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diff --git a/old/55116-0.txt b/old/55116-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ee83301..0000000 --- a/old/55116-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9260 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Paris Nights, by Arnold Bennett - -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: Paris Nights - And Other Impressions of Places and People - -Author: Arnold Bennett - -Illustrator: E. A. Rickards - -Release Date: July 15, 2017 [EBook #55116] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARIS NIGHTS *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -PARIS NIGHTS - -And Other Impressions of Places and People - -By Arnold Bennett - -Author Of The Old Wives’ Tale, Clayhanger Your United States, Etc., Etc. - -With Illustrations By E. A. Rickards - -George H. Doran Company, New York - -MCMXIII - - -[Illustration: 0001] - - -[Illustration: 0010] - - -[Illustration: 0011] - - - - -PARIS NIGHTS--1910 - - - - -I--ARTISTIC EVENING - -The first invitation I ever received into a purely Parisian interior -might have been copied out of a novel by Paul Bourget. Its lure was thus -phrased: “_Un peu de musique et d’agréables femmes_.” It answered to my -inward vision of Paris. My experiences in London, which fifteen years -earlier I had entered with my mouth open as I might have entered some -city of Oriental romance, had, of course, done little to destroy my -illusions about Paris, for the ingenuousness of the artist is happily -indestructible. Hence, my inward vision of Paris was romantic, based on -the belief that Paris was essentially “different.” Nothing more banal in -London than a “little music,” or even “some agreeable women”! But what -a difference between a little music and _un peu de musique!_ What an -exciting difference between agreeable women and _agréables femmes!_ -After all, this difference remains nearly intact to this day. Nobody -who has not lived intimately in and with Paris can appreciate the unique -savour of that word _femmes_. “Women” is a fine word, a word -which, breathed in a certain tone, will make all men--even bishops, -misogynists, and political propagandists--fall to dreaming! But _femmes_ -is yet more potent. There cling to it the associations of a thousand -years of dalliance in a land where dalliance is passionately understood. - -The usual Paris flat, high up, like the top drawer of a chest of -drawers! No passages, but multitudinous doors. In order to arrive at -any given room it is necessary to pass through all the others. I passed -through the dining-room, where a servant with a marked geometrical -gift had arranged a number of very small plates round the rim of a vast -circular table. In the drawing-room my host was seated at a grand piano -with a couple of candles in front of him and a couple of women behind -him. See the light glinting on bits of the ebon piano, and on his face, -and on their chins and jewels, and on the corner of a distant picture -frame; and all the rest of the room obscure! He wore a jacket, -negligently; the interest of his attire was dramatically centred in his -large, limp necktie; necktie such as none hut a hero could unfurl in -London. A man with a very intelligent face, eager, melancholy (with a -sadness acquired in the Divorce Court), wistful, appealing. An idealist! -He called himself a publicist. One of the women, a musical composer, -had a black skirt and a white blouse; she was ugly but provocative. The -other, all in white, was pretty and sprightly, but her charm lacked the -perverseness which is expected and usually found in Paris; she painted, -she versified, she recited. With the eye of a man who had sat for years -in the editorial chair of a ladies’ paper, I looked instinctively at the -hang of the skirts. It was not good. Those vague frocks were such as -had previously been something else, and would soon he transformed by -discreet modifications into something still else. Candlelight was best -for them. But what grace of demeanour, what naturalness, what candid -ease and appositeness of greeting, what absence of self-consciousness! -Paris is the self-unconscious. - -I was presented as _le romancier anglais_. It sounded romantic. I -thought: “What a false impression they are getting, as of some vocation -exotic and delightful! If only they knew the prose of it!” I thought of -their conception of England, a mysterious isle. When Balzac desired -to make a woman exquisitely strange, he caused her to be born in -Lancashire. - -My host begged permission to go on playing. In the intervals of being -a publicist, he composed music, and he was now deciphering a manuscript -freshly written. I bent over between the two women, and read the title: - -“_Ygdrasil: reverie._” - -***** - -When there were a dozen or fifteen people in the room, and as -many candles irregularly disposed like lighthouses over a complex -archipelago, I formed one of, a group consisting of those two women and -another, a young dramatist who concealed his expressive hands in a pair -of bright yellow gloves, and a middle-aged man whose constitution was -obviously ruined. This last was librarian of some public library--I -forget which--and was stated to be monstrously erudite in all -literatures. I asked him whether he had of late encountered anything new -and good in English. - -“I have read nothing later than Swinburne,” he replied in a thin, -pinched voice--like his features, like his wary and suffering eyes. -Speaking with an icy, glittering pessimism, he quoted Stendhal to the -effect that a man does not change after twenty-five. He supported the -theory bitterly and joyously, and seemed to taste the notion of his own -intellectual rigidity, of his perfect inability to receive new ideas -and sensations, as one tastes an olive. The young dramatist, in a -beautifully curved phrase, began to argue that certain emotional and -purely intellectual experiences did not come under the axiom, but the -librarian would have none of such a reservation. Then the women joined -in, and it was just as if they had all five learnt off by heart one of -Landor’s lighter imaginary conversations, and were performing it. -Well convinced that they were all five absurdly wrong, fanciful, and -sentimental either in optimism or pessimism, I nevertheless stood -silent and barbaric. Could I cut across that lacework of shapely elegant -sentences and apposite gestures with the jagged edge of what in England -passes for a remark? The librarian was serious in his eternal frost. The -dramatist had the air of being genuinely concerned about the matter; he -spoke with deference to the librarian, with chivalrous respect to the -women, and to me with glances of appeal for help; possibly the reason -was that he was himself approaching the dreadful limit of twenty-five. -But the women’s eyes were always contradicting the polite seriousness of -their tones. Their eyes seemed to be always mysteriously talking about -something else; to be always saying: “All this that you are discussing -is trivial, but I am brooding for ever on what alone is important.” - This, while true of nearly all women, is disturbingly true of Parisians. -The ageing librarian, by dint of freezing harder, won the altercation: -it was as though he stabbed them one by one with a dagger of ice. And -presently he was lecturing them. The women were now admiring him. -There was something in his face worn by maladies, in his frail physical -unpleasantness, and in his frigid and total disgust with life, that -responded to their secret dream. Their gaze caressed him, and he felt -it falling on him like snow. That he intensely enjoyed his existence was -certain. - -They began talking low among themselves, the women, and there was an -outburst of laughter; pretty giggling laughter. The two who had been -at the piano stood aside and whispered and laughed with a more intimate -intimacy, struggling to suppress the laughter, and yet every now and -then letting it escape from sheer naughtiness. They cried. It was the -_fou rire_. Impossible to believe that a moment before they had been -performing in one of Landor’s imaginary conversations, and that they -were passionately serious about art and life and so on. They might have -been schoolgirls. - -“_Farceuses, toutes les deux!_” said the host, coming up, delightfully -indulgent, but shocked that women to whom he had just played _Ygdrasil_, -should be able so soon to throw off the spell of it. - -The pretty and sprightly woman, all in white, despairing, whisked -impulsively out of the room, in order to recall to herself amid darkness -and cloaks and hats that she was not a giddy child, but an experienced -creature of thirty if she was a day. She came back demure, her eyes -liquid, brooding. - -***** - -“By the way,” said the young dramatist to the host, “Your People’s -Concert scheme--doesn’t it move?” - -“By the way,” said the host, suddenly excited, “Shall we hold a meeting -of the committee now?” - -He had a project for giving performances of the finest music to the -populace at a charge of five sous per head. It was the latest activity -of the publicist in him. The committee appeared to consist of everybody -who was standing near. He drew me into it, because, coming from London, -I was of course assumed to be a complete encyclopædia of London and -to be capable of furnishing detailed statistics about all -twopence-halfpenny enterprises in London for placing the finest music -before the people. The women, especially the late laughers, were touched -by the beauty of the idea underlying the enterprise, and their eyes -showed that at instants they were thinking sympathetically of the -far-off “people.” The librarian remained somewhat apart, as it were with -a rifle, and maintained a desolating fire of questions: “Was the scheme -meant to improve the people or to divert them? Would they come? Would -they like the finest music? Why five sous? Why not seven, or three? Was -the enterprise to be self-supporting?” The host, with his glance fixed -in appeal on me (it seemed to me that he was entreating me to accept him -as a serious publicist, warning me not to be misled by appearances)--the -host replied to all these questions with the sweetest, politest, wistful -patience, as well as he could. Certainly the people would like the -finest music! The people had a taste naturally distinguished and -correct. It was _we_ who were the degenerates. The enterprise must be -and would be self-supporting. No charity! No, he had learnt the folly of -charity! But naturally the artists would give their services. They would -be paid in terms of pleasure. The financial difficulty was that, whereas -he would not charge more than five sous a head for admission, he could -not hire a hall at a rent which worked out to less than a franc a head. -Such was the problem before the committee meeting! Dufayel, the great -shopkeeper, had offered to assist him.... The librarian frigidly exposed -the anti-social nature of Dufayel’s business methods, and the host -hurriedly made him a present of Dufayel. Dufayel’s help could not -be conscientiously accepted. The problem then remained!. . . London? -London, so practical? As an encyclopaedia of London I was not a success. -Politeness hid a general astonishment that, freshly arrived from London, -I could not suggest a solution, could not say what London would do in a -like quandary, nor even what London had done! - -“We will adjourn it to our next meeting,” said the host, and named day, -hour, and place. And the committee smoothed business out of its brow -and dissolved itself, while at the host’s request a girl performed some -Japanese music on the Pleyel. - -[Illustration: 0029] - -When it was finished, the librarian, who had listened to Japanese music -at an embassy, said that this was not Japanese music. “And thou knowest -it well,” he added. The host admitted that it was not really Japanese -music, but he insisted with his plaintive smile that the whole subject -of Japanese music was very interesting and enigmatic. - -Then the pretty sprightly woman, all in white, went and stood behind an -arm-chair and recited a poem, admirably, and with every sign of emotion. -Difficult to believe that she had ever laughed, that she did not exist -continually at these heights! She bowed modestly, a priestess of the -poet, and came out from behind the chair. - -“By whom?” demanded the librarian. - -And a voice answered, throbbing: “Henri de Régnier.” - -“Indeed,” said the librarian with cold, careless approval, “it is pretty -enough.” - -But I knew, from the tone alone of the answering voice, that the name -of Henri de Régnier was a sacred name, and that when it had been uttered -the proper thing was to bow the head mutely, as before a Botticelli. - -“I have something here,” said the host, producing one of these -portfolios which hurried men of affairs carry under their arms in the -streets of Paris, and which are called _serviettes_; this one, however, -was of red morocco. The pretty, sprightly woman sprang forward blushing -to obstruct his purpose, but other hands led her gently away. The host, -using the back of the arm-chair for a lectern, read alternately poems -of hers and poems of his own. And he, too, spoke with every sign of -emotion. I had to conquer my instinctive British scorn for these people -because they would not at any rate pretend that they were ashamed of -the emotion of poetry. Their candour appeared to me, then, weak, if not -actually indecent. The librarian admitted occasionally that something -was pretty enough. The rest of the company maintained a steady fervency -of enthusiasm. The reader himself forgot all else in his increasing -ardour, and thus we heard about a score of poems--all, as we were told, -unpublished--together with the discussion of a score of poems. - -***** - -We all sat around the rim of an immense circle of white tablecloth. Each -on a little plate had a portion of pineapple ice and in a little glass a -draught of Asti. Far away, in the centre of the diaper desert, withdrawn -and beyond reach, lay a dish containing the remains of the ice. Except -fans and cigarette-cases, there was nothing else on the table whatever. -Some one across the table asked me what I had recently finished, and I -said a play. Everybody agreed that it must be translated into French. -The Paris theatres simply could not get good plays. In a few moments it -was as if the entire company was beseeching me to allow my comedy to be -translated and produced with dazzling success at one of the principal -theatres on the boulevard. But I would not. I said my play was -unsuitable for the French stage. - -“Because?” - -“Because it is too pure.” - -I had meant to be mildly jocular. But this joke excited mirth that -surpassed mildness. “Thou hearest that? He says his play is too pure for -us!” My belief is that they had never heard one of these strange, naïve, -puzzling barbarians make a joke before, and that they regarded the thing -in its novelty as really too immensely and exotically funny, in some -manner which they could not explain to themselves. Beneath their -politeness I could detect them watching me, after that, in expectation -of another outbreak of insular humour. I might have been tempted to -commit follies, had not a new guest arrived. - -[Illustration: 0035] - -This was a tall, large-boned, ugly, coquettish woman, with a strong -physical attractiveness and a voice that caused vibrations in your soul. -She was in white, with a powerful leather waistband which suited her. -She was intimate with everybody except me, and by a natural gift -and force she held the attention of everybody from the moment of her -entrance. You could see she was used to that. The time was a quarter -to midnight, and she explained that she had been trying to arrive for -hours, but could not have succeeded a second sooner. She said she must -recount her _journée_, and she recounted her _journée_, which, after -being a vague prehistoric nebulosity up to midday seemed to begin -to take a definite shape about that hour. It was the _journée_ of a -Parisienne who is also an amateur actress and a dog-fancier. And -undoubtedly all her days were the same: battles waged against clocks -and destiny. She had no sense of order or of time. She had no exact -knowledge of anything; she had no purpose in life; she was perfectly -futile and useless. But she was acquainted with the secret nature of men -and women; she could judge them shrewdly; she was the very opposite -of the _ingénue_; and by her physical attractiveness, and that deep, -thrilling voice, and her distinction of gesture and tone, she created in -you the illusion that she was a capable and efficient woman, absorbed -in the most important ends. She sat down negligently behind the host, -waving away all ice and Asti, and busily fanning both him and herself. -She flattered him by laying her ringed and fluffy arm along the back of -his chair. - -“Do you know,” she said, smiling at him mysteriously. “I have made a -strange discovery to-day. Paris gives more towards the saving of lost -dogs than towards the saving of lost women. Very curious, is it not?” - -The host seemed to be thunderstruck by this piece of information. The -whole table was agitated by it, and a tremendous discussion was set -on foot. I then witnessed for the first time the spectacle of a fairly -large mixed company talking freely about scabrous facts. Then for the -first time was I eased from the strain of pretending in a mixed company -that things are not what they in fact are. To listen to those women, and -to watch them listening, was as staggering as it would have been to -see them pick up red-hot irons in their feverish, delicate hands. Their -admission that they knew everything, that no corner of existence was -dark enough to frighten them into speechlessness, was the chief of their -charms, then. It intensified their acute femininity. And while they were -thus gravely talking, ironical, sympathetic, amused, or indignant, they -even yet had the air of secretly thinking about something else. - -Discussions of such subjects never formally end, for the talkers never -tire of them. This subject was discussed in knots all the way down six -flights of stairs by the light of tapers and matches. I left the last, -because I wanted to get some general information from my host about one -of his guests. - -“She is divorcing her husband,” he said, with the simple sad pride of a -man who had been a petitioner in the matrimonial courts. “For the -rest, you never meet any but divorced women at my place. It saves -complications. So have no fear.” - -We shook hands warmly. - -“_Au revoir, mon ami._” - -“_Au revoir, mon cher._” - - - - -II--THE VARIÉTIÉS - -The filth and the paltry shabbiness of the entrance to the theatre -amounted to cynicism. Instead of uplifting by a foretaste of light and -magnificence, as the entrance to a theatre should, it depressed by its -neglected squalour. Twenty years earlier it might have cried urgently -for cleansing and redecoration, but now it was long past crying. It -had become vile. In the centre at the back sat a row of three or four -officials in evening dress, prosperous clubmen with glittering rakish -hats, at a distance of twenty feet, but changing as we approached them -to indigent, fustian-clad ticket-clerks penned in a rickety rostrum and -condemned like sandwich-men to be ridiculous in order to live. (Their -appearance recalled to my mind the fact that a “front-of-the-house” - inspector at the principal music-hall in France and in Europe is paid -thirty sous a night.) They regarded our tickets with gestures of scorn, -weariness, and cupidity. None knew better than they that these coloured -scraps represented a large lovely gold coin, rare and yet plentiful, -reassuring and yet transient, the price of coals, boots, nectar, and -love. - -We came to a very narrow, low, foul, semi-circular tunnel which was -occupied by hags and harpies with pink bows in their hair, and by -marauding men, and by hats and cloaks and overcoats, and by a double -odour of dirt and disinfectants. Along the convex side of the tunnel -were a number of little doors like the doors of cells. We bought a -programme from a man, yielded our wraps to two harpies, and were led -away by another man. All these beings looked hungrily apprehensive, like -dogs nosing along a gutter. The auditorium which was nearly full, had -the same characteristics as the porch and the _couloir_. It was -filthy, fetid, uncomfortable, and dangerous. It had the carpets of a -lodging-house of the ‘seventies, the seats of an old omnibus, the gilt -and the decorated sculpture of a circus at a fair. And it was dingy! It -was encrusted with dinginess! - -Something seemed to be afoot on the stage: from the embittered -resignation of the audience and the perfunctory nonchalance of the -players, we knew that this could only be the curtain-raiser. The -hour was ten minutes past nine. The principal piece was advertised to -commence at nine o’clock. But the curtain-raiser was not yet finished, -and after it was finished there would be the _entr’acte_--one of the -renowned, interminable _entr’actes_ of the Théâtre des Variétés. - -***** - -The Variétés is still one of the most “truly Parisian” of theatres, and -has been so since long before Zola described it fully in _Nana_. The -young bloods of Buenos Ayres and St. Petersburg still have visions of -an evening at the Variétés as the superlative of intense living. Every -theatre with a reputation has its “note,” and the note of the Variétés -is to make a fool of its public. Its attitude to the public is that of -an English provincial hotel or an English bank: “Come, and he d----d to -you! Above all, do not imagine that I exist for your convenience. You -exist for mine.” At the Variétés had management is good management; -slackness is a virtuous _coquetterie_. It would never do, there, to be -prompt, clean, or honest. To make the theatre passably habitable -would be ruin. Its _chic_ would be lost if it ceased to be a Hades of -discomfort and a menace to health. There is a small troupe of notorious -artistes, some of whom show great talent when it occurs to them to show -it; the vogue of the rest is one of the innumerable mysteries which -abound in theatrical life. It is axiomatic that they are all witty, and -that whatever lines they enunciate thereby become witty. They are simply -side-splitting as Sydney Smith was simply side-splitting when he asked -for the potatoes to be passed. Also the manager of the theatre always -wears an old straw hat, summer and winter. He is the wearer of an -eternal battered straw hat, who incidentally manages a theatre. You go -along the boulevard, and you happen to see that straw hat emerging from -the theatre. And by the strange potency of the hat you will be obliged -to say to the next acquaintance you meet: “I’ve just seen Samuel in -his straw hat.” And the thought in your mind and in the mind of your -acquaintance will be that you are getting very near the heart of Paris. - -Beyond question the troupe of favourites considers itself to be the real -centre of Paris, and, therefore, of civilisation. Practically the entire -Press, either by good nature, stupidity, snobbishness, or simple cash -transactions, takes part in the vast make-believe that the troupe is -conferring a favour on civilisation by consenting to be alive. And the -troupe of course behaves accordingly. It puts its back into the evening -when it thinks it will, and when it thinks it won’t, it doesn’t. “_Aux -Variétés on travaille quand on a le temps._” The rise of the curtain -awaits the caprice of a convivial green-room. “Don’t hurry--the public -is getting impatient.” Naturally, the underlings are not included in the -benefits of the make-believe. “At rehearsals we may wait two hours for -the principals,” a chorus-girl said to me. “But if _we_ are five minutes -late, one flings us a fine. A hundred francs a month I touch, and it -has happened to me to pay thirty in fines. Some one gets all that, -you know!” She went off into an impassioned description of scenes at -rehearsals of a ballet, how the ballet-master, after epical outbursts, -would always throw up his arms in inexpressible disgust and retire to -his room, and how the women would follow him and kiss and cajole and -hug him, and how then, after a majestic pause, his step could be heard -slowly descending the stairs, and at last the rehearsal would resume.... - -The human interest, no doubt! - -The Variétés has another _rôle_ and justification. It is what the French -call a women’s theatre. When I asked a well-known actress why the -_entr’-actes_ at the Variétés were so long, she replied with her air of -finding even the most bizarre phenomena quite natural: “There are -several reasons. One is, so that the gentlemen may have time to write -notes and to receive answers.” I did not conceal my sense of the oddness -of this method of conducting a theatre, whereupon she reminded me that -it was the Variétés we were talking about. She said that little by -little I should understand all sorts of things. - -***** - -As the principal piece progressed--it was an _opérette_--the apathy of -the public grew more and more noticeable. They seemed to have forgotten -that they were in one of the most truly Parisian of theatres, watching -players whose names were household words and synonyms of wit and -allurement. There was no applause, save from a claque which had carried -discipline to the extreme. The favourites were evidently in one of their -moods of casualness. Either the piece had run too long or it was not -going to run long enough. It was a piece brightly and jinglingly vulgar, -ministering, of course, in the main, to the secret concupiscence which -drives humanity forward; titillating, like most stage-spectacles, all -that is base, inept, and gross in a crowd whose units are perhaps, not -quite odious. A few of the performers had moments of real brilliance. -But even these flashes did not stir the public, whose characteristic -was stolidity. A public which, having regard to the conditions of the -particular theatre, necessarily consisted of simple snobbish gulls whose -creed is whatever they read or hear, with an admixture of foreigners, -provincials, adventurers, and persons who, having no illusions, go -to the Variétés because they have been to everything else and must go -somewhere! The first half-dozen rows of the stalls were reserved for -males: a custom which at the Variétés has survived from a more barbaric -age, as the custom of the finger-bowl has survived in the repasts of -the polite. The self-satisfied and self-conscious occupants of these rows -seemed to summarise and illustrate all the various masculine stupidity -of a great and proud city. To counterbalance this preponderance of -the male, I could glimpse, behind the lath grilles of the cages -called _baignoires_, the forms of women (each guarded) who I hope were -incomparable. The sight of these grilles at once sent the mind to the -seraglio, and the House of Commons, and other fastnesses of Orientalism. - -The evening was interminable, not for me alone, but obviously for the -majority of the audience. Impossible to describe the dull fortitude of -the audience without being accused of wilful exaggeration! Only in the -_entr’actes_, in the amplitude and dubious mystery of the _entr’actes_, -did the audience arouse itself into the semblance of vivacity. There was -but little complaining. Were we not at the Variétés? At the Variétés, -to suffer was part of the entertainment. The French public is a public -which accepts all in Christian meekness--all! It knows that it exists -for the convenience of the bureaucracy and the theatres. It covers -its cowardice under a mantle of philosophy and politeness. Its fierce -protest is a shrug. “_Que voulez-vous? C’est comme ça_.” - -***** - -At last, at nearly half after midnight, we came forth, bitterly -depressed, as usual, by the deep consciousness of futile waste. I could -see, in my preoccupation, the whole organism of the Variétés, which is -only the essence of the French theatre. A few artistes and a financier -or so at the core, wilful, corrupt, self-indulgent, spoiled, venal, -enormously unbusinesslike, incredibly cynical, luxurious in the midst of -a crowd of miserable parasites and menials; creating for themselves, out -of electric globes, and newspapers, and posters, and photographs, and -the inexhaustible simplicity and sexuality of the public, a legend of -artistic greatness. They make a frame, and hang a curtain in front of -it, and put footlights beneath; and lo! the capricious manouvres -of these mortals become the sacred, authoritative functioning of an -institution! - -It was raining. The boulevard was a mirror. And along the reflecting -surface of this mirror cab after cab, hundreds of cabs, rolled swiftly. -Dozens and dozens were empty, and had no goal; but none would stop. They -all went ruthlessly by with offensive gestures of disdain. Strangers -cannot believe that when a Paris cabman without a fare refuses to stop -on a wet night, it is not because he is hoping for a client in richer -furs, or because he is going to the stables, or because he has earned -enough that night, or because he has an urgent appointment with -his enchantress--but simply from malice. Nevertheless this is a -psychological fact which any experienced Parisian will confirm. On a wet -night the cabman revenges himself upon the _bourgeoisie_ though the base -satisfaction may cost him money. As we waited, with many other princes -of the earth who could afford to throw away a whole louis for a few -hours’ relaxation, as we waited vainly in the wet for a cabman who would -condescend, I could savour only one sensation--that of exasperating -tedium completely achieved. - - - - -III--EVENING WITH EXILES - -I lived up at the top of the house, absolutely alone. After eleven -o’clock in the morning, when my servant left, I was my own doorkeeper. -Like most solitaries in strange places, whenever I heard a ring I had -a feeling that perhaps after all it might be the ring of romance. This -time it was the telegraph-boy. I gave him a penny, because in France, -much more than in England, every one must live, and the notion still -survives that a telegram has sufficient unusualness to demand a tip; the -same with a registered letter. I read the telegram, and my evening lay -suddenly in fragments at my feet. The customary accident, the accident -dreaded by every solitary, had happened. “Sorry, prevented from coming -to-night,” etc. It was not yet six o’clock. I had in front of me a -wilderness of six hours to traverse. In my warm disgust I went at once -out in the streets. My flat had become mysteriously uninhabitable, and -my work repugnant. The streets of Paris, by reason of their hospitality, -are a refuge. - -[Illustration: 0045] - -The last sun of September was setting across the circular Place Blanche. -I sat down at the terrace of the smallest _café_ and drank tea. Exactly -opposite were the crimson wings of the Moulin Rouge, and to the right -was the establishment which then held first place among nocturnal -restaurants in Montmartre. It had the strange charm of a resort which is -never closed, night or day, and where money and time are squandered with -infantile fatuity. Somehow it inspired respect, if not awe. Its terrace -was seldom empty, and at that hour it was always full. Under the -striped and valanced awning sat perhaps a hundred people, all slowly and -deliberately administering to themselves poisons of various beautiful -colours. A crowd to give pause to the divination of even the most -conceited student of human nature, a crowd in which the simplest -bourgeois or artist or thief sat next to men and women exercising the -oldest and most disreputable professions--and it was impossible surely -to distinguish which from which! - -[Illustration: 0051] - -Out of the medley of trams, omnibuses, carts, automobiles, and cabs -that continually rattled over the cobbles, an open _fiacre_ would detach -itself every minute or so, and set down or take up in front of the -terrace. Among these was one carrying two young dandies, an elegantly -dressed girl, and another young girl in a servant’s cap and apron. They -were all laughing and talking together. The dandies and the elegancy got -out and took a vacant table amid the welcoming eager bows of a _maître -d’hotel, a chasseur,_ and a waiter. She was freshly and meticulously -and triumphantly got up, like an elaborate confection of starched linen -fresh from the laundress. Her lips were impeccably rouged. She delighted -the eye by her health and her youth and her pretty insolence. A single -touch would have soiled her, but she had not yet been touched. Her day -had just begun. Probably, her bed was not yet made. The black-robed, -scissored girls of the drapery store at the next angle of the _place_ -were finishing their tenth hour of vigil over goods displayed on the -footpath. And next to that was a creamery where black-robed girls could -obtain a whole day’s sustenance for the price of one glass of poison. -Evidently the young creature had only just arrived at the dignity of a -fashionable dressmaker, and a servant of her own. Her ingenuous vanity -obliged her to show her servant to the _place_, and the ingenuous vanity -of the servant was content to be shown off; for the servant might have -a servant to-morrow--who could tell? The cabman and the servant began to -converse, and presently the cabman in his long fawn coat and white -hat descended and entered the vehicle and sat down by the servant, and -pulled out an illustrated comic paper, and they bent their heads over it -and giggled enormously in unison; he was piling up money at the rate of -at least a sou a minute. Occasionally the young mistress threw a loud -sisterly remark to the servant, who replied gaily. And the two young -dandies bore nobly the difficult _rôle_ of world-worn men who still -count not the cost of smiles. Say what you like, it was charming. It was -one of the reasons why Paris is the city which is always forgiven. Could -one reasonably expect that the bright face of the vapid little siren -should be solemnised by the thought: “To-day I am a day nearer forty -than I was yesterday”? - -The wings of the Moulin Rouge, jewelled now with crimson lamps, began -to revolve slowly. The upper chambers of the restaurant showed lights -behind their mysteriously-curtained windows. The terrace was suddenly -bathed in the calm blue of electricity. No austere realism of the -philosopher could argue away the romance of the scene. - -***** - -I turned down the steep Rue Blanche, and at the foot of it passed by -the shadow of the Trinité, the great church of illicit assignations, -at whose clock scores of frightened and expectant hearts gaze anxiously -every afternoon; and through the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, where -corsets are masterpieces beyond price and flowers may be sold for a -sovereign apiece, and then into the full fever of the grand boulevard -with its maddening restlessness of illuminated signs. The shops and -_cafés_ were all on fire, making two embankments of fire, above which -rose high and mysterious _façades_ masked by trees that looked like the -impossible verdure of an opera. And between the summits of the trees a -ribbon of rich, dark, soothing purple--the sky! This was the city. This -was what the race had accomplished, after eighteen Louises and nearly as -many revolutions, and when all was said that could be said it remained -a prodigious and a comforting spectacle. Every doorway shone with -invitation; every satisfaction and delight was offered, on terms -ridiculously reasonable. And binding everything together were the -refined, neighbourly, and graceful cynical gestures of the race; so -different from the harsh and awkward timidity, the self-centred egotism -and artistocratic hypocrisy of Piccadilly. It seemed difficult to be -lonely amid multitudes that so candidly accepted human nature as human -nature is. It seemed a splendid and an uplifting thing to be there. I -continued southwards, down the narrow, swarming Rue Richelieu, past the -immeasurable National Library on the left and Jean Goujon’s sculptures -of the rivers of France on the right, and past the Theatre Français, -where nice plain people were waiting to see _L’Aventurière_, and across -the arcaded Rue de Rivoli. And then I was in the dark desert of the -Place du Carrousel, where the omnibuses are diminished to toy-omnibuses. -The town was shut off by the vast arms of the Louvre. The purple had -faded out the sky. The wind, heralding October, blew coldly across the -spaces. The artfully arranged vista of the Champs Elysées, rising in -flame against the silhouette of Cleopatra’s needle, struck me as -a meretricious device, designed to impress tourists and monarchs. -Everything was meretricious. I could not even strike a match without -being reminded that a contented and corrupt inefficiency was corroding -this race like a disease. I could not light my cigarette because -somebody, somewhere, had not done his job like an honest man. And thus -it was throughout. - -I wanted to dine, and there were a thousand restaurants within a -mile; but they had all ceased to invite me. I was beaten down by the -overwhelming sadness of one who for the time being has no definite -arranged claim to any friendly attention in a huge city--crowded with -pre-occupied human beings. I might have been George Gissing. I re-wrote -all his novels for him in an instant. I persisted southwards. The tiny -walled river, reflecting with industrious precision all its lights, had -no attraction. The quays, where all the book shops were closed and all -the bookstalls locked down, and where there was never a _café_, were as -inhospitable and chill as Riga. Mist seemed to heave over the river, and -the pavements were oozing damp. - -I went up an entry and rang a bell, thinking to myself: “If he isn’t -in, I am done for!” But at the same moment I caught the sound of a -violoncello, and I knew I was saved, and by a miracle Paris was herself -again. - -***** - -“Not engaged for dinner, are you?” I asked, as soon as I was in the -studio. - -“No. I was just thinking of going out.” - -“Well, let’s go, then.” - -“I was scraping some bits of Gluck.” - -The studio was fairly large, but it was bare, unkempt, dirty, and -comfortless. Except an old sofa, two hard imperfect chairs, and an -untrustworthy table, it had no furniture. Of course, it was littered -with the apparatus of painting. Its sole ornamentation was pictures, and -the pictures were very fine, for they were the painter’s own. He and -his pictures are well known among the painters of Europe and America. -Successful artistically, and with an adequate private income, he was a -full member of the Champ de Mars Salon, and he sold his pictures upon -occasion to Governments. Although a British subject, he had spent nearly -all his life in Paris; he knew the streets and resorts of Paris like a -Frenchman; he spoke French like a Frenchman. I never heard of him going -to England. I never heard him express a desire to go to England. His age -was perhaps fifty, and I dare say that he had lived in that studio for -a quarter of a century, with his violoncello. It was plain, as he stood -there, well dressed, and with a vivacious and yet dreamy eye, that the -zest of life had not waned in him. He was a man who, now as much -as ever, took his pleasure in seeing and painting beautiful, suave, -harmonious things. And yet he stood there unapologetic amid that ugly -and narrow discomfort, with the sheet of music pinned carelessly to an -easel, and lighted by a small ill-regulated lamp with a truncated, dirty -chimney--sole illumination of the chamber! His vivacious and dreamy eye -simply did not see all that, never had seen it, never saw anything that -it did not care to see. Nobody ever heard him multiply words about a bad -picture, for example,--he would ignore it. - -With a gesture of habit that must have taken years to acquire he took a -common rose-coloured packet of caporal cigarettes from the table by the -lamp and offered it to me, pushing one of the cigarettes out beyond its -fellows from behind; you knew that he was always handling cigarettes. - -“It’s not really arranged for ’cello,” he murmured, gazing at the -music, which was an air from _Alceste_, arranged for violin. “You see -it’s in the treble clef.” - -“I wish you’d play it,” I said. - -He sat down and played it, because he was interested in it. With his -greying hair and his fashionable grey suit, and his oldest friend, the -brown ’cello, gleaming between his knees, he was the centre of a small -region of light in the gloomy studio, and the sound of the ’cello -filled the studio. He had no home; but if he had had a home this would -have been his home, and this his home-life. As a private individual, as -distinguished from a public artist, this was what he had arrived at. He -had secured this refuge, and invented this relaxation, in the middle -of Paris. By their aid he could defy Paris. There was something wistful -about the scene, but it was also impressive, at any rate to me, who -am otherwise constituted. He was an exile in the city of exiles; a -characteristic item in it, though of a variety exceedingly rare. But -he would have been equally an exile in any other city. He had no -consciousness of being an exile, of being homeless. He was above -patriotisms and homes. Why, when he wanted even a book he only borrowed -it! - -“Well, shall we go out and eat?” I suggested, after listening to several -lovely airs. - -“Yes,” he said, “I was just going. I don’t think you’ve seen my last -etching. Care to?” - -I did care to see it, but I also desired my dinner. - -“This is a pretty good print, but I shall get better,” he said, holding -the sheet of paper under the lamp. - -“How many shall you print?” I asked. - -“Thirty.” - -“You might put me down for one.” - -“All right. I think it will give you pleasure,” he said with impartial -and dignified conviction. - -After another ten minutes, we were put on the quay. - -“Grand autumn night?” he said appreciatively. “Where shall we have the -_apéritif?_ - -“_Apéritif!_ It’s after eight o’clock, man!” - -“I think we shall have time for an _apéritif_” he insisted, mildly -shocked. - -Drawing-rooms have their ritual. His life, too, had its ritual. - -***** - -At nearly midnight we were sitting, three of us, in a _café_ of the -Montparnasse quarter, possibly the principal _café_ of the Montparnasse -quarter. Neither notorious nor secretly eccentric; but an honest _café_, -in the sense of “honest” applied to certain women. Being situated close -to a large railway terminus, it had a broad and an indulgent attitude -towards life. It would have received a frivolous _habitué_ of the Place -Blanche, or a nun, or a clergyman, with the same placidity. And although -the district was modified, and whole streets, indeed, de-Parisianised -by wandering cohorts of American and English art-amateurs of both sexes, -this _café_ remained, while accepting them, characteristically French. -The cohorts thought they were seeing French life when they entered it; -and they in fact were. - -This _café_ was the chief club of the district, with a multitudinous and -regular _clientèle_ of billiard-players, card-players, draught-players, -newspapers readers, chatterers, and simple imbibers of bock. Its doors -were continually a-swing, and one or the other of the two high-enthroned -caissières was continually lifting her watchful head from the desk to -observe who entered. Its interior seemed to penetrate indefinitely -into the hinterland of the street, and the effect of unendingness was -intensified by means of mirrors, which reflected the shirt-sleeved arms -and the cues of a score of billiard-players. Everywhere the same -lively and expressive and never ungraceful gestures, between the marble -table-tops below and the light-studded ceiling above! Everywhere the -same murmur of confusing pleasant voices broken by the loud chant of -waiters intoning orders at the service-bar, and by the setting down of -heavy glass mugs and saucers upon marble! Over the _café_, unperceived, -unthought of, were the six storeys of a large house comprising perhaps -twenty-five separate and complete homes. - -[Illustration: 0060] - -The third man at our table was another exile, also a painter, but a -Scotchman. He had lived in Paris since everlasting, but before that -rumour said that he had lived for several years immovable at the little -inn of a Norman village. Now, he never left Paris, even in summer. He -exhibited, with marked discretion, only at the Indépendants. Beyond -these facts, and the obvious fact that he enjoyed independent means, -nobody knew anything about him save his opinions. Even his age was -exceedingly uncertain. He looked forty, but there were acquaintances -who said that he had looked forty for twenty years. He was one of those -extremely reserved men who talk freely. Of his hopes, ambitions, ideals, -disappointments, connections, he never said a word, but he did not -refuse his opinion upon any subject, and on every subject he had a -definite opinion which he would express very clearly, with a sort of -polite curtness. His tendency was to cynicism--too cynical to be bitter. -He did not complain of human nature, but he thoroughly believed the -worst of it. These two men, the ’cellist and the Scotchman, were fast -friends; or rather--as it might be argued in the strict sense neither -of them had a friend--they were very familiar acquaintances, each with a -profound respect for the other’s judgment and artistic probity. Further, -the Scotchman admired his companion for a genius, as everybody did. - -They talked together for ever and ever, but not about politics. They -were impatient on politics. Both were apparently convinced that politics -are an artificiality imposed upon society by adventurers and interferes, -and that if such people could be exterminated politics would disappear. -Certainly neither had any interest in the organic aspect of society. -Their political desire was to be let alone. Nor did they often or for -long “talk bawdy”; after opinions had been given which no sensible man -ever confides to more than two reliable others at a time, the Scotchman -would sweep all that away as secondary. Nor did they talk of the events -of the day, unless it might be some titillating crime or mystery such as -will fill whole pages of the newspaper for a week together. They talked -of the arts, all the arts. And although they seemed to be always either -in that _café_, or in their studios, or in bed, they had the air of -being mysteriously but genuinely abreast of every manifestation of art. -And since all the arts are one, and in respect to art they had a real -attitude and real views, all that they said was valuable suggestively, -and their ideas could not by any prodigality be exhausted. As a patron -of the arts even the State interested them, and herein they showed -glimmerings of a social sense. In the intervals of this eternal and -absorbing “art,” they would discuss with admirable restrained gusto -the exacerbating ridiculousness of the cohorts of American and English -art-amateurs who infested and infected the quarter. - -***** - -Little bands of these came into the _café_ from time to time, and -drifting along the aisles of chairs would sit down where they could see -as much as possible with their candid eyes. The girls, inelegant and -blousy; the men, inept in their narrow shrewdness: both equally -naïve, conceited, uncorrupted, and incorruptible, they were absolutely -incapable of appreciating the refined and corrupt decadence, the -stylistic charm, the exquisite tradition of the civilisation at which -they foolishly stared, as at a peep-show. Not a thousand years would -teach them the human hourly art of life as it was subtly practised -by the people whose very language they disdained to learn. When loud -fragments of French phrases, massacred by Americans who had floated on -but not mingled with Paris for years, reached us from an Anglo-Saxon -table, my friends would seem to shudder secretly, ashamed of being -Anglo-Saxon. And if they were obliged to salute some uncouth Anglo-Saxon -acquaintance, and thus admit their own unlatin origin, their eyes would -say: “Why cannot these people be imprisoned at home? Why are not we -alone of Anglo-Saxons permitted to inhabit Paris?” - -Occasionally a bore would complacently present himself for sufferance. -Among these the chief was certainly the man whose existence was an -endless shuttle-work between the various cities where art is or has been -practised, from Munich to Naples. He knew everything about painting, but -he ought to have been a bookmaker. He was notorious everywhere as the -friend of Strutt, Strutt being the very famous and wealthy English -portrait-painter of girls. All his remarks were _àpropos_ of Tommy -Strutt, Tommy Strutt--Tommy. He was invariably full of Tommy. And this -evening he was full of Tommy’s new German model, whose portrait had been -in that year’s Salon.. . . How Tommy had picked her up in the streets of -Berlin; how she was nineteen, and the rage of Berlin, and was asked to -lunch at the embassies, and had received five proposals in three months: -how she refused to sit for any one but Tommy, and even for him would -only sit two hours a day: how Tommy looked after her, and sent her to -bed at nine-thirty of a night, and hired a woman to play with her; and -how Tommy had once telegraphed to her that he was coming to Berlin, and -how she had hired a studio and got it painted and furnished exactly -to his fastidious taste all on her own, and met him at the station and -driven him to the studio, and tea was all ready, etc.; and how pretty -she was.. . . - -“What’s her figure like?” the Scotchman inquired gruffly. - -“The fact is,” said Tommy’s friend, dashed, “I haven’t seen her posing -for the nude. I’ve seen her posing to Tommy in a bathing-costume on the -seashore, but I haven’t yet seen her posing for the nude...” He became -reflective. “My boy, do you know what my old uncle used to say to me -down at the old place in Kildare, when I was a youngster? My old uncle -used to say to me--and he was dying--‘My boy, I’ve always made a rule of -making love to every pretty woman I met. It’s a sound rule. But let me -warn you--you mustn’t expect to get more than five per cent, on your -outlay!’” - -“‘The old place in Kildare!’” murmured the Scotchman, in a peculiarly -significant tone, after Tommy Strutt’s friend had gone; and this was the -only comment on Tommy Strutt’s friend. - -***** - -The talk on art was resumed, the renowned Tommy Strutt being reduced to -his proper level of the third-rate and abruptly dismissed. One o’clock! -A quarter past one! The _café_ was now nearly empty. But these men -had no regard for time. Time did not exist for them, any more than the -structure of society. They were not bored, nor tired. They conversed -with ease, and with mild pleasure in their own irony and in the -disillusioned surety of their judgments. Then I noticed that the waiters -had dwindled to two, and that only one cashier was left enthroned behind -the bar; somewhat later, she too had actually gone! Both had at length -rejoined their families, if any. The idea was startling that these -prim and neat and mechanically smiling women were human, had private -relations, a private life, a bed, a wardrobe. All over Paris, all day, -every day, they sit and estimate the contents of trays, which waiters -present to their practised gaze for an instant only, and receive the -value of the drinks in bone discs, and write down columns of figures in -long ledgers. They never take exercise, nor see the sun; they even eat -in the _café_. Mystic careers!... A quarter to two. Now the chairs had -been brought in from the terrace, and there was only one waiter, and no -other customer that I could see. The waiter, his face nearly as pale -as his apron, eyed us with patient and bland resignation, sure from his -deep knowledge of human habits that sooner or later we should in fact -depart, and well inured to the great Parisian principle that a _café_ -exists for the convenience of its _habitués_. I was uneasy: I was even -aware of guiltiness; but not my friends. - -Then a face looked in at the doorway, as if reconnoitring, and -hesitated. - -“By Jove!” said the violoncellist. “There’s the Mahatma back again! Oh! -He’s seen us!” - -The peering face preceded a sloping body into the _café_, and I was -introduced to a man whose excellent poems I had read in a limited -edition. He was wearing a heavily jewelled red waistcoat, and the -largest ring I ever saw on a human hand. He sat down. The waiter took -his order and intoned it in front of the service-bar, proving that -another fellow-creature was hidden there awaiting our pleasure. When the -Mahatma’s glass was brought, the Scotchman suddenly demanded from the -waiter the total of our modest consumption, and paid it. The Mahatma -said that he had arrived that evening direct from the Himalayas, and -that he had been made or ordained a “khan” in the East. Without -any preface he began to talk supernaturally. As he had known Aubrey -Beardsley, I referred to the rumour that Beardsley had several times -been seen abroad in London after his alleged death. - -“That’s nothing,” he said quickly. “I know a man who saw and spoke to -Oscar Wilde in the Pyrenees at the very time when Oscar was in prison in -England.” - -“Who was the man?” I inquired. - -He paused. “Myself,” he said, in a low tone. - -“Shall we go?” The Scotchman, faintly smiling, embraced his friend and -me in the question. - -We went, leaving the Mahatma bent in solitude over his glass. The waiter -was obviously saying to himself: “It was inevitable that they should -ultimately go, and they have gone.” We had sat for four hours. - -Outside, cabs were still rolling to and fro. After cheerful casual -good-nights, we got indolently into three separate cabs, and went our -easy ways. I saw in my imagination the vista of the thousands of similar -nights which my friends had spent, and the vista of the thousands of -similar nights which they would yet spend. And the sight was majestic, -tremendous. - - - - -IV--BOURGEOIS - -You could smell money long before you arrived at the double portals -of the flat on the second floor. The public staircase was heated; it -mounted broadly upwards and upwards in a very easy slope, and at each -spacious landing was the statue of some draped woman holding aloft a -lamp which threw light on an endless carpet, and on marble mosaics. -There was, indeed, a lift; but who could refuse the majestic invitation -of the staircase, deserted, silent, and mysterious? The bell would -give but one _ting_, and always the same _ting_; it was not an electric -device by which the temperament and mood of the intruder on the mat are -accurately and instantly signalled to the interior. - -The door was opened by the Tante herself--perhaps she had been crossing -from one room to another--and I came into the large entrance-hall, which -even on the brightest summer day was as obscure as a crypt, and -which the architect had apparently meant to be appreciated only after -nightfall. A vast _armoire_ and a vast hat-and-coat stand were features -of it. - -“My niece occupies herself with the children,” the Tante half-whispered, -as she took me into the drawing-room. And in her voice were mingled -pride, affection, and also a certain conspiratorial quality, as though -the mysteries of putting a little boy and a little girl to bed were at -once religious and delicious, and must not be disturbed by loud tones -even afar off. - -She was a stout woman of seventy, dressed in black with a ruching of -white at the neck and the wrists; very erect and active; her hair not -yet entirely grey; an aquiline eye. The soft, fresh white frill at the -wrist made a charming contrast with the experienced and aged hand. She -had been a widow for very many years, and during all those years she had -matched herself against the world, her weapons being a considerable and -secure income, and a quite exceptional natural shrewdness. The result -had left her handsomely the victor. She had an immense but justifiable -confidence in her own judgment and sagacity; her interest in the -spectacle of existence was unabated, and a long and passionate study of -human nature had not embittered her. She was a realist, and a caustic -realist, but she could excuse; she could accept man as she knew him -in his turpitude. Her chief joys were to arrange and rearrange her -“reserves” of domestic goods, to discuss character, and to indicate to -a later generation, out of her terrific experience of Parisian life, the -best methods of defence against the average tradesman and the average -menial. So seldom did anybody get the better of her that, when the -unusual did occur, she could afford to admit the fact with a liberal -laugh: “_Il m’a roulée, celui-là! Il a roulé la vieille!_” - -In a corner of the drawing-room she resumed the topic, always -interesting to her, of my adventures among charwomen, generously -instructing me the whole time in a hundred ways. And when the -conversation dropped she would sigh and go back to something previously -said, and repeat it. “So she polishes the door-knobs every day! Well, -that is a quality, at least.” Then my hostess (her niece-inlaw) came -blandly in: a woman of thirty-five, also in mourning, with a pale, -powdered face and golden hair; benevolent and calm, elegant, but with -the elegance of a confessed mother. - -“_Ça y est?_” asked the Tante, meaning--were the infants at last -couched? - -“_Ça y est_” said the mother, with triumph, with relief, and yet also -with a little regret. - -There was a nurse, but in practice she was only an under-nurse; the -head-nurse was the mother. - -“_Eh bien, mon petit Bennett_,” the mother began, in a new tone, as if -to indicate that she was no longer a mother, but a Parisienne, frivolous -and challenging, “what there that is new?” - -“He is there,” said the Tante, interrupting. - -We heard the noise of the front-door, and by a common instinct we all -rose and went into the hall. - -***** - -The master of the home arrived. He entered like a gust of wind, and -Marthe, the thin old parlourmaid, who had evidently been lying in wait -for him, started back in alarm, but alarm half-simulated. My host, about -the same age as his wife, was a doctor, specialising in the diseases of -women and children, and he had his cabinet on the ground-floor of the -same house. He was late, he was impatient to regain his hearth, he was -proud of his industry; and the simple, instinctive joy of life sparkled -in his eye. - -“Marie,” he cried to his wife. “I love thee!” And kissed her furiously -on both cheeks. - -“It is well,” she responded, calmly smiling, with a sort of flirtatious -condescension. - -“I tell thee I love thee!” he insisted, with his hands on her shoulders. -“Tell me that thou lovest me!” - -“I love thee,” she said calmly. - -“It is very well!” he said, and swinging round to Marthe, giving her his -hat. “Marthe, I love you.” And he caught her a smack on the shoulder. - -[Illustration: 0073] - -“Monsieur hurts me,” the spinster protested. - -“Go then! Go then!” said the Tante, as the beloved nephew directed his -assault upon her in turn. She was grimly proud of him. He flattered -her eye, for, even at his loosest, he had a professional distinction of -deportment which her long-deceased husband, a wholesale tradesman, had -probably lacked. - -“Well, my old one,” the host grasped my hand once more, “you cannot -figure to yourself how it gives me pleasure to have you here!” His voice -was rich with emotion. - -This man had the genius of friendship in a very high degree. His delight -in the society of his friends was so intense and so candid that only the -most inordinately conceited among them could have failed to be aware of -an uncomfortable grave sense of unworthiness, could have failed to say -to themselves fearfully: “He will find me out one day!” - -***** - -The dining-room was large, and massively furnished, and lighted by one -immense shaded lamp that hung low over the table. Among the heavily -framed pictures was a magnificent Jules Dupré, belonging to the Tante. -She had picked it up long ago at a sale for something like ten thousand -francs, apparently while the dealers were looking the other way. It -was a known picture, and one of the Tante’s satisfactions was that some -dealer or other was always trying to relieve her of it, without the -slightest success. She had a story, too, that on the day after the sale -a Duchesse who affected Duprés had sent her footman offering to take the -picture off her at a ten per cent, increase because it would make a -pair with another magnificent Dupré already owned by the Duchesse. “Eh, -well,” the widow of the tradesman had said to the footman, “you will -tell Madame la Duchesse that if she wants my picture she had better come -herself and inquire about it.” In the flat, the Dupré was one of the -great pictures of the world. Safer to sneeze at the Venus de Milo than -at that picture! Another favourite picture, also the property of Tante, -was one by a living and super-modern painter, an acquaintance of another -nephew of hers. I do not think she much cared for it, or that she cared -much for any pictures. She had bought it by a benevolent caprice. “What -would you? He had not the sou. _C’est un très gentil garçon_, of a great -talent, but he was eating all his money with women--with those birds -that you know. And one day it may be worth its price.” - -What always interested me most in the furniture of that dining-room -was not the pictures, nor the ample plate, nor the edifices called -sideboards, etc., but the apron of Marthe, who served. A plain, -unstarched, white apron, without a bib--an apron that no English -parlourmaid would have deigned to wear; but of such fine linen, and -all the exactly geometric creases of its folding visible to the eye as -Marthe passed round and round our four chairs! Whenever I saw that apron -I could see linen-chests, and endless supplies of linen, and Tante and -Marthe fussing over them on quiet afternoons. And it went so well with -her dark-blue shiny frock! When Tante had joined her nephew’s household -she had brought with her Marthe, already old in her service. These two -women were devoted to each other, each in her own way. “Arrive then, -with that sauce, _vieille folle!_” Tante would command; and Marthe, -pursing her lips, would defend herself with a “_Mais madame--!_” There -was no high invisible wall between Marthe and her employers. One was -not worried, as one would have been in England, by the operation of -the detestable and barbaric theory that Marthe was an automaton, -inaccessible to human emotions. I remember seeing in the work-basket -of the wife of a wealthy English socialist a little manual of advice to -domestic servants upon their deportment, and I remember this: “Learn to -control your voice, and always speak in a low voice. Never show by your -demeanour that you have heard any remark which is not addressed to you.” - I wonder what Marthe, who had never worn a cap, nor perhaps seen one, -would have thought of the manual, which possibly was written by a -distressed gentlewoman in order to earn a few shillings. Martha could -smile. She could even laugh and answer back--but within limits. We had -not to pretend that Marthe consisted merely of two ministering hands -animated by a brain, but without a soul. In France a servant works -longer and harder than in England, but she is permitted the constant use -of a soul. - -A simple but an expensive dinner, for these people were the kind of -people that, desiring only the best, were in a position to see that they -had it, and accepted the cost as a matter of course. Moreover, they knew -what the best was, especially the Tante. They knew how to buy. The chief -dish was just steak. But what steak! What a thickness of steak and what -tenderness! A whole cow had lived under the most approved conditions, -and died a violent death, and the very essence of the excuse for it all -lay on a blue and white dish in front of the hostess. Cost according! -Steak; but better steak could not be had in the world! And the -consciousness of this fact was on the calm benignant face of the hostess -and on the vivacious ironic face of the Tante. So with the fruits of the -earth, so with the wine. And the simple, straightforward distribution of -the viands seemed to suit well their character. Into that flat there had -not yet penetrated the grand modern principle that the act of carving is -an obscene act, an act to be done shamefully in secret, behind the -backs of the delicate impressionable. No! The dish of steak was planted -directly in front of the hostess, under her very nose, and beyond the -dish a pile of four plates; and, brazenly brandishing her implements, -the Parisienne herself cut the titbits out of the tit-bit, and -deposited them on plate after plate, which either Marthe took or we -took ourselves, at hazard. Further, there was no embarrassment of -multitudinous assorted knives and forks and spoons. With each course the -diner received the tools necessary for that course. Between courses, if -he wanted a toy for his fingers, he had to be content with a crust. - -During the meal the conversation constantly reverted with pleasure to -the question of food; it was diversified by expressions of the host’s -joy in his home, and the beings therein; and for the rest it did not -ascend higher than heterogeneous personal gossip,--“unstitched,” as the -French say. - -***** - -Instead of going into the drawing-room, we went through a bed-chamber, -into a small room at the back. By taking a circuitous service-passage, -and infringing on the kitchen, we might ultimately have arrived at -that room without passing through the bedchamber; but the proper, the -ceremonious way to it was through the bedchamber. This trifling detail -illuminates the methods of the French architect even when he is building -expensively--methods which persist to the present hour. Admirable at -façades, he is an execrable planner, wasteful and maladroit, as may be -seen even in the most important public buildings in Paris--such as the -Town Hall. In arranging the “disposition” of flats, he exhausts himself -on the principal apartments, and then, fatigued, lets the others -struggle as best they may for light and air and access in the odd -corners of space which remain. Of course, he is strong in the sympathy -of his clients. It is a wide question of manners, stretching from -the finest palaces of France down to the labyrinthine coverts of -industrialism. Up to twenty-five years ago, architects simply did not -consider the factors of either light or ventilation. I have myself lived -in a flat, in one of the best streets of central Paris, of which none -of the eight windows could possibly at any period of the year receive a -single direct gleam of sunlight. Up to twenty-five years ago, nobody had -discovered a reason why, in a domestic interior, a bedroom should not be -a highroad.. . . - -Visualise the magnificent straight boulevard, full of the beautiful -horizontal glidings of trams and automobiles; the lofty and stylistic -frontages; the great carved doors of the house; the quasi-Oriental -entrance and courtyard, shut in from the fracas of the street; the -monumental staircase; the spacious and even splendid dining-room; and -then the bedroom opening directly off it; and then the still smaller -sitting-room opening directly off that; and us there--the ebullient -doctor, his elegant and calm wife, the Tante (on a small chair), -and myself--sitting round a lamp amid a miscellany of bookcases and -oddments. This was the room that the doctor preferred of an evening. He -would say, joyously: “_C’est le décor home!_” - -***** - -A cousin of the host was announced; and his relatives and I smiled -archly, with affectionate malice, before he came in; for it was -notorious that this cousin, an architect by profession, and a bachelor -of forty years standing, had a few days earlier solemnly and definitely -“broken” with his _petite amie_. I knew it. Everybody knew it within the -wide family-radius. It was one of those things that “knew themselves.” - This call was itself a proof that the cousin had dragged his anchor. -Moreover, he embraced his aunt with a certain self-consciousness. He -was a tall, dark-bearded man, well dressed in a dark-grey suit--a good -specimen of French tailoring, but a French tailor cannot use an iron and -he cannot “roll” a collar. A rather melancholy and secretive and flaccid -man, but somewhat hardened and strengthened by the lifelong use of a -private fortune. They all had money--money of their own, independently -of earned money; the wife had money--and I do not think that it occurred -to any of them to live up to his or her income; their resources were -always increasing, and the reserves that the united family could have -brought up to face a calamity must have been formidable. None of them -had ever been worried about money, and by reason of their financial -ideals they were far more solid than a London family receiving, but -spending, thrice their income. - -Marthe came with another coffee cup, and the cousin, when the hostess -had filled it, set it down to go cold, after the French manner. - -“Well, my boy,” said Tante, whose ancient eyes were sparkling with -eagerness. “By what appears, thou art a widower since several days.” - -“How a widower?” - -“Yes,” said the host, “it appears that thou art a widower.” And added -enthusiastically: “I am pretty content to see thee, my old one.” - -The hostess smiled at the widower with sympathetic indulgence. - -“Who has told you?” - -“What! Who has told us? All Paris knows it!” - -“Well,” said the cousin, looking at the carpet and apparently communing -with himself--he always had an air of self-communing, “I suppose it’s -true!” He drank the tenth of a teaspoonful of coffee. - -“Eh, well, my friend,” the Tante commented. “I do not know if thou hast -done well. That did not cost thee too dear, and she had a good-hearted -face.” Tante spoke with an air of special intimacy, because she and the -cousin had kept house together for some years at one period. - -“Thou hast seen her, Tante?” the hostess asked, surprised a little out -of the calm in which she was crocheting. - -“Have I seen her? I believe it well! I caught them together once when I -was driving in the Bois.” - -“That was Antoinette,” said the cousin. - -“It was not Antoinette,” said the Tante. “And thou hast no need to say -it. Thou quittedst Antoinette in ‘96, before I had begun to hire that -carriage. I recall it to myself perfectly.” - -“I suppose now it will be the grand spree,” said the hostess, “during -several months.” - -“The grand spree!” Tante broke in caustically. “Have no fear. The grand -spree--that is not his kind. It is not he who will scatter his money -with those birds. He is not so stupid as that.” She laughed drily. - -“Is she _rosse_, the Tante, all the same!” the host, flowing over with -good nature, comforted his cousin. - -Then Marthe entered again: - -“The children demand monsieur.” - -The host bounded up from his chair. - -“What! The children demand monsieur!” he exploded. “At nine o’clock! It -is not possible that they are not asleep!” - -“They say that monsieur promised to return to them after dinner.” - -“It is true!” he admitted, with a gesture of discovery. “It is true!” - -“I pray thee,” said the mother. “Go at once. And do not excite them.” - -“I think I’ll go with you,” I said. - -“My little Bennett,” the mother leaned towards me, “I supplicate you--at -this hour--” - -“But naturally he will come with me!” the host cried obstreperously. - -We went, down a long narrow passage. There they were in their beds, the -children, in a small bedroom divided into two by a low screen of ribbed -glass, the boy on one side and the girl on the other. The window gave -on to a small subsidiary courtyard. Through the half-drawn curtains the -lighted windows of rooms opposite could be discerned, rising, storey -after storey, up out of sight. A night-light burned on a table. The -nurse stood apart, at the door. The children were lively, but pale. They -had begun to go to school, and, except the journey to and from school, -they seemed to have almost no outdoor exercise. No garden was theirs. -The hall and the passages were their sole playground. And all the best -part of their lives was passed between walls in a habitation twenty-five -or thirty feet above ground, in the middle of Paris. Yet they were very -well. The doctor did not romp with them. No! He simply and candidly -caressed them, girl and boy, in turn, calling them passionately by the -most beautiful names, burying his head in the bedclothes, and fondling -their wild hair. He then entreated them, with genuine humility, to -compose themselves for sleep, and parted last from the girl. - -“She is exquisite--exquisite!” he murmured to me ecstatically, as we -returned up the passage from this excursion. - -She was. - -***** - -In the small sitting-room the cousin was offering to the Tante some -information of a political nature. The Tante kept a judicious eye on -everything in Paris. . - -“What!” The host protested vociferously. “He is again in his politics! -Cousin, I supplicate thee--” - -A good deal of supplication went on there. The host did succeed in -stopping politics. With all the weight of his vivacious good-nature he -bore politics down. The fact was, he had a real objection to politics, -having convinced himself that they were permanently unclean in France. -It was not the measures that he objected to, but the men--all of them -with scarcely an exception--as cynical adventurers. On this point he -was passionate. Politics were incurably futile, horribly _assommant_. He -would not willingly allow them to soil his hearth. - -“What hast thou done lately?” he asked of the cousin, changing the -subject. - -And the talk veered to public amusements. The cousin had been -“distracting himself” amid his sentimental misadventures, by much -theatre-going. They all, except the Tante, went very regularly to -the theatres and to the operas. And not only that, but to concerts, -exhibitions, picture-shows, services in the big churches, and every kind -of diversion frequented by people in easy circumstances and by artists. -There was little that they missed. They exhibited no special taste or -knowledge in any art, but leaned generally to the best among that which -was merely fashionable. They took seriously nearly every craftsman -who, while succeeding, kept his dignity and refrained from being a -mountebank. Thus, they were convinced that dramatists like Edmond -Rostand and Henri Lavedan, actors and actresses like Le Bargy and Cécile -Sorel, painters like Edouard Détaille and La Gandara, composers like -Massenet and Charpentier, critics like Adolphe Brisson and Francis -Chevassu, novelists like René Bazin and Daniel Lesueur, poets like Jean -Riche-pin and Abel Bonnard, were original and first-class, and genuinely -important in the history of their respective arts. On the other hand -their attitude towards the real innovators and shapers of the future -was timidly, but honestly, antipathetic. And they could not, despite any -theorising to the contrary, bring themselves to take quite seriously any -artist who had not been consecrated by public approval. With the most -charming grace they would submit to be teased about this, but it would -have been impossible to tease them out of it. And there was always -a slight uneasiness in the air when they and I came to grips in the -discussion of art. I could almost hear the shrewd Tante saying to -herself: “What a pity this otherwise sane and safe young man is an -artist!” - -“Figure to yourself,” the host would answer me with an adorable, -affectionate mien of apology, when I asked his opinion of a new work by -Maurice Ravel, heard on a Sunday afternoon, “Figure to yourself that we -scarcely liked it.” - -And with the same mien, of a very fashionable comedy in which Lavedan, -Le Bargy, and Julia Bartet had combined to create a terrific success at -the Théâtre Français: - -“Figure to yourself, it was truly very nice, after all! Of course one -might say.. . .” - -The truth was, it had carried them off their feet. - -Upon my soul I think I liked them the better for it all. And, in talking -to them, I understood a little better the real and solid basis upon -which rests all that overwhelming, complex, expensive apparatus of -artistic diversions laid out for the public within a mile radius of the -Place de l’Opéra. There _is_ a public, a genuine public, which desires -ardently to be amused and which will handsomely put down the money for -its amusement. And it is never tired, never satiated. The artist, who -seldom pays, is apt to wonder if any considerable body of persons -pay, is apt to regard the commercial continuance of art as a sort of -inexplicable miracle. But these people paid. They always paid, and -richly. And there were whole streets of large houses full of other -people who shared their tastes and their habits, if not their extreme -attractiveness. - -***** - -I wondered where we should be without them, we artists, as I took leave -of them at something after midnight. My good friend, the melancholy -cousin, had departed. Tante had gone to bed, though she protested she -never slept. We had been drinking weak tea as we wandered about the -dining-room. And now I, obdurate against the host’s supplications not to -desert them so early, was departing too. At the door the hostess lighted -a little taper, and gave it to me. And when the door was opened they -moderated their caressing voices; for a dozen other domestic interiors, -each intricate and complete, gave on the resounding staircase. And with -my little taper I descended through the silence and the darkness of the -staircase. And at the bottom I halted in the black entrance way, and -summoned the concierge out of his sleep to release the catch of the -small door within the great portals. There was a responsive click -immediately, and in the blackness a sudden gleam from the boulevard. -The concierge and his wife, living for ever sunless in a room and a -half beneath all those other interiors, were throughout the night at the -mercy of a call, mine or another’s. “Curious existence!” I thought, as -my shutting of the door echoed about the building, and I stepped into -the illumination of the boulevard. “The concierge is necessary to them. -And without the equivalent of such as they, such as I could not possess -even a decent overcoat!” On the _façade_ of the house every outer -casement was shut. Not a sign of life in it. - - - - -V--CAUSE CÉLÈBRE - -Quite early in the winter evening, before the light had died out of the -sky, central Paris was beginning to be pleasurably excited. The aspect -of the streets and of the _cafés_ showed that. One saw it and heard -it in the gestures and tones of the people; one had a proof of it in -oneself. The whole city was in a state of delightful anxiety; and it was -happy because the result of the night, whatever fate chose to decide, -could not fail to be amusing and even thrilling. All the thoroughfares -converging upon the small and crowded island which is the historical -kernel of Paris, were busier and livelier than usual. In particular, -automobiles thronged--the largest, glossiest, and most silent -automobiles, whose horns were orchestras--automobiles which vied with -motor-omnibuses for imposingness and moved forward with the smooth -majesty of trains. - -[Illustration: 0091] - -There came a point, near the twinkling bridges, where progress was -impossible, where an impalpable obstacle intervened, and vehicles -stood arrested in long treble files, and mysterious words were passed -backwards from driver to driver. But nobody seemed to mind; nobody -seemed impatient; for it was something to be thus definitely and -materially a part of the organised excitement. Hundreds of clever -resourceful persons had had the idea of avoiding the main avenues, -and creeping up unobserved to the centre of attraction by the little -streets. So that all these ancient, narrow, dark lanes that thread -between high and picturesque architectures were busy with automobiles -and carriages. And in the gloom one might see shooting round a corner -the brilliant interior of an automobile, with electric light and flowers -and a pet dog, and a couple of extremely fashionable young women in it, -their eyes sparkling with present joy and the confident expectation -of joy to come. And such young women, utterly correct, were doing the -utterly correct thing. But all these little streets led at last to the -same impalpable obstacle. So that from a high tower, for instance, the -Tour St. Jacques close by, one might have beheld the black masonry of -the centre of attraction as it were beleaguered on every side by the -attacking converging files that were held back by some powerful word; -while the minutes elapsed, and the incandescent signs of shops and -theatres increased in the sky, and the Seine, dividing to clasp -the island, darkened into a lamp-reflecting mirror along which tiny -half-discerned steamers restlessly plied. - -***** - -Despite the powerful word, the Palace of Justice, the centre of -attraction, was tremendously alive and gay with humanity. Traffic could -not be stopped, and was not stopped, and those who had sufficient energy -and perseverance could insinuate themselves into its precincts. The -great gold lamps that flank the staircase of honour gleamed upon a -crowd continually ascending and descending. The outer hall was full -of laughing chatter and of smoke. And barristers, both old and young, -walked to and fro in hieratic converse, waving their cigarettes in sober -curves, and on every one of their faces as they gazed negligently at the -public was the announcement that they could tell “an they would.” All -the interminable intersecting corridors were equally vivacious, with -their diminishing perspectives of stoves against which groups warmed -themselves. Groups of talkers made the circuit of the corridors as it -might have been the circuit of a town, passing a given spot regularly, -and repeating and repeating the same arguments. And the solemn arched -immensity of the Hall of Lost Footsteps was like a Bourse. Here, more -than anywhere else, one had the sense of audience-chambers concealed -behind doors, where fatal doings were afoot; one had the sense of -the terrific vastness and complexity of the Palace wherein scores of -separate ceremonious activities simultaneously proceeded in scores of -different halls. The general public knew only that somewhere within the -Palace, somewhere close at hand, at the end of some particular passage, -guarded doors hid the spectacle whose slightest episode was being -telegraphed to all the cities of the entire civilised world, and the -general public was content, even very content, to be near by. - -The affair was in essence a trifle; merely the trial of a woman for the -murder of her husband. But this woman was a heroic woman; this woman -belonged by right of brain and individual force to the great race of -Thérèse Humbert. Years before, she had moved safely in the background of -a sensational tragedy involving the highest personages of the Republic. -And now in the background of her own tragedy there moved somebody so -high and so potent that no newspaper dared or cared to name his name. -All that was known was that this enigmatic and awful individual existed, -that he was involved, that had he been less sublime he would have had -to appear before the court, that he would not appear, and that justice -would suffer accordingly. In the ordeal of extremest publicity, the -woman had emerged a Titaness. Throughout all her altercations with -judge, advocates, witnesses, and journalists, she had held her own -grandly, displaying not only an astounding force of character, but a -superb appreciation of the theatrical quality of her _rôle_. She was of -a piece with yellow journalism, and the multitude that gapes for yellow -journalism. She was shameless. She was caught again and again in a net -of lies, and she always escaped. She admitted nearly everything: lyings, -adulteries, and manifold deceits; but she would not admit that she knew -anything about the murder of her husband. And even though it was obvious -that the knots by which she was bound when the murder was discovered -were not serious knots, even though she left a hundred incriminating -details unexplained, a doubt concerning her guilt would persist in the -minds of the impartial. She was indubitably a terrible creature, but she -was an enchantress, and she was also beyond question an exceedingly -able housekeeper and hostess. She might be terrible without being a -murderess. - -And now the trial was closing. The verdict, it was stated, would be -rendered that night even if the court sat till midnight. It would be a -pity to keep an amiable public, already on the rack of impatience for -many days, waiting longer. The time was ripe. Further, the woman had had -enough. Her resources were exhausted, and to continue the fight would -mean an anti-climax. The woman had completely lost the respect of the -public--that was inevitable--but she had not lost its admiration. The -attitude of the public was cruel, with the ignoble cruelty which is -practised towards women in Latin countries alone; she had even been -sarcastically sketched in the most respectable illustrated paper in the -attitude of a famous madonna; but beneath the inconceivably base jeers, -there remained admiration; and there remained, too, gratitude--the -gratitude offered to a gladiator who has fought well and provided a -really first-class diversion. - -***** - -The supper-restaurants were visited earlier and were much more crowded -than usual on that night. It was as though the influence of the trial -had been aphrodisiacal. Or it may have been that the men and women of -pleasure wished to receive the verdict in circumstances worthy of its -importance in the annals of pleasure. Or it may have been that dinner -had been deranged by the excitations connected with the trial and that -people felt honestly hungry. I went into one of these restaurants, in -a square whose buildings are embroidered with inviting letters of fire -until dawn every morning throughout the year. A stern attendant took me -up in a lift, and instantly I had quitted the sternness of the lift I -was in another atmosphere. There was the bar, and there the illustrious -English barman, drunk. For in these regions the barman must always be -English and a little drunk. The barman knows everybody, and not to know -his Christian name and the feel of his hand is to be nobody. This -barman is a Parisian celebrity. But let an accident or a misadventure -disqualify him from his work, and he will be forgotten utterly in less -than a week. And in his martyred old age he will certainly recount to -charitable acquaintances, who find him ineffably tedious, how he was -barman at the unique Restaurant Lepic in the old days when fun was -really fun, and the most appalling iniquity was openly tolerated by the -police. - -The bar and the barman and the cloak-room attendant (another man of -genius) are only the prelude to the great supper-hall, which is simply -and completely dazzling, with its profuse festoons of electric bulbs, -its innumerable naked shoulders, arms, and bosoms, its fancy costumes, -its bald heads, its music, clatter, and tinkle, and its desperate -gaiety. To go into it is like going into a furnace of sensuality. It can -be likened to nothing but an orange-lit scene of Roman debauch in a play -written and staged by Mr. Hall Caine. One feels that one has been unjust -in one’s attitude to Mr. Hall Caine’s claims as a realist. - -Although the restaurant will positively not hold any more revellers, -more revellers insist on coming in, and fresh tables are produced by -conjuring and placed for them between other tables, until the whole mass -of wood and flesh is wedged tight together and waiters have to perform -prodigies of insinuation. The effect of these multitudinous wasters is -desolating, and even pathetic. It is the enormous stupidity of the mass -that is pathetic, and its secret tedium that is desolating. At their -wits’ end how to divert themselves, these bald heads pass the time in -capers more antique and fatuous than were ever employed at a village -wedding. Some of them find distraction in monstrous gorging--and -beefsteaks and fried potatoes and spicy sauces go down their throats -in a way to terrorise the arthritic beholder. Others merely drink. -Some quarrel, with the boneless persistency of intoxication. One falls -humorously under a table, and is humorously fished up by the red-coated -leader of the orchestra: it is a marked success of esteem. Many are -content to caress the bright odalisques with fond, monotonous vacuity. A -few of these odalisques, and the waiters, alone save the spectacle from -utter humiliation. The waiters are experts engaged in doing their job. -The industry of each night leaves them no energy for dissoluteness. They -are alert and determined. Their business is to make stupidity as -lavish as possible, and they succeed. To see them surveying with cold -statistical glances the field of their operations, to listen to their -indestructible politeness, to divine the depth of their concealed -scorn--this is a pleasure. And some of the odalisques are beautiful. -Fine women in the sight of heaven! They too are experts, with the hard -preoccupation of experts. They are at work; and this is the battle of -life. They inspire respect. It is--it is the dignity of labour. - -[Illustration: 0099] - -Suddenly it is announced that the jury at the Palace are about to -deliver their verdict. Nobody knows how the news has come, nor even who -first spoke it in the restaurant. But there it is. Humorous guffaws of -relief are vented. The fever of the place becomes acute, with a decided -influence on the consumption of champagne. The accused lady is toasted -again and again. Of course, she had been, throughout, the solid backbone -of the chatter; but now she was all the chatter. And everybody recounted -again to everybody else every suggestive rumour of her iniquity that had -appeared in any newspaper for months past. She was tried over again in -a moment, and condemned and insulted and defended, and consistently -honoured with libations. She had never been more truly heroic, more -legendary, than she was then. - -The childlike company loudly demanded the verdict, with their tongues -and with their feet. - -A beautiful young girl of about eighteen, the significant features -of whose attire were long black stockings and a necklace, said to a -gentleman who was helping her to eat a vast _entrecote_ and to drink -champagne: - -“If it comes not soon, it will be too late.” - -“The verdict?” said the fatuous swain. “How?--too late?” - -“I shall be too drunk,” said the girl, apparently meaning that she would -be too drunk to savour the verdict and to get joy from it. She spoke -with mournful and slightly disgusted certainty, as though anticipating a -phenomenon which was absolutely regular and absolutely inevitable. - -And then, on a table near the centre of the room, instead of plates and -glasses appeared a child-dancer who might have been Spanish or Creole, -but who probably had never been out of Montmartre. This child seemed to -be surrounded by her family seated at the table--by her mother and her -aunts and a cousin or so, all with simple and respectable faces, naïvely -proud of and pleased with the child. From their expressions, the -child might have been cutting bread and butter on the table instead of -dancing. The child danced exquisitely, but her performance could not -moderate the din. It was a lovely thing gloriously wasted. The one -feature of it that was not wasted on the intelligence of the company was -the titillating contrast between the little girl’s fresh infancy and the -advanced decomposition of her environment. - -She ceased, and disappeared into her family. The applause began, but -it was mysteriously and swiftly cut short. Why did every one by a -simultaneous impulse glance eagerly in the direction of the door? Why -was the hush so dramatic? A voice--whose?--cried near the doorway: - -“_Acquittée!_” - -And all cried triumphantly: “_Acquittée! Acquittée! Acquittée! -Acquittée!_” Happy, boisterous Bedlam was created and let loose. Even -the waiters forgot themselves. The whole world stood up, stood on -chairs, or stood on tables; and shouted, shrieked, and whistled. But -the boneless drunkards were still quarrelling, and one bald head had -retained sufficient presence of mind to wear a large oyster-shell -facetiously for a hat. And then the orchestra, inspired, struck into -a popular refrain of the moment, perfectly apposite. And all sang with -right good-will: - -“_Le lendemain elle était sonnante_.” - - - - -VI--RUSSIAN IMPERIAL BALLET AT THE OPERA - -Sylvain’s is the only good restaurant in the centre of Paris where you -can dine in the open air, that is to say, in the street. Close by, the -dark, still mass of the Opéra rises hugely out of the dusk and out of -the flitting traffic at its base. Sylvain’s is full of diners who have -no eyes to see beyond the surfaces of things. - -By virtue of a contract made between Sylvain’s and the city, the diners -are screened off from the street and from the twentieth century by a row -of high potted evergreens. Pass within the screen, and you leave behind -you the modern epoch. The Third Republic recedes; the Second Empire -recedes; Louis-Philippe has never been, nor even Napoleon; the -Revolution has not begun to announce itself. You are become suddenly -a _grand seigneur_. Every gesture and tone of every member of the -_personnel_ of Sylvain’s implores your excellency with one word: - -“Deign!” - -It is curious that while a modern shopkeeper who sells you a cigar or an -automobile or a quarter of lamb does not think it necessary to make you -a noble of the _ancien régime_ before commencing business, a shopkeeper -who sells you cooked food could not omit this preliminary without losing -his self-respect. And it is the more curious since all pre-democratic -books of travel are full of the cheek of these particular shopkeepers. -Such tales of old travellers could scarcely be credited, in spite -of their unison, were it not that the ancient tradition of rapacious -insolence still survives in wild and barbaric spots like the cathedral -cities of England. - -Your excellency, attended by his gentlemen-in-waiting (who apparently -never eat, never want to eat), in the intervals of the ceremonious -collation will gaze with interest at the Opéra, final legacy of the -Empire to the Republic. A great nation owes it to itself to possess a -splendid opera-palace. Art must be fostered. The gracious amenities of -life must be maintained. And this is the State’s affair. The State has -seen to it. The most gorgeous building in Paris is not the legislative -chamber, nor the hall of the University, nor the clearing-house of -charity. It is the Opéra. The State has paid for it, and the State pays -every year for its maintenance. That is, the peasant chiefly pays. There -is not a peasant in the farthest corner of France who may not go to bed -at dark comforted by the thought that the Opéra in Paris is just -opening its cavalry-sentinelled doors, and lighting its fifteen thousand -electric candles, and that he is helping to support all that. Paris does -not pay; the _habitués_ of the Opéra do not pay; the yawning tourists -do not pay; the grandiose classes do not pay. It is the nation, as a -nation, that accepts the burden, because the encouragement of art is a -national duty. (Moreover, visiting monarchs have to be diverted.) Of one -sort or another, from the tenor to the vendor of programmes, there are -twelve hundred priests and priestesses of art in the superb building. -A few may be artists. But it is absolutely certain that all are -bureaucrats. - -The Opéra is the Circumlocution Office. The Opéra is a State department. -More, it is probably the most characteristic of all the State -departments, and the most stubbornly reactionary. The nominal director, -instead of being omnipotent and godlike, is only a poor human being -whose actions are the resultant of ten thousand forces that do not fear -him. The Opéra is above all the theatre of secret influences. Every -mystery of its enormous and wasteful inefficiency can be explained -either by the operation of the secret influence or by the operation of -the bureaucratic mind. If the most tedious operas are played the most -often, if the stage is held by singers who cannot sing, if original -artists have no chance there, if the blight of a flaccid perfunctoriness -is upon nearly all the performances, if astute mothers can sell the -virginity of their dancing daughters to powerful purchasers in the -wings, the reason is a reason of State. The Opéra is the splendid -prey of the high officers of State. If such a one wants an evening’s -entertainment, or a mistress, or to get rid of a mistress, the Opéra is -there, at his disposition. The _foyer de la danse_ is the most wonderful -seraglio in the western world, and it is reserved to the Government and -to subscribers. Thus is art fostered, and for this does the peasant pay. - -Nevertheless the Opéra is a beautiful and impressive sight in the late, -warm dusk of June. Against the deep purple sky the monument stands up -like a mountain; and through its innumerable windows--holes in the -floor of heaven--can be glimpsed yellow clusters of candelabra and -perspectives of marble pillars and frescoed walls. And at the foot of -the gigantic _façade_ little brightly coloured figures are running -up the steps and disappearing eagerly within: they are the world of -fashion, and they know that they are correct and that the Opéra is the -Opéra. - -***** - -I looked over the crimson plush edge of the box down into Egypt, where -Cleopatra was indulging her desires; into a civilisation so gorgeous, -primitive, and far-off that when compared to it the eighteenth and the -twentieth centuries seemed as like as two peas in their sophistication -and sobriety. Cleopatra had set eyes on a youth, and a whim for him had -taken her. By no matter what atrocious exercise of power and infliction -of suffering, that whim had to be satisfied on the instant. It was -satisfied. And a swift homicide left the Queen untrammelled by any -sentimental consequences. The whole affair was finished in a moment, and -the curtain falling on all that violent and gorgeous scene. In a moment -this Oriental episode, interpreted by semi-Oriental artists, had made -all the daring prurient suggestiveness of French comedy seem timid and -foolish. It was a revelation. A new standard was set, and there was not -a vaudevillist in the auditorium but knew that neither he nor his -interpreters could ever reach that standard. The simple and childlike -gestures of the slave-girls as with their bodies and their veils they -formed a circular tent to hide Cleopatra and her lover--these gestures -took away the breath of protest. - -[Illustration: 0107] - -The St. Petersburg and the Moscow troupes, united, of the Russian -Imperial Ballet, had been brought to Paris, at vast expense and -considerable loss, to present this astounding spectacle of mere -magnificent sanguinary lubricity to the cosmopolitan fashion of Paris. -There the audience actually was, rank after rank of crowded toilettes -rising to the dim ceiling, young women from the Avenue du Bois and young -women from Arizona, and their protective and possessive men. And nobody -blenched, nobody swooned. The audience was taken by assault. The West -End of Europe was just staggered into acceptance. As yet London has seen -only fragments of Russian ballet. But London may and probably will see -the whole. Let there be no qualms. London will accept also. London might -be horribly scared by one-quarter of the audacity shown in _Cleopatra_, -but it will not be scared by the whole of that audacity. An overdose of -a fatal drug is itself an antidote. The fact is, that the spectacle was -saved by a sort of moral nudity, and by a naïve assurance of its own -beauty. Oh! It was extremely beautiful. It was ineffably more beautiful -than any other ballet I had ever seen. An artist could feel at once -that an intelligence of really remarkable genius had presided over its -invention and execution. It was masterfully original from the beginning. -It continually furnished new ideals of beauty. It had drawn its -inspiration from some rich fountain unknown to us occidentals. Neither -in its scenery, nor in its grouping, nor in its pantomime was there any -clear trace of that Italian influence which still dominates the European -ballet. With a vengeance it was a return to nature and a recommencement. -It was brutally direct. It was beastlike; but the incomparable tiger is -a beast. It was not perverse. It was too fresh, zealous, and alive to be -perverse. Personally I was conscious of the most intense pleasure that -I had experienced in a theatre for years. And this was Russia! This -was the country that had made such a deadly and disgusting mess of the -Russo-Japanese War. - -***** - -The box was a stage-box. It consisted of a suite of two drawing-rooms, -softly upholstered, lit with electric light, and furnished with -easy-chairs and mirrors. A hostess might well have offered tea to a -score of guests therein. And as a fact there were a dozen people in it. -Its size indicated the dimensions of the auditorium, in which it was -a mere cell. The curious thing about it was the purely incidental -character of its relation to the stage. The front of it was a narrow -terrace, like the mouth of a bottle, which offered a magnificent -panorama of the auditorium, with a longitudinal slice of the stage -at one extremity. From the terrace one glanced vertically down at the -stage, as at a street-pavement from a first-storey window. Three persons -could be comfortable, and four could be uncomfortable, on the terrace. -One or two more, by leaning against chair-backs and coiffures, could see -half of the longitudinal slice of the stage. The remaining half-dozen -were at liberty to meditate in the luxurious twilight of the -drawing-room. The Republic, as operatic manager, sells every night some -scores, and on its brilliant nights some hundreds, of expensive seats -which it is perfectly well aware give no view whatever of the stage: -another illustration of the truth that the sensibility of the conscience -of corporations varies inversely with the size of the corporation. - -[Illustration: 0111] - -But this is nothing. The wonderful aspect of the transaction is that -purchasers never lack. They buy and suffer; they buy again and suffer -yet again; they live on and reproduce their kind. There was in the -hinterland of the box a dapper, vivacious man who might (if he had -wasted no time) have been grandfather to a man as old as I. He was -eighty-five years old, and he had sat in boxes of an evening for over -sixty years. He talked easily of the heroic age before the Revolution of -‘48, when, of course, every woman was an enchantress, and the farces at -the Palais Royal were _really_ amusing. He could pipe out whole pages -of farce. Except during the _entr’actes_ this man’s curiosity did not -extend beyond the shoulders of the young women on the terrace. For him -the spectacle might have been something going on round the corner of the -next street. He was in a spacious and discreet drawing-room; he had the -habit of talking; talking was an essential part of his nightly hygiene; -and he talked. Continually impinging, in a manner fourth-dimensional, on -my vision of Cleopatra’s violent afternoon, came the “_Je me rappelle_” - of this ancient. Now he was in Rome, now he was in London, and now he -was in Florence. He went nightly to the Pergola Theatre when Florence -was the capital of Italy. He had tales of kings. He had one tale of -a king which, as I could judge from the hard perfection of its -phraseology, he had been repeating on every night-out for fifty years. -According to this narration he was promenading the inevitable pretty -woman in the Cascine at Florence, when a heavily moustached person _en -civil_ flashed by, driving a pair of superb bays, and he explained not -without pride to the pretty woman that she looked on a king. - -“It is _that_, the king?” exclaimed the pretty _ingénue_ too loudly. - -And with a grand bow (of which the present generation has lost the -secret) the moustaches, all flashing and driving, leaned from the -equipage and answered: “Yes, madame, it is _that_, the king.” - -“_Et si vous avez vu la tête de la dame...!_” - -In those days society existed. - -[Illustration: 0115] - -I should have heard many more such tales during the _entr’acte_, but I -had to visit the stage. Strictly, I did not desire to visit the stage, -but as I possessed the privilege of doing so, I felt bound in pride to -go. I saw myself at the great age of eighty-five recounting to somebody -else’s grandchildren the marvels that I had witnessed in the _coulisses_ -of the Paris Opéra during the unforgettable season of the Russian -Imperial Ballet in the early years of the century, when society existed. - -At an angle of a passage which connects the auditorium with the tray -(the stage is called the tray, and those who call the stage the stage at -the Opéra are simpletons and lack guile) were a table and a chair, and, -partly on the chair and partly on the table, a stout respectable man: -one of the twelve hundred. He looked like a town-councillor, and his -life-work on this planet was to distinguish between persons who had the -entry and persons who had not the entry. He doubted my genuineness at -once, and all the bureaucrat in him glowered from his eyes. Yes! My -card was all right, but it made no mention of madame. Therefore, I might -pass, but madame might not. Moreover, save in cases very exceptional, -ladies were not admitted to the tray. So it appeared! I was up against -an entire department of the State. Human nature is such that at that -moment, had some power offered me the choice between the ability to -write a novel as fine as _Crime and Punishment_ and the ability to -triumph instantly over the pestilent town-councillor, I would have -chosen the latter. I retired in good order. “You little suspect, -town-councillor,” I said to him within myself, “that I am the guest of -the management, that I am extremely intimate with the management, and -that, indeed, the management is my washpot!” At the next _entr’acte_ I -returned again with an omnipotent document which instructed the -whole twelve hundred to let both monsieur and madame pass anywhere, -everywhere. The town-councillor admitted that it was perfect, so far as -it went. But there was the question of my hat to be considered. I was -not wearing the right kind of hat! The town councillor planted both his -feet firmly on tradition, and defied imperial passports. “Can you have -any conception,” I cried to him within myself, “how much this hat cost -me at Henry Heath’s?” Useless! Nobody ever had passed, and nobody ever -would pass, from the auditorium to the tray in a hat like mine. It was -unthinkable. It would be an outrage on the Code Napoléon.... After all, -the man had his life-work to perform. At length he offered to keep -my hat for me till I came back. I yielded. I was beaten. I was put to -shame. But he had earned a night’s repose. - -***** - -The famous, the notorious _foyer de la danse_ was empty. Here was an -evening given exclusively to the ballet, and not one member of the -corps had had the idea of exhibiting herself in the showroom specially -provided by the State as a place or rendezvous for ladies and gentlemen. -The most precious quality of an annual subscription for a seat at the -Opéra is that it carries with it the entry to the _foyer de la danse_ -(provided one’s hat is right); if it did not, the subscriptions to the -Opéra would assuredly diminish. And lo! the gigantic but tawdry mirror -which gives a factitious amplitude to a room that is really small, did -not reflect the limbs of a single dancer! The place had a mournful, -shabby-genteel look, as of a resort gradually losing fashion. It was -tarnished. It did not in the least correspond with a young man’s dreams -of it. Yawning tedium hung in it like a vapour, that tedium which is the -implacable secret enemy of dissoluteness. This, the _foyer de la danse_, -where the insipidly vicious heroines of Halévy’s ironic masterpiece -achieved, with a mother’s aid, their ducal conquests! It was as cruel -a disillusion as the first sight of Rome or Jerusalem. Its -meretriciousness would not have deceived even a visionary parlour-maid. -Nevertheless, the world of the Opéra was astounded at the neglect of its -hallowed _foyer_ by these young women from St. Petersburg and Moscow. I -was told, with emotion, that on only two occasions in the whole season -had a Russian girl wandered therein. The legend of the sobriety and -the chastity of these strange Russians was abroad in the Opéra like a -strange, uncanny tale. Frankly, Paris could not understand it. Because -all these creatures were young, and all of them conformed to some -standard or other of positive physical beauty! They could not be old, -for the reason that a ukase obliged them to retire after twenty years’ -service at latest; that is, at about the age of thirty-six, a time of -woman’s life which on the Paris stage is regarded as infancy. Such -a ukase must surely have been promulgated by Ivan the Terrible or -Catherine!. . . No! - -Paris never recovered from the wonder of the fact that when they were -not dancing these lovely girls were just honest misses, with apparently -no taste for bank-notes and spiced meats, even in the fever of an -unexampled artistic and fashionable success. - -[Illustration: 0119] - -Amid the turmoil of the stage, where the prodigiously original -peacock-green scenery of _Scheherazade_ was being set, a dancer could -be seen here and there in a corner, waiting, preoccupied, worried, -practising a step or a gesture. I was clumsy enough to encounter one of -the principals who did not want to be encountered; we could not escape -from each other. There was nothing for it but to shake hands. His face -assumed the weary, unwilling smile of conventional politeness. His -fingers were limp. - -“It pleases you?” - -“Enormously.” - -I turned resolutely away at once, and with relief he lapsed back into -his preoccupation concerning the half-hour’s intense emotional and -physical labour that lay immediately in front of him. In a few moments -the curtain went up, and the terrific creative energy of the troupe -began to vent itself. And I began to understand a part of the secret of -the extreme brilliance of the Russian ballet. - -***** - -The brutality of _Scheherazade_ was shocking. It was the Arabian Nights -treated with imaginative realism. In perusing the Arabian Nights we -never try to picture to ourselves the manners of a real Bagdad; or we -never dare. We lean on the picturesque splendour and romantic poetry -of certain aspects of the existence portrayed, and we shirk the -basic facts: the crudity of the passions, and the superlative cruelty -informing the whole social system. For example, we should not dream of -dwelling on the more serious functions of the caliphian eunuchs. - -In the surpassing fury and magnificence of the Russian ballet one saw -eunuchs actually at work, scimitar in hand. There was the frantic orgy, -and then there was the barbarous punishment, terrible and revolting; -certainly one of the most sanguinary sights ever seen on an occidental -stage. The eunuchs pursued the fragile and beautiful odalisques with -frenzy; in an instant the seraglio was strewn with murdered girls in -all the abandoned postures of death. And then silence, save for the hard -breathing of the executioners!... A thrill! It would seem incredible -that such a spectacle should give pleasure. Yet it unquestionably did, -and very exquisite pleasure. The artists, both the creative and the -interpretative, had discovered an artistic convention which was at once -grandiose and truthful. The passions displayed were primitive, but they -were ennobled in their illustration. The performance was regulated -to the least gesture; no detail was unstudied; and every moment was -beautiful; not a few were sublime. - -[Illustration: 0125] - -And all this a by-product of Russian politics! If the politics of France -are subtly corrupt; if anything can be done in France by nepotism and -influence, and nothing without; if the governing machine of France is -fatally vitiated by an excessive and unimaginative centralisation--the -same is far more shamefully true of Russia. The fantastic inefficiency -of all the great departments of State in Russia is notorious and -scandalous. But the Imperial ballet, where one might surely have -presumed an intensification of every defect (as in Paris), happens to be -far nearer perfection than any other enterprise of its kind, public or -private. It is genuinely dominated by artists of the first rank; it is -invigorated by a real discipline; and the results achieved approach the -miraculous. The pity is that the moujik can never learn that one, at any -rate, of the mysterious transactions which pass high up over his head, -and for which he is robbed, is in itself honest and excellent. An -alleviating thought for the moujik, if only it could be knocked into -his great thick head! For during the performance of the Russian Imperial -Ballet at the Paris Opéra, amid all the roods of toilettes and expensive -correctness, one thinks of the moujik; or one ought to think of him. -He is at the bottom of it. See him in Tchekoff’s masterly tale, _The -Moujiks_, in his dirt, squalor, drunkenness, lust, servitude, and -despair! Realise him well at the back of your mind as you watch the -ballet! Your delightful sensations before an unrivalled work of art are -among the things he has paid for. - -***** - -Walking home, I was attracted, within a few hundred yards of the Opéra, -by the new building of the Magasins du Printemps. Instead of being -lighted up and all its galleries busy with thousands of women in search -of adornment, it stood dark and deserted. But at one of the entrances -was a feeble ray. I could not forbear going into the porch and putting -my nose against the glass. The head-watchman was seated in the centre of -the ground-floor chatting with a colleague. With a lamp and chairs they -had constructed a little domesticity for themselves in the middle of -that acreage of silks and ribbons and feathers all covered now with pale -dust-sheets. They were the centre of a small sphere of illumination, and -in the surrounding gloom could be dimly discerned gallery after gallery -rising in a slender lacework of iron. The vision of Bagdad had been -inexpressibly romantic; but this vision also was inexpressibly romantic. -There was something touching in the humanity of those simple men amid -the vast nocturnal stillness of that organism--the most spectacular, -the most characteristic, the most spontaneous, and perhaps the most -beautiful symbol of an age which is just as full of romance as any other -age. The human machine and the scenic panorama of the big shop have -always attracted me, as in Paris so in London. And looking at this -particular, wonderful shop in its repose I could contemplate better the -significance of its activity. What singular ideals have the women who -passionately throng it in the eternal quest! I say “passionately,” - because I have seen eyes glitter with fierce hope in front of a skunk -boa or the tints of a new stuff, translating instantly these material -things into terms of love and adoration. What cruelty is hourly -practised upon the other women who must serve and smile and stand on -their feet in the stuffiness of the heaped and turbulent galleries -eleven hours a day six full days a week; and upon the still other -women, unpresentable, who in their high garrets stitch together these -confections! And how fine and how inspiriting it all is, this fever, and -these delusive hopes, and this cruelty! The other women are asleep now, -repairing damage; but in a very few hours they will be converging here -in long hurried files from the four quarters of Paris, in their enforced -black, and tying their black aprons, and pinning on their breasts -the numbered discs which distinguish them from one another in the -judgment-books of the shop. They will be beginning again. The fact is -that Bagdad is nothing to this. Only people are so blind. - - - - -LIFE IN LONDON--1911 - - - - -I--THE RESTAURANT - -You have a certain complacency in entering it, because it is one of the -twenty monster restaurants of London. The name glitters in the public -mind. “Where shall we dine?” The name suggests itself; by the immense -force of its notoriety it comes unsought into the conversation like -a thing alive. “All right! Meet you in the Lounge at 7.45.” You -feel--whatever your superficial airs--that you are in the whirl of -correctness as you hurry (of course late) out of a taxi into the Lounge. -There is something about the word “Lounge”. . .! Space and freedom -in the Lounge, and a foretaste of luxury; and it is inhabited by the -haughty of the earth! You are not yet a prisoner, in the Lounge. Then an -official, with the metallic insignia of authority, takes you apart. - -[Illustration: 0133] - -He is very deferential--but with the intimidating deference of a limited -company that pays forty per cent. You can go upstairs--though he doubts -if there is immediately a table--or you can go downstairs. (Strange, how -in the West-End, when once you quit the street, you must always go up or -down; the planet’s surface is forbidden to you; you lose touch with it; -the ground-landlord has taken it and hidden it-) You go downstairs; you -are hypnotised into going downstairs; and you go down, and down, one of -a procession, until a man, entrenched in a recess furnished to look like -a ready-made tailor’s, accepts half your clothing and adds it to -his stock. He does not ask for it; he need not; you are hypnotised. -Stripped, you go further down and down. You are now part of the -tremendous organism; you have left behind not merely your clothing, but -your volition; your number is in your hand. - -Suddenly, as you pass through a doorway, great irregular vistas of a -subterranean chamber discover themselves to you, limitless. You perceive -that this wondrous restaurant ramifies under all London, and that a -table on one verge is beneath St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a table on -the other verge beneath the Albert Memorial. All the tables--all the -thousands of tables--are occupied. An official comes to you, and, -putting his mouth to your ear (for the din is terrific), tells you that -he will have a table for you in three minutes. You wait, forlorn. It -reminds you of waiting at the barber’s for a shave, except that the -barber gives you an easy-chair and a newspaper. Here you must stand; and -you must gather your skirts about you and stand firm to resist the shock -of blind waiters. Others are in your case; others have been waiting -longer than you, and at every moment more arrive. You wait. The diners -see you waiting, and you wonder whether they are eating slowly on -purpose.... At length you are led away--far, far from the pit’s mouth -into a remote working of the mine. You watch a man whisk away foul -plates and glasses, and cover offence with a pure white cloth. You -sit. You are saved! And human nature is such that you feel positively -grateful to the limited company.. . . - -***** - -You begin to wait again, having been deserted by your saviours. And then -your wandering attention notices behind you, under all the other sounds, -a steady sound of sizzling. And there fat, greasy men, clothed and -capped in white, are throwing small fragments of animal carcases on to -a huge, red fire, and pulling them off in the nick of time, and flinging -them on to plates which are continually being snatched away by flying -hands. The grill, as advertised! And you wait, helpless, through a -period so long that if a live cow and a live sheep had been led into the -restaurant to satisfy the British passion for realism in eating, there -would have been time for both animals to be murdered, dismembered, and -fried before the gaze of a delighted audience. But fear not. The deity -of the organism, though unseen, is watching over you. You have not been -omitted from the divine plan. Presently a man approaches with a gigantic -menu, upon which are printed the names of hundreds of marvellous dishes, -and you can have any of them--and at most reasonable prices. Only, -you must choose at once. You must say instantly to the respectful but -inexorable official exactly what you will have. You are lost in the menu -as in a labyrinth, as in a jungle at nightfall.... Quick! For, as you -have waited, so are others waiting! Out with it! You drop the menu. -“Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding--Guinness.” The magic phrase releases -you. In the tenth of a second the official has vanished. A railway -truck laden with the gifts of Cuba and Sumatra and the monks of the -Chartreuse, sweeps majestically by, blotting out the horizon; and lo! -no sooner has it glided past than you see men hastening towards you with -plates and bottles. With an astounding celerity the beef and the stout -have, arrived--out of the unknown and the unknowable, out of some secret -place in the centre of the earth, where rows and rows of slices of beef -and bottles of stout wait enchanted for your word. - -All the thousands of tables scintillate with linen and glass and silver, -and steel and ivory, and are bright with flowers; ten thousand blossoms -have been wrenched from their beds and marshalled here in captive -regiments to brighten the beef and stout on which your existence -depends. The carpet is a hot crimson bed of flowers. The whole of the -ceiling is carved and painted and gilded; not a square inch of repose -in the entire busy expanse of it; and from it thousands of blinding -electric bulbs hang down like stalactites. The walls are covered with -enormous mirrors, perversely studded with gold nails, and framed in gold -sculpture. And these mirrors fling everything remorselessly back at -you. So that the immensity and glow of the restaurant are multiplied -to infinity. The band is fighting for its life. An agonised violinist, -swaying and contorting in front of the band, squeezes the last drop -of juice out of his fiddle. The “selection” is “_Carmen_” But “Carmen” - raised to the second power, with every _piano, forte, allegro, and -adagio_ exaggerated to the last limit; “_Carmen_” composed by Souza and -executed by super-Sicilians; a “_Carmen_” deafening and excruciating! -And amid all this light and sound, amid the music and the sizzling, and -the clatter of plates and glass, and the reverberation of the mirrors, -and the whirring of the ventilators, and the sheen of gold, and the -harsh glitter of white, and the dull hum of hundreds of strenuous -conversations, and the hoarse cries of the pale demons at the fire, -and the haste, and the crowdedness, and the people waiting for your -table--you eat. You practise the fine art of dining. - -[Illustration: 0141] - -In a paroxysm the music expires. The effect is as disconcerting as -though the mills of God had stopped. Applause, hearty and prolonged, -resounds in the bowels of the earth.. . . You learn that the organism -exists because people really like it. - -***** - -This is a fearful and a romantic place. Those artists who do not tingle -to the romance of it are dead and have forgotten to be buried. The -romance of it rises grandiosely storey beyond storey. For you must -know that while you are dining in the depths, the courtesans, and their -possessors are dining in the skies. And the most romantic and impressive -thing about it all is the invisible secret thoughts, beneath the -specious bravery, of the uncountable multitude gathered together under -the spell of the brains that invented the organism. Can you not look -through the transparent faces of the young men with fine waistcoats and -neglected boots, and of the young women with concocted hats and insecure -gay blouses, and of the waiters whose memories are full of Swiss -mountains and Italian lakes and German beer gardens, and of the -violinist who was proclaimed a Kubelik at the Conservatoire and who now -is carelessly pronounced “jolly good” by eaters of beefsteaks? Can you -not look through and see the wonderful secret pre-occupations? If so, -you can also pierce walls and floors, and see clearly into the souls of -the cooks and the sub-cooks, and the cellar-men, and the commissionaires -in the rain, and the washers-up. They are all there, including the human -beings with loves and ambitions who never do anything for ever, and ever -but wash up. These are wistful, but they are not more wistful than the -seraphim and cherubim of the upper floors. The place is grandiose and -imposing; it has the dazzle of extreme success; but when you have stared -it down it is wistful enough to make you cry. - -[Illustration: 0137] - -Accidentally your eye rests on the gorgeous frieze in front of you, and -after a few moments, among the complex scrollwork and interlaced Cupids, -you discern a monogram, not large, not glaring, not leaping out at you, -but concealed in fact rather modestly! You decipher the monogram. It -contains the initials of the limited company paying forty per cent, and -also of the very men whose brains invented the organism. They are men. -They may be great men: they probably are; but they are men. - - - - -II--BY THE RIVER - -Every morning I get up early, and, going straight to the window, I see -half London from an eighth-storey. I see factory chimneys poetised, and -the sign of a great lion against the sky, and the dome of St. Paul’s -rising magically out of the mist, and pearl-coloured minarets round -about the horizon, and Waterloo Bridge suspended like a dream over the -majestic river-, and all that sort of thing. I am obliged, in spite of -myself, to see London through the medium of the artistic sentimentalism -of ages. I am obliged even to see it through the individual eyes of -Claude Monet, whose visions of it I nevertheless resent. I do not want -to see, for example, Waterloo Bridge suspended like a dream over the -majestic river. I much prefer to see it firmly planted in the plain -water. And I ultimately insist on so seeing it. The Victoria Embankment -has been, and still is, full of pitfalls for the sentimentalist in art -as in sociology; I would walk warily to avoid them. The river at dawn, -the river at sunset, the river at midnight (with its myriad lamps, of -course)!... Let me have the river at eleven a. m. for a change, or at -tea-time. And let me patrol its banks without indulging in an orgy of -melodramatic contrasts. - -I will not be carried away by the fact that the grand hotels, with their -rosy saloons and fair women (not invariably or even generally fair!), -look directly down upon the homeless wretches huddled on the Embankment -benches. Such a juxtaposition is accidental and falsifying. Nor will I -be imposed upon by the light burning high in the tower of St. Stephen’s -to indicate that the legislators are watching over Israel. I think of -the House of Commons at question-time, and I hear the rustling as two -hundred schoolboyish human beings (not legislators nor fathers of their -country) simultaneously turn over a leaf of two hundred question-papers, -and I observe the self-consciousness of honourable members as they walk -in and out, and the naïve pleasure of the Labour member in his enormous -grey wideawake, and the flower in the buttonhole of the white-haired and -simple ferocious veteran of democracy, and the hobnobbing over stewed -tea and sultana on the draughty terrace. - -Nor, when I look at the finely symbolic architecture of New Scotland -Yard, will I be obsessed by the horrors of the police system and of the -prison system and by the wrongness of the world. I regard with fraternal -interest the policeman in his shirt-sleeves lolling at a fourth-floor -window. Thirty, twenty, years ago people used to be staggered by the -sudden discovery that, in the old Hebraic sense of the word, there -was no God. It winded them, and some of them have never got over it. -Nowadays people are being staggered by the sudden discovery that there -is something fundamentally wrong with the structure of society. This -discovery induces a nervous disease which runs through whole thoughtful -multitudes. I suffer from it myself. Nevertheless, just as it is certain -that there is a God, of some kind, so it is certain that there is -nothing fundamentally wrong with the structure of society. There is -something wrong--but it is not fundamental. There always has been and -always will be something wrong. Do you suppose, O reformer, that when -land-values are taxed, and war and poverty and slavery and overwork -and underfeeding and disease and cruelty have disappeared, that the -structure of society will seem a whit the less wrong? Never! A moderate -sense of its wrongness is precisely what most makes life worth living. - -***** - -[Illustration: 0147] - -Between my lofty dwelling and the river is a large and beautiful garden, -ornamented with statues of heroes. It occupies ground whose annual value -is probably quite ten thousand pounds--that is to say, the interest on a -quarter of a million. It is tended by several County Council gardeners, -who spend comfortable lives in it, and doubtless thereby support their -families in dignity. Its lawns are wondrous; its parterres are full of -flowers, and its statues are cleansed perhaps more thoroughly than the -children of the poor. This garden is, as a rule, almost empty. I use it -a great deal, and sometimes I am the only person in it. Its principal -occupants are well-dressed men of affairs, who apparently employ it, as -I do, as a ground for reflection. Nursemaids bring into it the children -of the rich. The children of the poor are not to be seen in it--they -might impair the lawns, or even commit the horrible sin of picking the -blossoms. During the only hours when the poor could frequent it, it -is thoughtfully closed. The poor pay, and the rich enjoy. If I paid my -proper share of the cost of that garden, each of my visits would run me -into something like half-a-sovereign. My pleasure is being paid for up -all manner of side-streets. This is wrong; it is scandalous. I would, -and I will, support any measure that promises to rectify the wrongness. -But in the meantime I intend to have my fill of that garden, and to -savour the great sensations thereof. I will not be obsessed by one -aspect of it. - -The great sensations are not perhaps what one would have expected to -be the great sensations. Neither domes, nor towers, nor pinnacles, nor -spectacular contrasts, nor atmospheric effects, nor the Wordsworthian -“mighty heart”! It is the County Council tram, as copied from Glasgow -and Manchester, that appeals more constantly and more profoundly than -anything else of human creation to my romantic sensibility “Yes,” I am -told, “the tram-cars look splendid at night!” I do not mean specially -at night. I mean in the day. And further, I have no desire to call them -ships, or to call them aught but tram-cars. For me they resemble just -tram-cars, though I admit that when forty or fifty of them are crowded -together, they remind me somewhat of a herd of elephants. They are -enormous and beautiful; they are admirably designed, and they function -perfectly; they are picturesque, inexplicable, and uncanny. They pome to -rest with the gentleness of doves, and they hurtle through the air -like shells. Their motion--smooth, delicate and horizontal--is always -delightful. They are absolutely modern, new, and original. There was -never anything like them before, and only when something different and -better supersedes them will their extraordinary gliding picturesqueness -be appreciated. They never cease. They roll along day and night without -a pause; in the middle of the night you can see them glittering away to -the ends of the county. At six o’clock in the morning they roll up over -the horizon of Westminster Bridge in hundreds incessantly, and swing -downwards and round sharply away from the Parliament which for decades -refused them access to their natural gathering-place. They are a -thrilling sight. And see the pigmy in the forefront of each one, rather -like a mahout on the neck of an elephant, doing as he likes with the -obedient monster! And see the scores of pigmies inside, each of them, -black dots that jump out like fleas and disappear like fleas! The loaded -tram stops, and in a moment it is empty, and of the contents there is -no trace. The contents are dissolved in London.. . . And then see London -precipitate the contents again; and watch the leviathans, gorged, -glide off in endless procession to spill immortal souls in the evening -suburbs! - -***** - -But the greatest sensation offered by the garden, though it happens -to be a mechanical contrivance, is entirely independent of the County -Council. It is--not the river--but the movement of the tide. Imagination -is required in order to conceive the magnitude, the irresistibility, -and the consequences of this tremendous shuttle-work, which is regulated -from the skies, rules the existence of tens of thousands of people, -and casually displaces incalculable masses of physical matter. And the -curious human thing is that it fails to rouse the imagination of the -town. It cleaves through the town, and yet is utterly foreign to it, -having been estranged from it by the slow evolutionary process. All -those tram-cars roll up over the horizon of Westminster Bridge, and -cross the flood and run for a mile on its bank, and not one man in every -tenth tram-car gives the faintest attention to the state of the river. -A few may carelessly notice that the tide is “in” or “out,” but how -many realise the implications? For all they feel, the river might be a -painted stream! Yo wonder that the touts crying “Steamboat! Steamboat!” - have a mournful gesture, and the “music on board” sounds thin, like a -hallucination, as the shabby paddle-wheels pound the water! The cause -of the failure of municipal steamers is more recondite than the yellow -motor-cars of the journals which took pride in having ruined them. - -And the one satisfactory inference from the failure is that human nature -is far less dependent on nonhuman nature than vague detractors of the -former and devotees of the latter would admit. It is, after all, rather -fine to have succeeded in ignoring the Thames! - - - - -III--THE CLUB - -It was founded for an ideal. Its scope is national, and its object -to regenerate the race, to remedy injustice, and to proclaim the -brotherhood of mankind. It is for the poor against the plutocrat, and -for the slave against the tyrant, and for democracy against feudalism. -It is, in a word, of the kingdom of heaven. It was born amid immense -collisions, and in the holy war it is the official headquarters of those -who are on the side of the angels. In its gigantic shadow the weak and -the oppressed sell newspapers and touch their hats to the warriors as -they pass in and pass out. - -The place is as superb as its ideal. No half measures were taken when it -was conceived and constructed. Its situation is among the most expensive -and beautiful in the world of cities. Its architecture is grandiose, its -square columned hall and its vast staircase (hewn from Carrara) are two -of the sights of London. It is like a town, but a town of Paradise. -When the warrior enters its portals he is confronted by instruments -and documents which inform him with silent precision of the time, -the temperature, the barometric pressure, the catalogue of nocturnal -amusements, and the colour of the government that happens to be in -power. The last word spoken in Parliament, the last quotation on the -Stock Exchange, the last wager at Newmarket, the last run scored -at cricket, the result of the last race, the last scandal, the last -disaster--all these things are specially printed for him hour by hour, -and pinned up unavoidably before his eyes. If he wants to bet, he has -only to put his name on a card entitled “Derby Sweepstake.” Valets take -his hat and stick; others (working seventy hours a week) shave him; -others polish his hoots. - -***** - -The staircase being not for use, but merely to immortalise the memory of -the architect, he is wafted upwards by a lift into a Titanic apartment -studded with a thousand easy-chairs, and furnished with newspapers, -cigars, cigarettes, implements of play, and all the possibilities of -light refection. He lapses into a chair, and lo! a hell is under his -hand. Ting! And a uniformed and initialled being stands at attention -in front of him, not speaking till he speaks, and receiving his command -with the formalities of deference. He wishes to write a letter--a table -is at his side, with all imaginable stationery; a machine offers him -a stamp, another licks the stamp, and an Imperial letter-box is within -reach of his arm,--it is not considered sufficient that there should -be a post-office, with young girls who have passed examinations, in the -building itself. He then chats, while sipping and smoking, or nibbling a -cake, with other reclining warriors; and the hum of their clatter -rises steadily from the groups of chairs, inspiring the uniformed -and initialled beings who must not speak till spoken to with hopes -of triumphant democracy and the millennium. For when they are not -discussing more pacific and less heavenly matters, the warriors really -do discuss the war, and how they fought yesterday, and how they will -fight to-morrow. If at one moment the warrior is talking about “a -perfectly pure Chianti that I have brought from Italy in a cask,” at the -next he is planning to close public-houses on election days. - -[Illustration: 0157] - -When he has had enough of such amiable gossip he quits the easy chair, -in order to occupy another one in another room where he is surrounded -by all the periodical literature of the entire world, and by the hushed -murmur of intellectual conversation and the discreet stirring of spoons -in tea-cups. Here he acquaints himself with the progress of the war and -the fluctuations of his investments and the price of slaves. And when -even the solemnity of this chamber begins to offend his earnestness, -he glides into the speechless glamour of an enormous library, where -the tidings of the day are repeated a third time, and, amid the -companionship of a hundred thousand volumes and all the complex -apparatus of research, he slumbers, utterly alone. - -Late at night, when he has eaten and drunk, and played cards and -billiards and dominoes and draughts and chess, he finds himself once -more in the smoking-room--somehow more intimate now--with a few cronies, -including one or two who out in the world are disguised as the enemy. -The atmosphere of the place has put him and them into a sort of -exquisite coma. Their physical desires are assuaged, and they know by -proof that they are in control of the most perfectly organised mechanism -of comfort that was ever devised. Naught is forgotten, from the famous -wines cooling a long age in the sub-basement, to the inanimate chauffeur -in the dark, windy street, waiting and waiting till a curt whistle shall -start him into assiduous life. They know that never an Oriental despot -was better served than they. Here alone, and in the mansions of the -enemy, has the true tradition of service been conserved. In comparison, -the most select hotels and restaurants are a hurly-burly of crude -socialism. The bell is under the hand, and the labelled menial stands -with everlasting patience near; and home and women are far away. And the -world is not. - -Forgetting the platitudes of the war, they talk of things as they are. -All the goodness of them comes to the surface, and all the weakness. -They state their real ambitions and their real preferences. They narrate -without reserve their secret grievances and disappointments. They -are naked and unashamed. They demand sympathy, and they render it, -in generous quantities. And while thus dissipating their energy, -they honestly imagine that they are renewing it. The sense of reality -gradually goes, and illusion reigns--the illusion that, after all, God -is geometrically just, and that strength will be vouchsafed to them -according to their need, and that they will receive the reward of -perfect virtue. - -And their illusive satisfaction is chastened and beautified by the -consciousness that the sublime institution of the club is scarcely what -it was,--is in fact decadent; and that if it were not vitalised by -a splendid ideal, even _their_ club might wilt under the sirocco of -modernity. And then the echoing voice of an attendant warns them, with -deep respect, that the clock moves. But they will not listen, cannot -listen. And the voice of the attendant echoes again, and half the lights -shockingly expire. But still they do not listen; they cannot credit. -And then, suddenly, they are in utter darkness, and by the glimmer of a -match are stumbling against easy-chairs and tables, real easy-chairs and -real tables. The spell of illusion is broken. And in a moment they are -thrust out, by the wisdom of their own orders, into Pall Mall, into -actuality, into the world of two sexes once more. - -***** - -And yet the sublime institution of the club is not a bit anæmic. Within -a quarter of a mile is the monumental proof that the institution has -been rejuvenated and ensanguined and empowered. Colossal, victorious, -expensive, counting its adherents in thousands upon thousands, this -monument scorns even the pretence of any ancient ideal, and adopts no -new one. The aim of the club used ostensibly to be peace, idealism, a -retreat, a refuge. The new aim is pandemonium, and it is achieved. -The new aim is to let in the world, and it is achieved. The new aim -is muscular, and it is achieved. Arms, natation, racquets--anything to -subdue the soul and stifle thought! And in the reading-room, dummy hooks -and dummy book-cases! And a dining-room full of bright women; and such a -mad competition for meals that glasses and carafes will scarce go round, -and strangers must sit together at the same small table without protest! -And, to crown the hullaballoo, an orchestra of red-coated Tziganes -swaying and yearning and ogling in order to soothe your digestion and to -prevent you from meditating. - -[Illustration: 0161] - -This club marks the point to which the evolution of the sublime -institution has attained. It has come from the shore of Lake Michigan; -it is the club of the future, and the forerunner of its kind. Stand on -its pavement, and watch ‘its entering heterogeneous crowds, and then -throw the glance no more than the length of a cricket-pitch, and watch -the brilliantly surviving representatives of feudalism itself ascending -and descending the steps of the most exclusive club in England; and you -will comprehend that even when the House of Lords goes, something will -go--something unconsciously cocksure, and perfectly creased, and urbane, -and dazzlingly stupid--that was valuable and beautiful. And you will -comprehend politics better, and the profound truth that it takes all -sorts to make a world. - - - - -IV--THE CIRCUS - -The flowers heaped about the bronze fountain are for them. And so that -they may have flowers all day long, older and fatter and shabbier women -make their home round the fountain (modelled by a genius to the memory -of one whose dream was to abolish the hardships of poverty), with a -sugar-box for a drawing-room suite and a sack for a curtain; these -needy ones live there, to the noise of water, with a secret society -of newspaper-sellers, knowing intimately all the capacities of the -sugar-box and sack; and on hot days they revolve round the fountain with -the sun, for their only sunshade is the shadow of the dolphins. On every -side of their habituated tranquillity the odours of petrol swirl. The -great gaudy-coloured autobuses, brilliant as the flowers, swing and -swerve and grind and sink and recover, and in the forehead of each is a -blackened demon, tremendously preoccupied, and so small and withdrawn -as to be often unnoticed; and this demon rushes forward all day with his -life in his hand and scores of other lives in his hand, for two pounds a -week. When he stops by the fountain, he glances at the flowers unseeing, -out of the depths of his absorption. He is piloting cargoes of the -bright beings for whom the flowers are heaped. - -Stand on the steps of the fountain, and look between the autobuses and -over the roofs of taxis and the shoulders of policemen, and you will see -at every hand a proof that the whole glowing place, with its flags gaily -waving and its hubbub of rich hues, exists first and last for those same -bright beings. If there is a cigar shop, if there is a necktie shop like -Joseph’s coat, it is to enable the male to cut a dash with those beings. -And the life insurance office--would it continue if there were no bright -beings to be provided for? And the restaurants I And the I chemists! And -the music-hall! The sandwich-men are walking round and round with the -names of the most beauteous lifted high on their shoulders. The leather -shop is crammed with dressing-cases and hat-boxes for them. The jeweller -is offering solid gold slave-bangles (because they like the feel of the -shackle) at six pound ten. - -And above all there is the great establishment on the corner! An -establishment raised by tradition and advertisement and sheer skill -to the rank of a national institution, famous from Calgary to the -Himalayas, far more famous and beloved than even the greatest poets and -philanthropists. An institution established on one of the seven supreme -sites of the world! And it is all theirs, all for them! Coloured -shoes, coloured frocks, coloured necklaces, coloured parasols, coloured -stockings, jabots, scents, hats, and all manner of flimsy stuffs whose -names--such as Shantung--summon up in an instant the deep orientalism -of the Occident: the innumerable windows are a perfect riot of -these delicious affairs! Who could pass them by? This is a wondrous -institution. Of a morning, before the heat of the day, you can see -coming out of its private half-hidden portals (not the ceremonious -glazed doors) black-robed young girls, with their hair down their backs, -and the free gestures learnt at school and not yet forgotten, skipping -off on I know, not what important errands, earning part of a livelihood -already in the service of those others. And at its upper windows appear -at times more black-robed girls, and disappear, like charming prisoners -in a castle. - -***** - -The beings for whom the place exists come down all the curved vistas -towards it, on foot or on wheel, all day in radiant droves. They are -obliged at any rate to pass through it, for the Circus is their Clap-ham -Junction, and the very gate of finery. Impossible to miss it! It leads -to all coquetry, and all delights and dangers. And not only down the -vistas are they coming, but they are shot along subterranean tubes, and -hurried through endless passages, and flung up at last by lifts from the -depths into the open air. And when you look at them you are completely -baffled. Because they are English, and the most mysterious women on -earth, save the Scandinavians. You cannot get at their secret; it -consists in an impenetrable ideal. With the Latin you do come in the -end to the solid marble of Latin practicalness; the Latin is perfectly -unromantic. But the romanticism of these English is something so -recondite that no research and no analysis can approach it. Ibsen could -never have made a play out of a Latin woman; but I tell you that, for -me, every woman stepping off an autobus and exposing her ankles and her -character as she dodges across the Circus, has the look in her face of -an Ibsen heroine; she emanates romance and enigma; she is the potential -mainspring of a late-Ibsen drama, the kind whose import no critic is -ever quite sure of. This it is to be Anglo-Saxon, and herein is one of -the grand major qualities of the streets of London. - -[Illustration: 0167] - -They are in this matter, I do believe, all alike, these creatures. You -may encounter one so ugly and mannish and grotesque that none but an -Englishman could take her to his arms, and even she has the ineffable -romantic gaze. All the countless middle-aged women who support -circulating libraries have it; the hair of a woman of fifty blows about -her face romantically. All the nice, youngish married women have it, -those who think they know a thing or two. And as for the girls, the -young girls, they show a romantic naïveté which transcends belief; they -are so fresh and so virginal and so loose-limbed and so obsessed by a -mysterious ideal, that really (you think) the street is too perilous a -place for them. And yet they go confidently about, either alone or in -couples, or with young men at bottom as simple as themselves, and naught -happens to them; they must be protected by their idealism. And now -and then you will see a woman who is strictly and truly _chic_, in the -extreme French sense--an amazing spectacle in our city of sloppy women -who, while dreaming of dress for ten hours a day, cannot even make their -blouses fasten decently--and this _chic_ Parisianised creature herself -will have kept her idealistic gaze! They all keep it. They die with -it at seventy-five. Whatever adventure occurs to an Englishwoman, she -remains spiritually innocent and naïve. The Circus is bathed in the mood -of these qualities. - -***** - -Towards dark it alters and is still the same. See it after the -performances on a matinée day, surging with heroines. See it at eight -o’clock at night, a packed mass of taxis and automobiles, each the -casket of a romantic creature, hurrying in pursuit of that ideal without -a name. Later, the place is becalmed, and scarcely an Englishwoman is -to be seen in it until after the theatres, when once again it is -nationalised and feminised to an intense degree. The shops are black, -and the flower-sellers are gone; but the electric sky-signs are in -violent activity, and there is light enough to see those baffling faces -as they flash or wander by. And the trains are now bearing the creatures -away in the deep-laid tubes. - -And then there comes an hour when the hidden trains have ceased, and -the autobuses have nearly ceased, and the bright beings have withdrawn -themselves until the morrow; and now, on all the footpaths of the -Circus, move crowded processions of men young and old, slowly, as though -in the performance of a rite. It leads to nothing, this tramping; it -serves no end; it is merely idiotic, in a peculiarly Anglo-Saxon way. -But only heavy rain can interfere with it. It persists obstinately. And -the reason of it is that the Circus is the Circus. And after all, though -idiotic, it has the merit and significance of being instinctive. The -Circus symbolises the secret force which drives forward the social -organism through succeeding stages of evolution. The origin of every -effort can be seen at some time of day emerging from a crimson autobus -in the Circus, or speeding across the Circus in a green taxi. The answer -to the singular conundrum of the City is to be found early or late in -the Circus. The imponderable spirit of the basic fact of society broods -in the Circus forever. Despite all changes, there is no change. I say no -change. You may gaze into the jeweller’s shop at the gold slave-bangles, -which cannot be dear at six pound ten, since they express the secret -attitude of an entire sex. And then you may turn and gaze at the face of -a Suffragette, with her poster and her armful of papers, and her -quiet voice and her mien of pride. And you may think you see a change -fundamental and terrific. Look again. - -[Illustration: 0171] - - - - -V--THE BANQUET - -In every large London restaurant, and in many small ones, there is -a spacious hall (or several) curtained away from the public, in which -every night strange secret things go on. Few suspect, and still fewer -realise, the strangeness of these secret things. - -[Illustration: 0175] - -In the richly decorated interior (sometimes marked with mystic signs), -at a table which in space reaches from everlasting to everlasting, and -has the form of a grill or a currycomb or the end of a rake--at such -a table sit fifty or five hundred males. They are all dressed exactly -alike, in black and white; but occasionally they display a coloured -flower, and each man bears exactly the same species and tint and size -of flower, so that you think of regiments of flowers trained throughout -their lives in barracks to the end of shining for a night in unison on -the black and white bosoms of these males. Although there is not even a -buffet in the great room, and no sign of the apparatus of a restaurant, -all these males are eating a dinner, and it is the same dinner. They do -not wish to choose; they accept, reading the menu like a decree of fate. -They do not inquire upon the machinery; a slave, unglanced at, places a -certain quantity of a dish in front of them--and lo! the same quantity -of the same dish is in front of all of them; they do not ask whence nor -how it came; they eat, with industry, knowing that at a given moment, -whether they have finished or not, a hand will steal round from behind -them, and the plate will vanish into limbo. Thus the repast continues, -ruthlessly, under the aquiline gaze of a slave who is also a -commander-in-chief, manoeuvring his men silently, manoeuvring them with -naught but a glance. With one glance he causes to disappear five hundred -salad-plates, and with another he conjures from behind a screen five -hundred ices, each duly below zero, and each calculated to impede the -digesting of a salad. The service of the dinner is a miracle, but the -diners, absorbed in the expectancy of rites to come, reck not; they -assume the service as they assume the rising of the sun. Only a few -remember the old, old days, in the ’eighties (before a cabal of -international Jews had put their heads together and inaugurated a -new age of miracles), when these solemn repasts were a scramble and a -guerilla, after which one half of the combatants went home starving, and -the other half went home glutted and drenched. Nowadays these repasts -are the most perfectly democratic in England; and anybody who has ever -assisted at one knows by a morsel of experience what life would be if -the imaginative Tory’s nightmare of Socialism were to become a reality. -But each person has enough, and has it promptly. - -***** - -The ceremonial begins with a meal, because it would be impossible on an -empty stomach. Its object is ostensibly either to celebrate the memory -of some deed or some dead man, or to signalise the triumph of some -living contemporary. Clubs and societies exist throughout London in -hundreds expressly for the execution of these purposes, and each! of -them is a remunerative client of a large restaurant. Societies even -exist solely in order to watch for the triumphs of contemporaries, and -to gather in the triumphant to a repast and inform them positively that -they are great. So much so that it is difficult to accomplish anything -unusual, such as the discovery of one pole or another, or the successful -defence of a libel action, without submitting to the ordeal of these -societies one after the other in a chain, and emerging therefrom -with modesty ruined and the brazen conceit of a star actor. But the -ostensible object is merely a cover for the real object, the unadmitted -and often unsuspected object: which is, to indulge in a debauch of -universal mutual admiration. When the physical appetite is assuaged, -then the appetite for praise and sentimentality is whetted, and the -design of the mighty institution of the banquet is to minister, in a -manner majestic and unexceptionable, to this base appetite, whose one -excuse is its _naïveté_. - -A pleasurable and even voluptuous thrill of anticipation runs through -the assemblage when the chairman rises to open the orgy. Everybody -screws himself up, as a fiddler screwing the pegs of a fiddle, to what -he deems the correct pitch of appreciativeness; and almost the breath -is held. And the chairman says: “Whatever differences may divide us -upon other subjects, I am absolutely convinced, and I do not hesitate -to state my conviction in the clearest possible way, that we are -enthusiastically and completely agreed upon one point,” the point being -that such and such a person or such and such a work is the greatest -person or the greatest work of the kind in the whole history of the -human race. And although the point is one utterly inadmissible upon an -empty stomach, although it is indeed a glaring falsity, everybody at -once feverishly endorses it, either with shrill articulate cries, or -with deep inarticulate booming, or with noises produced by the shock -of flesh on flesh, or ivory on wood, or steel on crystal. The uproar is -enormous. The chairman grows into a sacramental priest, or a philosopher -of amazing insight and courage. And everybody says to himself: “I had -not screwed myself up quite high enough,” and proceeds to a further -screwing. And in every heart is the thought: “This is grand! This is -worth living for! This alone is the true reward of endeavour!” And the -corporate soul muses ecstatically: “This work, or this man, is ours, by -reason of our appreciation and our enthusiasm. And he, or it, is ours -exclusively.” And, since the soul and the body are locked together in -the closest sympathetic intimacy, all those cautious dyspeptic ones who -have hitherto shirked danger, immediately put on courage like a splendid -garment, and order the strongest drinks and the longest cigars that the -establishment can offer. The real world fades into unreality; the morrow -is lost in eternity; the moment and the illusion alone are real. - -***** - -The key of the mood is to be sought less in the speeches as they succeed -each other than in the applause. For the applauders are not influenced -by a sense of responsibility, or made self-conscious by publicity. -They can be natural, and they are. What fear can prevent them from -translating instantly their emotions into sound? By the applause, if -you are a slave and non-participator, you may correct your too kindly -estimate of men in the mass. Note how the most outrageous exaggeration, -the grossest flattery, the most banal platitude, the most fatuous -optimism, gain the loudest approval. Note how any reservation produces -a fall of temperature. Note how the smallest jokes are seized on -ravenously, as a worm by a young bird. And note always the girlish -sentimentality, ever gushing forth, of these strong, hard-headed males -whose habit is to proverbialise the sentimentality of women. - -[Illustration: 0179] - -The emotional crisis arrives. Feeling transcends the vehicle of speech, -and escapes in song. And one guest, honoured either; for some special -deed of his own or because his name has been “coupled” with some -historic deed or movement, remains sitting, in the most exquisite -self-consciousness that human ingenuity ever brought about, while all -the rest fling hoarsely at him the fifteen sacred words of a refrain -which in its incredible vulgarity surpasses even the National Anthem. - -The reaction is now not far off. But owing to several reasons it is -postponed yet awhile. The honoured guest’s response is one of the -chief attractions of the night. Very many diners have been drawn to the -banquet by the desire to inspect the honoured guest at their leisure, to -see his antics, to divine his human weaknesses and his ridiculous side. -And, moreover, the honoured guest must give praise for praise, and lie -for lie. He is bound by the strictest conventions of social intercourse -to say in so many words: “Gentlemen, you are the most enlightened body -of men that I ever had the good fortune to meet; and your hospitality -is the greatest compliment that I have ever had, or ever shall have, or -could conceive. Each of you is a prince of the earth. And I am a worm.” - And then there are the minor speeches, finishing off in detail the vast -embroidery of laudation which was begun by the Chairman. Everybody is -more or less enfolded in that immense mantle. And everybody is satisfied -and sated, save those who have sat through the night awaiting the sweet -mention of their own names, and who have been disappointed. At every -banquet there are such. And it is they who, by their impatience, -definitely cause the reaction at last. The speakers who terminate the -affair fight against the reaction in vain. The applause at the close is -perfunctory--how different from the fever of the commencement and the -hysteria of the middle! The illusion is over. The emotional debauch -is finished. The adult and bearded boys have played the delicious -make-believe of being truly great, and the game is at an end; and each -boy, looking within, perceives without too much surprise that he is -after all only himself. A cohort “of the best,” foregathered in the -cloakroom, say to each other, “Delightful evening! Splendid! Ripping!” - And then one says, ironically leering, in a low voice, and a tone heavy -with realistic disesteem: “Well, what do you think of--?” Naming the -lion of the night. - - - - -VI--ONE OF THE CROWD - -He comes out of the office, which is a pretty large one, with a series -of nods--condescending, curt, indifferent, friendly, and deferential. He -has detestations and preferences, even cronies; and if he has superiors, -he has also inferiors. But whereas his fate depends on the esteem of a -superior, the fate of no inferior depends on his esteem. When he nods -deferentially he is bowing to an august power before which all others -are in essence equal; the least of his inferiors knows that. And the -least of his inferiors will light, on the stairs, a cigarette with the -same gesture, and of perhaps the same brand, as his own--to signalise -the moment of freedom, of emergence from the machine into human -citizenship. Presently he is walking down the crammed street with one or -two preferences or indifferences, and they are communicating with each -other in slang, across the shoulders of jostling interrupters, and amid -the shouts of newsboys and the immense roaring of the roadway. And at -the back of his mind, while he talks and smiles, or frowns, is a clear -vision of a terminus and a clock and a train. Just as the water-side -man, wherever he may be, is aware, night and day, of the exact state of -the tide, so this man carries in his brain a time-table of a particular -series of trains, and subconsciously he is always aware whether he -can catch a particular train, and if so, whether he must hurry or may -loiter. His case, is not peculiar. He is just an indistinguishable man -on the crowded footpaths, and all the men on the footpaths, like him, -are secretly obsessed by the vision of a train just moving out of a -station. - -[Illustration: 0185] - -He arrives at the terminus with only one companion; the rest, with nods, -have vanished away at one street corner or another. Gradually he is -sorting himself out. Both he and his companion know that there are -a hundred and twenty seconds to spare. The companion relates a new -humorous story of something unprintable, alleged to have happened -between a man and a woman. The receiver of the story laughs with honest -glee, and is grateful, and the companion has the air of a benefactor; -which indeed he is, for these stories are the ready-money of social -intercourse. The companion strides off, with a nod. The other remains -solitary. He has sorted himself out, but only for a minute. In a -minute he is an indistinguishable unit again, with nine others, in the -compartment of a moving train. He reads an evening newspaper, which -seems to have come into his hand of its own agency, for he catches it -every night with a purely mechanical grasp as it flies in the street. -He reads of deeds and misdeeds, and glances aside uneasily from the -disturbing tides of restless men who will not let the social order -alone. Suddenly, after the train has stopped several times, he folds -up the newspaper as it is stopping again, and gets blindly out. As he -surges up into the street on a torrent of his brothers, he seems less -sorted than ever. The street into which he comes is broad and busy, -and the same newspapers are flying in it. Nevertheless, the street -is different from the streets of the centre. It has a reddish or a -yellowish quality of colour, and there is not the same haste in it. He -walks more quickly now. He walks a long way up another broad street, -in which rare autobuses and tradesmen’s carts rattle and thunder. The -street gets imperceptibly quieter, and more verdurous. He passes a -dozen side-streets, and at last he turns into a side-street. And this -side-street is full of trees and tranquillity. It is so silent that to -reach it he might have travelled seventy miles instead of seven. There -are glimpses of yellow and red houses behind thick summer verdure. His -pace still quickens. He smiles to himself at the story, and wonders to -whom he can present it on the morrow. And then he halts and pushes open -a gate upon which is painted a name. And he is in a small garden, with -a vista of a larger garden behind. And down the vista is a young girl, -with the innocence and grace and awkwardness and knowingness of her -years--sixteen; a little shabby, or perhaps careless, in her attire, but -enchanting. She starts forward, smiling, and exclaims: “Father!” - -Now he is definitely sorted out. - -[Illustration: 0189] - -***** - -Though this man is one of the crowd, though nobody would look twice at -him in Cannon Street, yet it is to the successful and felicitous crowd -that he belongs. There are tens of thousands of his grade; but he has -the right to fancy himself a bit. He can do certain difficult things -very well--else how, in the fierce and gigantic struggle for money, -should he contrive to get hold of five hundred pounds a year? - -He is a lord in his demesne; nay, even a sort of eternal father. Two -servants go in fear of him, because his wife uses him as a bogey to -intimidate them. His son, the schoolboy, a mighty one at school, knows -there is no appeal from him, and quite sincerely has an idea that his -pockets are inexhaustible. Whenever his son has seen him called upon to -pay he has always paid, and money has always been left in his pocket. -His daughter adores and exasperates him. His wife, with her private -system of visits, and her suffragetting, and her independences, -recognises ultimately in every conflict that the resultant of forces is -against her and for him. When he is very benevolent he joins her in the -game of pretending that they are equals. He is the distributor of joy. -When he laughs, all laugh, and word shoots through the demesne that -father is in a good humour. - -He laughs to-night. The weather is superb; it is the best time of the -year in the suburbs. Twilight is endless; the silver will not die out -of the sky. He wanders in the garden, the others with him. He works -potteringly. He shows himself more powerful than his son, both -physically and mentally. He spoils his daughter, who is daily growing -more mysterious. He administers flattery to his wife. He throws scraps -of kindness to the servants. It is his wife who at last insists on the -children going to bed. Lights show at the upper windows. The kitchen is -dark and silent. His wife calls to him from upstairs. He strolls round -to the front patch of garden, stares down the side-road, sees an autobus -slide past the end of it, shuts and secures the gate, comes into the -house, bolts the front door, bolts the back door, inspects the windows, -glances at the kitchen; finally, he extinguishes the gas in the hall. -Then he leaves the ground floor to its solitude, and on the first-floor -peeps in at his snoring son, and admonishes his daughter through a door -ajar not to read in bed. He goes to the chief bedroom, and locks himself -therein with his wife; and yawns. The night has come. He has made his -dispositions for the night. And now he must trust himself, and all that -is his, to the night. A vague, faint anxiety penetrates him. He can feel -the weight of five human beings depending on him; their faith in him -lies heavy. - -In the middle of the night he wakes up, and is reminded of such-and-such -a dish of which he partook. He remembers what his wife said: “There’s no -doing anything with that girl”--the daughter--“I don’t know what’s come -over her.” And he thinks of all his son’s faults and stupidities, and -of what it will be to have two children adult. It is true--there _is_ -no doing anything with either one or the other. Their characters are -unchangeable--to be taken or left. This is one lesson he has learnt -in the last ten years. And his wife. . . ! The whole organism of the -demesne presents itself to him, lying awake, as most extraordinarily -complicated. The garden alone, the rose-trees alone,--what a constant -cause of solicitude! The friction of the servants,--was one of them a -thief or was she not? The landlord must be bullied about the roof. Then, -new wall-papers! A hinge! His clothes! His boots! His wife’s clothes, -and her occasional strange disconcerting apathy! The children’s clothes! -Rent! Taxes! Rates! Season-ticket! Subscriptions! Negligence of the -newsvendor! Bills! Seaside holiday! Erratic striking of the drawing-room -clock! The pain in his daughter’s back! The singular pain in his own -groin--nothing, and yet. . . ! Insurance premium! And above all, the -office! Who knew, who could tell, what might happen? There was no margin -of safety, not fifty pounds margin of safety. He walked in success and -happiness on a thin brittle crust! Crack! And where would they all -be? Where would be the illusion of his son and daughter that he was an -impregnable and unshakable rock? What would his son think if he knew -that his father often calculated to half-a-crown, and economised in -cigarettes and a great deal in lunches?. . . - -He asks, “Why did I bring all this on myself? Where do I come in, after -all?”. . . The dawn, very early; and he goes to sleep once more! - -***** - -The next morning, factitiously bright after his bath, he is eating his -breakfast, reading his newspaper, and looking at his watch. The night -is over; the complicated organism is in full work again, with its air -of absolute security. His newspaper, inspired by a millionaire to gain -a millionaire’s ends by appealing to the ingenuousness of this -clever struggler, is uneasy with accounts of attacks meditated on the -established order. His mind is made up. The established order may not -be perfect, but he is in favour of it. He has arrived at an equilibrium, -unstable possibly, but an equilibrium. One push, and he would be over! -Therefore, no push! He hardens his heart against the complaint of the -unjustly treated. He has his own folk to think about. - -The station is now drawing him like a magnet. He sees in his mind’s eye -every yard of the way between the side-street and the office, and in -imagination he can hear the clock striking at the other end. He must go; -he must go! Several persons help him to go, and at the garden-gate -he stoops and kisses that mysterious daughter. He strides down the -side-street. Only a moment ago, it seems, he was striding up it! He -turns into the long road. It is a grinding walk in the already hot sun. -He reaches the station and descends into it, and is diminished from an -eternal father to a mere unit of a throng. But on the platform he meets -a jolly acquaintance. His face relaxes as they salute. “I say,” he says -after an instant, bursting with a good thing, “Have you heard the tale -about the--?” - - - - -ITALY--1910 - - - - -I--NIGHT AND MORNING IN FLORENCE - -Amid the infantile fluttering confusion caused by the arrival of the -Milan express at Florence railway station, the thoughts of the artist as -he falls sheer out of the compartment upon the soft bodies of hold-alls -and struggling women, are not solely on the platform. This moment has -grandeur. This city was the home of the supreme ones--Dante, Leonardo, -Michael Angelo, and Brunelleschi. You have entered it.. . . Awe? I have -never been aware of sentiments of awe towards any artists, save Charles -Baudelaire. My secret attitude to them has always been that I would -like to shake their hands and tell them briefly in their private slang, -whatever their private slang was, that they had given immense pleasure -to another artist. I have excepted Charles Baudelaire ever since I read -his correspondence, in which he is eternally trying to borrow ten francs -from some one, and if they cannot make it ten--then five. There is -something so excessively poignant, and to me so humiliating, in the -spectacle of the grand author of La Charogne going about among his -acquaintance in search of a dollar, that I would only think about it -when I wished to inflict on myself a penance. It is a spectacle -unique. Like the King of Thule song in Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust, it -resembles nothing else of its kind. If the artist does not stand in awe -before that monumental enigma of human pride which called itself Charles -Baudelaire, how shall the artist’s posture be described? - -No, I will tell you what occupied the withdrawn and undefiled spaces -of my mind as I entered Florence, drifting on the stream of labelled -menials and determined ladies with their teeth hard-set: Was it more -interesting for an artist to be born into a great age of art, where he -was beloved and appreciated, if not wholly comprehended, by relatively -large masses of people; where his senses were on every hand indulged and -pampered by the caress of the obviously beautiful; where he lived among -equals, and saw himself continually surrounded by innumerable acts -creative of beauty; and where he could feel in the very air a divine -palpitation--or, on the other hand, was it more spiritually voluptuous -for the artist to be born into a stone age, an age deaf and dumb, an age -insensible to the sublime, ignorantly rejecting beauty, and occupying -itself with the most damnable and offensive futilities that the soul of -an artist can conceive? For I was going, in my fancy, out of the one -age into the other. And I decided, upon reflection, that I would just -as soon be in the age in which I in fact was; I said that I would -not change places even with the most fortunate and miraculous of -men--Leonardo da Vinci. There is an agreeable bitterness, an exquisite -_tang_, in the thought of the loneliness of artists in an age whose -greatness and whose epic quality are quite divorced from art. And when -I think of the artist in this age, I think of the Invisible Man of H. -G. Wells, in the first pride of his invisibility (when he was not yet -hunted), walking unseen and unseeing amid multitudes, and it is long -before? anybody in the multitudes even notices the phenomenon of -mysterious footmarks that cannot be accounted for! I like to be that -man. I like to think that my fellows are few, and that even I, not -having eyes to see most of them, must now and then be disconcerted by -the appearance of unaccountable footmarks. There is something beyond -happiness, and that is, to know intensely and painfully that you are -what you are. The great Florentines of course had that knowledge, but -their circumstances were; not so favourable as mine to its cultivation -in an artist. Therein lay their disadvantage and lies my advantage. - -[Illustration: 0199] - -Besides, you do not suppose that I would wish to alter this age by a -single iota of its ugliness and its preposterousness! You do not suppose -I do not love it! You do not suppose I do not wallow in the trough of it -with delight! There is not one stockbroker, not one musical comedy star, -not one philanthropic giver of free libraries, not one noble brewer, not -one pander, not one titled musician, not one fashionable bishop, not -one pro-consul, that I would wish away. Where should my pride bitterly -exercise itself if not in proving that my age, exactly as it exists now, -contains nothing that is not the raw material of beauty? If I wished -to do so, I would force some among you to see that even the hotel-tout -within the portals of the city of Giotto is beautiful. - -***** - -At dinner I am waited upon by a young and beautiful girl who, having -almost certainly never heard of Gabriele d’Annunzio, yet speaks his -language and none other. But she wears the apron and the cap of the -English parlour-maid, in plenary correctness, and, knowing exactly how -I should be served in England, she humours me; and above us is a vaulted -ceiling. Such is the terrible might of England. I am surrounded by -ladies; the room is crammed with ladies. By the perfection of their -virtuosity in the nice conduct of forks alone is demonstrated their -ladyship. (And I who, like a savage, cannot eat pudding without a -spoon!) There is a middle-aged gentleman, whose eyeglasses are wandering -down his fine nose, lost in a bosky dell of women at the other end of -the room; and there is myself; and there is a boy, obviously in Hades. -And there are some fifty dames. Their voices, high, and with the sublime -unconscious arrogance of the English, fight quietly and steadily among -each other up in the vaulting. “Of course, I used to play cricket with -my brothers. But, will you believe me, I’ve never seen a football match -in my life!” - -“No, we haven’t seen the new rector yet, but they say he’s frightfully -nice.” - -“Benozzo Gozzoli--ye-es.” It is impossible not to believe, listening to -these astounding conversations, that nature, tired of imitating Balzac -any longer, has now taken to imitating the novels of Mrs. Humphry Ward. - -The drawing-room is an English drawing-room--yes, with the _Queen_ and -“the authoress of _Elizabeth and her German Garden_” and a Bechstein -grand. There are forty-five chairs and easy chairs in it, and fifty -ladies; the odd five ladies sit low upon hassocks or recline on each -other in attitudes of intense affection. And at the other end is a male, -neither the man with the pincenez nor the boy in Hades, but a third who -has mysteriously come out of nothing into existence. I have entered, -and I am held, as by a spell, in the doorway, the electric light raining -upon me, a San Sebastian for the fatal arrows of the fifty, who fix on -me their ingenuous eyes-- - - And dart delicious danger thence - -(to cull an incomparable phrase from one of the secular poems of Dr. -Isaac Watts). And now there are more ladies behind me, filling the -doorway with hushed expectation. For in the appalling silence, a young -sad-orbed creature is lifting a violin delicately from its case on -the Bechstein, at which waits a sister-spirit. “Do tell me,” says -an American voice, intrepidly breasting the silence, “what was that -perfectly heavenly thing you played last night--was it Debussy? We -thought it must be Debussy.” And the violinist answers: “No; I expect -you mean the Goltermann. It _is_ pretty, isn’t it?” And as she holds -up the violin, interrogating its strings with an anxious and a critical -ear, I observe that beneath the strings lies a layer of rosin-dust. -Thirty years ago, in the fastnesses of the Five Towns, amateurs used to -deem it necessary to keep their violins dirty in order to play with the -soulfulness of a Norman Neruda. I would have been ready to affirm that -observation of the cleanliness of the instruments of professionals had -killed the superstition long since; but lo, I have tunnelled the Simplon -to meet it again! - -I go. Somehow, I depart, beaten off as it were with great loss. I plunge -out into dark Florence, walking under the wide projecting eaves -of Florence to avoid the rain. And in my mind I can still see the -drawing-room, a great cube of light, with its crowded frocks whose -folds merge one into the next, and the Bechstein, and the strains of -Goltermann, and the attentive polite faces, and that sole man in the -corner like a fly on a pin. I have run away from it. But I know that I -shall go back to it, and that my curiosity will drink it to the dregs. -For that drawing-room is to the working artist in me the most impressive -and the most interesting thing in Florence. And when I reflect that -there are dozens and dozens of it in Florence, I say that this age is -the most romantic age that ever was. - -***** - -I know where I am going, for my first business in entering a town, -whether Florence, Hull, or Constantine, is always to examine the -communicative posters on its walls and to glance through its newspapers. -There is a performance of Spontini’s _La Vestale_ at the Teatro Verdi. -Nothing, hardly, could have kept me away from that performance, which in -every word of its announcement seems to me overpoweringly romantic. The -name of Verdi alone.... I heard Verdi late in my life, and in Italy, -long after I knew by rote all the themes in _Tristan_ and _Die -Meistersinger_, after _Pelleas et Mêlisande_ had ceased to be a novelty -at the Paris Opéra Comique, after even the British discovery of Richard -Strauss, and I shall never forget the ravishing effect on me of the -first act of _La Traviata_; no, nor the tedium of the other acts. I -would go to any theatre named Verdi. Then Spontini! What is Spontini but -a name? Was it possible that I was about to hear an actual opera by this -antique mediocrity whose music Berlioz loved beyond its deserts? Had -anybody ever heard an opera by Spontini? - -The shabbiness of the _façade_ and of the box-office, and of the suits -of the disillusioned but genial men within the box-office--men who -knew the full meaning of existence. A seat in the _parterre_ for two -lire--say one and sevenpence halfpenny--it is making a gift of -the spectacle! The men take my two lire with an indulgent gesture, -exclaiming softly with their eyes and hands: “What are two lire more or -less in the vast abyss of our deficit? Throw them down!” Then I observe -that my ticket is marked _posto distinto_--prominent seat, distinguished -seat. Useless to tell me that it means nothing! It means much to me: -another example of Italian politeness, at once exquisite and futile. - -Would the earl in the gate at Covent Garden, even for thirty-two lire on -a Melba night, offer me a distinguished seat?.. . Long stone corridors, -steps up, steps down, turnings, directive cries echoing amid arches; and -then I am in the auditorium, vast. - -It is as big as Covent Garden, and nearly as big as La Scala. It has -six galleries, about a hundred boxes, and four varieties of seats on the -ground floor. My distinguished seat is without the first quality of a -seat--yieldingness. It does not acquiesce. It is as hard as seasoned -wood can be, though roomy and well situated. And in a corner, lying -against the high rampart of a box for ten people, I see negligently -piled a great pyramid of ancient red cushions, scores and scores of -them. And a little old ragged attendant comes and whispers alluringly, -delicately in my ear: “_Cuscina_.” Two sous would hire it and a smile -thrown in. But no, I won’t have it. I am too English to have that -cushion.. . . The immense theatre, faced all in white marble, with -traces here and there in a box of crimson upholstery, is as dim as a -church. There are hundreds of electric bulbs, but unlighted: the sole -illumination comes from a row of perfectly mediæval gas-burners along -the first gallery. After all, economy must obtain somewhere. I count an -orchestra of over seventy living players; the most numerous body in -the place: somehow they must support life. Over the acreage of the -_parterre_ are sprinkled a few dozens of audience. There is a serried -ring of faces lining the fifth gallery, to which admittance is tenpence, -and another lining the sixth gallery, to which admittance is sixpence. -The rest is not even paper. - -Yet a spruce and elegant conductor rises and the overture begins, and -the orchestra proves that its instruments are real; and I hear Spontini, -and for a little while enjoy his faded embroideries. And the curtain -goes up on “a public place in Rome,” upon a scale as spacious as Rome -itself. Everything is genuine. There are two leading sopranos, one of -whom is young and attractive, and they both have powerful and trained -voices, and sing like the very dickens. No amateurishness about them! -They know their business; they are accomplished and experienced artists. -No hesitations, no timidities, no askings for indulgence because really -I have only paid two lire! Their fine voices fill the theatre with ease, -and would easily fill Covent Garden to the back row of the half-crown -gallery. The same with the tenor, the same with the bass. Spontini -surges onward in an excellent concourse of multitudinous sound, and I -wonder what it is all about. I have a book of the words, but owing to -the unfortunate absence of Welsbach mantles I cannot read it. I know it -must be all about a vestal who objected to being a vestal, on account of -a military uniform, and I content myself with this grand central fact. -Then the stage brightens, and choruses begin to march on; one after -another; at least a dozen: soldiers, wrestlers, populace, dancers, -children. Yes, the show is complete even to ragamuffins larking about in -the public place in Rome. I count a hundred people on the stage. And -all the properties are complete. It is a complete production and an -expensive production--except probably in the detail of wages. For -in Italy _prime donne_ with a _répertoire_ of a dozen or fifteen -first-class rôles seem to go about the streets dressed like shop-girls. -I have seen it. All this is just as exciting to me as the Church of S. -Croce, even as explained by John Ruskin with a schoolmaster’s cane in -his lily-hand. - -Interval I I go to the refreshment _foyer_ to see life. And now I can -perceive that quite a crowd of people has been hidden somewhere in -the nooks of the tremendous theatre. The large _caffé_ is crammed. Of -course, it is vaulted, like everything in Florence. The furniture of the -caffé is strangely pathetic in its forlornness: marble-topped mahogany -tables, and mahogany chairs in faded and frayed crimson rep. Furniture -that ought to have been dead and buried long ago! The marble is -yellow with extreme age and use. These tables and chairs are a most -extraordinary survival; in a kind of Italian Loins Philippe style, -debased First Empire; or it might be likened to earliest Victorian. Once -they were new; once they were the latest thing. For fifty years perhaps -the management has been meaning to refurnish the _caffé_ as soon as it -could afford. The name of the theatre has been changed, but not those -chairs nor that marble. And conceivably the sole waiter, gliding swiftly -to and fro with indestructible politeness, is their contemporary. The -customers are the equivalent of a music-hall audience in these isles. -They smoke, drink, and expectorate with the casualness of men who are -taking a rest after Little Tich. They do not go to the opera with prayer -and fasting and the score. They just stroll into the opera. Nor does the -conductor, nor do the players, have the air of high priests of art who -have brought miracles to pass. And I know what those two sopranos are -talking about upstairs. Here opera is in the bones of the rabble. It -is a tradition: a tradition in a very bad way of decayed splendour, but -alive yet. - -For the second act the auditorium is brighter, and fuller, though the -total receipts would not pay for five minutes of Caruso alone. The place -looks half full and is perhaps a third full. Behind me a whole series -of first-tier boxes are occupied by a nice, cheerful, chattering -shop-keeping class of persons, simple folk that I like. A few soldiers -are near. Also there is a man next but one to me who cannot any longer -deprive himself of a cigarette. He bows his head and furtively strikes -a match, right in the middle of the theatre, and for every puff he bows -his head, and then looks up with an innocent air, as though repudiating -any connection with the wisp of smoke that is floating aloft. Nobody -minds. The curtain rises on the interior of the Temple, a beautiful and -solid architectural scene, much superior to anything in the first act, -whose effect was rich and complex without being harmonious. The vestal -is attending to the fire. When the military uniform unostentatiously -enters, I feel that during an impassioned dialogue she will go and let -that fire out. And she does. Such is the second act., I did not see -the third. I shall never see it. I convinced myself that two acts of -Spontini were enough for me. It was astonishing that even in Florence -Spontini had not been interred. But clearly, from the efficiency, -assurance, and completeness of its production, _La Vestale_ must have -been in the Florentine _répertoire_ perhaps ever, since its composition, -and a management selling seats at two lire finds it so much easier to -keep an old opera in the _répertoire_ than to kick it out and bring in -a new one. I had savoured the theatre, and I went, satisfied; also much -preoccupied with the financial enigma of the enterprise, where indeed -the real poetry of this age resides. Whence came the money to pay the -wages of at least a couple of hundred skilled persons, and the lighting -and the heating and the rent, and the advertisement, and the thousand -minor expenses of such an affair? - -When I reached the abode of the ladies it was all dark and silent. I -rang, intimidated. And one of those young and beautiful girls (no, not -so young and not so beautiful, but still--) in her exotic English attire -opened the door. And with her sleepy eyes she looked at me as if saying: -“Once in a way this sort of thing is all very well, but please don’t -let it occur too often. I suffer.” A shame! And I crept contrite up the -stairs, and along passages between hidden rows of sleeping ladies. And -there was my Baedeker lying on the night-table, and not a word in it -about Florentine opera and the romance thereof. - -***** - -Rain still! Florentine rain, the next morning, steady and implacable! -They come down to breakfast, those fifty ladies; not in a cohort, but in -ones and twos and threes, appearing and disappearing, so that there are -never more than half a dozen hovering together over the white and almost -naked tables. They glance momentarily at the high windows and glance -away, crushing by a heroic effort of self-control, impossible to any but -women of the north, the impulse to criticise the order of the universe. -Calm, angular, ungainly, long-suffering, and morose, Cimabue might have -painted them; not Giotto. Their garb is austere, flannel above the zone -and stuff below; no ornament, no fluffiness, no enticement; but passably -neat, save for the untidy, irregular buttoning of the bodice down the -spine. And note that they are fully and finally dressed to be seen -of men; all the chill rites have been performed; they have not leapt -straight from the couch into a peignoir, after the manner of Latin -women--those odalisques at heart! They are astoundingly gentle with each -other, cooing sympathetic inquiries, emitting kind altruistic hopes, -leaning intimately towards each other, fondling each other, and even -sweetly kissing. They know by experience that strict observance of a -strict code is the price of peace. In that voluntary mutual captivity, -so full of enforced, familiar contacts, the error of a moment might -produce a thousand hours of purgatory.... A fresh young girl comes -swinging in, and with a gesture of which in a few years she will be -incapable, caresses the chin of her desiccated mamma. And the contrast -between the two figures, the thought of what lies behind the one -and what lies before the other, inured so soon to this existence--is -poignant. The girl perceptibly droops in that atmosphere; flourish in -it she cannot. And the smiles and the sweetness continue in profusion. -Nevertheless I feel that I am amid loose nitro-glycerine: one jar, and -the whole affair might be blown to atoms, and the papers would be -full of “mysterious fatal explosion in a _pension_ at Florence.” The -danger-points are the jampots and the honey-pots and the marmalade-pots, -of which each lady apparently has her own. And when one of them says to -the maid (all in white at this hour, as is meet): “This is not my jam--I -had more,” I quake at the conception of the superhuman force which -restrains the awful bitterness in her voice. A matter of an instant; but -in that instant, in that fraction of an instant, the tigress has snarled -at the bars of the cage and been dragged back. It is marvellous. It is -terrifying. - -We talk. We talk to prove our virtuosity in the nice conduct of the -early meal. I learn that they have been here for months, and that they -will be here for months. And that next year it may be Rome, or more -possibly Florence again. Florence is inexhaustible, inexhaustible. - -I mention the opera. I assert that there is such a thing as an opera. - -“Really!” Politeness masking indifference. - -I say that I went to the opera last night. - -“Really!” Politeness masking a puzzled, an even slightly alarmed -surprise. - -I say that the opera was most diverting. - -“Really!” Politeness masking boredom. - -The opera is not appraised in the guide-books. The opera is no part of -the official museum. Florence is a museum, and nothing but a museum. -Beyond the museum they do not admit that anything exists; hence nothing -exists beyond it. They do not scorn the rest of Florence. The rest of -Florence simply has not occurred to them. Pride of the Medicis, bow -before this pride, sublime in its absolute unconsciousness! - -***** - -That morning I made my way in the rain to the Strozzi Palace, which -palace is for me the great characteristic building of Florence. When I -think of Florence, I do not expire in ecstasy on the syllables of Duomo, -Baptistery, or Palazzo Vecchio, or even Bargello. The Strozzi Palace is -in my mind. Possibly I merely prefer it to the Riccardi Palace because I -cannot by paying fivepence invade it and add it up. The Strozzi Palace -still holds out against the northern hordes. Filippo Strozzi, as to whom -my ignorance is immaculate, must have united in a remarkable degree the -qualities of savagery, austere arrogance, and fine taste; otherwise he -would never have approved Maiano’s plans for this residence and castle. -The dimensions of it remind you of the Comédie Humaine, and it carries -rectangularity and uncompromising sharpness of corners to the last -limit. In form it is simply a colossal cube, of which you can only -appreciate the height by standing immediately beneath the unfinished -roof-cornice, the latter so vast in its beautiful enlargement of a Roman -model that nobody during five hundred years has had the pluck to set -about and finish it. Then you can see that in size the Strozzi ranks -with cathedrals, and that the residential part of it, up in the air, -only begins where three-story houses end. - -To appreciate its beauty and its moral you must get away from it, -opposite one of its corners, so as to have two _façades_ in perspective. -The small arched windows of the first and second storeys are all that it -shows of a curve. Rather finicking these windows, the elegant trifling -of a spirit essentially grim; some are bricked up, some show a gleam of -white-painted interior woodwork, and others have the old iron-studded -shutters. The lower windows are monstrously netted in iron to resist the -human storm. The upper windows may each be ten feet high, but they are -mere details of the _façades_, and the lower windows might be square -port-holes. See the two perspectives sloping away from you under the -tremendous eaves, a state-entrance in the middle of each! See the three -rows of torch or banner holders and the marvellous iron lanterns at the -corners! Imagine the place lit up with flame on some night of the early -sixteenth century, human beings swarming about its base as at the foot -of precipices. Imagine the lights out, and the dawn, and the day-gloom -of those ill-lighted and splendid apartments. Imagine the traditional -enemies of the Medicis trying to keep themselves warm therein during a -windy Florentine winter! Imagine, from the Strozzi Palace, the ferocious -altercations, and the artistic connoisseurship, and the continuous -ruthless sweating of the common people, which made up the lives of the -masters of Florence--and you will formulate a better idea of what life -was than from any church! This palace is a supreme monument of grim -force tempered by an exquisite sense of beauty. With the exception of -an intervening cornice which has had a piece knocked out of it, and the -damaged plinth, it stands now as it did at the commencement. Time has -not accepted the challenge of its sharp corners. It might have been -constructed ten years ago by Foster and Dicksee. - -I go up to one of the state entrances and peep in, shamefacedly. For it -is a private house. At the far end of the archway is a magnificent iron -grille, and I can see a delicately arched courtyard, utterly different -in style from the exterior, fruit of another brain; and beyond the -courtyard, a glimpse of a fresco and the vista of the state entrance -in the opposite _façade_. At each corner of the courtyard the rain is -splashing down, evidently from high open spouts, splashing with a loud, -careless, insolent noise, and the middle of the courtyard is a pool -continuously pricked by thousands of raindrops. The glass of the large -lamp swinging in the draught of the archway is broken. A huge lackey -in uniform strolls in front of the grille and lolls there. I move -instinctively away, for if anybody recoils before a lackey it is your -socialist. - -Then I see a lady hurrying across the square enveloped in a great cloak -and sheltered beneath an umbrella. She makes straight for the state -entrance, and passes me, dripping up the archway. I say to myself: - -“She belongs to the house. Now I am going to see the gates yield. The -lackey was expecting her.” And I had quite a thrill at sight of this -living inhabitant of the Strozzi Palace. - -But not She went right up to the grille, as though the lackey was in -prison and she visiting him, and stopped there and stared silently into -the courtyard. The lackey, dumbfounded and craven, moved off. She had -only come to look. This was her manner of coming to look. I ought to -have divined by the solidity of her heels that she was one of ours; not -one of my particular band at breakfast, but in Florence there are dozens -upon dozens of such breakfasts every morning, and from some Anglican -breakfast she had risen. - -***** - -Our breakfast took place in a palace. Not the Strozzi, not nearly so -large nor so fine as the Strozzi, but a real Florentine palazzo. It -has been transformed within to suit the needs and the caprices of those -stern ladies. They have come, and they have come again, and they have -calmly insisted, and they have had their will. Hygienic appliances -authentically signed by the great English artists in this _genre!_ -Radiators in each room! Electric bulbs over the bed and in the ceiling! -Iron beds! The inconvenient height of the windows from the floor -lessened by a little wooden platform on which are a little chair and -a little table and a little piece of needlework and a little vase of -flowers!... Steadily they are occupying the palaces, each lady in her -nook, and the slow force of their will moulds even the granite to the -desired uses. - -[Illustration: 0221] - -Why do they come? It cannot be out of passion for the great art of the -world. Nobody who had a glimmering of the real sense of beauty could -dress as they dress, move as they move, buy what they buy, or talk -as they talk. They mingle in their heads Goltermann with Debussy, and -Botticelli with Maude Goodman. Their drawing-room is full of Maude -Goodman in her rich first period.. .. It cannot be out of a love of -history, for they never unseal their lips in a spot where history has -been made without demonstrating in the most painful manner an entire -lack of historical imagination. They nibble daintily at crumbs of art -and of archæology in special booklets which some of themselves have -written and others of themselves have illustrated, and which make the -coarse male turn with an almost animal satisfaction to Carl Baedeker or -even the Reverend Herbert H. - -Jeaffreson, M. A. It is impossible that these excellent creatures, whose -only real defect has to do with the hooks and eyes down their spines, -can ever comprehend the beauty and the significance of that by which -they are surrounded. They have not the temperament. Temperamentally, -they would be much more at home in Riga. Also it is impossible to -believe that they are happy in Florence. They do not wear the look of -joy. Their gestures are not those of happiness. Nevertheless they can -only be in Florence because they have discovered that they are less -unhappy here than at home. What deep malady of society is it that drives -them out of their natural frame--the frame in which they are comely -and even delectable, the frame which best sets off their finer -qualities--into unnatural exile and the poor despised companionship of -their own sex? - -And what must be the force of that malady which drives them I The long -levers that ultimately exert their power on the palaces of Florence -are worked from England. Behind each of these solitary ladies, in the -English background, there must be a mysterious male--relative, friend, -lawyer, stockbroker--advising, controlling, forwarding cheques and -cheques and cheques, always. These ladies, economically, are dolls of -a financial system. Or you may call them the waste products of an -arthritic civilisation. What a force is behind them, that they should -possess themselves of another age and genius, and live in it as -conquerors, modifying manners, architecture, and even perhaps language! -The cloaked lady in front of the grille shall, if you choose, fairly be -likened to a barbarian on the threshold of a philosopher’s dead court; -hut as regards mere force, one may say that in her the Strozzis are up -against an equal. - - - - -II--THE SEVENTH OF MAY, 1910 - -It was an exquisitely beautiful Italian morning, promising heat that -a mild and constant breeze would temper. The East was one glitter. -Harmless clouds were loitering across the pale sky, and across the -Piazza children were taking the longest way to early school, as I passed -from the clear sunshine into the soft transparent gloom of one of the -great pantheons of Italy--a vast thirteenth-century Franciscan church, -the largest church ever built by any mendicant Order--carved and -decorated and painted by Donatello, Giotto, Andrea della Robbia, -Rossellino, Maiano, Taddeo Gaddi, Verrocchio, the incomparable Mino da -Fiesole, Vasari, Canova. - -Already the whole place had been cleansed and swept, but at one of the -remotest altars a charwoman was dusting. Little by little I descried -other visitors in the distance, moving quietly under the intimidation of -that calm, afraid to be the first to break the morning stillness. There -was the red gleam of a Baedeker. At a nearer altar a widow in black was -kneeling in one of those attitudes of impassioned surrender and appeal -that strike you so curiously, when for instance, you go out of Harrods’ -Stores suddenly into the Brompton Oratory. From an unseen chapel came -the sound of chanting, perfunctory, a part of the silence; and last -of all, at still another altar, I made out a richly coloured priest -genuflecting, all alone, save for a black acolyte. In a corner two -guides were talking business, and by the doors the beggars were talking -business in ordinary tones before the official whining of the day should -commence. The immense interior had spaciousness for innumerable separate -and diverse activities, each undisturbed by the others. And all around -me were the tombs and cenotaphs of great or notorious men, who had made -the glory and the destiny of Italy; Dante, Galileo, Michael Angelo, -Donatello, Machiavelli; and Alfieri, Rossini, Aretino, Cherubini, -Alberti; and even St. Louis, and a famous fourteenth century English -Bishop, and a couple of Bonapartes; many ages, races, climes. - -***** - -I sat down and opened the damp newspaper which I had just bought outside -at the foot of the steps leading up to the dazzling marble façade. And -when I had been staring at the newspaper some time I became aware that -the widow at the altar in the middle distance had risen and was leaving -the church, and then I saw to my surprise that she was an Irish lady -staying in my hotel. She passed near me. Should I stop her, or should I -not? I wanted to stop her, from the naïve pride which one feels in being -able to communicate a startling piece of news of the first magnitude. -But on the other hand, I really was nervous about telling her. To tell -her seemed brutal, seemed like knocking her down. This was my feeling. -She decided the question for me by deviating from her path to greet me. - -[Illustration: 0227] - -“What a lovely morning!” she said. - -“Have you heard about the King?” I asked her gruffly, well knowing that -she had not. - -“No,” she answered smiling. And then, as she looked at me, her smile -faded. - -“Well,” I said, “he’s dead!” - -“What! _Our_ King?” - -“Yes. He died at midnight. Here it is.” And I showed her the -“_Recentissime_” or Latest News page of the newspaper, two lines in -leaded type: “_Londra, 7, ore 2:30 (Urgenza). Re Edoardo è morto a -mezzanotte_.” She knew enough Italian to comprehend that. - -“This last midnight?” She was breathless. - -“Yes.” - -“But--but--no one even knew anything about him being ill?” she -protested. - -“Yesterday evening’s Italian papers had columns about the illness--it -was bronchitis,” I said grimly. - -“Oh!” she said, “I never see the Italian papers.” - -Yet the name of Edward the Seventh had been on every newspaper placard -in the land on Friday night. But in Italy these British have literally -no sight for anything later than the sixteenth century. - -Tears stood in her eyes. On my part it would have been just as kindly to -knock her down. - -“Just think of that little fellow at Osborne--he’s got to be Prince of -Wales now, and I suppose they’ll take him away from there,” she murmured -brokenly, as she went off, aghast. - -***** - -I sat down again. It seemed to me, as I reflected among these tombs and -cenotaphs, that a woman’s eyes, on such an occasion, were a good test of -the genuineness of popular affection. - -I then noticed that, while the Irish lady and I had been whispering, -another acquaintance of mine had mysteriously entered the church without -my cognizance and had set up his tent in the south transept. This was a -young man who, having gained a prominent place in a certain competition -at the Royal College of Art, had been sent off with money in his pocket, -at the expense of the British nation, to study art and to paint in -Italy. He possessed what is called a travelling scholarship, and the -treasures of Italy were at his feet as at the feet of a conqueror. -Already he had visited me at my hotel, and filled my room with the odour -of his fresh oil-sketches. There were only two things in his head--the -art of painting, and the prospect of an immediate visit to Venice. -He had lodged his easel on a memorial-stone among the flags of the -pavement, and was painting a vista of tombs ending in a bright light -of stained glass. His habit was to paint before the museums opened and -after they closed. I went and accosted him. Again I was conscious of -the naïve pride of a bringer of tragic tidings. He was young and strong, -with fire in his eye. I need not be afraid of knocking him down, at any -rate. - -“The King’s dead,” I said. - -He lifted his brush. - -“Not--?” - -I nodded. - -He burst out with a tremendous, “By Jove!” that broke that fresh morning -stillness once for all, and faintly echoed into silence among those -tombs. “By Jove!” - -His imagination had at once risen to the solemn grandeur of the event, -as an event; but the sharp significance of death did not penetrate the -armour of that enthusiastic youthfulness. “What a pity!” he exclaimed -nicely; but he could not get the iridescent vision of Venice out of his -head, nor the problems of his canvas. He continued painting--what else -could he do?--and then, after a few moments, he said eagerly, “I wish I -was in London!” - -“Me too!” I said. - -Probably most of the thousands of Englishmen in Italy had the same wish. - -***** - -I departed from the church. The chanting had ceased; the guides were -still talking business, but the beggars had begun to whine. - -In the dining-room of the hotel there was absolute silence. A lady near -the door, with an Italian newspaper over her coffee-cup, who had never -spoken to me before, and would probably never speak to me again, said: - -“I suppose you’ve heard about--” - -“Yes,” I said. - -Everybody in the room knew. Everybody was - -English. And nobody spoke. As the guests came down by ones and twos -to breakfast, the lady near the door stopped each of them: “I suppose -you’ve heard--” But none of them had. I was her sole failure. At length -a retired military officer came down, already informed. “Where does -this news come from?” he demanded of the room, impatiently, cautiously, -half-incredulously, as one who would hesitate to trust any information -that he had not seen in a London daily. With a single inflection of his -commanding voice he wiped out the whole Press of Italy--that country of -excellent newspapers. He got little answer. We all sat silent. - - - - -III--MORE ITALIAN OPERA - -Geographical considerations made it impossible for me to be present at -the performance of _La Traviata_, which opened the Covent Garden season. -I solaced myself by going to hear, on that very night, another and -better opera of Verdi’s, _Aida_, in a theatre certainly more capacious -than Covent Garden, namely, the Politeamo Fiorentino, at Florence. -Florence is a city of huge theatres, which seem to be generally empty, -even during performances, and often on sale. In the majority of them the -weather is little by little getting the better of the ceiling; and the -multifarious attendants, young and old, go about their casual vague -business of letting cushions or selling cigars in raiment that has the -rich, storied interest of antiquity. But on this particular occasion -prosperity attended a Florentine theatrical enterprise. I was one of -three thousand or so excited and crowded beings, most of whom had paid a -fair price for admission to hear the brassiest opera ever composed. - -Once I used to condescend to Verdi. That was in the early nineties, -when, at an impressionable and violent age, I got caught in the first -genuine Wagner craze that attacked this country. We used to go to the -special German seasons at Drury Lane, as it were to High Mass. And -although Max Alvary and Frau Klafsky would be singing in _Tristan_, you -might comfortably have put all the occupants of the upper circle into a -Pullman car. Once a cat walked across the stage during a solemn moment -in the career of Isolde, and nearly everybody laughed; a few tittered, -which was even more odious. Only a handful, of such as myself, scowled -angrily--not at the cat, which was really rather fine in the garden, -completing it--but at the infantile unseriousness of these sniggering -so-called Wagnerians. I felt that laughter would have been very well at -a Verdi performance, might even have enhanced it. Meanwhile, over the -way at Convent Garden, Verdi performances were being given to the usual -full houses. It never occurred to me to attend them. Verdi was vulgar. -I cannot explain my conviction that Verdi was vulgar, because I had not -heard a single opera of Verdi’s, save his Wagnerian imitations. No doubt -it arose out of the deep human instinct to intensify the pleasure of -admiring one thing by simultaneously disparaging another thing. - -Then, a long time afterwards, in the comparatively calm interval between -the first and the second Wagner crazes, I heard the real Verdi. It was -_La Traviata_, in a little town in Italy, and it was the first operatic -performance I had attended in Italy. I adored it, when I was not -privately laughing at it; and there are one or two airs in it, which -I would sit through the whole opera to hear, if I could not hear them -otherwise. (Happily they occur in the first act.) Yes, Verdi’s name -does not begin with W; but it very nearly does. I stuck him up at once -a little lower than the angels, and I have never pulled him down. It is -certain, however, that _La Traviata_ at any rate cannot live, unless as -a comic opera. I personally did not laugh aloud, because the English are -seldom cruel in a theatre; but the tragical parts are undoubtedly very -funny indeed, funnier even than the tragical parts of the exquisitely -absurd play, _La Dame aux Camélias_, upon which the opera is founded. -When _La Traviata_ was first produced, about fifty-five years ago, in -Venice, its unconscious humour brought about an absolute, a disastrous -failure. The performance ended amid roars of laughter. Unhappily the -enormous proportions of Signora Donatelli, who sang Violetta, aided -the fiasco. When the doctor announced that this lady was in an advanced -stage of consumption and had but a few hours to live, Harry Lauder -himself could not have had a greater success of hilarity with the mob. -Italians are like that. They may be devoted to music--though there are -reasons for doubting it--but as opera-goers and concert-goers they are -a godless crew. An Englishman would have laughed at Violetta’s -unconsumptive waist, but he would have laughed in the street, or the -next morning. The English have reverence, and when they go to the opera, -they go to hear the opera. - -***** - -When Italians go to the opera, they are apparently out for a lark, and -they have some of the qualities of the Roman multitude enjoying wild -beasts in the amphitheatre. I think I have never been to an operatic -performance in Italy without acutely noticing this. When I went to hear -_Aida_, the colossal interior of the Politeamo Fiorentino had the very -look of an amphitheatre, with its row of heads and hats stretching away -smaller and smaller into a haze. There were notices about appealing to -the gentleness of the public not to smoke. But do you suppose the public -did not smoke? Especially considering that the management thoughtfully -offered cigars, cigarettes, and matches for sale! In a very large -assemblage of tightly-packed people, unauthorised noises are bound to -occur from time to time. Now, an Italian audience will never leave -an unauthorised noise alone. If a chair creaks, or a glass on the bar -tinkles, an Italian audience will hiss savagely and loudly for several -seconds--which seem like several minutes. Not in the hope of stopping -the noise, for the noise has stopped! Not because it wishes not to miss -a note of the music, for it misses about twenty-five per cent, of -the notes through its own fugal hissing! But from simple, truculent -savagery! It cares naught for the susceptibilities of the artists. -Whether a singer is in the midst of a tender pianissimo, or the band -is blaring its best, if an Italian audience hears a noise, however -innocent, it will multiply that noise by a hundred. Yet the individual -politeness of the Italian people is perfectly delightful. - -Further: In the middle of the performance a shabby gentleman came on -to the stage and begged indulgence for an artist who was “gravely -indisposed.” The audience received him with cynical laughter; he made -a gesture of cynical resignation and departed. The artist received no -indulgence. The artist was silly enough to hold on powerfully to a high -note at the end of a long solo; and that solo had to be given again--and -let there be no mistake about it!--despite the protests of a minority -against such insistence. The Latin temperament! If you sing in opera in -Italy, your career may be unremunerative, but it will be exciting. -You may be deified, or you may be half-killed. But be assured that the -audience is sincere, as sincere as a tiger. - -***** - -Composers also must beware. When Pasini’s new opera, _Don Quixote_, -was produced lately, it had a glorious run of two performances. It was, -indeed, received with execration. After the second night the leading -newspaper appeared with a few brief, barbed remarks: “The season of -the Teatro Verdi is ended. It would have been better if it had never -started.. . . The maestro Pasini has written an opera which may be very -pleasing--to deaf mutes.” Yet _Don Quixote_ was not worse than many -other operas which people pay to see. Imagine these manners in unmusical -England. - -France is less crude, but not always very much less crude. The most -musical city in France is Toulouse. An extraordinary number of singers, -composers, and poets seem to be born in Toulouse. - -But the _debuts_ of an operatic artist at the Toulouse municipal opera -are among the most dangerous and terrible experiences that can fall to a -singer. The audience is merciless, and recks not of youth nor sex. If -it is not satisfied, it expresses its opinion frankly, and for the more -frank and effective expression of its opinion it goes to the performance -suitably provided with decayed vegetables. And I am told that Marseilles -candour is carried even further. As for Naples--. - -Perhaps, after all, our admirable politeness and the solemnity of -our attitude towards the whole subject of opera merely prove that -Continental nations are right in regarding us as fundamentally -unmusical. With us opera is a cultivated exotic. In Italy, what does it -matter if you ruin a composer’s career, or even kill a young soprano -who has not reached your standard! There are quantities of composers and -sopranos all over Italy. You can see them active in the very streets. -You can’t keep them down. We say Miss -----------, the English soprano, -in startled accents of pride. Italians don’t say Signorina ----------‘, -the Italian soprano. In Italy you get a new opera about once a -month. The last English grand opera that held the English stage was -_Artaxeræes_, and it is so long ago that not one person in a hundred who -reads these lines will be able to give the name of the composer. Can any -nation be musical which does not listen chiefly to its own music? - - - - -THE RIVIERA--1907 - - - -I--THE HÔTEL TRISTE - -Because I am a light and uneasy sleeper I can hear, at a quarter to six -every morning, the distant subterranean sound of a peculiarly energetic -bell. It rings for about one minute, and it is a signal at which They -quit their drowsy beds. And all along the Riviera coast, from Toulon to -San Remo, in the misty and chill dawn, They are doing the same thing, -beginning the great daily conspiracy to persuade me, and those like me, -that we are really the Sultan, and that our previous life has been a -dream. I sink back into slumber and hear the monotonous roar of the -tideless Mediterranean in my sleep. The Mediterranean, too, is in the -conspiracy. It is extremely inconvenient and annoying to have to go -running about after a sea which wanders across half a mile of beach -twice a day; appreciating this, and knowing the violent objection of -sultans to any sort of trouble, the Mediterranean dispenses with a tide; -at any hour it may be found tirelessly washing the same stone. After -an interval of time, during which a quarter to six in the morning has -receded to the middle of the night, I wake up wide, and instantly, in -Whitman’s phrase, - - I know I am august. - -I put my hand through the mosquito curtains and touch an electrical -contrivance placed there for my benefit, and immediately there appears -before me a woman neatly clothed to delight my eye, and I gaze out at -her through my mosquito curtains. She wishes me “Good morning” in my own -language, in order to save the trouble of unnecessary comprehension, and -if I had happened to be Italian, French, or German she could still greet -me in my own language, because she has been taught to do so in order -to save me trouble. She takes my commands for the morning, and then -I notice that the sun has thoughtfully got round to my window and is -casting a respectful beam or two on my hyacinthine locks. In the -vast palace the sultans are arising, and I catch the rumour thereof. -Presently, with various and intricate aid, I have laved the imperial -limbs and assumed the robes of state. The window is opened for me, and I -pass out on to the balcony and languidly applaud the Mediterranean, like -a king diverting himself for half an hour at the opera. It is a -great sight, me applauding the Mediterranean as I drink a cup of tea; -stockbrokers clapping the dinner-band at the Trocadero would be nothing -to it. After this I do an unmonarchical act, an act of which I ought to -be ashamed, and which I keep a profound secret from the other sultans in -the vast palace--I earn my living by sheer hard labour. - -Then I descend to the banqueting-hall, and no sooner do I appear than I -am surrounded by minions in black, an extraordinary race of persons. At -different hours I see these mysterious minions in black, and sometimes I -observe them surreptitiously. They have no names. They never eat, -never drink, never smile, never love, never do anything except offer me -prepared meats with respectful complacency. Their god is my stomach, -and they have made up their minds that it must be appeased with frequent -burnt sacrifices and libations. They watch my glance as mariners the -sky, and the slightest hint sends them flying. At the conclusion of the -ceremony they usher me out of the hall with obeisances into other halls -and other deferential silences. - -***** - -And when the entire rite has been repeated twice we recline on sofas, I -and the other sultans, and spend the final hours of the imperial day in -being sad and silent together. We are sad because we are sultans. It is -in the nature of things that sultans should be sad; it is not the cares -of state which make us sad, but merely a high imperial instinct for the -correct. Silence is, of course, a necessity to sultans, and for this -reason the activity of the immense palace is conducted solely in hushed -tones. The minions in black never raise their dulcet voices more than -half an inch or so. Late at night, as I pass on my solitary, sad way to -the chamber of sleep, I see them, those mysterious minions with no names -and no passions and no heed for food, still hovering expectant, still -bowing, still silent. And lastly I retire. I find my couch beautifully -laid out, I cautiously place myself upon it, I savour the soundless calm -of the palace, and I sleep again; and my closing thought is the thought -that I am august, and that all the other sultans, in this and all the -other palaces from Toulon to San Remo, are august. - -***** - -Strange things happen. Once a week a very-strange thing happens. I find -an envelope lying about. It is never given to me openly. I may discover -it propped up against the teapot on my tea-tray, or on my writing-desk, -or sandwiched in my “post,” between a love-letter and a picture post -card. But I invariably do find it; measures are taken that I shall -succeed promptly in finding it. All the minions pretend that this -envelope is a matter of no importance whatever; I also pretend the same. -Now, the fact is that I simply hate this envelope; I hate the sight of -it; I hate to open it; I dread its contents. Every week it shocks me. I -carry it about with me in my imperial pocket for several hours, fighting -against the inevitable. Then at length I dismally yield to a compulsion. -And I wander, by accident on purpose, in the direction of a little -glass-partitioned room, where a malevolent man sits like a spider sits -in its web. We both pretend I am there by chance, but since I am in fact -there, I may as well--a pure formality! And a keen listener might hear -a golden chink or the rustle of paper. And then I feel feeble but -relieved, as if I had come out of the dentist’s. And I am aware that I -am not so excessively august after all, and that I am in the middle of -the Riviera season, when one must expect, etc., etc., and that even the -scenery was scientifically reduced to figures in that envelope, and that -anyhow the Hôtel Triste is the Hôtel Triste. (Triste is not its real -name; one of my fellow sultans, who also does the shameful act in -secret, so baptised it in a ribald moment.) - -[Illustration: 0245] - -***** - -The strangest thing of all occurred one night. I was walking moodily -along the convenient marge of the Mediterranean when I saw a man, -a human being, dressed in a check suit and a howler hat, talking to -another human being dressed in a blouse and a skirt. I passed them. The -man was smiling, and chattering loudly and rapidly and even passionately -to the soul within the blouse. Soon they parted, with proofs of -affection, and the man strode away and overtook and left me behind. You -could have knocked me down with a feather when I perceived he was one of -the mysterious nameless minions who I thought always wore mourning and -never ate, drank, smiled, or loved. “Fellow wanderer in the Infinite,” - I addressed his back as soon as I had recovered, “What are your opinions -upon life and death and love, and the advisability of being august?” - - - - -II--WAR! - -We were in the billiard-room--English men and women collected from -various parts of the earth, and enjoying that state of intimacy which -is somehow produced by the comfortable click of billiard balls. It -is extraordinary what pretty things the balls say of a night in the -billiard-room of a good hotel. They say: “You are very good-natured and -jolly people. Click. Women spoil the play, but it’s nice to have them -here. Click. And so well-dressed and smiling and feminine I Click. -Click. Cigars are good and digestion is good. Click. How correct and -refined and broad-minded you all are! All’s right with the world. -Click.” A stockbroker sat near me by the fire. My previous experience -of stockbrokers had led me to suppose that all stockbrokers were pursy, -middle-aged, hard-breathers, thick-fingered, with a sure taste in wines, -steaks, and musical comedies. But this one was very different--except -perhaps on the point of musical comedies. He was quite young, quite -thin, quite simple. In fact, he was what is known as an English -gentleman. He frankly enjoyed showing young ladies aged twenty-three -how to make a loser off the red, and talking about waltzes, travel, and -sport. He never said anything original, and so never surprised one nor -made one feel uncomfortable. He was extremely amiable, and we all liked -him. The sole fact about the Stock Exchange which I gleamed from him -was that the Stock Exchange comprised many bounders, and “you had to be -civil to ‘em, too.” - -***** - -“You’ve heard the news?” I said to him. “About Japan?” he asked. No, he -had not heard. It took the English papers two days to reach us, and, of -course, for the English there are no newspapers but English newspapers. -There was a first-class local daily; with a complete service of foreign -news, and a hundred thousand readers; but I do not believe that one -English person in ten even knew of its existence. So I took the local -daily out of my pocket, and translated to him the Russian note informing -the Powers that ambassadors were packing up. “Looks rather had!” he -murmured. I could have jumped up and slain him on the spot with the -jigger, for every English person in that hotel every night for three -weeks past had exclaimed on glancing at the “Times”: “Looks bad!” And -here this amiable young stockbroker, with war practically broken out, -was saying it again! I am perfectly convinced that everyone said -this, and this only, because no one had any ideas beyond it. There -had appeared some masterly articles in the “Times” on the Manchurian -question. But nobody read them: I am sure of that. No one had even -a passable notion of Far Eastern geography, and no one could have -explained, lucidly or otherwise, the origin of the gigantic altercation. -How strange it is that the causes of war never excite interest! (What -was the cause of the Franco-German war, you who are omniscient?) - -In response to another question, the young stockbroker said that his -particular market would be seriously affected. “I should like to be -there,” [on the Exchange], he remarked, and added dreamily: “It would be -rather fun.” Then we began a four-handed game, a game whose stupidities -were atoned for by the charming gestures of women. And the stockbroker -found himself in enormous form. The stone of the Russian Note had sunk -into the placid lake and not a ripple was left. Nothing but billiards -had existed since the beginning of the world, or ever would exist. -Nothing, I reflected, will rouse the average sensible man to an -imaginative conception of what a war is, not even the descriptions of a -Stephen Crane. Nay, not even income tax at fifteen pence in the pound! - -***** - -The next morning I went out for a solitary walk by the coast road. And -I had not gone a mile before I came to an unkempt building, with a few -officials lounging in front of it. “French Custom House” was painted -across its pale face. Then the road began to climb up among the outlying -spurs of the Maritime Alps. It went higher and higher till it was cut -out of the solid rock. Half a mile further, and there was another French -Custom House. Still further, where the rock became crags, and the crags -beetled above and beetled below, there occurred a profound gorge, and -from the stone bridge which spanned it one could see, and faintly hear, -a thin torrent rushing to the sea perhaps a couple of hundred feet -below. Immediately to the west of this bridge the surface of the crags -had been chiselled smooth, and on the expanse had been pictured a large -black triangle with a white border--about twelve feet across. And under -the triangle was a common little milestone arrangement, smaller than -many English milestones, and on one side of the milestone was painted -“France” and on the other “Italia.” This was the division between the -two greatest Latin countries; across this imaginary line had been waged -the bloodless but disastrous tariff war of ten years ago. I was in -France; a step, and I was in Italy! And it is on account of similar -imaginary, artificial, and unconvincing lines, one here, one there--they -straggle over the whole earth’s crust--that most wars, military, naval, -and financial, take place. - -***** - -Across the gorge was a high, brown tenement, and towards the tenement -strutted an Italian soldier in the full, impossible panoply of war. He -carried two rifles, a mile or so of braid, gilt enough to gild the dome -of St. Paul’s and Heaven knows what contrivances besides. And he was -smoking a cigarette out of a long holder. Two young girls, aged perhaps -six or eight, bounded out of the slatternly tenement, and began to -chatter to him in a high infantile treble. The formidable warrior smiled -affectionately, and bending down, offered them a few paternal words; -they were evidently spoiled little things. Close by a vendor of picture -post cards had set up shop on a stone wall. Far below, the Mediterranean -was stretched out like a blue cloth without a crease in it, and a brig -in full sail was crawling across the offing. The sun shone brilliantly. -Roses in perfect bloom had escaped from gardens and hung free over -hedges. Everything was steeped in a tremendous and impressive calm--a -calm at once pastoral and marine, and the calm of obdurate mountains -that no plough would ever conquer. And breaking against this mighty calm -was the high, thin chatter of the little girls, with their quick and -beautiful movements of childhood. - -And as I watched the ragged little girls, and followed the brig on -the flat and peaceful sea, and sniffed the wonderful air, and was -impregnated by the spirit of the incomparable coast and the morning -hour, something overcame me, some new perception of the universality of -humanity. (It was the little girls that did it.) And I thought -intensely how absurd, how artificial, how grotesque, how accidental, -how inessential, was all that rigmarole of boundaries and limits and -frontiers. It seemed to me incredible, then, that people could go to war -about such matters. The peace, the natural universal peace, seemed so -profound and so inherent in the secret essence of things, that it could -not be broken. And at the very moment, though I knew it not, while -the brig was slipping by, and the little girls were imposing upon the -good-nature of their terrible father, and the hawker was arranging his -trumpery, pathetic post cards, they were killing each other--Russia and -Japan were--in a row about “spheres of influence.” - - - - -III-“MONTE” - -Monte Carlo--the initiated call it merely “Monte”--has often been -described, in fiction and out of it, but the frank confession of a -ruined gambler is a rare thing; partly because the ruined gambler can’t -often write well enough to express himself accurately, partly because -he isn’t in the mood for literary composition, and partly because he is -sometimes dead. So, since I am not dead, and since it is only by -means of literary composition that I can hope to restore my shattered -fortunes, I will give you the frank confession of a ruined gambler. -Before I went to Monte Carlo I had all the usual ideas of the average -sensible man about gambling in general, and about Monte Carlo in -particular. “Where does all the exterior brilliance of Monte Carlo come -from?” I asked sagely. And I said further: “The Casino administration -does not disguise the fact that it makes a profit of about 50,000 francs -a day. Where does that profit come from?” And I answered my own question -with wonderful wisdom: “Out of the pockets of the foolish gamblers.” I -specially despised the gambler who gambles “on a system”; I despised him -as a creature of superstition. For the “system” gambler will argue that -if I toss a penny up six times and it falls “tail” every time, there is -a strong probability that it will fall “head” the seventh time. “Now,” - I said, “can any rational creature be so foolish as to suppose that the -six previous and done-with spins can possibly affect the seventh spin? -What connection is there between them?” And I replied: “No rational -creature can be so foolish. And there is no connection.” In this spirit, -superior, omniscient, I went to Monte Carlo. - -[Illustration: 0255] - -Of course, I went to study human nature and find material. The sole -advantage of being a novelist is that when you are discovered in a place -where, as a serious person, you would prefer not to be discovered, you -can always aver that you are studying human nature and seeking material. -I was much impressed by the fact of my being in Monte Carlo. I said to -myself: “I am actually in Monte Carlo!” I was proud. And when I got into -the gorgeous gaming saloons, amid that throng at once glittering and -shabby, I said: “I am actually in the gaming saloons!” And the thought -at the back of my mind was: “Henceforth I shall be able to say that I -have been in the gaming saloons at Monte Carlo.” After studying human -nature at large, I began to study it at a roulette table. I had gambled -before--notably with impassive Arab chiefs in that singular oasis of -the Sahara desert, Biskra--but only a little, and always at _petits -chevaux_, But I understood roulette, and I knew several “systems.” I -found the human nature very interesting; also the roulette. The sight of -real gold, silver, and notes flung about in heaps warmed my imagination. -At this point I felt a solitary five-franc piece in my pocket. And -then the red turned up three times running, and I remembered a simple -“system” that began after a sequence of three. - -***** - -I don’t know how it was, but long before I had formally decided to -gamble I knew by instinct that I should stake that five-franc piece. -I fought against the idea, but I couldn’t take my hand empty out of -my pocket. Then at last (the whole experience occupying perhaps ten -seconds) I drew forth the five-franc piece and bashfully put it on -black. I thought that all the fifty or sixty persons crowded round -the table were staring at me and thinking to themselves: “There’s -a beginner!” However, black won, and the croupier pushed another -five-franc piece alongside of mine, and I picked them both up very -smartly, remembering all the tales I had ever heard of thieves leaning -over you at Monte Carlo and snatching your ill-gotten gains. I then -thought: “This is a bit of all right. Just for fun I’ll continue the -system.” I did so. In an hour I had made fifty francs, without breaking -into gold. Once a croupier made a slip and was raking in red stakes -when red had won, and people hesitated (because croupiers never make -mistakes, you know, and you have to be careful how you quarrel with the -table at Monte Carlo), and I was the first to give vent to a protest, -and the croupier looked at me and smiled and apologised, and the winners -looked at me gratefully, and I began to think myself the deuce and all -of a Monte Carlo habitué. - -Having made fifty francs, I decided that I would prove my self-control -by ceasing to play. So I did prove it, and went to have tea in the -Casino _café_. In those moments fifty francs seemed to me to be a really -enormous sum. I was as happy as though I had shot a reviewer without -being found out. I gradually began to perceive, too, that though -no rational creature could suppose that a spin could be affected by -previous spins, nevertheless, it undoubtedly was so affected. I began to -scorn a little the average sensible man who scorned the gambler. “There -is more in roulette than is dreamt of in your philosophy, my conceited -friend,” I murmured. I was like a woman--I couldn’t argue, but I knew -infallibly. Then it suddenly occurred to me that if I had gambled with -louis instead of five-franc pieces I should have made 200 francs--200 -francs in rather over an hour! Oh, luxury! Oh, being-in-the-swim! Oh, -smartness! Oh, gilded and delicious sin! - -***** - -Five days afterwards I went to Monte Carlo again, to lunch with some -brother authors. In the meantime, though I had been chained to my desk -by unalterable engagements, I had thought constantly upon the art and -craft of gambling. One of these authors knew Monte Carlo, and all that -therein is, as I know Fleet Street. And to my equal astonishment and -pleasure he said, when I explained my system to him: “Couldn’t have a -better!” And he proceeded to remark positively that the man who had a -decent system and the nerve to stick to it through all crises, would -infallibly win from the tables--not a lot, but an average of several -louis per sitting of two hours. “Gambling,” he said, “is a matter -of character. You have the right character,” he added. You may guess -whether I did not glow with joyous pride. “The tables make their money -from the plunging fools,” I said, privately, “and I am not a fool.” - A man was pointed out to me who extracted a regular income from -the tables. “But why don’t the authorities forbid him the rooms?” I -demanded, “Because he’s such a good advertisement. Can’t you see?” I -saw. - -We went to the Casino late after lunch. I cut myself adrift from the -rest of the party and began instantly to play. In forty-five minutes, -with my “system,” I had made forty-five francs. And then the rest of the -party reappeared and talked about tea, and trains, and dinner. “Tea!” I -murmured disgusted (yet I have a profound passion for tea), “when I am -netting a franc a minute!” However, I yielded, and we went and had tea -at the Restaurant de Paris across the way. And over the white-and-silver -of the tea-table, in the falling twilight, with the incomparable -mountain landscape in front of us, and the most _chic_ and decadent -Parisianism around us, we talked roulette. Then the Russian Grand Duke -who had won several thousand pounds in a few minutes a week or two -before, came veritably and ducally in, and sat at the next table. There -was no mistaking his likeness to the Tsar. It is most extraordinary how -the propinquity of a Grand Duke, experienced for the first time, affects -even the proverbial phlegm of a British novelist. I seemed to be moving -in a perfect atmosphere of Grand Dukes! And I, too, had won! The art of -literature seemed a very little thing. - -***** - -After I had made fifty and forty-five francs at two sittings, I -developed suddenly, without visiting the tables again, into a complete -and thorough gambler. I picked up all the technical terms like picking -up marbles--the greater martingale, the lesser martingale, “en plein,” - “à cheval,” “the horses of seventeen,” “last square,” and so on, and so -on--and I had my own original theories about the alleged superiority of -red-or-black to odd-or-even in betting on the even chances. In short, -for many hours I lived roulette. I ate roulette for dinner, drank it -in my Vichy, and smoked it in my cigar. At first I pretended that I was -only pretending to be interested in gambling as a means of earning -a livelihood (call it honest or dishonest, as you please). Then the -average sensible man in me began to have rather a bad time, really. I -frankly acknowledged to myself that I was veritably keen on the thing. I -said: “Of course, ordinary people believe that the tables must win, -but we who are initiated know better. All you want in order to win is -a prudent system and great force of character.” And I decided that it -would be idle, that it would be falsely modest, that it would be inane, -to deny that I had exceptional force of character. And beautiful schemes -formed themselves in my mind: how I would gain a certain sum, and then -increase my “units” from five-franc pieces to louis, and so quadruple -the winnings, and how I would get a friend to practise the same system, -and so double them again, and how generally we would have a quietly -merry time at the expense of the tables during the next month. - -And I was so calm, cool, collected, impassive. There was no hurry. I -would not go to Monte Carlo the next day, but perhaps the day after. -However, the next day proved to be very wet, and I was alone and idle, -my friends being otherwise engaged, and hence I was simply obliged to -go to Monte Carlo. I didn’t wish to go, but what could one do? Before -starting, I reflected: “Well, there’s just a _chance_--such things have -been known,” and I took a substantial part of my financial resources out -of my pocket-book, and locked that reserve up in a drawer. After this, -who will dare to say that I was not cool and sagacious? The journey to -Monte Carlo seemed very long. Just as I was entering the ornate portals -I met some friends who had seen me there the previous day. The thought -flashed through my mind: “These people will think I have got caught in -the meshes of the vice just like ordinary idiots, whereas, of course my -case is not ordinary at all.” So I quickly explained to them that it was -very wet (as if they couldn’t see), and that my other friends had -left me, and that I had come to Monte Carlo merely to kill time. They -appeared to regard this explanation as unnecessary. - -***** - -I had a fancy for the table where I had previously played and won. -I went to it, and by extraordinary good fortune secured a chair--a -difficult thing to get in the afternoons. Behold me seated next door to -a croupier, side by side with regular frequenters, regular practisers -of systems, and doubtless envied by the outer ring of players and -spectators! I was annoyed to find that every other occupant of a chair -had a little printed card in black and red on which he marked -the winning numbers. I had neglected to provide myself with this -contrivance, and I felt conspicuous; I felt that I was not correct. -However, I changed some gold for silver with the croupier, and laid the -noble pieces in little piles in front of me, and looked as knowing and -as initiated as I could. And at the first opening offered by the play I -began the operation of my system, backing red, after black had won three -times. Black won the fourth time, and I had lost five francs.... Black -won the sixth time and I had lost thirty-five francs. Black won -the seventh time, and I had lost seventy-five francs. “Steady, cool -customer!” I addressed myself. I put down four louis (and kindly -remember that in these hard times four louis is four louis--three -English pounds and four English shillings), and, incredible to relate, -black won the eighth time, and I had lost a hundred and fifty-five -francs. The time occupied was a mere nine minutes. It was at this point -that the “nerve” and the “force of character” were required, for it was -an essential part of my system to “cut the loss” at the eighth turn. -I said: “Hadn’t I better put down eight louis and win all back again, -_just this once?_ Red’s absolutely certain to win next time.” But my -confounded force of character came in, and forced me to cut the loss, -and stick strictly to the system. And at the ninth spin red did win. If -I had only put down that eight louis I should have been all right. I -was extremely annoyed, especially when I realised that, even with decent -luck, it would take me the best part of three hours to regain that -hundred and fifty-five francs. - -***** - -I was shaken. I was like a pugilist who had been knocked down in a prize -fight, and hasn’t quite made up his mind whether, on the whole, he won’t -be more comfortable, in the long run, where he is. I was like a soldier -under a heavy fire, arguing with himself rapidly whether he prefers -to be a Balaclava hero with death or the workhouse, or just a plain, -ordinary, prudent Tommy. I was struck amidships. Then an American person -behind my chair, just a casual foolish plunger, of the class out of -which the Casino makes its profits, put a thousand franc note on the odd -numbers, and thirty-three turned up. “A thousand for a thousand,” said -the croupier mechanically and nonchalantly, and handed to the foolish -plunger the equivalent of eighty pounds sterling. And about two minutes -afterwards the same foolish plunger made a hundred and sixty pounds -at another single stroke. It was odious; I tell you positively it was -odious. I collected the shattered bits of my character out of my boots, -and recommenced my system; made a bit; felt better; and then zero turned -up twice--most unsettling, even when zero means only that your stake -is “held over.” Then two old and fussy ladies came and gambled very -seriously over my head, and deranged my hair with the end of the rake -in raking up their miserable winnings.... At five o’clock I had lost -a hundred and ninety-five francs. I don’t mind working hard, at great -nervous tension, in a vitiated atmosphere, if I can reckon on netting -a franc a minute; but I have a sort of objection to three laborious -sittings such as I endured that week when the grand result is a dead -loss of four pounds. I somehow failed to see the point. I departed in -disgust, and ordered tea at the Café de Paris, not the Restaurant de -Paris (I was in no mood for Grand Dukes). And while I imbibed the tea, -a heated altercation went on inside me between the average sensible man -and the man who knew that money could be made out of the tables and -that gambling was a question of nerves, etc. It was a pretty show, that -altercation. In about ten rounds the average sensible man had knocked -his opponent right out of the ring. I breathed a long breath, and seemed -to wake up out of a nightmare. Did I regret the episode? I regretted the -ruin, not the episode. For had I not all the time been studying human -nature and getting material? Besides that, as I grow older I grow too -wise. Says Montaigne: “_Wisdome hath hir excesses, and no leise need of -moderation, then follie._” (The italics are Montaigne’s)... And there’s -a good deal in my system after all. - - - - -IV--A DIVERSION AT SAN REMO - -The Royal Hotel, San Remo, has the reputation of being the best hotel, -and the most expensive, on the Italian Riviera. It is the abode of -correctness and wealth, and if a stray novelist or so is discovered -there, that is only an accident. It provides distractions of all kinds -for its guests: bands of music, conjuring shows, dances; and that week -it provided quite a new thing in the way of distraction, namely, an -address from Prebendary Carlile, head of the Church Army, which was -quite truthfully described as a “national antidote to indiscriminate -charity.” We looked forward to that address; it was a novelty. And if we -of the Royal Hotel had a fault, our fault was a tendency, after we had -paid our hotel bills, to indiscriminate charity. Indiscriminate charity -salves the conscience just as well as the other kind, and though it -costs as much in money, it costs less in trouble. However, we liked to -be castigated for our sins, and, in the absence of Father Vaughan, we -anticipated with pleasure Mr. Carlile. We did not all go. None of -the representatives of ten different Continental aristocracies and -plutocracies went. Nor did any young and beautiful persons of any nation -go. As a fact, it was a lovely afternoon. - -To atone for these defections, the solid respectability of all San Remo -swarmed into the hotel. (A notice had been posted that it might order -its carriages for 3.30.) We made an unprepossessing assemblage. I am far -removed from the first blush of youth; but I believe I was almost the -youngest person present, save a boy who had been meanly “pressed” by -his white-haired father. We were chiefly old, stout, plain, and of -dissatisfied visage. Many of us had never been married, and never would -be. We were prepared to be very grave. But the mischief was that Mr. -Carlile would not be grave. - -Mr. Carlile looked like a retired colonel who had dressed by mistake in -clerical raiment. His hue was ruddy, his eye clear, and his moustache -martial. He is of a naturally cheerful disposition. It is impossible -not to like him, not to admire him, not to respect him. It really -requires considerable selfrestraint, after he has been speaking for a -few minutes, not to pelt him with sovereigns for the prosecution of his -work. Still, appreciation of humour was scarcely our strong point. We -could not laugh without severe effort. We were unaccustomed to laugh. -It is no use pretending that we were not a serious conclave (we were not -basking in the sun, nor dashing across the country in our Fiat cars; we -had the interests of the Empire at heart). Therefore, though we took the -Prebendary’s humorous denunciation of our indiscriminate charity with -fairly good grace, we should have preferred it with a little less -facetiousness. People burdened as we were with the responsibilities of -Empire ought not to be expected to laugh. As protectionists, we were -not, if the truth is to be told, in a mood for gaiety. Hence we did not -laugh; we hardly smiled. We just listened soberly to the Prebendary, -who, after he had told us what we ought not to do, told us what we ought -to do. - -***** - -“What we try to do,” he said, “is to bridge the gulf--to bridge the gulf -between the East End and the West End. We don’t want your money, we want -your help, we want each of you to take up one person and look after him. -_That_ is the only way to bridge the gulf.” He kept on emphasising the -phrase “bridge the gulf”; and to illustrate it, he mentioned a Christmas -pudding that was sent from a Royal palace to his “Pudding Sunday” orgy -labelled for “the poorest and loneliest widow.” - -“We soon found her,” he said. “She worked from 8.30 A.M. to 6:30 p.m. -and again two hours at night, sewing buttons, and in a good week she -earned six shillings. Her right hand was all distorted by rheumatism, -so that to sew gave her great pain. We found her, and we pushed -her upstairs, with great difficulty--because she was so bad with -bronchitis--and she had her pudding. Someone insisted on giving her 1s. -a week for life, and someone else insisted on giving her 2s. a week for -life, so now she’s a blooming millionaire. Give us money, if you like, -but please don’t give us any more money for her....” - -“There’s another class of women,” continued the Prebendary, “the -drunkards. Drunkenness is growing among women owing to the evil of -grocers’ licences. We should like some of you to take up a drunken woman -apiece and look after her. We can easily find you a nice, gentle -creature, to whom getting drunk is no more than getting cross is to us. -Very nice women are drunkards, and they can be reclaimed by bridging the -gulf. Then there’s the hooligans--you have them on the Riviera, too. -I’ve had a good deal of experience of them myself. I was once picked up -for dead near the Army and Navy Stores after meeting a hooligan. Only -the other day a man put his fist in my face and said: ‘You’ve ruined our -trade.’ ‘What trade? The begging trade?’ I said, ‘I wish I had.’ And -then the discharged prisoners. We offer five months’ work to any -discharged prisoner who cares to take it; there are 200,000 every year. -I was talking to a prison official the other day, who told me that 90 -per cent, of his ‘cases’ he sent to us. We reclaim about half of these. -The other half break our hearts. One broke all our windows not long -since. ..” - -And the Prebendary said also: “My greatest pleasure is a day, a whole -day, in a thoroughly bad slum. I went down to Wigan for such a day, and -at a meeting, when I asked whether anyone would come forward and speak -up for beer, not for Christ, a man came along and threw three pence -at my feet--remains of pawning his waistcoat--and then fell down dead -drunk. We picked him up, and I charged a helper with 6d., so that he -could be filled up with tea or coffee beyond his capacity to drink any -more beer at all. I don’t know whether it was the beer or the tea, but -he joined us. All due to emotion, or excitement, perhaps! Yes, but -the next morning I was going out to the 7.30 prayer-meeting and I came -across a Wigan collier dead drunk in the road. I tried to pick -_him_, up. I had my surplice on: I always wear my surplice, for the -advertisement, and because people like to see it. And I couldn’t pick -him up. I was carrying my trombone in one hand. Then another man came -along, and we couldn’t get that drunkard up between us. And then who -should come along but my reclaimed drunkard of the night before! He -managed it.” - -And the Prebendary further said: “Come some day and have lunch with me. -It will take you two hours. You ought to chop ten bundles of firewood, -but I’ll let you off that. Or come and have tea. That will take four -hours. There’s a Starvation Supper to end it at 8.30, and something -going on all the time. We have a brass band, thirty players, all very -bad. I’m the worst, with my trombone. We also have a women’s concertina -band. It’s terrible. But it goes down. As one man said, ‘It mykes me -’ead ache, but it do do me ’eart good.’” - -***** - -Then Lord Dundonald proposed a vote of thanks to everybody who deserved -to be thanked. He indicated that we ought to help Mr. Carlile, just -to show our repentance for having allowed the people free access -to public-houses for several centuries. (Faint applause.) Unless we -prevented the people from getting at beer and unless we prevented aliens -from entering England--(Loud applause)--Mr. Carlile’s efforts would -not succeed. If we stopped the supply of beer and of aliens then the -principal steps [towards Utopia?] would have been accomplished. This -simple and comprehensible method of straightening out the social system -appealed to us very strongly. I think we preferred it to “bridging -the gulf.” At the back of our minds was the idea that if we lent -our motor-cars or our husbands’ or brothers’ motor-cars to the right -candidates at election time we should be doing all that was necessary to -ensure the millennium. Upon this we departed. In the glow of the meeting -the scheme of attaching ourselves each to a nice, gentle drunken woman -seemed attractive; but really, on reflection...! There was a plate at -the door. However, Mr. Carlile had himself said, “I don’t depend much on -the plate at the door.” - - - - -FONTAINEBLEAU--1904-1909 - - - - -I--FIRST JOURNEY INTO THE FOREST - -Just to show how strange, mysterious, and romantic life is, I will -relate to you in a faithful narrative a few of my experiences the other -day--it was a common Saturday. Some people may say that my experiences -were after all quite ordinary experiences. After _all_, they were not. I -was staying in a little house, unfamiliar to me, and beyond a radius of -a few hundred yards I knew nothing of my surroundings, for I had arrived -by train, and slept in the train. I felt that if I wandered far from -that little house I should step into the unknown and the surprising. -Even _in_ the house I had to speak a foreign tongue; the bells rang in -French. During the morning I walked about alone, not daring to go beyond -the influence of the little house; I might have been a fly wandering -within the small circle of lamplight on a tablecloth; all about me lay -vast undiscovered spaces. Then after lunch a curious machine came by -itself up to the door of the little house. I daresay you have seen these -machines. You sit over something mysterious, with something still more -mysterious in front of you. A singular liquid is poured into a tank; -one drop explodes at a spark, and the explosion pushes the machine -infinitesimally forward, another drop explodes and pushes the machine -infinitesimally forward, and so on, and so on, and quicker and quicker, -till you can outstrip trains. Such is the explanation given to me. -I have a difficulty in believing it, but it seems to find general -acceptance. However, the machine came up to the door of the little -house, and took us off, four of us, all by itself; and after twisting -about several lanes for a couple of minutes it ran us into a forest. I -had somehow known all the time that that little house was on the edge of -a great forest. - -***** - -Without being informed, I knew that it was a great forest, because -against the first trees there was a large board which said “General -Instructions for reading the signposts in the forest,” and then a lot -of details. No forest that was not a great forest, a mazy forest, and -a dangerous forest to get lost in, would have had a notice board like -that. As a matter of fact the forest was fifty miles in circumference. -We plunged into it, further and further, exploding our way at the rate -of twenty or thirty miles an hour, along a superb road which had a -beginning and no end. Sometimes we saw a solitary horseman caracoling -by the roadside; sometimes we passed a team of horses slowly dragging -a dead tree; sometimes we heard the sound of the woodman’s saw in the -distance. Once or twice we detected a cloud of dust on the horizon of -the road, and it came nearer and nearer, and proved to be a machine -like ours, speeding on some mysterious errand in the forest. And as we -progressed we looked at each other, and noticed that we were getting -whiter and whiter--not merely our faces, but even our clothes. And for -an extraordinary time we saw nothing but the road running away from -under our wheels, and on either side trees, trees, trees--the beech, the -oak, the hornbeam, the birch, the pine--interminable and impenetrable -millions of them, prodigious in size, and holding strange glooms in the -net of their leafless branches. And at intervals we passed cross-roads, -disclosing glimpses, come and gone in a second, of other immense avenues -of the same trees. And then, quite startlingly, quite without notice, -we were out of the forest; it was just as if we were in a train and had -come out of a tunnel. - -And we had fallen into the midst of a very little village, sleeping on -the edge of the forest, and watched over by a very large cathedral. Most -of the cathedral had ceased to exist, including one side of the dizzy -tower, but enough was left to instil awe. A butcher came with great keys -(why a butcher, if the world is so commonplace as people make out?), -and we entered the cathedral; and though outside the sun was hot, the -interior of the vast fane was ice-cold, chilling the bones. And the -cathedral was full of realistic statues of the Virgin, such as could -only have been allowed to survive in an ice-cold cathedral on the edge -of a magic forest. And then we climbed a dark corkscrew staircase for -about an hour, and came out (as startlingly as we had come out of the -forest) on the brink of a precipice two hundred feet deep. There was -no rail. One little step, and that night our ghosts would have begun to -haunt the remoter glades of the forest. The butcher laughed, and leaned -over; perhaps he could do this with impunity because he was dressed in -blue; I don’t know. - -***** - -Soon afterwards the curious untiring machine had swept us into the -forest again. And now the forest became more and more sinister, and -beautiful with a dreadful beauty. Great processions of mighty -and tremendous rocks straggled over hillocks, and made chasms and -promontories, and lairs for tigers--tigers that burn bright in the -night. But the road was always smooth, and it seemed nonchalant towards -all these wonders. And presently it took us safely out of the forest -once again. And this time we were in a town, a town that by some mistake -of chronology had got into the wrong century; the mistake was a very -gross one indeed. For this town had a fort with dungeons and things, and -a moat all round it, and the quaintest streets and bridges and roofs and -river and craft. And processions in charge of nuns were walking to and -fro in the grass grown streets. And not only were the houses and shops -quaint in the highest degree, but the shopkeepers also were all quaint. -A greyheaded tailor dressed in black stood at the door of his shop, and -his figure offered such a quaint spectacle that one of my friends and -myself exclaimed at the same instant: “How Balzacian!” And we began -to talk about Balzac’s great novel “Ursule Mirouët.” It was as if -that novel had come into actuality, and we were in the middle of it. -Everything was Balzacian; those who have read Balzac’s provincial -stories will realise what that means. Yet we were able to buy modern -cakes at a confectioner’s. And we ordered tea, and sat at a table on the -pavement in front of an antique inn. And close by us the landlady sat on -a chair, and sewed, and watched us. I ventured into the great Balzacian -kitchen of the inn, all rafters and copper pans, and found a pretty girl -boiling water for our tea in one pan and milk for our tea in another -pan. I told her it was wrong to boil the milk, but I could see she did -not believe me. We were on the edge of the forest. - -***** - -And then the machine had carried us back into the forest. And this time -we could see that it meant business. For it had chosen a road mightier -than the others, and a road more determined to penetrate the very heart -of the forest. We travelled many miles with scarcely a curve, until -there were more trees behind us than a thousand men, could count in -a thousand years. And then--you know what happened next. At least you -ought to be able to guess. We came to a castle. In the centre of all -forests there is an enchanted castle, and there was an enchanted castle -in the centre of this forest. And as the forest was vast, so was -the castle vast. And as the forest was beautiful, so was the castle -beautiful. It was a sleeping castle; the night of history had overtaken -it. We entered its portals by a magnificent double staircase, and there -was one watchman there, like a lizard, under the great doorway. He -showed us the wonders of the castle, conducting us through an endless -series of noble and splendid interiors, furnished to the last detail of -luxury, but silent, unpeopled, and forlorn. Only the clocks were alive. -“There are sixty-eight clocks in the castle.” (And ever since I have -thought of those sixty-eight clocks ticking away there, with ten miles -of trees on every side of them.) And the interiors grew still more -imposing. And at length we arrived at an immense apartment whose -gorgeous and yet restrained magnificence drew from us audible murmurs -of admiration. Prominent among the furniture was a great bed, hung with -green and gold, and a glittering cradle; at the head of the cradle -was poised a gold angel bearing a crown. Said the sleepy watchman: -“Bed-chamber of Napoleon, with cradle of the King of Rome.” This was the -secret of the forest. - -[Illustration: 0279] - - - - -II--SECOND JOURNEY INTO THE FOREST - -We glided swiftly into the forest as into a tunnel. But after a while -could be seen a silvered lane of stars overhead, a ceiling to the -invisible double wall of trees. There were these stars, the rush of -tonic wind in our faces, and the glare of the low-hung lanterns on the -road that raced to meet us. The car swerved twice in its flight, the -second time violently. We understood that there had been danger. As the -engine stopped, a great cross loomed up above us, intercepting certain -rays; it stood in the middle of the road, which, dividing, enveloped -its base, as the current of a river strokes an island. The doctor leaned -over from the driving-seat and peered behind. In avoiding the cross he -had mistaken for part of the macadam an expanse of dust which rain and -wind had caked; and on this treachery the wheels had skidded. “Ça aurait -pu être une sale histoire!” he said briefly and drily. In the pause we -pictured ourselves flung against the cross, dead or dying. I noticed -that other roads joined ours at the cross, and that a large grassy -space, circular, separated us from the trees. As soon as we had -recovered a little from the disconcerting glimpse of the next world, -the doctor got down and restarted the engine, and our road began to race -forward to us again, under the narrow ceiling of stars. After monotonous -miles, during which I pondered upon eternity, nature, the meaning of -life, the precariousness of my earthly situation, and the incipient -hole in my boot-sole--all the common night-thoughts--we passed by a -high obelisk (the primitive phallic symbol succeeding to the other), -and turning to the right, followed an obscure gas-lit street of -walls relieved by sculptured porticoes. Then came the vast and sombre -courtyard of a vague palace, screened from us by a grille; we overtook -a tram-car, a long, glazed box of electric light; and then we were -suddenly in a bright and living town. We descended upon the terrace of -a calm _café_, in front of which were ranged twin red-blossomed trees in -green tubs, and a waiter in a large white apron and a tiny black jacket. - -[Illustration: 0279] - -***** - -The lights of the town lit the earth to an elevation of about fifteen -feet; above that was the primeval and mysterious darkness, hiding even -the housetops. Within the planes of radiance people moved to and fro, -appearing and disappearing on their secret errands; and glittering -tramcars continually threaded the Square, attended by blue sparks. A -monumental bull occupied a pedestal in the centre of the Square; parts -of its body were lustrous, others intensely black, according to the -incidence of the lights. My friends said it was the bull of Rosa -Bonheur, the Amazon. Pointing to a dark void beyond the flanks of the -bull, they said, too, that the palace was there, and spoke of the -Council-Chamber of Napoleon, the cradle of the King of Rome, the boudoir -of Marie Antoinette. I had to summon my faith in order to realise that I -was in Fontainebleau, which hitherto had been to me chiefly a romantic -name. In the deep and half-fearful pleasure of realisation---“This also -has happened to me!”--I was aware of the thrill which has shaken me on -many similar occasions, each however unique: as when I first stepped on -a foreign shore; when I first saw the Alps, the Pyrenees; when I first -strolled on the grand boulevards; when I first staked a coin at Monte -Carlo; when I walked over the French frontier and read on a thing like a -mile-post the sacred name “Italia”; and, most marvellous, when I stood -alone in the Sahara and saw the vermilions and ochres of the Aurès -Mountains. This thrill, ever returning, is the reward of a perfect -ingenuousness. - -[Illustration: 0287] - -***** - -I was shown a map, and as I studied it, the strangeness of the town’s -situation seduced me more than the thought of its history. For the town, -with its lights, cars, cafés, shops, halls, palaces, theatres, hotels, -and sponging-houses, was lost in the midst of the great forest. -Impossible to enter it, or to leave it, without winding through those -dark woods! On the map I could trace all the roads, a dozen like ours, -converging on the town. I had a vision of them, palely stretching -through the interminable and sinister labyrinth of unquiet trees, and -gradually reaching the humanity of the town. And I had a vision of the -recesses of the forest, where the deer wandered or couched. All around, -on the rim of the forest, were significant names: the Moret and the -Grez and the Franchard of Stevenson; Barbizon; the Nemours of Balzac; -Larchant. Nor did I forget the forest scene of George Moore’s “Mildred -Lawson.” - -After we had sat half an hour in front of glasses, we rushed back -through the forest to the house on its confines whence we had come. The -fascination of the town did not cease to draw me until, years later, I -yielded and went definitely to live in it. - - - - -III--THE CASTLE GARDENS - -On the night of the Feast of Saint Louis the gardens of the palace are -not locked as on other nights. The gardens are within the park, and the -park is within the forest. I walked on that hot, clear night amid the -parterres of flowers; and across shining water, over the regular tops of -clipped trees, I saw the long façades and the courts of the palace: pale -walls of stone surmounted by steep slated roofs, and high red chimneys -cut out against the glittering sky. An architecture whose character is -set by the exaggerated slope of its immense roofs, which dwarf the walls -they should only protect! All the interest of the style is in these -eventful roofs, chequered continually by the facings of upright -dormers, pierced by little ovals, and continually interrupted by the -perpendicularity of huge chimneys. The palace seems to live chiefly in -its roof, and to be top-heavy. - -[Illustration: 0293] - -It is a forest of brick chimneys growing out of stone. Millions upon -millions of red bricks had been raised and piled in elegant forms solely -that the smoke of fires below might escape above the roof ridge: fires -which in theory heated rooms, but which had never heated aught but -their own chimneys: inefficient and beautiful chimneys of picturesque, -ineffectual hearths! Tin pipes and cowls, such as sprout thickly on the -roofs of Paris and London, would have been cheaper and better. (It is -always thus to practical matters that my mind runs.) In these monstrous -and innumerable chimneys one saw eccentricity causing an absurd expense -of means for a trifling end: sure mask of a debased style! - -***** - -With malicious sadness I reflected that in most of those chimneys smoke -would never ascend again. I thought of the hundreds of rooms, designed -before architects understood the art of planning, crowded with gilt -and mahogany furniture, smothered in hangings, tapestries, and carpets, -sparkling with crystal whose cold gaiety is reflected in the polish of -oak floors! And not a room but conjures up the splendour of the monarchs -and the misery of the people of France! Not an object that is associated -with the real welfare of the folk, the makers of the country! A museum -now--the palace, the gardens, and the fountained vistas of lake and -canal--or shall I not say a mausoleum?--whose title to fame, in the -esteem of the open-mouthed, is that here Napoleon, the supreme scourge -of families and costly spreader of ruin,-wrote an illegible abdication. -The document of abdication, which is, after all, only a facsimile, and -the greedy carp in the lake--these two phenomena divide the eyes of the -open-mouthed. - -And not all the starers that come from the quarters of the world are -more than sufficient to dot very sparsely the interminable polished -floors and the great spaces of the gardens. The fantastic monument is -preserved ostensibly as one of the glories of France! (_Gloire_, thou -art French! Fontainebleau, Pasteur, the Eiffel Tower, Victor Hugo, the -Paris-Lyons-Mediterranean Railway--each has been termed a _gloire_ of -France!) But the true reason of the monument’s preservation is that it -is too big to destroy. The later age has not the force nor the courage -to raze it and parcel it and sell it, and give to the poor. It is a -defiance to the later age of the age departed. Like a gigantic idol, it -is kept gilded and tidy at terrific expense by a cult which tempers fear -with disdain. - - - - -IV--AN ITINERARY - -I have lived for years in the forest of Fontainebleau, the largest -forest in France, and one of the classic forests--I suppose--of the -world. Not in a charcoal-burner’s hut, nor in a cave, but in a town; for -the united towns of Avon and Fontainebleau happen to be in the forest -itself, and you cannot either enter or quit them without passing through -the forest; thus it happens that, while inhabiting the recesses of a -forest you can enjoy all the graces and conveniences of an imperial city -(Fontainebleau is nothing if not Napoleonic), even to _cafés chantants_, -cinematograph theatres, and expensive fruiterers. I tramp daily, and -often twice daily, in this forest, seldom reaching its edge, unless I do -my tramping on a bicycle, and it is probably this familiarity with its -fastnesses and this unfamiliarity with its periphery as a continuous -whole that has given me what I believe to be a new idea for a tramping -excursion: namely, a circuit of the forest of Fontainebleau. It is -an enterprise which might take two days or two months. I may never -accomplish it myself, but it ought to be accomplished by somebody, and -I can guarantee its exceeding diversity and interest. The forest is -surrounded by a ring of towns, townships, and villages of the most -varied character. I think I know every one of them, having arrived -somehow at each of them by following radii from the centre. I propose to -put down some un-Baedekerish but practical notes on each place, for the -use and benefit of the tramp er who has the wisdom to pursue my -suggestion. - -***** - -One must begin with Moret. Moret is the show-place on the edge of -the forest, and perhaps the oldest. I assisted some years ago at the -celebration of its thousandth anniversary. It is only forty-three miles -from Paris, on the main line of the Paris-Lyons-Mediterranean railway, -an important junction; two hundred and fifty trains a day pass through -the station. And yet it is one of the deadest places I ever had tea -in. It lies low, on the banks of the Loing, about a mile above the -confluence of the Seine and the Loing. It is dirty, not very healthy, -and exceedingly picturesque. Its bridge, church, gates and donjon have -been painted and sketched by millions of artists, professional and -amateur. It appears several times in each year’s Salon. This is its -curse--the same curse as that of Bruges: it is overrun by amateur -artists. I am an amateur artist myself; in summer I am not to be seen -abroad without a sketching-stool, a portfolio, and a water-bottle in -my hip pocket. But I hate, loathe and despise other amateur artists. -Nothing would induce me to make one of the group of earnest dabbers -and scratchers by the bridge at Moret. When I attack Nature, I must -be alone, or, if another artist is to be there, he must be a certified -professional. I have nothing else to say against Moret. There are -several hotels, all mediocre. - -A more amusing and bracing place than Moret is its suburb St. Mammès, -the port at the afore-mentioned confluence, magnificently situated, and -always brightened by the traffic of barges, tugs, and other craft. There -is an hotel and a _pension_. The Seine is a great and noble stream here, -and absolutely unused by pleasure-craft. I do not know why. I once made -a canoe and navigated the Amazonian flood, but the contrivance was too -frail. Tugs would come rushing down, causing waves twelve inches high at -least, and I was afraid, especially as I had had the temerity to put a -sail to the canoe. - -***** - -The tramper should cross the Seine here, and go through Champagne, -a horrible town erected by the Creusot Steel Company--called, quite -seriously, a “garden city.” He then crosses the river again to -Thomery--the grape town. The finest table grapes in France are grown -at Thomery. Vines flourish in public on both sides of most streets, -and public opinion is so powerful (on this one point) that the fruit is -never stolen. Thomery’s lesser neighbour, By, is equally vinous. -These large villages offer very interesting studies in the results of -specialisation. Hotels and _pensions_ exist. - -From Thomery, going in a general direction north by west, it is -necessary to penetrate a little into the forest, as the Seine is its -boundary here, and there is no practical towing-path on the forest -side of the river. You come down to the river at Yalvins Bridge, -and, following the left bank, you arrive at the little village of Les -Plâtreries, which consists of about six houses and an hotel where the -food is excellent and whose garden rises steeply straight into the -forest. A mile farther on is the large village of Samois, also on the -Seine. Lower Samois is too pretty---as pretty as a Christmas card. It -is much frequented in summer; its hotel accommodation is inferior and -expensive, and its reputation for strictly conventional propriety is -scarcely excessive. ‘However, a picturesque spot! Climb the very -abrupt stony high street, and you come to Upper Samois, which is less -sophisticated. - -From Samois (unless you choose to ferry across to Féricy and reach -Melun by Fontaine-le-Port) you must cut through an arm of the forest -to Bois-le-Roi. You are now getting toward the northern and less -interesting extremity of the forest. Bois-le-Roi looks a perfect dream -of a place from the station. But it is no such thing. It is residential. -It is even respectably residential. All trains except the big expresses -stop at Bois-le-Roi, which fact is a proof that the residents exert -secret influences upon the railway directors, and that therefore -they are the kind of resident whose notion of architecture is merely -distressing. You can stay at Bois-le-Roi and live therein comfortably, -but there is no reason why you should. - -The next place is Melun, which lies just to the north of the forest. It -is the county town. It is noted for its brewery. It is well situated on -a curve of the Seine, and it is more provincial (in the stodgy sense) -and more ineffably tedious even than Moret. It possesses neither -monuments nor charm. Yet the distant view of it--say from the height -above Fontaine-le-Port, is ravishing at morn. - -[Illustration: 0301] - -From Melun you face about and strike due south, again cutting through a -bit of the forest, to Chailly-en-Bière. (All the villages about here are -“_en bière_”) Chailly is just a nice plain average forest-edge village, -and that is why I like it. I doubt if you could sleep there with -advantage. But if you travel with your own tea, you might have excellent -tea there. - -The next village is Barbizon, the most renowned place in all the -Fontainebleau region; a name full of romantic associations. It is -utterly vulgarised, like Stratford-on-Avon. “Les Charmettes” has become -a fashionable hotel with a private theatre and an orchestra during -dinner. What would Rousseau, Daubigny and Millet say if they could see -it now? Curiosity shops, art exhibitions, and a very large _café_! An -appalling light railway, and all over everything the sticky slime of -sophistication! Walking about the lanes you have glimpses of superb -studio interiors, furnished doubtless by Waring or Lazard. Indeed -Barbizon has now become naught but a target for the staring eyes of -tourists from Arizona, and a place of abode for persons whose mentality -leads them to believe that the atmosphere of this village is favourable -to high-class painting. - -All the country round about here is exquisite. I have seen purple -mornings in the fields nearly as good as any that Millet ever painted. -A lane westward should be followed so that other nice average villages, -St. Martin-en-Bière and Fleury-en-Bière can be seen. At Fleury there -is a glorious castle, partly falling to ruin, and partly in process of -restoration. Thence, south-easterly, to Arbonne. - -***** - -Arbonne is only a few miles from Barbizon, and I fancy that it resembles -what Barbizon used to be before Barbizon was discovered by London and -New York. It is a long, straggling place, with one impossible and one -quite possible hotel. As a field of action for the tramping painter I -should say that it is unsurpassed in the department. From Arbonne you -must cross another arm of the forest, and pass from the department of -Seine-et-Marne to that of Seine-et-Oise, to the market town of Milly. -From Milly onwards the human interest is less than the landscape -interest until you come to Chapelle-la-Reine; from there you are soon -at Larchant, whose ruined cathedral is one of the leading attractions of -the forest edge. - -You are now within the sphere of Nemours. From Larchant to Nemours the -only agreeable method of locomotion is by aeroplane. The high road is -straight and level, and, owing to heavy traffic caused by quarries, -atrociously bad. It reaches the acme of boredom. Its one merit is its -brevity, about five miles. Nemours is a fine Balzacian town, on the -Loing, with a picturesque canal in the heart of it, a frowning castle, a -goodish church and bridge, a good hotel and delightful suburbs. - -***** - -At Nemours, cross the river, and keep to the high road which follows the -Loing canal through Episy back to Moret. Or, in the alternative, refrain -from crossing the river, and take the Paris high road, leaving it to -the left at Bourron, and so reach Moret through Marlotte and Montigny. -Marlotte and Montigny are Parisian villages in July, August, and -September, new, artistic, snobbish; in winter they are quite tolerable. -Montigny is “picturesquely situated” on the Loing, and Marlotte has a -huge hotel. The road thence on the rim of the forest back to Moret is -delightful. - -I do not know how many miles you will have done--anything from sixty to -a hundred and twenty probably--when you arrive for the second time in -Moret. But you must find strength to struggle onwards from Moret to -Fontainebleau itself, about seven miles off in the forest. Fontainebleau -contains one of the dearest hotels in the world. Ask for it, and go -somewhere else. - -[Illustration: 0305] - - - - -SWITZERLAND--1909-1911 - - - - -I--THE HOTEL ON THE LANDSCAPE - -I do not mean the picturesque and gabled construction which on our own -country-side has been restored to prosperity, though not to efficiency, -by Americans travelling with money and motor-cars. I mean the -uncompromising grand hotel--Majestic, Palace, Métropole, Royal, -Splendide, Victoria, Belle Vue, Ritz, Savoy, Windsor, Continental, and -supereminently Grand--which was perhaps first invented and compiled in -Northumberland Avenue, and has now spread with its thousand windows and -balconies over the entire world. I mean the hotel which is invariably -referred to in daily newspapers as a “huge modern caravanserai.” This -hotel cannot be judged in a town. In a town, unless it possesses a -river-front or a sea-esplanade, the eye never gets higher than its -second storey, and as a spectacle the hotel resolves itself usually into -a row of shops (for the sale of uselessness), with a large square hole -in the middle manned by laced officials who die after a career devoted -exclusively to the opening and shutting of glazed double-doors. - -To be fairly judged, the grand hotel must be seen alone on a landscape -as vast as itself. The best country in which to see it is therefore -Switzerland. True, the Riviera is regularly fringed with grand hotels -from Toulon to the other side of San Remo; but there they are so closely -packed as to interfere with each other’s impressiveness, and as a -rule they are at too low an altitude. In Switzerland they occur in all -conceivable and inconceivable situations. The official guide of the -Swiss Society of Hotel Keepers gives us photographs of over eight -hundred grand hotels, and it is by no means complete; in fact, some of -the grandest consider themselves too grand to be in it, pictorially. -Just as Germany is the land of pundits and aniline dyes, France of -revolutions, England of beautiful women, and Scotland of sixpences, so -is Switzerland the land of huge modern caravanserais. - -You may put Snowdon on the top of Ben Nevis and climb up the height -of the total by the aid of railways, funiculars, racks and pinions, -diligences and sledges; and when nothing but your own feet will take you -any farther, you will see, in Switzerland, a grand hotel, magically and -incredibly raised aloft in the mountains; solitary--no town, no houses, -nothing but this hotel hemmed in on all sides by snowy crags, and made -impregnable by precipices and treacherous snow and ice. I always imagine -that at the next great re-drawing of the map of Europe, when the lesser -nationalities are to disappear, the Switzers will take armed refuge in -their farthest grand hotels, and there defy the mandates of the Concert. -For the hotel, no matter how remote it be, lacks nothing that is -mentioned in the dictionary of comfort. Beyond its walls your life is -not worth twelve hours’ purchase. You would not die of hunger, because -you would perish of cold. At best you might hit on some peasant’s -cottage in which the standards of existence had not changed for a -century. But once pass within the portals of the grand hotel, and you -become the spoiled darling of an intricate organisation that laughts -at mountains, avalanches, and frost. You are surrounded by luxuries -surpassing even the luxuries off ered by the huge modern caravanserais -of London. (For example, I believe that no London caravanserai was, -until quite lately, steam-heated throughout.) You have the temperature -of the South, or of the North, by turning a handle, and the light -of suns at midnight. You have the restaurants of Piccadilly and the -tea-rooms of St. James’s Street. You eat to the music of wild artistes -in red uniforms. You are amused by conjurers, bridge-drives, and -cotillons. You can read the periodical literature of the world while -reclining on upholstery from the most expensive houses in -Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. You have a post-office, a -telegraph-office, and a telephone; pianos, pianolas, and musical-boxes. -You go up to bed in a lift, and come down again to lunch in one. You -need only ring a bell, and a specially trained man in clothes more -glittering than yours will answer you softly in any language you please, -and do anything you want except carry you bodily.. . . And on the other -side of a pane of glass is the white peak, the virgin glacier, twenty -degrees of frost, starvation, death--and Nature as obdurate as she -was ten thousand years ago. Within the grand hotel civilisation is so -powerful that it governs the very colour of your necktie of an evening. -Without it, cut off from it, in those mountains you would be fighting -your fellows for existence according to the codes of primitive humanity. -Put your nose against the dark window, after dinner, while the band is -soothing your digestion with a waltz, and in the distance you may see a -greenish light. It is a star. And a little below it you may see a yellow -light glimmering. It is another grand hotel, by day generally invisible, -another eyrie _de luxe_. - -You go home and calmly say that you have been staying at the Grand Hotel -Blank. But does it ever occur to you to wonder how it was all done? -Does it ever occur to you that orchestras, lampshades, fresh eggs, -fresh fish, vanilla ices, champagne, and cut flowers do not grow on -snow-wreathed crags? You have not been staying in a hotel, but in a -miracle of seven storeys. In the sub-basement lie the wines. In the -basement women are for ever washing linen and men for ever cooking. On -the ground-floor all is eating and drinking and rhythm. Then come -five storeys of slumber; and above that the attics where the tips are -divided. - -In judging the hotel on the landscape, you must thus imaginatively -realise what it is and what it means. - -***** - -The eye needs to be trained before it can look seeingly at a grand hotel -and disengage its beauty from the mists and distortions which prejudice -has created. This age (like any other age, for the matter of that) -has so little confidence in itself that it cannot believe that it -has created anything beautiful. It is incapable of conceiving that an -insurance office may be beautiful. It is convinced, with the late Sir -William Harcourt, that New Scotland Yard is a monstrosity. It talks -of the cost, not of the beauty, of the Piccadilly Hotel. No doubt the -Romans, who were nevertheless a sound artistic race of the second rank, -talked of the cost (in slaves) of their aqueducts, and would have been -puzzled could they have seen us staring at the imperfect remains of the -said aqueducts as interesting works of art. The notion that a hotel, -even the most comfortable, is anything but a blot on the landscape, -has probably never yet occurred to a single one of the thousands of -dilettanti who wander restlessly over the face of Europe admiring -architecture and scenery. Hotels as visual objects are condemned -offhand, without leave to appeal, unheard, or rather unseen--I mean -really _unseen_. - -For several weeks, once, I passed daily in the vicinity of a huge modern -caravanserai, which stood by itself on a mountain side in Switzerland; -and my attitude towards that hotel was as abusive and violent as -Ruskin’s towards railways. And then one evening, early, in the middle -dusk, I came across it unexpectedly, when I was not prepared for it: it -took me unawares and suddenly conquered me. I saw it in the mass, -rising in an immense, irregular rectangle out of a floor of snow and a -background of pines and firs. Its details had vanished. What -I saw was not a series of parts, but the whole hotel, as one organism -and entity. Only its eight floors were indicated by illuminated windows, -and behind those windows I seemed to have a mysterious sense of -its lifts continually ascending and descending. The apparition was -impressive, poetic, almost overwhelming. It was of a piece with the -mountains. It had simplicity, severity, grandeur. It was indubitably and -movingly ground of pines and firs. Its details had vanished. What I saw -was not a series of parts, but the whole hotel, as one organism and -entity. Only its eight floors were indicated by illuminated windows, and -behind those windows I seemed to have a mysterious sense of its lifts -continually ascending and descending. The apparition was impressive, -poetic, almost overwhelming. It was of a piece with the mountains. It -had simplicity, severity, grandeur. It was indubitably and movingly -beautiful. My eye had been opened; the training had been begun. - -I expected, naturally, that the next morning I should see the hotel -again in its original ugliness. But no! My view of it had been -permanently altered. I had glimpsed the secret of the true manner of -seeing a grand hotel. A grand hotel must be seen grandiosely--that is to -say, it must be seen with a large sweep of the eye, and from a distance, -and while the eye is upon its form the brain must appreciate its moral -significance; for the one explains the other. You do not examine Mont -Blanc or an oil painting by Turner with a microscope, and you must -not look at a grand hotel as you would look at a marble fountain or a -miniature. - -Since the crepuscular hour above described, I have learnt to observe -sympathetically the physiognomy of grand hotels, and I have discovered -a new source of æsthetic pleasure. I remember on a morning in autumn, -standing on a suspension bridge over the Dordogne and gazing at a feudal -castle perched on a pre-feudal crag. I could not decide whether the -feudal castle or the suspension bridge was the more romantic fact (for I -am so constituted as to see the phenomena of the nineteenth century -with the vision of the twenty-third), but the feudal castle, silhouetted -against the flank of a great hill that shimmered in the sunshine, had -an extraordinary beauty--moral as well as physical, possibly more moral -than physical. As architecture it could not compare with the Parthenon -or New Scotland Yard. But it was far from ugly, and it had an exquisite -rightness in the landscape. I understood that it had been put precisely -there because that was the unique place for it. And I understood -that its turrets and windows and roofs and walls had been constructed -precisely as they were constructed because a whole series of complicated -ends had to be attained which could have been attained in no other -way. Here was a simple result of an unaffected human activity which had -endeavoured to achieve an honest utilitarian end, and, while succeeding, -had succeeded also in producing a work of art that gave pleasure to a -mind entirely unfeudal. A feudal castle on a crag as impossible to -climb as to descend is, and always was, exotic, artificial, and -against nature--like every effort of man!--but it does, and always did, -contribute to the happiness of peoples. - -Similarly I remember, on a morning in winter, standing on a wild -country, road, gazing at another castle perched on a pre-feudal crag. -But this castle was about fifteen times as big as the former one, and -the crag had its earthy foot in a lake about a mile below. The scale -of everything was terrifically larger. Still, the two castles, seen at -proportionate distances, bore a strange, disconcerting, resemblance the -one to the other. The architecture of the second, as of the first, would -not compare with the Parthenon or New Scotland Yard. But it was not -ugly. And assuredly it had an exquisite rightness in the landscape. I -understood, far better than in the former instance, that it had been put -precisely where it was, because no other spot would have been so suited -to its purposes; its geographical relation to the sun and the lake and -the mountains had been perfectly adjusted. I understood profoundly the -meaning of all those rows of windows and all those balconies facing the -south and southeast. I understood profoundly the intention of the great -glazed box at the base of the castle. I could read the words that the -wreath of smoke from behind the turreted roof was writing on the slate -of the sky, and those words were “_Chauffage central_” From the façades -I could construct the plan and arrangement of the interior of the -castle. I could instantly decide which of its two hundred chambers were -the costliest, and which would be the last to be occupied and the first -to be left. I could feel the valves of its heart rising and falling. -Here was the simple result of an unaffected human activity, which had -endeavoured to achieve an honest utilitarian end, and, while succeeding, -had succeeded also in giving pleasure to a mind representative of the -twenty-third century. A grand hotel on a crag as impossible to climb -as to descend is, and always will be, exotic, artificial, and against -nature--like every effort of man! Why should a man want to leave that -pancake, England, and reside for weeks at a time in dizzy altitudes -in order to stare at mountains and propel himself over snow and ice -by means of skis, skates, sledges, and other unnatural dodges? No one -knows. But the ultimate sequel, gathered up and symbolised in the grand -hotel, contributes to the happiness of peoples and gives joy to the eye -that is not afflicted with moral cataract. - -And I am under no compulsion to confine myself to Switzerland. I do not -object to go to the other extreme and flit to the Sahara. Who that from -afar off in the Algerian desert has seen the white tower of the Royal -Hotel at Biskra, oasis of a hundred thousand palm-trees and twenty -grand hotels, will deny either its moral or its physical beauty in that -tremendously beautiful landscape? - -Conceivably, the judgment against hotel architecture was fatally biassed -in its origin by the horrible libels pictured on hotel notepapers. - -***** - -In estimating the architecture of hotels, it must be borne in mind that -they constitute the sole genuine contribution made by the modern epoch -to the real history of architecture. The last previous contribution took -the shape of railway stations, which, until the erection of the Lyons -and the Orleans stations in Paris--about seventy years after the birth -of stations--were almost without exception desolate failures. It will -not be seriously argued, I suppose, that the first twenty years of grand -hotels have added as much ugliness to the world’s stock of ugliness -as the first twenty years of railway stations. If there exists a -grand hotel as direfully squalid as King’s Cross Station (palace of an -undertaking with a capital of over sixty millions sterling) I should -like to see it. Hotel architecture is the outcome of a new feature in -the activity of society, and this fact must be taken into account. When -a new grand hotel takes a page of a daily paper to announce itself as -the “last word” of hotels--what it means is, roughly, the “first word,” - as distinguished from inarticulate babbling. - -Of course it is based on strictly utilitarian principles--and rightly. -Even when the grand hotel blossoms into rich ornamentation, the aim is -not beauty, but the attracting of clients. And the practical conditions, -the shackles of utility, in which the architecture of hotels has to -evolve, are extremely severe and galling. In the end this will probably -lead to a finer form of beauty than would otherwise have been achieved. -In the first place a grand hotel, especially when it is situated “on the -landscape,” can have only one authentic face, and to this face the -other three must be sacrificed. Already many hotels advertise that every -bedroom without exception looks south, or at any rate looks direct at -whatever prospect the visitors have come to look at. This means that -the hotel must have length without depth--that it must be a sort of vast -wall pierced with windows. Further, the democratic quality of the social -microcosm of a hotel necessitates an external monotony of detail. -In general, all the rooms on each floor must resemble each other, -possessing the same advantages. If one has a balcony, all must have -balconies. There must be no sacrificing of the amenities of a room here -and there to demands of variety or balance in the elevation. Again, the -hotel must be relatively lofty--not because of lack of space, but to -facilitate a complex service. The kitchens of Buckingham Palace may be -a quarter of a mile from the dining-room, and people will say, “How -wonderful!” But if a pot of tea had to be carried a quarter of a mile -in a grand hotel, from the kitchen to a bedroom, people would say, “How -absurd!” or, “How stewed!” The “layer” system of architecture is from -all points of view indispensable to the grand hotel, and its scenic -disadvantages must be met by the exercise of ingenuity. There are -other problems confronting the hotel architecture, such as the fitting -together of very large public rooms with very small private rooms, and -the obligation to minimise externally a whole vital department of the -hotel (the kitchens, etc.); and I conceive that these problems are -perhaps not the least exasperating. - -From the utilitarian standpoint the architect of hotels has -unquestionably succeeded. The latest hotels are admirably planned; and -a good plan cannot result in an elevation entirely bad. One might say, -indeed, that a good plan implies an elevation good in, at any rate, -elementals. Save that bedrooms are seldom sound-proof, and that they are -nearly always too long for their breadth (the reason is obvious), not -much fault can be found with the practical features of the newest hotel -architecture. In essential matters hotel architecture is good. You may -dissolve in ecstasy before the façade of the Chateau de Chambord; but -it is certainly the whited sepulchre of sacrificed comfort, health, and -practicability. There also, but from a different and a less defensible -cause, and to a different and not a better end, the importance of the -main front rides roughly over numerous other considerations. In skilful -planning no architecture of any period equals ours; and ours is the -architecture of grand hotels. - -The beholder, before abruptly condemning that uniformity of feature -which is the chief characteristic of the hotel on the landscape, must -reflect that this is the natural outer expression of the spirit -and needs of the hotel, and that it neither can be nor ought to be -disguised. It is of the very essence of the building. It may be very -slightly relieved by the employment of certain devices of grouping--as -some architects in the United States have shown--but it must remain -patent and paramount; and the ultimate beauty of more advanced styles -will undoubtedly spring from it and, in a minor degree, from the other -inner conditions to which I have referred. And even when the ultimate -beauty has been accomplished the same thing will come to pass as has -always come to pass in the gradual progress of schools of architecture. -The pendulum will swing too far, and the best critics of those future -days will point to the primitive erections of the early twentieth -century and affirm that there has been a decadence since then, and that -if the virtue of architecture is to be maintained inspiration must be -sought by returning to the first models, when men did not consciously -think of beauty, but produced beauty unawares! - -It was ever thus. - -The salvation of hotel architecture, up to this present, is that the -grand hotel on the landscape, in nineteen cases out of twenty, is -remuneratively occupied only during some three or four months in the -year. Which means that the annual interest on capital expenditure must -be earned in that brief period. Which in turn means that architects -have no money to squander on ornament in an age notorious for its bad -ornament. If the architect of the grand hotel were as little disturbed -by the question of dividends as Francis the First was in creating his -Chambord and other marvels, the consequences might have been offensive -even to the sympathetic eye. - -Meanwhile, in Switzerland, the hotel architect may flatter himself that -he has suddenly given architecture to a country which had none. This -is a highly curious phenomenon. “Next door” to the grand hotel which -so surprised me in the twilight is another human habitation, fairly -representative of all the non-hotel architecture on the Swiss -countryside. It is quaint, and it would not hurt a fly. But surely -the grand hotel is man’s more fitting answer to the challenge of the -mountains? - - - - -II--THE EGOIST - -A little boy, aged about eight, with nearly all his front teeth gone, -came down early for breakfast this morning while I was having mine. He -asked me where the waiters were, and rang. When one arrived, the little -boy discovered that he could speak no French. However, the waiter said -“Café?” and he said “One”; but he told me that he also wanted buns. -While breakfasting, he said to me that he had got up early because -he was going down into the town that morning by the Funicular, as his -mother was to buy him his Christmas present, a silver lever watch. He -said: “I hate to be hurried for anything. Now, at home, I have to go to -school, and I get up early so that I shan’t be hurried, but my breakfast -is _always_ late; so I have too much time before breakfast, and nothing -to do, and too little time after breakfast when I’ve a lot to do.” In -answer to my question, he said gravely that he was going into the Navy. -He knew the exam, was very stiff, and that if you failed at a certain -age you were barred out altogether; and he asked me whether I thought it -was better to try the exam, early with only a little preparation, or to -leave it late with a long preparation. He thought the first course was -the best, because you could go in again if you failed. I asked him if he -didn’t want some jam. He said no, because the butter was so good, and -if he had jam he wouldn’t be able to taste the butter. He then rang the -bell for more milk, and explained to me that he couldn’t drink coffee -strong, and the consequence was that he had a whole lot of coffee left -and no milk to drink it with.. . . He said he lived in London, and that -some shops down in the town were better than London shops. By this time -a German had descended. He and I both laughed. But the child stuck to -his point. We asked him: “What shops?” He said that jerseys and watches -were nicer in the town than in London. In this he was right, and we had -to admit it. As a complete résumé, he said that there were fewer things -in the town than in London, but some of the things were nicer. Then -he explained to the German his early rising, and added an alternative -explanation, namely, that he had been sent to bed at 6.45, whereas 7.15 -was his legal time. - -Later in the day I asked him if he would come down early again to-morrow -and have breakfast with me. He said: “I don’t know. I shall see.” - There was no pose in this. Simply a perfect preoccupation with his -own interests and welfare. I should say he is absolutely egotistic. He -always employs natural, direct methods to get what he wants and to avoid -what lie doesn’t want. - -I met him again a few afternoons later on the luge-track. He was very -solemn. He said he had decided not to go in for the single-luge race, -as it all depended on weight. I said: “Put stones in your pocket. Eat -stones for breakfast.” - -He laughed slightly and uncertainly. “You can’t eat stones for -breakfast,” he said. “I’m getting on fine at skating. I can turn round -on one leg.” - -“Do you still fall?” (He was notorious for his tumbles.) - -“Yes.” - -“How often?” - -He reflected. Then: “About twelve times an hour.... If I skated all day -and all night I should fall twelve twelves--144, isn’t it?” - -I said it would be twenty-four twelves. - -“Oh! I see----” - -“Two hundred and----” - -“Eighty-eight,” he overtook me quickly. “But I didn’t mean that. I meant -all day and all _night_, you know--‘evening. People don’t generally -skate all _through_ the night, do they?” Pause. “Six from 144--138, -isn’t it? I’ll say 138, because you’d have to take half an hour off for -dinner, wouldn’t you?” - -He became silent, discussing seriously within himself whether half an -hour would suffice for dinner, without undue hurrying. - - - - -III--THE BLAND WANDERER - -In the drawing-room to-night an old and solitary, but blandly cheerful, -female wanderer recounted numerous accidents at St. Moritz: legs broken -in two places, shoulders broken, spines injured; also deaths. Further, -the danger of catching infectious diseases at St. Moritz. “One _very_ -large hotel, where _everybody_ had influenza,” etc. These recitals -seemed to give her calm and serious pleasure. - -“Do you think this place is good for nerves?” she broke out suddenly at -me. I told her that in my opinion a hot bath and a day in bed would make -any place good for nerves. “I mean the nerves of the _body_,” she -said inscrutably. Then she deviated into a long set description of the -historic attack of Russian influenza which she had had several years -ago, and which had kept her in bed for three months, since when she had’ -never been the same woman. And she seemed to savour with placid joy the -fact that she had never since been the same woman. - -Then she flew back to St. Moritz and the prices thereof. She said you -could get pretty reasonable terms, even there, “provided you didn’t mind -going high up.” Upon my saying that I actually preferred being high up, -she exclaimed: “I don’t. I’m so afraid of fire. I’m always afraid of -fire.” She said that she had had two nephews at Cambridge. The second -one took rooms at the top of the highest house in Cambridge, and the -landlord was a drunkard. “My sister didn’t seem to care, but I -didn’t know _what_ to do! What _could_ I do? Well, I bought him a. -non-inflammable rope.” She smiled blandly. - -This allusion to death and inebriety prompted a sprightly young -Yorkshirewoman, with the country gift for yarn-spinning, to tell a -tale of something that had happened to her cousin, who gave lessons in -domestic economy at a London Board School. A little girl, absent for two -days, was questioned as to the reason. - -“I couldn’t come.” - -“But why not?” - -“I was kept.. . Please ‘m, my mother’s dead.” - -“Well, wouldn’t you be better here at school? When did she die?” - -“Yesterday. I must go back, please. I only came to tell you.” - -“But why?” - -“Well, ma’am. She’s lying on the table and I have to watch her.” - -“Watch her?” - -“Yes. Because when father comes home drunk, he knocks her off, and I -have to put her on again.” - -This narration startled even the bridge-players, and there were protests -of horror. But the philosophic wanderer, who had never been the same -woman since Russian influenza, smiled placidly. - -“I knew something really much more awful than that,” she said. “A young -woman, well-known to me, had charge of a crèche of thirty infants, and -one day she took it into her head to amuse herself by changing all their -clothes, so that at night they could not be identified; and many of them -never _were_ identified! She was _such_ a merry girl! I knew all her -brothers and sisters too! She wanted to go into a sisterhood, and she -did, for a month. But the only thing she did there--well, one day she -went down into the laundry and taught all the laundry-maids to polka. -She was such a merry girl!” - -She smiled with extraordinary simplicity. - -“In the end,” the bland wanderer continued, after a little pause, “she -went to America. America is such an odd place! Once I got into a car -at Philadelphia that had come from New York. The conductor showed me my -berth. The bed was warm. I partly undressed and got into it, and drew -the curtain. I was half asleep, when I felt a hand feeling me over -through the curtain. I called out, and a man’s voice said: ‘It’s all -right. I’m only looking for my stick. I think I must have left it in the -berth’! Another time a lot of student girls were in the same car -with me. They all got into their beds--or berths or whatever you call -it--about eight o’clock, wearing fancy jackets, and they sat up and -ate candy. I was walking up and down, and every time I passed they -_implored_ me to have candy, and then they implored each other to try -to persuade me. They were mostly named Sadie. At one in the morning they -ordered iced drinks ‘round. I was obliged to drink with them. They tired -me out, and then made me drink. I don’t know what happened just after -that, but I know that, at five in the morning, they were all sitting up -and eating candy. I’ve travelled a good deal in America and it’s _such_ -an odd place! It was just the place for that young woman to go to.” - - - - -IV--ON A MOUNTAIN - -Last week I did a thing which you may call hackneyed or unhackneyed, -according to your way of life. To some people an excursion to Hampstead -Heath is a unique adventure: to others, a walk around the summit of -Popocatapetl is all in the year’s work. I went to Switzerland and spent -Easter on the top of a mountain. At any rate, the mountain was less -hackneyed at that season than Rome or Seville, where the price of beds -rises in proportion as religious emotion falls. It was Marcus Aurelius -Antoninus who sent me to the mountain. To mention Marcus Aurelius is -almost as clear a sign of priggish affectation and tenth-rate preciosity -as to quote Omar Khayyam; and I may interject defensively that I prefer -Epictetus, the slave, to Marcus Aurelius, the neurotic emperor. Still, -it was Marcus Aurelius who sent me to the mountain. He advised me, in -certain circumstances, to climb high and then look down at human nature. - -I did so. My luggage alone cost me four francs excess in the Funicular. - -***** - -I had before me what I have been told--by others than the hotel -proprietor--is one of the finest panoramas in Europe. Across a -Calvinistic lake, whose renown is familiar to the profane chiefly -because Byron wrote a mediocre poem about a castle on its shores, rose -the five-fanged Dent du Midi, twenty-five miles off, and ten thousand -feet towards the sky; other mountains, worthy companions of the -illustrious Tooth, made a tremendous snowy semicircle right and left; -and I on my mountain fronted this semi-circle. The weather was perfect. - -Down below me, on the edge of the lake, was a continuous chain of towns, -all full and crammed with the final products of civilisation, miles of -them. There was everything in those towns that a nation whose destiny -it is to satisfy the caprices of the English thought the English could -possibly desire. Such things as baths, lifts, fish-knives, two-steps -and rag-times, casinos, theatres, rackets, skates, hot-water bottles, -whisky, beef-steaks, churches, chapels, cameras, puttees, jig-saws, -bridge-markers, clubs, China tea, phonographs, concert-halls, -charitable societies, money-changers, hygiene, picture post cards, -even books---just cheap ones! It was dizzying to think of the refined -complexity of existence down there. It was impressive to think of the -slow centuries of effort, struggle, discovery and invention that had -gone to the production of that wondrous civilisation. It was perfectly -distracting to think of the innumerable activities that were proceeding -in all parts of the earth (for you could have coral from India’s -coral strand in those towns, and furs from Labrador, and skates from -Birmingham) to keep the vast organism in working order. - -And behind the chain of towns ran the railwayline, along which flew -the expresses with dining-cars and fresh flowers on the tables of -the dining-cars, and living drivers on the footplates of the -engines, whirling the salt of the earth to and fro, threading like -torpedo-shuttles between far-distant centres of refinement. And behind -the railway line spread the cultivated fields of these Swiss, who, -after all, in the intervals of passing dishes to stately guests in -hotel-refectories, have a national life of their own; who indeed have -shown more skill and commonsense in the organisation of posts, hotels, -and military conscription, than any other nation; so much so, that one -gazes and wonders how on earth a race so thick-headed and tedious could -ever have done it. - -***** - -I knew that I had all that before me, because I had been among it all, -and had ascended and descended in the lifts, lolled in the casinos and -the trains, and drunk the China tea. But I could not see it from the top -of my mountain. All that I could see from the top of my mountain was -a scattering of dolls’ houses, and that scattering constituted three -towns; with here and there a white cube overtopping the rest by half an -inch, and that white cube was a grand hotel; and out of the upper face -of the cube a wisp of vapour, and that wisp of vapour was the smoke of -a furnace that sent hot-water through miles of plumbing and heated 400 -radiators in 400 elegant apartments; and little stretches of ribbon, and -these ribbons were boulevards bordered with great trees; and a puff -of steam crawling along a fine wire, and that crawling puff was an -international express; and rectangular spaces like handkerchiefs fresh -from a bad laundry, and those handkerchiefs were immense fields of -vine; and a water-beetle on the still surface of the lake, and that -water-beetle was a steamer licensed to carry 850 persons. And there was -silence. The towns were feverishly living in ten thousand fashions, -and made not a sound. Even the express breathed softly, like a child in -another room. - -The mountains remained impassive; they were too indifferent to be even -contemptuous. Humanity had only soiled their ankles: I could see all -around that with all his jumping man had not found a perch higher than -their ankles. It seemed to me painfully inept that humanity, having -spent seven years in worming a hole through one of those mountains, -should have filled the newspapers with the marvels of its hole, and -should have fallen into the habit of calling its hole “the Simplon.” - The Simplon--that hole! It seemed to me that the excellence of Swiss -conscription was merely ridiculous in its exquisite unimportance. It -seemed to me that I must have been absolutely mad to get myself excited -about the January elections in a trifling isle called Britain, writing -articles and pamphlets and rude letters, and estranging friends and -thinking myself an earnest warrior in the van of progress. Land taxes! I -could not look down, or up, and see land taxes as aught but an infantile -invention of comic opera. Two Chambers or one! Veto first or Budget -first! Mr. F. E. Smith or Mr. Steel-Maitland! Ah! The tea-cup and the -storm! - -The prescription of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus had “acted.” - -***** - -It is an exceedingly harmful prescription if employed long or often. Go -to the top of a mountain by all means, but hurry down again quickly. -The top of a mountain, instead of correcting your perspective, as is -generally supported by philosophers for whom human existence is not good -enough, falsifies it. Because it induces self-aggrandisement. You draw -illusive bigness from the mountain. You imagine that you are august, -but you are not. If the man below was informed by telephone that a being -august was gazing on him from above he would probably squint his eyes -upwards in the sunshine and assert with calmness that he couldn’t even -see a living speck on the mountain-crest. You who have gone up had -better come down. You couldn’t remain up twenty-four hours without the -aid of the ant-like evolutions below, which you grandiosely despise. You -couldn’t have got up at all if a procession of those miserable conceited -ants had not been up there before you. - -The detached philosophic mountain view of the littleness of things is a -delightful and diverting amusement, and there is perhaps no harm in it -so long as you don’t really act on it. If you begin really to act on it -you at once become ridiculous, and especially ridiculous in the sight of -mountains. - -You commit the fatuity of despising the corporate toil which has made -you what you are, and you prove nothing except that you have found a -rather specious and glittering excuse for idleness, for cowardice, and -for having permitted the stuffing to be knocked out of you. - -When I hear a man say, when I hear myself say: “I’m sick of politics,” - I always think: “What you want is six months in prison, or in a slum, or -in a mine, or in a bakehouse, or in the skin of a woman. After that, -we should see if you were sick of politics.” And when I hear a lot of -people together say that they are sick of politics, then I am quite sure -that politics are more than ever urgently in need of attention. It is at -such moments that a man has an excellent opportunity of showing that he -is a man. - - - - -ENGLAND AGAIN--1907 - - - - -I--THE GATE OF THE EMPIRE - -When one comes back to it, after long absence, one sees exactly the -same staring, cold white cliffs under the same stars. Ministries -may have fallen; the salaries of music-hall artistes may have risen; -Christmas boxes may have become a crime; war balloons may be in the air; -the strange notion may have sprouted that school children must be fed -before they are taught: but all these things are as nothing compared to -the changeless fact of the island itself. You in the island are apt to -forget that the sea is eternally beating round about all the political -fuss you make; you are apt to forget that your 40-h.p. cars are rushing -to and fro on a mere whale’s back insecurely anchored in the Atlantic. -You may call the Atlantic by soft, reassuring names, such as Irish Sea, -North Sea, and silver streak; it remains the Atlantic, very careless of -social progress, very rude. - -The ship under the stars swirls shaking over the starlit waves, and then -bumps up against granite and wood, and amid cries ropes are thrown out, -and so one is lashed to the island. Scarcely any reasonable harbours in -this island! The inhabitants are obliged to throw stones into the sea -till they emerge like a geometrical reef, and vessels cling hard to the -reef. One climbs on to it from the steamer; it is very long and thin, -like a sword, and between shouting wind and water one precariously -balances oneself on it. After some eighty years of steam, nothing more -comfortable than the reef has yet been achieved. But far out on the -water a black line may be discerned, with the silhouettes of cranes and -terrific engines. Denied a natural harbour, the island has at length -determined to have an unnatural harbour at this bleak and perilous -spot. In another ten years or so the peaceful invader will no longer be -compelled to fight with a real train for standing room on a storm-swept -reef. - -***** - -And that train! Electric light, corridors, lavatories, and general -brilliance! Luxuries inconceivable in the past! But, just to prove a -robust conservatism, hot-water bottles remain as the sole protection -against being frozen to death. - -“Can I get you a seat, sir?” - -It is the guard’s tone that is the very essence of England. You may say -he descries a shilling on the horizon. I don’t care. That tone cannot -be heard outside England. It is an honest tone, cheerful, kindly, the -welling-up of a fundamental good nature. It is a tone which says: “I -am a decent fellow, so are you; let us do the best for ourselves -under difficulties.” It is far more English than a beefsteak or a -ground-landlord. It touches the returned exile profoundly, especially at -the dreadful hour of four a. m. And in replying, “Yes, please. Second. -Not a smoker,” one is saying, “Hail! Fellow-islander. You have appalling -faults, but for sheer straightness you cannot be matched elsewhere.” - -One comes to an oblong aperture on the reef, something resembling the -aperture of a Punch and Judy show, and not much larger. In this aperture -are a man, many thick cups, several urns, and some chunks of bread. One -struggles up to the man. - -“Tea or coffee, sir?” - -“Hot milk,” one says. - -“Hot milk!” he repeats. You have shocked his Toryism. You have -dragged him out of the rut of tea and coffee, and he does not like it. -However--brave, resourceful fellow!--he pulls himself together for an -immense effort, and gives you hot milk, and you stand there, in front of -the aperture, under the stars and over the sea and in the blast, trying -to keep the cup upright in a mêlée of elbows. - -This is the gate, and this the hospitality, of the greatest empire that, -etc. - -“Can I take this cup to the train?” - -“Certainly, sir!” says the Punch and Judy man genially, as who should -say: “God bless my soul! Aren’t you in the country where anyone can -choose the portmanteau that suits him out of a luggage van?” - -Now that is England! In France, Germany, Italy, there would have been a -spacious golden _café_ and all the drinks on earth, but one could -never have got that cup out of the _café_ without at least a stamped -declaration signed by two commissioners of police and countersigned by -a Consul. One makes a line of milk along the reef, and sits blowing and -sipping what is left of the milk in the train. And when the train is -ready to depart one demands of a porter: - -“What am I to do with this cup?” - -“Give it to me, sir.” - -And he planks it down on the platform next a pillar, and leaves it. -And off one goes. The adventures of that thick mug are a beautiful -demonstration that the new England contains a lot of the old. It will -ultimately reach the Punch and Judy show once more (not broken--perhaps -cracked); not, however, by rules and regulations; but higgledy-piggledy, -by mutual aid and good nature and good will. He tranquil; it will regain -its counter. - -***** - -The fringe of villas, each primly asleep in its starlit garden, which -borders the island and divides the hopfields from the Atlantic, is much -wider than it used to be. But in the fields time has stood still.. . . -Now, one has left the sea and the storm and the reef, and already one is -forgetting that the island is an island.. . . Warmth gradually creeps up -from the hot-water bottles to one’s heart and eyes, and sleep comes as -the train scurries into the empire.... A loud reverberation, and one -wakes up in a vast cavern, dimly lit, and sparsely peopled by a few -brass-buttoned beings that have the air of dwarfs under its high, -invisible roof. They give it a name, and call it Charing Cross, and one -remembers that, since one last saw it, it fell down and demolished a -theatre. Everything is shuttered in the cavern. Nothing to eat or to -drink, or to read, but shutters. And shutters are so cold, and caverns -so draughty. - -“Where can I get something to eat?” one demands. - -“Eat, sir?” A staggered pause, and the porter looks at one as if one -were Oliver Twist. “There’s the hotels, sir,” he says, finally. - -Yet one has not come by a special, unique train, unexpected and -startling. No! That train knocks at the inner door of the empire every -morning in every month in every year at the same hour, and it is -always met by shutters. And the empire, by the fact of its accredited -representatives in brass buttons and socialistic ties, is always taken -aback by the desire of the peaceful invader to eat. - -***** - -One wanders out into the frozen silence. Gas lamps patiently burning -over acres of beautiful creosoted wood! A dead cab or so! A policeman! -Shutters everywhere: Nothing else. No change here. - -This is the changeless, ineffable Strand at Charing Cross, sacred as the -Ganges. One cannot see a single new building. Yet they say London has -been rebuilt. - -The door of the hotel is locked. And the night watchman opens with the -same air of astonishment as the Punch and Judy man when one asked for -milk, and the railway porter when one asked for food. Every morning -at that hour the train stops within fifty yards of the hotel door, and -pitches out into London persons who have been up all night; and London -blandly continues to be amazed at their arrival. A good English fellow, -the watchman--almost certainly the elder brother of the train-guard. - -“I want a room and some breakfast.” - -He cautiously relocks the door. - -“Yes, sir, as soon as the waiters are down. In about an hour, sir. I can -take you to the lavatory now, sir, if that will do.” - -Who said there was a new England? - -One sits overlooking the Strand, and tragically waiting. And presently, -in the beginnings of the dawn, that pathetic, wistful object the first -omnibus of the day rolls along--all by itself--no horses in front of it! -And, after hours, a waiter descends as bright as a pin from his attic, -and asks with a strong German accent whether one will have tea or -coffee. The empire is waking up, and one is in the heart of it. - - - - -II--AN ESTABLISHMENT - -When I returned to England I came across a terrific establishment. -As it may be more or less novel to you I will attempt to describe it, -though the really right words for describing it do not exist in the -English language. In the first place, it is a restaurant, where meals -are served at almost any hour--and not meals such as you get in ordinary -restaurants, but sane meals, spread amid flowers and diaper. Then it -is also a crèche, where babies are tended upon scientific principles; -nothing that a baby needs is neglected. Older, children are also looked -after, and the whole question of education is deeply studied, and advice -given. Also young men and women of sixteen or so are started in the -world, and every information concerning careers is collected and freely -given out. - -Another branch of the establishment is devoted to inexpensive but -effective dressmaking, and still another to hats; here you will find the -periodical literature of fashion, and all hints as to shopping. There -is, further, a very efficient department of mending, highly curious -and ingenious, which embraces men’s clothing. I discovered, too, a -horticultural department for the encouragement of flowers, serving -secondarily as a branch of the crèche and nursery. There is a fine art -department, where reproductions of the great masters are to be seen and -meditated upon, and an applied art department, full of antiques. It must -mention the library, where the latest and the most ancient literatures -fraternise on the same shelves; also the chamber-music department. - -Lastly, a portion of the establishment is simply nothing but an uncommon -lodging-house for travellers, where electric light, hot water bottles, -and hot baths are not extras. I scarcely expect you to believe what I -say; nevertheless I have exaggerated in nothing. You would never guess -where I encountered this extraordinary, this incredible establishment. -It was No. 137 (the final number) in a perfectly ordinary long street -in a residential suburb of a large town. When I expressed my surprise -to the manager of the place, he looked at me as if I had come from -Timbuctoo. “Why!” he exclaimed, “there are a hundred and thirty-six -establishments much like mine in this very street!” He was right; for -what I had stumbled into was just the average cultivated Englishman’s -home. - -***** - -You must look at it as I looked at it in order to perceive what an -organisation the thing is. The Englishman may totter continually on the -edge of his income, but he does get value for his money. I do not mean -the poor man, for he is too unskilled, and too hampered by lack of -capital, to get value even for what money he has. Nor do I mean the -wealthy man, who usually spends about five-sixths of his income in -acquiring worries and nuisances. I mean the nice, usual professional or -business islander, who by means of a small oblong piece of paper, marked -£30 or so, once a month, attempts and accomplishes more than a native -of the mainland would dream of on £30 a week. The immense pyramid which -that man and his wife build, wrong side up, on the blowsy head of one -domestic servant is a truly astonishing phenomenon, and its frequency -does not impair its extraordinariness. - -The mere machinery is tremendously complex. You lie awake at 6-30 in the -uncommon lodging-house department, and you hear distant noises. It is -the inverted apex of the pyramid starting into life. You might imagine -that she would be intensely preoccupied by the complexity of her duties, -and by her responsibility. Not a bit. Open her head, and you would find -nothing in it but the vision of a grocer’s assistant and a new frock. -You then hear weird bumps and gurgling noises. It is the hot water -running up behind walls to meet you half-way from the kitchen. You catch -the early vivacity of the crèche. A row overhead means that a young man -who has already studied the comparative anatomy of cigars is embarking -on life. A tinkling of cymbals below--it is a young woman preparing to -be attractive to some undiscovered young man in another street. - -***** - -The Englishman’s home is assuredly the most elaborate organisation for -sustaining and reproducing life in the world--or at any rate, east -of Sandy Hook. It becomes more and more elaborate, luxurious, and -efficient. For example, illumination is not the most important of its -activities. Yet, you will generally find in it four different methods -of illumination--electricity, gas, a few oil lamps in case of necessity, -and candles stuck about. Only yesterday, as it seems, human fancy had -not got beyond candles. Much the same with cookery. Even at a simple -refection like afternoon tea you may well have jam boiled over gas, cake -baked in the range, and tea kept hot by alcohol or electricity. - -I am not old, but I have known housewives who would neither eat nor -offer to a guest, bread which they had not baked. They drew water from -their own wells. And the idea of a public laundry would have horrified -them. And before that generation there existed a generation which -spun and wove at home. To-day the English household is dependent on -cooperative methods for light, heat, much food, and several sorts -of cleanliness. True (though it has abandoned baking), the idea of -cooperative cookery horrifies it! However, another generation is coming! -And that generation, while expending no more energy than ourselves, -will live in homes more complicatedly luxurious than ours. When it -is house-hunting it will turn in scorn from an abode which has not a -service of hot and cold water in every bedroom and a steam device for -“washing up” without human fingers. And it will as soon think of keeping -a private orchestra as of keeping a private cook--with her loves and her -thirst. - -***** - -Leave England and come hack, and you cannot fail to see that this -generation is already knocking at the door. When it once gets inside the -door it will probably be more “house-proud,” more inclined to regard the -dwelling as its toy, with which it can never tire of playing, than even -the present generation. Such is a salient characteristic which strikes -the returned traveller, and which the foreigner goes back to his -own country and talks about--namely, the tremendous and intense -pre-occupation of the English home with “comfort”--with every branch and -sub-branch of comfort. - -“_Le comfort anglais_” is a phrase which has passed into the French -language. On spiritual and intellectual matters the Englishman may be -the most sweetly reasonable of creatures--always ready to compromise, -and loathing discussion. But catch him compromising about his hot-water -apparatus, the texture of a beefsteak, or the flushing of a cistern! - - - - -III--AMUSEMENTS - -It is when one comes to survey with a fresh eye the amusements of the -English race that one realises the incomprehensibility of existence. -Here is the most serious people on earth--the only people, assuredly, -with a genuine grasp of the principles of political wisdom--amusing -itself untiringly with a play-ball. The ball may be large and soft, as -in football, or small and hard, as in golf, or small and very hard, as -in billiards, or neither one thing nor the other, as in cricket--it is -always a ball.. Abolish the sphere, and the flower of English manhood -would perish from ennui. - -The fact is, speaking broadly, there is only one amusement worth -mentioning in England. Football dwarfs all the others. It has outrun -cricket. This is a hard saying, but a true one. Football arouses more -interest, passion, heat; it attracts far vaster crowds; it sheds more -blood. Having beheld England, after absence, in the North and in the -South, I seem to see my native country as an immense football ground, -with a net across the Isle of Wight and another in the neighbourhood of -John o’ Groat’s, and the entire population stamping their feet on the -cold, cold ground and hoarsely roaring at the bounces of a gigantic -football. It is a great game, but watching it is a mysterious and -peculiar amusement, full of contradictions. The physical conditions of -getting into a football ground, of keeping life in one’s veins while -there, and of getting away from it, appear at first sight to preclude -the possibility of amusement. They remind one of the Crimean War or the -passage of the Beresina. A man will freeze to within half a degree of -death on a football ground, and the same man will haughtily refuse -to sit on anything less soft than plush at a music-hall. Such is the -inexplicable virtue of football. - -***** - -Further, a man will safely carry his sense of fair play past the gate -of a cricket field, but he will leave it outside the turnstiles of a -football ground. I refer to the relentless refusal of the man amusing -himself at a football match to see any virtue in the other side. I refer -to the howl of execration which can only be heard on a football ground. -English public life is a series of pretences. And the greatest pretence -of all is that football matches are eleven a side. Football matches are -usually a battle between eleven men and ten thousand and eleven; that is -why the home team so seldom loses. - -The football crowd is religious, stern, grim, terrible, magnificent. It -is prepared to sacrifice everything to an ideal. And even when its ideal -gets tumbled out of the First League into the Second, it will not part -with a single illusion. There are greater things than justice (which, -after all, is a human invention, and unknown to nature), and this -ferocious idealism is greater than justice. The explanation is that -football is the oldest English game--far older than cricket, and it -“throws back” to the true, deep sources of the English character. It -is a weekly return to the beneficent and heroic simplicity of nature’s -methods. - -Another phenomenon of the chief English amusement goes to show the -religious sentiment that underlies it. A leading Spanish toreador will -earn twenty thousand pounds a year. A leading English jockey will make -as much. A music-hall star can lay hands on several hundreds a week. A -good tea-taster receives a thousand a year, and a cloakroom attendant at -a fashionable hotel can always retire at the age of forty. Now, on -the same scale, a great half-back, or a miraculous goalkeeper with the -indispensable gift of being in two places at once, ought to earn about -half a million a year. He is the idol of innumerable multitudes of -enthusiasts; he can rouse them into heavenly ecstasy, or render them -homicidal, with a turn of his foot. He is the theme of hundreds of -newspapers. One town will cheerfully pay another a thousand pounds for -the mere privilege of his citizenship. But his total personal income -would not keep a stockbroker’s wife in hats! His uniform is the -shabbiest uniform ever donned by a military genius, and he is taught -to look forward to the tenancy of a tied public-house as an ultimate -paradise! - -To the unimpassioned observer, nothing in English national life seems -more anomalous than this. It can be explained solely by stern religious -sentiment. Call it pagan if you will, but even pagan religions were -religious. The truth is that so foul a thing as money does not enter -into the question. A footballer is treated like a sort of priest. “You -have this rare and incommunicable gift,” says the public to him in -effect. “You can, for instance, do things with your head that the -profane cannot do with their hands. It is no credit to you. You were -born so. Yet a few years, and the gift will leave you I Then we shall -cast you aside and forget you. But, in the meantime, you are like unto a -precious vase. Keep yourself, therefore, holy and uncracked. There is no -money in the career, no luxury, no soft cushions, nothing but sprained -ankles, broken legs, abstinence, suspensions, and a pittance, followed -by ingratitude and neglect. But you have the rare and incommunicable -gift I And that is your exceeding reward.” - -In view of such an attitude, to offer the salary of a County Court judge -to a footballer would be an insult. - -***** - -After indulging in the spectacle and the vocal gymnastics of a football -match, the British public goes home to its wife, hurries her out, and -they stand in the open street at a closed door for an hour, or it may be -two hours, stolidly, grimly, fiercely, with obstinate chins, on pleasure -bent. They are determined to see that door open, no matter what the -weather. Let it rain, let it freeze, they will stand there till the door -opens. At last it does open, and they are so superbly eager to see what -they shall see that they tumble over each other in order to arrive -at the seats of delight. That which they long to witness with such an -ardent longing is usually a scene of destruction. Let an artiste come -forward and simply guarantee to smash a thousand plates in a quarter of -an hour, and he will fill with enraptured souls the largest music-hall -in England. Next to splendid destruction the British public is most -amused by knockabout comedians, so called because they knock each other -about in a manner which would be fatally tragic to any ordinary persons. - -Though this freshly-obtained impression of the amusements of the folk -is perfectly sincere and fair, it is fair also to assert that the folk -shine far more brightly at work and at propaganda than at play. -The island folk, being utterly serious, have not yet given adequate -attention to the amusement of the better part of themselves. But far -up in the empyrean, where culture floats, the directors of the Stage -Society and Miss Horniman are devoting their lives to the question. - - - - -IV--MANCHESTER - -Over thirty years ago I first used to go to Manchester on Tuesdays, -in charge of people who could remember Waterloo, and I was taken into a -vast and intricate palace, where we bought quantities of things without -paying for them--a method of acquisition strictly forbidden in our shop. -This palace was called “Rylands.” I knew not what “Rylands” was, but -from the accents of awe in which the name was uttered I gathered that -its importance in the universe was supreme. My sole impression of -Manchester was an impression of extreme noise. - -Without shouting you could not make yourself heard in the streets. Ten -years later, London-road Station had somehow become for me the gate of -Paradise, and I was wont to escape into Manchester as a prisoner escapes -into the open country. - -After twenty years’ absence in London and Paris I began to revisit -Manchester. My earliest impression will be my last. Still the same -prodigious racket; the same gigantic altercation between irresistible -iron and immovable paving stones! With the addition of the growling -thunder of cars that seem to be continually bumping each other as -if they were college eights! Lunch in a fashionable grill-room at -Manchester constitutes an auditory experience that could not be matched -outside New York. In the great saloon there is no carpet on the polished -planks of the floor, and the walls consist of highly resonant tiles, -for Manchester would not willingly smother the slightest murmur of -its immense reverberations. The tables are set close together, so that -everybody can hear everybody; the waiters (exactly the same waiters -that one meets at Monte Carlo or in the Champs Elysées) understand all -languages save English, so that the Britisher must shout at them. Doors -are for ever swinging, and people rush to and fro without surcease. It -is Babel. In the background, a vague somewhere, an orchestra is beating; -one catches the bass notes marking the measure, and occasionally a high -squeak in the upper register. And superimposed on this, the lusty voice -of a man of herculean physique passionately chanting that “a-hunting we -will go.” - -***** - -One looks through the window and, astonished, observes one of those -electric cars flying hugely past without a sound. The thunder within has -challenged and annihilated the heaviest thunder without. The experience -is unique. One rushes forth in search of silence. Where can silence -dwell in Manchester? The end of every street is a mystery of white fog, -a possible home of silence. But no! Be sure that if one plucks out the -heart of the mystery one will find a lorry preceded by at least eight -iron hoofs. The Art Gallery! One passes in. Clack! Clack! Clack! It is -the turnstile. And all afternoon the advent of each student of the -fine arts, of each cultivated dilettante, is announced by Clack! Clack! -Clack! Two young men come in. Clack! Clack! Clack! Turner’s “Decline -of Carthage” naturally arrests them. “By Jove!” says one, “that was -something to tackle!” Clack! Clack! Clack! Out again, in search of -silence. But over nearly every portal curves the legend: “Music all -day.” And outside the music-halls hired bawlers are bawling to the -people to come in. At last, near the Infirmary, one sees a stationary -cab, and across the window of this cab is printed, in letters of gold, -the extraordinary, the magic, the wonderful, the amazing word: - -“Noiseless.” - -Ah! The traditional, sublime humour of cabmen! - -But if my impression has remained, and even waxed, that Manchester -would be an ideal metropolis for a nation of deaf mutes, my other early -impression, of its artistic and intellectual primacy, is sharply renewed -and intensified. Of late, not only by contact with Manchester men, -but by the subtle physiognomy of Manchester streets and the revealing -gestures of the common intelligent person, I have been more than -ever convinced that there is no place which can match its union of -intellectual vigour, artistic perceptiveness, and political sagacity. - -***** - -Long and close intercourse with capitals has not in the slightest degree -modified my youthful conception of Manchester, my admiration for its -institutions, and my deep respect for its opinion. London may patronise -Manchester as it chooses, but you can catch in London’s tone a secret -awe, an inward conviction of essential inferiority. I have noticed this -again and again. I know well that my view is shared by the fine -flower of Fleet-street, and no dread of disagreeable insinuations or -accusations shall prevent me from expressing my sentiments with my -customary directness. There is no department of artistic, intellectual, -social, or political activity in which Manchester has not corporately -surpassed London. And there have been very few occasions on which, when -they have differed in opinion, Manchester has been as wrong as London. - -It is, of course, notorious that London is still agitated by more than -one controversy which was definitely settled by Manchester twenty -years ago in the way in which London will settle it twenty years hence. -Manchester is too proud to proclaim its fundamental supremacy in the -island (though unalterably convinced of it), and no other city would -be such a fool as to proclaim it; hence it is not proclaimed. But it -exists, and the general knowledge of it exists. - -The explanation of Manchester is twofold. First, its geographical -situation, midway between the corrupting languor of the south and -the too bleak hardness of the north. And, second, that it enjoys the -advantages of a population as vast as that of London, without the -disadvantages of either an exaggerated centralisation or of a capital. -London suffers from elephantiasis, a rush of blue blood to the head, -vertigo, imperfect circulation, and other maladies. Bureaucratic and -caste influences must always vitiate the existence of a capital, and I -do not suppose that any great capital in Europe is the real source of -its country’s life and energy. Not Rome, but Milan! Not Madrid, but -Barcelona! Not St. Petersburg, but Moscow! Not Berlin, but Hamburg -and Munich! Not Paris, but the rest of France! Not London, but the -Manchester area! - - - - -V--LONDON - -There are probably other streets as ugly, as utterly bereft of the -romantic, as Lots-road, Chelsea, but certainly nothing more desolating -can exist in London. It was ten years since I had seen it, and now I -saw it at its worst moment of the week, about ten o’clock of a Sunday -morning. Some time before I reached it I heard a humming vibration -which grew louder and more impressive as I approached. I passed (really) -sixty-eight seagulls sitting in two straight rows on the railings of a -deserted County Council pier, and on a rusty lantern at the head of the -pier was a sixty-ninth seagull, no doubt the secretary of their trade -union. - -A mist lay over the river and over a man reading the “Referee” on an -anchored barge, and nobody at all seemed to be taking any notice of -the growing menace of this humming vibration. Then I came to a gigantic -building, quite new to me--I had not suspected that such a thing was--a -building which must be among the largest in London, a red brick building -with a grandiose architectural effect, an overpowering affair, one of -those affairs that man creates in order to show how small and puny -he himself is. You could pile all the houses of a dozen neighbouring -streets under the colossal roof, of that erection and leave room for a -church or so. Extraordinary that a returned exile, interested in London, -could have walked about London for days without even getting a glimpse -of such hugeness. - -It was shut up, closed in, mysterious, inviolable. The gates of its -yards were bolted. It bore no legend of its name and owner; there was no -sign of human life in it. And the humming vibration came out of it, and -was visibly cracking walls and windows in the doll’s-houses of Lots-road -that shook at its feet. Lots-road got up to that thunder, went to bed to -that thunder, ate bacon to it, and generally transacted its daily -life. I gazed baffled at the building. No clue anywhere to the -mystery! Nothing but a proof of the determined tendency on the part of -civilisation to imitate the romances of H. G. Wells! - -A milkman in a striped apron was ringing and ringing angrily at the -grille of a locked public-house. I hate to question people in the -street, but curiosity concerning a marvel is like love, stronger than -hate. - -“That?” said the milkman peevishly. “That’s the generating stytion for -the electric rilewys.” - -“Which railways?” I asked. - -“All of ‘em,” said he. “There’s bin above sixty men killed there -already.” - -***** - -Who would have supposed, a few years ago, that romance would visit -unromantic Lots-road in this strange and terrible manner, cracking it, -smashing it, deafening it, making the vases rattle on its mantelpieces, -and robbing it of sleep? Lots-road is now the true romantic centre of -London. (It would probably prefer to be something else, but it is.) It -holds the true symbol of the development of London’s corporate life. - -You come to an unusual hole in the street, and enter it, and find -yourself on a large floor surrounded by advertisements of whisky and art -furniture. The whole floor suddenly sinks with you towards the centre of -the earth, far below sewers. You emerge into a system of tunnels, and, -guided by painted white hands, you traverse these tunnels till you -arrive at a precipice. Then a suite of drawing-rooms, four or six, -glides along the front of the precipice. Each saloon is lighted by -scores of electric lamps, and the steel doors of each are magically -thrown wide open. An attendant urges you to come in and sit down. You -do so, and instantly the suite of rooms glides glittering away with you, -curving through an endless subterranean passage, and stopping now and -then for two seconds at a precipice. At last you get out, and hurry -through more tunnels, and another flying floor wafts you up out of the -earth again, and you stagger into daylight and a strange street, and -when your eyes have recovered themselves you perceive that the strange -street is merely Holborn.. . . And all this because of the roaring -necromancers’ castle in Lots-road! All this impossible without the -roaring necromancers’ castle! - -People ejaculate, “The new Tubes!” and think they have described these -astounding phenomena. But they have not. - -***** - -The fact that strikes the traveller beyond all other facts of the new -London is the immensity of the penalty which the Metropolis is now -paying for its size. Tubes, electrified “Districts,” petrol omnibuses, -electric cars and cabs, and automobiles; these are only the more -theatrical aspects of an activity which permeates and exhausts the life -of the community. Locomotion has become an obsession in London; it has -become a perfect nightmare. The city gets larger and larger, but the -centre remains the centre and everybody must get to it. - -See the motor cars speeding over Barnes Common to plunge into -London. One after another, treading on each other’s heels, scurrying, -preoccupied, and malodorous, they fly past in an interminable procession -for hours, to give a melodramatic interest to the streets of London. -See the attack on the omnibuses by a coldly-determined mob of workers -outside Putney Station, and the stream that ceaselessly descends into -Putney Station. Follow the omnibuses as they rush across the bridge into -Fulham-road. See the girls on the top at 8 a. m. in the frosty fog. They -are glad to be anywhere, even on the top. - -See the acrobatic young men who, all along the route, jump on to the -step and drop off disappointed because there are already sixteen inside -and eighteen out. Notice the fight at every stopping-place. Watch -the gradual growth of the traffic, until the driver, from being a -charioteer, is transformed into a solver of Chinese puzzles. And -remember that Fulham-road is one great highway out of fifty. Bend your -head, and gaze through London clay into the tunnels full of gliding -drawing-rooms and the drawing-rooms jammed with people. Think of the -five hundred railway stations of all sorts in London, all at the same -business of transporting people to the centre! Then put yourself in -front of one station, the type-terminus, Liver-pool-street, and see the -incredible thick, surging, bursting torrent that it vomits (there is no -other word) from long before dawn till ten o’clock. And, finally, see -the silent, sanguinary battles on bridges for common tram-cars and -’buses. - -Not clubs, not hotels, not cathedrals, not halls of song, not emporia, -not mansions; but this is London, now; this necessary, passionate, -complex locomotion! All other phenomena are insignificant beside it. - - - - -VI--INDUSTRY - -My native heath, thanks to the enterprise of London newspapers and the -indestructibility of picturesque lies, has the reputation of being quite -unlike the rest of England, but when I set foot in it after absence, it -seems to me the most English piece of England that I ever came across. -With extraordinary clearness I see it as absurdly, ridiculously, -splendidly English. All the English characteristics are, quite -remarkably, exaggerated in the Potteries. (That is perhaps why it is a -butt for the organs of London civilisation.) This intensifying of a type -is due no doubt to a certain isolation, caused partly by geography and -partly by the inspired genius of the gentleman who, in planning what is -now the London and North-Western Railway, carefully diverted it from a -populous district and sent it through a hamlet six miles away. On the 28 -miles between Stafford and Crewe of the four-track way of the greatest -line in England, not a town! And a solid population of a quarter of -a million within gunshot! English methods! That is to say, the -preposterous side of English methods. - -We practise in the Potteries the fine old English plan of not calling -things by their names. We are one town, one unseparated mass of streets. -We are, in fact, the twelfth largest town in the United Kingdom (though -you would never guess it). And the chief of our retail commerce and of -our amusements are congregated in the centre of our town, as the custom -is. But do not imagine that we will consent to call ourselves one town. -* No! We pretend that we are six towns, and to carry out the pretence -we have six town halls, six Mayors or chief bailiffs, six sanitary -inspectors, six everything, including six jealousies. We find it so -much more economical, convenient, and dignified, in dealing with public -health, education, and railway, canal, and tramway companies to act by -means of six mutually jealous authorities. - -* Since this was written a very modified form of federation has been -introduced into the Potteries. - -***** - -We make your cups and saucers--and other earthen utensils. We have been -making them for over a thousand years. And, since we are English, we -want to make them now as we made them a thousand years ago. We flatter -ourselves that we! are a particularly hard-headed race, and we are. -Steel drills would not get a new idea into our hard heads. We have a -characteristic shrewd look, a sort of looking askance and suspicious. -We are looking askance and suspicious at the insidious approaches of -science and scientific organisation. At the present moment the twelfth -largest town is proposing to find a sum of £250 (less than it spends -on amusement in a single day) towards the cost of a central school -of pottery. Mind, only proposing! Up to three years ago (as has been -publicly stated by a master-potter) we carped at scientific methods. -“Carp” is an amiable word. We hated and loathed innovation. We do still. -Only a scientific, adventurous, un-English manufacturer who has dared to -innovate knows the depth and height, the terrific inertia, of that hate -and that loathing. - -Oh, yes, we are fully aware of Germany! Yesterday a successful -manufacturer said to me--and these are his exact words, which I wrote -down and read over to him: “Owing to superior technical knowledge, the -general body of German manufacturers are able to produce certain -effects in china and in earthenware, which the general body of English -manufacturers are incapable of producing.” However, we have already -established two outlying minor technical schools, and we are proposing -to find £250 privately towards a grand and imposing central technical -college. Do not smile, you who read this. You are not archangels, -either. Besides, when we like, we can produce the finest earthenware -in the world. We are only just a tiny bit more English than you--that’s -all. And the Potteries is English industry in little--a glass for -English manufacture to see itself in. - -***** - -For the rest, we are the typical industrial community, presenting the -typical phenomena of new England. We have made municipal parks out of -wildernesses, and hired brass bands of music to play in them. We have -quite six parks in our town. The character of our annual carnivals has -improved out of recognition within living memory. Electricity no longer -astounds us. We have public baths everywhere (though I have never heard -that they rival our gasworks in contributing to the rates). Our public -libraries are better and more numerous, though their chief function -is still to fleet the idle hours of our daughters. Our roads are less -awful. Our slums are decreasing. Our building regulations are -stricter. Our sanitation is vastly improved; and in spite of asthma, -lead-poisoning, and infant mortality our death-rate is midway between -those of Manchester and Liverpool. - -We grow steadily less drunken. Yet drunkenness remains our worst -vice, and in the social hierarchy none stands higher than the brewer, -precisely as in the rest of England. We grow steadily less drunken, but -even the intellectuals still think it odd and cranky to meet without -drinking fluids admittedly harmful; and as for the workingman’s beer... -Knock the glass out of his hand and see! We grow steadily less -drunken, but we possess some 750 licensed houses and not a single proper -bookshop. No man could make a hundred pounds a year by selling books in -the Potteries. We really do know a lot, and we have as many bathrooms -per thousand as any industrial hive in this island, and as many -advertisements of incomparable soaps. We are in the way of perfection, -and when we have conquered drunkenness, ignorance, and dirt we -shall have arrived there, with the rest of England. Dirt--a public -slatternliness, a public and shameless flouting of the virtues of -cleanliness and tidiness--is the most spectacular of our sins. - -We are the supreme land of picturesque contrasts. On one day last week -I saw a Town Clerk who had never heard of H. G. Wells; I walked five -hundred yards and assisted at a performance of chamber-music by Bach -and a discussion of the French slang of Huysmans; walked only another -hundred yards and was, literally, stuck in an unprotected bog and -extricated therefrom by the kindness of two girls who were rooting in a -shawd-ruck for bits of coal. - -Lastly, with other industrial communities, we share the finest of all -qualities--the power and the will to work. We do work. All of us -work. We have no use for idlers. Climb a hill and survey our combined -endeavour, and you will admit it to be magnificent. - - - - -THE MIDLANDS--1910-1911 - - - - -I--THE HANBRIDGE EMPIRE - -When I came into the palace, out of the streets where black human -silhouettes moved on seemingly mysterious errands in the haze of -high-hung electric globes, I was met at the inner portal by the word -“Welcome” in large gold letters. This greeting, I saw, was part of the -elaborate mechanics of the place. It reiterated its message monotonously -to perhaps fifteen thousand visitors a week; nevertheless, it had a -certain effectiveness, since it showed that the Hanbridge Theatres -Company Limited was striving after the right attitude towards the weekly -fifteen thousand. At some pit doors the seekers after pleasure are -received and herded as if they were criminals, or beggars. I entered -with curiosity, for, though it is the business of my life to keep an eye -on the enthralling social phenomena of Hanbridge, I had never been in -its Empire. When I formed part of Hanbridge there was no Empire; nothing -but sing-songs conducted by convivial chairmen with rapping hammers -in public-houses whose blinds were drawn and whose posters were in -manuscript. Not that I have ever assisted at one of those extinct -sing-songs. They were as forbidden to me as a High Church service. The -only convivial rapping chairman I ever beheld was at Gatti’s, under -Charing Cross Station, twenty-two years ago. - -Now I saw an immense carved and gilded interior, not as large as the -Paris Opéra, but assuredly capable of seating as many persons. My -first thought was: “Why, it’s just like a real music-hall!” I was so -accustomed to regard Hanbridge as a place where the great visible people -went in to work at seven a.m. and emerged out of public-houses at eleven -P.M., or stood movelessly mournful in packed tramcars, or bitterly -partisan on chill football grounds, that I could scarcely credit their -presence here, lolling on velvet amid gold Cupids and Hercules, and -smoking at ease, with plentiful ash-trays to encourage them. I glanced -round to find acquaintances, and the first I saw was the human being who -from nine to seven was my tailor’s assistant; not now an automaton wound -up with deferential replies to any conceivable question that a dandy -could put, but a living soul with a calabash between his teeth, as fine -as anybody. Indeed, finer than most! He, like me, reclined aristocratic -in the grand circle (a bob). He, like me, was offered chocolates and -what not at reasonable prices by a boy whose dress indicated that his -education was proceeding at Eton. I was glad to see him. I should have -gone and spoken to him, only I feared that by so doing I might balefully -kill a man and create a deferential automaton. And I was glad to see -the vast gallery with human twopences. In nearly all public places of -pleasure, the pleasure is poisoned for me by the obsession that I owe -it, at last, to the underpaid labour of people who aren’t there and -can’t be there; by the growing, deepening obsession that the whole -structure of what a respectable person means, when he says with -patriotic warmth “England,” is reared on a stupendous and shocking -injustice. I did not feel this at the Hanbridge Empire. Even the -newspaper-lad and the match-girl might go to the Hanbridge Empire and, -sitting together, drink the milk of paradise. Wonderful discoverers, -these new music-hall directors all up and down the United Kingdom! They -have discovered the folk. - -***** - -The performance was timed as carefully as a prize-fight. Ting! and the -curtain went unfailingly up. Ting! and it came unfailingly down. Ting! -and something started. Ting! and it stopped. Everybody concerned in -the show knew what he and everybody else had to do. The illuminated -number-signs on either side of the proscenium changed themselves with -the implacable accuracy of astronomical phenomena. It was as though some -deity of ten thousand syndicated halls was controlling the show from -some throne studded with electric switches in Shaftesbury Avenue. Only -the uniformed shepherd of the twopences aloft seemed free to use his -own discretion. His “Now then, order, _please_,” a masterly union of -entreaty and intimidation, was the sole feature of the entertainment not -regulated to the fifth of a second by that recurrent ting. - -But what the entertainment gained in efficient exactitude by this -ruthless ordering, it seemed to lose in zest, in capriciousness, in rude -joy. It was watched almost dully, and certainly there was nothing in it -that could rouse the wayward animal that is in all of us. It was marked -by an impeccable propriety. In the classic halls of London you can still -hear skittish grandmothers, stars of a past age unreformed, prattling -(with an amazing imitation of youthfulness) of champagne suppers. But -not in the Hanbridge Empire. At the Hanbridge Empire the curtain never -rises on any disclosure of the carnal core of things. Even when a young -woman in a short skirt chanted of being clasped in his arms again, the -tepid primness of her manner indicated that the embrace would be that -of a tailor’s dummy and a pretty head-and-shoulders in a hairdresser’s -window. The pulse never asserted itself. Only in the unconscious but -overpowering temperament of a couple of acrobatic mulatto women was -there the least trace of bodily fever. Male acrobats of the highest -class, whose feats were a continual creation of sheer animal beauty, -roused no adequate enthusiasm. - -“When do the Yorkshire Songsters come on?” I asked an attendant at the -interval. In the bar, a handful of pleasure-seekers were dispassionately -drinking, without a rollicking word to mar the flow of their secret -reflections. - -“Second item in the second part,” said the attendant, and added -heartily: “And very good they are, too, sir!” - -He meant it. He would not have said as much of a man whom in the lounge -of a London hotel I saw playing the fiddle and the piano simultaneously. -He was an attendant of mature and difficult judgment, not to be carried -away by clowning or grotesquerie. With him good meant good. And they -were very good. And they were what they pretended to be. There were -about twenty of them; the women were dressed in white, and the men wore -scarlet hunting coats. The conductor, a little shrewd man, was disguised -in a sort of _levée_ dress, with knee-breeches and silk stockings. But -he could not disguise himself from me. I had seen him, and hundreds of -him, in the streets of Halifax, Wakefield, and Batley. I had seen him -all over Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Staffordshire. He was a Midland -type: infernally well satisfied with himself under a crust of quiet -modesty; a nice man to chat with on the way to Blackpool, a man who -could take a pot of beer respectably and then stop, who could argue -ingeniously without heat, and who would stick a shaft into you as he -left you, just to let you know that he was not quite so ordinary as he -made out to be. They were all like that, in a less degree; women too; -those women could cook a Welsh rarebit with any woman, and they wouldn’t -say all they thought all at once, either. - -And there they were ranged in a flattened semicircle on a music-hall -stage. Perhaps they appeared on forty music-hall stages in a year. It -had come to that: another case of specialisation. Doubtless they had -begun in small choirs, or in the parlours of home, singing for the -pleasure of singing, and then acquiring some local renown; and then -the little shrewd conductor had had the grand idea of organised -professionalism. God bless my soul! The thing was an epic, or ought to -be! They really could sing. They really had voices. And they would -not “demean” themselves to cheapness. All their eyes said: “This is -no music-hall foolery. This is uncompromisingly high-class, and if -you don’t like it you ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” They sang -part-song music, from “Sweet and Low” to a “Lohengrin” chorus. And with -a will, with finesse, with a pianissimo over which the endless drone -of the electric fan could be clearly distinguished, and a fine, free -fortissimo that would have enchanted Wagner! They brought the house down -every time. They might have rendered encores till midnight, but for my -deity in Shaftesbury Avenue. It was the “folk” themselves giving back to -the folk in the form of art the very life of the folk. - -***** - -[Illustration: 0377] - -But the most touching instances of this giving-back was furnished by the -lady clog-dancer. Hanridge used to be the centre of a land of clogs. -Hundreds of times I have wakened in winter darkness to the sound of -clogs on slushy pavements. And when I think of clogs I think of the -knocker-up, and hurried fire-lighting, and tea and thick bread, and the -icy draught from the opened front door, and the factory gates, and the -terrible timekeeper therein, and his clock: all the military harshness -of industrialism grimly accepted. Few are the clogs now in Hanbridge. -The girls wear paper boots, for their health’s sake, and I don’t know -what the men wear. Clogs have nearly gone out of life. But at the -Hanbridge Empire they had reappeared in an art highly conventionalised. -The old clog-dancing, begun in public-houses, was realistic, and was done -by people who the next morning would clatter to work in clogs. But this -pretty, simpering girl had never worn a clog seriously. She had never -regarded a clog as a cheap and lasting protection against wind and rain, -but as a contrivance that you had to dance in. I daresay she rose at -eleven a.m. She had a Cockney accent. She would not let her clogs make -a noise. She minced in clogs. It was no part of her scheme to lose her -breath. And yet I doubt not that she constituted a romantic ideal for -the young male twopences, with her clogs that had reached her natty feet -from the original hack streets of, say, Stockport. As I lumbered home in -the electric car, besieged by printed requests from the tram company -not on any account to spit, I could not help thinking and thinking, in a -very trite way, that art is a wonderful thing. - - - - -II--THE MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE - -According to Whitaker’s Almanac, there are something under a million of -them actually at work, which means probably that the whole race numbers -something over two millions. And, speaking broadly, no one knows -anything about them. The most modern parents, anxious to be parental in -a scientific manner, will explain to their children on the hearth the -chemistry of the fire, showing how the coal releases again the carbon -which was absorbed by the plant in a past age, and so on, to the end -that the children may learn to understand the order of the universe. - -This I have seen. But I have never seen parents explaining to their -children on the hearth the effect of coal-getting on the family life of -the collier, to the end that the children might learn to understand the -price of coal in sweat, blood, and tears. The householder is interested -only in the other insignificant part of the price of coal. And this -is odd, for the majority of householders are certainly not monsters -of selfish and miserly indifference to the human factor in economics. -Nor--I have convinced myself, though with difficulty--are the members of -the House of Lords. Yet among all the speeches against the Miners’ Eight -Hours Bill in this Chamber where beats the warm, generous heart of Lord -Halsbury, I do not remember one which mentioned the real price of coal. -Even the members of the sublime Coal Consumers’ League, though phantoms, -cannot be phantoms without bowels. But has the League ever issued one -leaflet dealing with the psychology of the collier’s wife as affected by -notions of fire-damp? I doubt it. - -***** - -Even artists have remained unstirred by the provocative mystery of this -subterranean race, which perspires with a pick, not only beneath our -cellars, but far beneath the caves of the sea itself. A working miner, -Joseph Skipsey, had to write the one verse about this race which has had -vigour enough to struggle into the anthologies. The only novel handling -in the grand manner this tremendous and bizarre theme is Emile Zola’s -“Germinal.” And, though it is a fine novel, though it is honest and -really impressive, there are shallows in the mighty stream of its -narrative, and its climax is marred by a false sentimentality, which is -none the less sentimentality for being sensual. Not a great novel, but -nearly great; as the child’s ring was “nearly gold.” And in English -fiction what is there but “Miss Grace of All Souls,” a wistful and -painstaking book, with pages which extort respect, but which no power -can save from oblivion? And in the fine arts, is there anything but -pretty coloured sentimentalities of hopeless dawns at pit-heads? Well, -there is! Happily there are Constantin Meunier’s sculptures of miners at -work--compositions over which oblivion will have no power. But I think -this is all. - -Journalistic reporting of great tragic events is certainly much better -than it used to be, when the phraseology of the reporter was as rigidly -fixed by convention as poetic phraseology in the eighteenth century. The -special correspondent is now much more of an artist, because he is -much more free. But he is handicapped by the fact that when he does his -special work really well, he is set to doing special work always, and -lives largely among abnormal and affrighting phenomena, and so his -sensibility is dulled. Moreover, there are valuable effects and -impressions which the greatest genius on earth could not accomplish in a -telegraph office. But did you ever see the lives or the swift deaths of -the mysterious people treated, descriptively by an imaginative writer -in a monthly review? I noted recently with pleasure that the American -magazines, characteristically alert, have awakened to the possibilities -of the mysterious people as material for serious work in the more -leisurely journalism. The last tremendous accident in the United States -produced at any rate one careful and fairly adequate study of the -psychology of the principal figures in it, and of the drama which a -bundle of burning hay originated. - -Even if I did not share the general incurious apathy towards the -mysterious people, I should not blame that apathy, for it is so -widespread that there must be some human explanation of it; my object -is merely to point it out. But I share it. I lived half my life among -coalpits. I never got up in the morning without seeing the double wheels -at a neighbouring pit-head spin silently in opposite directions for a -time, and then stop, and then begin again. I was accustomed to see coal -and ironstone, not in tons, but in thousands of tons. I have been close -to colliery disasters so enormous that the ambitious local paper would -make special reporters of the whole of its staff, and give up to the -affair the whole of its space, save a corner for the betting news. My -district lives half by earthenware and half by mining. I have often -philandered with pot-workers, but I have never felt a genuine, active -curiosity about the mysterious people. I have never been down a coalpit, -though the galleries are now white-washed and lighted by electricity. It -has never occurred to me to try to write a novel about the real price of -coal. - -***** - -And yet how powerfully suggestive the glimpses I have had! Down there, -on my heath, covered with a shuttle-work of trams, you may get on to -a car about four o’clock in the afternoon to pay a visit, and you -may observe a handful of silent, formidable men in the car, a -greyish-yellowish-black from head to foot. Like Eugene Stratton, they -are black everywhere, except the whites of their eyes. You ask yourself -what these begrimed creatures that touch nothing without soiling it are -doing abroad at four o’clock in the afternoon, seeing that men are not -usually unyoked till six. - -They have an uncanny air, especially when you reflect that there is not -one arm among them that could not stretch you out with one blow. Then -you remember that they have been buried in geological strata probably -since five o’clock that morning, and that the sky must look strange to -them. - -Or you may be walking in the appalling outskirts, miles from town halls -and free libraries, but miles also from flowers, and you may see a whole -procession of these silent men, encrusted with carbon and perspiration, -a perfect pilgrimage of them, winding its way over a down where the -sparse grass is sooty and the trees are withered. And then you feel -that you yourself are the exotic stranger in those regions. But the -procession absolutely ignores you. You might not exist. It goes on, -absorbed, ruthless, and sinister. Your feeling is that if you got in its -path it would tramp right over you. And it passes out of sight. - -Around, dotting the moors, are the mining villages, withdrawn, -self-centred, where the entire existence of the community is regulated -by a single steam-siren, where good fortune and ill-fortune are common, -and where the disaster of one is the disaster of all. Little is known -of the life of these villages and townlets--known, that is, by people -capable of imaginative external sympathetic comprehension. And herein is -probably a reason why the mysterious people remain so mysterious. They -live physically separated. A large proportion of them never mingle -with the general mass. They are not sufficiently seen of surface-men to -maintain curiosity concerning them. They keep themselves to themselves, -and circumstances so keep them. Only at elections do they seem to -impinge in powerful silence on the destinies of the nation. - -I have visited some of these villages. I have walked over the moors to -them with local preachers, and heard them challenge God. I have talked -to doctors and magistrates about them, and acquired the certainty, -vague and yet vivid, that in religion, love, work, and debauch they are -equally violent and splendid. It needs no insight to perceive that they -live nearer even than sailors to that central tract of emotion where -life and death meet. But I have never sympathetically got near them. And -I don’t think I ever shall. - -Once I was talking to a man whose father, not himself a miner, had been -the moral chieftain of one of these large villages, the individuality -to which everyone turned in doubt or need. And I was getting this man to -untap the memories of his childhood. “Eh!” he said, “I remember how th’ -women used to come to my mother sometimes of a night, and beg, ‘Mrs. B., -an’ ye got any old white shirts to spare? They’re bringing ’em up, and -we mun lay ’em out!’ And I remember--” But just then he had to leave -me, and I obtained no more. But what a glimpse! - - - - -III--FIRST VOYAGE TO THE ISLE OF MAN - -It seemed solid enough. I leaned for an instant over the rail on the -quarter away from the landing-stage, and there, at the foot of the -high precipice formed by the side of the vessel, was the wavy water. -A self-important, self-confident man standing near me lighted a black -cigar of unseemly proportions, and threw the match into the water. The -match was lost at once in the waves, which far below beat up futilely -against the absolutely unmoved precipice. I had never been on such a -large steamer before. I said to myself: “This is all right.” - -However, that was not the moment to go into ecstasies over the solidity -of the steamer. I had to secure a place for myself. Hundreds of people -on the illimitable deck were securing places for themselves. And many -of them were being aided by porters or mariners. The number of people -seemed to exceed the number of seats; it certainly exceeded the number -of nice sheltered corners. I picked up my portmanteau with one hand -and my bag and my sticks and my rug with the other. Then I dropped -the portmanteau. A portmanteau has the peculiar property of possessing -different weights. You pick it up in your bedroom, and it seems a -feather. You say to yourself: “I can carry that easily--save tips to -porters.” But in a public place its weight changes for the worse with -every yard you walk. At twenty yards it weighs half a ton. At forty -yards no steam-crane could support it. You drop it. Besides, the -carrying of it robs your movements of all grace and style. Well, I -had carried that bag myself from the cab to the steamer, across the -landing-stage, and up the gangway. Economy! I had spent a shilling on a -useless magazine, and I grudged three pence to a porter with a wife and -family! I was wearing a necktie whose price represented the upkeep of -the porter and his wife and family for a full twenty-four hours, and yet -I wouldn’t employ the porter to the tune of threepence. Economy! These -thoughts flashed through my head with the rapidity of lightning. - -You see, I could not skip about for a deck-chair with that portmanteau -in my hand. But if I left it lying on the deck, which was like a street... -well, thieves, professional thieves, thieves who specialise in -departing steamers! They nip off with your things while you are looking -for a chair; the steamer bell sounds; and there you are! Nevertheless, I -accepted the horrid risk and left all my belongings in the middle of the -street. - -***** - -Not a free chair, not a red deck-chair, not a corner! There were seats -by the rail at one extremity of the boat, and at the other extremity -of the boat, but no chair to be had. Thousands of persons reclining -in chairs, and thousands of others occupied by bags, fugs, and -bonnet-boxes, but no empty chair. - -“Want a deck-chair, governor?” a bearded mariner accosted me. - -[Illustration: 0389] - -Impossible to conceal from him that I did. But, being perhaps the ship’s -carpenter, was he going to manufacture a chair for me on the spot? I -knew not how he did it, but in about thirty seconds he produced a chair -out of the entrails of the ship, and fixed it for me in a beautiful -situation, just forward of the funnel, and close to a charming young -woman, and a little deck-house in front for protection! It was exactly -what I wanted; the most stationary part of the entire vessel. - -Sixpence! Economy! Still, I couldn’t give him less. Moreover, I only had -two pence in coppers. - -“What will the voyage be like?” I asked him with false jollity, as he -touched his cap. - -“Grand, sir!” he replied enthusiastically. - -Yes, and if I had given him a shilling the voyage would have been the -most magnificent and utterly perfect voyage that ship ever made. - -No sooner was I comfortably installed in that almost horizontal -deck-chair than I was aware of a desire to roam about, watch the -casting-off and the behaviour of the poor stay-at-home crowd on the -landing-stage; a very keen desire. But I would not risk the portmanteau -again. Nothing should part us till the gangways were withdrawn. Absurd, -of course! Human nature is absurd.... I caught the charming young -woman’s eye about a dozen times. The ship got fuller and fuller. With -mean and paltry joy I perceived other passengers seeking for chairs and -not finding them, and I gazed at them with haughty superiority. Then a -fiendish, an incredible, an appalling screech over my head made me -jump in a silly way quite unworthy of a man who is reclining next to -a charming young woman, and apt to prejudice him in her eyes. It was -merely the steamer announcing that we were off. I. sprang up, trying to -make the spring seem part of the original jump. I looked. And lo! The -whole landing-stage with all the people and horses and cabs was moving -backwards, floating clean away; while the enormous ship stood quite -still! A most singular effect! - -***** - -In a minute we were in the middle of the river, and my portmanteau was -safe. I left it in possession of the chair. - -The next strange phenomenon of my mental condition was an extraordinary -curiosity in regard to the ship. I had to explore it. I had to learn all -about it. I began counting the people on the deck, but soon after I had -come to the man with the unseemly black cigar I lost count. Then I went -downstairs. There seemed to be staircases all over the place. You could -scarcely move without falling down a staircase. And I came to another -deck also full of people and bags, and fitted with other staircases -that led still lower. And on the sloping ceiling of one of these lower -staircases I saw the Board of Trade certificate of the ship. A most -interesting document. It gave the tonnage as 2,000, and the legal -number of passengers as about the same; and it said there were over two -thousand life-belts on board, and room on the eight boats for I don’t -remember how many shipwrecked voyagers. It even gave the captain’s -Christian name. You might think that this would slake my curiosity. But, -no! It urged me on. Lower down--somewhere near the caverns at the bottom -of the sea, I came across marble halls, upholstered in velvet, where at -snowy tables people were unconcernedly eating steaks and drinking tea. I -said to myself “At such and such an hour I will come down here and have -tea. It will break the monotony of the voyage.” Looking through the -little round windows of the restaurant I saw strips of flying green. - -Then I thought: “The engines!” And somehow the word “reciprocating” came -into my mind. I really must go and see the engines reciprocate. I had -never seen anything reciprocate, except possibly my Aunt Hilda at the -New Year, when she answered my letter of good wishes. I discovered that -many other persons had been drawn down towards the engine-room by the -attraction of the spectacle of reciprocity. And as a spectacle it was -assuredly majestic, overwhelming, and odorous. I must learn the exact -number of times those engines reciprocated in a minute, and I took out -my watch for the purpose. Other gazers at once did the same. It seemed -to be a matter of the highest importance that we should know the precise -speed of those engines. Then I espied a large brass plate which appeared -to have been affixed to the engine room in order to inform the engineers -that the ship was built by Messrs. Macconochie and Sons, of Dumbarton. -Why Dumbarton? Why not Halifax? And why must this precious information -always be staring the engineers in the face? I wondered whether “Sons” - were married, and, if so, what the relations were between Sons’ wives -and old Mrs. Macconochie. Then, far down, impossibly far down, furlongs -beneath those gesticulating steely arms, I saw a coalpit on fire and -demons therein with shovels. And all of a sudden it occurred to me that -I might as well climb up again to my own special deck. - -***** - -I did so. The wind blew my hat off, my hat ran half-way up the street -before I could catch it. I caught it and clung to the rail. We were -just passing a lightship; the land was vague behind; in front there was -nothing but wisps of smoke here and there. Then I saw a fishing-smack, -tossing like anything; its bows went down into the sea and then jerked -themselves fairly out of the sea, and this process went on and on -and on. And although I was not aboard the smack, it disconcerted me. -However, I said to myself, “How glad I am to be on a nice firm steamer, -instead of on that smack!” I looked at my watch again. We seemed to -have been away from England about seven days, but it was barely -three-quarters of an hour. The offensive man with the cigar went -swaggering by. And then a steward came up out of the depths of the sea -with a tray full of glasses of beer, and a group of men lolling in deck -chairs started to drink this beer. I cared not for the sight. I said -to myself, “I will go and sit down.” And as I stepped forward the deck -seemed to sink away ever so slightly. A trifle! Perhaps a delusion on -my part! Surely nothing so solid as that high road of a deck could -sink away! Having removed my portmanteau from my chair, I sat down. The -charming girl was very pale, with eyes closed. Possibly asleep I Many -people had the air of being asleep. Every chair was now occupied. Still, -dozens of boastful persons were walking to and fro, pretending to have -the easy sea-legs of Lord Charles Beresford. The man with the atrocious -cigar (that is, another atrocious cigar) swung by. Hateful individual! -“You wait a bit!” I said to him (in my mind). “You’ll see!” - -I, too, shut my eyes, keeping very still. A grand voyage! Certainly, a -grand voyage! Then I woke up. I had been asleep. It was tea-time. But -I would not have descended to that marble restaurant for ten thousand -pounds. For the first time I was indifferent to tea in the afternoon. -However, after another quarter of an hour, I had an access of courage. -I rose. I walked to the rail. The horizon was behaving improperly. I -saw that I had made a mistake. But I dared not move. To move would have -been death. I clung to the rail. There was my chair five yards off, but -as inaccessible as if it had been five miles off. Years passed. Pale I -must have been, but I retained my dignity. More years rolled by. Then, -by accident, I saw what resembled a little cloud on the horizon. - -It was the island! The mere sight of the island gave me hope and -strength, and cheek. - -In half an hour--you will never guess it--I was lighting a cigarette, -partly for the benefit of the charming young woman, and partly to show -that offensive man with the cigars that he was not the Shah of Persia. -He had not suffered. Confound him! - - - - -IV--THE ISLAND BOARDING-HOUSE - -When you first take up your brief residence in the private hotel, as -they term it--though I believe it is still called boarding-house in -the plain-spoken island--your attitude towards your fellow-guests is -perfectly clear; I mean your secret attitude, of course. Your secret -attitude is that you have got among a queer and an unsympathetic set of -people. At the first meal--especially if it be breakfast--you glance at -them all one by one out of the corners of your eyes, and in that shrewd -way of yours you add them up (being a more than average experienced -judge of human nature), and you come to the conclusion that you have -seldom, if ever, encountered such a series of stupid and harsh faces. -The men seem heavy, if not greedy, and sunk in mental sloth. And, -really, the women might have striven a little harder to avoid resembling -guys. After all, it is the duty of educated people not to offend the -gaze of their fellow-creatures. And as for eating, do these men, in -fact, live for naught but eating? Here are perhaps fifty or sixty -immortal souls, and their unique concern, their united concern, seems to -be the gross satisfaction of the body. Perhaps they do not have enough -to eat at home, you reflect ironically. And you also reflect that some -people, when they have contracted for bed and full board at so much per -day, become absolutely lost to all sense of scruple, all sense of what -is nice, and would, if they could, eat the unfortunate landlord -right into the bankruptcy court. Look at that man there, near the -window--doubtless, he obtained his excellent place near the window -by the simple, colonizing method of grabbing it--well, he has already -apportioned to himself four Manx herrings, and now, with his mouth full, -he is mumbling about eggs and flesh meat. - -[Illustration: 0397] - -And then their conversation! How dull!--how lacking in point, in -originality! These unhappy people appear to have in their heads no ideas -that are not either trivial, tedious, or merely absurd. They do not -appear to be interested in any matters that could interest a reasonable -man. They babble, saying over and over again the same things. Or if they -do not babble they giggle, or they may do both, which is worse; -and, indeed, the uproarious way in which some of them laugh, upon no -sufficient provocation, is disagreeable, especially in a woman. Or, if -they neither babble, giggle, nor deafen the room with their outrageous -mirth, they sit glum, speaking not a word, glowering upon humanity. How -English that is--and how rude! - -Commonplace--‘that is what these people are! It is not their fault, but -it is nevertheless a pity; and you resent it. Indubitably you are not in -a sympathetic environment; you are not among kindred spirits. You grow -haughty, within. When two late comers enter breezily and take seats near -to you, and one of them begins at once by remarking that he is going -to Port Erin for the day, and asks you if you know Port Erin, you reply -“No”; the fact being that you have visited Port Erin, but the fact also -being that you shirk the prospect of a sustained conversation with any -of these too commonplace, uncomprehending strangers. - -[Illustration: 0401] - -You rise and depart from the table, and you endeavour to make your exit -as majestic as possible; but there is a suspicion in your mind that your -exit is only sheepish. - -You meet someone on the stairs, a woman less like a guy than those you -have seen, and still youthful. As you are going upstairs and she is -coming down, and the two of you are staying in the same house, -you wonder whether it would not be well to greet her. A simple -“Good-morning.” You argue about this in your head for some ten years--it -is only in reality three seconds, but it seems eternal. You feel it -would be nice to say good-morning to her. But at the critical point, at -the psychological moment, a hard feeling comes into your heart, and a -glazed blind look into your eyes, and you glance away. You perceive -that she is staring straight in front of her; you perceive that she is -deliberately cutting you. And so the two of you pass like ships in the -night, and yet not quite like ships in the night, because ships do not -hate, detest, and despise. - -You go out into the sunshine (if sunshine there happens to be), between -the plash of the waves and the call of the boatman on the right hand, -and the front doors of all the other boarding-houses on the left, -and you see that the other boarding-houses are frequented by a -much superior, smarter, more intelligent, better-mannered set of -pleasure-seekers than yours. You feel by a sure premonition that you are -in for a dull time. - -***** - -Nothing occurs for about forty-eight terrible hours, during which time, -with the most strict propriety, you behave as though the other people in -the boarding-house did not exist. On several occasions you have meant to -exchange a few words with this individual or that, but this individual -or that has not been encouraging, has made no advance. And you are the -last person to risk a rebuff. You are sensitive, like all fine minds, to -a degree which this coarse clay in the boarding-house cannot conceive. - -Then one afternoon something occurs. It usually does occur in the -afternoon. You are in the tram-car. About ten others are in the -tram-car. And among them you notice the man who put a pistol to your -head at the first meal and asked you if you knew Port Erin; also the -young woman who so arrogantly pretended that she did not see you on the -stairs. They are together. You had an idea they were together in the -boarding-house; but you were not sure, because they seldom arrived in -the dining-room together, or left it together, and both of them did a -great deal of talking to other people. Of course, you might have -asked, but the matter did not interest you; besides, you hate to seem -inquisitive. He is considerably older than she is; a hale, jolly, -red-faced, grey bearded man, who probably finds it easier to catch sight -of his watch-chain than of his toes. She is slim, and a little arch. If -she is his wife the difference between their ages is really excessive. - -The car in its passage gradually empties until there is nobody in it -save you and the conductor on the platform and these two inside. And -a minute before it reaches the end of its journey the man opens his -cigar-case, and preparing a cigar for the sacrificial burning, strolls -along the car to the platform. - -“We’re the last on the car,” he says, between two puffs, and not very -articulately. - -“Yes,” you say. It is indubitable that you are the last on the car. -You needed nobody to tell you that. Still, the information gives you -pleasure, and the fellow is rather jolly. So you add, amiably, “I -suppose it’s these electric motors that are giving the tram-cars beans.” - -He laughs. He evidently thinks you have expressed yourself in an amusing -manner. - -And inspecting the scarlet end of his cigar, he says in a low voice: -“I hope you’re right. I’ve just bought a packet of shares in that motor -company.” - -“Really!” you exclaim. So he is a shareholder, a member of the investing -public! You are impressed. Instantly you imagine him as a very wealthy -man who knows how to look after his money, and who has a hawk’s eye for -“a good thing.” You wish you had loose money that would enable you to -pick up a casual “packet of shares” here and there. - -The car stops. The lady gets out. You raise your hat; it is the least -you can do. Instead of pretending that you are empty air, she smiles on -you charmingly, almost anxiously polite (perhaps she wants to make up -for having cut you on the stairs), and offers you some remark about the -weather, a banal remark, but so prettily enveloped in tissue paper and -tied with pink ribbon, that you treasure it. - -Your common home is only fifty yards off. Obviously you must reach it in -company. - -“My daughter here--” the grey-bearded man begins a remark. - -So she is his daughter. Rather interesting. You talk freely, exposing -all the most agreeable and polite side of your disposition. - -***** - -While preparing for dinner you reflect with satisfaction and joy that -at last you are on friendly terms with somebody in the house. You -anticipate the dinner with eagerness. You regard the father and daughter -somewhat as palm trees in the desert. During dinner you talk to them -a great deal, and insensibly you find yourself exchanging remarks with -other guests. - -They are not so bad as they seemed, perhaps. Anyhow, one ought to make -the best of things. - -***** - -A whisky that night with the father! In the course of the whisky -you contrive to let him gather that you, too, keep an eye on the -share-market, and that you have travelled a great deal. In another -twenty-four hours you are perfectly at home in the boarding-house, -greeting people all over the place, and even stopping on the stairs to -converse. Rather a jolly house! Really, some very decent people here, -indeed! Of course there are also some with whom the ice is never broken. -To the end you and they glaringly and fiercely pretend to be blind when -you meet. You reconcile yourself to this; you harden yourself. As -for new-comers, you wish they would not be so stiff and so absurdly -aristocratic. You take pity on them, poor things! - -But father and daughter remain your chief stand-by. They overstay you -(certainly unlimited wealth), and they actually have the delightful idea -of seeing you off at the station. You part on terms that are effusive. -You feel you have made friends for life--and first-class friends. You -are to meet them again; you have sworn it. - -By the time you get home you have forgotten all about them. - - - - -V--TEN HOURS AT BLACKPOOL - -Manchester is a right place to start from. And the vastness of Victoria -Station--more like London than any other phenomenon in Manchester--with -its score of platforms, and its subways romantically lighted by red -lamps and beckoning pale hands, and its crowds eternally surging up -and down granitic flights of stairs---the vastness of this roaring spot -prepares you better than anything else could for the dimensions and -the loudness of your destination. The Blackpool excursionists fill -the twelfth platform from end to end, waiting with bags and baskets: a -multitude of well-marked types, some of the men rather violently smart -as to their socks and neckties, but for the most part showing that -defiant disregard of appearances which is perhaps the worst trait of -the Midland character. The women seem particularly unattractive in their -mack-intoshed blousiness--so much so that the mere continuance of the -race is a proof that they must possess secret qualities which render -them irresistible; they evidently consult their oculists to the neglect -of their dentists: which is singular, and would be dangerous to the -social success of any other type of woman. - -“I never _did_ see such a coal-cellar, not in all my days!” exclaims one -lady, apparently outraged by sights seen in house-hunting. - -And a middle-aged tradesman (or possibly he was an insurance agent) -remarks: “What I say is--the man who doesn’t appreciate sterling -generosity--is no man!” - -Such fragments of conversation illustrate the fine out-and-out -idiosyncrasy of the Midlands. - -The train comes forward like a victim, and in an instant is captured, -and in another instant is gone, leaving an empty platform. These people -ruthlessly know what they want. And for miles and many miles the train -skims over canals, and tram-cars, and yards, and back-streets, and at -intervals you glimpse a young woman with her hair in pins kneeling in -sack-cloth to wash a grimy doorstep. And you feel convinced that in -an hour or two, when she has “done,” that young woman, too, will be in -Blackpool; or, if not she, at any rate her sister. ***** - -The station of arrival is enormous; and it is as though all the -passenger rolling-stock of the entire country had had an important -rendezvous there. And there are about three cabs. This is not the town -of cabs. On every horizon you see floating terrific tramcars which seat -ninety people and which ought to be baptised Lusitania and Baltic. -You wander with your fellow men down a long street of cookshops with -calligraphic and undecipherable menus, and at every shopdoor is a -loud-tongued man to persuade you that his is the gate of paradise and -the entrance to the finest shilling dinner in Blackpool. But you have -not the courage of his convictions; though you would like to partake of -the finest shilling dinner, you dare not, with your southern stomach in -rebellion against you. You slip miserably into the Hotel Majestic, -and glide through many Lincrusta-Walton passages to an immense, empty -smoking-room, where there is one barmaid and one waiter. You dare not -even face the bar.... In the end the waiter chooses your _apéritif_ for -you, and you might be in London. The waiter, agreeably embittered by -existence, tells you all about everything. - -“This hotel used to be smaller,” he says. “A hundred and twenty. A nice -select party, you know. Now it’s all changed. Our better-class clients -have taken houses at St. Anne’s.. . . Jews! I should say so! Two hundred -and fifty out of three hundred in August. Some of ‘em all right, of -course, but they try to own the place. They come in for tea, or it may -be a small ginger with plenty of lemon and ice, and when they’ve had -that they’ve had their principal drink for the day.. . . The lift is -altered from hydraulic to electricity. . . years ago. . .” - -Meanwhile a client who obviously knows his way about has taken -possession of the bar and the barmaid. - -“I’ve changed my frock, you see,” says she. - -“Changed it down here?” he demands. - -“Yes. Well, I’ve been ironing. . . Oh! You monkey!” - -In a mirror you catch her delicately chucking him under the chin. And, -feeling that this kind of thing is not special to Blackpool, that it -in fact might happen anywhere, you decide that it is time to lunch and -leave the oasis of the Majestic and confront Blackpool once more. - -***** - -The Fair Ground is several miles off, and on the way are three piers, -loaded with toothless young women flirting, and with middle-aged -women diligently crocheting or knitting. Millions of stitches must -be accomplished to every waltz that the bands play; and perhaps every -second a sock is finished. But you may not linger on any pier. There -is the longest sea-promenade in Europe to be stepped. As you leave the -shopping quarter and undertake the vista of ten thousand boarding-house -windows (in each of which is a white table full of knives and forks and -sauce-bottles) you are enheartened by a banneret curving in the breeze -with these words: “Flor de Higginbotham. The cigar that you come back -for. 2d.” You know that you will, indeed, come back for it.. . . At -last, footsore, amid a maze of gliding trams, your vision dizzy with the -passing and re-passing of trams, you arrive at the Fair Ground. And the -first thing you see is a woman knitting on a campstool as she guards -the booth of a spiritualistic medium. The next is a procession of people -each carrying a doormat and climbing up the central staircase of a huge -lighthouse, and another procession of people, each sitting on a doormat -and sliding down a corkscrew shoot that encircles the lighthouse. Why -a lighthouse? A gigantic simulation of a bottle of Bass would have been -better. - -The scenic railway and the switchback surpass all previous dimensions in -their kind. Some other method of locomotion is described as “half a mile -of jolly fun.” And the bowl-slide is “a riot of joy.” - -“Joy” is the key-word of the Fair Ground. You travel on planks over -loose, unkempt sand, and under tethered circling Maxim aeroplanes, from -one joy to the next. In the House of Nonsense, “joy reigns supreme.” - Giggling also reigns supreme. The “human spider,” with a young woman’s -face, is a source of joy, and guaranteed by a stentorian sailor to be -alive. Another genuine source of joy is “‘Dante’s Inferno’ up to date.” - Another enormous booth, made mysterious, is announced as “the home of -superior enjoyments.” Near by is the abode of the two-headed giant, as -to whom it is shouted upon oath that “he had a brother which lived -to the height of twelve foot seven.” Then you come to the destructive -section, offering joy still more vivid. Here by kicking a football -you may destroy images of your fellow men. Or--exquisitely democratic -invention--you can throw deadly missiles at life-sized dolls that fly -round and round in life-sized motor-cars: genius is, in fact, abroad on -the Fair Ground. - -All this is nothing compared to the joy-wheel, certainly the sublimest -device for getting money and giving value for it that a student of human -nature ever hit upon. You pay threepence for admittance into the booth -of the joy-wheel, and upon entering you are specially informed that you -need not practise the joy-wheel unless you like; it is your privilege to -sit and watch. Having sat down, there is no reason why you should ever -get up again, so diverting is the spectacle of a crowd of young men and -boys clinging to each other on a large revolving floor and endeavouring -to defy the centrifugal force. Every time a youth is flung against the -cushions at the side you grin, and if a thousand youths were thrown off, -your thousandth grin would be as hearty as the first. The secret thought -of every spectator is that a mixture of men and maidens would be even -more amusing. A bell rings, and the floor is cleared, and you anticipate -hopefully, but the word is for children only, and you are somewhat -dashed, though still inordinately amused. Then another bell, and you -hope again, and the word is for ladies only. The ladies rush on to -the floor with a fearful alacrity, and are flung rudely off it by an -unrespecting centrifugal force (which alone the attendant, acrobatic -and stately, can dominate); they slide away in all postures, head over -heels, shrieking, but the angel of decency seems to watch over their -skirts.. . . And at length the word is for ladies and gentlemen -together, and the onslaught is frantic. The ladies and gentlemen, to -the number of a score or so, clutch at each other, making a bouquet -of trousers and petticoats in the centre of the floor. The revolutions -commence, and gain in rapidity, and couple after couple is shot off, -yelling, to the periphery. They enjoy it. Oh! They enjoy it! The ladies, -abandoning themselves to dynamic law, slither away with closed eyes and -muscles relaxed in a voluptuous languor. And then the attendant, braving -the peril of the wheel, leaps to the middle, and taking a lady in his -arms, exhibits to the swains how it is possible to keep oneself in the -centre and keep one’s damsel there too. And then, with a bow, he hands -the lady back to her lawful possessor. Nothing could be more English, or -more agreeable, than the curious contradiction of frank abandonment and -chaste simplicity which characterises this extraordinary exhibition. -It is a perfect revelation of the Anglo-Saxon temperament, and would -absolutely baffle any one of Latin race.. . . You leave here because you -must; you tear yourself away and return to the limitless beach, where -the sea is going nonchalantly about its business just as if human -progress had not got as far as the joy-wheel. - -***** - -After you have gone back for the cigar, and faced the question of the -man on the kerb, “Who says Blackpool rock?” and eaten high tea in a -restaurant more gilded than the Trocadero, and visited the menagerie, -and ascended to the top of the Tower in order to be badgered by rather -nice girl-touts with a living to make and a powerful determination to -make it, and seen the blue turn to deep purple over the sea, you reach -at length the dancing-halls, which are the justification of Blackpool’s -existence. Blackpool is an ugly town, mean in its vastness, but its -dancing-halls present a beautiful spectacle. You push your way up -crowded stairs into crowded galleries, where the attendants are -persuasive as with children--“_Please_ don’t smoke here”--and you see -the throng from Victoria Station and a thousand other stations in -its evening glory of drooping millinery and fragile blouses, though -toothless as ever. You see it in a palatial and enormous setting of -crystal and gold under a ceiling like the firmament. And you struggle to -the edge and look over, and see, beneath, the glittering floor covered -with couples in a strange array of straw hats and caps, and knickers, -and tennis shoes, and scarcely a glove among the five hundred of them. -Only the serio-comic M.C., with a delicately waved wand, conforms to the -fashion of London. He has his hands full, has that M.C., as he trips -to and fro, calling, with a curious stress and pause: “One--more couple -please! One--more couple please!” And then the music pulsates--does -really pulsate--and releases the multitude.. . . It is a sight to -stir emotion. The waltz is even better. And then beings perched in the -loftiest corners of the roof shoot coloured rays upon the floor, and -paper snow begins to fall, and confetti to fly about, and eyes to soften -and allure.. . . - -And all around are subsidiary halls, equally resplendent, where people -are drinking, or lounging, or flirting, or gloating over acrobats, -monkeys and ballerinas. The tiger roars, the fountain tinkles, the corks -go pop, the air is alive with music and giggling, the photographer cries -his invitation, and everywhere there is the patter of animated feet and -the contagion of a barbaric and honest gaiety. - -Brains and imagination are behind this colossal phenomenon. For sixpence -you can form part of it; for sixpence you can have delight, if you are -young and simple and lusty enough. This is the huge flower that -springs from the horrid bed of the factory system. Human creatures are -half-timers for this; they are knocked up at 5.30 a.m. in winter for -this; they go on strike for this; they endure for eleven months and -three weeks for this. They all earn their living by hard and repulsive -work, and here they are in splendour! They will work hard at joy till -they drop from exhaustion. You can see men and women fast asleep on the -plush, supporting each other’s heads in the attitudes of affection. The -railway stations and the night-trains are waiting for these. - - - - -THE BRITISH HOME--1908 - - - - -I--AN EVENING AT THE SMITHS’ - -Mr. Smith returns to his home of an evening at 6:30. Mr. Smith’s home -is in a fairly long street, containing some dozens of homes exactly -like Mr. Smith’s. It has a drawing-room and a dining-room, two or three -bedrooms, and one or two attics, also a narrow hall (with stained glass -in the front door), a kitchen, a bathroom, a front garden, and a back -garden. It has a service of gas and of water, and excellent drains. The -kitchen range incidentally heats the water for the bathroom, so that -the bath water is hottest at about noon on Sundays, when nobody, wants -it, and coldest first thing in the morning, and last thing at night, -when everybody wants it. (This is a detail. The fact remains that when -hot water is really required it can always be had by cooking a joint of -beef.) - -The house and its two gardens are absolutely private. The front garden -is made private by iron rails; its sole purposes are to withdraw the -house a little from the road and to enable the servant to fill up -her spare time by washing tiles. The back garden is made private -by match-boarding. The house itself is made private by a mysterious -substance unsurpassed as a conductor of sound. - -Mr. Smith’s home is adequately furnished. There may be two beds in a -room, but each person has a bed. Carpets are everywhere; easy chairs and -a sofa do not lack; linen is sufficient; crockery is plenteous. As for -cutlery, Mr. Smith belongs to the only race in the world which allows -itself a fresh knife and fork to each course of a meal. The drawing-room -is the best apartment and the least used. It has a piano, but, as -the drawingroom fire is not a constant phenomenon, pianists can -only practise with regularity and comfort during four months of the -year--hence, perhaps, a certain mediocrity of performance. - -Mr. Smith sits down to tea in the dining-room. According to fashionable -newspapers, tea as a square meal has quite expired in England. On six -days a week, however, tea still constitutes the chief repast in about -99 per cent, of English homes. At the table are Mrs. Smith and three -children--John, aged 25; Mary, aged 22; and Harry, aged 15. For I must -inform you that Mr. Smith is 50, and his wife is very near 50. Mr. Smith -gazes round at his home, his wife, and his children. He has been at work -in the world for 34 years, and this spectacle is what he has to show -for his labour. It is his reward. It is the supreme result. He hurries -through his breakfast, and spends seven industrious hours at the works -in order that he may have tea nicely with his own family in his own home -of a night. - -Well, the food is wholesome and sufficient, and they are all neat and -honest, and healthy--except Mrs. Smith, whose health is not what it -ought to be. Mr. Smith conceals his pride in his children, but the pride -is there. Impossible that he should not be proud! He has the right to be -proud. John is a personable young man, earning more and more every year. -Mary is charming in her pleasant blouse, and Harry is getting enormous, -and will soon be leaving school. - -***** - -This tea, which is the daily blossoming-time of the home that Mr. Smith -and his wife have constructed with 26 years’ continual effort, ought -to be a very agreeable affair. Surely the materials for pleasure are -present! But it does not seem to be a very agreeable meal. There is no -regular conversation. Everybody has the air of being preoccupied with -his own affairs. A long stretch of silence; then some chaffing or -sardonic remark by one child to another; then another silence; then a -monosyllable from Mr. Smith; then another silence. - -No subject of wide interest is ever seriously argued at that table. No -discussion is ever undertaken for the sake of discussion. It has never -occurred to anyone named Smith that conversation in general is an art -and may be a diverting pastime, and that conversation at table is a -duty. Besides, conversation is nourished on books, and books are rarer -than teaspoons in that home. Further, at back of the excellent, honest, -and clean mind of every Smith is the notion that politeness is something -that one owes only to strangers. - -When tea is over--and it is soon over--young John Smith silently departs -to another home, very like his own, in the next street but one. In that -other home is a girl whom John sincerely considers to be the pearl of -womanhood. In a few months John, inspired and aided by this pearl, will -embark in business for himself as constructor of a home. - -Mary Smith wanders silently and inconspicuously into the drawing-room -(it being, as you know summer) and caresses the piano in an expectant -manner. John’s views as to the identity of the pearl of womanhood are -not shared by another young man who lives not very far off. This other -young man has no doubt whatever that the pearl of womanhood is precisely -Mary Smith (an idea which had never entered John’s head); and he comes -to see Mary every night, with the permission of her parents. The pair -are, in fact, engaged. Probably Mary opens the door for him, in which -case they go straight to the drawing-room. (One is glad to think that, -after all, the drawingroom is turning out useful.) Young Henry has -disappeared from human ken. - -***** - -Mr. Smith and wife remain in the dining-room, separated from each -other by a newspaper, which Mr. Smith is ostensibly reading. I say -“ostensibly,” for what Mr. Smith is really reading on the page of the -newspaper is this: “I shall have to give something to John, something -pretty handsome. Of course, there’s no question of a dowry with Mary, -but I shall have to give something handsome to her, too. And weddings -cost money. And I have no savings, except my insurance.” He keeps on -reading this in every column. It is true. He is still worried about -money, as he was 26 years ago. He has lived hard and honourably, ever -at strain, and never had a moment’s true peace of mind: once it was the -fear of losing his situation; now it is the fear of his business going -wrong; always it has been the tendency of expenditure to increase. The -fruit of his ancient immense desire to have Mrs. Smith is now ripe for -falling. The home which he and she have built is finished now, and is to -be disintegrated. And John and Mary are about to begin again what their -parents once began. I can almost hear Mr. Smith plaintively asking the -newspaper, as he thinks over the achieved enterprise of his home: Has it -been a success? Is it a success? - - - - -II--THE GREAT MANNERS QUESTION - -Let us forget that it is a home. Let us conceive it as a small -collection of people living in the same house. They are together by -accident rather than by design, and they remain together rather -by inertia than by the fitness of things. Supposing that the adult -occupants of the average house had to begin domestic life again (I do -not speak of husbands and wives), and were effective^ free to choose -their companions, it is highly improbable that they would choose the -particular crew of; which they form part; it is practically certain -that they would not choose it in its entirety. However, there they are, -together, every day, every night, on a space of ground not perhaps more -than twenty feet by twenty feet--often less. To find room to separate a -little they live in layers, and it is the servant who is nearest heaven. -That is how you must look at them. - -Now it is, broadly speaking, a universal characteristic of this strange -community that the members of it can depend upon each other in a crisis. -They are what is called “loyal” to an extraordinary degree. Let one of -them fall ill, and he can absolutely rely on tireless nursing. - -Again, let one of them get into trouble, and his companions will stand -by him, and if they cannot, or will not, help him materially, they will, -at any rate, make sympathetic excuses for not doing so. Or let one -of them sutler a loss, and he will instantly be surrounded by all the -consolations that kindness can invent. Or let one of them be ill-spoken -of, and every individual of the community will defend him, usually with -heat, always with conviction. - -***** - -But I have drawn only the foul-weather picture. We come to the -fine-weather picture. Imagine a stranger from the moon, to whom I had -quite truthfully described the great qualities of this strange community -presided over by Mr. Smith--imagine him invisibly introduced into the -said community! - -You can fancy the lunatic’s astonishment! Instead of heaven he would -decidedly consider that he had strayed into an armed camp, or into a -cage of porcupines. He would conclude, being a lunatic, that the members -of the community either hated each other, or at best suffered the sight -of each other only as a supreme act of toleration. He would hear surly -voices, curt demands, impolite answers; and if he did not hear amazing -silences it would be because you cannot physically hear a silence. - -He would no doubt think that the truth was not in me. He would -remonstrate: “But you told me--” - -Then I should justify myself: “In a crisis,’ I said, my dear gentleman -from the moon. I said nothing about ordinary daily life. Now you see -this well-favoured girl who has been nagging at her brother all through -tea because of some omission or commission--I can assure you that if, -for instance, her brother had typhoid fever that girl would nurse him -with the devotion of a saint. Similarly, if she lost her sweetheart -by death or breach of promise, he would envelope her in brotherly -affection.” - -“How often does he have typhoid fever?” the lunatic might ask. “Once a -month?” - -“Well,” I should answer, “he hasn’t had it yet. But if he had it--you -see!” - -“And does she frequently get thrown over?” - -“Oh, no! Her young man worships her. She is to be married next spring. -But if--” - -“And so, while waiting for crises and disasters, they go on--like this?” - -“Yes,” I should defend my fellow-terrestrials. “But you must not jump to -the conclusion that they are always like this. They can be just as nice -as anybody. They are perfectly charming, really.” - -“Well, then,” he might inquire, “how do they justify this behaviour to -one another?” - -“By the hazard of birth,” I should reply, “or by the equally great -hazard of marriage. With us, when you happen to have the same father and -mother, or even the same uncle, or when you happen to be married, it is -generally considered that you may abandon the forms of politeness and -the expressions of sympathy, and that you have an unlimited right of -criticism.” - -“I should have thought precisely the contrary,” he would probably say, -being a lunatic. - -The lunatic having been allowed to depart, I should like to ask the -Smiths--middle-aged Mr. Smith and Mrs. Smith--a question somewhat in -these terms: “What is the uppermost, the most frequent feeling in your -minds about this community which you call ‘home’? You needn’t tell me -that you love it, that it is the dearest place on earth, that no other -place could ever have quite the same, etc., etc. I know all about that. -I admit it. Is not your uppermost, commonest feeling a feeling that it -is rather a tedious, tiresome place, and that the human components of -it are excellent persons, but. . . and that really you have had a great -deal to put up with?” - -In reply, do not be sentimental, be honest.. . . - -Such being your impression of home (not your deepest, but your most -obvious impression), can it fairly be stated that the home of the Smiths -is a success? - -***** - -There are two traits which have prevented the home of the Smiths from -being a complete success, from being that success which both Mr. and -Mrs. Smith fully intended to achieve when they started, and which young -John and young Mary fully intend to achieve when they at length start -without having decided precisely _how_ they will do better than their -elders. The first is British independence of action, which causes the -owner of a British temperament to seek to combine the advantages of -anarchical solitude with the advantages of a community: impossible -feat! In the home of the Smiths each room is a separate Norman fortress, -sheltering an individuality that will be untrammelled or perish. - -And the second is the unchangeable conviction at the bottom of every -Briton’s heart that formal politeness in intimacy is insincere. This is -especially true of the Midlands and the North. When I left the Midlands -and went South, I truly thought, for several days, that Southerners -were a hypocritical lot, just because they said, “If you wouldn’t mind -moving,” instead of “Now, then, out of it!” Gruffness and the malicious -satisfaction of candid gratuitous criticism are the root of the evil in -the home of the Smiths. And the consequences of them are very much more -serious than the Smiths in their gruffness imagine. - - - - -III--SPENDING-AND GETTING VALUE - -I now allude to those financial harassments which have been a marked -feature of the home founded and managed by Mr. Smith, who has been -eternally worried about money. The children have grown up in this -atmosphere of fiscal anxiety, accustomed to the everlasting question -whether ends will meet; accustomed to the everlasting debate whether -a certain thing can be afforded. And nearly every house in the street -where the Smiths live is in the same case. - -Why is this? Is it that incomes are lower and commodities and taxes -higher in England than in other large European countries? No; the -contrary is the fact. In no large European country will money go so far -as in England. Is it that the English race is deficient in financial -skill? England is the only large European country which genuinely -balances its national budget every year and regularly liquidates its -debts. - -I wish to hint to Mr. Smith that he differs in one very important -respect from the Mr. Smith of France, and the Mr. Smith of Germany, his -only serious rivals. In the matter of money, he always asks himself, -not how little he can spend, but how much he can spend. At the end of a -lifetime the result is apparent. Or when he has a daughter to marry off, -the result is apparent. In England economy is a virtue. In France, for -example, it is merely a habit. - -****** - -Mr. Smith is extravagant. He has an extravagant way of looking at life. -On his own plane Mr. Smith is a haughty nobleman of old days; he is -royal; he is a born hangman of expense. - -“What?” cries Mr. Smith, furiousi. “Me extravagant! Why, I have always -been most careful! I have had to be, with my income!” - -He may protest. But I am right. The very tone with which he says: “With -my income!” gives Mr. Smith away. What is the matter with Mr. Smith’s -income? Has it been less than the average? Not at all. The only thing -that is the matter with Mr. Smith’s income is that he has never accepted -it as a hard, prosaic fact. He has always pretended that it was a magic -income, with which miracles could be performed. He has always been -trying to pour two pints and a gill out of a quart pot. He has always -hoped that luck would befall him. On a hundred and fifty a year he ever -endeavoured to live as though he had two hundred. And so on, as his -income increased. - -When he married he began by taking the highest-rented house that he -could possibly afford, instead of the cheapest that he could possibly do -with, and he has been going on ever since in the same style--creating an -effect, cutting a figure. - -This system of living, the English system, has indubitable advantages. -It encourages enterprise and prevents fossilisation. It gives dramatic -interest to existence. And, after all, though at the age of 50 Mr. -Smith possesses little beside a houseful of furniture and his insurance -policy, he can say that he has had something for his money every year -and every day of the year. He can truthfully say, when charged with -having “eaten his cake,” that a cake is a futile thing till it is eaten. - -The French system has disadvantages. The French Mr. Smith does not try -to make money, he tries merely to save it. He shrinks from the perils -of enterprise. He does not want to create. He frequently becomes -parsimonious, and he may postpone the attempt to get some fun out of -life until he is past the capacity for fun. - -On the other hand, the financial independence with which his habits -endow him is a very precious thing. One finds it everywhere in France; -it is instinctive in the attitude of the average man. That chronic -tightness has often led Mr. Smith to make unpleasing compromises with -his dignity; such compromises are rarer in France. Take a person into -your employ in France, even the humblest, and you will soon find out how -the habit of a margin affects the demeanour of the employed. Personally, -I have often been inconvenienced by this in France. But I have liked -it. After all, one prefers to be dealing with people who can call their -souls their own. - -Mr. Smith need not go to the extremes of the extremists in France, -but he might advantageously go a long way towards them. Pie ought -to reconcile himself definitely to his income. He ought to cease his -constant attempt to perform miracles with his income. It is really -not pleasant for him to be fixed as he is at the age of fifty, worried -because he has to provide wedding presents for his son and his daughter. -And how can he preach thrift to his son John? John knows his father. - -There is another, and an even more ticklish, point. It being notorious -that Mr. Smith spends too much money, let us ask whether Mr. Smith gets -value for the money he spends. I must again compare with France, whose -homes I know. Now, as regards solid, standing comfort, there is no -comparison between Mr. Smith’s home and the home of the French Mr. -Smith. Our Mr. Smith wins. His standard is higher. He has more room, -more rooms, more hygiene, and more general facilities for putting -himself at his ease. - -***** - -But these contrivances, once acquired, do not involve a regular outlay, -except so far as they affect rent. And in the household budget rent is -a less important item than food and cleansing. Now, the raw materials -of the stuff necessary to keep a household healthily alive cost more in -France than in England. And the French Mr. Smith’s income is a little -less than our Mr. Smith’s. Yet the French Mr. Smith, while sitting on a -less comfortable chair in a smaller room, most decidedly consumes better -meals than our Mr. Smith. In other words, he lives better. - -I have often asked myself, in observing the family life of Monsieur -and Madame Smith: “How on earth do they do it?” Only one explanation -is possible. They understand better how to run a house economically in -France than we do in England. - -Now Mrs. Smith in her turn cries: “Me extravagant?” - -Yes, relatively, extravagant! It is a hard saying, but, I believe, a -true one. Extravagance is in the air of England. A person always in a -room where there is a slight escape of gas does not smell the gas--until -he has been out for a walk and returned. So it is with us. - -As for you, Mrs. Smith, I would not presume to say in what you are -extravagant. But I guarantee that Madame Smith would “do it on less.” - -The enormous periodical literature now devoted largely to hints on -household management shows that we, perhaps unconsciously, realise a -defect. You don’t find this literature in France. They don’t seem to -need it. - - - - -IV--THE PARENTS - -Let us look at Mr. and Mrs. Smith one evening when they are by -themselves, leaving the children entirely out of account. For in -addition to being father and mother, they are husband and wife. Not that -I wish to examine the whole institution of marriage--people who dare to -do so deserve the Victoria Cross! My concern is simply with the effects -of the organisation of the home--on marriage and other things. - -Well, you see them together. Mr. Smith has done earning money for the -day, and Mrs. Smith has done spending it. They are at leisure to enjoy -this home of theirs. This is what Mr. Smith passes seven hours a day at -business for. This is what he got married for. This is what he wanted -when he decided to take Mrs. Smith, if he could get her. These hours -ought to be the flower of their joint life. How are these hours affected -by the organisation of the home? - -I will tell you how Mrs. Smith is affected. Mrs. Smith is worried by -it. And in addition she is conscious that her efforts are imperfectly -appreciated, and her difficulties unrealised. As regards the directing -and daily recreation of the home, Mr. Smith’s attitude on this evening -by the domestic hearth is at best one of armed neutrality. His criticism -is seldom other than destructive. Mr. Smith is a strange man. If he went -to a lot of trouble to get a small holding under the Small Holdings -Act, and then left the cultivation of the ground to another person -not scientifically trained to agriculture he would be looked upon as a -ninny. When a man takes up a hobby, he ought surely to be terrifically -interested in it. What is Mr. Smith’s home but his hobby? - -***** - -He has put Mrs. Smith in to manage it. He himself, once a quarter, -discharges the complicated and delicate function of paying the rent. -All the rest, the little matters, such as victualling and -brightening--trifles, nothings!--he leaves to Mrs. Smith. He is not -satisfied with Mrs. Smith’s activities, and he does not disguise the -fact. He is convinced that Mrs. Smith spends too much, and that she is -not businesslike. He is convinced that running a house is child’s -play compared to what _he_ has to do. Now, as to Mrs. Smith being -unbusinesslike, is Mr. Smith himself businesslike? If he is, he greatly -differs from his companions in the second-class smoker. The average -office and the average works are emphatically not run on business lines, -except in theory. Daily experience proves this. The businesslikeness of -the average business man is a vast and hollow pretence. - -Besides, who could expect Mrs. Smith to be businesslike? She was never -taught to be businesslike. Mr. Smith was apprenticed, or indentured, to -his vocation. But Mrs. Smith wasn’t. Mrs. Smith has to feed a family, -and doesn’t know the principles of diet. She has to keep children in -health, and couldn’t describe their organs to save her life. She has -to make herself and the home agreeable to the eye, and knows nothing -artistic about colour or form. - -I am an ardent advocate of Mrs. Smith. The marvel is not that Mrs. -Smith does so badly, but that she does so well. If women were not more -conscientious than men in their duties Mr. Smith’s home would be more -amateurish than it is, and Mr. Smith’s “moods” more frequent than they -are. For Mrs. Smith is amateurish. Example: Mrs. Smith is bothered to -death by the daily question, What can we have for dinner? She splits -her head in two in order to avoid monotony. Mrs. Smith’s _répertoire_ -probably consists of about 50 dishes, and if she could recall them all -to her mind at once her task would be much simplified. But she can’t -think of them when she wants to think of them. Supposing that in Mrs. -Smith’s kitchen hung a card containing a list of all her dishes, she -could run her eyes over it and choose instantly what dishes would suit -that day’s larder. Did you ever see such a list in Mrs. Smith’s kitchen? -No. The idea has not occurred to Mrs. Smith! - -I say also that to spend money efficiently is quite as difficult as to -earn it efficiently. Any fool can, somehow, earn a sovereign, but to -get value for a sovereign in small purchases means skill and immense -knowledge. Mr. Smith has never had experience of the difficulty of -spending money efficiently. Most of Mr. Smith’s payments are fixed and -mechanical. Mrs. Smith is the spender. Mr. Smith chiefly exercises his -skill as a spender in his clothes and in tobacco. Look at the result. -Any showy necktie shop and furiously-advertised tobacco is capable of -hood-winking Mr. Smith. - -***** - -In further comparison of their respective “jobs” it has to be noted that -Mrs. Smith’s is rendered doubly difficult by the fact that she is always -at close quarters with the caprices of human nature. Mrs. Smith is -continually bumping up against human nature in various manifestations. -The human butcher-boy may arrive late owing to marbles, and so the -dinner must either be late or the meat undercooked; or Mr. Smith, -through too much smoking, may have lost his appetite, and veal out -of Paradise wouldn’t please him! Mrs. Smith’s job is transcendently -delicate. - -In fine, though Mrs. Smith’s job is perhaps not quite so difficult as -she fancies it to be, it is much more difficult than Mr. Smith fancies -it to be. And if it is not as well done as she thinks, it is much better -done than Mr. Smith thinks. But she will never persuade Mr. Smith that -he is wrong until Mr. Smith condescends to know what he is talking about -in the discussion of household matters. Mr. Smith’s opportunities of -criticism are far too ample; or, at any rate, he makes use of them -unfairly, and not as a man of honour. Supposing that Mrs. Smith finished -all her work at four o’clock, and was free to stroll into Mr. Smith’s -place of business and criticise there everything that did not please -her! (It is true that she wouldn’t know what she was talking about; but -neither does Mr. Smith at home; at home Mr. Smith finds pride in not -knowing what he is talking about.) Mr. Smith would have a bit of a -“time” between four and six. - -Mr. and Mrs. Smith are united by a genuine affection. But their secret -attitudes on the subject of home management cause that affection, by a -constant slight friction, to wear thin. It must be so. And it will be -so until (a) Mr. Smith deigns to learn the business of his home; (b) Mr. -Smith ceases to expect Mrs. Smith to perform miracles; (c) Mrs. Smith -ceases to be an amateur in domestic economy--i. e., until domestic -economy becomes the principal subject in the upper forms of the average -girls’ school. - -At present the organisation of the home is an agency against the triumph -of marriage as an institution. - - - - -V--HAMIT’S POINT OF VIEW - -You may have forgotten young Harry Smith, whom I casually mentioned in -my first section, the schoolboy of fifteen. I should not be surprised -to hear that you had forgotten him. He is often forgotten in the home of -the Smiths., Compared with Mr. Smith, the creator of the home, or with -the lordly eldest son John, who earns his own living and is nearly -engaged, or with Mary, who actually is engaged, young Harry is -unimportant. Still, his case is very interesting, and his own personal -impression of the home of the Smiths must be of value. . - -Is Harry Smith happy in the home? Of course, one would not expect him -to be perfectly happy. But is he as happy as circumstances in themselves -allow? My firm answer is that he is not. I am entirely certain that on -the whole Harry Smith regards home as a fag, a grind, and a bore. Mr. -Smith, on reading these lines, is furious, and Mrs. Smith is hurt. -What! Our dear Harry experiences tedium and disappointment with his dear -parents? Nonsense! - -The fact is, no parents will believe that their children are avoidably -unhappy. It is universally agreed nowadays, that children in the -eighteenth century, and in the first half of the nineteenth, had a -pretty bad time under the sway of their elders. But the parent of those -epochs would have been indignant at any accusation of ill-treatment. He -would have called his sway beneficent and his affection doting. The same -with Mr. and Mrs. Smith! Now, I do not mean, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, that -you crudely ill-treat your son, tying him to posts, depriving him of -sleep, or pulling chestnuts out of the fire with his fingers. (See -reports of S.P.C.C.) A thousand times, no! You are softhearted. Mrs. -Smith is occasionally somewhat too soft-hearted. Still, I maintain that -you ill-treat Harry in a very subtle, moral way, by being fundamentally -unjust to him in your own minds. - -Just look at your Harry, my excellent and conscientious Mr. Smith. He -is all alive there, a real human being, not a mechanical doll; he -has feelings just like yours, only, perhaps, more sensitive. He finds -himself in a world which--well, of which the less said the better. _You_ -know what the world is, Mr. Smith, and you have often said what you -know. He is in this world, and he can’t get out of it. You have started -him on the dubious adventure, and he has got to go through with it. And -what is the reason of his being here? Did you start him out of a desire -to raise citizens for the greatest of empires? Did you imagine he would -enjoy it hugely? Did you act from a sense of duty to the universe? -None of these things, Mr. Smith! Your Harry is merely here because you -thought that Mrs. Smith was somehow charmingly different from other -girls. He is a consequence of your egotistic desire to enlarge your -borders, of your determination to have what you wanted. Every time -you cast eyes on him he ought to remind you what a self-seeking and -consequence-scorning person you are, Mr. Smith. And not only is he from -no choice or wish of his own in a world as to which the most powerful -intellects are still arguing whether it is tragic or ridiculous; but he -is unarmed for the perils of the business. He is very ignorant and -very inexperienced, and he is continually passing through disconcerting -modifications. - -These are the facts, my dear sir. You cannot deny that you, for your -own satisfaction, have got Harry into a rather fearful mess. Do you -constantly make the effort to be sympathetic to this helpless victim -of your egotism? You do not. And what is worse, to quiet your own -consciences, both you and Mrs. Smith are for ever pouring into his ear a -shocking--I won’t call it “lie”--perversion of the truth. You are always -absurdly trying to persuade him that the obligation is on his side. Not -a day wears to night but Mrs. Smith expresses to Harry her conviction -that by good behaviour he ought to prove his _gratitude_ to you for -being such a kind father. - -And you talk to him in the same strain of Mrs. Smith. The sum of your -teaching is an insinuation--often more than an insinuation--that you -have conferred a favour on Harry, Supposing that some one pitched you -into the Ship Canal--one of the salubrious reaches near Warrington, Mr. -Smith--and then clumsily dragged you half-way out, and punctured his -efforts by a reiterated statement that gratitude to him ought to fill -your breast, how would you feel? - -***** - -Things are better than they were, but the general attitude of the parent -to the child is still fundamentally insincere, and it mars the success -of the home, for it engenders in the child a sense of injustice. Do -you fancy that Harry is for an instant deceived by the rhetoric of his -parents? Not he! Children are very difficult to deceive, and they are -horribly frank to themselves. It is quite bad enough for Harry to be -compelled to go to school. Harry, however, has enough sense to perceive -that he must go to school. But when his parents begin to yarn that -he ought to be _glad_ to go to school, that he ought to _enjoy_ the -privilege of solving quadratic equations and learning the specific -gravities of elements, he is quite naturally alienated. - -He does not fail to observe that in a hundred things the actions of his -parents contradict their precepts. When, being a boy, he behaves like a -hoy, and his parents affect astonishment and disgust, he knows it is an -affectation. When his father, irritated by a superabundance of noise, -frowns and instructs Harry to get away for he is tired of the sight of -him, Harry is excusably affronted in his secret pride. - -These are illustrations of the imperfect success of the Smiths’ home as -an organisation for making Harry happy. Useless for Mr. Smith to argue -that it is “all for Harry’s own good.” He would simply be aggravating -his offence. Discipline, the enforcement of regulations, is necessary -for Harry. I strongly favour discipline. But discipline can be practised -with sympathy or without sympathy; with or without the accompaniment -of hypocritical remarks that deceive no one; with or without odious -assumptions of superiority and philanthropy. - -I trust that young John and young Mary will take note, and that their -attitude to _their_ Harrys will be, not: “You ought to be glad you’re -alive,” but: “We thoroughly sympathise with your difficulties. We quite -agree that these rules and prohibitions and injunctions are a nuisance -for you, but they will save you trouble later, and we will be as -un-cast-iron as we can.” Honesty is the best policy. - - - - -VI--THE FUTURE - -The cry is that the institution of the home is being undermined, and -that, therefore, society is in the way of perishing. It is stated that -the home is insidiously attacked, at one end of the scale, by the hotel -and restaurant habit, and, at the other, by such innovations as the -feeding-of-school-children habit. We are asked to contemplate the -crowded and glittering dining-rooms of the Midland, the Carlton, the -Adelphi, on, for instance, Christmas Night, when, of all nights, people -ought! to be on their own hearths, and we are told: “It has come to -this. This! is the result of the craze for pleasure! Where is the home -now?” - -To which my reply would be that the home remains just about where it -was. The spectacular existence of a few great hotels has never mirrored -the national life. Is the home of the Smiths, for example, being -gradually overthrown by the restaurant habit? The restaurant habit will -only strengthen the institution of the home. The most restaurant-loving -people on the face of the earth are the French, and the French home is a -far more powerful, more closely-knit organisation than our own. Why! Up -to last year a Frenchman of sixty could not marry without the consent -of his parents, if they happened to be alive. I wonder what the Smiths -would say to that as an example of the disintegration of the home by the -restaurant habit! - -Most assuredly the modest, medium, average home founded by Mr. Smith -has not been in the slightest degree affected either by the increase of -luxury and leisure, or by any alleged meddlesomeness on the part of the -State. The home founded by Mr. Smith, with all its faults--and I have -not spared them--is too convenient, too economical, too efficient, and, -above all, too natural, to be overthrown, or even shaken, by either -luxury or grandmotherliness. To change the metaphor and call it a ship, -it remains absolutely right and tight. It is true that Mr. and Mrs. -Smith assert sadly that young John and young Mary have much more liberty -than _they_ ever had, but Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s parents asserted exactly -the same thing of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and their grandparents of their -parents, and so on backwards doubtless up to Noah. That is only part of -a process, a beneficent process. - -***** - -Nevertheless, the home of the Smiths has a very real enemy, and that -enemy is not outside, but inside. That enemy is Matilda. I have not -hitherto discussed Matilda. She sleeps in the attic, and earns £18 a -year, rising to £20. She doesn’t count, and yet she is the factor which, -more than any other, will modify the home of the Smiths. - -Let me say no word against Matilda. She is a respectable and a passably -industrious, and a passably obedient girl. I know her. She usually -opens the door for me, and we converse “like anything”! “Good evening, -Matilda,” I say to her. “Good evening, sir,” says she. And in her tone -and mine is an implicit recognition of the fact that I have been very -good-natured and sympathetic in greeting her as a human being. “Mr. -Smith in?” I ask, smiling. “Yes, sir. Will you come this way?” says she. -Then I forget her. A nice, pleasant girl! And she has a good place, too. -The hygienic conditions are superior to those of a mill, and the labour -less fatiguing. And both Mrs. Smith and Miss Mary, help her enormously -in “little ways.” She eats better food than she would eat at home, and -she has a bedroom all to herself. You might say she was on velvet. - -And yet, in the middle of one of those jolly, unaffected evenings that I -occasionally spend with the Smiths, when the piano has been going, and I -have helped Mrs. Smith to cheat herself at patience, and given Mr. -Smith the impression that he can teach me a thing or two, and discussed -cigarettes with John, and songs with Mary, and the sense of intimate -fellowship and mutual comprehension is in the air, in comes Matilda -suddenly with a tray of coffee--and makes me think furiously! She goes -out as rapidly as she came in, for she is bound by an iron law not to -stop an instant, and if she happened to remark in a friendly, human way: -“You seem to be having a good time here!” - -All the Smiths, and I too, would probably drop down dead from pained -shock. - -But though she is gone I continue to think furiously. Where had she been -all the jolly evening? Where has she returned to? Well, to her beautiful -hygienic kitchen, where she sits or works all by herself, on velvet. My -thoughts follow her existence through the day, and I remember that from -morn till onerous eve she must not, save on business, speak unless she -is spoken to. Then I give up thinking about Matilda’s case, because -it annoys me. I recall a phrase of young John’s; he is youthfully -interested in social problems, and he wants a latch-key vote. Said John -to me once, when another Matilda had left: “Of course, if one thought -too much about Matilda’s case, one wouldn’t be able to sleep at nights.” - -***** - -When you visit the Smiths the home seems always to be in smooth working -order. But ask Mrs. Smith! Ask Mary! Get beneath the surface. And you -will glimpse the terrible trouble that lies concealed. Mrs. Smith began -with Matilda the First. Are you aware that this is Matilda the Fortieth, -and that between Matilda the Fortieth and Matilda the Forty-first there -will probably be an interregnum? Mrs. Smith simply cannot get Matildas. -And when by happy chance she does get a Matilda, the misguided girl -won’t see the velvet with which the kitchen and the attic are carpeted. - -Mrs. Smith says the time will come when the race of Matildas will have -disappeared. And Mrs. Smith is right. The “general servant” is bound to -disappear utterly. In North America she has already almost disappeared. -Think of that! Instead of her, in many parts of the American continent, -there is an independent stranger who, if she came to the Smiths, would -have the ineffable impudence to eat at the same table as the Smiths, -just as though she was of the same clay, and who, when told to do -something, would be quite equal to snapping out: “Do it yourself.” - -But you say that the inconvenience brought about by the disappearance of -Matilda would be too awful to contemplate. I venture to predict that the -disappearance of Matilda will not exhaust the resources of civilisation. -The home will continue. But mechanical invention will have to be -quickened in order to replace Matilda’s red hands. And there will be -those suburban restaurants! And I have a pleasing vision of young John, -in the home which _he_ builds, cleaning his own boots. Inconvenient, but -it is coming! - - - - -STREETS ROADS AND TRAINS--1907-1909 - - - - -I--IN WATLING STREET - -Upon an evening in early autumn, I, who had never owned an orchard -before, stood in my orchard; behind me were a phalanx of some sixty -trees bearing (miraculously, to my simplicity) a fine crop of apples and -plums--my apples and plums, and a mead of some two acres, my mead, upon -which I discerned possibilities of football and cricket; behind these -was a double greenhouse containing three hundred pendent bunches of -grapes of the dark and aristocratic variety which I thought I had seen -in Piccadilly ticketed at four shillings a pound--my grapes; still -further behind uprose the chimneys of a country-house, uncompromisingly -plain and to some eyes perhaps ugly, but my country-house, the lease -of which, stamped, was in my pocket. Immediately in front of me was a -luxuriant hedge which, long unclipped, had attained a height of at -least fifteen feet. Beyond the hedge the ground fell away sharply into -a draining ditch, and on the other side of the ditch, through the -interstices of the hedge, I perceived glimpses of a very straight and -very white highway. - -This highway was Watling Street, built of the Romans, and even now -surviving as the most famous road in England. I had “learnt” it at -school, and knew that it once ran from Dover to London, from London -to Chester and from Chester to York. Just recently I had tracked it -diligently on a series of county maps, and discovered that, though only -vague fragments of it remained in Kent, Surrey, Shropshire, Cheshire, -and Yorkshire, it still flourished and abounded exceedingly in -my particular neighbourhood as a right line, austere, renowned, -indispensable, clothed in its own immortal dust. I could see but patches -of it in the twilight, but I was aware that it stretched fifteen miles -southeast of me, and unnumbered miles northwest of me, with scarcely a -curve to break the splendid inexorable monotony of its career. To me it -was a wonderful road--more wonderful than the Great North Road, or the -military road from Moscow to Vladivostock. And the most wonderful thing -about it was that I lived on it. After all, few people can stamp the top -of their notepaper, “Watling Street, England.” It is not a residential -thoroughfare. - -Only persons of imagination can enter into my feelings at that moment. I -had spent two-thirds of my life in a town (squalid, industrial) and the -remaining third in Town. I thought I knew every creosoted block in Fleet -Street, every bookstall in Shoreditch, every hosier’s in Piccadilly. -I certainly did know the order of stations on the Inner Circle, the -various frowns of publishers, the strange hysteric, silly atmosphere -of theatrical first-nights, and stars of the Empire and Alhambra (by -sight), and the vicious odours of a thousand and one restaurants. And -lo! burdened with all this accumulated knowledge, shackled by all these -habits, associations, entrancements, I was yet moved by some mysterious -and far-off atavism to pack up, harness the oxen, “trek,” and go and -live in “the country.” - -Of course I soon discovered that there is no such thing as “the -country,” just as there is no such thing as Herbert Spencer’s “state.” - -“The country” is an entity which exists only in the brains of an urban -population, whose members ridiculously regard the terrene surface as a -concatenation of towns surrounded by earthy space. There is England, and -there are spots on England called towns: that is all. But at that time I -too had the illusion of “the country,” a district where one saw “trees,” - “flowers,” and “birds.” For me, a tree was not an oak or an ash or an -elm or a birch or a chestnut; it was just a “tree.” For me there were -robins, sparrows, and crows; the rest of the winged fauna was merely -“birds.” I recognised roses, daisies, dandelions, forget-me-nots, -chrysanthemums, and one or two more blossoms; all else was “flowers.” - Remember that all this happened before the advent of the nature-book and -the sublime invention of week-ending, and conceive me plunging into this -unknown, inscrutable, and recondite “country,” as I might have plunged -fully clothed and unable to swim into the sea. It was a prodigious -adventure! When my friends asked me, with furtive glances at each other -as in the presence of a lunatic, why I was going to live in the country, -I could only reply: “Because I want to. I want to see what it’s like.” I -might have attributed my action to the dearness of season-tickets on -the Underground, to the slowness of omnibuses or the danger of cabs: my -friends would have been just as wise, and I just as foolish, in -their esteem. I admit that their attitude of benevolent contempt, of -far-seeing sagacity, gave me to think. And although I was obstinate, -it was with a pang of misgiving that I posted the notice of quitting -my suburban residence; and the pang was more acute when I signed the -contract for the removal of my furniture. I called on my friends before -the sinister day of exodus. - -“Good-bye,” I said. - -“Au revoir,” they replied, with calm vaticinatory assurance, “we shall -see you back again in a year.” - -***** - -Thus, outwardly braggart, inwardly quaking, I departed. The quaking had -not ceased as I stood, in the autumn twilight, in my beautiful orchard, -in front of my country-house. Toiling up the slope from the southward, -I saw an enormous van with three horses: the last instalment of my -chattels. As it turned lumberingly at right angles into my private road -or boreen, I said aloud: - -“I’ve done it.” - -I had. I felt like a statesman who has handed an ultimatum to a king’s -messenger. No withdrawal was now possible. From the reverie natural -to this melancholy occasion I was aroused by a disconcerting sound of -collision, the rattle of chains, and the oaths customary to drivers in a -difficulty. I ran towards the house and down the weedy drive bordered -by trees which a learned gardener had told me were of the variety, -_cupressus lawsoniana_. In essaying the perilous manoeuvre of twisting -round three horses and a long van on a space about twenty feet square, -the driver had overset the brick pier upon which swung my garden-gate. -The unicorn horse of the team was nosing at the cupressus lawsoniana -and the van was scotched in the gateway. I thought, “This is an omen.” I -was, however, reassured by the sight of two butchers and two bakers each -asseverating that nothing could afford him greater pleasure than to -call every day for orders. A minute later the postman, in his own lordly -equipage, arrived with my newspapers and his respects. I tore open a -paper and read news of London. I convinced myself that London actually -existed, though I were never to see it again. The smashing of the pier -dwindled from a catastrophe to an episode. - -***** - -The next morning very early I was in Watling Street. Since then - - Full many a glorious morning have I seen - - Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, - -but this was the first in the sequence of those Shaksperean mornings, -and it was also, subjectively, the finest. I shall not describe it, -since, objectively and in the quietude of hard fact, I now perceive that -it could not have been in the least remarkable. The sun rose over -the southward range which Bunyan took for the model of his Delectable -Mountains, and forty or fifty square miles of diversified land was -spread out in front of me. The road cut down for a couple of miles like -a geometrician’s rule, and disappeared in a slight S curve, the work -of a modern generation afraid of gradients, on to the other side of the -Delectable Mountains. I thought: “How magnificent were those Romans -in their disregard of everything except direction!” And being a -professional novelist I naturally began at once to consider the -possibilities of exploiting Watling Street in fiction. Then I climbed -to the brow of my own hill, whence, at the foot of the long northerly -slope, I could descry the outposts of my village, a mile away; there -was no habitation of mankind nearer to me than this picturesque and -venerable hamlet, which seemed to lie inconsiderable on the great road -like a piece of paper. The seventy-four telegraph wires which border the -great road run above the roofs of Winghurst as if they were unaware -of its existence. “And Winghurst,” I reflected, “is henceforth -my metropolis.” No office! No memorising of time-tables! No daily -struggle-for-lunch! Winghurst, with three hundred inhabitants, the -centre of excitement, the fount of external life! - -The course of these ordinary but inevitable thoughts was interrupted by -my consciousness of a presence near me. A man coughed. He had approached -me, in almost soleless boots, on the grassy footpath. For a brief second -I regarded him with that peculiar fellow-feeling which a man who has -risen extremely early is wont to exhibit towards another man who -has risen extremely early. But finding no answering vanity in his -undistinguished features I quickly put on an appearance of usualness, to -indicate that I might be found on that spot at that hour every morning. -The man looked shabby, and that Sherlock Holmes who lies concealed in -each one of us decided for me that he must be a tailor out-of-work. - -“Good morning, sir,” he said. - -“Good morning,” I said. - -“Do you want to buy a good recipe for a horse, sir?” he asked. - -“A horse?” I repeated, wondering whether he was a lunatic, or a genius -who had discovered a way to manufacture horses. - -“Yes, sir,” he said, “They often fall sick, sir, you know. The saying -is, as I daresay you’ve heard, ‘Never trust a woman’s word or a horse’s -health.’” - -I corrected his quotation. - -“I’ve got one or two real good recipes,” he resumed. - -“But I’ve got no horse,” I replied, and that seemed to finish the -interview. - -“No offence, I hope, sir,” he said, and passed on towards the Delectable -Mountains. - -He was a mystery; his speech disclosed no marked local accent; he had -certainly had some education; and he was hawking horse-remedies in -Watling Street at sunrise. Here was the germ of my first lesson in -rusticity. Except in towns, the “horsey” man does not necessarily -look horsey. That particular man resembled a tailor, and by a curious -coincidence the man most fearfully and wonderfully learned in equine lore -that I have yet known is a tailor. - -But horses! Six miles away to the West I could see the steam of -expresses on the London and North Western Main line; four miles to the -East I could see the steam of expresses on the Midland. And here was -an individual offering stable-recipes as simply as though they had been -muffins! I reflected on my empty stable, harness-room, coachhouse. I -began to suspect that I was in a land where horses entered in the daily -and hourly existence of the people. I had known for weeks that I must -buy a horse; the nearest town and the nearest railway station were -three miles off. But now, with apprehension, I saw that mysterious and -dangerous mercantile operation to be dreadfully imminent: me, _coram -publico_, buying a horse, me the dupe of copers, me a butt for the -covert sarcasm of a village omniscient about horses and intolerant of -ignorance on such a subject! - -***** - -Down in the village, that early morning, I saw a pony and an evidently -precarious trap standing in front of the principal shop. I had read -about the “village-shop” in novels; I had even ventured to describe it -in fiction of my own; and I was equally surprised and delighted to find -that the villageshop of fiction was also the village-shop of fact. It -was the mere truth that one could buy everything in this diminutive -emporium, that the multifariousness of its odours excelled that of -the odours of Cologne, and that the proprietor, who had never seen me -before, instantly knew me and all about me. Soon I, was in a fair way to -know something of the proprietor. He was informing me that he had five -little children, when one of the five, snuffling and in a critical mood, -tumbled into the shop out of an obscure Beyond. - -“And what’s your name?” I enquired of the girl, with that fatuous, false -blandness of tone which the inexpert always adopt toward children. I -thought of the five maidens whose names were five sweet symphonies, and -moreover I deemed it politic to establish friendly relations with my -monopolist. - -“She’s a little shy,” I remarked. - -“It’s a boy, sir,” said the monopolist. - -It occurred to me that Nature was singularly uninventive in devising new -quandaries for the foolish. - -“Tell the gentleman your name.”’ - -Thus admonished, the boy emitted one monosyllable: “Guy.” - -“We called him Guy because he was horn on the fifth of November,” the -monopolist was good enough to explain. - -As I left the shop a man driving a pony drew up at the door with an -immense and sudden flourish calculated to impress the simple. I noticed -that the pony was the same animal which I had previously seen standing -there. - -“Want to buy a pony, sir?” The question was thrown at me like a missile -that narrowly escaped my head; launched in a voice which must once have -been extremely powerful, but which now, whether by abuse of shouting in -the open air or by the deteriorating effect of gin on the vocal chords, -was only a loud, passionate whisper: so that, though the man obviously -bawled with all his might, the drum of one’s ear was not shattered. I -judged, partly from the cut of his coat and the size of the buttons on -it, and partly from the creaminess of the shaggy, long-tailed pony, that -my questioner was or had been connected with circuses. His very hand was -against him; the turned-back podgy thumb showed acquisitiveness, and the -enormous Gophir diamonds in brass rings argued a certain lack of really -fine taste. His face had literally the brazen look, and that absolutely -hard, impudent, glaring impassivity acquired only by those who earn more -than enough to drink by continually bouncing the public. - -“The finest pony in the county, sir.” (It was an animal organism -gingerly supported on four crooked legs; a quadruped and nothing more.) -“The finest pony in the county!” he screamed, “Finest pony in England, -sir! Not another like him! I took him to the Rothschild horse-show, -but they wouldn’t have him. Said I’d come too late to enter him for the -first-clawss. They were afraid--afferaid! There was the water-jump. -‘Stand aside, you blighters,’ I said, ‘and he’ll jump that, the d----d -gig and all,’ But they were afferaid!” - -I asked if the animal was quiet to drive. - -“Quiet to drive, sir, did you say? I should _say_ so. I says _Away_, -and _off_ he goes.” Here the thin scream became a screech. “Then I says -_Pull up, you blighter_, and he stops dead. A child could drive him. He -don’t want no driving. You could drive him with a silken thread.” His -voice melted, and with an exquisite tender cadence he repeated: “With a -silk-en therredd!” - -“Well,” I said. “How much?” - -“How much, did you say, sir? How much?” He made it appear that this -question came upon him as an extraordinary surprise. I nodded. - -He meditated on the startling problem, and then yelled: “Thirty guineas. -It’s giving him away.” - -“Make it shillings,” I said. I was ingenuously satisfied with my retort, -but the man somehow failed to appreciate it. - -“Come here,” he said, in a tone of intimate confidence. “Come here. -Listen. I’ve had that pony’s picture painted. Finest artist in England, -sir. And frame! You never see such a frame! At thirty guineas I’ll throw -the picture in. Look ye! That picture cost me two quid, and here’s the -receipt.” He pulled forth a grimy paper, and I accepted it from his -villainous fingers. It proved, however, to be a receipt for four pounds, -and for the portrait, not of a pony, but of a man. - -“This is a receipt for your own portrait,” I said. - -“Now wasn’t that a coorious mistake for me to make?” he asked, as if -demanding information. “Wasn’t that a coorious mistake?” - -I was obliged to give him the answer he desired, and then he produced -the correct receipt. - -“Now,” he said wooingly, “There! Is it a trade? I’ll bring you the -picture to-night. Finest frame you ever saw! What? No? Look here, buy -him at thirty guineas--say pounds--and I’ll chuck you both the blighted -pictures in!” - -“_Away!_” he screamed a minute later, and the cream pony, galvanised -into frantic activity by that sound, and surely not controllable by a -silken thread, scurried off towards the Delectable Mountains. - -This was my first insight into horse dealing. - - - - -II--STREET TALKING - -Few forms of amusement are more amusing and few forms of amusement cost -less than to walk slowly along the crowded central thoroughfares of -a great capital--London, Paris, or Timbuctoo--with ears open to catch -fragments of conversation not specially intended for your personal -consumption. It, perhaps, resembles slightly the justly blamed habit -of listening at keyholes and the universally practised habit of reading -other people’s postcards; it is possibly not quite “nice.” But, like -both these habits, it is within the law, and the chances of it doing -any one any harm are exceedingly remote. Moreover, it has in an amazing -degree the excellent quality of taking you out of yourself--and putting -you into some one else. Detectives employ it, and if it were forbidden -where would novelists be? Where, for example, would Mr. Pett Ridge be? -Once yielded to, it grows on you; it takes hold of you in its fell, -insidious clutch, as does the habit of whisky, and becomes incurable. -You then treat it seriously; you make of it a passkey to the seventy and -seven riddles of the universe, with wards for each department of life. -You judge national characteristics by it; by it alone you compare rival -civilisations. And, incidentally, you somewhat increase your social -value as a diner-out. - -***** - -For a long time I practised it in the streets of Paris, the city of -efficient chatter, the city in which wayfarers talk with more exuberance -and more grammar than anywhere else. Here are a few phrases, fair -samples from lists of hundreds, which I have gathered and stored, on -the boulevards and in quieter streets, such as the Rue Blanche, where -conversation grows intimate on mild nights:-- - -She is mad. - -She lived on the fourth floor last year. - -Yes, she is not bad, after all. - -Thou knowest, my old one, that my wife is a little bizarre. - -He has left her. - -They say she is very jealous. - -Anything except oysters. - -Thou annoyest me terribly, my dear. - -It is a question solely of the cache-corset. - -With those feet! - -He is a beau garçon, but-- - -He is the fourth in three years. - -My big wolf! - -Do not say that, my small rabbit. - -She doesn’t look it. - -It is open to any one to assert that such phrases have no significance, -or that, if they have significance, their significance must necessarily -be hidden from the casual observer. But to me they are like the finest -lines in the tragedies of John Ford. - -Marlow was at his best in the pentameter, but Ford usually got his -thrill in a chipped line of about three words--three words which, while -they mean nothing, mean everything. All depends on what you “read into” - them. And the true impassioned student of human nature will read into -the overheard exclamations of the street a whole revealing philosophy. -What! Two temperaments are separately born, by the agency of chance -or the equally puzzling agency of design, they one day collide, become -intimate, and run parallel for a space. You perceive them darkly afar -off; they approach you; you are in utter ignorance of them; and then in -the instant of passing you receive a blinding flash of illumination, and -the next instant they are eternally hidden from you again. That blinding -flash of illumination may consist of “My big wolf!” or it may consist of -“It is solely a question of the cache-corset.” But in any case it is and -must be profoundly significant. In any case it is a gleam of light on -a mysterious place. Even the matter of the height of the floor on which -she lived is charged with an overwhelming effect for one who loves his -fellow-man. And lives there the being stupid or audacious enough to -maintain that the French national character does not emerge charmingly -and with a curious coherence from the fragments of soul-communication -which I have set down? - -***** - -On New Year’s Eve I was watching the phenomena of the universal scheme -of things in Putney High-street. A man and a girl came down the footpath -locked in the most intimate conversation. I could see that they were -perfectly absorbed in each other. And I heard the man say:-- - -“Yes, Charlie is a very good judge of beer--Charlie is!” - -And then they were out of hearing, vanished from the realm of my senses -for ever more. And yet people complain that the suburbs are dull! As for -me, when I grasped the fact that Charlie was a good judge of beer I -knew for certain that I was back in England, the foundation of whose -greatness we all know. I walked on a little farther and overtook two -men, silently smoking pipes. The companionship seemed to be a taciturn -communion of spirits, such as Carlyle and Tennyson are said to have -enjoyed on a certain historic evening. But I was destined to hear -strange messages that night. As I forged ahead of them, one murmured:-- - -“I done him down a fair treat!” - -No more! I loitered to steal the other’s answer. But there was no -answer. Two intelligences that exist from everlasting to everlasting had -momentarily joined the path of my intelligence, and the unique message -was that some one had been done down a fair treat. They disappeared into -the unknown of Werter-road, and I was left meditating upon the queer -coincidence of the word “beer” preceding the word “treat.” A -disturbing coincidence, a caprice of hazard! And my mind flew back to a -smoking-concert of my later youth, in which “Beer, beer, glorious beer” - was followed, on the programme, by Handel’s Largo. - -***** - -In the early brightness of yesterday morning fate led me to -Downing-street, which is assuredly the oddest street in the world -(except Bow-street). Everything in Downing-street is significant, save -the official residence of the Prime Minister, which, with its three -electric bells and its absurdly inadequate area steps, is merely comic. -The way in which the vast pile of the Home Office frowns down upon that -devoted comic house is symbolic of the empire of the permanent official -over the elected of the people. It might be thought that from his -second-floor window the Prime Minister would keep a stern eye on the -trembling permanent official. But experienced haunters of Downing-street -know that the Hessian boot is on the other leg. Why does that dark -and grim tunnel run from the side of No. 10, Downing-street, into the -spacious trackless freedom of the Horse Guards Parade, if it is not to -facilitate the escape of Prime Ministers fleeing from the chicane of -conspiracies? And how is it that if you slip out of No. 10 in your -slippers of a morning, and toddle across to the foot of the steps -leading to St. James’s Park, you have instantly a view (a) of Carlton -House Terrace and (b) of the sinister inviting water of St. James’s Park -pond? I say that the mute significance of things is unsettling, in the -highest degree. That morning a motor-brougham was seeking repose in -Downing-street. By the motorbrougham stood a chauffeur, and by the -chauffeur stood a girl under a feathered hat. They were exchanging -confidences, these two. I strolled nonchalantly past. The girl was -saying:-- - -“Look at this skirt as I’ve got on now. Me and her went ’alves in it. -She was to have it one Sunday, and me the other. But do you suppose as -I could get it when it come to my turn? Not me! Whenever I called for it -she was always--” I heard no more. I could not decently wait. But I was -glad the wearer had ultimately got the skirt. The fact was immensely -significant. - - - - -III--ON THE ROAD - -The reader may remember a contrivance called a bicycle on which people -used to move from one place to another. The thing is still employed by -postmen in remote parts. We discovered a couple in the stable, had them -polished with the electroplate powder and went off on them. It seemed a -strange freak. Equally strange was the freak of quitting Fontainebleau, -even for three days. I had thought that no one ever willingly left -Fontainebleau. - -[Illustration: 0469] - -Everybody knows what the roads of France are. Smooth and straight -perfection, bordered by double rows of trees. They were assuredly -constructed with a prevision of automobiles. They run in an absolutely -straight line for about five miles, then there is a slight bend and you -are faced with another straight line of five miles. It is magnificent -on a motor-car at a mile a minute. On a bicycle it is tedious; you never -get anywhere, and the one fact you learn is that France consists of ten -thousand million plane trees and a dust-cloud. We left the main road at -the very first turn. As a rule, the bye-roads of France are as well kept -as the main roads, often better, and they are far more amusing. But -we soon got lost in a labyrinth of bad roads. We went back to the main -roads, despite their lack of humour, and they were just as bad. All the -roads of the department which we had invaded were criminal--as criminal -as anything in industrial Yorkshire. A person who had travelled only on -the roads of the Loiret would certainly say that French roads were -the worst in Europe. This shows the folly of generalising. We held an -inquisition as to these roads when we halted for lunch. - -“What would you?” replied the landlady. “It is like that!” She was a -stoic philosopher. She said the state of the roads was due to the heavy -loads of beetroot that pass over them, the beetroot being used for -sugar. This seemed to us a feeble excuse. She also said we should find -that the roads got worse. She then proved that in addition to being a -great philosopher she was a great tactician. We implored lunch, and it -was only 11:15. She said, with the most charming politeness, that her -regular clients--_ces messieurs_--arrived at twelve, and not before, but -that as we were “pressed” she would prepare us a special lunch (founded -on an omelette) instantly. Meanwhile we could inspect her fowls, rabbits -and guinea-pigs. Well, we inspected her fowls, rabbits and guinea-pigs -till exactly five minutes past twelve, when _ces messieurs_ began to -arrive. The adorable creature had never had the least intention of -serving us with a special lunch. Her one desire was not to hurt our -sensitive, high-strung natures. The lunch consisted of mackerel, ham, -cutlets, _fromage à la crème_, fruits and wine. I have been eating at -French inns for years, and have not yet ceased to be astonished at the -refined excellence of the repast which is offered in any little poky -hole for a florin. - -***** - -She was right about the roads. Emphatically they got worse. But we did -not mind, for we had a strong wind at our hacks. The secret of happiness -in such an excursion as ours is in the wind and in naught else. We -bumped through some dozen villages, all exactly alike--it was a rolling -pasture country--and then came to our first town, Puiseaux, whose church -with its twisted spire must have been destined from its beginning to go -on to a picture post card. And having taught the leading business house -of Puiseaux how to brew tea, we took to the wind again, and were soon in -England; that is to say, we might have been in England, judging by the -hedges and ditches and the capriciousness of the road’s direction, and -the little occasional orchards, bridges and streams. This was not -the hedgeless, severe landscape of Gaul--not a bit! Only the ancient -farmhouses and the châteaux guarded by double pairs of round towers -reminded us that we were not in Shropshire. The wind blew us in no -time to within sight of the distant lofty spire of the great church of -Pithiviers, and after staring at it during six kilomètres, we ran down -into a green hollow and up into the masonry of Pithiviers, where the -first spectacle we saw was a dog racing towards the church with a -huge rat in his mouth. Pithiviers is one of the important towns of the -department. It demands and receives respect. It has six cafés in its -picturesque market square, and it specialises in lark patties. What on -earth led Pithiviers to specialise in lark patties I cannot imagine. -But it does. It is revered for its lark patties, which are on view -everywhere. We are probably the only persons who have spent a night in -Pithiviers without partaking of lark patties. We went into the hotel -and at the end of the hall saw three maids sewing in the linen-room--a -pleasing French sight--and, in a glass case, specimens of lark patties. -We steadily and consistently refused lark patties. Still we did not -starve. Not to mention lark patties, our two-and-tenpenny dinner -comprised soup, boiled beef, carrots, turnips, _gnocchi_, fowl, beans, -leg of mutton, cherries, strawberries and minor details. During this -eternal meal, a man with a bag came vociferously into the _salle à -manger_. He was selling the next day’s morning paper! Chicago could not -surpass that! - -Largely owing to the propinquity and obstinacy of the striking clock of -the great church I arose at 6 a. m. The market was already in progress. -I spoke with! an official about the clock, but I could not make him see -that I had got up in the middle of the night. In spite of my estimate -of his clock, he good-naturedly promised me much better roads. And the -promise was fulfilled. But we did not mind. For now the strong wind -was against us. This altered all our relations with the universe, and -transformed us into impolite, nagging pessimists; previously we had been -truly delightful people. - -All that day till tea-time we grumbled over a good road that wound its -way through a gigantic wheat-field. True that sometimes the wheat was -oats, or even a pine plantation; but, broadly speaking, the wheat was -all wheat, and the vast heaving sea of it rolled up to the very sides of -the road under our laggard wheels. And it was all right, and it was all -being cut with two-horse McCormick reapers. We actually saw hundreds of -McCormick reapers. Near and far, on all the horizons, we could detect -the slow-revolving paddle of the McCormick reaper. And at least we -reached Chateau Landon, against the walls of which huge waves of wheat -were breaking. Chateau Landon was our destination. We meant to discover -it and we did. - -***** - -[Illustration: 0475] - -Château Landon is one of the most picturesque towns in France; but, as -the landlady of the Red Hat said to us, “no one has yet known how -to make come _messieurs_, the tourists.” I should say that (except -Carcassone, of course) Vezelay, in the Avalonnais, is perhaps _the_ most -picturesque town in all France. Chateau Landon comes near it, and is -much easier to get at. On one side it rises straight up in a tremendous -sheer escarpment out of the little river Fusain, in which the entire -town washes its clothes. The view of the city from the wooded and -murmurous valley is genuinely remarkable, and the most striking -feature of the view is the feudal castle which soars with its terrific -buttresses out of a thick mass of trees. Few more perfect relics of -feudalism than this formidable building can exist anywhere. It will soon -celebrate its thousandth birthday. In putting it to the uses of a home -for the poor (Asile de St. Severin) the townsmen cannot be said to have -dishonoured its old age. You climb up out of the river by granite steps -cut into the escarpment and find yourself all of a sudden in the market -square, which looks over a precipice. Everybody is waiting to relate to -you the annals of the town since the beginning of history: how it had -its own mint, and how the palace of the Mint still stands; how many an -early Louis lived in the town, making laws and dispensing justice; -how Louis le Gros put himself to the trouble of being buried in the -cathedral there; and how the middlemen come from Fontainebleau to buy -game at the market. We sought the tomb in the cathedral, but found -nothing of interest there save a stout and merry priest instructing a -class of young girls in the aisle. However, we did buy a pair of fowls -in the market for 4s. and carried them at our saddles, all the way back -to Fontainebleau. The landlady of the Red Hat asked us whether her city -was not wondrous? We said it was. She asked us whether we should come -again? We said we should. She asked us whether we could do anything to -spread the fame of her wondrous town? We said we would do what we could. - -To reach Fontainebleau it was necessary to pass through another ancient -town which we have long loved, largely on account of Balzac, to wit, -Nemours. After Chateau Landon, Nemours did not seem to be quite the -exquisite survival that we had thought. It had almost a modern look. -Thus on the afternoon of the third day we came to Fontainebleau again. -And there was no wind at all. We had covered a prodigious number of -miles, about as many as a fair automobile would swallow, up in two -hours; in fact, eighty. - -[Illustration: 0479] - - - - -IV--A TRAIN - -At the present moment probably the dearest bed of its size in the world -is that to be obtained on the Calais-Mediterranean express, which leaves -Calais at 1.05 every afternoon and gets to Monte Carlo at 9.39 the -next morning. This bed costs you between £4 and £5 if you take it from -Calais, and between £3 and £4 if you take it from Paris (as I did), in -addition to the first-class fare (no bagatelle that, either!), and, of -course, in addition to your food. Why people should make such a terrific -fuss about this train I don’t know. It isn’t the fastest train between -Paris and Marseilles, because, though it beats almost every other train -by nearly an hour, there is, in February, just one train that beats -_it_--by one minute. * And after Marseilles it is slow. And as for -comfort, well, Americans aver that it “don’t cut much ice, anyway” (this -is the sort of elegant diction you hear on it), seeing that it doesn’t -even comprise a drawingroom! car. Except when you are eating, you must -remain boxed up in a compartment decidedly not as roomy as a plain, -common, ordinary, decent Anglo-Saxon first-class compartment between -Manchester and Liverpool. - -* In 1904. - -However, it is the train of trains, outside the Siberian express, -and the Chicago and Empire City Vestibule Flyer, Limited, and -if decorations, silver, rare woods, plush, silk, satin, springs, -cut-flowers, and white-gloved attendants will make a crack train, the -International Sleeping Car Company (that bumptious but still useful -association for the aggrandisement of railway directors) has made one. -You enter this train with awe, for you know that in entering you enrol -yourself once and for ever among the élite. You know that nobody in -Europe can go one better. For just as the whole of the Riviera coast has -been finally specials ised into a winter playground for the rich idlers, -dilettanti, hypochondriacs, and invalids of two or three continents, and -into a field of manouvres for the always-accompanying gilded riff-raff -and odalisques, so that train is a final instance of the specialisation -of transit to suit the needs of the aforesaid plutocrats and -adventurers. And whether you count yourself a plutocrat or an -adventurer, you are correct, doing the correct thing, and proving every -minute that money is no object, and thus realising the ideal of the age. - -[Illustration: 0483] - -***** - -French railway platforms are so low that in the vast and resounding Gare -de Lyon when the machine rolled magnificently in I was obliged to look -up to it, whether I wanted to or not; and so I looked up reverently. The -first human being that descended from it was an African; not a negro, -but something nobler. He was a very big man, with a distinguished mien, -and he wore the uniform, including the white gloves, of the dining-car -staff. Now, I had learnt from previous excursions in this gipsy-van of -the élite that the proper thing to do aboard! it is to display a keen -interest in your stomach. So I approached the African and demanded the -hour of dinner. He enveloped me in a glance of courteous but cold and -distant disdain, and for quite five seconds, as he gazed silently down -at me (I am 5ft.-8 3/4in.), he must have been saying to himself: “Here’s -another of ’em.” I felt inclined to explain to him, as the reporter -explained to the revivalist who inquired about his soul, that I was on -the Press, and therefore not to be confused with the general élite. But -I said nothing. I decided that if I told him that I worked as hard as -he did he would probably take me for a liar as well as a plutocratic -nincompoop. - -Then the train went off, carrying its cargo of human parcels all wrapped -up in pretty cloths and securely tied with tapes and things, and plunged -with its glitter and meretricious flash down through the dark central -quietudes of France. I must say that as I wandered about its shaking -corridors, looking at faces and observing the deleterious effects of -idleness, money, seasickness, lack of imagination, and other influences, -I was impressed, nevertheless, by the bright gaudiness of the train’s -whole entity. It isn’t called a train _de luxe_; it is called a train -_de grand luxe_; and though the artistic taste displayed throughout is -uniformly deplorable, still it deserves the full epithet. As an example -of ostentation, of an end aimed at and achieved, it will pass muster. -And, lost in one of those profound meditations upon life and death and -luxury which even the worst novelists must from time to time indulge -in, I forgot everything save the idea of the significance of the -train rushing, so complete and so self-contained, through unknown and -uncared-for darkness. For me the train might have been whizzing at large -through the world as the earth whizzes at large through space. Then that -African came along and asserted with frigid politeness that dinner was -ready. - -***** - -And in the highly-decorated dining-car, where vines grew all up the -walls, and the table-lamps were electric bulbs enshrined in the metallic -curves of the _art nouveau_, and the fine cut flowers had probably -been brought up from Grasse that morning, it happened that the African -himself handed me the menu and waited on me. And when he arrived -balancing the elaborate silver “contraption” containing ninety-nine -varieties of _hors-d’oeuvres_, but not the particular variety I wanted, -I determined that I would enter the lists with him. And, catching his -eye, I said with frigid politeness: ‘_N’y a-t-il pas de sardines?_’ - -He restrained himself for his usual five seconds, and then he replied, -with a politeness compared to which mine was sultry: - -“_Non, monsieur_.” - -And he went on to say (without speaking, but with his eyes, arms, legs, -forehead, and spinal column): “Miserable European, parcel, poltroon, -idler, degenerate, here I offer you ninety-and-nine _hors d’ouvres_, -and you want the hundredth! You, living your unnatural and despicable -existence! If I cared sufficiently I could kill every man on the train, -but I don’t care sufficiently! Have the goodness not to misinterpret my -politeness, and take this Lyons sausage, and let me hear no more about -sardines.” - -Hence I took the sausage and obediently ate it. I gave him best. Among -the few men that I respected on that train were the engine-driver, out -there in the nocturnal cold, with our lives in his pocket, and that -African. He really could have killed any of us. I may never see him -again. His circle of eternal energy just touched mine at the point where -a tin of sardines ought to have been but was not. He was emphatically a -man. He had the gestures and carriage of a monarch. Perhaps he was one, -_de jure_, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Timbuctoo. For practical -European, Riviera, plutocratic purposes he was a coloured waiter in the -service of the International Sleeping Car Company. - - - - -V--ANOTHER TRAIN - -After six hours’ continuous sleep, I felt full of energy and joy. There -were no servants to sadden by their incompetence; so I got up and made -the tea and prepared the baths, and did many simple domestic things, -the doing of which personally is the beginning of “the solution of the -servant problem,” so much talked about. Shall we catch the 9.25 fast or -the 9.50 slow? Only my watch was going among all the clocks and watches -in the flat. I looked at it from time to time, fighting against the -instinct to hurry, the instinct to beat that one tiny watch in its -struggle against me. Just when I was quite ready, I had to button a -corsage with ten thousand buttons--toy buttons like sago, that must be -persuaded into invisible nooses of thread. I turned off the gas at the -meter and the electricity at the meter, and glanced ’round finally at -the little museum of furniture, pictures, and prints that was nearly -all I had to show in the way of spoils after forty years of living and -twenty-five years of sharpshooting. I picked up the valise, and we went -out on the staircase. I locked and double locked the door. (Instinct of -property.) At the concierge’s lodge a head stuck itself out and offered -the “Mercure de France,” which had just come. Strange how my pleasure in -receiving new numbers never wanes! I shoved it into my left-hand pocket; -in my right-hand pocket a new book was already reposing. - -***** - -Out into the street, and though we had been up for an hour and a half, -we were now for the first time in the light of day! Mist! It would -probably be called “pearly” by some novelists; but it was like blue -mousseline--diaphanous as a dancer’s skirt. The damp air had the -astringent, nipping quality that is so marked in November--like -a friendly dog pretending to bite you. Pavements drying. The coal -merchant’s opposite was not yet open. The sight of his closed shutters -pleased me; I owed him forty francs, and my pride might have forced me -to pay him on the spot had I caught his eye. We met a cab instantly. The -driver, a middle-aged parent, was in that state of waking up in -which ideas have to push themselves into the brain. “Where?” he asked -mechanically, after I had directed him, but before I could repeat the -direction the idea had reached his brain, and he nodded. This driver -was no ordinary man, for instead of taking the narrow, blocked streets, -which form the shortest route, like the absurd 99 per cent. of drivers, -he aimed straight for the grand boulevard, and was not delayed once by -traffic in the whole journey. More pleasure in driving through the city -as it woke! It was ugly, dirty--look at the dirty shirt of the waiter -rubbing the door handles of the fashionable restaurant!--but it -was refreshed. And the friendly dog kept on biting. Scarcely any -motor-cars--all the chauffeurs were yet asleep--but the tram-cars were -gliding in curves over the muddy wood, and the three horses in each -omnibus had their early magnificent willingness of action, and the -vegetable hawkers, old men and women, were earnestly pushing their -barrows along in financial anxiety; their heads, as they pushed, were -always much in advance of their feet. They moved forward with heedless -fatalism; if we collided with them and spilled cauliflowers, so much the -worse! - -We reached the station, whose blue mousseline had evaporated as we -approached it, half an hour too soon. A good horse, no stoppages, and -the record had been lowered, and the driver had earned two francs in -twenty-five minutes! Before the Revolution he would have had to pay -a franc and a half of it in assorted taxes. Thirty minutes in a vast -station, and nothing to do. We examined the platform signs. There was -a train for Marseilles and Monte Carlo at 9.00 and another train for -Marseilles at 9.15. Then ours at 9.25. Sometimes I go south by the “Cote -d’Azur,” so this morning I must inspect it, owning it. Very few people; -a short, trying-to-be-proud train. The cook was busy in the kitchen of -the restaurant-car--what filth and smell! Separated from him only by -a partition were the flower-adorned white tables. On the platform the -officials of the train, some in new uniforms, strolled and conversed. -A young Frenchman dressed in the height of English fashion, with a -fine-bred pink-under-white fox terrier, attracted my notice. He guessed -it; became self-conscious, bridled, and called sportsmannishly to the -dog. His recognition of his own vital existence had forced him into some -action. He knew I was English, and that, therefore, I knew all about -dogs. He made the dog jump into the car, but the animal hadn’t enough -sense to jump in without impatient and violent help from behind. - -I never cared to have my dogs too well-bred, lest they should be as -handsome and as silly as the scions of ancient families. This dog’s -master was really a beautiful example of perfect masculine dressing. -His cap, the length of his trousers, the “roll” of the collar of his -jacket--perfect! Yes, it is agreeable to see a faultless achievement. -Not a woman on the train to compare to _him!_ It is a fact that men are -always at their sartorial best when travelling; they then put on gay -colours, and give themselves a certain licence.. . . The train seemed -to go off while no one was looking; no whistle, no waving of flags. It -crept out. But to the minute.. . . - -***** - -It is astounding the lively joy I find in staring at a railway -bookstall. Men came up, threw down a sou, snatched a paper, and -departed; scores of them; but I remained, staring, like a ploughman, -vaguely.. . . - -I was a quarter of an hour in buying the “Figaro.” What decided me was -the Saturday literary supplement. We mounted into our train before its -toilette was finished. It smelt nice and damp. We had a compartment to -ourselves. X. had one seat, I another, the “Mercure de France” a third, -the “Figaro” a fourth, and the valise a fifth. Male travellers passed -along the corridor and examined us with secret interest, but externally -ferocious and damnatory. Outside were two little Frenchmen of employés, -palefaces, with short, straggly beards. One yawned suddenly, and then -said something that the other smiled at. What diverts me is to detect -the domestic man everywhere beneath the official, beneath the mere unit. -I never see a porter without giving him a hearth and home, and worries, -and a hasty breakfast. Then the train went, without warning, like the -other, silently. I did not pick up my newspaper nor my magazine at -once, nor take the new book out of my pocket. I felt so well, so full of -potential energy.. . . and the friendly dog was still biting... I -wanted to bathe deep in my consciousness of being alive. . . Then I read -unpublished letters of de Maupassant, and a story by Matilde Serao and -memoirs of Ernest Blum, and my new book. What pleasure! After all what -joy I had in life! Is it not remarkable that so simple a mechanism as -print, for the transmission of thought, can work so successfully! - -At Melun there were teams of oxen, with the yoke on their foreheads, in -the shunting-yard. Quaint, piquant, collusion of different centuries! -And Melun, what a charming provincial town--to look at and pass on! I -would not think of its hard narrowness, nor of its brewery.. . . - -The landscape shed its mousseline, and day really began. Brilliant -sunshine. We arrived. Suddenly I felt tired. I wished to sleep. I no -longer tingled with the joy of life. I only remembered, rather sadly, -that half an hour ago I had been a glorious and proud being. - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Paris Nights, by Arnold Bennett - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARIS NIGHTS *** - -***** This file should be named 55116-0.txt or 55116-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/1/1/55116/ - -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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