, year after -year, while he was deluding the innocent, and fattening upon the bodies -of his dupes? To be sure, now that the mask is off, and he has fled, -they speak of him always as Jabez. Why didn't they do it before, while -honest people might still have been warned? But no--they never did--and -now it's too late--too late!" - -The poor lady's voice broke pathetically upon this reiterated plaint. -She bowed her head, and as I looked with pained sympathy upon the -drooping angle of her proud face, I could see the shadows about her lips -quiver. - -A sad tale indeed it was, to which I had been listening--here in -a lonesome corner of the cloistral, dim-lit solitude of the big -drawing-room at Fernbank. It was not a new story. Kensington has known -it by heart for a generation. Bloomsbury learned it earlier, and before -that it was familiar in Soho--away off in the old days when the ruffling -gentry of Golden Square fought for the chance of buying ingenious John -Law's South Sea scrip. And even then, the experience was an ancient and -half-forgotten memory of Bishopsgate and the Minories. It was the old, -old tragedy of broken fortunes. - -Mrs Albert was clear that it began with the Liberator troubles. I had -my own notion that Mr Albert Grundy was skating on thin ice before the -collapse of the building societies came. However that may be, there was -no doubt whatever that the cumulative Australian disasters had finished -the business. There were melancholy details in her recital which I lack -the courage to dwell upon. The horse and brougham were gone; the -lease of Fernbank itself was offered for sale, with possession before -Michaelmas, if desired; Ermyntrude's engagement was as good as off. - -"It won't be a bankruptcy," said Mrs Albert, lifting her face and -resolutely winking the moisture from her lashes. "We shall escape -that--but for the moment at least I must abandon my position in society. -Dudley is over to-day looking at a small place in Highgate, although -Albert thinks he would prefer Sydenham. My own feeling is that some -locality from which you could arrive by King's Cross or St Paneras would -be best. One never meets anybody one knows there. Then, when matters -adjust themselves again, as of course they will, we could return -here--to this neighbourhood, at least--and just mention casually having -been out at our country place--on the children's account, of course. And -Floribel _is_ delicate, you know." - -"Oh well, then," I said, trying to put buoyance into my tone, "it isn't -so had after all. And you feel--Albert feels--quite hopeful about things -coming right again?" - -My friend's answering nod of affirmation had a certain qualifying -dubiety about it. "Yes, we're hopeful," she said. "But a fortnight ago, -I felt positively sanguine. Nobody ever worked harder than I did to -deserve success, any way. I only failed through gross treachery--and -that, too, at the hands of the very people of whom I could never, -_never_ have believed it. When you find the aristocracy openly actuated -by mercenary motives, as I have done this past month, it almost makes -you ask what the British nation is coming to!" - -"Dear me!" I exclaimed, "is it as bad as that?" - -"You shall judge for yourself," said Mrs Albert gravely. "You know -that I organised--quite early in the Spring--the Loyal Ladies' Namesake -Committee of Kensington. I do not boast in saying that I really -organised it, quite from its beginnings. The idea was mine; practically -all the labour was mine. But when one is toiling to realise a great -ideal like that, one frequently loses sight of small details. I ought to -have known better--but I took a serpent to my bosom. I was weak enough -to associate with me in the enterprise that monument of duplicity and -interested motives--the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn. Why, she hadn't so much as -an initial letter to entitle her to belong----" - -"I am not sure that I follow you," I put in. "Ladies' Namesake -Committee--initial letter--I don't seem to grasp the idea." - -"It's perfectly simple," explained Mrs Albert. "The idea was that all -the ladies--our set, you know--whose name was 'May' should combine in -subscribing for a present." - -"But your name is Emily," I urged, thoughtlessly. - -"Oh, we weren't exactly literal about it," said Mrs Albert; "we -_couldn't_ be, you know. It would have shut out some of our very best -people. But I came very near the standard, indeed. My second name is -Madge. You take the first two letters of that, and the 'y' from Emily, -and there you have it. Oh, I assure you, very few came even as near it -as that--and as I said to Dudley at the time, if you think of it, even -_her_ name isn't _really_ May. It's only a popular contraction. But that -Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn, she had no actual right whatever to belong. Her -names are Hester Winifred Edith. She hasn't even one _letter_ right!" - -"Ah, that was indeed treachery!" I ejaculated. - -"Oh, no, that, was not what I referred to," Mrs Albert set me right. "Of -course, I was aware of her names. I had seen them in the 'Peerage' -for years. It was what she did after her entrance that covers her -with infamy. But I will narrate the events in their order. First, we -collected 1100. Of course, our own contribution was not large, but -Ermyntrude and I hunted the various church registers--we don't speak of -it, but even the Nonconformist ones we went through--and we got a -tremendous number of Christian names more or less what was desired, and -our circulars were sent to _every one_, far and near. As I said, we -raised quite 1100. Then there came the question of the gift." - -Mrs Albert uttered this last sentence with such deliberate solemnity -that I bowed to show my consciousness of its importance. - -"Yes," she went on, "the selection of the gift. Now I had in mind a most -appropriate and useful present. Have you heard of the Oboid Oil Engine? -No? Well, it is an American invention, and has been brought over here by -an American, who has bought the European rights from the inventor. He is -in the next building to Albert, in the City, and they meet almost -every day at luncheon, and have struck up quite a friendship. He has -connections which might be of the _utmost_ importance to Albert, and -if Albert could only have been of service to him in introducing this -engine, there is literally _no telling_ what might not have come of it. -Albert does not _say_ that a partnership would have resulted, but I can -read it in his face." - -"But would an oil engine have been--under the circumstances--you know -what I mean----" I began. - -"Oh, _most_ suitable!" responded Mrs Albert with conviction. "It is -really, it seems, a very surprising piece of machinery. After it's once -bought, the cheapness of running it is simply _absurd_. It does all -sorts of things at no expense worth mentioning--anything you want it to -do. It appears that if it had been invented at that time, the pyramids -in Egypt could have been built by it for something like 130 per cent, -less than their cost is estimated to have been--or something like that. -Oh, it is quite extraordinary, I assure you. Albert says he could stand -and watch it working for hours--especially if he had an interest in the -company." - -"But I hadn't heard that there were any new pyramid plans on just -now--although, when I think of it, Shaw-Lefevre did have some -Westminster Abbey project which----" - -"No, no!" interrupted Mrs Albert. "One of the engine's greatest uses is -in agriculture. It does _everything_--threshes, garners, mows, milks--or -no, not that, but almost _everything_. No self-respecting farmer, they -say, dreams of being without one--that is, of course, if he knows about -it. You can see what it would have meant, if one had been thus publicly -introduced on the princely farm at Sandringham. All England would have -rung with demands for the Oboid--and Albert feels sure that the American -man would have been grateful--and--and--then perhaps we need never have -left Fernbank at all." - -My poor friend shook her head mournfully at the thought - -"And the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn?" I asked. - -The fire came back into Mrs Albert's eye. "That woman," she said, -with bitter calmness, "was positively not ashamed to intrude her own -mercenary and self-seeking designs upon this loyal and purely patriotic -association. Why, she did it almost openly. She intrigued behind my back -with whole streetsful of people that one would hardly know on ordinary -occasions, paid them calls in a carriage got up for the occasion with -a bright new coat of arms, made friends with them, promised them heaven -only knows what, and actually secured nineteen votes to my three for the -purchase of a mouldy old piece of tapestry--something about Richard -III and Oliver Cromwell meeting on the battlefield, I think the subject -is--which belonged to her husband's family. Of course, my lips are -sealed, but I have been _told_ that at Christie's it would hardly have -fetched 100. I say nothing myself, but I can't prevent people drawing -certain deductions, can I? And when I reflect also that her two -most active supporters in this nefarious business were Lady -Thames-Ditton--whose financial difficulties are notorious--and the -Countess of Wimps---- whose tradespeople--well, we won't go into -_that_--it does force one to ask whether the fabric of British society -is not being undermined at its very top. In this very day's paper I -read that the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn has hired a yacht, and will spend the -summer in Norwegian waters--while we--we----" - -The door opened, and we made out through the half-light the comfortable -figure of Uncle Dudley. He was mopping his brow, and breathed heavily -from his long walk as he advanced. - -"Well?" Mrs Albert asked, in a saddened and subdued tone, "Did you see -the place?" - -"There are five bedrooms on the two upper floors," he made answer, "but -there's no bath-room, and the bus doesn't come within four streets of -the house." - - - - -_Introducing Scenes from a Foreign Country, and also conveying Welcome -Intelligence, together with some Instruction_ - - -It was at a little village perched well up on one of the carriage-roads -ascending the Brocken, a fortnight or so ago, that I received a wire -from Uncle Dudley. It was kind of him to think of it--all the more as he -had good news to tell. "Family lighted square on their feet," was what -the message said, and I was glad to gather from this that the Grundys -had weathered their misfortunes, and that Mrs Albert was herself again. - -The thought was full of charm. It seemed as if I had never realised -before how fond I was of these good people. In sober fact; I dare say -that I had not dwelt much upon their woes during my holiday. But now, -with this affectionately thoughtful telegram addressing me as their -oldest friend, the one whom they wished to be the first to share the joy -of their rescued state, it was easy enough to make myself believe -that my whole vacation had been darkened with brooding over their -unhappiness. - -It had not occurred to me before, but that was undoubtedly why I had -not liked the Harz so much this year as usual. Now that I thought of -it, walking down the birch-lined footpath towards the hamlet and the -telegraph office, the place seemed to have gone off a good deal. In -other seasons, before the spectre of cholera flooded its sylvan retreats -with an invading horde of Hamburgers, the Harzwald had been my favourite -resort. I had grown to love its fir-clad slopes, its shadowed glens, its -atmosphere of prehistoric myth and legend, as if I were part and product -of them all. Its people, too, had come much nearer to my breast than -any other Germans ever could. I had enjoyed being with them just because -they were what the local schoolmaster disdainfully declared them to -be--_Erdzertrmmerungsprozeszuribekanntevolk_--that is to say, people -entirely ignorant of the scientific theories about geological upheavals -and volcanic formations, and so able cheerfully to put their trust in -the goblins who reared these strange boulders in fantastic piles on -every hill top, and to hear with good faith the shouts of the witches as -they bounded over the Hexentanzplatz. Last year it had seemed even worth -the added discomfort of the swarming Hamburgers to be again in this -wholesome, sweet-aired primitive place. But this year--I saw now -clearly as I looked over Uncle Dudley's message once more--it had not -been so pleasant. The hotel boy, Fritzchen, whom I had watched year -after year with the warmth of a fatherly well-wisher--smiling with -satisfaction at his jovial countenance, his bustling and competent ways, -and his comical attempts at English--had this season swollen up into -a burly and consequential lout, with a straw-coloured sprouting on his -upper-lip, and a military manner. They called him Fritz now, and he gave -me beer out of the old keg after I had heard the new one tapped. - -The evening gatherings of the villagers in the hotel, too, were -not amusing as they once had been. The huge lion-maned and grossly -over-bearded _Kantor_, or music-master, who came regularly at nightfall -to thump on the table with his bludgeon-like walking stick, to roar -forth impassioned monologues on religion and politics, and to bellow -ceaselessly at Fritzchen for more beer, had formerly delighted me. This -time he seemed only a noisy nuisance, and the half-circle of grave old -retired foresters and middle-aged _Jger_ officers who sat watching -him over their pipes, striving vainly now and again to get in a word -edgewise about the auctions of felled trees in the woods, or the -mutinous tendencies of the charcoal-burners, presented themselves in the -light of tiresome prigs. If they had been worth their salt, I felt, they -would long ago have brained the Kantor with their stoneware mugs. Even -as I walked I began to be conscious that a three weeks' stay in the Harz -was a good deal of time, and that the remaining third would certainly -hang on my hands. - -By the time I reached the telegraph station I had my answer to Uncle -Dudley ready in my mind. He liked the forcible imagery of Australia and -the Far West; and I would speak to him at this joyful juncture after -his own heart. It seemed that I could best do this by giving him to -understand that I was celebrating his news--that I was, in one of his -own phrases, "painting the town red." It required some ingenuity to work -this idea out right, but I finally wrote what appeared to answer the -purpose:--"_Brocken und Umgebung sind roth gemalen_"--and handed it in -to the man at the window. - -He was a young man with close-cropped yellow hair and spectacles, -holding his chin and neck very stiff in the high collar of his uniform. -He glanced over my despatch, at first with careless dignity. Then he -read it again attentively. Then he laid it on the table, and bent -his tight-buttoned form over it as well as might be in a severe and -prolonged scrutiny. At last he raised himself, turned a petrifying gaze -on through his glasses at me, and shook his head. - -"It is not true," he said. "Some one has you deceived." - -"But," I tried to explain to him, with the little German that I knew -scattering itself in all directions in the face of this crisis, "it is a -figure of speech, a joke, a----" - -The telegraph man stared coldly at my luckless despatch, and then at me. -"You would wish to state to your friend, perhaps," he suggested, "that -they seem as if they had been coloured with red, owing to the change in -the leaves." - -"No, no," I put in. "It must be that they _have_ been painted, _are_ -painted, or he will not me understand." - -"But, my good sir," retorted the operator with emphasis, "they are _not_ -painted! From the door gaze you forth! What make you with this nonsense, -that Brocken and vicinity are red painted?" - -"Well, then," I said wearily, oppressed by the magnitude of the task, -"I don't know how to word it myself, but you can fix it for me. Just say -that I am _going_ to paint them red--that will do just as well. - -"But you shall not! It is forbidden!" exclaimed the official, holding -himself like a poker, and glaring vehemence through his glasses. "It -is strongly forbidden! When you one brush-mark shall make, quick to -the prison go you. In Germany have we for natural beauty respect--also -laws." - -Reluctantly, but of necessity, I abandoned metaphor, and in a humble -spirit telegraphed in English to Uncle Dudley at his club that I was -very glad. Even as my pen clung in irresolution on the paper over -this word "glad," the impulse rose in me to add: "_Tired of Harz. Am -returning immediately_." - -"When the same here is," remarked the operator, moodily studying the -unknown words, "in Brunswick stopped it will be." - -I translated it for him, and added, "I go from here home, to be where -officials their own business mind." - -He nodded, not unamiably, and replied as he handed me out my change: -"Yes, I know: England. So well their own business there officials mind, -that Balfour to Argentina easily comes." - -Walking up the hillside again, already quite captive to the fascination -of the morrow's homeward flight, I met at the turn of the path a family -party--father, mother, and two girls in the younger teens--seated along -the rocky siding, and gazing with a common air of dejection upon a -portentous row of bags and portmanteaus at their feet. The notion that -they were Hamburgers died still-born. Nothing more obviously un-German -than these wayfarers was ever seen. - -"I hope, sir," the man spoke up as I approached, "that I am right in -presuming that you speak English!" - -I bowed assent, and even as I did so, recognised him. "I hope _I_ am -right," I answered, "in thinking that I have met you before--at Mr -Albert Grundy's in London--you are the American gentleman with the Oboid -Oil Engine, are you not?" - -"Well, by George!" he cried, rising and offering his hand with frank -delight, and introducing me in a single comprehensive wave to his wife -and daughters. "Yes, sir," he went on, "and I wish I had an Oboid here -right now--up in the basement of that stone boarding-house on the knoll -there--just for the sake of heating up, and shutting down the valves, -and blowing the whole damned thing sky-high. That would suit me, sir, -right down to the ground." - -"Were strangers here, sir," he explained in answer to my question: "we'd -seen a good deal of the Dutch at home--I mean _our_ home--and we thought -we'd like to take a look at 'em in the place they come from. Well, sir, -we've had our look, and we're satisfied. We don't want any more on our -plate, thank you. One helping is an elegant sufficiency. Do you know the -trick they played on us? Why, I took a team of horses yesterday from a -place they called Ibsenburg or Ilsenburg, or some such name, and had -it explained to my driver that he was to take us up to the top of the -Brocken, there, and stop all night, and fetch us back this morning. When -we got up as far as Shierke, there, it was getting pretty dark, and the -women-folks were nervous, and so we laid up for the night. There didn't -seem anything for the driver to do but set around in the kitchen and -drink beer, and he needed money for that, and so I gave him some loose -silver, and told him to make himself at home. We got the words out of a -dictionary for that--_machen sie selbst zu Heim_ we figured 'em out to -be--and I spoke them at him slowly and distinctly, so that he had no -earthly excuse for not understanding. But, would you believe it, sir, -the miserable cuss just up and skipped out, horses, rig and all, while -we were getting supper! And here we were this morning, landed high and -dry. No conveyance, nobody to comprehend a word of English, no nothing. -We haven't seen the top of their darned mountain even." - -"What I'm more concerned about, I tell Wilbur," put in the lady, "is -seeing the bottom of it. If they had only sense enough to make valises -and bonnet-boxes ball-shaped, we could have rolled 'em down hill." - -"There'll be no trouble about all that," I assured them, and we talked -for a little about the simple enough process of getting their luggage -carried down to the village, and of finding a vehicle there. I, indeed, -agreed to make one of their party on quitting the Harz, that very -afternoon. - -"And now tell me about the Grundys," I urged, when these more pressing -matters were out of the way. "I got a wire to-day saying--hinting that -they are in luck's way again." - -"Is that so?" exclaimed the American, at once surprised and pleased. -"I'm glad to hear it. I can't guess what it might be in. Grundy's got -so many irons in the fire--some white hot, some lukewarm, some frosted -straight through--you never can tell. The funny thing is--he can't tell -himself. Why, sir, those men of yours in the City of London, they don't -know any more about business than a babe unborn. If they were in New -York they'd have their eyeteeth skinned out of their heads in the shake -of a lamb's tail. Why, we've been milking them dry for a dozen years -back. And yet, you know, somehow----" - -"Somehow--?" I echoed, encouragingly. - -"Well, sir, somehow--that's the odd thing about it--they don't stay -milked." - - - - -_Disclosing the Educational Influence exerted by the Essex Coast, and -other Matters, including Reasons for Joy_ - - -Sit down here by the fire--no, in the easy chair," said Ermyntrude, -with a note of solicitude in her kindly voice. "Mamma won't be home for -half an hour yet, and I want a nice, quiet, serious talk with you. Oh, -it's going to be extremely serious, and you must begin by playing that -you are at least one hundred and fifty years old." - -"That won't be so difficult," I replied, not without the implication of -injury. "It will only be adding a few decades to the venerableness that -I seem always to possess in your eyes." - -"Oh!" said Ermie, and looked at me inquiringly for a moment. Then she -seated herself, and gazed with much steadiness into the fire. I waited -for the nice, serious talk to begin--and waited a long time. - -"Well, my dear child," I broke in upon the silence at last, "I hoped to -have been the very first to come and tell your mother how deeply glad I -was to see you all back again in Fernbank. But that wretched rheumatism -of mine--_at my age_, you know------" - -I was watching narrowly for even the faintest sign of deprecation. She -did not stir an eyelash. - -"Yes," she suddenly began, still intently gazing into the fire; "papa -has got his money all back, and more. That is, it isn't the same money, -but somebody else's--I'm sure I don't know whose. Sometimes I feel sorry -for those other people, whoever they are, who have had to give it up -to us. Then, other times, I am so glad simply to be in again where it's -warm that I don't care." - -"The firelight suits your face, Ermie," I said, noting with the pleasure -appropriate to my position as the oldest friend of the family, how -sweetly the soft radiance played upward upon the fair young rounded -throat and chin, and tipped the little nostrils with rosy light. - -"Fortunately," she went on, as if I had not spoken, "some Americans took -the house furnished in September for three months--I think, poor souls, -that they believed it was the London season--and so we never had to -break up, and we were able to get back again in time for Uncle Dudley to -plant all his bulbs. They seem to have been very quiet people. Mamma -had a kind of notion that they would practise with bucking horses on -the tennis-lawn, and shoot at bottles and clay pigeons here in the -drawing-room. The only thing we could find that they did was to paste -thick paper over the ventilator in the dining-room. And yet a policeman -told our man that they slept with their bedroom windows open all night. -Curious, isn't it?" - -"I like to have one of these 'nice, quiet, serious talks' with you, -Ermie," I said. - -Even at this she did not lift her eyes from the grate. "Oh, don't be -impatient--it will be serious enough," she warned me. "They say, you -know, that drowning people see, in a single instant of time, whole years -of events, whole books full of things. Well, I've been under water for -six months, and--and--I've noticed a good deal." - -"Ah! is there a submarine observation station at Clacton-on-Sea? Now you -speak of it, I _have_ heard of queer fish being studied there." - -"None queerer than we, my dear friend, you may be sure. Mamma was right -in choosing the place. We never once saw a soul we knew. Of course, it -is the dullest and commonest thing on earth--but it exactly fitted us -during that awful period. We were going at first to Cromer, but -mamma learned that that was the chosen resort of dissolute theatrical -people--it seems there has been a poem written in which it is called -'Poppy land,' which mamma saw at once must be a cover for opium-eating -and all sorts of dissipation. So we went to Clacton instead. But what -I was going to say is this--I did a great deal of thinking all through -those six months. I don't say that I am any wiser than I was, because, -for that matter, I am very much less sure about things than I was -before. But I was simply a blank contented fool then. Now it's different -to the extent that I've stirred up all sorts of questions and problems -buzzing and barking about me, and I don't know the answers to them, and -I can't get clear of them, and they're driving me out of my head--and -there you are. That's what I wanted to talk with you about." - -I shifted my feet on the fender, and nodded with as sensible an -expression as I could muster. - -"That's why I said you must pretend to yourself that you are -very old--quite a fatherly person, capable of giving a girl -advice--sympathetic advice. In the first place--of course you know that -the engagement with that Hon. Knobbeleigh Jones has been off for ages. -Don't interrupt me! It isn't worth speaking of except for one point. -His father, Lord Skillyduff, was the principal rogue in the combination -which plundered papa of his money. Having got the Grundy money they had -no use for the Grundy girl. Now, he justified his rascality by pleading -that he had to make provision for _his_ daughters, and everybody said -he was a good father. Papa goes in again through some other opening, and -after a long fight brings out a fresh fortune, which he has taken away -from somebody else--and I heard him tell mamma that he was doing it for -the sake of _his_ daughters. People will say _he_ is a good father--I -know _I_ do." - -"None better in this world," I assented cordially. - -"Well, don't you see," Ermyntrude went on, "that puts daughters in the -light of a doubtful blessing. Papa's whole worry and struggle was for -us--for _me_. I was the load on his back. I don't like to be a -load. While we were prosperous, there was only one way for me to get -down--that is by marriage. When we became poor, there was another -way--that I should earn my own living. But this papa wouldn't listen to. -He quite swore about it--vowed he would rather work his fingers to the -bone; rather do anything, no matter what it was, or what people thought -of him for doing it, than that a daughter of his should take care -of herself. He would look upon himself as disgraced, he said. Those -lodgings of ours at Clacton weren't specially conducive to good temper, -I'm afraid; for I told him that the real disgrace would be to keep me in -idleness to sell to some other Knobbeleigh Jones, or to palm me off on -some better sort of young man who would bind himself to work for me all -his life, and then find that I would have been dear at the price of -a fortnight's labour--and then mamma cried.--and papa, he swore -more--and--and--" - -I stirred the fire here, and then blushed to rediscover that it was -asbestos I was knocking about. "How stupid of me!" I exclaimed, and -murmured something about having been a stranger to Fernbank so long. - -Ermyntrude took no notice. "I made a pretence of going up to London on -a visit," she continued, "and I spent five days looking about, making -inquiries, trying to get some notion of how girls who supported -themselves made a beginning. I talked a little with such few girls that -I knew as were in town, and I cared to see--guardedly, of course. They -had no idea--save in the way of the governess or music teacher. I'd cut -my throat before I'd be either of those--forced to dress like ladies on -the wages of a seamstress, and to smile under the insults of tradesmen's -wives and their louts of children. An actress I might be, after I had -starved a long time in learning my business--but before that mamma would -have died of shame. Then there are typewriters, and lady journalists -and telegraph clerks--I am surly enough sometimes to do that last to -perfection--but they all have to have special talents or knowledge. As -for saleswomen in the shops--there are a dozen poor genteel wretches -standing outside ready to claw each other's eyes out for every vacancy. -I went over Euston Road way at noon, and I watched the work-girls come -out of the factories and workshops, and they had such sharp, knowing, -bullying faces that I knew I should be a helpless fool among them. And -watching them--and watching the other girls on the street... in the -Strand and Piccadilly--I told you I was going to talk seriously, my dear -friend--it all came to seem to me like a nightmare. It frightened me. -These were the girls whose fathers had failed to provide for them--that -was absolutely all the difference between them and me. I had looked -lazily down at marriage as a chance of escaping being bored here at -Fernbank. They were all looking fiercely up at marriage as the one only -chance of rescue from weary toil, starvation wages, general poverty and -misery. In both cases the idea was the same--to find some man, no matter -what kind of a man, if only he will take it upon himself to provide -something different. You see what poor, dependent things we really are! -Why should it be so? That's what I want to know." - -"Oh, that's all you want to know, is it?" I remarked, after a little -pause. "Well, I think--I think you had better give me notice of the -question." - -"I have tried to read what thinkers say about it," she added; "but they -only confuse one the more. There is a Dr Wallace whom the papers speak -of as an authority, and he has been writing a long article this very -week--or else it is an interview--and he says that everything will be -all right, that all the nice women will marry all the good men, and that -the other kinds will die off immediately, and everybody will be oh, so -happy--in a 'regenerated society.' That is another thing I wanted to -ask you about. He speaks--they all speak--so confidently about this -'regenerated society.' Do you happen to know when it is to be?" - -"The date has not been fixed, I believe," I replied. - -The early winter twilight had darkened the room, and the light from the -grate glowed ruddily upon the girl's face as she bent forward, her chin -upon her clasped hands, looking into the fire. - -"There is another date which remains undetermined,"' I added, faltering -not a little at heart, but keeping my tongue under fair control. "I -should like to speak to you about it, if I may take off my lamb's-wool -wig and Santa Claus beard, and appear before you once more as a -contemporary citizen. It is this, Ermie. I am not so very old, after -all. There is only a shade over a dozen years between us--say a baker's -dozen. My habits--my personal qualities, tolerable and otherwise, -are more or less known to you. I am prosperous enough, so far as this -world's goods go. But I am tired of living----" - -I stopped short, and stared in turn blankly at the mock coals. A -freezing thought had just thrust itself into the marrow of my brain. She -would think that I was saying all this because her father had regained -and augmented his fortune. I strove in a numb, puzzled way to retrace -what I had just uttered--to see if the words offered any chance of -getting away upon other ground--and could not remember at all. - -"Tired of living," I heard Ermyntrude echo. I saw her nod her head -comprehendingly in the firelight. She sighed. - -"Yes, except upon conditions," I burst forth. "I weary of living alone. -There hasn't been a time for years when I didn't long to tell you -this--and most of all at Clacton, if I had known you were at Clacton. -You have admitted yourself that _nobody_ knew you were there." The words -came more easily now. "But always before I shrank from speaking. There -was something about you too childlike, too innocent, too--too----" - -"Too silly," suggested Ermie, with an affable effect of helping me out. - -Then she unlocked her fingers, and, still looking into the fire, -stretched out a hand backward to me. "All the same," she murmured, after -a little, "it isn't an answer to my question, you know." - -"But it is to mine!" I made glad response, "and in my question all the -others are enwrapped--always have been, always will be. And, oh, darling -one----" - -"That is mamma in the hall," said Ermyntrude. - - - - -_Describing Impressions of a Momentous Interview, loosely gathered by -One who, although present, was not quite In it_ - - -Mrs Albert has smiled upon my suit to be her son-in-law. - -The smile did not, however, gush forth spontaneously at the outset. When -the opportunity for imparting our great news came, we three were in the -drawing-room, and Mrs Albert, who had just entered, had been allowed to -discover me holding Ermyntrude's passive hand in mine. She cast a swift -little glance over us both, and seemed not to like what she saw. I -was conscious of the impression on the instant that Ermyntrude did not -particularly like it either. An effect of profound isolation, absurd -enough, but depressingly real, suddenly encompassed me. I began talking -something--the words coming out and scattering quite on their own -incoherent account--and the gist of what they made me say sounded in my -ears as if it were a determined enemy who was saying it Why should I be -speaking of my age, and the fact that I had held Ermie on my knee as a -child, and even of my rheumatism? And did I actually allude to them? -or only hear the clamorous echoes of conscience in my guilty soul, the -while my tongue was uttering other matters? I don't know, and the fear -that Ermie would admit that she really hadn't been paying attention has -restrained me from asking her since. - -But Mrs Albert was paying attention. She held me with a cool and -unblinking eye during my clumsy monologue, and she continued this steady -gaze for a time after I had finished. She stirred the small and shapely -headgear of black velvet and bird's-wing which she had worn in from -the street, just by the fraction of a forward inch, to show that she -understood what I had been saying--and also very much which I had left -unsaid. - -"Hm--m!" the good lady remarked, at length. "I see!" - -"Well, mamma, having seen," Ermyntrude turned languidly in her chair to -observe, lifting the hand which still rested within mine into full and -patent view, and then withdrawing it abruptly--"having seen, and been -seen, there's really nothing more to do, is there?" - -"She is very young," said the mother, in a tentative musing manner which -suggested the thought that I, on the other hand, was very much the other -way. - -Ermyntrude sniffed audibly, and rose to her feet. "I am -three-and-twenty," she said, "and that is enough, thank you." There was -something in it all which I did not understand. The sensation of being -out of place, as in the trying-on room of a dressmaker's, oppressed me. -The sex were effecting sundry manouvres and countermarchings peculiar to -themselves--so much I could see by the way in which the two were talking -with their eyes--hut what it was all about was beyond me. The mother -finally inclined her head to one side, and pursed together her lips. -Ermyntrude drew herself to her full stature, threw up her chin for a -moment like one of Albert Moore's superb full-throated goddesses, and -then relaxed with that half-cheerful sigh which we express in types -with "heigho!" It was at once apparent to me that the situation had -lightened--but how or why I cannot profess to guess. Uncle Dudley, to -whom I subsequently narrated what I had observed, abounded in theories, -but upon reflection they do not impress, much less convince, me. Here -is in substance one of the several hypothetical conversations which -he sketched out as having passed in that moment of pre-occupied and -surcharged silence: - -Mother [_lowering brows_]. You may be sure that at the very best it will -be Bayswater. - -Daughter [_with quiver of nostrils_]. Better that than hanging on for a -Belgravia which never comes. - -Mother [_disclosing the tips of two teeth_]. It is a chance of a title -going for ever. - -Daughter [_curling lip_]. What chance is ever likely _here?_ - -Mother [_lifting brows_]. He's as old as Methusaleh!" - -Daughter [_flashing eyes_]. That's my business! - -Mother [_little trembling of the eyelashes_]. You will never know how I -have striven and struggled for you! - -Daughter [_smoothing features_]. Merely the innate maternal instinct, my -dear, common to all mammalia. - -Mother [_beginning to tip head sidewise_]. It is true that Tristram is -docile, sheep-like, simple---- - -Daughter [_lifting her chin_]. And old enough to be enchained at my feet -all his life. - -Mother [_head much to one side_]. And he has always been extremely -cordial with _me_---- - -Daughter [_chin high in air_]. And not another girl in my set has had a -proposal for _years_. - -Mother [_brightening eye_]. We shall be in time to buy everything at the -January sales! - -[Mother _smiles;_ Daughter _sighs relief. The imaginations of both -wander pleasantly off to visions of sublimated Christmas shopping, in -connection with the trousseau and betrothal gifts. General joy._] - -As I have said, this is Uncle Dudley's idea, not mine. My own fancy -prefers to conjure up a tenderer dialogue, in which the mother, all fond -solicitude, bids the maiden search well her heart, and answer only its -true appeal, and the sweet daughter, timid, fluttering, half-frightened -and wholly glad, flashes hack from the depths of her soul the rapt -assurance of her fate. But Dudley was certainly right about the ending, -as the first words Mrs Albert uttered go to show. - -"Don't forget to remind me, then, about presents for the Gregory -children," she said all at once, in a swift sidelong whisper at -Ermyntrude. Then she turned, and as I gazed wistfully upon her face, -it melted sedately, gracefully, a little at a time, into the smile I -sought. - -"My dear Tristram," she began, and her voice took on a coo of genuine -kindliness and warmth as she went on, "of course Albert and I have had -other views--and the dear girl is perfectly qualified to adorn the -most exalted and exclusive circles--if I do say it myself--but--but -her happiness is our one desire, and if she feels that it is getting--I -_would_ say, if you and she are quite clear in your own minds--and we -both have the greatest confidence in your practical common-sense, and -your _honour_--and we have all learned to be fond of you--and--and I am -really very glad!" - -"Most of all things in the world, dear lady, I hoped for this," I had -begun to say, with fervour. I stopped, upon the discovery that Mrs -Albert was not listening, but had turned and was conferring with her -daughter in half-audible asides. - -"Mercy, no!" the mother said. "They'd know in a minute that it had been -a present to us. That old Mrs Gregory is a perfect _lynx_ for detecting -such things. I suppose their boys are too big for tricycles, else your -father knows a dealer who----" - -My own Ermie looked thoughtful. "It won't seem queer, you think, -our bursting in upon them with Christmas presents like this--without -provocation?" she asked. - -"My dear child, queer or not queer," said Mrs Albert, "it is imperative. -You know how much depends upon it--there are plenty of others who would -be equally useful in various ways, but not like the _Gregorys_--and -if there were there's no time now. If this could have happened, now, a -fortnight ago, or even last week----" - -"Yes, but it didn't," replied Ermyntrude. "It only happened to-day." She -turned to me, with a little laugh in her eyes. "Mamma complains that we -delayed so long. We have interfered with the Christmas arrangements." - -"If I had only known! But--I claim to be treated as one of the family, -you know--I couldn't quite grasp what you were saying about the -Gregorys. I gather that our--our betrothal involves Christmas presents -for them, but I confess I don't know why. Or oughtn't I to have asked, -dear?" - -For answer Ermyntrude looked saucily into my face, twisted her dear -nose into a pretty little mocking grimace, and ran out of the room. Mrs -Albert vouchsafed no explanation, but talked of other matters--and there -were enough to talk about. - -It was not, indeed, till late in the evening, when Uncle Dudley and -I were upon our last cigar, that I happened to recall the mystifying -incident of the Gregorys. - -"That's simplicity itself," said Uncle Dudley. "The Gregorys own one of -the tidiest country seats in Nottinghamshire--lovely old house, sylvan -arbours, high wall, fascinating rural roads--in the very heart of county -society, too--O, a most romantic and eligible place!" - -"Well, what of it? What has that to do with Ermyntrude and me and Santa -Claus?" - -"If you will read the _Morning Post_ the day after your wedding, my -dear, dull friend, you will learn that Colonel Gregory has placed at -the disposal of a certain bridal couple for their honeymoon his ideal -country residence. The paper will not state why, but I will tell you in -confidence. It will be because the bride's mother is a resourceful and -observant woman, who knows how to plant at Christmas that she may gather -at Easter." - -"I hate to have you always so beastly cynical, Dudley," I was emboldened -to exclaim. - -Uncle Dudley regarded me attentively for an instant. He took a -thoughtful sip at his drink, and then began smiling at his glass. When -he turned to me again, the smile had grown into a grin. - -"You are belated, my boy," he said. "You ought to have married into the -Grundys years ago. You were just born to be one of the family." - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mrs Albert Grundy--Observations in -Philistia, by Harold Frederic - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS GRUNDY *** - -***** This file should be named 50496-8.txt or 50496-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/4/9/50496/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Mrs Albert Grundy--Observations in Philistia - -Author: Harold Frederic - -Release Date: November 19, 2015 [EBook #50496] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS GRUNDY *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - -</pre> - - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - MRS ALBERT GRUNDY—OBSERVATIONS IN PHILISTIA - </h1> - <h2> - By Harold Frederic - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0007.jpg" alt="0007 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0007.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - <b>CONTENTS</b> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <i>Presenting in Outline the Comfortable and - Well-Regulated Paradox over which She Presides, and showing its Mental - Elevation</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <i>Setting forth the Untoward Circumstances - under which the Right Tale was Unfolded in the Wrong Company</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> <i>Annotating Sundry Points of Contact found to - exist between the Lady and Contemporary Art</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> <i>Affording a Novel and Subdued Scientific - Light, by which divers Venerable Problems may be Observed Afresh</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> <i>Touching the Experimental Graft of a - Utilitarian Spirit upon the Aesthetic Instinct in our Sisters</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> <i>Relating to Various Phenomena attending the - Progress of the Sex along Lines of the Greatest Resistance</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> <i>Illustrating the operation of Vegetables and - Feminine Duplicity upon the Concepts of Maternal Responsibility</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> <i>Containing Thoughts upon the Great Unknown, - to which are added Speculations upon her Hereafter</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> <i>Glancing at some Modern Aspects of Master - John Gutenberg’s ingenious but Over-rated Invention</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> <i>Detailing certain Prudential Measures taken - during the Panic incident to a Late Threatened Invasion</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> <i>Dealing with the Deceptions of Nature, and - the Freedom from, Illusion Inherent in the Unnatural</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> <i>Suggesting Considerations possibly heretofore - Overlooked by Commentators upon the Laws of Property</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> <i>Narrating the Failure of a Loyal Attempt to - Circumvent Adversity by means of Modern Appliances</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> <i>Introducing Scenes from a Foreign Country, - and also conveying Welcome Intelligence, together with some Instruction</i> - </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> <i>Disclosing the Educational Influence exerted - by the Essex Coast, and other Matters, including Reasons for Joy</i> </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> <i>Describing Impressions of a Momentous - Interview, loosely gathered by One who, although present, was not quite In - it</i> </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Presenting in Outline the Comfortable and Well-Regulated Paradox over - which She Presides, and showing its Mental Elevation</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> suppose about the - name there is no doubt. For sixty years we have followed that gifted - gadabout and gossip, Heine, and called it Philistia. And yet, when one - thinks of it, there may have been a mistake after all. Artemus Ward used - to say that he had been able, with effort, to comprehend how it was - possible to measure the distance between the stars, and even the - dimensions and candle-power, so to speak, of those heavenly bodies; what - beat him was how astronomers had ever found out their names. So I find - myself wondering whether Philistia really is the right name for the land - where She must be obeyed. - </p> - <p> - If so, it is only a little more the region of mysterious paradox and - tricksy metamorphosis. We think of it always and from all time as given - over to Her rule. We feel in our bones that there was a troglodyte Mrs - Grundy; we imagine to ourselves a British matron contemporary with the - cave bear and the woolly elephant But her very antiquity only makes it - more puzzling. - </p> - <p> - There is an old gentleman who always tries to prove to me that the French - are really Germans, that the Germans are all Slavs, and that the Russians - are strictly Tartars: that is to say, that in keeping-count of the early - races as they swarmed Westward we somehow skipped one, and have been wrong - ever since. There must be some such explanation of how the domain which - She sways came to be called Philistia. - </p> - <p> - I say this, because the old Philistia was tremendously masculine. It was - the Jews who struck the feminine note. They used to swagger no end when - they won a victory, and utilise it to the utmost limit of merciless - savagery; but when it came their turn to be thrashed they filled the very - heavens with complaining clamour. We got no hint that the Philistines ever - failed to take their medicine like men. - </p> - <p> - Consider those splendid later Philistines, the Norsemen. In all their - martial literature there is no suggestion of a whine. They loved fighting - for its own sake; next to braining their foes, they admired being - themselves hewn into sections. They never blamed their gods when they had - the worst of it. They never insisted that they were always right and their - enemies invariably wrong. They cared nothing about all that. They demanded - only fun. It was their victims, the Frankish and Irish monks, who shed - women’s tears and besought Providence to play favourites. - </p> - <p> - And here is the paradox. The children of these Berserker loins are become - the minions of Mrs Grundy. By some magic she has enshrined Respectability - in their temples. In one division of her empire she makes Mr Helmer drink - tea; in another she sets everybody reading the <i>Buchholz Family</i>; in - her chosen island home her husband on the sunniest Sundays carries an - umbrella instead of a walking-stick. Fancy the wild delirium of delight - with which the old Philistines would have raided her homestead, chopping - down her Robert Elsmeres, impaling her Horsleys, and making the skies - lurid with the flames of her semi-detached villa! Yet we call her place - Philistia! - </p> - <p> - I know the villa very well. It is quite near to the South Kensington - Museum. The title “Fernbank” is painted on the gate-posts. How - well-ordered and comfortable does life beyond those posts remain! Here are - no headaches in the morning. Here white-capped domestics move with neat - alertness along the avenues of gentle routine, looking neither to the - policeman on the right nor fiery-jacketed Thomas Atkins on the left. Here - my friend Mr Albert Grundy invariably comes home by the Underground to - dinner. Here his three daughters—girls of a type with a diminishing - upper lip, with sharper chins and greater length of limb than of old—lead - deeply washed existences, playing at tennis, smiling in flushed silence at - visitors, feeding contentedly upon Mudie’s stores, the while their mamma - spreads the matrimonial net about the piano or makes tours of inspection - among her outlying mantraps on the lawn. Here simpers the innocuous - curate; here Uncle Dudley, who has seen life in Australia and the Far - West, watches the bulbs and prunes the roses, and, I should think, yawns - often to himself; here Lady Willoughby Wallaby’s card diffuses refinement - from the summit of the card-basket in the hall. - </p> - <p> - To this happy home there came but last week—or was it the week - before—a parcel of books. There were four complete novels in twelve - volumes—fruits of that thoughtful arrangement by which the fair - reader in Philistia is given three distinct opportunities to decide - whether she will read the story through or not. Mrs Albert is a busy - woman, burdened with manifold responsibilities to Church and State, to - organised charities, to popularised music, to art-work guilds and the - Amalgamated Association of Clear Starchers, not to mention a weather-eye - kept at all times upon all unmarried males: but she still finds time to - open all these packets of new books herself. On this occasion she gave to - her eldest, Ermyntrude, the first volume of a novel by Mrs ————. - It doesn’t matter what fell to the share of the younger Amy and Floribel. - For herself she reserved the three volumes of the latest work of Mr - ————. - </p> - <p> - She tells me now that words simply can <i>not</i> express her thankfulness - for having done so. It seems the selection was not entirely accidental. - She was attracted, she admits, by the charmingly dainty binding of the - volumes, but she was also moved by an instinct, half maternal prescience, - half literary recollection. She thought she remembered having seen the - name of this man-writer before. Where? It came to her like a flash, she - says. Only a while ago he had a hook called <i>A Bunch of Patrician Ladies</i> - or something of that sort, which she almost made up her mind not to let - the girls read at all, but at last, with some misgivings, permitted them - to skim hastily, because though the morals were rocky—perhaps that - wasn’t her word—the society was very good. But this new book of his - had not even that saving feature. Respectable people were only - incidentally mentioned in it. Really it was quite <i>too</i> low. The - chief figure was a farm-girl who for the most part skimmed milk or cut - swedes in a field, and at other times behaved in a manner positively - unmentionable. Mrs Albert told me she had locked the volumes up, after - only partially perusing them. I might be sure <i>her</i> daughters never - laid eyes on them. They had gone back to the library, with a note - expressing surprise that such immoral books should be sent into any - Christian family. What made the matter worse, she went on, was that - Ermyntrude read in some paper, at a friend’s house, that this man, whoever - he may be, was the greatest of English novelists, and that this particular - book of his was a tragic work of the noblest and loftiest order, which - dignified the language. She was sure she didn’t know what England was - coming to, when reporters were allowed to put things like that in the - papers. Fortunately she only took in <i>The Daily Tarradiddle</i>, which - one could always rely upon for sound views, and which gave this - unspeakable book precisely the contemptuous little notice it deserved. - </p> - <p> - It was a relief, however—and here the good matron visibly brightened - up—to think that really wholesome and improving novels were still - produced. There was that novel by Mrs ————. Had I - read it? Oh, - </p> - <p> - I must lose no time! Perhaps it was not altogether so enchanting as that - first immortal work of hers, which had almost, one might say, founded a - new religion. True, one of the girls in it worked altar-cloths for a - church, and occasionally the other characters broke out into religious - conversation; but there were no clergymen to speak of, and the charm of - the other’s ecclesiastical mysticism was lacking. “To be frank, the first - and last volumes were just a bit slow. But oh! the lovely second volume! A - young Englishman and his sister go to Paris. They stumble right at the - start into the most delightful, picturesque, artistic set. Think of it: - Henri Régnault is personally introduced, and delivers himself of extended - remarks——” - </p> - <p> - “I met an old friend of Regnault’s at the Club the other day,” I - interposed, “who complained bitterly of that. He said it was insufferable - impudence to bring him in at all, and still worse to make him talk such - blather as is put into his mouth.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs Albert sniffed at this Club friend and went on. That Paris part of the - book seemed to her to just palpitate with life. It was Paris to the very - letter—gay, intellectual, sparkling, and oh! so free! The young - Englishman at once set up a romantic establishment in the heart of - Fontainebleau Forest with a French painter-girl. His sister was almost as - promptly debauched by an elderly French sculptor. But you never lost sight - of the fact that the author was teaching a valuable moral lesson by all - this. Indeed, that whole part of the book was called “Storm and Stress.” - And all the while you saw, too, how innately superior the national - character of the young Englishman was to that of the French people about - him. One <i>knew</i> that in good time <i>he</i> would have a moral - awakening, and return to England, marry, settle down, and make money in - his business. Side by side with this you saw the entire hopelessness of - any spiritual regeneration in the French painter-girl or any of her - artistic set. And this was shown with such delicate art—it was so <i>perfect</i> - a picture of the moral contrast between the two nations—that the - girls saw it at once. - </p> - <p> - “Then the girls,” I put in—“that is to say, you didn’t lock <i>this</i> - book up?” - </p> - <p> - Mrs Albert lifted her eyebrows at me. - </p> - <p> - “How do you mean?” she asked. “Do you know who the author is? The idea! - Why, the papers print whole columns about <i>anything</i> she writes. - Every day you may see paragraphs about the mere prospect of books she - hasn’t even begun yet. I suppose such blatant publicity must be very - distressing to her, but the public simply insist upon it. <i>The Daily - Tarradiddle</i> devoted an entire leader to this particular book. I assure - you, all my friends are talking of nothing else—many of them people, - too, whom you would not suspect of any literary tastes whatever, and who - <i>never</i> read novels as a rule. But they don’t regard <i>this</i> as a - novel. They think of it—I quote Lady Willoughby Wallaby’s exact - words—as an exposition of those Christian principles which make our - England what it is.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Setting forth the Untoward Circumstances under which the Right Tale was - Unfolded in the Wrong Company</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>uch has been - written about that variety of “cab-wit” which occurs to a man on his way - home from dinner: the brilliant sallies he might have made, the smart - retorts which would so bravely have reversed the balance of laughter had - they only come in time. We are less frank about the other sort. No one - dwells in type upon the manner in which we marshal our old jokes and - arrange our epigrams as we drive along to the house of feasting. - </p> - <p> - No doubt the practice of getting up table-talk is going out. The - three-bottle men took it to the grave with them, along with the snuff-box, - and the toupee, and the feather-bed, and other amenities of the Regency. - There never was but one diner-out in the London of my knowledge who was at - pains to prepare his conversations, each for its special occasion and - audience, and he, poor man, broke down under the strain and disappeared - from view. The others are too lazy, too indifferent, too cocksure of - themselves, to go to all this bother. The old courtly sense of - responsibility to the host is perished from among them. But none the less, - the least dutiful and diligent of all their number does ask himself - questions as the whirling rubber tyres bear him onward, and the cab-mirror - shows him the face of a man to whom people ought to listen. - </p> - <p> - The question I asked myself, as I drove past the flaring shop windows of - Old Brompton Road the other evening, was whether the Grundys would - probably like my story of Nate Salsbury and the Citizen of South Bend, - Indiana. A good deal depended upon the decision. It was a story which had - greatly solidified my position in other hospitable quarters; it could be - brought in <i>apropos</i> of almost anything, or for that matter of quite - nothing at all; it had never been printed, so far as I know, in any of - those American comic papers which supply alike the dining-rooms of Mayfair - and the editorial offices of Fleet Street with such humour as they come - into possession of; and I enjoyed telling it. On the other hand, the - Grundys were old friends of mine, who would never suspect that they had - missed anything if I preserved silence on the subject of South Bend, and - who would go on asking me to dinner whether I told new tales or not; - moreover, their attitude towards fresh jokes was always a precarious - quantity, and I had an uneasy feeling that if I told my story to them and - it failed to come off, so to speak, I should never have the same - confidence in it again. - </p> - <p> - When I had entered the drawing-room of Fernbank, shaken hands with Mrs - Albert Grundy and Ermyntrude, and stolen a little glance about the circle - as I walked over to the fireplace, it had become clear that the story was - not to be told. Beside the half-dozen of the family, including the curate, - there was a tall young man with a very high collar, shoulders that sloped - down like a Rhine-wine bottle, and a stern expression of countenance. - Uncle Dudley whispered to me, as we held our hands over the asbestos, that - he was a literary party, and the son of old Sir Watkyn Hump, who was a - director in one of Albert’s companies. The other guests were a stout and - motherly lady in a cap and a purplish smile, and a darkling young woman - with a black velvet riband around her thin neck, and a look of wearied - indifference upon her face. This effect of utter boredom did not visibly - diminish upon my being presented to Miss Wallaby. - </p> - <p> - I have an extremely well-turned little brace of sentences with which to - convey the intelligence to a young lady that the honour of taking her down - to dinner has fallen upon me—sentences which combine professions of - admiring pleasure with just a grateful dash of respectful playfulness; - they brought no new light into Miss Wallaby’s somewhat scornful <i>pince-nez</i>. - Decidedly I would not tell my South Bend story <i>that</i> night! - </p> - <p> - But all the same I did. What led up to it I hardly know. It was at the - ptarmigan stage, I remember—or was it a capercailzie?—and - young Mr Hump had commented upon the great joy of living in England, where - one could enjoy delicious game all the year round, instead of in a country - like America, where the inhabitants notoriously had nothing but fried salt - pork to eat for many months at a time. Perhaps it was not worth while, but - I ventured the correcting remark that there was no season of the year when - one couldn’t have eighteen edible varieties of wild birds in America for - every one that England has ever heard of. Mr Hump preened his chin about - on the summit of his collar and smiled with superior incredulity. The - others looked grave. Mrs Grundy whispered to me warningly, over her left - shoulder, that Mr Hump had made America his special subject, and wrote - most vigorous and comminatory articles about it almost every week. I was - painfully conscious that Miss Wallaby’s cold right shoulder had been still - further withdrawn from me. - </p> - <p> - Well, it was at this grotesquely inauspicious moment that I told my story. - It is easy enough now to see that it was sheer folly, madness if you like, - to do so. I was only too bitterly conscious of that when I reviewed the - events of the evening in my homeward cab. It was <i>apropos</i> of nothing - under the wide sky. But at the moment, I suppose, I hoped that it would - relieve the situation. In one sense it did. - </p> - <p> - Baldly summarised, this is the tale. Years ago the admirable Nate Salsbury - was on a “one-night-stand” tour with his bright little company of - comedians through the least urban districts of Indiana, and came upon - South Bend, which is an important centre of the wagon-making industry, but - is not precisely a focussing point of dramatic traditions and culture. - </p> - <p> - In the vestibule of the small theatre that evening there paced up and down - a tall, middle-aged, weasel-backed citizen, his hands plunged deep in his - pockets, doubt and irresolution written all over his face. As others paid - their money and passed in he would watch them with obvious longing; then - he would go and study once more the attractive coloured bill of the - Company, with its bevy of pretty girls in skirts just short enough to - disclose most enticing little ankles; then once more he would resume his - perplexed walk to and fro. At last he made up his mind, and approached - Salsbury with diffidence. “Mister,” he said, “air you the boss of this - show?” “What can I do for you?” asked Nate. “Well—no offence meant—but—can - I—that is to say—will it be all right to bring a lady to your - show?” “That, sir, depends!” responded the manager firmly. “Well,” the - citizen went on, “what I was gittin’ at is this—can I be perfectly - safe in bringin’ <i>my wife</i> here?” - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” said Salsbury with dignity, and an eye trained to abstain from - twinkling, “it is no portion of my business to inquire whether she is your - wife or not, but if she comes in here she’s got to behave herself!” - </p> - <p> - A solitary note of laughter fell upon the air when I had told this story, - and on the instant Uncle Dudley, perceiving that he had made a mistake, - dropped his napkin, and came up from fishing for it on the floor red-faced - and dumb. All else was deadly silence. - </p> - <p> - “I—I suppose they really weren’t married at all?” said the curate, - after a chilling pause. - </p> - <p> - “Marriage, I regret to say, means next to nothing in most parts of - America,” remarked Mr Hump, judicially. “The most sacred ties are there - habitually made the subject of ribald jests. I have been assured by a - person who spent nearly three weeks in the United States some years since - that it is an extremely rare experience to meet an adult American who has - not been divorced at least once. This fact made a vivid impression on my - mind at the time, and I—ahem!—have written frequently upon it - since.” - </p> - <p> - “I suppose the trouble arises from their all living in hotels—having - no home life whatever,” said Mrs Albert, with a kindly air of coming to my - rescue. - </p> - <p> - “Who on earth told you that?” I began, but was cut short. - </p> - <p> - “I confess,” broke in Miss Wallaby, with frosty distinctness of tone and - enunciation, “that the assumption upon which the incident just related is - based—the assumption that the la—woman referred to would - probably misconduct herself in a place of public resort—seems to me - startlingly characteristic of the country of which it is narrated. It has - been truly said that the most valuable test of a country’s actual, as - distinct from its assumed, worth, is the respect it pays to its women. - Both at Cheltenham and at Newnham the idea is steadily inculcated—I - might say insisted upon as of paramount importance—that the nation’s - real civilisation rests upon the measure, not alone of chivalrous - deference, but of esteem and confidence which my sex, by its devotion to - duty, and its intellectual sympathy with broad aims and lofty purposes, is - able to inspire and command.” - </p> - <p> - “But I assure you,” I protested feebly, “the story I told was a joke.” - </p> - <p> - “There are some subjects,” interposed Lady Willoughby Wallaby, the fixed - smile lighting up with an angry, winter-sunset glow her inflamed - countenance—“there are some subjects on which it is best not to - joke.” As she spoke she wagged a mitted thumb at her hostess, and on the - instant the ladies rose. Mr Hump hastened round to hold the door open as - they filed out, their heads high in air, their skirts rustling indignantly - over the threshold. Then he followed them, closing the door with decision - behind him. - </p> - <p> - “Gad, Albert,” said Uncle Dudley, reaching over for the port, “I don’t - wonder that the pick of our young fellows go in for marrying American - girls.” - </p> - <p> - “Pass it along!” remarked the father of Mrs Albert’s three daughters, in a - voice of confirmed dejection. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Annotating Sundry Points of Contact found to exist between the Lady and - Contemporary Art</i> - </h2> - <p> - Scene.—<i>Just inside the door of a studio.</i> - </p> - <p> - Time.—<i>Last Sunday in March, 5 p.m.</i> - </p> - <p> - 1st Citizeness. O, thank you <i>so</i> much! - </p> - <p> - 2nd do. <i>So</i> good of you to come! - </p> - <p> - 1st do. I <i>so</i> dote upon art! - </p> - <p> - 2nd do. So kind of you to say so! - </p> - <p> - 1st do. Thank you <i>so</i> much for asking us! - </p> - <p> - 2nd do. Delighted, I’m sure! Thank <i>you</i> for coming! - </p> - <p> - 1st Citizeness. Not at all! Thank you for—for thanking me for—Well—<i>good-bye</i>. - (<i>Exit—with family group</i>.) - </p> - <p> - Husband of 2nd Citizeness (<i>with gloom</i>). And who might <i>those</i> - thankful bounders be? - </p> - <p> - 2nd Citizeness (<i>wearily</i>). O, don’t ask <i>me!</i> I don’t know! - From Addison Road way, I should think. - </p> - <p> - 1st Citizeness (<i>outside</i>). Well! If <i>that</i> thing gets into the - Academy! - </p> - <p> - Family Group. Did you notice the ridiculous way her hair was done? Did you - ever taste such tea in your life? How yellow Mrs. General Wragg is getting - to look in the daylight. Yes—there’s our four-wheeler. (<i>Exeunt - omnes.</i>) - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he above is not - intended for presentation upon any stage—not even that of the - Independent Theatre. It has been cast into the dramatic mould merely for - convenience’ sake. It embodies what I chiefly remember about Picture - Sunday. - </p> - <p> - It has come to be my annual duty—a peculiarly hardy, not to say - temerarious, annual—to convoy Mrs Albert Grundy and her party about - sections of Chelsea and Brompton on the earlier of the two Show Sabbaths. - I drifted into this function through having once shared an attic with a - young painter, whose colleagues used to come to borrow florins of him - whenever one of his pictures disappeared from any shop window, and so - incidentally formed my acquaintance. My claim nowadays upon their - recollection is really very slight. I just know them well enough to manage - the last Sunday in March: even that might be awkward if they were not such - good-natured fellows. - </p> - <p> - But it would be difficult to persuade Mrs Albert of this. That good lady - is wont, when the playfully benignant mood is upon her, to describe me as - her connecting link with Bohemia. She probably would be puzzled to explain - her meaning; I certainly should. But if she were provided with affidavits - setting forth the whole truth—viz., that my entire income is derived - from an inherited part-interest in an artificial-ice machine; that there - are two clergymen on the committee of my only club; that I am free from - debt; and that I play duets on the piano with my sister—still would - she cling to the belief that I am a young man with an extremely gay, - rakish side, who could make thrilling revelations of Bohemia if I would. - Of course, I am never questioned on the subject; but I can see that it is - a point upon which the faith of Fernbank is firmly grounded. Often Mrs - Albert’s conversation cuts figure-eights on very thin ice when we are - alone, as if just to show me that <i>she</i> knows. More than once I have - discovered Ermyntrude looking furtively at me, as the wistful shepherd-boy - on the plains of Dura might have gazed at the distant haze overhanging - bold, unspeakable Babylon. I rarely visit the house but Uncle Dudley winks - at me. However, nothing is ever asked me about the dreadful things with - which they suppose me to be upon intimate terms. - </p> - <p> - It seemed for a long time, on Sunday, as if an easy escape had been - arranged for me by Providence. At two o’clock, the hour appointed for our - crusade, a heavy fog overhung everything. Looking out from the - drawing-room windows, only the very nearest of the neatly trimmed firs on - the lawn were to be distinguished. The street beyond was utter blackness. - </p> - <p> - At three o’clock the ladies took off their bonnets. It was really too bad. - Uncle Dudley, strolling in from his nap in the library, suggested that - with a lantern we might visit some of the nearer studios: “not necessarily - for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.” Mrs Albert turned a - look of tearful vexation upon him, before which he fled. - </p> - <p> - “There’s this consolation,” she remarked presently, holding me with an - unwavering eye: “if we are to be defrauded out of our expedition to-day, - that will furnish all the more reason why you should take us next Sunday—<i>the</i> - Sunday. You have often talked of having us see the Academicians at home—but - we’ve never been.” - </p> - <p> - “I remember that there has been talk about it,” I said; “but hardly that - the talk was mine. Truth is, I don’t know a single Academician, even by - sight.” - </p> - <p> - It was clear that they did not believe me. Mrs Albert continued: “Lady - Wallaby expressed surprise, only last evening, that we should consent to - go about among the outsiders. She and her daughter <i>never</i> do.” - </p> - <p> - “Outsiders!” I was tempted into saying. “Why, they can paint the head off - the Academy!” - </p> - <p> - Miss Timby-Hucks simpered outright. “You do say such droll things!” she - remarked, somewhat obscurely. “Mamma always declares that you remind her - of the <i>Sydney Bulletin</i>.” - </p> - <p> - “Whom <i>do</i> you take to the Academy Show Sunday?—or perhaps I - oughtn’t to ask,” came from Ermyntrude. - </p> - <p> - “No, we have no right to inquire,” said Mrs Albert; and I turned to the - window and the enshrouded lawn once more. - </p> - <p> - All at once the fog lifted. The bonnets were produced again. Nearly three - hours of daylight remained to us. Tidings that the horse was too lame to - be taken out only staggered Mrs Albert for the briefest fraction of time. - There were still four-wheelers in Gilead. Besides, if the driver happened - to be sober, he would know the streets so much better than their stupid - coachman. This would be of advantage, because time was so limited. We - should have to just run in, say “How-d’ye-do,” take a flying look round, - and scamper out again, Mrs Albert said. By firmly adhering to this rule, - she estimated that we might do sixteen or seventeen studios. - </p> - <p> - Heaven alone knows how many we did “do.” Nor have I any clear - recollections of what we saw. A confused vision remains to me of long - hall-ways lined with frames and packing-cases; half-an-acre, more or less, - of painted canvas, out of which only here and there a pair of bright eyes, - a glowing field of poppies, or the sheen from a satin gown, fixed itself - disconnectedly on the memory; hordes and hordes of tall young women - helping themselves to tea and cakes; and always the pathetic figure of the - artist’s wife, or sister, tired to very death, standing by the door with a - wearied smile on her lips, and the polite falsehood, “So good of you to - come!” on her tongue. I wondered, I remember, if she never forgot herself - and said instead, “So kind of you to go!” But under Mrs Albert’s system - there was no time to wait and see. - </p> - <p> - Once, indeed, we dallied over our task. Mrs Albert encountered a lady from - Wormwood Scrubs of her acquaintance, who was indiscreet enough to mention - that she had been asked to stop here for supper. The news spread through - the petticoated portion of my group as by magic. Miss Timby-Hucks came - over and asked me, so audibly that the artist-host had to blush and turn - away, if I didn’t think it would be a deliciously romantic experience to - sup in one of these lofty studios, with the gaslight on the armour, and - the great, solemnly silent pictures looking down upon us as we ate. Mrs - Albert lingered for some time looking at this artist’s work with her head - on one side, and eyes filled with rapt, dreamy enjoyment—but nothing - came of it. - </p> - <p> - It was after we had been back in Fern-bank for an hour or more—our - own cold repast nearly over—that Mrs Albert thought of something. - She laid down her fork with a gesture of annoyance. “It has just occurred - to me,” she said; “we never went to that Mr Whistler’s, whose pictures are - on exhibition in Bond Street. Everybody’s talking about him, and I did so - want not to miss his studio.” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t think he has a Show Sunday,” I said. “I never heard of it, if he - has.” - </p> - <p> - “O no, it is only these last few weeks that anybody has heard of him,” - </p> - <p> - Mrs Albert replied. “I read the first announcement about his beautiful - pictures in <i>The Daily Tarradiddle</i> only the other day.” - </p> - <p> - “Whistler? Whistler?” put in Uncle Dudley. “Why, surely <i>he’s</i> not - new. Why—I remember—he was mixed up in a law-suit, wasn’t it, - years ago?” - </p> - <p> - “O no, Dudley,” responded Mrs Albert; “I was under that same impression, - till Lady Wallaby set me right. It seems that was another man altogether—some - foreign adventurer who pretended to be able to paint and imposed upon - people—don’t you recall how <i>The Tarradiddle</i> exposed him?—and - Mr Burnt-Jones had him arrested, or something—O, quite a dreadful - person. But <i>this</i> Mr Whistler is an Englishman. I read in <i>The - Illustrated London News</i> that he represented modern British Art. That - alone would make it quite clear it was a different man. I did so want to - see him! Lady-Wallaby tells me she has heard he is extremely amusing in - his conversation—and quite presentable manners, too.” - </p> - <p> - “Why don’t you ask him to dinner?” said Mr Albert Grundy. “If he’s amusing - it’s more than most of the men you drum up are.” - </p> - <p> - “You seem to think <i>everybody</i> can be asked to dinner, Albert,” the - lady of the house replied. “Artists don’t dine—unless they are in - the Academy, of course. Tea, yes—or perhaps supper; but one doesn’t - ask people to meet them at dinner. It’s like actors—and—and - non-commissioned officers.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Affording a Novel and Subdued Scientific Light, by which divers - Venerable Problems may be Observed Afresh</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t is my opinion,” - said Uncle Dudley, stretching out his slippered feet, and thrusting his - thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat—“it is my opinion that - women are different from men.” - </p> - <p> - “Several commentators have advanced this view,” I replied. “For example, - it has been noted that the gentle sex cross a muddy street on their heels, - whereas we skip over on our toes.” - </p> - <p> - “That is interesting if true,” responded Uncle Dudley. “What I mean is - that all this talk about the human race is humbug. There are <i>two</i> - human races! And they are getting wider apart every few minutes, too!” - </p> - <p> - “Have you mentioned this to any one?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - Uncle Dudley went on developing his theme. “I daresay that for millions of - years after the re-separation of the sexes this difference was too slight - to be noticed at all. The cave man, for instance—the fellow who went - around hunting the Ichthyosaurus with a brick tied on the end of an elm - club, and spent the whole winter underground sucking the old bones, and - then whittling them up into Runic buttons for the South Kensington Museum: - I suppose, now, that his wife and sister-in-law, say, didn’t strike him as - being specially different from himself—except, of course, in that - they only got plain bones and gristle and so on to eat, whereas all the - marrow and general smooth-sailing in meats went his way. <i>You</i>, can’t - imagine <i>him</i> saying to himself: ‘These female people here are not of - my race at all They are of another species. They are in reality as much my - natural enemies as that long-toed, red-headed, brachycephalous tramp - living in the gum-tree down by the swamp, who makes offensive gestures as - I ride past on my tame <i>Ursus spelous</i>’—now, can you?” - </p> - <p> - I frankly shook my head. “No, I don’t seem to be able to imagine that. It - would be almost as hard as to guess off-hand where, when, and how you - caught this remarkable scientific spasm.” - </p> - <p> - Uncle Dudley smiled. He rose, and walked with leisurely lightness up and - down in front of the chimney-piece, still with his palms spread like - little misplaced wings before his armpits. He smiled again. Then he - stopped on the hearth-rug and looked down amiably upon me. - </p> - <p> - “Well—what d’ye think? There’s something in it, eh?” - </p> - <p> - “My dear fellow,” I began, “what puzzles me is——” - </p> - <p> - “O, I don’t mean to say that I’ve worked it all out,” put in Uncle Dudley, - reassuringly. “Why, I get puzzled myself, every once in a while. But I’m - on the right track, my boy; and, as they say in Adelaide, I’m going to - hang to it like a pup to a root.” - </p> - <p> - “How long have you been this way?” I asked, with an affectation of - sympathy. - </p> - <p> - Uncle Dudley answered with shining eyes. “Why, if you’ll believe me, it - seems now as if I’d had the germs of the idea in my mind ever since I came - back to England, and began living here at Fernbank. But the thing dawned - upon me—that is to say, took shape in my head—less than a - fortnight ago. It all came about through being up here one evening with - nothing to read, and my toe worse than usual, and Mrs Albert having been - out of sorts all through dinner. Somehow, I felt all at once that I’d got - to read scientific works. I couldn’t resist it. I was like Joan of Arc - when the cows and sheep took partners for a quadrille. I heard voices—Darwin’s - and—and—Benjamin Franklin’s—and—lots of others. I - hobbled downstairs to the library, and I brought up a whole armful of the - books that Mrs Albert bought when she expected Lady Wallaby was going to - be able to get her an invitation to attend the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn’s - Biological Conversaziones. Look there! What do you say to that for ten - days’ work? And had to cut every leaf, into the bargain!” - </p> - <p> - I gazed with respect at the considerable row of books he indicated: books - for the most part bound in the scarlet of the International Series or the - maroon of Contemporary Science, but containing also brown covers, and even - green “sport” varieties. - </p> - <p> - “Well, and what is it all about?” I asked. “Why have you read these - things? Why not the reports of the Commission on Agricultural Depression, - or Lewis Morris’s poems, or even——” but my imagination - faltered and broke. - </p> - <p> - “It was instinct, my boy,” returned Uncle Dudley, with impressive - confidence. “There had been a thought—a great idea—growing and - swelling in my head ever since I had been living in this house. But I - couldn’t tell what it was. As you might say, it was wrapped up in a - cocoon, like the larvæ of the lepidoptera—ahem!—and something - was needed to bring it out.” - </p> - <p> - “When I was here last you were trying Hollands with quinine bitters,” I - remarked casually. - </p> - <p> - “Don’t fool!” Uncle Dudley admonished me. “I’m dead in earnest. As I said, - it was pure instinct that led me to these books. They have made everything - clear. I only wanted their help to get the husk off my discovery, and - hoist it on my back, us it were, and bring it out here in the daylight. - And so now you know what I’m getting at when I say: Women are different - from Men.” - </p> - <p> - “That is the discovery, then?” I inquired. - </p> - <p> - Uncle Dudley nodded several times. Then he went on, with emphasised - slowness: “I have lived here now for four years, seeing my sister-in-law - every day, watching Ermyntrude grow up to womanhood and the little girls - peg along behind her, and meeting the female friends who come here to see - them—and, sir, I tell you, they’re not alone a different sex: - they’re a different animal altogether! Take my word for it, they’re a - species by themselves.” - </p> - <p> - “Miss Timby-Hucks is certainly very much by herself,” I remarked. - </p> - <p> - My friend smiled. “And not altogether her own fault either,” he commented. - “But, speaking of science, it’s remarkable how, when you once get a firm - grip on a big, central, main-guy fact, all the little facts come in of - their own accord to support it. Now, there’s that young simpleton you met - here at dinner a while ago: I mean Eustace Hump. Do you know that both - Ermyntrude and the Timby-Hucks, and even Miss Wallaby, think that that - chap is a perfect ideal of masculine wit and beauty? You and I would - hesitate about using him to wad a horse-pistol with: but there isn’t one - of those girls that wouldn’t leap with joy if he began proposing to her; - and as for their mothers, why, the old ladies watch him as a kingfisher - eyes a tadpole.” - </p> - <p> - “Your similes are exciting,” I said; “but what do they go to show?” - </p> - <p> - “My dear fellow, science can show anything. I haven’t gone all through it - yet, but I tell you, it’s wonderful! Take this, for instance”—he - reached for a green book on the mantel, and turned over the leaves—“now - listen to this. The book is written by a man named Wallace—nice, - shrewd-looking old party by his picture, you can see—and this is - what he says on page 285: ‘Some peahens preferred an old pied peacock; a - Canada goose paired with a Bernicle gander; a male widgeon was preferred - by a pintail duck to its own species; a hen canary preferred a male - greenfinch to either linnet, goldfinch, siskin, or chaffinch.’ Now, do you - see that? The moment my eyes first lighted on that, I said to myself: ‘Now - I understand about the girls and Eustace Hump.’ Isn’t it clear to you?” - </p> - <p> - “Absolutely,” I assented. “You ought to read a paper at the Royal Aquarium—before - the Balloon Society, I mean.” - </p> - <p> - “And then look at this,” Uncle Dudley went on, with animation. “Now, you - and I would ask ourselves what on earth such a gawky, spindling, - poor-witted youngster as that thought he was doing among women, anyhow. - But you turn over the page, and here you have it: ‘Goat-suckers, geese, - carrion vultures, and many other birds of plain plumage have been observed - to dance, spread their wings or tails, and perform strange love-antics.’ - Doesn’t that fasten Hump to the wall like a beetle on a pin, eh?” - </p> - <p> - “But I am not sure that I entirely follow its application to your original - point,” I suggested. - </p> - <p> - “About women, you mean? My boy, in science everything applies. The woods - are full of applications. But seriously, women <i>are</i> different. As I - said, in the barbarism at the back of beyond this divergence started. With - the beginning of what we call civilisation, it became more and more - marked. The progress of the separation increases nowadays by square-root—or - whatever you call it. The sexes are wider apart to-day than ever. They - like each other less; they quarrel more. You can see that in the Divorce - Courts, in the diminished proportion of early marriages, in the increasing - evidences of domestic infelicity all about one.” - </p> - <p> - I could not refrain from expressing the fear that all this boded ill for - the perpetuity of the human race. - </p> - <p> - Uncle Dudley is a light-hearted man. He was not depressed by the - apprehensions to which I had given utterance. Instead he hummed pleasantly - to himself as he put Wallace back on the shelf. He began chuckling as a - moment later he bethought himself to fill our glasses afresh. - </p> - <p> - “Did I ever tell you my cat story?” he asked cheerily, testing the knob to - see that the door was shut. “Once a little boy came in to his father and - said: ‘Pa, we won’t be troubled any more with those cats howling about on - our roof at night. I’ve just been looking out of the upstairs window, and - they’re all out there fighting and screaming and tearing each other to - pieces. There won’t be one of them alive by morning!’ Then the father - replied: ‘My son, you imagine a vain thing. When increasing years shall - have furnished your mind with a more copious store of knowledge, you will - grasp the fact that all this commotion and dire disturbance which you - report to me only signifies more cats.’” - </p> - <p> - At this juncture the servant came in with the soda-water. We talked no - more of science that evening. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Touching the Experimental Graft of a Utilitarian Spirit upon the - Aesthetic Instinct in our Sisters</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> HAD strolled - about the galleries of Burlington House for a couple of hours on Press - Day, looking a little at pictures here and there, but for the most part - contemplating with admiration the zeal and good faith of the ladies and - gentlemen who stopped, note-book in hand, before every frame: when some - one behind me gave a friendly tug at my sleeve. I turned, to find myself - confronted by a person I seemed not to know—a small young woman in - an alpine hat and a veil which masked everything about her face except its - dentigerous smile. Even as I looked I was conscious of regret that, if - acquaintances were to be made for me in this spontaneous fashion, destiny - had not selected instead a certain tall, slender, dark young lady, clad - all in black and cock’s-plumes, whom I had been watching at her work of - notetaking in room after room, with growing interest. Then, peering more - closely through the veil, I discovered that I was being accosted by Miss - Timby-Hucks. - </p> - <p> - “You didn’t know me!” she said, with a vivacious half-giggle, as we shook - hands; “and you’re not specially pleased to see me; and you’re asking - yourself, ‘What on earth is she doing here?’ Now, don’t deny it!” - </p> - <p> - “Well, you know,” I made awkward response—“of course—<i>Press</i> - day——” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, but I belong to the Press,” said Miss Timby-Hucks. - </p> - <p> - “Happy Press! And since when?” - </p> - <p> - “O it’s nearly a fortnight now. And most <i>interesting</i> I find the - work. You know, for a long time now I’ve been <i>so</i> restless, <i>so</i> - anxious to find some opening to a real career, where I might be my genuine - self, and be an active part of the great whirling stream of existence, and - concentrate my mind upon the actualities of life—don’t you yourself - think it will be <i>just</i> the thing for me?” - </p> - <p> - “Undoubtedly,” I replied without hesitation. “And do you find focussing - yourself on the actualities—ah—remunerative?” - </p> - <p> - “Well,” Miss Timby-Hucks explained, “nothing of mine has been printed yet, - you see, so that I don’t know as to that. But I am assured it will be all - right. You see, I’m <i>very</i> intimate with a cousin of Mrs Umpelbaum, - who is the wife of the proprietor of <i>Maida Vale</i>, and in that way it - came about. Lady-reporters never have any chance, I am told, unless they - have friends in the proprietor’s family, or know the editor extremely - well. It all goes by favour, like—like——” - </p> - <p> - “Like the dearest of all the actualities,” I put in. “But how is it they - don’t print your stuff?” - </p> - <p> - “I haven’t written any, as yet. The difficulty was to find a subject,” - Miss Timby-Hucks rejoined. “O that awful ‘subject’! I thought and thought - and thought till my head was fit to burst. I went to see Mrs Umpelbaum - herself, and asked her to suggest something. You know she writes a great - deal for the paper herself. She said they hadn’t had any ‘Reminiscences of - Carlyle’ now for some weeks; but afterwards she agreed with me that would - not be quite the thing for one to <i>begin</i> with. She couldn’t suggest - anything else, except that I should have a chat with my dressmaker. Very - often in that way, she said, lady-reporters get the most <i>entertaining</i> - revelations of gossip in high life. But it happened that just then it was - not—not exactly convenient—for me to call upon my dressmaker; - and so <i>that</i> suggestion came to nothing, too.” - </p> - <p> - “I had no idea lady-journalism was so difficult,” I remarked, with - sympathy. - </p> - <p> - “O indeed, yes!” Miss Timby-Hucks went on. “One can’t expect to be <i>en - rapport</i>, as we journalists say, with Society, without spending a great - deal of money. There is one lady-reporter, Mrs Umpelbaum told me, who has - made quite a leading position for herself, solely through hairdressers and - American dentists. But I don’t mind admitting that that would involve more - of an outlay than I could afford, just at the moment.” - </p> - <p> - “So you never got a subject?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “Yes; finally I did. I was over at the Grundys’, telling my troubles, and - Uncle Dudley—you know, being so much with the girls, I always call - him that—Uncle Dudley said that the fashionable thing now was - interviews, and that lady-journalists did this better than - gentlemen-reporters because they had more nerve. By that I suppose he - meant a more delicate nervous organisation, quicker to grasp and absorb - fine shades of character. But that hardly helped me, because whom was I to - interview, and about what? <i>That</i> was the question! But Uncle Dudley - thought a moment, and was ready with a suggestion. Everything depended, he - said, upon making a right start. I must pick out a personality and a theme - at once non-contentious and invested with popular interest His idea was - that I should begin by interviewing Mr T. M. Healy on ‘The Decline of the - Deep-Sea Mock-Turtle Fisheries on the West Coast of Ireland.’ If I could - get Mr Healy to talk frankly on this subject, he felt sure that I should - chain public attention at a bound.” - </p> - <p> - “Superb!” I cried. “And did you do it?” - </p> - <p> - “No,” Miss Timby-Hucks confessed; “I went to the House and sent in my - card, but it was another Irish Member who came out to see me—I think - his name was Mulhooly. He was very polite, and explained that since some - recent sad event in one of the Committee Rooms, fifteen I think its number - was, it was the rule of his party that, when a lady sent in a card to one - Member, some other Member answered it. It prevented confusion, he said, - and was not in antagonism to the expressed views of the Church.” - </p> - <p> - “Talking of nothing,” I said, leading the way over to a divan, on which we - seated ourselves: “you seem to have finally secured a subject. I assume - you are doing the Academy for <i>Maida Vale</i>.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” replied Miss Timby-Hucks with gentle firmness; “you might say I - have <i>done</i> it. I have been here since the very minute the doors - opened, and I’ve gone twelve times round. I wish I could have seen you - earlier. I should so like to have had your opinion of the various works as - we passed.” - </p> - <p> - “It is better not,” I commented. “There are ladies present.” - </p> - <p> - The lady-reporter looked at me for a furtive instant dubiously. Then she - smiled a little under her veil. “You <i>do</i> say such odd things!” she - remarked. “I am glad to see that a great many ladies <i>are</i> present. - It shows how we are securing our proper recognition in journalism. I - believe there are actually more of us here than there are - gentlemen-reporters—I should say gentle-men-critics. And it is the - same in art, too. You can see—I’ve counted them up in my catalogue - here—there are this year two hundred and forty-four lady-artists - exhibiting in this Academy three hundred and forty-six works of art. Think - of that! Fifty of them are described as Mrs, and there are one hundred and - ninety-four who are unmarried.” - </p> - <p> - “Think of <i>that!</i>” I retorted. - </p> - <p> - “And there are among them,” Miss Timby-Hucks went on, “one Marchioness, - one Countess, one Baroness, and one plain Lady. I am going to begin my - article with this. I think it will be interesting, don’t you?” - </p> - <p> - “I’d be careful not to particularise about the plain Lady,” I suggested. - “That might be <i>too</i> interesting.” - </p> - <p> - She was over-full of her subject to smile. “No, I mean,” she said, “as - showing how the ranks of British Art are being filled from the very - highest classes, and are appealing more and more to the female intellect. - I don’t believe it will occur to any one else to count up in the - catalogue. So that will be original with me—to enlighten my sex as - to the glorious part they play in this year’s Academy.” - </p> - <p> - “But have you seen their pictures?” I asked, repressing an involuntary - groan. - </p> - <p> - “Every one!” replied Miss Timby-Hucks. “They are all good. There isn’t - what I should call a bad one—that is, a Frenchy or immoral one—among - them. I shall say that, too, in my criticism; but of course I shall have - to word it carefully, because I fancy Mr Umpelbaum is a foreigner of some - sort—and you know they’re all so sensitive about the superiority of - British Art.” - </p> - <p> - “It is their nature; they can’t help it,” I pointed out. “They try their - best, however, to master these unworthy emotions. Sometimes, indeed, their - dissimulation reaches a really high plane of endeavour.” - </p> - <p> - “They have nothing at all on the Continent like our Royal Academy, I am - told,” said Miss Timby-Hucks. “That isn’t generally known, is it? I had - thought of saying it.” - </p> - <p> - “It will be a safe statement,” I assured her. “You might go further, and - assert that no other country at any stage of its history has had anything - like the Royal Academy. It is the unique blossom of British civilisation.” - </p> - <p> - Miss Timby-Hucks seemed to like the phrase, and made a note of it on the - back of her catalogue. “Yes,” she continued, “I thought of making my - criticism general, dealing with things like that. But I’ve got some - awfully interesting figures to put in. For example, there are sixty-eight - Academicians and Associates exhibiting: they have one hundred and - thirty-five oil paintings, sixteen water-colour or black-and-white - drawings, eight architectural designs, and twenty-three pieces of - sculpture—a total of one hundred and eighty-two works of art, or two - and sixty-seven hundredths each. I got at that by dividing the total - number of works by the total number of Academicians. Do you think any one - else will be likely to print that first in a daily paper? Mrs Umpelbaum - told me that <i>Maida Vale</i> made a special point of new facts. I don’t - think I shall say much about the pictures themselves. What <i>is</i> there - to say about pictures by the Academicians? As I told mamma this morning, - they wouldn’t be Academicians if they didn’t paint good pictures, would - they? and good pictures speak for themselves. Of course, I shall describe - the subjects of Sir Frederic’s pictures—by the way, what <i>is</i> a - Hesperides?—and some of the others: I’ll get you to pick out for me - a few leading names. But I shall make my main point the splendid advance - of lady-artists—I heard some one say in the other room there’d never - been half so many before—and the elevating effect this has upon - British Art. In fact, mightn’t I say that is what makes British Art what - it is to-day?” - </p> - <p> - “It is one of the reasons, undoubtedly,” I assented, as I rose. “There are - others, however.” - </p> - <p> - “Ees, I know,” said Miss Timby-Hucks: “the diffusion of Christian - principles amongst us, our high national morality, and the sanctity of the - English home. Mrs Albert said only last night that these lay at the very - foundation of British art.” - </p> - <p> - “Mrs Albert is a woman of discernment,” I said, making a gesture of - farewell. - </p> - <p> - But Miss Timby-Hucks on the instant thought of something. Her eyes - glistened, her two upper front teeth gleamed. “O, it’s just occurred to - me!” she exclaimed, moving nearer to my side, and speaking-in confidential - excitement. “I know now how that lady-reporter manages with the - hairdressers and dentists. She doesn’t pay them money at all. She mentions - their names in the papers instead. How dull of me not to have thought of - that before! Why—yes—I will!—I’ll put my dressmaker - among the Private View celebrities!” - </p> - <p> - One likes to be civil to people who are obviously going to succeed in the - world. I forthwith took Miss Timby-Hucks out to luncheon. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Relating to Various Phenomena attending the Progress of the Sex along - Lines of the Greatest Resistance</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>y own idea,” said - Uncle Dudley, “is that women ought to be confined to barracks during - elections just the same as soldiers.” - </p> - <p> - “I was quite prepared to find <i>you</i> entertaining views of that - character,” remarked Miss Wallaby, with virginal severity. “Men who have - wandered about the less advanced parts of the earth, and spent long - periods of time in contact with inferior civilisations, quite generally do - feel that way. Life in the Colonies, and in similar rude and remote - regions, does produce that effect upon the masculine mind. But here in - England, the nerve-centre of the English-speaking race, the point of - concentration from which radiate all the impulses of refinement and - culture that distinguish our generation, men are coming to see these - matters in a different light. They no longer refuse to listen to the - overwhelming arguments in favour of entire feminine equality——” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, <i>I</i> admit <i>that</i> at once,” broke in Uncle Dudley. “But do - women nowadays believe in equality among themselves? In my youth they used - to devote pretty well all their energies to showing how much superior they - were to other women.” - </p> - <p> - “I spoke of the masculine attitude,” said Miss Wallaby, coldly. “Viewed - intelligently, the gradations and classifications which we maintain among - ourselves, at the cost of such infinite trouble and personal - self-sacrifice, are the very foundation upon which rests the - superstructure of British Society.” - </p> - <p> - “I admit that, too,” Uncle Dudley hastened to put in. “Really, we are - getting on very nicely.” - </p> - <p> - Miss Wallaby ignored the interruption altogether. “The point is,” she went - on, “that the male mind in England is coming—with characteristic - slowness, no doubt, but still coming—to recognise the necessity of - securing the very fullest and most complete participation of my sex in - public affairs. As the diffusion of enlightenment progresses, men will - more and more abandon the coarse and egoistic standards of their days of - domination by brute force, and turn instead to the ideals of purity and - sweetness which Woman in Politics typifies. It has been observed that one - may pick out the future rulers of England in each coming generation by - scanning the honour-lists of Oxford and Cambridge. How happy a day it will - be for England, and civilisation, when this is said of Girton and Newnham - as well!” - </p> - <p> - “I spent a summer in the State of Maine once, some years ago,” said Uncle - Dudley. “That’s the State, you know, where they’ve had a Prohibition law - now for nearly forty years. The excess of females over males is larger - there, I believe, than it is anywhere else in the world—owing to the - fact that all the young men who are worth their salt emigrate to some - other State as soon as they’ve saved up enough for a railway-ticket. The - men that you do see lounging around there, in the small villages, are all - minding the baby, or sitting on the doorstep shelling peas, or out in the - backyard, with their mouths full of clothes-pins, hanging up sheets and - pillow-cases on the line to dry. The women there take a very active part - in politics—and every census shows that Maine’s population has - diminished. Shipbuilding has almost ceased, farms are being abandoned - yearly, the State is mortgaged up to its eyebrows, and you get nothing but - fried clams and huckleberry-pie for breakfast—but, of course, I - suppose there <i>is</i> a good deal of purity and sweetness.” - </p> - <p> - Miss Wallaby rose and walked away from us; the black velvet riband around - her neck, the glint of gas-light on her eyeglasses, the wearied - haughtiness on her swarthy, high-nosed face, seemed to unite in saying to - us that we were very poor creatures indeed. - </p> - <p> - “She’s been down to the Retired Licensed Victuallers’ Division of Surrey, - you know,” exclaimed Uncle Dudley, “making speeches in favour of the - sitting Member, old Sir Watkyn Hump.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, that accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nut,” I remarked. - </p> - <p> - “Well, no,” my friend mused aloud, “I fancy <i>young</i> Hump accounts for - that. See—she’s gone and cut him out from under the Timby-Hucks’s - guns.” - </p> - <p> - It was at one of Mrs Albert Grundy’s evenings at home, and Uncle Dudley - and I now had possession of a quiet corner to ourselves. From this - pleasant vantage-ground we indolently surveyed the throng surrounding Mrs - Albert at the piano end of the room, and stretching off through the open - double doors into the adjoining chamber—a throng of dazzling arms - and shoulders, of light-hued satins and fluffy stuffs, of waving feathers, - and splendid piles of braided hair, and mostly comely faces wreathed in - politic smiles. Here and there the mass of pinks and whites and creams was - broken abruptly by a black coat with a hat under its sleeve. Dudley and I - idly commented upon the fact that almost all these coats belonged to - undersized elderly men, generally with spectacles and a grey beard, and we - noted with placid interest that as they came in—announced in - stentorian tones as Mr and Mrs So-and-so—their wives as a rule were - several inches taller and many many years younger than themselves. - </p> - <p> - Then it was entertaining, too, to watch Mrs Albert shake hands with these - newcomers. She knew just at what angle each preferred that ceremony, - keeping her knuckles well down in welcoming the more sophisticated and - up-to-date people from about Cromwell Road and the Park, but elevating - them breast-high to greet those from around Brompton way, and hoisting - them quite up to the chin-level with the guests from beyond Earl’s Court, - who were still in the toils of last year’s fashions. - </p> - <p> - “Smart woman, that sister of mine!” said Uncle Dudley. “See the way she’s - manoeuvred her shoulder around in front of the Timby-Hucks’s nose, so as - to head her off from getting in and being introduced to the Hon. Mrs - Coon-Alwyn. And—hello! by George, she’s won!—there’s the - Dowager Countess of Thames-Ditton coming in! You’ll never know the - anguish, my boy, that was caused by the uncertainty whether she would come - or not. Emily hasn’t been able to eat these past four days, expecting - every moment the knock of the postman bringing her ladyship’s refusal to - come. The only thing that enabled her to keep up, she said, was fixing her - mind resolutely on the fact that the aristocracy are notoriously impolite - about answering invitations. But now, happy woman—her cup is fairly - running over. This is a great night for Fernbank. And—look!—hanged - if that girl isn’t trying to edge her way in there, too! See how prettily - Emily managed that? Oh, Timby-Hucks! Timby-Hucks! you’ve put your foot in - it this time. You’ll never figure on the free-list for <i>this</i> show - again.” - </p> - <p> - Misfortune indeed claimed Miss Timby-Hucks for its very own. Mrs Albert - had twice adroitly interposed her well-rounded shoulders between that - enterprising young woman and social eminence—the second time with - quite obvious determination of purpose. And there, too, behind the door, - young Mr Hump bent his sloping shoulders and cliff-like collar humbly over - Miss Wallaby’s chair, listening with all his considerable ears to her - selected monologues. Ah, the vanity of human aspirations! - </p> - <p> - Casting an heroic glance over the field of defeat, Miss Timby-Hucks’s eye - lighted upon our corner, and on the instant her two upper front teeth - gleamed in a smile of relief. At all events, <i>we</i> were left—and - she came towards us with a decisive step. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve hardly seen you since the Academy,” she said in her sprightly way to - me, after we had all shaken hands, and she had seated herself between us - on the sofa. - </p> - <p> - “And how did your article come out?” I asked politely. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, it never came out at all,” she replied. “It seems it got left over - too long. The editor <i>said</i> it was owing to the pressure of - interesting monkey-language matter upon his columns; but <i>I</i> believe - it was just because I’m a lady journalist, and so does the cousin of Mrs - Umpelbaum, the proprietor’s wife. It must have been that—because, - long after the editor gave this excuse, there were the daily papers still - printing their criticisms, ‘Eleventh Notice of the Royal Academy,’ ‘The - Spring Exhibitions—Fourteenth Article,’ and so on. I taxed him with - it—told him I heard they had some still left, that they were going - to begin printing again after the elections were over—but he said it - was different with dailies. All <i>they</i> needed were advertisements and - market reports, and police news, and telegrams about the Macedonian - frontier, and they could print art criticisms and book reviews whole years - after they should have appeared, because nobody ever read them when they - were printed—but weeklies had to be absolutely up to date.” - </p> - <p> - “Evil luck does pursue you!” I said, compassionately. “So you haven’t got - into print at all?” - </p> - <p> - “O I’m not a bit cast down,” replied Miss Timby-Hucks, with jaunty - confidence. “There’s no such word as fail in my book. The way to succeed - is just to keep pegging away. I know of one lady-journalist who went every - day for nine weeks to interview the Countess of Wimps about her second - son’s having been warned off Newmarket Heath. Every day she was refused - admittance—once she got into the hall and was put out by a brutal - footman—but it never unnerved her. Each morning she went again. And - she would have succeeded by this time, probably—only the Countess - suddenly left England to spend the summer in Egypt.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, Wady Halfa <i>has</i> its advantages, even in July,” said Uncle - Dudley. “It is warm, and there are insects, but one is allowed by law to - kill them—in Egypt.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Illustrating the operation of Vegetables and Feminine Duplicity upon - the Concepts of Maternal Responsibility</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> FELT that I was - on sufficiently intimate terms with Mrs Albert Grundy to tell her that she - was not looking well. She gave a weary little sigh and said she knew it. - </p> - <p> - Indeed, poor lady, it was apparent enough. She has taken of late to - wearing her hair drawn up from her forehead over a roll—the effect - of mouse-tints at which Nature is beginning to hint, being frankly helped - out by powder. Everybody about Fernbank recognises that in some way this - reform has altered the whole state of affairs. The very servant who comes - to the door, or who brings in the tea-things, seems to carry herself in a - different manner since the change has been made. Of course, it is by no - means a new fashion, but it was not until the Dowager Countess of - Thames-Ditton brought it in person to Fernbank that Mrs Albert could be - quite sure of its entire suitability. Up to that time it had seemed to her - a style rather adapted to lady lecturers and the wives of men who write: - and though Mrs Albert has the very highest regard for literature—quite - dotes on it, as she says—she is somewhat inclined to sniff at its - wives. - </p> - <p> - We all feel that the change adds character to Mrs Albert’s face—or - rather exhibits now that true managing and resourceful temper, which was - formerly obscured and weakened by a fringe. But the new arrangement has - the defects of its qualities. It does not lend itself to tricks. The - countenance beneath it does not easily dissemble anxiety or mask fatigue. - And both were written broadly over Mrs Albert’s fine face. “Yes,” she - said, “I know it.” - </p> - <p> - The consoling suggestion that soon the necessity of giving home-dinners to - the directors in her husband’s companies would have ended, and that then a - few weeks out of London, away somewhere in the air of the mountains or the - sea, would bring back all her wonted strength and spirits, did no good. - She shook her head and sighed again. - </p> - <p> - “No,” she said, “it isn’t physical. That is to say, it <i>is</i> physical, - but the cause is mental. It is over-worry.” - </p> - <p> - “Of all people on earth—<i>you!</i>” I replied reproachfully. “Why - think of it—a husband who is the dream of docile propriety, a - competency broadening each year into a fortune, a home like this, such - servants, such appointments, such a circle of admiring friends—and - then your daughters! Why, to be the mother of such a girl as Ermyntrude———-” - </p> - <p> - “Precisely,” interrupted Mrs Albert. “To be the mother of such a girl, as - you say. Little you know what it really means! But, no—I know what - you were going to say—<i>please</i> don’t! it is too sad a subject.” - </p> - <p> - I could do nothing but feebly strive to look my surprise. To think of - sadness connected with tall, handsome, good-hearted Ermie, was impossible. - </p> - <p> - “You think I am exaggerating, I know,” Mrs Albert went on. “Ah, you do not - know!” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing could be more evident,” I replied, “than that I don’t know. I - can’t even imagine what on earth you are driving at.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs Albert paused for a moment, and pushed the toe of her wee slipper - meditatively back and forth on the figure of the carpet. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I <i>will</i> tell you,” she said at last. “You are such an old - friend of the family that you are almost one of us. And besides, you are - always sympathetic—so different from Dudley. Well, the point is - this. You know the young man—Sir Watkyn’s son—Mr Eustace - Hump.” - </p> - <p> - “I have met him here,” I assented. - </p> - <p> - “Well, I doubt if you will meet him here any more,” Mrs Albert said, - impressively. - </p> - <p> - “The deprivation shall not drive me to despair or drink,” I assured her. - “I will watch over myself.” - </p> - <p> - “I dare say you did not care much for him,” said Mrs Albert. “I know - Dudley didn’t. But, all the same, he <i>was</i> eligible. He is an only - son, and his father is a Baronet—an hereditary title—and they - are <i>rolling</i> in wealth. And Eustace himself, when you get to know - him, has some very admirable qualities. You know he <i>writes!</i>” - </p> - <p> - “I have heard him say so,” I responded, perhaps not over graciously. - </p> - <p> - “O, <i>regularly</i>, for a number of weekly papers. It is understood that - quite frequently he gets paid—not of course that that matters to him—but - his associations are distinctly literary. I have always felt that with his - tastes and connections his wife—granting of course that she was the - right kind of woman—might at last set up a real literary <i>salon</i> - in London. We have wanted one so long, you know.” - </p> - <p> - “Have we?” I murmured listlessly, striving all the while to guess what - relation all this bore to the question of Ermyntrude. I built up in my - mind a hostile picture of the odious Hump, with his shoulders sloping off - like a German wine-bottle, his lean neck battlemented in high starched - walls of linen, and his foolish conceited face—and leaped hopefully - to the conclusion that Ermyntrude had rejected him. I could not keep the - notion to myself. - </p> - <p> - “Well—has she sent him about his business?” I asked, making ready to - beam with delight. - </p> - <p> - “No,” said Mrs Albert, ruefully. “It never got to that, so far as I can - gather—but at all events it is all over. I expect every morning now - to read the announcement in the <i>Morning Post</i> that a marriage has - been arranged between him and—and—Miss Wallaby!” - </p> - <p> - I sat upright, and felt myself smiling. “What!—the girl with the - black ribbon round her neck?” I asked comfortably. - </p> - <p> - “It would be more appropriate round her heart,” remarked Mrs Albert, with - bitterness in her tone. “Why, do you know? her mother, for all that she’s - Lady Wallaby, hasn’t an ‘h’ in her whole composition.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, neither has old Sir Watkyn Hump,” I rejoined pleasantly. “So it’s a - fair exchange.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, but <i>he</i> can afford it,” put in Mrs Albert. “But the Wallabys—well, - I can only say that I had a right to look for different treatment at <i>their</i> - hands. How, do you suppose, they would ever have been asked to the Hon. - Mrs Coon-Alwyn’s garden-party, or met Lady Thames-Ditton, or been put in - society generally, if I had not taken an interest in them? Why, that - girl’s father, old Sir Willoughby Wallaby, was never anything but chief of - police, or something like that, out in some Australian convict settlement. - I <i>have</i> heard he was knighted by mistake, but of course my lips are - sealed.” - </p> - <p> - “I suppose they really have behaved badly,” I said, half interrogatively. - </p> - <p> - “Badly!” echoed the wrathful mother. “I will leave you to judge. It was - done here, quite under my own roof. You know Miss Wallaby volunteered her - services, and went down into the Retired Licensed Victuallers’ Division of - Surrey to electioneer for Sir Watkyn. Do you know, I never suspected - anything. And then Miss Timby-Hucks, she went down also, but they rather - cold-shouldered her, and she came back, and she told me things, and <i>still</i> - I wouldn’t believe it. Well then—three weeks ago—my Evening At - Home—you were here—the Wallabys came as large as life, and - that scheming young person manoeuvred about until she got herself alone - with Eustace and my Ermyntrude, and then she told her a scene she had - witnessed during her recent election experiences. There was a meeting for - Sir Watkyn at some place, I can’t recall the name, and there were a good - many of the other side there, and they hooted and shouted, and raised - disturbance, until at last there was one speaker they would not hear at - all. All this that girl told Ermyntrude seriously, and as if she were - overflowing with indignation. And then she came to the part where the - speaker stood his ground and tried to make himself heard, and the crowd - yelled louder than ever, and still he doggedly persisted—and then - someone threw a large vegetable marrow, soft and very ripe, and it hit - that speaker just under the ear, and burst all over him!” - </p> - <p> - “Ha-ha-ha!” I ejaculated. “The vegetable marrow in politics is new—full - of delightful possibilities and seeds—wonder it has never been - thought of before.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” said Mrs Albert, with a sigh. “Ermyntrude also thought it was - funny. She has a very keen sense of humour—quite too keen. <i>She</i> - laughed, too!” - </p> - <p> - “And why not?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “Why not?” demanded Mrs Albert, with shining eyes. “Because the story had - been told just to trap her into laughing—because—because the - speaker upon whom that unhappy vegetable marrow exploded was—<i>Eustace - Hump!</i>” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Containing Thoughts upon the Great Unknown, to which are added - Speculations upon her Hereafter</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t is not often - that I find the time to take part in Mrs Albert Grundy’s Thursdays—the - third and fifth Thursdays of each month, from 4 to 6.30 P.M.—but on - a certain afternoon pleasant weather and the sense of long-accrued - responsibility drew me to Fernbank. - </p> - <p> - It was really very nice, after one got there. Perhaps it would have been - less satisfactory had escape from the drawing-room been a more difficult - matter. Inside that formal chamber, with its blinds down-drawn to shield - the carpet from the sun, the respectable air hung somewhat heavily about - the assembled matronhood of Brompton and the Kensingtons. The units in - this gathering changed from time to time—for Mrs Albert’s circle is - a large and growing one—but the effect of the sum remained much the - same. The elderly ladies talked about the amiability and kindliness of the - Duchess of Teck; and argued the Continental relationships of the Duchesses - of Connaught and Albany, first into an apparently hopeless tangle of <i>burgs</i> - and <i>hausens</i> and <i>zollerns</i> and <i>sweigs</i>, then - triumphantly out again into the bright daylight of well-ordered and - pellucid genealogy. The younger wives spoke in subdued voices of more - juvenile Princesses on the lower steps of the throne, with occasional - short-winged flights across the North Sea in imaginative search of a - suitable bride for the then unwedded Duke of York, if an importation - should be found to be necessary—about which opinions might in all - loyalty differ. The few young girls who sat dutifully here beside their - mammas or married sisters talked of nothing at all, but smiled confusedly - and looked away whenever another’s glance, caught theirs—and, I - daresay, thought with decent humility upon Marchionesses. - </p> - <p> - But outside, on the garden-lawn at the rear of the house, the <i>Almanach - de Gotha</i> threw no shadow, and the pungent scent of jasmine and lilies - drove the leathery odour of Debrett from the soft summer air. The gentle - London haze made Whistlers and Maitlands of the walls and roof-lines and - chimney-pots beyond. The pretty girls of Fernbank held court here on the - velvet grass, with groups of attendant maidens from sympathetic Myrtle - Lodges and Cedarcrofts and Chestnut Villas—selected homesteads - stretching all the way to remote West Kensington. They said there was no - one left in London. Why, as I sat apart in the shade of the ivy - overhanging the garden path, and watched this out-door panorama of the - Grundys’ friendships, it seemed as if I had never comprehended before how - many girls there really were in the world. - </p> - <p> - And how sweet it was to look upon these damsels, with their dainty - sailor’s hats of straw, their cheeks of Devon cream and damask, their tall - and shapely forms, their profiles of faultless classical delicacy! What - if, in time, they too must sit inside, by preference, and babble of - royalties and the peerage, and politely uncover those two aggressive - incisors of genteel maturity when they were asked to have a third cup of - tea? That stage, praise heaven, should be many years removed. We will have - no memento mori bones or tusks out here in the sunlit garden—but - only tennis balls, and the inspiring chalk-bands on the sward, and the - noble grace of English girlhood, erect and joyous in the open air. # Much - as I delighted in this spectacle, it forced upon me as well a certain - vague sense of depression. These lofty and lovely creatures were strangers - to me. I do not mean that their names were unknown to me, or that I had - not exchanged civil words with many of them, or that I might not be - presented to, and affably received by, them all. The feeling was, rather, - that if it were possible for me to marry them all, we still to the end of - our days would remain strangers. I should never know what to say to them; - still less should I ever be able to guess what they were thinking. - </p> - <p> - The tallest and most impressive of all the bevy—the handsome girl in - the pale brown frock with the shirt-front and jacketed blouse, who stands - leaning with folded hands upon her racket like an indolent Diana—why, - I punted her about the whole reach from Sunbury to Walton during the - better part of a week, only last summer, not to mention sitting beside her - at dinner every evening on the houseboat. We were so much together, in - truth, that my friends round about, as I came to know afterwards, - canvassed among themselves the prospect of our arranging never to - separate. Yet I feel that I do not know this girl. We are friends, yes; - but we are not acquainted with each other. - </p> - <p> - More than once—perhaps a dozen times—in driving through the - busier of London streets, my fancy has been caught by this thing: a hansom - whirling smartly by, the dark hood of which frames a woman’s face—young, - wistful, ivory-hued. It is like the flash exposure of a kodak—this - bald instant of time in which I see this face, and comprehend that its - gaze has met mine, and has burned into my memory a lightning picture of - something I should not recognise if I saw it again, and cannot at all - reproduce to myself, and probably would not like if I could, yet which - leaves me with the feeling that I am richer than I was before. In that - fractional throb of space there has been snatched an unrehearsed and - unprejudiced contact of human souls—projected from one void - momentarily to be swept forward into another; and though not the Judgment - Day itself shall bring these two together again, they know each other. - </p> - <p> - Now that I look again at the goddess in the pale-brown gown, these - unlabelled faces of the flitting hansoms seem by comparison those of - familiar companions and intimates. - </p> - <p> - I get no sense of human communion from that serene and regular - countenance, with its exquisite nose, its short upper-lip and glint of - pearls along the bowed line of the mouth, its correctly arched brows and - wide-open, impassive blue eyes. I can see it with prophetic admiration - out-queening all the others at Henley, or at Goodwood, or on the great - staircase of Buckingham Palace. I can imagine it at Monte Carlo, flushed a - little at the sight of retreating gold; or at the head of a great noble’s - table, coldly poised above satin throat and shoulders, and stirring no - muscle under the free whisperings of His Excellency to the right. I can - conceive it in the Divorce Court, bearing with metallic equanimity the - rude scrutiny of a thousand unlicensed eyes. But my fancy wavers and fails - at the task of picturing that face at my own fireside, with the light of - the home-hearth painting the fulness of her rounded chin, and reflecting - back from her glance, as we talk of men and books and things, the frank - gladness of real comradeship. - </p> - <p> - But—tchut!—I have no fireside, and the comrades I like best - are playing halfcrown whist at the club; and these are all nice girls—hearty, - healthful, handsome girls, who can walk, run, dance, swim, scull, skate, - ride as no others have known or dared to do since the glacial wave of - Christianity depopulated the glades and dells of Olympus. They will mate - after their kind, and in its own good time along will come a new - generation of straight, strong-limbed, thin-lipped, pink-and-white girls, - and of tow-headed, deep-chested lads, their brothers—boys who will - bully their way through Rugby and Harrow, misspell and misapprehend their - way into the Army, the Navy, and the Civil Service, and spread themselves - over the habitable globe, to rule, through sheer inability to understand, - such Baboos and Matabele and mere Irishry as Imperial destiny delivers - over to them. - </p> - <p> - The vision is not wholly joyous, as it with diffidence projects itself - beyond, into that further space where new strange other generations walk—the - girls still taller and more coldly tubbed, the boys astride a yet more - temerarious saddle of dull dominion. Reluctant prophecy discerns beneath - their considerable feet the bruised fragments of many antique trifles—the - <i>bric-à-brac</i> of an extinct sentimental fraction that had a sense of - humour and could spell—and, to please mamma, the fig-leaves have - quite overspread and hidden the statues in their garden. But power is - there, and empire; they still more serenely loom above the little foreign - folks who cook, and sing to harps and fiddles, and paint for their - amusement; such as it is under their shaping, they possess the earth. - </p> - <p> - So, as the sun goes down in the Hammersmith heavens, I take off my hat, - and salute the potential mothers of the New Rome. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Glancing at some Modern Aspects of Master John Gutenberg’s ingenious - but Over-rated Invention</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was very - pleasant thus to meet Uncle Dudley in the Strand. Only here and there is - one who can bear that test. Whole legions of our friends, decent and - deeply reputable people, fall altogether out of the picture, so to speak, - on this ancient yet robust thoroughfare. They do very well indeed in - Chelsea or Highgate or the Pembridge country, where they are at home: - there the surroundings fit them to a nicety; there they produce upon one - only amiable, or at the least, natural, impressions. But to encounter them - in the Strand is to be shocked by the blank incongruity of things. It is - not alone that they give the effect of being lost—of wandering - helplessly in unfamiliar places. They offend your perceptions by revealing - limitations and shortcomings which might otherwise have been hidden to the - end of time. You see suddenly that they are not such good fellows, after - all. Their spiritual complexions are made up for the dim light which - pervades the outskirts of the four-mile radius—and go to pieces in - the jocund radiance of the Strand. It is flat presumption on their part to - be ambling about where the ghosts of Goldsmith and Johnson walk, where - Prior and Fielding and our Dick Steele have passed. Instinctively you go - by, looking the other way. - </p> - <p> - It was quite different with Uncle Dudley. You saw at once that he belonged - to the Strand, as wholly as any of our scorned and scornful sisters on its - comers, competing with true insular doggedness against German cheeks and - raddled accents; as fully as any of its indigenous loafers, hereditary in - their riverside haunts from Tudor times, with their sophisticated joy in - drink and dirt, their large self-confidence grinning through rags and - sooty grime. It seemed as if I had always associated Uncle Dudley with the - Strand. - </p> - <p> - He was standing in contemplation before a brave window, wherein American - cheese, Danish butter, Norwegian fish, Belgian eggs, German sausages, - Hungarian bacon, French vegetables, Australian apples, and Algerian fruits - celebrate the catholicity of the modern British diet. He turned when I - touched his shoulder, and drew my arm through his. - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” said Uncle Dudley, “let us take a walk along the Strand to the Law - Courts, where I conceive that the tide of human existence gets the worst - of it with unequalled regularity and dispatch.” - </p> - <p> - On his way he told me that his gout had quite vanished, owing to his - foresight in collecting a large store of the best medical advice, and then - thoughtfully and with pains disregarding it all. He demonstrated to me at - two halting places that his convalescence was compatible with rich and - strong drinks. He disclosed to me, as we sauntered eastward, his purpose - in straying thus far afield. - </p> - <p> - “You know Mrs Albert is really a kindly soul,” he said. “It isn’t in her - to keep angry. You remember how sternly she swore that she and Fernbank - had seen the last of Miss Timby-Hucks. It only lasted five weeks—and - now, bless me if the girl isn’t more at home on our backs than ever. She’s - shunted herself off, now, into a new branch of journalism—it seems - that there are a good many branches in these days.” - </p> - <p> - “It has been noticed,” I assented. - </p> - <p> - “She doesn’t write any more,” he explained, “that is, <i>for</i> the - papers. She goes instead to the Museum or somewhere, and reads carefully - every daily and weekly journal, I believe, in England. Her business is to - pick out possible libels in them—and to furnish her employers, a - certain firm of solicitors, with a daily list of these. They communicate - with the aggrieved people, notifying them that they <i>are</i> aggrieved, - which they very likely would not otherwise have known, and the result is, - of course, a very fine and spirited crop of litigation.” - </p> - <p> - “Then that accounts for all the recent——” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps not quite <i>all</i>,” put in Uncle Dudley. “But the Timby-Hucks - is both energetic and vigilant, and she tells me she is doing splendidly. - She is very enthusiastic about it, naturally. She says that while the - money is, of course, an object, her real satisfaction is in the - humanitarian aspects of her work.” - </p> - <p> - “I am not sure that I follow,” I said doubtingly. - </p> - <p> - “No, I didn’t altogether myself at the start,” said Uncle Dudley, “but as - she explains it, it is very simple. You see business is in a bad way in - London—worse, they say, than usual. The number of unemployed is - something dreadful to think of, so I am told by those who have thought of - it. There are many thousands of people with no food, no fire, no clothes - to speak of. Most people are discouraged about this. They can’t see how - the thing can be improved. But Miss Timby-Hucks has a very ingenious idea. - Why, she asks, do not all the Unemployed sue all the newspapers for libel? - Do you catch the notion?” - </p> - <p> - “By George!” I exclaimed, “that is a bold, comprehensive thought!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, isn’t it?” cried Uncle Dudley. “I am immensely attracted by it. For - one thing, it is so secure, so certain! Broadly speaking, there are no - risks at all. I suppose there has never yet been a case, no matter what - its so-called merits, in which the English newspaper hasn’t been cast in - damages of some sort Nobody is too humble or too shady to get a verdict - against an editor or newspaper proprietor. Miss Timby-Hucks relates - several most touching instances where the wolf was actually at the door, - the children shoeless and hungry, the mother prostrated by drink, rain - coming through the roof and so on—and everything has been changed to - peace and contentment by the happy thought of bringing a libel suit. The - father now wears a smile and a white waistcoat; the drains have been - repaired; the little children, nicely washed and combed, kick each other’s - shins with brand new boots, and sing cheerfully beneath a worsted-work - motto of ‘God bless our Home!’ I find myself much affected by the - thought.” - </p> - <p> - “You had always a tender heart,” I responded. “I suppose there would be no - trouble about the Judges?” - </p> - <p> - “Not the least in the world,” said Uncle Dudley, with confidence. “Of - course the Bench would have to be greatly enlarged, but there need be no - fear on that score. There is a mysterious but beneficent rule, my boy, - which you can always count upon in this making of judges—no matter - how hail-fellow-well-met an eminent lawyer may be, no matter how intimate - his connection with newspapers, how large his indebtedness to them for his - career—the moment he gets on the Bench he catches the full, fine, - old-crusted judicial spirit toward the Press. The scales fall with a bang - from his eyes, and he sees the editor and newspaper proprietor as they - really are—designing criminals, mercenary reprobates, social pests—to - be lectured and bullied and put down. O, you may rely on the Judges! They - are as safe as a new Liberal peer is to vote Tory.” - </p> - <p> - “But the ‘power of the Press’?” I urged. “If the newspapers combine in - protest, and——” - </p> - <p> - “You talk at random!” said Uncle Dudley almost austerely. “I should say - the most certain, the most absolutely reliable, element in the whole case - is the fact that newspapers do not combine. Whenever one editor gets hit, - all the others grin. One journal is mulcted in heavy damages: the rest - have all a difficulty in dissembling their delight. You read in natural - history that kites are given to falling upon one of their kind which gets - wounded or decrepit, and picking out its eyes. Well, kites are also made - of newspapers.” - </p> - <p> - “And juries?” I began to ask. - </p> - <p> - “Here we are,” remarked Uncle Dudley, turning in toward the guarded - portals of the great hall. - </p> - <p> - “I have a friend among the attendants here, a thoughtful and discerning - man. I will learn from him where we may look for the spiciest case. He - takes a lively interest in the flaying of editors. I believe he was once a - printer. He will tell us where the axe gleams most savagely to-day: where; - we shall get the most journalistic blood for our money. You were speaking - of juries. Just take a look at one of them—if you are not afraid of - spoiling your luncheon—and you will see that they speak for - themselves. They regard all newspapers as public enemies—particularly - when the betting tips have been more misleading than usual. They stand by - their kind. They ‘give the poor man a chance’ without hesitation, without - fail. They are here to avenge the discovery of movable types, and they do - it. Come with me, and witness the disembowelling of a daily, the - hamstringing of a sub-editor—a publisher felled by the hand of the - Law like a bullock. Since the bear-pits of Bankside were closed there has - been no such sport.” - </p> - <p> - Unhappily, it turned out that none of the Judges had come down to the - Courts that day. There was a threat of east wind in the air. “You see, if - they don’t live, to a certain age they get no pensions, and their heirs - turn a key in the lock on the old gentlemen in weather like this,” - explained Uncle Dudley, turning disappointedly away. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Detailing certain Prudential Measures taken during the Panic incident - to a Late Threatened Invasion</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> HOPE,” said Mrs - Albert, “that I am as free to admit my errors in judgment as another. - Evidently there has been a mistake in this matter, and it is equally - obvious that I am the one who must have made it. I did not need to have - this pointed out to me, Dudley. What I looked to you for was advice, - counsel, sympathy. You seem not to realise at all how important this is to - me. A false step now may ruin everything—and you simply sit there - and grin!” - </p> - <p> - “My dear sister,” replied Uncle Dudley, smoothing his face, “the smile was - involuntary. It shall not recur. I was only thinking of Albert’s - enthusiasm for the——” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I know!” put in Mrs Albert; “for that girl with the zouave jacket——” - </p> - <p> - “<i>And</i> the scarlet petticoat,” prompted Uncle Dudley. - </p> - <p> - “<i>And</i> the crinoline,” said the lady. - </p> - <p> - “O, he did not insist upon that. I recall his exact words. ‘Whether this - under-garment,’ he said, ‘be made of some stiff material like horsehair, - or by means of steel hoops, is a mere question of detail.’ No, Albert - expressly kept an open mind on that point.” - </p> - <p> - “I agree with you,” remarked Mrs Albert coldly, “to the extent that he - certainly does keep his mind on it. He has now reverted to the subject, I - should think, at least twenty times. I am not so blind as you may imagine. - I notice that that Mr Labouchere also keeps on referring, every week, to - another girl in <i>her</i> zouave jacket, whom <i>he</i> remembers with - equal fondness, apparently.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” put in Uncle Dudley, “those words about the ‘stiff material like - horsehair’ <i>were</i> in <i>Truth</i>. I daresay Albert simply read them - there, and just unconsciously repeated them. We often do inadvertent, - unthinking things of that sort.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs Albert shook her head. “It is nothing to me, of course,” she said, - “but I cannot help feeling that the middle-aged father of a family might - concentrate his thoughts upon something nobler, something higher, than the - recollection of the charms of a red petticoat, thirty years ago. That is - so characteristic of men. They cannot discuss a question broadly——” - </p> - <p> - “Think not?” queried Uncle Dudley, with interest. “You should listen at - the keyhole sometime, after you have led the ladies out from dinner.” - </p> - <p> - “I mean personally, in a general way. They always particularise. Albert, - for example, allows all his views on this very important question to be - coloured by the fact that when he was a young man he admired some girl in - a short red Balmoral petticoat. Whenever conversation touches upon any - phase of the whole subject of costume, out he comes with his tiresome - adulation of that particular garment. Of course, I ask no questions—I - should prefer not to be informed—I try not even to draw inferences—but - I notice that Ermyntrude is beginning to observe the persistency with - which her father——” - </p> - <p> - “My good Emily,” urged Uncle Dudley, consolingly, “far back in the Sixties - we all liked that girl; we couldn’t help ourselves—she was the only - girl there was. And we think of her fondly still—we old fellows—because - for us she was also the last there was! When she went out, lo and behold! - we too had gone out, not to come back any more. When Albert and I babble - about a scarlet petticoat, it is only as a symbol of our own far-away - youth. O delicious vision!—the bright, bright red, the skirt that - came drooping down over it, not hiding too much that pretty little foot - and ankle, the dear zouave jacket moulding itself so delicately to the - persuasive encircling arm——” - </p> - <p> - “Dudley! I really must recall you to yourself,” said Mrs Albert. “We were - speaking of quite another matter. I am in a very serious dilemma. First of - all, as I explained to you, to please the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn I became one - of the Vice-Presidents of the Friendly Divided Skirt Association. You know - how useful she can be, in helping to bring Ermyntrude out successfully. - And of course everybody <i>knew</i> that, even if we <i>did</i> have them - <i>made</i>, we should never <i>wear</i> them. That was <i>quite</i> out - of the question.” - </p> - <p> - “And then?” asked Uncle Dudley. - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, let me see—yes, next came the Neo-Dress-Improver - League. I never understood what the object was, precisely; it was a kind - of secession from the other, led by the Countess of Wimps, and I needn’t - tell you that she is of the <i>utmost</i> importance to us, and there was - simply <i>nothing</i> for me to do but to become a Lady Patroness of <i>that</i>. - You were in extremely nice company—there were seven or eight ladies - of title among the Patronesses, our names all printed together in - beautiful little gilt letters—and you really weren’t committed to - anything that I could make out. No—<i>that</i> was all right. I - should do the same thing again, under the circumstances. No, the trouble - came with the Amalgamated Anti-Crinoline Confederacy. That was where I was - too hasty, I think.” - </p> - <p> - “That’s the thing with the protesting post-cards, isn’t it?” inquired - Uncle Dudley. - </p> - <p> - “That very feature of it alone ought to have warned me,” Mrs Albert - answered with despondency. “My own better sense should have told me that - post-cards were incompatible with selectness. But you see, the invitations - were sent out by the authoress of <i>The Street-Sprinkler’s Secret</i>, - and that gave me the impression that it was to be literary—to - represent Culture and the Arts, you know; and that appealed to me, of - course, very strongly.” - </p> - <p> - “I have always feared that your literary impulses would run away with - you,” Uncle Dudley declared gravely. - </p> - <p> - “It is my weak side; I don’t deny it,” replied his sister. “Where letters - and authorship, and that sort of thing, you know, are concerned, it is my - nature to be sympathetic. And besides, the Dowager Lady Thames-Ditton was - very pronounced in favour of the movement, and I <i>couldn’t</i> fly in - the face of that, could I? I must say, though, that I had my misgivings - almost from the first. Miss Wallaby told the Rev. Mr Grayt-Scott that a - lady she knew had looked over quite a peck or more of the post-cards which - came in one day, and they were nine-tenths of them from Earl’s Court.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” remarked Uncle Dudley, “I think I have heard that the post-card - reaches its most luxuriant state of literary usefulness in that locality. - It was from that point that they tried to rush the Laureateship, you - know.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, you can imagine how I felt when I heard it. It is all well enough - to be literary—nobody realises that more than I do—and it is - all very well to be loyal—of course! But one draws the line at - Earl’s Court—at least, that part of it. I say frankly that it serves - me right. I should have known better. One thing I cannot be too thankful - for—Ermyntrude did not send a post-card. Some blessed instinct - prompted me to tell her there was no hurry about it—that I did not - like to see young girls too forward in such matters. And now—why—who - knows—Dudley! I have an idea! Ermie shall join the Crinoline Defence - League!” - </p> - <p> - “I see—the family will hedge on the crinoline issue. Capital!” - </p> - <p> - “You know, after all, we may have to wear them. It’s quite as likely as - not. The old Duchess of West Ham is President of the League, and she is - very influential in the highest quarters. Her Grace, I understand, <i>is</i> - somewhat bandy, but she has always maintained the strictest Christian - respectability, and her action in this matter will count for a great deal. - Just think, if she should happen to take a fancy to Ermyntrude! That Miss - Wallaby has thrust herself forward till she is actually a member of the - Council, and she is going to deliver an address on ‘The Effect of Modesty - on National Morals.’ She told our curate that at one of the meetings of - the Council she came within an ace of being introduced to the Duchess - herself. Now surely, if <i>she</i> can accomplish all this, Ermie ought to - be able to do still more. Tell me, Dudley, what do <i>you</i> think?” - </p> - <p> - “I think,” replied Uncle Dudley musingly, “I think that the scarlet - petticoat, <i>with</i> the zouave jack——” - </p> - <p> - Mrs Albert interrupted him with sternness. “Don’t you see,” she demanded, - “that if it <i>does</i> come, the dear girl will share in the credit of - bringing it in, and if it doesn’t come, I shall have the advantage of - having helped to stave it off. Whichever side wins, there we are.” - </p> - <p> - Uncle Dudley rose, and looked thoughtfully out upon the fog, and stroked - his large white moustache in slow meditation. “Yes—undoubtedly,” he - said at last, “there we are.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Dealing with the Deceptions of Nature, and the Freedom from, Illusion - Inherent in the Unnatural</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>here was once a - woman—obviously a thoughtful woman—who remarked that she had - noticed that if she managed to live till Friday, she invariably survived - the rest of the week. I did not myself know this philosopher, who is - preserved to history in one of Roscoe Conkling’s speeches, but her - discovery always recurs to me about this time of year, when February - begins to disclose those first freshening glimpses of sunlight and blue - skies to bleared, fog-smudged and shivering London. Aha! if we have won - thus far, if we have contrived to get to February, then we shall surely - see the Spring. At least the one has heretofore involved the other—and - there is confident promise in the smile of a noon-day once more able to - cast a shadow, albeit the teeth of the east wind gleam close behind that - smile. - </p> - <p> - It was a day for a walk—no set and joyous rural tramp, indeed, with - pipe and wallet, and a helpful spring underfoot in the clean hard roadway, - and an honest, well-balanced stick for the bell-ringing gentry who shall - come at you on wheels from behind—but just an orderly, contemplative - urban ramble, brisk enough for warmth, but with no hurry, and above all no - destination. And it was a day, moreover, for letting one’s - fellow-creatures pass along with scant notice—a winter-ridden, - shuffling, mud-stained company these, conscious of being not at all worth - examination—and for giving eye instead to the house-fronts in the - sunshine, and radiant chimneypots and tiles above them, and the signs of - blessed, unaccustomed blue still further up. There was, it is true, an - undeniable disproportion between the inner look of these things, and this - gladness of the heart because of them. Glancing more closely, one could - see that they were not taking the sun seriously, and, for their own part, - were expecting more fogs next week. And farther westward, when stucco, - brick, and stone gave way to park-land, it was apparent at sight that the - trees were flatly incredulous. - </p> - <p> - They say that in Ireland, where the mildness of climate has in the past - prompted many experiments with exotic growths, the trees not really - indigenous to the island never learn sense, but year after year are gulled - by this February fraud into gushing expansively forth with sap and tender - shoots, only to be gripped and shrivelled by the icy after-hand of March. - The native tree, however, knows this trick of old, and greets the sham - Spring with a distinctive, though well-buttoned-up wink. In Kensington - Park region one couldn’t be sure that the trees really saw the joke. It is - not, on the whole, a humourous neighbourhood. But at all events they were - not to be fooled into premature buds and sprouts and kindred signs of - silliness. Every stiffly exclusive drab trunk rising before you, every - section of the brown lacework of twigs up above, seemed to offer a warning - advertisement: “No connection with the sunshine over the way!” - </p> - <p> - Happily the flower-beds exhibited more sympathy. Up through the mould - brave little snowdrops had pushed their pretty heads, and the crocuses, - though with their veined outer cloaks of sulphur, mauve, and other tints - still wrapped tight about them, wore almost a swaggering air to show how - wholly they felt at home. Emboldened by this bravado, less confident - fellows were peeping forth, though in such faltering fashion that one - could scarcely tell which was squill, which narcissus or loitering - jonquil. Still, it was good to see them. They too were glad that they had - lived till February, because after that comes the Spring. - </p> - <p> - And it was better still, as I turned to stroll on, to behold coming toward - me down the path, with little swinging step, and shapely head well up in - air, none other than our Ermyntrude. - </p> - <p> - I say “our” because—it is really absurd to think of it—it - seems only a few months ago since she was a sprawling tom-boy sort of a - little girl, who sat on my knee and listened with her mouth open to my - reminiscences of personal encounters with unicorns and the behemoth of - Holy Writ. She must be now—by George! she <i>is</i>—not a - minute under two-and-twenty. And that means—<i>hélas!</i> it - undoubtedly means—that I am getting to be an old boy indeed. At - Christmas-tide—I recall it now—Mrs Albert spoke of me as the - oldest friend of the family. It sounded kindly at the time, and I had a - special pleasure in the smile Ermyntrude wore as she, with the others, - lifted her glass towards me. I won’t say what vagrant thoughts and - ambitions that smile did not raise in my mind—and, lo! they were - toasting me as an amiable elderly friend of the Fernbank household. No - wonder I am glad to have lived till February! - </p> - <p> - Ermyntrude had a roll of music in her hands. There was a charming glow on - her cheeks, and a healthy, happy, sparkle in her eyes. She stopped short - before me, with a little exclamation of not displeased surprise! - </p> - <p> - “Why, how nice to run upon you like this,” she said, in high spirits. “We - thought you must have gone off to the Riviera, or Algiers, or somewhere—for - your cold, you know. Mamma was speaking of you only yesterday—hoping - that you were taking care of yourself.” - </p> - <p> - “Had I a cold?” I asked absently. The air had grown chillier. We walked - along together, and she let me carry the music. - </p> - <p> - “O—you haven’t heard,” she exclaimed suddenly, “such news as I have - for you! You couldn’t ever guess!” - </p> - <p> - “Is it something about crinoline?” I queried. “Your mother was telling - </p> - <p> - “Rubbish!” said Ermyntrude gaily. “I’m engaged!” - </p> - <p> - The wind had really got round into the East, and I, fastened my coat at - the collar. “I am sure”—I remarked at last—“I’m sure I - congratulate—the happy young man. Do I know him?” - </p> - <p> - “I hardly think so,” she replied. “You see, it’s—it’s what you might - call rather sudden. We haven’t known him ourselves very long—that - is, intimately. You may have heard his name—the Honourable - Knobbeleigh Jones. It’s a very old family though the title is somewhat - new. His father is Lord Skillyduff, you know.” - </p> - <p> - “The shipping man?” I said, wearily. - </p> - <p> - “Yes. He and papa are together on some board or other. That is how we came - to know them. Papa says he never saw such business ability and sterling - worth combined in one man before—I’m speaking of the father, you - know. He began life in quite a small way, with just a few ships that he - rented, or something like that. Then there was a war on some coast in - Africa or Australia—it begins with an A, I know—oh, <i>is</i> - there a place called Ashantee?—yes, that’s it—and he got the - contract to take out four shiploads of hay to our troops—it would be - for their horses, wouldn’t it?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes: the asses connected with the military branch are needed at home—or - at least are kept there.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, after he started, he got orders to stop at some place and wait for - other orders. He did so, and he waited four years and eight months. Those - orders never came. The hay all rotted, of course: the ships almost moulded - away: I daresay some of the crew died of old age—But Mr Jones never - stirred from his post. Finally, some English official came on him by - accident—quite! and so he was recalled. Papa says very few men would - have shown such tenacity of purpose and grasp of the situation. Mamma says - his fidelity to duty was magnificent.” - </p> - <p> - “Magnificent—yes,” I commented; “but it wasn’t war.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, bless you! there <i>was</i> no war <i>then</i>,” explained - Ermyntrude. “The war had been ended for <i>years</i>. And all that while - the pay for shipping that hay had been going on, so that the Government - owed him—I think it was £45,000. Of course he got more contracts, - and then he was made a baronet, and could build his own ships; and now he - is a lord, and papa says the War Office would be quite helpless without - him.” - </p> - <p> - “And the son,” I asked; “what does he do?” - </p> - <p> - “Why, nothing, of course!” said Ermyntrude, lifting her pretty brows a - little in surprise. “He is the eldest son.” - </p> - <p> - “I didn’t know but he might have gone in for the Army, or Parliament, or - something,” I explained weakly: “just to occupy his mind.” - </p> - <p> - She smiled to herself—somewhat grimly, I thought. “No,” she said, - assuming a serious face, “he says doing things is all rot, if you aren’t - obliged to do them. Of course, he goes in for hunting and shooting and all - that, and he has a houseboat and a yacht, and one year he was in the - All-Slumpshire eleven, but that was too much bother. He hates bother.” - </p> - <p> - We had come out upon the street now, and walked for a little in silence. - </p> - <p> - “Ermie,” I said at last, “you mustn’t be annoyed with me—this is one - of my sentimental days, and you know as an old friend of the family I’ve a - certain right of free speech—but this doesn’t seem to me quite good - enough. A girl like you—beautiful and clever and accomplished, - knowing your way about among books, and with tastes above the ruck—there - ought to be a better outlook for you than this! I know that type of young - man, and he isn’t in your street at all. Come now!” I went on, gathering - courage, “look me in the face if you can, and tell me that you honestly - love this young man, or that you really respect his father, or that you - candidly expect to be happy. I defy you to do it!” - </p> - <p> - I was wrong. Ermyntrude did look me in the face, squarely and without - hesitation. She halted for the moment to do so, and her gaze, though not - unkindly, was full of serious frankness. - </p> - <p> - “There is one thing I do expect,” she said, calmly. “I expect to get away - from Fernbank.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Suggesting Considerations possibly heretofore Overlooked by - Commentators upon the Laws of Property</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>ou will find - Dudley up in what he calls his library,” said Mrs Albert in the hallway. - “I’m <i>so</i> sorry I must go out—but he’ll be glad to see you. And—let - me entreat you, don’t give him any encouragement!” - </p> - <p> - “What!” I cried, “encourage Uncle Dudley? Oh—never, never!” - </p> - <p> - “No, just be firm with him,” Mrs Albert went on. “Say that it mustn’t be - thought of for a moment. And Oh—by the way—it’s as well to - warn you: <i>don’t</i> ask him what he did it for! It seems that every one - asks him that—and he gets quite enraged about it now, when that - particular question is put. As like as not he’d throw something at you.” - She spoke earnestly, in low, impressive tones. - </p> - <p> - “Wild horses should not drag it from me,” I pledged myself. “I will not - encourage him: I will not enrage him; I swear not to ask him what he did - it for. But—if you don’t mind—could I, so to speak, bear the - shock of learning what it is that he <i>has</i> done?” - </p> - <p> - “You haven’t heard?” Mrs Albert asked, glancing up at me, with an - astonished face, as I stood on the stairs. When I shook my head, she put - out her hand to the latch, and opened the door, as if to heighten the - dramatic suspense. Then she turned and looked me in the eye with solemn - intentness. “What has he done?” she echoed in a hollow voice: “You go - upstairs and see!” - </p> - <p> - The door closed behind her, and I made my way noiselessly, two steps at a - time, to the floor above. Some vague sense of disaster seemed to brood - over the silent, half-lighted stairway and the deserted landing. I knocked - at Uncle Dudley’s door—almost prepared to find my signal unanswered. - But no, his voice came back, cheerily enough, and I entered the room. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, it’s you!” said my friend, rising from his chair. “Glad to see you,”—and - we shook hands. Standing thus, I found myself staring into his face with a - rude and prolonged fixity of gaze, under which he first smiled—a - strange, unwholesome sort of smile—then flushed a little, then - scowled and averted his glance. - </p> - <p> - “Great heavens!” I exclaimed at last. “Why, man alive, what on earth - possessed you to—” - </p> - <p> - “Come now!” broke in Uncle Dudley, with peremptory sternness. “Chuck it!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes—I know”—I stammered haltingly along—“I promised I - wouldn’t ask you—but—” - </p> - <p> - “But the original simian instincts triumph over your resolutions, eh?” - said my friend, crustily. “Yes, I know. I’ve had pretty nearly a week of - it now. That question has been asked me, I estimate, somewhere about six - hundred and seventy-eight times since last Thursday. It’s only fair to you - to tell you that I have registered a vow to hit the next man who asks me - that fool of a question—‘What did you do it for?’—straight - under his left ear. I probably saved your life by interrupting you.” - </p> - <p> - Though the words were fierce, there was a marked return of geniality in - the tone. I took the liberty of putting a hand over Uncle Dudley’s - shoulder, and marching him across to the window. - </p> - <p> - “Let’s have a good look at you,” I said. - </p> - <p> - “I did it myself; I did it with my little hatchet; I did it because I - wanted to; I had a right to do it; I should do it again if the fit struck - me——” Thus, with mock gravity, Uncle Dudley ran on as I - scrutinised his countenance in the strong light. “And furthermore,” he - added, “I don’t care one single hurrah in Hades whether you like it or - not.” - </p> - <p> - “I think on the whole,” I mused aloud—“yes, I think I rather do like - it—now that I accustom myself to it.” - </p> - <p> - Uncle Dudley’s face brightened on the instant. “Do you really?” he - exclaimed, and beamed upon me. In spite of his professed indifference to - my opinion, it was obvious that I had pleased him. - </p> - <p> - “Sit down,” he said—“there are the matches behind you—hope - these aren’t too green for you. Yes, my boy, I created quite a flutter in - the hen-yard, I can tell you. Did my sister tell you?—she nearly - fainted, and little Amy burst out boo-hooing as if she’d lost her last - friend. When you come to think of it, old man, it’s really too ridiculous, - you know.” - </p> - <p> - “It certainly has its grotesque aspects,” I admitted. - </p> - <p> - Uncle Dudley looked up sharply, as if suspecting some ironical meaning in - my words. “You really do think it’s an improvement?” he asked, with a - doubtful note in his voice. - </p> - <p> - “Of course, it makes a tremendous change,” I said, diplomatically, “and - the novelty tends perhaps to confuse judgment: but I must confess the - result is—is, well, very interesting.” - </p> - <p> - My friend did not look wholly satisfied. “It shows what stupid people we - are,” he went on in a dogmatic way. “Why, the way they’ve gone on, you’d - think I had no property rights in the thing at all—that I was merely - a trustee for it—bound to give an account to every - Tom-Dick-and-Harry who came along and had nothing better to occupy his - mind with. And then that eternal, vacuous, woollen-brained ‘What did you - do it for?’ Oh, that’s got to be too sickening for words! And the - confounded familiarity of the whole thing! Why, hang me, if even the - little Jew cigar dealer down on the corner didn’t feel entitled to pass - what he took to be some friendly remarks on the subject. ‘Vy,’ he said, - ‘if I could say vidout vlattery, vot a haddsobe jeddlebad you ver, and vy - did you do dot by yourself?’ It gets on a man’s nerves, you know, things - like that.” - </p> - <p> - “But hasn’t anyone liked the change?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - Uncle Dudley sighed. “That’s the worst of it,” he said, dubiously. “Only - two men have said they liked it—and it happens that they are both - persons of conspicuously weak intellect. That’s rather up against me, - isn’t it? But on the other hand, you know, people who are silliest about - everything else always get credit for knowing the most about art and - beauty and all that. Perhaps in such a case as this, I daresay their - judgment might be better than all the others. And after all, what do <i>I</i> - care? That’s the point I make: that it’s <i>my</i> business and nobody - else’s. If a man hasn’t got a copyright in his own personal appearance, - why there is no such thing as property. But instead of recognising this, - any fellow feels free to come up and say: ‘You look like an unfrocked - priest,’ or ‘Hullo! another burglar out of work,’ and he’s quite surprised - if you fail to show that you’re pleased with the genial brilliancy of his - remarks. I don’t suppose there is any other single thing which the human - race lapses into such rude and insolent meddlesomeness over as it does - over this.” - </p> - <p> - “It <i>is</i> pathetic,” I admitted—“but—but it’ll soon grow - again.” - </p> - <p> - Uncle Dudley laughed a bitter laugh. “By Jove,” he cried, “I’ve more than - half a mind not to let it. It would serve ‘em right if I didn’t. Why, do - you know—you’d hardly believe it! My sister had a dinner party on - here for Saturday night, and after I’d—I’d done it—she - cancelled the invitations—some excuse about a family loss—a - bereavement, my boy. Well, you know, treatment of that sort puts a man on - his mettle. I’m entitled to resent it. And besides—you know—of - course it does make a great change—but somehow I fancy that when you - get used to it—come now—the straight griffin, as they say—what - do <i>you</i> think?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m on oath not to encourage you,” I made answer. - </p> - <p> - “There you have it!” cried Uncle Dudley: “the old tyrannical conspiracy - against the unusual, the individual, the true! Let nobody dare to be - himself! Let us have uniformity, if all else perishes. The frames must be - alike in the Royal Academy, that’s the great thing; the pictures don’t - matter so much. You see our women-folk now, this very month, getting ready - to case themselves in ugly hoops which they hate, at the bidding of they - know not whom, because, if they did not, the hideous possibility of one - woman being different from another woman would darken the land. A man is - not to be permitted the pitiful privilege of seeing his own mouth, not - even once in fifteen years, simply because it temporarily inconveniences - the multitude in their notions as to how he is in the habit of looking! - What rubbish it is!” - </p> - <p> - “It <i>is</i> rubbish,” I assented—“and you are talking it. Your - sister who fainted, your niece who wept, your friends who averted their - gaze in anguish, the hordes of casual jackasses who asked why you did it, - the kindly little Jew cigar man who broke forth in lamentations—these - are the world’s jury. They have convicted you—sorrowfully but - firmly. You yourself, for all your bravado, realise the heinousness of - your crime. You are secretly ashamed, remorseful, penitent. I answer for - you—you will never do it again.” - </p> - <p> - “And yet it isn’t such a bad mouth, either,” mused Uncle Dudley, with a - lingering glance at the mirror over the mantel. “There is humour, delicacy - of perception, affection, gentleness—ever so many nice qualities - about it which were all hidden up before. The world ought to welcome the - revelation—and it throws stones instead. Ah well!—pass the - matches—let us yield gracefully to the inevitable! It shall grow - again.” - </p> - <p> - “Mrs Albert will be so glad,” I remarked. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Narrating the Failure of a Loyal Attempt to Circumvent Adversity by - means of Modern Appliances</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>f his name was - Jabez, why weren’t we told so, I’d like to know?” demanded Mrs Albert of - me, with a momentary flash in her weary glance. “What right had the papers - to go on calling him J. Spencer, year after year, while he was deluding - the innocent, and fattening upon the bodies of his dupes? To be sure, now - that the mask is off, and he has fled, they speak of him always as Jabez. - Why didn’t they do it before, while honest people might still have been - warned? But no—they never did—and now it’s too late—too - late!” - </p> - <p> - The poor lady’s voice broke pathetically upon this reiterated plaint. She - bowed her head, and as I looked with pained sympathy upon the drooping - angle of her proud face, I could see the shadows about her lips quiver. - </p> - <p> - A sad tale indeed it was, to which I had been listening—here in a - lonesome corner of the cloistral, dim-lit solitude of the big drawing-room - at Fernbank. It was not a new story. Kensington has known it by heart for - a generation. Bloomsbury learned it earlier, and before that it was - familiar in Soho—away off in the old days when the ruffling gentry - of Golden Square fought for the chance of buying ingenious John Law’s - South Sea scrip. And even then, the experience was an ancient and - half-forgotten memory of Bishopsgate and the Minories. It was the old, old - tragedy of broken fortunes. - </p> - <p> - Mrs Albert was clear that it began with the Liberator troubles. I had my - own notion that Mr Albert Grundy was skating on thin ice before the - collapse of the building societies came. However that may be, there was no - doubt whatever that the cumulative Australian disasters had finished the - business. There were melancholy details in her recital which I lack the - courage to dwell upon. The horse and brougham were gone; the lease of - Fernbank itself was offered for sale, with possession before Michaelmas, - if desired; Ermyntrude’s engagement was as good as off. - </p> - <p> - “It won’t be a bankruptcy,” said Mrs Albert, lifting her face and - resolutely winking the moisture from her lashes. “We shall escape that—but - for the moment at least I must abandon my position in society. Dudley is - over to-day looking at a small place in Highgate, although Albert thinks - he would prefer Sydenham. My own feeling is that some locality from which - you could arrive by King’s Cross or St Paneras would be best. One never - meets anybody one knows there. Then, when matters adjust themselves again, - as of course they will, we could return here—to this neighbourhood, - at least—and just mention casually having been out at our country - place—on the children’s account, of course. And Floribel <i>is</i> - delicate, you know.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh well, then,” I said, trying to put buoyance into my tone, “it isn’t so - had after all. And you feel—Albert feels—quite hopeful about - things coming right again?” - </p> - <p> - My friend’s answering nod of affirmation had a certain qualifying dubiety - about it. “Yes, we’re hopeful,” she said. “But a fortnight ago, I felt - positively sanguine. Nobody ever worked harder than I did to deserve - success, any way. I only failed through gross treachery—and that, - too, at the hands of the very people of whom I could never, <i>never</i> - have believed it. When you find the aristocracy openly actuated by - mercenary motives, as I have done this past month, it almost makes you ask - what the British nation is coming to!” - </p> - <p> - “Dear me!” I exclaimed, “is it as bad as that?” - </p> - <p> - “You shall judge for yourself,” said Mrs Albert gravely. “You know that I - organised—quite early in the Spring—the Loyal Ladies’ Namesake - Committee of Kensington. I do not boast in saying that I really organised - it, quite from its beginnings. The idea was mine; practically all the - labour was mine. But when one is toiling to realise a great ideal like - that, one frequently loses sight of small details. I ought to have known - better—but I took a serpent to my bosom. I was weak enough to - associate with me in the enterprise that monument of duplicity and - interested motives—the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn. Why, she hadn’t so much - as an initial letter to entitle her to belong——” - </p> - <p> - “I am not sure that I follow you,” I put in. “Ladies’ Namesake Committee—initial - letter—I don’t seem to grasp the idea.” - </p> - <p> - “It’s perfectly simple,” explained Mrs Albert. “The idea was that all the - ladies—our set, you know—whose name was ‘May’ should combine - in subscribing for a present.” - </p> - <p> - “But your name is Emily,” I urged, thoughtlessly. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, we weren’t exactly literal about it,” said Mrs Albert; “we <i>couldn’t</i> - be, you know. It would have shut out some of our very best people. But I - came very near the standard, indeed. My second name is Madge. You take the - first two letters of that, and the ‘y’ from Emily, and there you have it. - Oh, I assure you, very few came even as near it as that—and as I - said to Dudley at the time, if you think of it, even <i>her</i> name isn’t - <i>really</i> May. It’s only a popular contraction. But that Hon. Mrs - Coon-Alwyn, she had no actual right whatever to belong. Her names are - Hester Winifred Edith. She hasn’t even one <i>letter</i> right!” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, that was indeed treachery!” I ejaculated. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no, that, was not what I referred to,” Mrs Albert set me right. “Of - course, I was aware of her names. I had seen them in the ‘Peerage’ for - years. It was what she did after her entrance that covers her with infamy. - But I will narrate the events in their order. First, we collected £1100. - Of course, our own contribution was not large, but Ermyntrude and I hunted - the various church registers—we don’t speak of it, but even the - Nonconformist ones we went through—and we got a tremendous number of - Christian names more or less what was desired, and our circulars were sent - to <i>every one</i>, far and near. As I said, we raised quite £1100. Then - there came the question of the gift.” - </p> - <p> - Mrs Albert uttered this last sentence with such deliberate solemnity that - I bowed to show my consciousness of its importance. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” she went on, “the selection of the gift. Now I had in mind a most - appropriate and useful present. Have you heard of the Oboid Oil Engine? - No? Well, it is an American invention, and has been brought over here by - an American, who has bought the European rights from the inventor. He is - in the next building to Albert, in the City, and they meet almost every - day at luncheon, and have struck up quite a friendship. He has connections - which might be of the <i>utmost</i> importance to Albert, and if Albert - could only have been of service to him in introducing this engine, there - is literally <i>no telling</i> what might not have come of it. Albert does - not <i>say</i> that a partnership would have resulted, but I can read it - in his face.” - </p> - <p> - “But would an oil engine have been—under the circumstances—you - know what I mean——” I began. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, <i>most</i> suitable!” responded Mrs Albert with conviction. “It is - really, it seems, a very surprising piece of machinery. After it’s once - bought, the cheapness of running it is simply <i>absurd</i>. It does all - sorts of things at no expense worth mentioning—anything you want it - to do. It appears that if it had been invented at that time, the pyramids - in Egypt could have been built by it for something like 130 per cent, less - than their cost is estimated to have been—or something like that. - Oh, it is quite extraordinary, I assure you. Albert says he could stand - and watch it working for hours—especially if he had an interest in - the company.” - </p> - <p> - “But I hadn’t heard that there were any new pyramid plans on just now—although, - when I think of it, Shaw-Lefevre did have some Westminster Abbey project - which——” - </p> - <p> - “No, no!” interrupted Mrs Albert. “One of the engine’s greatest uses is in - agriculture. It does <i>everything</i>—threshes, garners, mows, - milks—or no, not that, but almost <i>everything</i>. No - self-respecting farmer, they say, dreams of being without one—that - is, of course, if he knows about it. You can see what it would have meant, - if one had been thus publicly introduced on the princely farm at - Sandringham. All England would have rung with demands for the Oboid—and - Albert feels sure that the American man would have been grateful—and—and—then - perhaps we need never have left Fernbank at all.” - </p> - <p> - My poor friend shook her head mournfully at the thought - </p> - <p> - “And the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - The fire came back into Mrs Albert’s eye. “That woman,” she said, with - bitter calmness, “was positively not ashamed to intrude her own mercenary - and self-seeking designs upon this loyal and purely patriotic association. - Why, she did it almost openly. She intrigued behind my back with whole - streetsful of people that one would hardly know on ordinary occasions, - paid them calls in a carriage got up for the occasion with a bright new - coat of arms, made friends with them, promised them heaven only knows - what, and actually secured nineteen votes to my three for the purchase of - a mouldy old piece of tapestry—something about Richard III and - Oliver Cromwell meeting on the battlefield, I think the subject is—which - belonged to her husband’s family. Of course, my lips are sealed, but I - have been <i>told</i> that at Christie’s it would hardly have fetched - £100. I say nothing myself, but I can’t prevent people drawing certain - deductions, can I? And when I reflect also that her two most active - supporters in this nefarious business were Lady Thames-Ditton—whose - financial difficulties are notorious—and the Countess of Wimps—— - whose tradespeople—well, we won’t go into <i>that</i>—it does - force one to ask whether the fabric of British society is not being - undermined at its very top. In this very day’s paper I read that the Hon. - Mrs Coon-Alwyn has hired a yacht, and will spend the summer in Norwegian - waters—while we—we——” - </p> - <p> - The door opened, and we made out through the half-light the comfortable - figure of Uncle Dudley. He was mopping his brow, and breathed heavily from - his long walk as he advanced. - </p> - <p> - “Well?” Mrs Albert asked, in a saddened and subdued tone, “Did you see the - place?” - </p> - <p> - “There are five bedrooms on the two upper floors,” he made answer, “but - there’s no bath-room, and the bus doesn’t come within four streets of the - house.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Introducing Scenes from a Foreign Country, and also conveying Welcome - Intelligence, together with some Instruction</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was at a little - village perched well up on one of the carriage-roads ascending the - Brocken, a fortnight or so ago, that I received a wire from Uncle Dudley. - It was kind of him to think of it—all the more as he had good news - to tell. “Family lighted square on their feet,” was what the message said, - and I was glad to gather from this that the Grundys had weathered their - misfortunes, and that Mrs Albert was herself again. - </p> - <p> - The thought was full of charm. It seemed as if I had never realised before - how fond I was of these good people. In sober fact; I dare say that I had - not dwelt much upon their woes during my holiday. But now, with this - affectionately thoughtful telegram addressing me as their oldest friend, - the one whom they wished to be the first to share the joy of their rescued - state, it was easy enough to make myself believe that my whole vacation - had been darkened with brooding over their unhappiness. - </p> - <p> - It had not occurred to me before, but that was undoubtedly why I had not - liked the Harz so much this year as usual. Now that I thought of it, - walking down the birch-lined footpath towards the hamlet and the telegraph - office, the place seemed to have gone off a good deal. In other seasons, - before the spectre of cholera flooded its sylvan retreats with an invading - horde of Hamburgers, the Harzwald had been my favourite resort. I had - grown to love its fir-clad slopes, its shadowed glens, its atmosphere of - prehistoric myth and legend, as if I were part and product of them all. - Its people, too, had come much nearer to my breast than any other Germans - ever could. I had enjoyed being with them just because they were what the - local schoolmaster disdainfully declared them to be—<i>Erdzertrümmerungsprozeszuribekanntevolk</i>—that - is to say, people entirely ignorant of the scientific theories about - geological upheavals and volcanic formations, and so able cheerfully to - put their trust in the goblins who reared these strange boulders in - fantastic piles on every hill top, and to hear with good faith the shouts - of the witches as they bounded over the Hexentanzplatz. Last year it had - seemed even worth the added discomfort of the swarming Hamburgers to be - again in this wholesome, sweet-aired primitive place. But this year—I - saw now clearly as I looked over Uncle Dudley’s message once more—it - had not been so pleasant. The hotel boy, Fritzchen, whom I had watched - year after year with the warmth of a fatherly well-wisher—smiling - with satisfaction at his jovial countenance, his bustling and competent - ways, and his comical attempts at English—had this season swollen up - into a burly and consequential lout, with a straw-coloured sprouting on - his upper-lip, and a military manner. They called him Fritz now, and he - gave me beer out of the old keg after I had heard the new one tapped. - </p> - <p> - The evening gatherings of the villagers in the hotel, too, were not - amusing as they once had been. The huge lion-maned and grossly - over-bearded <i>Kantor</i>, or music-master, who came regularly at - nightfall to thump on the table with his bludgeon-like walking stick, to - roar forth impassioned monologues on religion and politics, and to bellow - ceaselessly at Fritzchen for more beer, had formerly delighted me. This - time he seemed only a noisy nuisance, and the half-circle of grave old - retired foresters and middle-aged <i>Jàger</i> officers who sat watching - him over their pipes, striving vainly now and again to get in a word - edgewise about the auctions of felled trees in the woods, or the mutinous - tendencies of the charcoal-burners, presented themselves in the light of - tiresome prigs. If they had been worth their salt, I felt, they would long - ago have brained the Kantor with their stoneware mugs. Even as I walked I - began to be conscious that a three weeks’ stay in the Harz was a good deal - of time, and that the remaining third would certainly hang on my hands. - </p> - <p> - By the time I reached the telegraph station I had my answer to Uncle - Dudley ready in my mind. He liked the forcible imagery of Australia and - the Far West; and I would speak to him at this joyful juncture after his - own heart. It seemed that I could best do this by giving him to understand - that I was celebrating his news—that I was, in one of his own - phrases, “painting the town red.” It required some ingenuity to work this - idea out right, but I finally wrote what appeared to answer the purpose:—“<i>Brocken - und Umgebung sind roth gemalen</i>”—and handed it in to the man at - the window. - </p> - <p> - He was a young man with close-cropped yellow hair and spectacles, holding - his chin and neck very stiff in the high collar of his uniform. He glanced - over my despatch, at first with careless dignity. Then he read it again - attentively. Then he laid it on the table, and bent his tight-buttoned - form over it as well as might be in a severe and prolonged scrutiny. At - last he raised himself, turned a petrifying gaze on through his glasses at - me, and shook his head. - </p> - <p> - “It is not true,” he said. “Some one has you deceived.” - </p> - <p> - “But,” I tried to explain to him, with the little German that I knew - scattering itself in all directions in the face of this crisis, “it is a - figure of speech, a joke, a——” - </p> - <p> - The telegraph man stared coldly at my luckless despatch, and then at me. - “You would wish to state to your friend, perhaps,” he suggested, “that - they seem as if they had been coloured with red, owing to the change in - the leaves.” - </p> - <p> - “No, no,” I put in. “It must be that they <i>have</i> been painted, <i>are</i> - painted, or he will not me understand.” - </p> - <p> - “But, my good sir,” retorted the operator with emphasis, “they are <i>not</i> - painted! From the door gaze you forth! What make you with this nonsense, - that Brocken and vicinity are red painted?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, then,” I said wearily, oppressed by the magnitude of the task, “I - don’t know how to word it myself, but you can fix it for me. Just say that - I am <i>going</i> to paint them red—that will do just as well. - </p> - <p> - “But you shall not! It is forbidden!” exclaimed the official, holding - himself like a poker, and glaring vehemence through his glasses. “It is - strongly forbidden! When you one brush-mark shall make, quick to the - prison go you. In Germany have we for natural beauty respect—also - laws.” - </p> - <p> - Reluctantly, but of necessity, I abandoned metaphor, and in a humble - spirit telegraphed in English to Uncle Dudley at his club that I was very - glad. Even as my pen clung in irresolution on the paper over this word - “glad,” the impulse rose in me to add: “<i>Tired of Harz. Am returning - immediately</i>.” - </p> - <p> - “When the same here is,” remarked the operator, moodily studying the - unknown words, “in Brunswick stopped it will be.” - </p> - <p> - I translated it for him, and added, “I go from here home, to be where - officials their own business mind.” - </p> - <p> - He nodded, not unamiably, and replied as he handed me out my change: “Yes, - I know: England. So well their own business there officials mind, that - Balfour to Argentina easily comes.” - </p> - <p> - Walking up the hillside again, already quite captive to the fascination of - the morrow’s homeward flight, I met at the turn of the path a family party—father, - mother, and two girls in the younger teens—seated along the rocky - siding, and gazing with a common air of dejection upon a portentous row of - bags and portmanteaus at their feet. The notion that they were Hamburgers - died still-born. Nothing more obviously un-German than these wayfarers was - ever seen. - </p> - <p> - “I hope, sir,” the man spoke up as I approached, “that I am right in - presuming that you speak English!” - </p> - <p> - I bowed assent, and even as I did so, recognised him. “I hope <i>I</i> am - right,” I answered, “in thinking that I have met you before—at Mr - Albert Grundy’s in London—you are the American gentleman with the - Oboid Oil Engine, are you not?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, by George!” he cried, rising and offering his hand with frank - delight, and introducing me in a single comprehensive wave to his wife and - daughters. “Yes, sir,” he went on, “and I wish I had an Oboid here right - now—up in the basement of that stone boarding-house on the knoll - there—just for the sake of heating up, and shutting down the valves, - and blowing the whole damned thing sky-high. That would suit me, sir, - right down to the ground.” - </p> - <p> - “Were strangers here, sir,” he explained in answer to my question: “we’d - seen a good deal of the Dutch at home—I mean <i>our</i> home—and - we thought we’d like to take a look at ‘em in the place they come from. - Well, sir, we’ve had our look, and we’re satisfied. We don’t want any more - on our plate, thank you. One helping is an elegant sufficiency. Do you - know the trick they played on us? Why, I took a team of horses yesterday - from a place they called Ibsenburg or Ilsenburg, or some such name, and - had it explained to my driver that he was to take us up to the top of the - Brocken, there, and stop all night, and fetch us back this morning. When - we got up as far as Shierke, there, it was getting pretty dark, and the - women-folks were nervous, and so we laid up for the night. There didn’t - seem anything for the driver to do but set around in the kitchen and drink - beer, and he needed money for that, and so I gave him some loose silver, - and told him to make himself at home. We got the words out of a dictionary - for that—<i>machen sie selbst zu Heim</i> we figured ‘em out to be—and - I spoke them at him slowly and distinctly, so that he had no earthly - excuse for not understanding. But, would you believe it, sir, the - miserable cuss just up and skipped out, horses, rig and all, while we were - getting supper! And here we were this morning, landed high and dry. No - conveyance, nobody to comprehend a word of English, no nothing. We haven’t - seen the top of their darned mountain even.” - </p> - <p> - “What I’m more concerned about, I tell Wilbur,” put in the lady, “is - seeing the bottom of it. If they had only sense enough to make valises and - bonnet-boxes ball-shaped, we could have rolled ‘em down hill.” - </p> - <p> - “There’ll be no trouble about all that,” I assured them, and we talked for - a little about the simple enough process of getting their luggage carried - down to the village, and of finding a vehicle there. I, indeed, agreed to - make one of their party on quitting the Harz, that very afternoon. - </p> - <p> - “And now tell me about the Grundys,” I urged, when these more pressing - matters were out of the way. “I got a wire to-day saying—hinting - that they are in luck’s way again.” - </p> - <p> - “Is that so?” exclaimed the American, at once surprised and pleased. “I’m - glad to hear it. I can’t guess what it might be in. Grundy’s got so many - irons in the fire—some white hot, some lukewarm, some frosted - straight through—you never can tell. The funny thing is—he - can’t tell himself. Why, sir, those men of yours in the City of London, - they don’t know any more about business than a babe unborn. If they were - in New York they’d have their eyeteeth skinned out of their heads in the - shake of a lamb’s tail. Why, we’ve been milking them dry for a dozen years - back. And yet, you know, somehow——” - </p> - <p> - “Somehow—?” I echoed, encouragingly. - </p> - <p> - “Well, sir, somehow—that’s the odd thing about it—they don’t - stay milked.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Disclosing the Educational Influence exerted by the Essex Coast, and - other Matters, including Reasons for Joy</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>it down here by - the fire—no, in the easy chair,” said Ermyntrude, with a note of - solicitude in her kindly voice. “Mamma won’t be home for half an hour yet, - and I want a nice, quiet, serious talk with you. Oh, it’s going to be - extremely serious, and you must begin by playing that you are at least one - hundred and fifty years old.” - </p> - <p> - “That won’t be so difficult,” I replied, not without the implication of - injury. “It will only be adding a few decades to the venerableness that I - seem always to possess in your eyes.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh!” said Ermie, and looked at me inquiringly for a moment. Then she - seated herself, and gazed with much steadiness into the fire. I waited for - the nice, serious talk to begin—and waited a long time. - </p> - <p> - “Well, my dear child,” I broke in upon the silence at last, “I hoped to - have been the very first to come and tell your mother how deeply glad I - was to see you all back again in Fernbank. But that wretched rheumatism of - mine—<i>at my age</i>, you know———” - </p> - <p> - I was watching narrowly for even the faintest sign of deprecation. She did - not stir an eyelash. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” she suddenly began, still intently gazing into the fire; “papa has - got his money all back, and more. That is, it isn’t the same money, but - somebody else’s—I’m sure I don’t know whose. Sometimes I feel sorry - for those other people, whoever they are, who have had to give it up to - us. Then, other times, I am so glad simply to be in again where it’s warm - that I don’t care.” - </p> - <p> - “The firelight suits your face, Ermie,” I said, noting with the pleasure - appropriate to my position as the oldest friend of the family, how sweetly - the soft radiance played upward upon the fair young rounded throat and - chin, and tipped the little nostrils with rosy light. - </p> - <p> - “Fortunately,” she went on, as if I had not spoken, “some Americans took - the house furnished in September for three months—I think, poor - souls, that they believed it was the London season—and so we never - had to break up, and we were able to get back again in time for Uncle - Dudley to plant all his bulbs. They seem to have been very quiet people. - Mamma had a kind of notion that they would practise with bucking horses on - the tennis-lawn, and shoot at bottles and clay pigeons here in the - drawing-room. The only thing we could find that they did was to paste - thick paper over the ventilator in the dining-room. And yet a policeman - told our man that they slept with their bedroom windows open all night. - Curious, isn’t it?” - </p> - <p> - “I like to have one of these ‘nice, quiet, serious talks’ with you, - Ermie,” I said. - </p> - <p> - Even at this she did not lift her eyes from the grate. “Oh, don’t be - impatient—it will be serious enough,” she warned me. “They say, you - know, that drowning people see, in a single instant of time, whole years - of events, whole books full of things. Well, I’ve been under water for six - months, and—and—I’ve noticed a good deal.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah! is there a submarine observation station at Clacton-on-Sea? Now you - speak of it, I <i>have</i> heard of queer fish being studied there.” - </p> - <p> - “None queerer than we, my dear friend, you may be sure. Mamma was right in - choosing the place. We never once saw a soul we knew. Of course, it is the - dullest and commonest thing on earth—but it exactly fitted us during - that awful period. We were going at first to Cromer, but mamma learned - that that was the chosen resort of dissolute theatrical people—it - seems there has been a poem written in which it is called ‘Poppy land,’ - which mamma saw at once must be a cover for opium-eating and all sorts of - dissipation. So we went to Clacton instead. But what I was going to say is - this—I did a great deal of thinking all through those six months. I - don’t say that I am any wiser than I was, because, for that matter, I am - very much less sure about things than I was before. But I was simply a - blank contented fool then. Now it’s different to the extent that I’ve - stirred up all sorts of questions and problems buzzing and barking about - me, and I don’t know the answers to them, and I can’t get clear of them, - and they’re driving me out of my head—and there you are. That’s what - I wanted to talk with you about.” - </p> - <p> - I shifted my feet on the fender, and nodded with as sensible an expression - as I could muster. - </p> - <p> - “That’s why I said you must pretend to yourself that you are very old—quite - a fatherly person, capable of giving a girl advice—sympathetic - advice. In the first place—of course you know that the engagement - with that Hon. Knobbeleigh Jones has been off for ages. Don’t interrupt - me! It isn’t worth speaking of except for one point. His father, Lord - Skillyduff, was the principal rogue in the combination which plundered - papa of his money. Having got the Grundy money they had no use for the - Grundy girl. Now, he justified his rascality by pleading that he had to - make provision for <i>his</i> daughters, and everybody said he was a good - father. Papa goes in again through some other opening, and after a long - fight brings out a fresh fortune, which he has taken away from somebody - else—and I heard him tell mamma that he was doing it for the sake of - <i>his</i> daughters. People will say <i>he</i> is a good father—I - know <i>I</i> do.” - </p> - <p> - “None better in this world,” I assented cordially. - </p> - <p> - “Well, don’t you see,” Ermyntrude went on, “that puts daughters in the - light of a doubtful blessing. Papa’s whole worry and struggle was for us—for - <i>me</i>. I was the load on his back. I don’t like to be a load. While we - were prosperous, there was only one way for me to get down—that is - by marriage. When we became poor, there was another way—that I - should earn my own living. But this papa wouldn’t listen to. He quite - swore about it—vowed he would rather work his fingers to the bone; - rather do anything, no matter what it was, or what people thought of him - for doing it, than that a daughter of his should take care of herself. He - would look upon himself as disgraced, he said. Those lodgings of ours at - Clacton weren’t specially conducive to good temper, I’m afraid; for I told - him that the real disgrace would be to keep me in idleness to sell to some - other Knobbeleigh Jones, or to palm me off on some better sort of young - man who would bind himself to work for me all his life, and then find that - I would have been dear at the price of a fortnight’s labour—and then - mamma cried.—and papa, he swore more—and—and—” - </p> - <p> - I stirred the fire here, and then blushed to rediscover that it was - asbestos I was knocking about. “How stupid of me!” I exclaimed, and - murmured something about having been a stranger to Fernbank so long. - </p> - <p> - Ermyntrude took no notice. “I made a pretence of going up to London on a - visit,” she continued, “and I spent five days looking about, making - inquiries, trying to get some notion of how girls who supported themselves - made a beginning. I talked a little with such few girls that I knew as - were in town, and I cared to see—guardedly, of course. They had no - idea—save in the way of the governess or music teacher. I’d cut my - throat before I’d be either of those—forced to dress like ladies on - the wages of a seamstress, and to smile under the insults of tradesmen’s - wives and their louts of children. An actress I might be, after I had - starved a long time in learning my business—but before that mamma - would have died of shame. Then there are typewriters, and lady journalists - and telegraph clerks—I am surly enough sometimes to do that last to - perfection—but they all have to have special talents or knowledge. - As for saleswomen in the shops—there are a dozen poor genteel - wretches standing outside ready to claw each other’s eyes out for every - vacancy. I went over Euston Road way at noon, and I watched the work-girls - come out of the factories and workshops, and they had such sharp, knowing, - bullying faces that I knew I should be a helpless fool among them. And - watching them—and watching the other girls on the street... in the - Strand and Piccadilly—I told you I was going to talk seriously, my - dear friend—it all came to seem to me like a nightmare. It - frightened me. These were the girls whose fathers had failed to provide - for them—that was absolutely all the difference between them and me. - I had looked lazily down at marriage as a chance of escaping being bored - here at Fernbank. They were all looking fiercely up at marriage as the one - only chance of rescue from weary toil, starvation wages, general poverty - and misery. In both cases the idea was the same—to find some man, no - matter what kind of a man, if only he will take it upon himself to provide - something different. You see what poor, dependent things we really are! - Why should it be so? That’s what I want to know.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, that’s all you want to know, is it?” I remarked, after a little - pause. “Well, I think—I think you had better give me notice of the - question.” - </p> - <p> - “I have tried to read what thinkers say about it,” she added; “but they - only confuse one the more. There is a Dr Wallace whom the papers speak of - as an authority, and he has been writing a long article this very week—or - else it is an interview—and he says that everything will be all - right, that all the nice women will marry all the good men, and that the - other kinds will die off immediately, and everybody will be oh, so happy—in - a ‘regenerated society.’ That is another thing I wanted to ask you about. - He speaks—they all speak—so confidently about this - ‘regenerated society.’ Do you happen to know when it is to be?” - </p> - <p> - “The date has not been fixed, I believe,” I replied. - </p> - <p> - The early winter twilight had darkened the room, and the light from the - grate glowed ruddily upon the girl’s face as she bent forward, her chin - upon her clasped hands, looking into the fire. - </p> - <p> - “There is another date which remains undetermined,”’ I added, faltering - not a little at heart, but keeping my tongue under fair control. “I should - like to speak to you about it, if I may take off my lamb’s-wool wig and - Santa Claus beard, and appear before you once more as a contemporary - citizen. It is this, Ermie. I am not so very old, after all. There is only - a shade over a dozen years between us—say a baker’s dozen. My habits—my - personal qualities, tolerable and otherwise, are more or less known to - you. I am prosperous enough, so far as this world’s goods go. But I am - tired of living——” - </p> - <p> - I stopped short, and stared in turn blankly at the mock coals. A freezing - thought had just thrust itself into the marrow of my brain. She would - think that I was saying all this because her father had regained and - augmented his fortune. I strove in a numb, puzzled way to retrace what I - had just uttered—to see if the words offered any chance of getting - away upon other ground—and could not remember at all. - </p> - <p> - “Tired of living,” I heard Ermyntrude echo. I saw her nod her head - comprehendingly in the firelight. She sighed. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, except upon conditions,” I burst forth. “I weary of living alone. - There hasn’t been a time for years when I didn’t long to tell you this—and - most of all at Clacton, if I had known you were at Clacton. You have - admitted yourself that <i>nobody</i> knew you were there.” The words came - more easily now. “But always before I shrank from speaking. There was - something about you too childlike, too innocent, too—too——” - </p> - <p> - “Too silly,” suggested Ermie, with an affable effect of helping me out. - </p> - <p> - Then she unlocked her fingers, and, still looking into the fire, stretched - out a hand backward to me. “All the same,” she murmured, after a little, - “it isn’t an answer to my question, you know.” - </p> - <p> - “But it is to mine!” I made glad response, “and in my question all the - others are enwrapped—always have been, always will be. And, oh, - darling one——” - </p> - <p> - “That is mamma in the hall,” said Ermyntrude. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - <i>Describing Impressions of a Momentous Interview, loosely gathered by - One who, although present, was not quite In it</i> - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>rs Albert has - smiled upon my suit to be her son-in-law. - </p> - <p> - The smile did not, however, gush forth spontaneously at the outset. When - the opportunity for imparting our great news came, we three were in the - drawing-room, and Mrs Albert, who had just entered, had been allowed to - discover me holding Ermyntrude’s passive hand in mine. She cast a swift - little glance over us both, and seemed not to like what she saw. I was - conscious of the impression on the instant that Ermyntrude did not - particularly like it either. An effect of profound isolation, absurd - enough, but depressingly real, suddenly encompassed me. I began talking - something—the words coming out and scattering quite on their own - incoherent account—and the gist of what they made me say sounded in - my ears as if it were a determined enemy who was saying it Why should I be - speaking of my age, and the fact that I had held Ermie on my knee as a - child, and even of my rheumatism? And did I actually allude to them? or - only hear the clamorous echoes of conscience in my guilty soul, the while - my tongue was uttering other matters? I don’t know, and the fear that - Ermie would admit that she really hadn’t been paying attention has - restrained me from asking her since. - </p> - <p> - But Mrs Albert was paying attention. She held me with a cool and - unblinking eye during my clumsy monologue, and she continued this steady - gaze for a time after I had finished. She stirred the small and shapely - headgear of black velvet and bird’s-wing which she had worn in from the - street, just by the fraction of a forward inch, to show that she - understood what I had been saying—and also very much which I had - left unsaid. - </p> - <p> - “Hm—m!” the good lady remarked, at length. “I see!” - </p> - <p> - “Well, mamma, having seen,” Ermyntrude turned languidly in her chair to - observe, lifting the hand which still rested within mine into full and - patent view, and then withdrawing it abruptly—“having seen, and been - seen, there’s really nothing more to do, is there?” - </p> - <p> - “She is very young,” said the mother, in a tentative musing manner which - suggested the thought that I, on the other hand, was very much the other - way. - </p> - <p> - Ermyntrude sniffed audibly, and rose to her feet. “I am three-and-twenty,” - she said, “and that is enough, thank you.” There was something in it all - which I did not understand. The sensation of being out of place, as in the - trying-on room of a dressmaker’s, oppressed me. The sex were effecting - sundry manouvres and countermarchings peculiar to themselves—so much - I could see by the way in which the two were talking with their eyes—hut - what it was all about was beyond me. The mother finally inclined her head - to one side, and pursed together her lips. Ermyntrude drew herself to her - full stature, threw up her chin for a moment like one of Albert Moore’s - superb full-throated goddesses, and then relaxed with that half-cheerful - sigh which we express in types with “heigho!” It was at once apparent to - me that the situation had lightened—but how or why I cannot profess - to guess. Uncle Dudley, to whom I subsequently narrated what I had - observed, abounded in theories, but upon reflection they do not impress, - much less convince, me. Here is in substance one of the several - hypothetical conversations which he sketched out as having passed in that - moment of pre-occupied and surcharged silence: - </p> - <p> - Mother [<i>lowering brows</i>]. You may be sure that at the very best it - will be Bayswater. - </p> - <p> - Daughter [<i>with quiver of nostrils</i>]. Better that than hanging on for - a Belgravia which never comes. - </p> - <p> - Mother [<i>disclosing the tips of two teeth</i>]. It is a chance of a - title going for ever. - </p> - <p> - Daughter [<i>curling lip</i>]. What chance is ever likely <i>here?</i> - </p> - <p> - Mother [<i>lifting brows</i>]. He’s as old as Methusaleh!” - </p> - <p> - Daughter [<i>flashing eyes</i>]. That’s my business! - </p> - <p> - Mother [<i>little trembling of the eyelashes</i>]. You will never know how - I have striven and struggled for you! - </p> - <p> - Daughter [<i>smoothing features</i>]. Merely the innate maternal instinct, - my dear, common to all mammalia. - </p> - <p> - Mother [<i>beginning to tip head sidewise</i>]. It is true that Tristram - is docile, sheep-like, simple—— - </p> - <p> - Daughter [<i>lifting her chin</i>]. And old enough to be enchained at my - feet all his life. - </p> - <p> - Mother [<i>head much to one side</i>]. And he has always been extremely - cordial with <i>me</i>—— - </p> - <p> - Daughter [<i>chin high in air</i>]. And not another girl in my set has had - a proposal for <i>years</i>. - </p> - <p> - Mother [<i>brightening eye</i>]. We shall be in time to buy everything at - the January sales! - </p> - <p> - [Mother <i>smiles;</i> Daughter <i>sighs relief. The imaginations of both - wander pleasantly off to visions of sublimated Christmas shopping, in - connection with the trousseau and betrothal gifts. General joy.</i>] - </p> - <p> - As I have said, this is Uncle Dudley’s idea, not mine. My own fancy - prefers to conjure up a tenderer dialogue, in which the mother, all fond - solicitude, bids the maiden search well her heart, and answer only its - true appeal, and the sweet daughter, timid, fluttering, half-frightened - and wholly glad, flashes hack from the depths of her soul the rapt - assurance of her fate. But Dudley was certainly right about the ending, as - the first words Mrs Albert uttered go to show. - </p> - <p> - “Don’t forget to remind me, then, about presents for the Gregory - children,” she said all at once, in a swift sidelong whisper at - Ermyntrude. Then she turned, and as I gazed wistfully upon her face, it - melted sedately, gracefully, a little at a time, into the smile I sought. - </p> - <p> - “My dear Tristram,” she began, and her voice took on a coo of genuine - kindliness and warmth as she went on, “of course Albert and I have had - other views—and the dear girl is perfectly qualified to adorn the - most exalted and exclusive circles—if I do say it myself—but—but - her happiness is our one desire, and if she feels that it is getting—I - <i>would</i> say, if you and she are quite clear in your own minds—and - we both have the greatest confidence in your practical common-sense, and - your <i>honour</i>—and we have all learned to be fond of you—and—and - I am really very glad!” - </p> - <p> - “Most of all things in the world, dear lady, I hoped for this,” I had - begun to say, with fervour. I stopped, upon the discovery that Mrs Albert - was not listening, but had turned and was conferring with her daughter in - half-audible asides. - </p> - <p> - “Mercy, no!” the mother said. “They’d know in a minute that it had been a - present to us. That old Mrs Gregory is a perfect <i>lynx</i> for detecting - such things. I suppose their boys are too big for tricycles, else your - father knows a dealer who——” - </p> - <p> - My own Ermie looked thoughtful. “It won’t seem queer, you think, our - bursting in upon them with Christmas presents like this—without - provocation?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “My dear child, queer or not queer,” said Mrs Albert, “it is imperative. - You know how much depends upon it—there are plenty of others who - would be equally useful in various ways, but not like the <i>Gregorys</i>—and - if there were there’s no time now. If this could have happened, now, a - fortnight ago, or even last week——” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, but it didn’t,” replied Ermyntrude. “It only happened to-day.” She - turned to me, with a little laugh in her eyes. “Mamma complains that we - delayed so long. We have interfered with the Christmas arrangements.” - </p> - <p> - “If I had only known! But—I claim to be treated as one of the - family, you know—I couldn’t quite grasp what you were saying about - the Gregorys. I gather that our—our betrothal involves Christmas - presents for them, but I confess I don’t know why. Or oughtn’t I to have - asked, dear?” - </p> - <p> - For answer Ermyntrude looked saucily into my face, twisted her dear nose - into a pretty little mocking grimace, and ran out of the room. Mrs Albert - vouchsafed no explanation, but talked of other matters—and there - were enough to talk about. - </p> - <p> - It was not, indeed, till late in the evening, when Uncle Dudley and I were - upon our last cigar, that I happened to recall the mystifying incident of - the Gregorys. - </p> - <p> - “That’s simplicity itself,” said Uncle Dudley. “The Gregorys own one of - the tidiest country seats in Nottinghamshire—lovely old house, - sylvan arbours, high wall, fascinating rural roads—in the very heart - of county society, too—O, a most romantic and eligible place!” - </p> - <p> - “Well, what of it? What has that to do with Ermyntrude and me and Santa - Claus?” - </p> - <p> - “If you will read the <i>Morning Post</i> the day after your wedding, my - dear, dull friend, you will learn that Colonel Gregory has placed at the - disposal of a certain bridal couple for their honeymoon his ideal country - residence. The paper will not state why, but I will tell you in - confidence. It will be because the bride’s mother is a resourceful and - observant woman, who knows how to plant at Christmas that she may gather - at Easter.” - </p> - <p> - “I hate to have you always so beastly cynical, Dudley,” I was emboldened - to exclaim. - </p> - <p> - Uncle Dudley regarded me attentively for an instant. He took a thoughtful - sip at his drink, and then began smiling at his glass. When he turned to - me again, the smile had grown into a grin. - </p> - <p> - “You are belated, my boy,” he said. “You ought to have married into the - Grundys years ago. You were just born to be one of the family.” - </p> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mrs Albert Grundy--Observations in -Philistia, by Harold Frederic - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS GRUNDY *** - -***** This file should be named 50496-h.htm or 50496-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/4/9/50496/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mrs Albert Grundy--Observations in Philistia, by
-Harold Frederic
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: Mrs Albert Grundy--Observations in Philistia
-
-Author: Harold Frederic
-
-Release Date: November 19, 2015 [EBook #50496]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS GRUNDY ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger from page images generously
-provided by the Internet Archive
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
- <div style="height: 8em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h1>
- MRS ALBERT GRUNDY—OBSERVATIONS IN PHILISTIA
- </h1>
- <h2>
- By Harold Frederic
- </h2>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0007.jpg" alt="0007 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0007.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- <b>CONTENTS</b>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <i>Presenting in Outline the Comfortable and
- Well-Regulated Paradox over which She Presides, and showing its Mental
- Elevation</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <i>Setting forth the Untoward Circumstances
- under which the Right Tale was Unfolded in the Wrong Company</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> <i>Annotating Sundry Points of Contact found to
- exist between the Lady and Contemporary Art</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> <i>Affording a Novel and Subdued Scientific
- Light, by which divers Venerable Problems may be Observed Afresh</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> <i>Touching the Experimental Graft of a
- Utilitarian Spirit upon the Aesthetic Instinct in our Sisters</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> <i>Relating to Various Phenomena attending the
- Progress of the Sex along Lines of the Greatest Resistance</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> <i>Illustrating the operation of Vegetables and
- Feminine Duplicity upon the Concepts of Maternal Responsibility</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> <i>Containing Thoughts upon the Great Unknown,
- to which are added Speculations upon her Hereafter</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> <i>Glancing at some Modern Aspects of Master
- John Gutenberg’s ingenious but Over-rated Invention</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> <i>Detailing certain Prudential Measures taken
- during the Panic incident to a Late Threatened Invasion</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> <i>Dealing with the Deceptions of Nature, and
- the Freedom from, Illusion Inherent in the Unnatural</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> <i>Suggesting Considerations possibly heretofore
- Overlooked by Commentators upon the Laws of Property</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> <i>Narrating the Failure of a Loyal Attempt to
- Circumvent Adversity by means of Modern Appliances</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> <i>Introducing Scenes from a Foreign Country,
- and also conveying Welcome Intelligence, together with some Instruction</i>
- </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> <i>Disclosing the Educational Influence exerted
- by the Essex Coast, and other Matters, including Reasons for Joy</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> <i>Describing Impressions of a Momentous
- Interview, loosely gathered by One who, although present, was not quite In
- it</i> </a>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Presenting in Outline the Comfortable and Well-Regulated Paradox over
- which She Presides, and showing its Mental Elevation</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> suppose about the
- name there is no doubt. For sixty years we have followed that gifted
- gadabout and gossip, Heine, and called it Philistia. And yet, when one
- thinks of it, there may have been a mistake after all. Artemus Ward used
- to say that he had been able, with effort, to comprehend how it was
- possible to measure the distance between the stars, and even the
- dimensions and candle-power, so to speak, of those heavenly bodies; what
- beat him was how astronomers had ever found out their names. So I find
- myself wondering whether Philistia really is the right name for the land
- where She must be obeyed.
- </p>
- <p>
- If so, it is only a little more the region of mysterious paradox and
- tricksy metamorphosis. We think of it always and from all time as given
- over to Her rule. We feel in our bones that there was a troglodyte Mrs
- Grundy; we imagine to ourselves a British matron contemporary with the
- cave bear and the woolly elephant But her very antiquity only makes it
- more puzzling.
- </p>
- <p>
- There is an old gentleman who always tries to prove to me that the French
- are really Germans, that the Germans are all Slavs, and that the Russians
- are strictly Tartars: that is to say, that in keeping-count of the early
- races as they swarmed Westward we somehow skipped one, and have been wrong
- ever since. There must be some such explanation of how the domain which
- She sways came to be called Philistia.
- </p>
- <p>
- I say this, because the old Philistia was tremendously masculine. It was
- the Jews who struck the feminine note. They used to swagger no end when
- they won a victory, and utilise it to the utmost limit of merciless
- savagery; but when it came their turn to be thrashed they filled the very
- heavens with complaining clamour. We got no hint that the Philistines ever
- failed to take their medicine like men.
- </p>
- <p>
- Consider those splendid later Philistines, the Norsemen. In all their
- martial literature there is no suggestion of a whine. They loved fighting
- for its own sake; next to braining their foes, they admired being
- themselves hewn into sections. They never blamed their gods when they had
- the worst of it. They never insisted that they were always right and their
- enemies invariably wrong. They cared nothing about all that. They demanded
- only fun. It was their victims, the Frankish and Irish monks, who shed
- women’s tears and besought Providence to play favourites.
- </p>
- <p>
- And here is the paradox. The children of these Berserker loins are become
- the minions of Mrs Grundy. By some magic she has enshrined Respectability
- in their temples. In one division of her empire she makes Mr Helmer drink
- tea; in another she sets everybody reading the <i>Buchholz Family</i>; in
- her chosen island home her husband on the sunniest Sundays carries an
- umbrella instead of a walking-stick. Fancy the wild delirium of delight
- with which the old Philistines would have raided her homestead, chopping
- down her Robert Elsmeres, impaling her Horsleys, and making the skies
- lurid with the flames of her semi-detached villa! Yet we call her place
- Philistia!
- </p>
- <p>
- I know the villa very well. It is quite near to the South Kensington
- Museum. The title “Fernbank” is painted on the gate-posts. How
- well-ordered and comfortable does life beyond those posts remain! Here are
- no headaches in the morning. Here white-capped domestics move with neat
- alertness along the avenues of gentle routine, looking neither to the
- policeman on the right nor fiery-jacketed Thomas Atkins on the left. Here
- my friend Mr Albert Grundy invariably comes home by the Underground to
- dinner. Here his three daughters—girls of a type with a diminishing
- upper lip, with sharper chins and greater length of limb than of old—lead
- deeply washed existences, playing at tennis, smiling in flushed silence at
- visitors, feeding contentedly upon Mudie’s stores, the while their mamma
- spreads the matrimonial net about the piano or makes tours of inspection
- among her outlying mantraps on the lawn. Here simpers the innocuous
- curate; here Uncle Dudley, who has seen life in Australia and the Far
- West, watches the bulbs and prunes the roses, and, I should think, yawns
- often to himself; here Lady Willoughby Wallaby’s card diffuses refinement
- from the summit of the card-basket in the hall.
- </p>
- <p>
- To this happy home there came but last week—or was it the week
- before—a parcel of books. There were four complete novels in twelve
- volumes—fruits of that thoughtful arrangement by which the fair
- reader in Philistia is given three distinct opportunities to decide
- whether she will read the story through or not. Mrs Albert is a busy
- woman, burdened with manifold responsibilities to Church and State, to
- organised charities, to popularised music, to art-work guilds and the
- Amalgamated Association of Clear Starchers, not to mention a weather-eye
- kept at all times upon all unmarried males: but she still finds time to
- open all these packets of new books herself. On this occasion she gave to
- her eldest, Ermyntrude, the first volume of a novel by Mrs ————.
- It doesn’t matter what fell to the share of the younger Amy and Floribel.
- For herself she reserved the three volumes of the latest work of Mr
- ————.
- </p>
- <p>
- She tells me now that words simply can <i>not</i> express her thankfulness
- for having done so. It seems the selection was not entirely accidental.
- She was attracted, she admits, by the charmingly dainty binding of the
- volumes, but she was also moved by an instinct, half maternal prescience,
- half literary recollection. She thought she remembered having seen the
- name of this man-writer before. Where? It came to her like a flash, she
- says. Only a while ago he had a hook called <i>A Bunch of Patrician Ladies</i>
- or something of that sort, which she almost made up her mind not to let
- the girls read at all, but at last, with some misgivings, permitted them
- to skim hastily, because though the morals were rocky—perhaps that
- wasn’t her word—the society was very good. But this new book of his
- had not even that saving feature. Respectable people were only
- incidentally mentioned in it. Really it was quite <i>too</i> low. The
- chief figure was a farm-girl who for the most part skimmed milk or cut
- swedes in a field, and at other times behaved in a manner positively
- unmentionable. Mrs Albert told me she had locked the volumes up, after
- only partially perusing them. I might be sure <i>her</i> daughters never
- laid eyes on them. They had gone back to the library, with a note
- expressing surprise that such immoral books should be sent into any
- Christian family. What made the matter worse, she went on, was that
- Ermyntrude read in some paper, at a friend’s house, that this man, whoever
- he may be, was the greatest of English novelists, and that this particular
- book of his was a tragic work of the noblest and loftiest order, which
- dignified the language. She was sure she didn’t know what England was
- coming to, when reporters were allowed to put things like that in the
- papers. Fortunately she only took in <i>The Daily Tarradiddle</i>, which
- one could always rely upon for sound views, and which gave this
- unspeakable book precisely the contemptuous little notice it deserved.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a relief, however—and here the good matron visibly brightened
- up—to think that really wholesome and improving novels were still
- produced. There was that novel by Mrs ————. Had I
- read it? Oh,
- </p>
- <p>
- I must lose no time! Perhaps it was not altogether so enchanting as that
- first immortal work of hers, which had almost, one might say, founded a
- new religion. True, one of the girls in it worked altar-cloths for a
- church, and occasionally the other characters broke out into religious
- conversation; but there were no clergymen to speak of, and the charm of
- the other’s ecclesiastical mysticism was lacking. “To be frank, the first
- and last volumes were just a bit slow. But oh! the lovely second volume! A
- young Englishman and his sister go to Paris. They stumble right at the
- start into the most delightful, picturesque, artistic set. Think of it:
- Henri Régnault is personally introduced, and delivers himself of extended
- remarks——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I met an old friend of Regnault’s at the Club the other day,” I
- interposed, “who complained bitterly of that. He said it was insufferable
- impudence to bring him in at all, and still worse to make him talk such
- blather as is put into his mouth.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs Albert sniffed at this Club friend and went on. That Paris part of the
- book seemed to her to just palpitate with life. It was Paris to the very
- letter—gay, intellectual, sparkling, and oh! so free! The young
- Englishman at once set up a romantic establishment in the heart of
- Fontainebleau Forest with a French painter-girl. His sister was almost as
- promptly debauched by an elderly French sculptor. But you never lost sight
- of the fact that the author was teaching a valuable moral lesson by all
- this. Indeed, that whole part of the book was called “Storm and Stress.”
- And all the while you saw, too, how innately superior the national
- character of the young Englishman was to that of the French people about
- him. One <i>knew</i> that in good time <i>he</i> would have a moral
- awakening, and return to England, marry, settle down, and make money in
- his business. Side by side with this you saw the entire hopelessness of
- any spiritual regeneration in the French painter-girl or any of her
- artistic set. And this was shown with such delicate art—it was so <i>perfect</i>
- a picture of the moral contrast between the two nations—that the
- girls saw it at once.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then the girls,” I put in—“that is to say, you didn’t lock <i>this</i>
- book up?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs Albert lifted her eyebrows at me.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How do you mean?” she asked. “Do you know who the author is? The idea!
- Why, the papers print whole columns about <i>anything</i> she writes.
- Every day you may see paragraphs about the mere prospect of books she
- hasn’t even begun yet. I suppose such blatant publicity must be very
- distressing to her, but the public simply insist upon it. <i>The Daily
- Tarradiddle</i> devoted an entire leader to this particular book. I assure
- you, all my friends are talking of nothing else—many of them people,
- too, whom you would not suspect of any literary tastes whatever, and who
- <i>never</i> read novels as a rule. But they don’t regard <i>this</i> as a
- novel. They think of it—I quote Lady Willoughby Wallaby’s exact
- words—as an exposition of those Christian principles which make our
- England what it is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Setting forth the Untoward Circumstances under which the Right Tale was
- Unfolded in the Wrong Company</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>uch has been
- written about that variety of “cab-wit” which occurs to a man on his way
- home from dinner: the brilliant sallies he might have made, the smart
- retorts which would so bravely have reversed the balance of laughter had
- they only come in time. We are less frank about the other sort. No one
- dwells in type upon the manner in which we marshal our old jokes and
- arrange our epigrams as we drive along to the house of feasting.
- </p>
- <p>
- No doubt the practice of getting up table-talk is going out. The
- three-bottle men took it to the grave with them, along with the snuff-box,
- and the toupee, and the feather-bed, and other amenities of the Regency.
- There never was but one diner-out in the London of my knowledge who was at
- pains to prepare his conversations, each for its special occasion and
- audience, and he, poor man, broke down under the strain and disappeared
- from view. The others are too lazy, too indifferent, too cocksure of
- themselves, to go to all this bother. The old courtly sense of
- responsibility to the host is perished from among them. But none the less,
- the least dutiful and diligent of all their number does ask himself
- questions as the whirling rubber tyres bear him onward, and the cab-mirror
- shows him the face of a man to whom people ought to listen.
- </p>
- <p>
- The question I asked myself, as I drove past the flaring shop windows of
- Old Brompton Road the other evening, was whether the Grundys would
- probably like my story of Nate Salsbury and the Citizen of South Bend,
- Indiana. A good deal depended upon the decision. It was a story which had
- greatly solidified my position in other hospitable quarters; it could be
- brought in <i>apropos</i> of almost anything, or for that matter of quite
- nothing at all; it had never been printed, so far as I know, in any of
- those American comic papers which supply alike the dining-rooms of Mayfair
- and the editorial offices of Fleet Street with such humour as they come
- into possession of; and I enjoyed telling it. On the other hand, the
- Grundys were old friends of mine, who would never suspect that they had
- missed anything if I preserved silence on the subject of South Bend, and
- who would go on asking me to dinner whether I told new tales or not;
- moreover, their attitude towards fresh jokes was always a precarious
- quantity, and I had an uneasy feeling that if I told my story to them and
- it failed to come off, so to speak, I should never have the same
- confidence in it again.
- </p>
- <p>
- When I had entered the drawing-room of Fernbank, shaken hands with Mrs
- Albert Grundy and Ermyntrude, and stolen a little glance about the circle
- as I walked over to the fireplace, it had become clear that the story was
- not to be told. Beside the half-dozen of the family, including the curate,
- there was a tall young man with a very high collar, shoulders that sloped
- down like a Rhine-wine bottle, and a stern expression of countenance.
- Uncle Dudley whispered to me, as we held our hands over the asbestos, that
- he was a literary party, and the son of old Sir Watkyn Hump, who was a
- director in one of Albert’s companies. The other guests were a stout and
- motherly lady in a cap and a purplish smile, and a darkling young woman
- with a black velvet riband around her thin neck, and a look of wearied
- indifference upon her face. This effect of utter boredom did not visibly
- diminish upon my being presented to Miss Wallaby.
- </p>
- <p>
- I have an extremely well-turned little brace of sentences with which to
- convey the intelligence to a young lady that the honour of taking her down
- to dinner has fallen upon me—sentences which combine professions of
- admiring pleasure with just a grateful dash of respectful playfulness;
- they brought no new light into Miss Wallaby’s somewhat scornful <i>pince-nez</i>.
- Decidedly I would not tell my South Bend story <i>that</i> night!
- </p>
- <p>
- But all the same I did. What led up to it I hardly know. It was at the
- ptarmigan stage, I remember—or was it a capercailzie?—and
- young Mr Hump had commented upon the great joy of living in England, where
- one could enjoy delicious game all the year round, instead of in a country
- like America, where the inhabitants notoriously had nothing but fried salt
- pork to eat for many months at a time. Perhaps it was not worth while, but
- I ventured the correcting remark that there was no season of the year when
- one couldn’t have eighteen edible varieties of wild birds in America for
- every one that England has ever heard of. Mr Hump preened his chin about
- on the summit of his collar and smiled with superior incredulity. The
- others looked grave. Mrs Grundy whispered to me warningly, over her left
- shoulder, that Mr Hump had made America his special subject, and wrote
- most vigorous and comminatory articles about it almost every week. I was
- painfully conscious that Miss Wallaby’s cold right shoulder had been still
- further withdrawn from me.
- </p>
- <p>
- Well, it was at this grotesquely inauspicious moment that I told my story.
- It is easy enough now to see that it was sheer folly, madness if you like,
- to do so. I was only too bitterly conscious of that when I reviewed the
- events of the evening in my homeward cab. It was <i>apropos</i> of nothing
- under the wide sky. But at the moment, I suppose, I hoped that it would
- relieve the situation. In one sense it did.
- </p>
- <p>
- Baldly summarised, this is the tale. Years ago the admirable Nate Salsbury
- was on a “one-night-stand” tour with his bright little company of
- comedians through the least urban districts of Indiana, and came upon
- South Bend, which is an important centre of the wagon-making industry, but
- is not precisely a focussing point of dramatic traditions and culture.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the vestibule of the small theatre that evening there paced up and down
- a tall, middle-aged, weasel-backed citizen, his hands plunged deep in his
- pockets, doubt and irresolution written all over his face. As others paid
- their money and passed in he would watch them with obvious longing; then
- he would go and study once more the attractive coloured bill of the
- Company, with its bevy of pretty girls in skirts just short enough to
- disclose most enticing little ankles; then once more he would resume his
- perplexed walk to and fro. At last he made up his mind, and approached
- Salsbury with diffidence. “Mister,” he said, “air you the boss of this
- show?” “What can I do for you?” asked Nate. “Well—no offence meant—but—can
- I—that is to say—will it be all right to bring a lady to your
- show?” “That, sir, depends!” responded the manager firmly. “Well,” the
- citizen went on, “what I was gittin’ at is this—can I be perfectly
- safe in bringin’ <i>my wife</i> here?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” said Salsbury with dignity, and an eye trained to abstain from
- twinkling, “it is no portion of my business to inquire whether she is your
- wife or not, but if she comes in here she’s got to behave herself!”
- </p>
- <p>
- A solitary note of laughter fell upon the air when I had told this story,
- and on the instant Uncle Dudley, perceiving that he had made a mistake,
- dropped his napkin, and came up from fishing for it on the floor red-faced
- and dumb. All else was deadly silence.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I—I suppose they really weren’t married at all?” said the curate,
- after a chilling pause.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Marriage, I regret to say, means next to nothing in most parts of
- America,” remarked Mr Hump, judicially. “The most sacred ties are there
- habitually made the subject of ribald jests. I have been assured by a
- person who spent nearly three weeks in the United States some years since
- that it is an extremely rare experience to meet an adult American who has
- not been divorced at least once. This fact made a vivid impression on my
- mind at the time, and I—ahem!—have written frequently upon it
- since.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose the trouble arises from their all living in hotels—having
- no home life whatever,” said Mrs Albert, with a kindly air of coming to my
- rescue.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who on earth told you that?” I began, but was cut short.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I confess,” broke in Miss Wallaby, with frosty distinctness of tone and
- enunciation, “that the assumption upon which the incident just related is
- based—the assumption that the la—woman referred to would
- probably misconduct herself in a place of public resort—seems to me
- startlingly characteristic of the country of which it is narrated. It has
- been truly said that the most valuable test of a country’s actual, as
- distinct from its assumed, worth, is the respect it pays to its women.
- Both at Cheltenham and at Newnham the idea is steadily inculcated—I
- might say insisted upon as of paramount importance—that the nation’s
- real civilisation rests upon the measure, not alone of chivalrous
- deference, but of esteem and confidence which my sex, by its devotion to
- duty, and its intellectual sympathy with broad aims and lofty purposes, is
- able to inspire and command.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I assure you,” I protested feebly, “the story I told was a joke.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are some subjects,” interposed Lady Willoughby Wallaby, the fixed
- smile lighting up with an angry, winter-sunset glow her inflamed
- countenance—“there are some subjects on which it is best not to
- joke.” As she spoke she wagged a mitted thumb at her hostess, and on the
- instant the ladies rose. Mr Hump hastened round to hold the door open as
- they filed out, their heads high in air, their skirts rustling indignantly
- over the threshold. Then he followed them, closing the door with decision
- behind him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gad, Albert,” said Uncle Dudley, reaching over for the port, “I don’t
- wonder that the pick of our young fellows go in for marrying American
- girls.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pass it along!” remarked the father of Mrs Albert’s three daughters, in a
- voice of confirmed dejection.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Annotating Sundry Points of Contact found to exist between the Lady and
- Contemporary Art</i>
- </h2>
- <p>
- Scene.—<i>Just inside the door of a studio.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- Time.—<i>Last Sunday in March, 5 p.m.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- 1st Citizeness. O, thank you <i>so</i> much!
- </p>
- <p>
- 2nd do. <i>So</i> good of you to come!
- </p>
- <p>
- 1st do. I <i>so</i> dote upon art!
- </p>
- <p>
- 2nd do. So kind of you to say so!
- </p>
- <p>
- 1st do. Thank you <i>so</i> much for asking us!
- </p>
- <p>
- 2nd do. Delighted, I’m sure! Thank <i>you</i> for coming!
- </p>
- <p>
- 1st Citizeness. Not at all! Thank you for—for thanking me for—Well—<i>good-bye</i>.
- (<i>Exit—with family group</i>.)
- </p>
- <p>
- Husband of 2nd Citizeness (<i>with gloom</i>). And who might <i>those</i>
- thankful bounders be?
- </p>
- <p>
- 2nd Citizeness (<i>wearily</i>). O, don’t ask <i>me!</i> I don’t know!
- From Addison Road way, I should think.
- </p>
- <p>
- 1st Citizeness (<i>outside</i>). Well! If <i>that</i> thing gets into the
- Academy!
- </p>
- <p>
- Family Group. Did you notice the ridiculous way her hair was done? Did you
- ever taste such tea in your life? How yellow Mrs. General Wragg is getting
- to look in the daylight. Yes—there’s our four-wheeler. (<i>Exeunt
- omnes.</i>)
- </p>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he above is not
- intended for presentation upon any stage—not even that of the
- Independent Theatre. It has been cast into the dramatic mould merely for
- convenience’ sake. It embodies what I chiefly remember about Picture
- Sunday.
- </p>
- <p>
- It has come to be my annual duty—a peculiarly hardy, not to say
- temerarious, annual—to convoy Mrs Albert Grundy and her party about
- sections of Chelsea and Brompton on the earlier of the two Show Sabbaths.
- I drifted into this function through having once shared an attic with a
- young painter, whose colleagues used to come to borrow florins of him
- whenever one of his pictures disappeared from any shop window, and so
- incidentally formed my acquaintance. My claim nowadays upon their
- recollection is really very slight. I just know them well enough to manage
- the last Sunday in March: even that might be awkward if they were not such
- good-natured fellows.
- </p>
- <p>
- But it would be difficult to persuade Mrs Albert of this. That good lady
- is wont, when the playfully benignant mood is upon her, to describe me as
- her connecting link with Bohemia. She probably would be puzzled to explain
- her meaning; I certainly should. But if she were provided with affidavits
- setting forth the whole truth—viz., that my entire income is derived
- from an inherited part-interest in an artificial-ice machine; that there
- are two clergymen on the committee of my only club; that I am free from
- debt; and that I play duets on the piano with my sister—still would
- she cling to the belief that I am a young man with an extremely gay,
- rakish side, who could make thrilling revelations of Bohemia if I would.
- Of course, I am never questioned on the subject; but I can see that it is
- a point upon which the faith of Fernbank is firmly grounded. Often Mrs
- Albert’s conversation cuts figure-eights on very thin ice when we are
- alone, as if just to show me that <i>she</i> knows. More than once I have
- discovered Ermyntrude looking furtively at me, as the wistful shepherd-boy
- on the plains of Dura might have gazed at the distant haze overhanging
- bold, unspeakable Babylon. I rarely visit the house but Uncle Dudley winks
- at me. However, nothing is ever asked me about the dreadful things with
- which they suppose me to be upon intimate terms.
- </p>
- <p>
- It seemed for a long time, on Sunday, as if an easy escape had been
- arranged for me by Providence. At two o’clock, the hour appointed for our
- crusade, a heavy fog overhung everything. Looking out from the
- drawing-room windows, only the very nearest of the neatly trimmed firs on
- the lawn were to be distinguished. The street beyond was utter blackness.
- </p>
- <p>
- At three o’clock the ladies took off their bonnets. It was really too bad.
- Uncle Dudley, strolling in from his nap in the library, suggested that
- with a lantern we might visit some of the nearer studios: “not necessarily
- for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.” Mrs Albert turned a
- look of tearful vexation upon him, before which he fled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There’s this consolation,” she remarked presently, holding me with an
- unwavering eye: “if we are to be defrauded out of our expedition to-day,
- that will furnish all the more reason why you should take us next Sunday—<i>the</i>
- Sunday. You have often talked of having us see the Academicians at home—but
- we’ve never been.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I remember that there has been talk about it,” I said; “but hardly that
- the talk was mine. Truth is, I don’t know a single Academician, even by
- sight.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was clear that they did not believe me. Mrs Albert continued: “Lady
- Wallaby expressed surprise, only last evening, that we should consent to
- go about among the outsiders. She and her daughter <i>never</i> do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Outsiders!” I was tempted into saying. “Why, they can paint the head off
- the Academy!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Timby-Hucks simpered outright. “You do say such droll things!” she
- remarked, somewhat obscurely. “Mamma always declares that you remind her
- of the <i>Sydney Bulletin</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Whom <i>do</i> you take to the Academy Show Sunday?—or perhaps I
- oughtn’t to ask,” came from Ermyntrude.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, we have no right to inquire,” said Mrs Albert; and I turned to the
- window and the enshrouded lawn once more.
- </p>
- <p>
- All at once the fog lifted. The bonnets were produced again. Nearly three
- hours of daylight remained to us. Tidings that the horse was too lame to
- be taken out only staggered Mrs Albert for the briefest fraction of time.
- There were still four-wheelers in Gilead. Besides, if the driver happened
- to be sober, he would know the streets so much better than their stupid
- coachman. This would be of advantage, because time was so limited. We
- should have to just run in, say “How-d’ye-do,” take a flying look round,
- and scamper out again, Mrs Albert said. By firmly adhering to this rule,
- she estimated that we might do sixteen or seventeen studios.
- </p>
- <p>
- Heaven alone knows how many we did “do.” Nor have I any clear
- recollections of what we saw. A confused vision remains to me of long
- hall-ways lined with frames and packing-cases; half-an-acre, more or less,
- of painted canvas, out of which only here and there a pair of bright eyes,
- a glowing field of poppies, or the sheen from a satin gown, fixed itself
- disconnectedly on the memory; hordes and hordes of tall young women
- helping themselves to tea and cakes; and always the pathetic figure of the
- artist’s wife, or sister, tired to very death, standing by the door with a
- wearied smile on her lips, and the polite falsehood, “So good of you to
- come!” on her tongue. I wondered, I remember, if she never forgot herself
- and said instead, “So kind of you to go!” But under Mrs Albert’s system
- there was no time to wait and see.
- </p>
- <p>
- Once, indeed, we dallied over our task. Mrs Albert encountered a lady from
- Wormwood Scrubs of her acquaintance, who was indiscreet enough to mention
- that she had been asked to stop here for supper. The news spread through
- the petticoated portion of my group as by magic. Miss Timby-Hucks came
- over and asked me, so audibly that the artist-host had to blush and turn
- away, if I didn’t think it would be a deliciously romantic experience to
- sup in one of these lofty studios, with the gaslight on the armour, and
- the great, solemnly silent pictures looking down upon us as we ate. Mrs
- Albert lingered for some time looking at this artist’s work with her head
- on one side, and eyes filled with rapt, dreamy enjoyment—but nothing
- came of it.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was after we had been back in Fern-bank for an hour or more—our
- own cold repast nearly over—that Mrs Albert thought of something.
- She laid down her fork with a gesture of annoyance. “It has just occurred
- to me,” she said; “we never went to that Mr Whistler’s, whose pictures are
- on exhibition in Bond Street. Everybody’s talking about him, and I did so
- want not to miss his studio.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t think he has a Show Sunday,” I said. “I never heard of it, if he
- has.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “O no, it is only these last few weeks that anybody has heard of him,”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs Albert replied. “I read the first announcement about his beautiful
- pictures in <i>The Daily Tarradiddle</i> only the other day.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Whistler? Whistler?” put in Uncle Dudley. “Why, surely <i>he’s</i> not
- new. Why—I remember—he was mixed up in a law-suit, wasn’t it,
- years ago?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “O no, Dudley,” responded Mrs Albert; “I was under that same impression,
- till Lady Wallaby set me right. It seems that was another man altogether—some
- foreign adventurer who pretended to be able to paint and imposed upon
- people—don’t you recall how <i>The Tarradiddle</i> exposed him?—and
- Mr Burnt-Jones had him arrested, or something—O, quite a dreadful
- person. But <i>this</i> Mr Whistler is an Englishman. I read in <i>The
- Illustrated London News</i> that he represented modern British Art. That
- alone would make it quite clear it was a different man. I did so want to
- see him! Lady-Wallaby tells me she has heard he is extremely amusing in
- his conversation—and quite presentable manners, too.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why don’t you ask him to dinner?” said Mr Albert Grundy. “If he’s amusing
- it’s more than most of the men you drum up are.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You seem to think <i>everybody</i> can be asked to dinner, Albert,” the
- lady of the house replied. “Artists don’t dine—unless they are in
- the Academy, of course. Tea, yes—or perhaps supper; but one doesn’t
- ask people to meet them at dinner. It’s like actors—and—and
- non-commissioned officers.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Affording a Novel and Subdued Scientific Light, by which divers
- Venerable Problems may be Observed Afresh</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t is my opinion,”
- said Uncle Dudley, stretching out his slippered feet, and thrusting his
- thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat—“it is my opinion that
- women are different from men.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Several commentators have advanced this view,” I replied. “For example,
- it has been noted that the gentle sex cross a muddy street on their heels,
- whereas we skip over on our toes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is interesting if true,” responded Uncle Dudley. “What I mean is
- that all this talk about the human race is humbug. There are <i>two</i>
- human races! And they are getting wider apart every few minutes, too!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you mentioned this to any one?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- Uncle Dudley went on developing his theme. “I daresay that for millions of
- years after the re-separation of the sexes this difference was too slight
- to be noticed at all. The cave man, for instance—the fellow who went
- around hunting the Ichthyosaurus with a brick tied on the end of an elm
- club, and spent the whole winter underground sucking the old bones, and
- then whittling them up into Runic buttons for the South Kensington Museum:
- I suppose, now, that his wife and sister-in-law, say, didn’t strike him as
- being specially different from himself—except, of course, in that
- they only got plain bones and gristle and so on to eat, whereas all the
- marrow and general smooth-sailing in meats went his way. <i>You</i>, can’t
- imagine <i>him</i> saying to himself: ‘These female people here are not of
- my race at all They are of another species. They are in reality as much my
- natural enemies as that long-toed, red-headed, brachycephalous tramp
- living in the gum-tree down by the swamp, who makes offensive gestures as
- I ride past on my tame <i>Ursus spelous</i>’—now, can you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- I frankly shook my head. “No, I don’t seem to be able to imagine that. It
- would be almost as hard as to guess off-hand where, when, and how you
- caught this remarkable scientific spasm.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Uncle Dudley smiled. He rose, and walked with leisurely lightness up and
- down in front of the chimney-piece, still with his palms spread like
- little misplaced wings before his armpits. He smiled again. Then he
- stopped on the hearth-rug and looked down amiably upon me.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—what d’ye think? There’s something in it, eh?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear fellow,” I began, “what puzzles me is——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “O, I don’t mean to say that I’ve worked it all out,” put in Uncle Dudley,
- reassuringly. “Why, I get puzzled myself, every once in a while. But I’m
- on the right track, my boy; and, as they say in Adelaide, I’m going to
- hang to it like a pup to a root.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How long have you been this way?” I asked, with an affectation of
- sympathy.
- </p>
- <p>
- Uncle Dudley answered with shining eyes. “Why, if you’ll believe me, it
- seems now as if I’d had the germs of the idea in my mind ever since I came
- back to England, and began living here at Fernbank. But the thing dawned
- upon me—that is to say, took shape in my head—less than a
- fortnight ago. It all came about through being up here one evening with
- nothing to read, and my toe worse than usual, and Mrs Albert having been
- out of sorts all through dinner. Somehow, I felt all at once that I’d got
- to read scientific works. I couldn’t resist it. I was like Joan of Arc
- when the cows and sheep took partners for a quadrille. I heard voices—Darwin’s
- and—and—Benjamin Franklin’s—and—lots of others. I
- hobbled downstairs to the library, and I brought up a whole armful of the
- books that Mrs Albert bought when she expected Lady Wallaby was going to
- be able to get her an invitation to attend the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn’s
- Biological Conversaziones. Look there! What do you say to that for ten
- days’ work? And had to cut every leaf, into the bargain!”
- </p>
- <p>
- I gazed with respect at the considerable row of books he indicated: books
- for the most part bound in the scarlet of the International Series or the
- maroon of Contemporary Science, but containing also brown covers, and even
- green “sport” varieties.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, and what is it all about?” I asked. “Why have you read these
- things? Why not the reports of the Commission on Agricultural Depression,
- or Lewis Morris’s poems, or even——” but my imagination
- faltered and broke.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was instinct, my boy,” returned Uncle Dudley, with impressive
- confidence. “There had been a thought—a great idea—growing and
- swelling in my head ever since I had been living in this house. But I
- couldn’t tell what it was. As you might say, it was wrapped up in a
- cocoon, like the larvæ of the lepidoptera—ahem!—and something
- was needed to bring it out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When I was here last you were trying Hollands with quinine bitters,” I
- remarked casually.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t fool!” Uncle Dudley admonished me. “I’m dead in earnest. As I said,
- it was pure instinct that led me to these books. They have made everything
- clear. I only wanted their help to get the husk off my discovery, and
- hoist it on my back, us it were, and bring it out here in the daylight.
- And so now you know what I’m getting at when I say: Women are different
- from Men.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is the discovery, then?” I inquired.
- </p>
- <p>
- Uncle Dudley nodded several times. Then he went on, with emphasised
- slowness: “I have lived here now for four years, seeing my sister-in-law
- every day, watching Ermyntrude grow up to womanhood and the little girls
- peg along behind her, and meeting the female friends who come here to see
- them—and, sir, I tell you, they’re not alone a different sex:
- they’re a different animal altogether! Take my word for it, they’re a
- species by themselves.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Miss Timby-Hucks is certainly very much by herself,” I remarked.
- </p>
- <p>
- My friend smiled. “And not altogether her own fault either,” he commented.
- “But, speaking of science, it’s remarkable how, when you once get a firm
- grip on a big, central, main-guy fact, all the little facts come in of
- their own accord to support it. Now, there’s that young simpleton you met
- here at dinner a while ago: I mean Eustace Hump. Do you know that both
- Ermyntrude and the Timby-Hucks, and even Miss Wallaby, think that that
- chap is a perfect ideal of masculine wit and beauty? You and I would
- hesitate about using him to wad a horse-pistol with: but there isn’t one
- of those girls that wouldn’t leap with joy if he began proposing to her;
- and as for their mothers, why, the old ladies watch him as a kingfisher
- eyes a tadpole.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your similes are exciting,” I said; “but what do they go to show?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear fellow, science can show anything. I haven’t gone all through it
- yet, but I tell you, it’s wonderful! Take this, for instance”—he
- reached for a green book on the mantel, and turned over the leaves—“now
- listen to this. The book is written by a man named Wallace—nice,
- shrewd-looking old party by his picture, you can see—and this is
- what he says on page 285: ‘Some peahens preferred an old pied peacock; a
- Canada goose paired with a Bernicle gander; a male widgeon was preferred
- by a pintail duck to its own species; a hen canary preferred a male
- greenfinch to either linnet, goldfinch, siskin, or chaffinch.’ Now, do you
- see that? The moment my eyes first lighted on that, I said to myself: ‘Now
- I understand about the girls and Eustace Hump.’ Isn’t it clear to you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Absolutely,” I assented. “You ought to read a paper at the Royal Aquarium—before
- the Balloon Society, I mean.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And then look at this,” Uncle Dudley went on, with animation. “Now, you
- and I would ask ourselves what on earth such a gawky, spindling,
- poor-witted youngster as that thought he was doing among women, anyhow.
- But you turn over the page, and here you have it: ‘Goat-suckers, geese,
- carrion vultures, and many other birds of plain plumage have been observed
- to dance, spread their wings or tails, and perform strange love-antics.’
- Doesn’t that fasten Hump to the wall like a beetle on a pin, eh?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I am not sure that I entirely follow its application to your original
- point,” I suggested.
- </p>
- <p>
- “About women, you mean? My boy, in science everything applies. The woods
- are full of applications. But seriously, women <i>are</i> different. As I
- said, in the barbarism at the back of beyond this divergence started. With
- the beginning of what we call civilisation, it became more and more
- marked. The progress of the separation increases nowadays by square-root—or
- whatever you call it. The sexes are wider apart to-day than ever. They
- like each other less; they quarrel more. You can see that in the Divorce
- Courts, in the diminished proportion of early marriages, in the increasing
- evidences of domestic infelicity all about one.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I could not refrain from expressing the fear that all this boded ill for
- the perpetuity of the human race.
- </p>
- <p>
- Uncle Dudley is a light-hearted man. He was not depressed by the
- apprehensions to which I had given utterance. Instead he hummed pleasantly
- to himself as he put Wallace back on the shelf. He began chuckling as a
- moment later he bethought himself to fill our glasses afresh.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did I ever tell you my cat story?” he asked cheerily, testing the knob to
- see that the door was shut. “Once a little boy came in to his father and
- said: ‘Pa, we won’t be troubled any more with those cats howling about on
- our roof at night. I’ve just been looking out of the upstairs window, and
- they’re all out there fighting and screaming and tearing each other to
- pieces. There won’t be one of them alive by morning!’ Then the father
- replied: ‘My son, you imagine a vain thing. When increasing years shall
- have furnished your mind with a more copious store of knowledge, you will
- grasp the fact that all this commotion and dire disturbance which you
- report to me only signifies more cats.’”
- </p>
- <p>
- At this juncture the servant came in with the soda-water. We talked no
- more of science that evening.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Touching the Experimental Graft of a Utilitarian Spirit upon the
- Aesthetic Instinct in our Sisters</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> HAD strolled
- about the galleries of Burlington House for a couple of hours on Press
- Day, looking a little at pictures here and there, but for the most part
- contemplating with admiration the zeal and good faith of the ladies and
- gentlemen who stopped, note-book in hand, before every frame: when some
- one behind me gave a friendly tug at my sleeve. I turned, to find myself
- confronted by a person I seemed not to know—a small young woman in
- an alpine hat and a veil which masked everything about her face except its
- dentigerous smile. Even as I looked I was conscious of regret that, if
- acquaintances were to be made for me in this spontaneous fashion, destiny
- had not selected instead a certain tall, slender, dark young lady, clad
- all in black and cock’s-plumes, whom I had been watching at her work of
- notetaking in room after room, with growing interest. Then, peering more
- closely through the veil, I discovered that I was being accosted by Miss
- Timby-Hucks.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You didn’t know me!” she said, with a vivacious half-giggle, as we shook
- hands; “and you’re not specially pleased to see me; and you’re asking
- yourself, ‘What on earth is she doing here?’ Now, don’t deny it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, you know,” I made awkward response—“of course—<i>Press</i>
- day——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, but I belong to the Press,” said Miss Timby-Hucks.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Happy Press! And since when?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “O it’s nearly a fortnight now. And most <i>interesting</i> I find the
- work. You know, for a long time now I’ve been <i>so</i> restless, <i>so</i>
- anxious to find some opening to a real career, where I might be my genuine
- self, and be an active part of the great whirling stream of existence, and
- concentrate my mind upon the actualities of life—don’t you yourself
- think it will be <i>just</i> the thing for me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Undoubtedly,” I replied without hesitation. “And do you find focussing
- yourself on the actualities—ah—remunerative?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” Miss Timby-Hucks explained, “nothing of mine has been printed yet,
- you see, so that I don’t know as to that. But I am assured it will be all
- right. You see, I’m <i>very</i> intimate with a cousin of Mrs Umpelbaum,
- who is the wife of the proprietor of <i>Maida Vale</i>, and in that way it
- came about. Lady-reporters never have any chance, I am told, unless they
- have friends in the proprietor’s family, or know the editor extremely
- well. It all goes by favour, like—like——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Like the dearest of all the actualities,” I put in. “But how is it they
- don’t print your stuff?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I haven’t written any, as yet. The difficulty was to find a subject,”
- Miss Timby-Hucks rejoined. “O that awful ‘subject’! I thought and thought
- and thought till my head was fit to burst. I went to see Mrs Umpelbaum
- herself, and asked her to suggest something. You know she writes a great
- deal for the paper herself. She said they hadn’t had any ‘Reminiscences of
- Carlyle’ now for some weeks; but afterwards she agreed with me that would
- not be quite the thing for one to <i>begin</i> with. She couldn’t suggest
- anything else, except that I should have a chat with my dressmaker. Very
- often in that way, she said, lady-reporters get the most <i>entertaining</i>
- revelations of gossip in high life. But it happened that just then it was
- not—not exactly convenient—for me to call upon my dressmaker;
- and so <i>that</i> suggestion came to nothing, too.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I had no idea lady-journalism was so difficult,” I remarked, with
- sympathy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “O indeed, yes!” Miss Timby-Hucks went on. “One can’t expect to be <i>en
- rapport</i>, as we journalists say, with Society, without spending a great
- deal of money. There is one lady-reporter, Mrs Umpelbaum told me, who has
- made quite a leading position for herself, solely through hairdressers and
- American dentists. But I don’t mind admitting that that would involve more
- of an outlay than I could afford, just at the moment.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So you never got a subject?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; finally I did. I was over at the Grundys’, telling my troubles, and
- Uncle Dudley—you know, being so much with the girls, I always call
- him that—Uncle Dudley said that the fashionable thing now was
- interviews, and that lady-journalists did this better than
- gentlemen-reporters because they had more nerve. By that I suppose he
- meant a more delicate nervous organisation, quicker to grasp and absorb
- fine shades of character. But that hardly helped me, because whom was I to
- interview, and about what? <i>That</i> was the question! But Uncle Dudley
- thought a moment, and was ready with a suggestion. Everything depended, he
- said, upon making a right start. I must pick out a personality and a theme
- at once non-contentious and invested with popular interest His idea was
- that I should begin by interviewing Mr T. M. Healy on ‘The Decline of the
- Deep-Sea Mock-Turtle Fisheries on the West Coast of Ireland.’ If I could
- get Mr Healy to talk frankly on this subject, he felt sure that I should
- chain public attention at a bound.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Superb!” I cried. “And did you do it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” Miss Timby-Hucks confessed; “I went to the House and sent in my
- card, but it was another Irish Member who came out to see me—I think
- his name was Mulhooly. He was very polite, and explained that since some
- recent sad event in one of the Committee Rooms, fifteen I think its number
- was, it was the rule of his party that, when a lady sent in a card to one
- Member, some other Member answered it. It prevented confusion, he said,
- and was not in antagonism to the expressed views of the Church.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Talking of nothing,” I said, leading the way over to a divan, on which we
- seated ourselves: “you seem to have finally secured a subject. I assume
- you are doing the Academy for <i>Maida Vale</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” replied Miss Timby-Hucks with gentle firmness; “you might say I
- have <i>done</i> it. I have been here since the very minute the doors
- opened, and I’ve gone twelve times round. I wish I could have seen you
- earlier. I should so like to have had your opinion of the various works as
- we passed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is better not,” I commented. “There are ladies present.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The lady-reporter looked at me for a furtive instant dubiously. Then she
- smiled a little under her veil. “You <i>do</i> say such odd things!” she
- remarked. “I am glad to see that a great many ladies <i>are</i> present.
- It shows how we are securing our proper recognition in journalism. I
- believe there are actually more of us here than there are
- gentlemen-reporters—I should say gentle-men-critics. And it is the
- same in art, too. You can see—I’ve counted them up in my catalogue
- here—there are this year two hundred and forty-four lady-artists
- exhibiting in this Academy three hundred and forty-six works of art. Think
- of that! Fifty of them are described as Mrs, and there are one hundred and
- ninety-four who are unmarried.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Think of <i>that!</i>” I retorted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And there are among them,” Miss Timby-Hucks went on, “one Marchioness,
- one Countess, one Baroness, and one plain Lady. I am going to begin my
- article with this. I think it will be interesting, don’t you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’d be careful not to particularise about the plain Lady,” I suggested.
- “That might be <i>too</i> interesting.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She was over-full of her subject to smile. “No, I mean,” she said, “as
- showing how the ranks of British Art are being filled from the very
- highest classes, and are appealing more and more to the female intellect.
- I don’t believe it will occur to any one else to count up in the
- catalogue. So that will be original with me—to enlighten my sex as
- to the glorious part they play in this year’s Academy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But have you seen their pictures?” I asked, repressing an involuntary
- groan.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Every one!” replied Miss Timby-Hucks. “They are all good. There isn’t
- what I should call a bad one—that is, a Frenchy or immoral one—among
- them. I shall say that, too, in my criticism; but of course I shall have
- to word it carefully, because I fancy Mr Umpelbaum is a foreigner of some
- sort—and you know they’re all so sensitive about the superiority of
- British Art.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is their nature; they can’t help it,” I pointed out. “They try their
- best, however, to master these unworthy emotions. Sometimes, indeed, their
- dissimulation reaches a really high plane of endeavour.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They have nothing at all on the Continent like our Royal Academy, I am
- told,” said Miss Timby-Hucks. “That isn’t generally known, is it? I had
- thought of saying it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will be a safe statement,” I assured her. “You might go further, and
- assert that no other country at any stage of its history has had anything
- like the Royal Academy. It is the unique blossom of British civilisation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Timby-Hucks seemed to like the phrase, and made a note of it on the
- back of her catalogue. “Yes,” she continued, “I thought of making my
- criticism general, dealing with things like that. But I’ve got some
- awfully interesting figures to put in. For example, there are sixty-eight
- Academicians and Associates exhibiting: they have one hundred and
- thirty-five oil paintings, sixteen water-colour or black-and-white
- drawings, eight architectural designs, and twenty-three pieces of
- sculpture—a total of one hundred and eighty-two works of art, or two
- and sixty-seven hundredths each. I got at that by dividing the total
- number of works by the total number of Academicians. Do you think any one
- else will be likely to print that first in a daily paper? Mrs Umpelbaum
- told me that <i>Maida Vale</i> made a special point of new facts. I don’t
- think I shall say much about the pictures themselves. What <i>is</i> there
- to say about pictures by the Academicians? As I told mamma this morning,
- they wouldn’t be Academicians if they didn’t paint good pictures, would
- they? and good pictures speak for themselves. Of course, I shall describe
- the subjects of Sir Frederic’s pictures—by the way, what <i>is</i> a
- Hesperides?—and some of the others: I’ll get you to pick out for me
- a few leading names. But I shall make my main point the splendid advance
- of lady-artists—I heard some one say in the other room there’d never
- been half so many before—and the elevating effect this has upon
- British Art. In fact, mightn’t I say that is what makes British Art what
- it is to-day?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is one of the reasons, undoubtedly,” I assented, as I rose. “There are
- others, however.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ees, I know,” said Miss Timby-Hucks: “the diffusion of Christian
- principles amongst us, our high national morality, and the sanctity of the
- English home. Mrs Albert said only last night that these lay at the very
- foundation of British art.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mrs Albert is a woman of discernment,” I said, making a gesture of
- farewell.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Miss Timby-Hucks on the instant thought of something. Her eyes
- glistened, her two upper front teeth gleamed. “O, it’s just occurred to
- me!” she exclaimed, moving nearer to my side, and speaking-in confidential
- excitement. “I know now how that lady-reporter manages with the
- hairdressers and dentists. She doesn’t pay them money at all. She mentions
- their names in the papers instead. How dull of me not to have thought of
- that before! Why—yes—I will!—I’ll put my dressmaker
- among the Private View celebrities!”
- </p>
- <p>
- One likes to be civil to people who are obviously going to succeed in the
- world. I forthwith took Miss Timby-Hucks out to luncheon.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Relating to Various Phenomena attending the Progress of the Sex along
- Lines of the Greatest Resistance</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>y own idea,” said
- Uncle Dudley, “is that women ought to be confined to barracks during
- elections just the same as soldiers.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was quite prepared to find <i>you</i> entertaining views of that
- character,” remarked Miss Wallaby, with virginal severity. “Men who have
- wandered about the less advanced parts of the earth, and spent long
- periods of time in contact with inferior civilisations, quite generally do
- feel that way. Life in the Colonies, and in similar rude and remote
- regions, does produce that effect upon the masculine mind. But here in
- England, the nerve-centre of the English-speaking race, the point of
- concentration from which radiate all the impulses of refinement and
- culture that distinguish our generation, men are coming to see these
- matters in a different light. They no longer refuse to listen to the
- overwhelming arguments in favour of entire feminine equality——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, <i>I</i> admit <i>that</i> at once,” broke in Uncle Dudley. “But do
- women nowadays believe in equality among themselves? In my youth they used
- to devote pretty well all their energies to showing how much superior they
- were to other women.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I spoke of the masculine attitude,” said Miss Wallaby, coldly. “Viewed
- intelligently, the gradations and classifications which we maintain among
- ourselves, at the cost of such infinite trouble and personal
- self-sacrifice, are the very foundation upon which rests the
- superstructure of British Society.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I admit that, too,” Uncle Dudley hastened to put in. “Really, we are
- getting on very nicely.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Wallaby ignored the interruption altogether. “The point is,” she went
- on, “that the male mind in England is coming—with characteristic
- slowness, no doubt, but still coming—to recognise the necessity of
- securing the very fullest and most complete participation of my sex in
- public affairs. As the diffusion of enlightenment progresses, men will
- more and more abandon the coarse and egoistic standards of their days of
- domination by brute force, and turn instead to the ideals of purity and
- sweetness which Woman in Politics typifies. It has been observed that one
- may pick out the future rulers of England in each coming generation by
- scanning the honour-lists of Oxford and Cambridge. How happy a day it will
- be for England, and civilisation, when this is said of Girton and Newnham
- as well!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I spent a summer in the State of Maine once, some years ago,” said Uncle
- Dudley. “That’s the State, you know, where they’ve had a Prohibition law
- now for nearly forty years. The excess of females over males is larger
- there, I believe, than it is anywhere else in the world—owing to the
- fact that all the young men who are worth their salt emigrate to some
- other State as soon as they’ve saved up enough for a railway-ticket. The
- men that you do see lounging around there, in the small villages, are all
- minding the baby, or sitting on the doorstep shelling peas, or out in the
- backyard, with their mouths full of clothes-pins, hanging up sheets and
- pillow-cases on the line to dry. The women there take a very active part
- in politics—and every census shows that Maine’s population has
- diminished. Shipbuilding has almost ceased, farms are being abandoned
- yearly, the State is mortgaged up to its eyebrows, and you get nothing but
- fried clams and huckleberry-pie for breakfast—but, of course, I
- suppose there <i>is</i> a good deal of purity and sweetness.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Wallaby rose and walked away from us; the black velvet riband around
- her neck, the glint of gas-light on her eyeglasses, the wearied
- haughtiness on her swarthy, high-nosed face, seemed to unite in saying to
- us that we were very poor creatures indeed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She’s been down to the Retired Licensed Victuallers’ Division of Surrey,
- you know,” exclaimed Uncle Dudley, “making speeches in favour of the
- sitting Member, old Sir Watkyn Hump.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, that accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nut,” I remarked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, no,” my friend mused aloud, “I fancy <i>young</i> Hump accounts for
- that. See—she’s gone and cut him out from under the Timby-Hucks’s
- guns.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was at one of Mrs Albert Grundy’s evenings at home, and Uncle Dudley
- and I now had possession of a quiet corner to ourselves. From this
- pleasant vantage-ground we indolently surveyed the throng surrounding Mrs
- Albert at the piano end of the room, and stretching off through the open
- double doors into the adjoining chamber—a throng of dazzling arms
- and shoulders, of light-hued satins and fluffy stuffs, of waving feathers,
- and splendid piles of braided hair, and mostly comely faces wreathed in
- politic smiles. Here and there the mass of pinks and whites and creams was
- broken abruptly by a black coat with a hat under its sleeve. Dudley and I
- idly commented upon the fact that almost all these coats belonged to
- undersized elderly men, generally with spectacles and a grey beard, and we
- noted with placid interest that as they came in—announced in
- stentorian tones as Mr and Mrs So-and-so—their wives as a rule were
- several inches taller and many many years younger than themselves.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then it was entertaining, too, to watch Mrs Albert shake hands with these
- newcomers. She knew just at what angle each preferred that ceremony,
- keeping her knuckles well down in welcoming the more sophisticated and
- up-to-date people from about Cromwell Road and the Park, but elevating
- them breast-high to greet those from around Brompton way, and hoisting
- them quite up to the chin-level with the guests from beyond Earl’s Court,
- who were still in the toils of last year’s fashions.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Smart woman, that sister of mine!” said Uncle Dudley. “See the way she’s
- manoeuvred her shoulder around in front of the Timby-Hucks’s nose, so as
- to head her off from getting in and being introduced to the Hon. Mrs
- Coon-Alwyn. And—hello! by George, she’s won!—there’s the
- Dowager Countess of Thames-Ditton coming in! You’ll never know the
- anguish, my boy, that was caused by the uncertainty whether she would come
- or not. Emily hasn’t been able to eat these past four days, expecting
- every moment the knock of the postman bringing her ladyship’s refusal to
- come. The only thing that enabled her to keep up, she said, was fixing her
- mind resolutely on the fact that the aristocracy are notoriously impolite
- about answering invitations. But now, happy woman—her cup is fairly
- running over. This is a great night for Fernbank. And—look!—hanged
- if that girl isn’t trying to edge her way in there, too! See how prettily
- Emily managed that? Oh, Timby-Hucks! Timby-Hucks! you’ve put your foot in
- it this time. You’ll never figure on the free-list for <i>this</i> show
- again.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Misfortune indeed claimed Miss Timby-Hucks for its very own. Mrs Albert
- had twice adroitly interposed her well-rounded shoulders between that
- enterprising young woman and social eminence—the second time with
- quite obvious determination of purpose. And there, too, behind the door,
- young Mr Hump bent his sloping shoulders and cliff-like collar humbly over
- Miss Wallaby’s chair, listening with all his considerable ears to her
- selected monologues. Ah, the vanity of human aspirations!
- </p>
- <p>
- Casting an heroic glance over the field of defeat, Miss Timby-Hucks’s eye
- lighted upon our corner, and on the instant her two upper front teeth
- gleamed in a smile of relief. At all events, <i>we</i> were left—and
- she came towards us with a decisive step.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ve hardly seen you since the Academy,” she said in her sprightly way to
- me, after we had all shaken hands, and she had seated herself between us
- on the sofa.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And how did your article come out?” I asked politely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, it never came out at all,” she replied. “It seems it got left over
- too long. The editor <i>said</i> it was owing to the pressure of
- interesting monkey-language matter upon his columns; but <i>I</i> believe
- it was just because I’m a lady journalist, and so does the cousin of Mrs
- Umpelbaum, the proprietor’s wife. It must have been that—because,
- long after the editor gave this excuse, there were the daily papers still
- printing their criticisms, ‘Eleventh Notice of the Royal Academy,’ ‘The
- Spring Exhibitions—Fourteenth Article,’ and so on. I taxed him with
- it—told him I heard they had some still left, that they were going
- to begin printing again after the elections were over—but he said it
- was different with dailies. All <i>they</i> needed were advertisements and
- market reports, and police news, and telegrams about the Macedonian
- frontier, and they could print art criticisms and book reviews whole years
- after they should have appeared, because nobody ever read them when they
- were printed—but weeklies had to be absolutely up to date.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Evil luck does pursue you!” I said, compassionately. “So you haven’t got
- into print at all?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “O I’m not a bit cast down,” replied Miss Timby-Hucks, with jaunty
- confidence. “There’s no such word as fail in my book. The way to succeed
- is just to keep pegging away. I know of one lady-journalist who went every
- day for nine weeks to interview the Countess of Wimps about her second
- son’s having been warned off Newmarket Heath. Every day she was refused
- admittance—once she got into the hall and was put out by a brutal
- footman—but it never unnerved her. Each morning she went again. And
- she would have succeeded by this time, probably—only the Countess
- suddenly left England to spend the summer in Egypt.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, Wady Halfa <i>has</i> its advantages, even in July,” said Uncle
- Dudley. “It is warm, and there are insects, but one is allowed by law to
- kill them—in Egypt.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Illustrating the operation of Vegetables and Feminine Duplicity upon
- the Concepts of Maternal Responsibility</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> FELT that I was
- on sufficiently intimate terms with Mrs Albert Grundy to tell her that she
- was not looking well. She gave a weary little sigh and said she knew it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Indeed, poor lady, it was apparent enough. She has taken of late to
- wearing her hair drawn up from her forehead over a roll—the effect
- of mouse-tints at which Nature is beginning to hint, being frankly helped
- out by powder. Everybody about Fernbank recognises that in some way this
- reform has altered the whole state of affairs. The very servant who comes
- to the door, or who brings in the tea-things, seems to carry herself in a
- different manner since the change has been made. Of course, it is by no
- means a new fashion, but it was not until the Dowager Countess of
- Thames-Ditton brought it in person to Fernbank that Mrs Albert could be
- quite sure of its entire suitability. Up to that time it had seemed to her
- a style rather adapted to lady lecturers and the wives of men who write:
- and though Mrs Albert has the very highest regard for literature—quite
- dotes on it, as she says—she is somewhat inclined to sniff at its
- wives.
- </p>
- <p>
- We all feel that the change adds character to Mrs Albert’s face—or
- rather exhibits now that true managing and resourceful temper, which was
- formerly obscured and weakened by a fringe. But the new arrangement has
- the defects of its qualities. It does not lend itself to tricks. The
- countenance beneath it does not easily dissemble anxiety or mask fatigue.
- And both were written broadly over Mrs Albert’s fine face. “Yes,” she
- said, “I know it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The consoling suggestion that soon the necessity of giving home-dinners to
- the directors in her husband’s companies would have ended, and that then a
- few weeks out of London, away somewhere in the air of the mountains or the
- sea, would bring back all her wonted strength and spirits, did no good.
- She shook her head and sighed again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” she said, “it isn’t physical. That is to say, it <i>is</i> physical,
- but the cause is mental. It is over-worry.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of all people on earth—<i>you!</i>” I replied reproachfully. “Why
- think of it—a husband who is the dream of docile propriety, a
- competency broadening each year into a fortune, a home like this, such
- servants, such appointments, such a circle of admiring friends—and
- then your daughters! Why, to be the mother of such a girl as Ermyntrude———-”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Precisely,” interrupted Mrs Albert. “To be the mother of such a girl, as
- you say. Little you know what it really means! But, no—I know what
- you were going to say—<i>please</i> don’t! it is too sad a subject.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I could do nothing but feebly strive to look my surprise. To think of
- sadness connected with tall, handsome, good-hearted Ermie, was impossible.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You think I am exaggerating, I know,” Mrs Albert went on. “Ah, you do not
- know!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing could be more evident,” I replied, “than that I don’t know. I
- can’t even imagine what on earth you are driving at.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs Albert paused for a moment, and pushed the toe of her wee slipper
- meditatively back and forth on the figure of the carpet.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, I <i>will</i> tell you,” she said at last. “You are such an old
- friend of the family that you are almost one of us. And besides, you are
- always sympathetic—so different from Dudley. Well, the point is
- this. You know the young man—Sir Watkyn’s son—Mr Eustace
- Hump.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have met him here,” I assented.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I doubt if you will meet him here any more,” Mrs Albert said,
- impressively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The deprivation shall not drive me to despair or drink,” I assured her.
- “I will watch over myself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I dare say you did not care much for him,” said Mrs Albert. “I know
- Dudley didn’t. But, all the same, he <i>was</i> eligible. He is an only
- son, and his father is a Baronet—an hereditary title—and they
- are <i>rolling</i> in wealth. And Eustace himself, when you get to know
- him, has some very admirable qualities. You know he <i>writes!</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have heard him say so,” I responded, perhaps not over graciously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “O, <i>regularly</i>, for a number of weekly papers. It is understood that
- quite frequently he gets paid—not of course that that matters to him—but
- his associations are distinctly literary. I have always felt that with his
- tastes and connections his wife—granting of course that she was the
- right kind of woman—might at last set up a real literary <i>salon</i>
- in London. We have wanted one so long, you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have we?” I murmured listlessly, striving all the while to guess what
- relation all this bore to the question of Ermyntrude. I built up in my
- mind a hostile picture of the odious Hump, with his shoulders sloping off
- like a German wine-bottle, his lean neck battlemented in high starched
- walls of linen, and his foolish conceited face—and leaped hopefully
- to the conclusion that Ermyntrude had rejected him. I could not keep the
- notion to myself.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—has she sent him about his business?” I asked, making ready to
- beam with delight.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” said Mrs Albert, ruefully. “It never got to that, so far as I can
- gather—but at all events it is all over. I expect every morning now
- to read the announcement in the <i>Morning Post</i> that a marriage has
- been arranged between him and—and—Miss Wallaby!”
- </p>
- <p>
- I sat upright, and felt myself smiling. “What!—the girl with the
- black ribbon round her neck?” I asked comfortably.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It would be more appropriate round her heart,” remarked Mrs Albert, with
- bitterness in her tone. “Why, do you know? her mother, for all that she’s
- Lady Wallaby, hasn’t an ‘h’ in her whole composition.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, neither has old Sir Watkyn Hump,” I rejoined pleasantly. “So it’s a
- fair exchange.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, but <i>he</i> can afford it,” put in Mrs Albert. “But the Wallabys—well,
- I can only say that I had a right to look for different treatment at <i>their</i>
- hands. How, do you suppose, they would ever have been asked to the Hon.
- Mrs Coon-Alwyn’s garden-party, or met Lady Thames-Ditton, or been put in
- society generally, if I had not taken an interest in them? Why, that
- girl’s father, old Sir Willoughby Wallaby, was never anything but chief of
- police, or something like that, out in some Australian convict settlement.
- I <i>have</i> heard he was knighted by mistake, but of course my lips are
- sealed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose they really have behaved badly,” I said, half interrogatively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Badly!” echoed the wrathful mother. “I will leave you to judge. It was
- done here, quite under my own roof. You know Miss Wallaby volunteered her
- services, and went down into the Retired Licensed Victuallers’ Division of
- Surrey to electioneer for Sir Watkyn. Do you know, I never suspected
- anything. And then Miss Timby-Hucks, she went down also, but they rather
- cold-shouldered her, and she came back, and she told me things, and <i>still</i>
- I wouldn’t believe it. Well then—three weeks ago—my Evening At
- Home—you were here—the Wallabys came as large as life, and
- that scheming young person manoeuvred about until she got herself alone
- with Eustace and my Ermyntrude, and then she told her a scene she had
- witnessed during her recent election experiences. There was a meeting for
- Sir Watkyn at some place, I can’t recall the name, and there were a good
- many of the other side there, and they hooted and shouted, and raised
- disturbance, until at last there was one speaker they would not hear at
- all. All this that girl told Ermyntrude seriously, and as if she were
- overflowing with indignation. And then she came to the part where the
- speaker stood his ground and tried to make himself heard, and the crowd
- yelled louder than ever, and still he doggedly persisted—and then
- someone threw a large vegetable marrow, soft and very ripe, and it hit
- that speaker just under the ear, and burst all over him!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ha-ha-ha!” I ejaculated. “The vegetable marrow in politics is new—full
- of delightful possibilities and seeds—wonder it has never been
- thought of before.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” said Mrs Albert, with a sigh. “Ermyntrude also thought it was
- funny. She has a very keen sense of humour—quite too keen. <i>She</i>
- laughed, too!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And why not?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why not?” demanded Mrs Albert, with shining eyes. “Because the story had
- been told just to trap her into laughing—because—because the
- speaker upon whom that unhappy vegetable marrow exploded was—<i>Eustace
- Hump!</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Containing Thoughts upon the Great Unknown, to which are added
- Speculations upon her Hereafter</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t is not often
- that I find the time to take part in Mrs Albert Grundy’s Thursdays—the
- third and fifth Thursdays of each month, from 4 to 6.30 P.M.—but on
- a certain afternoon pleasant weather and the sense of long-accrued
- responsibility drew me to Fernbank.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was really very nice, after one got there. Perhaps it would have been
- less satisfactory had escape from the drawing-room been a more difficult
- matter. Inside that formal chamber, with its blinds down-drawn to shield
- the carpet from the sun, the respectable air hung somewhat heavily about
- the assembled matronhood of Brompton and the Kensingtons. The units in
- this gathering changed from time to time—for Mrs Albert’s circle is
- a large and growing one—but the effect of the sum remained much the
- same. The elderly ladies talked about the amiability and kindliness of the
- Duchess of Teck; and argued the Continental relationships of the Duchesses
- of Connaught and Albany, first into an apparently hopeless tangle of <i>burgs</i>
- and <i>hausens</i> and <i>zollerns</i> and <i>sweigs</i>, then
- triumphantly out again into the bright daylight of well-ordered and
- pellucid genealogy. The younger wives spoke in subdued voices of more
- juvenile Princesses on the lower steps of the throne, with occasional
- short-winged flights across the North Sea in imaginative search of a
- suitable bride for the then unwedded Duke of York, if an importation
- should be found to be necessary—about which opinions might in all
- loyalty differ. The few young girls who sat dutifully here beside their
- mammas or married sisters talked of nothing at all, but smiled confusedly
- and looked away whenever another’s glance, caught theirs—and, I
- daresay, thought with decent humility upon Marchionesses.
- </p>
- <p>
- But outside, on the garden-lawn at the rear of the house, the <i>Almanach
- de Gotha</i> threw no shadow, and the pungent scent of jasmine and lilies
- drove the leathery odour of Debrett from the soft summer air. The gentle
- London haze made Whistlers and Maitlands of the walls and roof-lines and
- chimney-pots beyond. The pretty girls of Fernbank held court here on the
- velvet grass, with groups of attendant maidens from sympathetic Myrtle
- Lodges and Cedarcrofts and Chestnut Villas—selected homesteads
- stretching all the way to remote West Kensington. They said there was no
- one left in London. Why, as I sat apart in the shade of the ivy
- overhanging the garden path, and watched this out-door panorama of the
- Grundys’ friendships, it seemed as if I had never comprehended before how
- many girls there really were in the world.
- </p>
- <p>
- And how sweet it was to look upon these damsels, with their dainty
- sailor’s hats of straw, their cheeks of Devon cream and damask, their tall
- and shapely forms, their profiles of faultless classical delicacy! What
- if, in time, they too must sit inside, by preference, and babble of
- royalties and the peerage, and politely uncover those two aggressive
- incisors of genteel maturity when they were asked to have a third cup of
- tea? That stage, praise heaven, should be many years removed. We will have
- no memento mori bones or tusks out here in the sunlit garden—but
- only tennis balls, and the inspiring chalk-bands on the sward, and the
- noble grace of English girlhood, erect and joyous in the open air. # Much
- as I delighted in this spectacle, it forced upon me as well a certain
- vague sense of depression. These lofty and lovely creatures were strangers
- to me. I do not mean that their names were unknown to me, or that I had
- not exchanged civil words with many of them, or that I might not be
- presented to, and affably received by, them all. The feeling was, rather,
- that if it were possible for me to marry them all, we still to the end of
- our days would remain strangers. I should never know what to say to them;
- still less should I ever be able to guess what they were thinking.
- </p>
- <p>
- The tallest and most impressive of all the bevy—the handsome girl in
- the pale brown frock with the shirt-front and jacketed blouse, who stands
- leaning with folded hands upon her racket like an indolent Diana—why,
- I punted her about the whole reach from Sunbury to Walton during the
- better part of a week, only last summer, not to mention sitting beside her
- at dinner every evening on the houseboat. We were so much together, in
- truth, that my friends round about, as I came to know afterwards,
- canvassed among themselves the prospect of our arranging never to
- separate. Yet I feel that I do not know this girl. We are friends, yes;
- but we are not acquainted with each other.
- </p>
- <p>
- More than once—perhaps a dozen times—in driving through the
- busier of London streets, my fancy has been caught by this thing: a hansom
- whirling smartly by, the dark hood of which frames a woman’s face—young,
- wistful, ivory-hued. It is like the flash exposure of a kodak—this
- bald instant of time in which I see this face, and comprehend that its
- gaze has met mine, and has burned into my memory a lightning picture of
- something I should not recognise if I saw it again, and cannot at all
- reproduce to myself, and probably would not like if I could, yet which
- leaves me with the feeling that I am richer than I was before. In that
- fractional throb of space there has been snatched an unrehearsed and
- unprejudiced contact of human souls—projected from one void
- momentarily to be swept forward into another; and though not the Judgment
- Day itself shall bring these two together again, they know each other.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now that I look again at the goddess in the pale-brown gown, these
- unlabelled faces of the flitting hansoms seem by comparison those of
- familiar companions and intimates.
- </p>
- <p>
- I get no sense of human communion from that serene and regular
- countenance, with its exquisite nose, its short upper-lip and glint of
- pearls along the bowed line of the mouth, its correctly arched brows and
- wide-open, impassive blue eyes. I can see it with prophetic admiration
- out-queening all the others at Henley, or at Goodwood, or on the great
- staircase of Buckingham Palace. I can imagine it at Monte Carlo, flushed a
- little at the sight of retreating gold; or at the head of a great noble’s
- table, coldly poised above satin throat and shoulders, and stirring no
- muscle under the free whisperings of His Excellency to the right. I can
- conceive it in the Divorce Court, bearing with metallic equanimity the
- rude scrutiny of a thousand unlicensed eyes. But my fancy wavers and fails
- at the task of picturing that face at my own fireside, with the light of
- the home-hearth painting the fulness of her rounded chin, and reflecting
- back from her glance, as we talk of men and books and things, the frank
- gladness of real comradeship.
- </p>
- <p>
- But—tchut!—I have no fireside, and the comrades I like best
- are playing halfcrown whist at the club; and these are all nice girls—hearty,
- healthful, handsome girls, who can walk, run, dance, swim, scull, skate,
- ride as no others have known or dared to do since the glacial wave of
- Christianity depopulated the glades and dells of Olympus. They will mate
- after their kind, and in its own good time along will come a new
- generation of straight, strong-limbed, thin-lipped, pink-and-white girls,
- and of tow-headed, deep-chested lads, their brothers—boys who will
- bully their way through Rugby and Harrow, misspell and misapprehend their
- way into the Army, the Navy, and the Civil Service, and spread themselves
- over the habitable globe, to rule, through sheer inability to understand,
- such Baboos and Matabele and mere Irishry as Imperial destiny delivers
- over to them.
- </p>
- <p>
- The vision is not wholly joyous, as it with diffidence projects itself
- beyond, into that further space where new strange other generations walk—the
- girls still taller and more coldly tubbed, the boys astride a yet more
- temerarious saddle of dull dominion. Reluctant prophecy discerns beneath
- their considerable feet the bruised fragments of many antique trifles—the
- <i>bric-à-brac</i> of an extinct sentimental fraction that had a sense of
- humour and could spell—and, to please mamma, the fig-leaves have
- quite overspread and hidden the statues in their garden. But power is
- there, and empire; they still more serenely loom above the little foreign
- folks who cook, and sing to harps and fiddles, and paint for their
- amusement; such as it is under their shaping, they possess the earth.
- </p>
- <p>
- So, as the sun goes down in the Hammersmith heavens, I take off my hat,
- and salute the potential mothers of the New Rome.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Glancing at some Modern Aspects of Master John Gutenberg’s ingenious
- but Over-rated Invention</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was very
- pleasant thus to meet Uncle Dudley in the Strand. Only here and there is
- one who can bear that test. Whole legions of our friends, decent and
- deeply reputable people, fall altogether out of the picture, so to speak,
- on this ancient yet robust thoroughfare. They do very well indeed in
- Chelsea or Highgate or the Pembridge country, where they are at home:
- there the surroundings fit them to a nicety; there they produce upon one
- only amiable, or at the least, natural, impressions. But to encounter them
- in the Strand is to be shocked by the blank incongruity of things. It is
- not alone that they give the effect of being lost—of wandering
- helplessly in unfamiliar places. They offend your perceptions by revealing
- limitations and shortcomings which might otherwise have been hidden to the
- end of time. You see suddenly that they are not such good fellows, after
- all. Their spiritual complexions are made up for the dim light which
- pervades the outskirts of the four-mile radius—and go to pieces in
- the jocund radiance of the Strand. It is flat presumption on their part to
- be ambling about where the ghosts of Goldsmith and Johnson walk, where
- Prior and Fielding and our Dick Steele have passed. Instinctively you go
- by, looking the other way.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was quite different with Uncle Dudley. You saw at once that he belonged
- to the Strand, as wholly as any of our scorned and scornful sisters on its
- comers, competing with true insular doggedness against German cheeks and
- raddled accents; as fully as any of its indigenous loafers, hereditary in
- their riverside haunts from Tudor times, with their sophisticated joy in
- drink and dirt, their large self-confidence grinning through rags and
- sooty grime. It seemed as if I had always associated Uncle Dudley with the
- Strand.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was standing in contemplation before a brave window, wherein American
- cheese, Danish butter, Norwegian fish, Belgian eggs, German sausages,
- Hungarian bacon, French vegetables, Australian apples, and Algerian fruits
- celebrate the catholicity of the modern British diet. He turned when I
- touched his shoulder, and drew my arm through his.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” said Uncle Dudley, “let us take a walk along the Strand to the Law
- Courts, where I conceive that the tide of human existence gets the worst
- of it with unequalled regularity and dispatch.”
- </p>
- <p>
- On his way he told me that his gout had quite vanished, owing to his
- foresight in collecting a large store of the best medical advice, and then
- thoughtfully and with pains disregarding it all. He demonstrated to me at
- two halting places that his convalescence was compatible with rich and
- strong drinks. He disclosed to me, as we sauntered eastward, his purpose
- in straying thus far afield.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know Mrs Albert is really a kindly soul,” he said. “It isn’t in her
- to keep angry. You remember how sternly she swore that she and Fernbank
- had seen the last of Miss Timby-Hucks. It only lasted five weeks—and
- now, bless me if the girl isn’t more at home on our backs than ever. She’s
- shunted herself off, now, into a new branch of journalism—it seems
- that there are a good many branches in these days.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It has been noticed,” I assented.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She doesn’t write any more,” he explained, “that is, <i>for</i> the
- papers. She goes instead to the Museum or somewhere, and reads carefully
- every daily and weekly journal, I believe, in England. Her business is to
- pick out possible libels in them—and to furnish her employers, a
- certain firm of solicitors, with a daily list of these. They communicate
- with the aggrieved people, notifying them that they <i>are</i> aggrieved,
- which they very likely would not otherwise have known, and the result is,
- of course, a very fine and spirited crop of litigation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then that accounts for all the recent——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps not quite <i>all</i>,” put in Uncle Dudley. “But the Timby-Hucks
- is both energetic and vigilant, and she tells me she is doing splendidly.
- She is very enthusiastic about it, naturally. She says that while the
- money is, of course, an object, her real satisfaction is in the
- humanitarian aspects of her work.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am not sure that I follow,” I said doubtingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I didn’t altogether myself at the start,” said Uncle Dudley, “but as
- she explains it, it is very simple. You see business is in a bad way in
- London—worse, they say, than usual. The number of unemployed is
- something dreadful to think of, so I am told by those who have thought of
- it. There are many thousands of people with no food, no fire, no clothes
- to speak of. Most people are discouraged about this. They can’t see how
- the thing can be improved. But Miss Timby-Hucks has a very ingenious idea.
- Why, she asks, do not all the Unemployed sue all the newspapers for libel?
- Do you catch the notion?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “By George!” I exclaimed, “that is a bold, comprehensive thought!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, isn’t it?” cried Uncle Dudley. “I am immensely attracted by it. For
- one thing, it is so secure, so certain! Broadly speaking, there are no
- risks at all. I suppose there has never yet been a case, no matter what
- its so-called merits, in which the English newspaper hasn’t been cast in
- damages of some sort Nobody is too humble or too shady to get a verdict
- against an editor or newspaper proprietor. Miss Timby-Hucks relates
- several most touching instances where the wolf was actually at the door,
- the children shoeless and hungry, the mother prostrated by drink, rain
- coming through the roof and so on—and everything has been changed to
- peace and contentment by the happy thought of bringing a libel suit. The
- father now wears a smile and a white waistcoat; the drains have been
- repaired; the little children, nicely washed and combed, kick each other’s
- shins with brand new boots, and sing cheerfully beneath a worsted-work
- motto of ‘God bless our Home!’ I find myself much affected by the
- thought.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You had always a tender heart,” I responded. “I suppose there would be no
- trouble about the Judges?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not the least in the world,” said Uncle Dudley, with confidence. “Of
- course the Bench would have to be greatly enlarged, but there need be no
- fear on that score. There is a mysterious but beneficent rule, my boy,
- which you can always count upon in this making of judges—no matter
- how hail-fellow-well-met an eminent lawyer may be, no matter how intimate
- his connection with newspapers, how large his indebtedness to them for his
- career—the moment he gets on the Bench he catches the full, fine,
- old-crusted judicial spirit toward the Press. The scales fall with a bang
- from his eyes, and he sees the editor and newspaper proprietor as they
- really are—designing criminals, mercenary reprobates, social pests—to
- be lectured and bullied and put down. O, you may rely on the Judges! They
- are as safe as a new Liberal peer is to vote Tory.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But the ‘power of the Press’?” I urged. “If the newspapers combine in
- protest, and——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You talk at random!” said Uncle Dudley almost austerely. “I should say
- the most certain, the most absolutely reliable, element in the whole case
- is the fact that newspapers do not combine. Whenever one editor gets hit,
- all the others grin. One journal is mulcted in heavy damages: the rest
- have all a difficulty in dissembling their delight. You read in natural
- history that kites are given to falling upon one of their kind which gets
- wounded or decrepit, and picking out its eyes. Well, kites are also made
- of newspapers.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And juries?” I began to ask.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here we are,” remarked Uncle Dudley, turning in toward the guarded
- portals of the great hall.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have a friend among the attendants here, a thoughtful and discerning
- man. I will learn from him where we may look for the spiciest case. He
- takes a lively interest in the flaying of editors. I believe he was once a
- printer. He will tell us where the axe gleams most savagely to-day: where;
- we shall get the most journalistic blood for our money. You were speaking
- of juries. Just take a look at one of them—if you are not afraid of
- spoiling your luncheon—and you will see that they speak for
- themselves. They regard all newspapers as public enemies—particularly
- when the betting tips have been more misleading than usual. They stand by
- their kind. They ‘give the poor man a chance’ without hesitation, without
- fail. They are here to avenge the discovery of movable types, and they do
- it. Come with me, and witness the disembowelling of a daily, the
- hamstringing of a sub-editor—a publisher felled by the hand of the
- Law like a bullock. Since the bear-pits of Bankside were closed there has
- been no such sport.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Unhappily, it turned out that none of the Judges had come down to the
- Courts that day. There was a threat of east wind in the air. “You see, if
- they don’t live, to a certain age they get no pensions, and their heirs
- turn a key in the lock on the old gentlemen in weather like this,”
- explained Uncle Dudley, turning disappointedly away.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Detailing certain Prudential Measures taken during the Panic incident
- to a Late Threatened Invasion</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> HOPE,” said Mrs
- Albert, “that I am as free to admit my errors in judgment as another.
- Evidently there has been a mistake in this matter, and it is equally
- obvious that I am the one who must have made it. I did not need to have
- this pointed out to me, Dudley. What I looked to you for was advice,
- counsel, sympathy. You seem not to realise at all how important this is to
- me. A false step now may ruin everything—and you simply sit there
- and grin!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear sister,” replied Uncle Dudley, smoothing his face, “the smile was
- involuntary. It shall not recur. I was only thinking of Albert’s
- enthusiasm for the——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, I know!” put in Mrs Albert; “for that girl with the zouave jacket——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>And</i> the scarlet petticoat,” prompted Uncle Dudley.
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>And</i> the crinoline,” said the lady.
- </p>
- <p>
- “O, he did not insist upon that. I recall his exact words. ‘Whether this
- under-garment,’ he said, ‘be made of some stiff material like horsehair,
- or by means of steel hoops, is a mere question of detail.’ No, Albert
- expressly kept an open mind on that point.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I agree with you,” remarked Mrs Albert coldly, “to the extent that he
- certainly does keep his mind on it. He has now reverted to the subject, I
- should think, at least twenty times. I am not so blind as you may imagine.
- I notice that that Mr Labouchere also keeps on referring, every week, to
- another girl in <i>her</i> zouave jacket, whom <i>he</i> remembers with
- equal fondness, apparently.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” put in Uncle Dudley, “those words about the ‘stiff material like
- horsehair’ <i>were</i> in <i>Truth</i>. I daresay Albert simply read them
- there, and just unconsciously repeated them. We often do inadvertent,
- unthinking things of that sort.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs Albert shook her head. “It is nothing to me, of course,” she said,
- “but I cannot help feeling that the middle-aged father of a family might
- concentrate his thoughts upon something nobler, something higher, than the
- recollection of the charms of a red petticoat, thirty years ago. That is
- so characteristic of men. They cannot discuss a question broadly——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Think not?” queried Uncle Dudley, with interest. “You should listen at
- the keyhole sometime, after you have led the ladies out from dinner.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I mean personally, in a general way. They always particularise. Albert,
- for example, allows all his views on this very important question to be
- coloured by the fact that when he was a young man he admired some girl in
- a short red Balmoral petticoat. Whenever conversation touches upon any
- phase of the whole subject of costume, out he comes with his tiresome
- adulation of that particular garment. Of course, I ask no questions—I
- should prefer not to be informed—I try not even to draw inferences—but
- I notice that Ermyntrude is beginning to observe the persistency with
- which her father——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My good Emily,” urged Uncle Dudley, consolingly, “far back in the Sixties
- we all liked that girl; we couldn’t help ourselves—she was the only
- girl there was. And we think of her fondly still—we old fellows—because
- for us she was also the last there was! When she went out, lo and behold!
- we too had gone out, not to come back any more. When Albert and I babble
- about a scarlet petticoat, it is only as a symbol of our own far-away
- youth. O delicious vision!—the bright, bright red, the skirt that
- came drooping down over it, not hiding too much that pretty little foot
- and ankle, the dear zouave jacket moulding itself so delicately to the
- persuasive encircling arm——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dudley! I really must recall you to yourself,” said Mrs Albert. “We were
- speaking of quite another matter. I am in a very serious dilemma. First of
- all, as I explained to you, to please the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn I became one
- of the Vice-Presidents of the Friendly Divided Skirt Association. You know
- how useful she can be, in helping to bring Ermyntrude out successfully.
- And of course everybody <i>knew</i> that, even if we <i>did</i> have them
- <i>made</i>, we should never <i>wear</i> them. That was <i>quite</i> out
- of the question.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And then?” asked Uncle Dudley.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, let me see—yes, next came the Neo-Dress-Improver
- League. I never understood what the object was, precisely; it was a kind
- of secession from the other, led by the Countess of Wimps, and I needn’t
- tell you that she is of the <i>utmost</i> importance to us, and there was
- simply <i>nothing</i> for me to do but to become a Lady Patroness of <i>that</i>.
- You were in extremely nice company—there were seven or eight ladies
- of title among the Patronesses, our names all printed together in
- beautiful little gilt letters—and you really weren’t committed to
- anything that I could make out. No—<i>that</i> was all right. I
- should do the same thing again, under the circumstances. No, the trouble
- came with the Amalgamated Anti-Crinoline Confederacy. That was where I was
- too hasty, I think.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s the thing with the protesting post-cards, isn’t it?” inquired
- Uncle Dudley.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That very feature of it alone ought to have warned me,” Mrs Albert
- answered with despondency. “My own better sense should have told me that
- post-cards were incompatible with selectness. But you see, the invitations
- were sent out by the authoress of <i>The Street-Sprinkler’s Secret</i>,
- and that gave me the impression that it was to be literary—to
- represent Culture and the Arts, you know; and that appealed to me, of
- course, very strongly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have always feared that your literary impulses would run away with
- you,” Uncle Dudley declared gravely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is my weak side; I don’t deny it,” replied his sister. “Where letters
- and authorship, and that sort of thing, you know, are concerned, it is my
- nature to be sympathetic. And besides, the Dowager Lady Thames-Ditton was
- very pronounced in favour of the movement, and I <i>couldn’t</i> fly in
- the face of that, could I? I must say, though, that I had my misgivings
- almost from the first. Miss Wallaby told the Rev. Mr Grayt-Scott that a
- lady she knew had looked over quite a peck or more of the post-cards which
- came in one day, and they were nine-tenths of them from Earl’s Court.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” remarked Uncle Dudley, “I think I have heard that the post-card
- reaches its most luxuriant state of literary usefulness in that locality.
- It was from that point that they tried to rush the Laureateship, you
- know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, you can imagine how I felt when I heard it. It is all well enough
- to be literary—nobody realises that more than I do—and it is
- all very well to be loyal—of course! But one draws the line at
- Earl’s Court—at least, that part of it. I say frankly that it serves
- me right. I should have known better. One thing I cannot be too thankful
- for—Ermyntrude did not send a post-card. Some blessed instinct
- prompted me to tell her there was no hurry about it—that I did not
- like to see young girls too forward in such matters. And now—why—who
- knows—Dudley! I have an idea! Ermie shall join the Crinoline Defence
- League!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I see—the family will hedge on the crinoline issue. Capital!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know, after all, we may have to wear them. It’s quite as likely as
- not. The old Duchess of West Ham is President of the League, and she is
- very influential in the highest quarters. Her Grace, I understand, <i>is</i>
- somewhat bandy, but she has always maintained the strictest Christian
- respectability, and her action in this matter will count for a great deal.
- Just think, if she should happen to take a fancy to Ermyntrude! That Miss
- Wallaby has thrust herself forward till she is actually a member of the
- Council, and she is going to deliver an address on ‘The Effect of Modesty
- on National Morals.’ She told our curate that at one of the meetings of
- the Council she came within an ace of being introduced to the Duchess
- herself. Now surely, if <i>she</i> can accomplish all this, Ermie ought to
- be able to do still more. Tell me, Dudley, what do <i>you</i> think?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think,” replied Uncle Dudley musingly, “I think that the scarlet
- petticoat, <i>with</i> the zouave jack——”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs Albert interrupted him with sternness. “Don’t you see,” she demanded,
- “that if it <i>does</i> come, the dear girl will share in the credit of
- bringing it in, and if it doesn’t come, I shall have the advantage of
- having helped to stave it off. Whichever side wins, there we are.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Uncle Dudley rose, and looked thoughtfully out upon the fog, and stroked
- his large white moustache in slow meditation. “Yes—undoubtedly,” he
- said at last, “there we are.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Dealing with the Deceptions of Nature, and the Freedom from, Illusion
- Inherent in the Unnatural</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>here was once a
- woman—obviously a thoughtful woman—who remarked that she had
- noticed that if she managed to live till Friday, she invariably survived
- the rest of the week. I did not myself know this philosopher, who is
- preserved to history in one of Roscoe Conkling’s speeches, but her
- discovery always recurs to me about this time of year, when February
- begins to disclose those first freshening glimpses of sunlight and blue
- skies to bleared, fog-smudged and shivering London. Aha! if we have won
- thus far, if we have contrived to get to February, then we shall surely
- see the Spring. At least the one has heretofore involved the other—and
- there is confident promise in the smile of a noon-day once more able to
- cast a shadow, albeit the teeth of the east wind gleam close behind that
- smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a day for a walk—no set and joyous rural tramp, indeed, with
- pipe and wallet, and a helpful spring underfoot in the clean hard roadway,
- and an honest, well-balanced stick for the bell-ringing gentry who shall
- come at you on wheels from behind—but just an orderly, contemplative
- urban ramble, brisk enough for warmth, but with no hurry, and above all no
- destination. And it was a day, moreover, for letting one’s
- fellow-creatures pass along with scant notice—a winter-ridden,
- shuffling, mud-stained company these, conscious of being not at all worth
- examination—and for giving eye instead to the house-fronts in the
- sunshine, and radiant chimneypots and tiles above them, and the signs of
- blessed, unaccustomed blue still further up. There was, it is true, an
- undeniable disproportion between the inner look of these things, and this
- gladness of the heart because of them. Glancing more closely, one could
- see that they were not taking the sun seriously, and, for their own part,
- were expecting more fogs next week. And farther westward, when stucco,
- brick, and stone gave way to park-land, it was apparent at sight that the
- trees were flatly incredulous.
- </p>
- <p>
- They say that in Ireland, where the mildness of climate has in the past
- prompted many experiments with exotic growths, the trees not really
- indigenous to the island never learn sense, but year after year are gulled
- by this February fraud into gushing expansively forth with sap and tender
- shoots, only to be gripped and shrivelled by the icy after-hand of March.
- The native tree, however, knows this trick of old, and greets the sham
- Spring with a distinctive, though well-buttoned-up wink. In Kensington
- Park region one couldn’t be sure that the trees really saw the joke. It is
- not, on the whole, a humourous neighbourhood. But at all events they were
- not to be fooled into premature buds and sprouts and kindred signs of
- silliness. Every stiffly exclusive drab trunk rising before you, every
- section of the brown lacework of twigs up above, seemed to offer a warning
- advertisement: “No connection with the sunshine over the way!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Happily the flower-beds exhibited more sympathy. Up through the mould
- brave little snowdrops had pushed their pretty heads, and the crocuses,
- though with their veined outer cloaks of sulphur, mauve, and other tints
- still wrapped tight about them, wore almost a swaggering air to show how
- wholly they felt at home. Emboldened by this bravado, less confident
- fellows were peeping forth, though in such faltering fashion that one
- could scarcely tell which was squill, which narcissus or loitering
- jonquil. Still, it was good to see them. They too were glad that they had
- lived till February, because after that comes the Spring.
- </p>
- <p>
- And it was better still, as I turned to stroll on, to behold coming toward
- me down the path, with little swinging step, and shapely head well up in
- air, none other than our Ermyntrude.
- </p>
- <p>
- I say “our” because—it is really absurd to think of it—it
- seems only a few months ago since she was a sprawling tom-boy sort of a
- little girl, who sat on my knee and listened with her mouth open to my
- reminiscences of personal encounters with unicorns and the behemoth of
- Holy Writ. She must be now—by George! she <i>is</i>—not a
- minute under two-and-twenty. And that means—<i>hélas!</i> it
- undoubtedly means—that I am getting to be an old boy indeed. At
- Christmas-tide—I recall it now—Mrs Albert spoke of me as the
- oldest friend of the family. It sounded kindly at the time, and I had a
- special pleasure in the smile Ermyntrude wore as she, with the others,
- lifted her glass towards me. I won’t say what vagrant thoughts and
- ambitions that smile did not raise in my mind—and, lo! they were
- toasting me as an amiable elderly friend of the Fernbank household. No
- wonder I am glad to have lived till February!
- </p>
- <p>
- Ermyntrude had a roll of music in her hands. There was a charming glow on
- her cheeks, and a healthy, happy, sparkle in her eyes. She stopped short
- before me, with a little exclamation of not displeased surprise!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, how nice to run upon you like this,” she said, in high spirits. “We
- thought you must have gone off to the Riviera, or Algiers, or somewhere—for
- your cold, you know. Mamma was speaking of you only yesterday—hoping
- that you were taking care of yourself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Had I a cold?” I asked absently. The air had grown chillier. We walked
- along together, and she let me carry the music.
- </p>
- <p>
- “O—you haven’t heard,” she exclaimed suddenly, “such news as I have
- for you! You couldn’t ever guess!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is it something about crinoline?” I queried. “Your mother was telling
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rubbish!” said Ermyntrude gaily. “I’m engaged!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The wind had really got round into the East, and I, fastened my coat at
- the collar. “I am sure”—I remarked at last—“I’m sure I
- congratulate—the happy young man. Do I know him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hardly think so,” she replied. “You see, it’s—it’s what you might
- call rather sudden. We haven’t known him ourselves very long—that
- is, intimately. You may have heard his name—the Honourable
- Knobbeleigh Jones. It’s a very old family though the title is somewhat
- new. His father is Lord Skillyduff, you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The shipping man?” I said, wearily.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. He and papa are together on some board or other. That is how we came
- to know them. Papa says he never saw such business ability and sterling
- worth combined in one man before—I’m speaking of the father, you
- know. He began life in quite a small way, with just a few ships that he
- rented, or something like that. Then there was a war on some coast in
- Africa or Australia—it begins with an A, I know—oh, <i>is</i>
- there a place called Ashantee?—yes, that’s it—and he got the
- contract to take out four shiploads of hay to our troops—it would be
- for their horses, wouldn’t it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes: the asses connected with the military branch are needed at home—or
- at least are kept there.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, after he started, he got orders to stop at some place and wait for
- other orders. He did so, and he waited four years and eight months. Those
- orders never came. The hay all rotted, of course: the ships almost moulded
- away: I daresay some of the crew died of old age—But Mr Jones never
- stirred from his post. Finally, some English official came on him by
- accident—quite! and so he was recalled. Papa says very few men would
- have shown such tenacity of purpose and grasp of the situation. Mamma says
- his fidelity to duty was magnificent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Magnificent—yes,” I commented; “but it wasn’t war.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, bless you! there <i>was</i> no war <i>then</i>,” explained
- Ermyntrude. “The war had been ended for <i>years</i>. And all that while
- the pay for shipping that hay had been going on, so that the Government
- owed him—I think it was £45,000. Of course he got more contracts,
- and then he was made a baronet, and could build his own ships; and now he
- is a lord, and papa says the War Office would be quite helpless without
- him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And the son,” I asked; “what does he do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, nothing, of course!” said Ermyntrude, lifting her pretty brows a
- little in surprise. “He is the eldest son.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I didn’t know but he might have gone in for the Army, or Parliament, or
- something,” I explained weakly: “just to occupy his mind.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She smiled to herself—somewhat grimly, I thought. “No,” she said,
- assuming a serious face, “he says doing things is all rot, if you aren’t
- obliged to do them. Of course, he goes in for hunting and shooting and all
- that, and he has a houseboat and a yacht, and one year he was in the
- All-Slumpshire eleven, but that was too much bother. He hates bother.”
- </p>
- <p>
- We had come out upon the street now, and walked for a little in silence.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ermie,” I said at last, “you mustn’t be annoyed with me—this is one
- of my sentimental days, and you know as an old friend of the family I’ve a
- certain right of free speech—but this doesn’t seem to me quite good
- enough. A girl like you—beautiful and clever and accomplished,
- knowing your way about among books, and with tastes above the ruck—there
- ought to be a better outlook for you than this! I know that type of young
- man, and he isn’t in your street at all. Come now!” I went on, gathering
- courage, “look me in the face if you can, and tell me that you honestly
- love this young man, or that you really respect his father, or that you
- candidly expect to be happy. I defy you to do it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- I was wrong. Ermyntrude did look me in the face, squarely and without
- hesitation. She halted for the moment to do so, and her gaze, though not
- unkindly, was full of serious frankness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is one thing I do expect,” she said, calmly. “I expect to get away
- from Fernbank.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Suggesting Considerations possibly heretofore Overlooked by
- Commentators upon the Laws of Property</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>ou will find
- Dudley up in what he calls his library,” said Mrs Albert in the hallway.
- “I’m <i>so</i> sorry I must go out—but he’ll be glad to see you. And—let
- me entreat you, don’t give him any encouragement!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What!” I cried, “encourage Uncle Dudley? Oh—never, never!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, just be firm with him,” Mrs Albert went on. “Say that it mustn’t be
- thought of for a moment. And Oh—by the way—it’s as well to
- warn you: <i>don’t</i> ask him what he did it for! It seems that every one
- asks him that—and he gets quite enraged about it now, when that
- particular question is put. As like as not he’d throw something at you.”
- She spoke earnestly, in low, impressive tones.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wild horses should not drag it from me,” I pledged myself. “I will not
- encourage him: I will not enrage him; I swear not to ask him what he did
- it for. But—if you don’t mind—could I, so to speak, bear the
- shock of learning what it is that he <i>has</i> done?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You haven’t heard?” Mrs Albert asked, glancing up at me, with an
- astonished face, as I stood on the stairs. When I shook my head, she put
- out her hand to the latch, and opened the door, as if to heighten the
- dramatic suspense. Then she turned and looked me in the eye with solemn
- intentness. “What has he done?” she echoed in a hollow voice: “You go
- upstairs and see!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The door closed behind her, and I made my way noiselessly, two steps at a
- time, to the floor above. Some vague sense of disaster seemed to brood
- over the silent, half-lighted stairway and the deserted landing. I knocked
- at Uncle Dudley’s door—almost prepared to find my signal unanswered.
- But no, his voice came back, cheerily enough, and I entered the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, it’s you!” said my friend, rising from his chair. “Glad to see you,”—and
- we shook hands. Standing thus, I found myself staring into his face with a
- rude and prolonged fixity of gaze, under which he first smiled—a
- strange, unwholesome sort of smile—then flushed a little, then
- scowled and averted his glance.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Great heavens!” I exclaimed at last. “Why, man alive, what on earth
- possessed you to—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come now!” broke in Uncle Dudley, with peremptory sternness. “Chuck it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes—I know”—I stammered haltingly along—“I promised I
- wouldn’t ask you—but—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But the original simian instincts triumph over your resolutions, eh?”
- said my friend, crustily. “Yes, I know. I’ve had pretty nearly a week of
- it now. That question has been asked me, I estimate, somewhere about six
- hundred and seventy-eight times since last Thursday. It’s only fair to you
- to tell you that I have registered a vow to hit the next man who asks me
- that fool of a question—‘What did you do it for?’—straight
- under his left ear. I probably saved your life by interrupting you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Though the words were fierce, there was a marked return of geniality in
- the tone. I took the liberty of putting a hand over Uncle Dudley’s
- shoulder, and marching him across to the window.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let’s have a good look at you,” I said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I did it myself; I did it with my little hatchet; I did it because I
- wanted to; I had a right to do it; I should do it again if the fit struck
- me——” Thus, with mock gravity, Uncle Dudley ran on as I
- scrutinised his countenance in the strong light. “And furthermore,” he
- added, “I don’t care one single hurrah in Hades whether you like it or
- not.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think on the whole,” I mused aloud—“yes, I think I rather do like
- it—now that I accustom myself to it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Uncle Dudley’s face brightened on the instant. “Do you really?” he
- exclaimed, and beamed upon me. In spite of his professed indifference to
- my opinion, it was obvious that I had pleased him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sit down,” he said—“there are the matches behind you—hope
- these aren’t too green for you. Yes, my boy, I created quite a flutter in
- the hen-yard, I can tell you. Did my sister tell you?—she nearly
- fainted, and little Amy burst out boo-hooing as if she’d lost her last
- friend. When you come to think of it, old man, it’s really too ridiculous,
- you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It certainly has its grotesque aspects,” I admitted.
- </p>
- <p>
- Uncle Dudley looked up sharply, as if suspecting some ironical meaning in
- my words. “You really do think it’s an improvement?” he asked, with a
- doubtful note in his voice.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course, it makes a tremendous change,” I said, diplomatically, “and
- the novelty tends perhaps to confuse judgment: but I must confess the
- result is—is, well, very interesting.”
- </p>
- <p>
- My friend did not look wholly satisfied. “It shows what stupid people we
- are,” he went on in a dogmatic way. “Why, the way they’ve gone on, you’d
- think I had no property rights in the thing at all—that I was merely
- a trustee for it—bound to give an account to every
- Tom-Dick-and-Harry who came along and had nothing better to occupy his
- mind with. And then that eternal, vacuous, woollen-brained ‘What did you
- do it for?’ Oh, that’s got to be too sickening for words! And the
- confounded familiarity of the whole thing! Why, hang me, if even the
- little Jew cigar dealer down on the corner didn’t feel entitled to pass
- what he took to be some friendly remarks on the subject. ‘Vy,’ he said,
- ‘if I could say vidout vlattery, vot a haddsobe jeddlebad you ver, and vy
- did you do dot by yourself?’ It gets on a man’s nerves, you know, things
- like that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But hasn’t anyone liked the change?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- Uncle Dudley sighed. “That’s the worst of it,” he said, dubiously. “Only
- two men have said they liked it—and it happens that they are both
- persons of conspicuously weak intellect. That’s rather up against me,
- isn’t it? But on the other hand, you know, people who are silliest about
- everything else always get credit for knowing the most about art and
- beauty and all that. Perhaps in such a case as this, I daresay their
- judgment might be better than all the others. And after all, what do <i>I</i>
- care? That’s the point I make: that it’s <i>my</i> business and nobody
- else’s. If a man hasn’t got a copyright in his own personal appearance,
- why there is no such thing as property. But instead of recognising this,
- any fellow feels free to come up and say: ‘You look like an unfrocked
- priest,’ or ‘Hullo! another burglar out of work,’ and he’s quite surprised
- if you fail to show that you’re pleased with the genial brilliancy of his
- remarks. I don’t suppose there is any other single thing which the human
- race lapses into such rude and insolent meddlesomeness over as it does
- over this.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It <i>is</i> pathetic,” I admitted—“but—but it’ll soon grow
- again.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Uncle Dudley laughed a bitter laugh. “By Jove,” he cried, “I’ve more than
- half a mind not to let it. It would serve ‘em right if I didn’t. Why, do
- you know—you’d hardly believe it! My sister had a dinner party on
- here for Saturday night, and after I’d—I’d done it—she
- cancelled the invitations—some excuse about a family loss—a
- bereavement, my boy. Well, you know, treatment of that sort puts a man on
- his mettle. I’m entitled to resent it. And besides—you know—of
- course it does make a great change—but somehow I fancy that when you
- get used to it—come now—the straight griffin, as they say—what
- do <i>you</i> think?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m on oath not to encourage you,” I made answer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There you have it!” cried Uncle Dudley: “the old tyrannical conspiracy
- against the unusual, the individual, the true! Let nobody dare to be
- himself! Let us have uniformity, if all else perishes. The frames must be
- alike in the Royal Academy, that’s the great thing; the pictures don’t
- matter so much. You see our women-folk now, this very month, getting ready
- to case themselves in ugly hoops which they hate, at the bidding of they
- know not whom, because, if they did not, the hideous possibility of one
- woman being different from another woman would darken the land. A man is
- not to be permitted the pitiful privilege of seeing his own mouth, not
- even once in fifteen years, simply because it temporarily inconveniences
- the multitude in their notions as to how he is in the habit of looking!
- What rubbish it is!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It <i>is</i> rubbish,” I assented—“and you are talking it. Your
- sister who fainted, your niece who wept, your friends who averted their
- gaze in anguish, the hordes of casual jackasses who asked why you did it,
- the kindly little Jew cigar man who broke forth in lamentations—these
- are the world’s jury. They have convicted you—sorrowfully but
- firmly. You yourself, for all your bravado, realise the heinousness of
- your crime. You are secretly ashamed, remorseful, penitent. I answer for
- you—you will never do it again.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And yet it isn’t such a bad mouth, either,” mused Uncle Dudley, with a
- lingering glance at the mirror over the mantel. “There is humour, delicacy
- of perception, affection, gentleness—ever so many nice qualities
- about it which were all hidden up before. The world ought to welcome the
- revelation—and it throws stones instead. Ah well!—pass the
- matches—let us yield gracefully to the inevitable! It shall grow
- again.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mrs Albert will be so glad,” I remarked.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Narrating the Failure of a Loyal Attempt to Circumvent Adversity by
- means of Modern Appliances</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>f his name was
- Jabez, why weren’t we told so, I’d like to know?” demanded Mrs Albert of
- me, with a momentary flash in her weary glance. “What right had the papers
- to go on calling him J. Spencer, year after year, while he was deluding
- the innocent, and fattening upon the bodies of his dupes? To be sure, now
- that the mask is off, and he has fled, they speak of him always as Jabez.
- Why didn’t they do it before, while honest people might still have been
- warned? But no—they never did—and now it’s too late—too
- late!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The poor lady’s voice broke pathetically upon this reiterated plaint. She
- bowed her head, and as I looked with pained sympathy upon the drooping
- angle of her proud face, I could see the shadows about her lips quiver.
- </p>
- <p>
- A sad tale indeed it was, to which I had been listening—here in a
- lonesome corner of the cloistral, dim-lit solitude of the big drawing-room
- at Fernbank. It was not a new story. Kensington has known it by heart for
- a generation. Bloomsbury learned it earlier, and before that it was
- familiar in Soho—away off in the old days when the ruffling gentry
- of Golden Square fought for the chance of buying ingenious John Law’s
- South Sea scrip. And even then, the experience was an ancient and
- half-forgotten memory of Bishopsgate and the Minories. It was the old, old
- tragedy of broken fortunes.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs Albert was clear that it began with the Liberator troubles. I had my
- own notion that Mr Albert Grundy was skating on thin ice before the
- collapse of the building societies came. However that may be, there was no
- doubt whatever that the cumulative Australian disasters had finished the
- business. There were melancholy details in her recital which I lack the
- courage to dwell upon. The horse and brougham were gone; the lease of
- Fernbank itself was offered for sale, with possession before Michaelmas,
- if desired; Ermyntrude’s engagement was as good as off.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It won’t be a bankruptcy,” said Mrs Albert, lifting her face and
- resolutely winking the moisture from her lashes. “We shall escape that—but
- for the moment at least I must abandon my position in society. Dudley is
- over to-day looking at a small place in Highgate, although Albert thinks
- he would prefer Sydenham. My own feeling is that some locality from which
- you could arrive by King’s Cross or St Paneras would be best. One never
- meets anybody one knows there. Then, when matters adjust themselves again,
- as of course they will, we could return here—to this neighbourhood,
- at least—and just mention casually having been out at our country
- place—on the children’s account, of course. And Floribel <i>is</i>
- delicate, you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh well, then,” I said, trying to put buoyance into my tone, “it isn’t so
- had after all. And you feel—Albert feels—quite hopeful about
- things coming right again?”
- </p>
- <p>
- My friend’s answering nod of affirmation had a certain qualifying dubiety
- about it. “Yes, we’re hopeful,” she said. “But a fortnight ago, I felt
- positively sanguine. Nobody ever worked harder than I did to deserve
- success, any way. I only failed through gross treachery—and that,
- too, at the hands of the very people of whom I could never, <i>never</i>
- have believed it. When you find the aristocracy openly actuated by
- mercenary motives, as I have done this past month, it almost makes you ask
- what the British nation is coming to!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dear me!” I exclaimed, “is it as bad as that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You shall judge for yourself,” said Mrs Albert gravely. “You know that I
- organised—quite early in the Spring—the Loyal Ladies’ Namesake
- Committee of Kensington. I do not boast in saying that I really organised
- it, quite from its beginnings. The idea was mine; practically all the
- labour was mine. But when one is toiling to realise a great ideal like
- that, one frequently loses sight of small details. I ought to have known
- better—but I took a serpent to my bosom. I was weak enough to
- associate with me in the enterprise that monument of duplicity and
- interested motives—the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn. Why, she hadn’t so much
- as an initial letter to entitle her to belong——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am not sure that I follow you,” I put in. “Ladies’ Namesake Committee—initial
- letter—I don’t seem to grasp the idea.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s perfectly simple,” explained Mrs Albert. “The idea was that all the
- ladies—our set, you know—whose name was ‘May’ should combine
- in subscribing for a present.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But your name is Emily,” I urged, thoughtlessly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, we weren’t exactly literal about it,” said Mrs Albert; “we <i>couldn’t</i>
- be, you know. It would have shut out some of our very best people. But I
- came very near the standard, indeed. My second name is Madge. You take the
- first two letters of that, and the ‘y’ from Emily, and there you have it.
- Oh, I assure you, very few came even as near it as that—and as I
- said to Dudley at the time, if you think of it, even <i>her</i> name isn’t
- <i>really</i> May. It’s only a popular contraction. But that Hon. Mrs
- Coon-Alwyn, she had no actual right whatever to belong. Her names are
- Hester Winifred Edith. She hasn’t even one <i>letter</i> right!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, that was indeed treachery!” I ejaculated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no, that, was not what I referred to,” Mrs Albert set me right. “Of
- course, I was aware of her names. I had seen them in the ‘Peerage’ for
- years. It was what she did after her entrance that covers her with infamy.
- But I will narrate the events in their order. First, we collected £1100.
- Of course, our own contribution was not large, but Ermyntrude and I hunted
- the various church registers—we don’t speak of it, but even the
- Nonconformist ones we went through—and we got a tremendous number of
- Christian names more or less what was desired, and our circulars were sent
- to <i>every one</i>, far and near. As I said, we raised quite £1100. Then
- there came the question of the gift.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs Albert uttered this last sentence with such deliberate solemnity that
- I bowed to show my consciousness of its importance.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” she went on, “the selection of the gift. Now I had in mind a most
- appropriate and useful present. Have you heard of the Oboid Oil Engine?
- No? Well, it is an American invention, and has been brought over here by
- an American, who has bought the European rights from the inventor. He is
- in the next building to Albert, in the City, and they meet almost every
- day at luncheon, and have struck up quite a friendship. He has connections
- which might be of the <i>utmost</i> importance to Albert, and if Albert
- could only have been of service to him in introducing this engine, there
- is literally <i>no telling</i> what might not have come of it. Albert does
- not <i>say</i> that a partnership would have resulted, but I can read it
- in his face.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But would an oil engine have been—under the circumstances—you
- know what I mean——” I began.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, <i>most</i> suitable!” responded Mrs Albert with conviction. “It is
- really, it seems, a very surprising piece of machinery. After it’s once
- bought, the cheapness of running it is simply <i>absurd</i>. It does all
- sorts of things at no expense worth mentioning—anything you want it
- to do. It appears that if it had been invented at that time, the pyramids
- in Egypt could have been built by it for something like 130 per cent, less
- than their cost is estimated to have been—or something like that.
- Oh, it is quite extraordinary, I assure you. Albert says he could stand
- and watch it working for hours—especially if he had an interest in
- the company.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I hadn’t heard that there were any new pyramid plans on just now—although,
- when I think of it, Shaw-Lefevre did have some Westminster Abbey project
- which——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, no!” interrupted Mrs Albert. “One of the engine’s greatest uses is in
- agriculture. It does <i>everything</i>—threshes, garners, mows,
- milks—or no, not that, but almost <i>everything</i>. No
- self-respecting farmer, they say, dreams of being without one—that
- is, of course, if he knows about it. You can see what it would have meant,
- if one had been thus publicly introduced on the princely farm at
- Sandringham. All England would have rung with demands for the Oboid—and
- Albert feels sure that the American man would have been grateful—and—and—then
- perhaps we need never have left Fernbank at all.”
- </p>
- <p>
- My poor friend shook her head mournfully at the thought
- </p>
- <p>
- “And the Hon. Mrs Coon-Alwyn?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- The fire came back into Mrs Albert’s eye. “That woman,” she said, with
- bitter calmness, “was positively not ashamed to intrude her own mercenary
- and self-seeking designs upon this loyal and purely patriotic association.
- Why, she did it almost openly. She intrigued behind my back with whole
- streetsful of people that one would hardly know on ordinary occasions,
- paid them calls in a carriage got up for the occasion with a bright new
- coat of arms, made friends with them, promised them heaven only knows
- what, and actually secured nineteen votes to my three for the purchase of
- a mouldy old piece of tapestry—something about Richard III and
- Oliver Cromwell meeting on the battlefield, I think the subject is—which
- belonged to her husband’s family. Of course, my lips are sealed, but I
- have been <i>told</i> that at Christie’s it would hardly have fetched
- £100. I say nothing myself, but I can’t prevent people drawing certain
- deductions, can I? And when I reflect also that her two most active
- supporters in this nefarious business were Lady Thames-Ditton—whose
- financial difficulties are notorious—and the Countess of Wimps——
- whose tradespeople—well, we won’t go into <i>that</i>—it does
- force one to ask whether the fabric of British society is not being
- undermined at its very top. In this very day’s paper I read that the Hon.
- Mrs Coon-Alwyn has hired a yacht, and will spend the summer in Norwegian
- waters—while we—we——”
- </p>
- <p>
- The door opened, and we made out through the half-light the comfortable
- figure of Uncle Dudley. He was mopping his brow, and breathed heavily from
- his long walk as he advanced.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well?” Mrs Albert asked, in a saddened and subdued tone, “Did you see the
- place?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are five bedrooms on the two upper floors,” he made answer, “but
- there’s no bath-room, and the bus doesn’t come within four streets of the
- house.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Introducing Scenes from a Foreign Country, and also conveying Welcome
- Intelligence, together with some Instruction</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was at a little
- village perched well up on one of the carriage-roads ascending the
- Brocken, a fortnight or so ago, that I received a wire from Uncle Dudley.
- It was kind of him to think of it—all the more as he had good news
- to tell. “Family lighted square on their feet,” was what the message said,
- and I was glad to gather from this that the Grundys had weathered their
- misfortunes, and that Mrs Albert was herself again.
- </p>
- <p>
- The thought was full of charm. It seemed as if I had never realised before
- how fond I was of these good people. In sober fact; I dare say that I had
- not dwelt much upon their woes during my holiday. But now, with this
- affectionately thoughtful telegram addressing me as their oldest friend,
- the one whom they wished to be the first to share the joy of their rescued
- state, it was easy enough to make myself believe that my whole vacation
- had been darkened with brooding over their unhappiness.
- </p>
- <p>
- It had not occurred to me before, but that was undoubtedly why I had not
- liked the Harz so much this year as usual. Now that I thought of it,
- walking down the birch-lined footpath towards the hamlet and the telegraph
- office, the place seemed to have gone off a good deal. In other seasons,
- before the spectre of cholera flooded its sylvan retreats with an invading
- horde of Hamburgers, the Harzwald had been my favourite resort. I had
- grown to love its fir-clad slopes, its shadowed glens, its atmosphere of
- prehistoric myth and legend, as if I were part and product of them all.
- Its people, too, had come much nearer to my breast than any other Germans
- ever could. I had enjoyed being with them just because they were what the
- local schoolmaster disdainfully declared them to be—<i>Erdzertrümmerungsprozeszuribekanntevolk</i>—that
- is to say, people entirely ignorant of the scientific theories about
- geological upheavals and volcanic formations, and so able cheerfully to
- put their trust in the goblins who reared these strange boulders in
- fantastic piles on every hill top, and to hear with good faith the shouts
- of the witches as they bounded over the Hexentanzplatz. Last year it had
- seemed even worth the added discomfort of the swarming Hamburgers to be
- again in this wholesome, sweet-aired primitive place. But this year—I
- saw now clearly as I looked over Uncle Dudley’s message once more—it
- had not been so pleasant. The hotel boy, Fritzchen, whom I had watched
- year after year with the warmth of a fatherly well-wisher—smiling
- with satisfaction at his jovial countenance, his bustling and competent
- ways, and his comical attempts at English—had this season swollen up
- into a burly and consequential lout, with a straw-coloured sprouting on
- his upper-lip, and a military manner. They called him Fritz now, and he
- gave me beer out of the old keg after I had heard the new one tapped.
- </p>
- <p>
- The evening gatherings of the villagers in the hotel, too, were not
- amusing as they once had been. The huge lion-maned and grossly
- over-bearded <i>Kantor</i>, or music-master, who came regularly at
- nightfall to thump on the table with his bludgeon-like walking stick, to
- roar forth impassioned monologues on religion and politics, and to bellow
- ceaselessly at Fritzchen for more beer, had formerly delighted me. This
- time he seemed only a noisy nuisance, and the half-circle of grave old
- retired foresters and middle-aged <i>Jàger</i> officers who sat watching
- him over their pipes, striving vainly now and again to get in a word
- edgewise about the auctions of felled trees in the woods, or the mutinous
- tendencies of the charcoal-burners, presented themselves in the light of
- tiresome prigs. If they had been worth their salt, I felt, they would long
- ago have brained the Kantor with their stoneware mugs. Even as I walked I
- began to be conscious that a three weeks’ stay in the Harz was a good deal
- of time, and that the remaining third would certainly hang on my hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- By the time I reached the telegraph station I had my answer to Uncle
- Dudley ready in my mind. He liked the forcible imagery of Australia and
- the Far West; and I would speak to him at this joyful juncture after his
- own heart. It seemed that I could best do this by giving him to understand
- that I was celebrating his news—that I was, in one of his own
- phrases, “painting the town red.” It required some ingenuity to work this
- idea out right, but I finally wrote what appeared to answer the purpose:—“<i>Brocken
- und Umgebung sind roth gemalen</i>”—and handed it in to the man at
- the window.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was a young man with close-cropped yellow hair and spectacles, holding
- his chin and neck very stiff in the high collar of his uniform. He glanced
- over my despatch, at first with careless dignity. Then he read it again
- attentively. Then he laid it on the table, and bent his tight-buttoned
- form over it as well as might be in a severe and prolonged scrutiny. At
- last he raised himself, turned a petrifying gaze on through his glasses at
- me, and shook his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is not true,” he said. “Some one has you deceived.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But,” I tried to explain to him, with the little German that I knew
- scattering itself in all directions in the face of this crisis, “it is a
- figure of speech, a joke, a——”
- </p>
- <p>
- The telegraph man stared coldly at my luckless despatch, and then at me.
- “You would wish to state to your friend, perhaps,” he suggested, “that
- they seem as if they had been coloured with red, owing to the change in
- the leaves.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, no,” I put in. “It must be that they <i>have</i> been painted, <i>are</i>
- painted, or he will not me understand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But, my good sir,” retorted the operator with emphasis, “they are <i>not</i>
- painted! From the door gaze you forth! What make you with this nonsense,
- that Brocken and vicinity are red painted?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then,” I said wearily, oppressed by the magnitude of the task, “I
- don’t know how to word it myself, but you can fix it for me. Just say that
- I am <i>going</i> to paint them red—that will do just as well.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you shall not! It is forbidden!” exclaimed the official, holding
- himself like a poker, and glaring vehemence through his glasses. “It is
- strongly forbidden! When you one brush-mark shall make, quick to the
- prison go you. In Germany have we for natural beauty respect—also
- laws.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Reluctantly, but of necessity, I abandoned metaphor, and in a humble
- spirit telegraphed in English to Uncle Dudley at his club that I was very
- glad. Even as my pen clung in irresolution on the paper over this word
- “glad,” the impulse rose in me to add: “<i>Tired of Harz. Am returning
- immediately</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When the same here is,” remarked the operator, moodily studying the
- unknown words, “in Brunswick stopped it will be.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I translated it for him, and added, “I go from here home, to be where
- officials their own business mind.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He nodded, not unamiably, and replied as he handed me out my change: “Yes,
- I know: England. So well their own business there officials mind, that
- Balfour to Argentina easily comes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Walking up the hillside again, already quite captive to the fascination of
- the morrow’s homeward flight, I met at the turn of the path a family party—father,
- mother, and two girls in the younger teens—seated along the rocky
- siding, and gazing with a common air of dejection upon a portentous row of
- bags and portmanteaus at their feet. The notion that they were Hamburgers
- died still-born. Nothing more obviously un-German than these wayfarers was
- ever seen.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hope, sir,” the man spoke up as I approached, “that I am right in
- presuming that you speak English!”
- </p>
- <p>
- I bowed assent, and even as I did so, recognised him. “I hope <i>I</i> am
- right,” I answered, “in thinking that I have met you before—at Mr
- Albert Grundy’s in London—you are the American gentleman with the
- Oboid Oil Engine, are you not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, by George!” he cried, rising and offering his hand with frank
- delight, and introducing me in a single comprehensive wave to his wife and
- daughters. “Yes, sir,” he went on, “and I wish I had an Oboid here right
- now—up in the basement of that stone boarding-house on the knoll
- there—just for the sake of heating up, and shutting down the valves,
- and blowing the whole damned thing sky-high. That would suit me, sir,
- right down to the ground.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Were strangers here, sir,” he explained in answer to my question: “we’d
- seen a good deal of the Dutch at home—I mean <i>our</i> home—and
- we thought we’d like to take a look at ‘em in the place they come from.
- Well, sir, we’ve had our look, and we’re satisfied. We don’t want any more
- on our plate, thank you. One helping is an elegant sufficiency. Do you
- know the trick they played on us? Why, I took a team of horses yesterday
- from a place they called Ibsenburg or Ilsenburg, or some such name, and
- had it explained to my driver that he was to take us up to the top of the
- Brocken, there, and stop all night, and fetch us back this morning. When
- we got up as far as Shierke, there, it was getting pretty dark, and the
- women-folks were nervous, and so we laid up for the night. There didn’t
- seem anything for the driver to do but set around in the kitchen and drink
- beer, and he needed money for that, and so I gave him some loose silver,
- and told him to make himself at home. We got the words out of a dictionary
- for that—<i>machen sie selbst zu Heim</i> we figured ‘em out to be—and
- I spoke them at him slowly and distinctly, so that he had no earthly
- excuse for not understanding. But, would you believe it, sir, the
- miserable cuss just up and skipped out, horses, rig and all, while we were
- getting supper! And here we were this morning, landed high and dry. No
- conveyance, nobody to comprehend a word of English, no nothing. We haven’t
- seen the top of their darned mountain even.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What I’m more concerned about, I tell Wilbur,” put in the lady, “is
- seeing the bottom of it. If they had only sense enough to make valises and
- bonnet-boxes ball-shaped, we could have rolled ‘em down hill.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There’ll be no trouble about all that,” I assured them, and we talked for
- a little about the simple enough process of getting their luggage carried
- down to the village, and of finding a vehicle there. I, indeed, agreed to
- make one of their party on quitting the Harz, that very afternoon.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And now tell me about the Grundys,” I urged, when these more pressing
- matters were out of the way. “I got a wire to-day saying—hinting
- that they are in luck’s way again.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is that so?” exclaimed the American, at once surprised and pleased. “I’m
- glad to hear it. I can’t guess what it might be in. Grundy’s got so many
- irons in the fire—some white hot, some lukewarm, some frosted
- straight through—you never can tell. The funny thing is—he
- can’t tell himself. Why, sir, those men of yours in the City of London,
- they don’t know any more about business than a babe unborn. If they were
- in New York they’d have their eyeteeth skinned out of their heads in the
- shake of a lamb’s tail. Why, we’ve been milking them dry for a dozen years
- back. And yet, you know, somehow——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Somehow—?” I echoed, encouragingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, sir, somehow—that’s the odd thing about it—they don’t
- stay milked.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Disclosing the Educational Influence exerted by the Essex Coast, and
- other Matters, including Reasons for Joy</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>it down here by
- the fire—no, in the easy chair,” said Ermyntrude, with a note of
- solicitude in her kindly voice. “Mamma won’t be home for half an hour yet,
- and I want a nice, quiet, serious talk with you. Oh, it’s going to be
- extremely serious, and you must begin by playing that you are at least one
- hundred and fifty years old.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That won’t be so difficult,” I replied, not without the implication of
- injury. “It will only be adding a few decades to the venerableness that I
- seem always to possess in your eyes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh!” said Ermie, and looked at me inquiringly for a moment. Then she
- seated herself, and gazed with much steadiness into the fire. I waited for
- the nice, serious talk to begin—and waited a long time.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, my dear child,” I broke in upon the silence at last, “I hoped to
- have been the very first to come and tell your mother how deeply glad I
- was to see you all back again in Fernbank. But that wretched rheumatism of
- mine—<i>at my age</i>, you know———”
- </p>
- <p>
- I was watching narrowly for even the faintest sign of deprecation. She did
- not stir an eyelash.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” she suddenly began, still intently gazing into the fire; “papa has
- got his money all back, and more. That is, it isn’t the same money, but
- somebody else’s—I’m sure I don’t know whose. Sometimes I feel sorry
- for those other people, whoever they are, who have had to give it up to
- us. Then, other times, I am so glad simply to be in again where it’s warm
- that I don’t care.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The firelight suits your face, Ermie,” I said, noting with the pleasure
- appropriate to my position as the oldest friend of the family, how sweetly
- the soft radiance played upward upon the fair young rounded throat and
- chin, and tipped the little nostrils with rosy light.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fortunately,” she went on, as if I had not spoken, “some Americans took
- the house furnished in September for three months—I think, poor
- souls, that they believed it was the London season—and so we never
- had to break up, and we were able to get back again in time for Uncle
- Dudley to plant all his bulbs. They seem to have been very quiet people.
- Mamma had a kind of notion that they would practise with bucking horses on
- the tennis-lawn, and shoot at bottles and clay pigeons here in the
- drawing-room. The only thing we could find that they did was to paste
- thick paper over the ventilator in the dining-room. And yet a policeman
- told our man that they slept with their bedroom windows open all night.
- Curious, isn’t it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I like to have one of these ‘nice, quiet, serious talks’ with you,
- Ermie,” I said.
- </p>
- <p>
- Even at this she did not lift her eyes from the grate. “Oh, don’t be
- impatient—it will be serious enough,” she warned me. “They say, you
- know, that drowning people see, in a single instant of time, whole years
- of events, whole books full of things. Well, I’ve been under water for six
- months, and—and—I’ve noticed a good deal.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah! is there a submarine observation station at Clacton-on-Sea? Now you
- speak of it, I <i>have</i> heard of queer fish being studied there.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “None queerer than we, my dear friend, you may be sure. Mamma was right in
- choosing the place. We never once saw a soul we knew. Of course, it is the
- dullest and commonest thing on earth—but it exactly fitted us during
- that awful period. We were going at first to Cromer, but mamma learned
- that that was the chosen resort of dissolute theatrical people—it
- seems there has been a poem written in which it is called ‘Poppy land,’
- which mamma saw at once must be a cover for opium-eating and all sorts of
- dissipation. So we went to Clacton instead. But what I was going to say is
- this—I did a great deal of thinking all through those six months. I
- don’t say that I am any wiser than I was, because, for that matter, I am
- very much less sure about things than I was before. But I was simply a
- blank contented fool then. Now it’s different to the extent that I’ve
- stirred up all sorts of questions and problems buzzing and barking about
- me, and I don’t know the answers to them, and I can’t get clear of them,
- and they’re driving me out of my head—and there you are. That’s what
- I wanted to talk with you about.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I shifted my feet on the fender, and nodded with as sensible an expression
- as I could muster.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s why I said you must pretend to yourself that you are very old—quite
- a fatherly person, capable of giving a girl advice—sympathetic
- advice. In the first place—of course you know that the engagement
- with that Hon. Knobbeleigh Jones has been off for ages. Don’t interrupt
- me! It isn’t worth speaking of except for one point. His father, Lord
- Skillyduff, was the principal rogue in the combination which plundered
- papa of his money. Having got the Grundy money they had no use for the
- Grundy girl. Now, he justified his rascality by pleading that he had to
- make provision for <i>his</i> daughters, and everybody said he was a good
- father. Papa goes in again through some other opening, and after a long
- fight brings out a fresh fortune, which he has taken away from somebody
- else—and I heard him tell mamma that he was doing it for the sake of
- <i>his</i> daughters. People will say <i>he</i> is a good father—I
- know <i>I</i> do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “None better in this world,” I assented cordially.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, don’t you see,” Ermyntrude went on, “that puts daughters in the
- light of a doubtful blessing. Papa’s whole worry and struggle was for us—for
- <i>me</i>. I was the load on his back. I don’t like to be a load. While we
- were prosperous, there was only one way for me to get down—that is
- by marriage. When we became poor, there was another way—that I
- should earn my own living. But this papa wouldn’t listen to. He quite
- swore about it—vowed he would rather work his fingers to the bone;
- rather do anything, no matter what it was, or what people thought of him
- for doing it, than that a daughter of his should take care of herself. He
- would look upon himself as disgraced, he said. Those lodgings of ours at
- Clacton weren’t specially conducive to good temper, I’m afraid; for I told
- him that the real disgrace would be to keep me in idleness to sell to some
- other Knobbeleigh Jones, or to palm me off on some better sort of young
- man who would bind himself to work for me all his life, and then find that
- I would have been dear at the price of a fortnight’s labour—and then
- mamma cried.—and papa, he swore more—and—and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- I stirred the fire here, and then blushed to rediscover that it was
- asbestos I was knocking about. “How stupid of me!” I exclaimed, and
- murmured something about having been a stranger to Fernbank so long.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ermyntrude took no notice. “I made a pretence of going up to London on a
- visit,” she continued, “and I spent five days looking about, making
- inquiries, trying to get some notion of how girls who supported themselves
- made a beginning. I talked a little with such few girls that I knew as
- were in town, and I cared to see—guardedly, of course. They had no
- idea—save in the way of the governess or music teacher. I’d cut my
- throat before I’d be either of those—forced to dress like ladies on
- the wages of a seamstress, and to smile under the insults of tradesmen’s
- wives and their louts of children. An actress I might be, after I had
- starved a long time in learning my business—but before that mamma
- would have died of shame. Then there are typewriters, and lady journalists
- and telegraph clerks—I am surly enough sometimes to do that last to
- perfection—but they all have to have special talents or knowledge.
- As for saleswomen in the shops—there are a dozen poor genteel
- wretches standing outside ready to claw each other’s eyes out for every
- vacancy. I went over Euston Road way at noon, and I watched the work-girls
- come out of the factories and workshops, and they had such sharp, knowing,
- bullying faces that I knew I should be a helpless fool among them. And
- watching them—and watching the other girls on the street... in the
- Strand and Piccadilly—I told you I was going to talk seriously, my
- dear friend—it all came to seem to me like a nightmare. It
- frightened me. These were the girls whose fathers had failed to provide
- for them—that was absolutely all the difference between them and me.
- I had looked lazily down at marriage as a chance of escaping being bored
- here at Fernbank. They were all looking fiercely up at marriage as the one
- only chance of rescue from weary toil, starvation wages, general poverty
- and misery. In both cases the idea was the same—to find some man, no
- matter what kind of a man, if only he will take it upon himself to provide
- something different. You see what poor, dependent things we really are!
- Why should it be so? That’s what I want to know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, that’s all you want to know, is it?” I remarked, after a little
- pause. “Well, I think—I think you had better give me notice of the
- question.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have tried to read what thinkers say about it,” she added; “but they
- only confuse one the more. There is a Dr Wallace whom the papers speak of
- as an authority, and he has been writing a long article this very week—or
- else it is an interview—and he says that everything will be all
- right, that all the nice women will marry all the good men, and that the
- other kinds will die off immediately, and everybody will be oh, so happy—in
- a ‘regenerated society.’ That is another thing I wanted to ask you about.
- He speaks—they all speak—so confidently about this
- ‘regenerated society.’ Do you happen to know when it is to be?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The date has not been fixed, I believe,” I replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- The early winter twilight had darkened the room, and the light from the
- grate glowed ruddily upon the girl’s face as she bent forward, her chin
- upon her clasped hands, looking into the fire.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is another date which remains undetermined,”’ I added, faltering
- not a little at heart, but keeping my tongue under fair control. “I should
- like to speak to you about it, if I may take off my lamb’s-wool wig and
- Santa Claus beard, and appear before you once more as a contemporary
- citizen. It is this, Ermie. I am not so very old, after all. There is only
- a shade over a dozen years between us—say a baker’s dozen. My habits—my
- personal qualities, tolerable and otherwise, are more or less known to
- you. I am prosperous enough, so far as this world’s goods go. But I am
- tired of living——”
- </p>
- <p>
- I stopped short, and stared in turn blankly at the mock coals. A freezing
- thought had just thrust itself into the marrow of my brain. She would
- think that I was saying all this because her father had regained and
- augmented his fortune. I strove in a numb, puzzled way to retrace what I
- had just uttered—to see if the words offered any chance of getting
- away upon other ground—and could not remember at all.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tired of living,” I heard Ermyntrude echo. I saw her nod her head
- comprehendingly in the firelight. She sighed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, except upon conditions,” I burst forth. “I weary of living alone.
- There hasn’t been a time for years when I didn’t long to tell you this—and
- most of all at Clacton, if I had known you were at Clacton. You have
- admitted yourself that <i>nobody</i> knew you were there.” The words came
- more easily now. “But always before I shrank from speaking. There was
- something about you too childlike, too innocent, too—too——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Too silly,” suggested Ermie, with an affable effect of helping me out.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then she unlocked her fingers, and, still looking into the fire, stretched
- out a hand backward to me. “All the same,” she murmured, after a little,
- “it isn’t an answer to my question, you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But it is to mine!” I made glad response, “and in my question all the
- others are enwrapped—always have been, always will be. And, oh,
- darling one——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is mamma in the hall,” said Ermyntrude.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- <i>Describing Impressions of a Momentous Interview, loosely gathered by
- One who, although present, was not quite In it</i>
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>rs Albert has
- smiled upon my suit to be her son-in-law.
- </p>
- <p>
- The smile did not, however, gush forth spontaneously at the outset. When
- the opportunity for imparting our great news came, we three were in the
- drawing-room, and Mrs Albert, who had just entered, had been allowed to
- discover me holding Ermyntrude’s passive hand in mine. She cast a swift
- little glance over us both, and seemed not to like what she saw. I was
- conscious of the impression on the instant that Ermyntrude did not
- particularly like it either. An effect of profound isolation, absurd
- enough, but depressingly real, suddenly encompassed me. I began talking
- something—the words coming out and scattering quite on their own
- incoherent account—and the gist of what they made me say sounded in
- my ears as if it were a determined enemy who was saying it Why should I be
- speaking of my age, and the fact that I had held Ermie on my knee as a
- child, and even of my rheumatism? And did I actually allude to them? or
- only hear the clamorous echoes of conscience in my guilty soul, the while
- my tongue was uttering other matters? I don’t know, and the fear that
- Ermie would admit that she really hadn’t been paying attention has
- restrained me from asking her since.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Mrs Albert was paying attention. She held me with a cool and
- unblinking eye during my clumsy monologue, and she continued this steady
- gaze for a time after I had finished. She stirred the small and shapely
- headgear of black velvet and bird’s-wing which she had worn in from the
- street, just by the fraction of a forward inch, to show that she
- understood what I had been saying—and also very much which I had
- left unsaid.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hm—m!” the good lady remarked, at length. “I see!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, mamma, having seen,” Ermyntrude turned languidly in her chair to
- observe, lifting the hand which still rested within mine into full and
- patent view, and then withdrawing it abruptly—“having seen, and been
- seen, there’s really nothing more to do, is there?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She is very young,” said the mother, in a tentative musing manner which
- suggested the thought that I, on the other hand, was very much the other
- way.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ermyntrude sniffed audibly, and rose to her feet. “I am three-and-twenty,”
- she said, “and that is enough, thank you.” There was something in it all
- which I did not understand. The sensation of being out of place, as in the
- trying-on room of a dressmaker’s, oppressed me. The sex were effecting
- sundry manouvres and countermarchings peculiar to themselves—so much
- I could see by the way in which the two were talking with their eyes—hut
- what it was all about was beyond me. The mother finally inclined her head
- to one side, and pursed together her lips. Ermyntrude drew herself to her
- full stature, threw up her chin for a moment like one of Albert Moore’s
- superb full-throated goddesses, and then relaxed with that half-cheerful
- sigh which we express in types with “heigho!” It was at once apparent to
- me that the situation had lightened—but how or why I cannot profess
- to guess. Uncle Dudley, to whom I subsequently narrated what I had
- observed, abounded in theories, but upon reflection they do not impress,
- much less convince, me. Here is in substance one of the several
- hypothetical conversations which he sketched out as having passed in that
- moment of pre-occupied and surcharged silence:
- </p>
- <p>
- Mother [<i>lowering brows</i>]. You may be sure that at the very best it
- will be Bayswater.
- </p>
- <p>
- Daughter [<i>with quiver of nostrils</i>]. Better that than hanging on for
- a Belgravia which never comes.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mother [<i>disclosing the tips of two teeth</i>]. It is a chance of a
- title going for ever.
- </p>
- <p>
- Daughter [<i>curling lip</i>]. What chance is ever likely <i>here?</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- Mother [<i>lifting brows</i>]. He’s as old as Methusaleh!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Daughter [<i>flashing eyes</i>]. That’s my business!
- </p>
- <p>
- Mother [<i>little trembling of the eyelashes</i>]. You will never know how
- I have striven and struggled for you!
- </p>
- <p>
- Daughter [<i>smoothing features</i>]. Merely the innate maternal instinct,
- my dear, common to all mammalia.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mother [<i>beginning to tip head sidewise</i>]. It is true that Tristram
- is docile, sheep-like, simple——
- </p>
- <p>
- Daughter [<i>lifting her chin</i>]. And old enough to be enchained at my
- feet all his life.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mother [<i>head much to one side</i>]. And he has always been extremely
- cordial with <i>me</i>——
- </p>
- <p>
- Daughter [<i>chin high in air</i>]. And not another girl in my set has had
- a proposal for <i>years</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mother [<i>brightening eye</i>]. We shall be in time to buy everything at
- the January sales!
- </p>
- <p>
- [Mother <i>smiles;</i> Daughter <i>sighs relief. The imaginations of both
- wander pleasantly off to visions of sublimated Christmas shopping, in
- connection with the trousseau and betrothal gifts. General joy.</i>]
- </p>
- <p>
- As I have said, this is Uncle Dudley’s idea, not mine. My own fancy
- prefers to conjure up a tenderer dialogue, in which the mother, all fond
- solicitude, bids the maiden search well her heart, and answer only its
- true appeal, and the sweet daughter, timid, fluttering, half-frightened
- and wholly glad, flashes hack from the depths of her soul the rapt
- assurance of her fate. But Dudley was certainly right about the ending, as
- the first words Mrs Albert uttered go to show.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t forget to remind me, then, about presents for the Gregory
- children,” she said all at once, in a swift sidelong whisper at
- Ermyntrude. Then she turned, and as I gazed wistfully upon her face, it
- melted sedately, gracefully, a little at a time, into the smile I sought.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear Tristram,” she began, and her voice took on a coo of genuine
- kindliness and warmth as she went on, “of course Albert and I have had
- other views—and the dear girl is perfectly qualified to adorn the
- most exalted and exclusive circles—if I do say it myself—but—but
- her happiness is our one desire, and if she feels that it is getting—I
- <i>would</i> say, if you and she are quite clear in your own minds—and
- we both have the greatest confidence in your practical common-sense, and
- your <i>honour</i>—and we have all learned to be fond of you—and—and
- I am really very glad!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Most of all things in the world, dear lady, I hoped for this,” I had
- begun to say, with fervour. I stopped, upon the discovery that Mrs Albert
- was not listening, but had turned and was conferring with her daughter in
- half-audible asides.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mercy, no!” the mother said. “They’d know in a minute that it had been a
- present to us. That old Mrs Gregory is a perfect <i>lynx</i> for detecting
- such things. I suppose their boys are too big for tricycles, else your
- father knows a dealer who——”
- </p>
- <p>
- My own Ermie looked thoughtful. “It won’t seem queer, you think, our
- bursting in upon them with Christmas presents like this—without
- provocation?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear child, queer or not queer,” said Mrs Albert, “it is imperative.
- You know how much depends upon it—there are plenty of others who
- would be equally useful in various ways, but not like the <i>Gregorys</i>—and
- if there were there’s no time now. If this could have happened, now, a
- fortnight ago, or even last week——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, but it didn’t,” replied Ermyntrude. “It only happened to-day.” She
- turned to me, with a little laugh in her eyes. “Mamma complains that we
- delayed so long. We have interfered with the Christmas arrangements.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I had only known! But—I claim to be treated as one of the
- family, you know—I couldn’t quite grasp what you were saying about
- the Gregorys. I gather that our—our betrothal involves Christmas
- presents for them, but I confess I don’t know why. Or oughtn’t I to have
- asked, dear?”
- </p>
- <p>
- For answer Ermyntrude looked saucily into my face, twisted her dear nose
- into a pretty little mocking grimace, and ran out of the room. Mrs Albert
- vouchsafed no explanation, but talked of other matters—and there
- were enough to talk about.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was not, indeed, till late in the evening, when Uncle Dudley and I were
- upon our last cigar, that I happened to recall the mystifying incident of
- the Gregorys.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s simplicity itself,” said Uncle Dudley. “The Gregorys own one of
- the tidiest country seats in Nottinghamshire—lovely old house,
- sylvan arbours, high wall, fascinating rural roads—in the very heart
- of county society, too—O, a most romantic and eligible place!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, what of it? What has that to do with Ermyntrude and me and Santa
- Claus?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you will read the <i>Morning Post</i> the day after your wedding, my
- dear, dull friend, you will learn that Colonel Gregory has placed at the
- disposal of a certain bridal couple for their honeymoon his ideal country
- residence. The paper will not state why, but I will tell you in
- confidence. It will be because the bride’s mother is a resourceful and
- observant woman, who knows how to plant at Christmas that she may gather
- at Easter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hate to have you always so beastly cynical, Dudley,” I was emboldened
- to exclaim.
- </p>
- <p>
- Uncle Dudley regarded me attentively for an instant. He took a thoughtful
- sip at his drink, and then began smiling at his glass. When he turned to
- me again, the smile had grown into a grin.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are belated, my boy,” he said. “You ought to have married into the
- Grundys years ago. You were just born to be one of the family.”
- </p>
- <div style="height: 6em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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