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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42fec12 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60280 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60280) diff --git a/old/60280-0.txt b/old/60280-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index bb8d8c4..0000000 --- a/old/60280-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4423 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, A London Mosaic, by Walter Lionel George, -Illustrated by Philippe Forbes-Robertson - - -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: A London Mosaic - - -Author: Walter Lionel George - - - -Release Date: September 11, 2019 [eBook #60280] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LONDON MOSAIC*** - - -E-text prepared by Charlie Howard and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by -Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this - file which includes the original illustrations. - See 60280-h.htm or 60280-h.zip: - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/60280/60280-h/60280-h.htm) - or - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/60280/60280-h.zip) - - - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/londonmosaic00georiala - - - - - -A LONDON MOSAIC - - - * * * * * * - -WRITINGS OF W. L. GEORGE - - -_NOVELS_ - - CALIBAN - BLIND ALLEY - THE STRANGERS’ WEDDING - THE SECOND BLOOMING - A BED OF ROSES - THE CITY OF LIGHT - ISRAEL, KALISCH - (_American Title_: UNTIL THE DAY BREAK) - THE MAKING OF AN ENGLISHMAN - (_American Title_: THE LITTLE BELOVED) - OLGA NAZIMOV (SHORT STORIES) - - -_MISCELLANEOUS_ - - WOMAN AND TO-MORROW - DRAMATIC ACTUALITIES - ANATOLE FRANCE - THE INTELLIGENCE OF WOMAN - A NOVELIST ON NOVELS - (_American Title_: LITERARY CHAPTERS) - EDDIES OF THE DAY - - * * * * * * - - -[Illustration: - - HYDE PARK] - - -A LONDON MOSAIC - -Text by - -W. L. GEORGE - -Pictures by - -PHILIPPE FORBES-ROBERTSON - - - - - - -New York -Frederick A. Stokes Company -Publishers - -Copyright, 1921 - -Manufactured in Great Britain - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAP. PAGE - I. PRELUDE 1 - - II. PLAYGROUNDS 13 - - III. THE FRIENDLY BOWL 35 - - IV. WANDERERS 43 - - V. SOUPS AND STEWS 61 - - VI. IN SEARCH OF VICE 75 - - VII. THE POOR 85 - - VIII. STONES 99 - - IX. CAFÉ ROYAL 119 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - HYDE PARK _Frontispiece_ - _Facing page_ - THE REGENT CANAL AT MAIDA HILL 6 - - CUMBERLAND HAY-MARKET 9 - - THE PUB 38 - - FLOWER-GIRL 48 - - THE HEART OF THE CITY 56 - - SOHO MARKET 64 - - THE SAVOY 68 - - SHOPPING 72 - - THE CHELSEA ARTS BALL 84 - - SHEPHERD’S MARKET 92 - - THE TUBE, 9.30 A.M. 103 - - AN ABSENT DESERT: THE CROMWELL ROAD 109 - - BEASTS AT THE ZOO 113 - - THE CAFÉ ROYAL 122 - - PRIVATE VIEW: THE A.A.A. 126 - - THE GOOD INTENT, CHELSEA 131 - - - - - I - PRELUDE - - -CHAPTER I - -PRELUDE - - -The first thing that impresses me as I begin this short book on London -is the large number of subjects of which I will say nothing. There are -many reasons for this. One is that a title such as _A London Mosaic_ -is as difficult to compose to as _Life_ or _Love_. (Two novels are -still on sale under these somewhat atlasian titles, but as an author -does not wish to be unkind in the first paragraphs of a book, they need -not be reviewed.) Another reason is that Mr E. V. Lucas, Mrs E. T. -Cook, John o’ London, Mr G. R. Sims, have compiled various volumes of -passionate Baedeker, and I hesitate to set my feet in their mighty -footprints. For so much of this London is unknown to me, and I have -learnt little of her, indeed, learned little except to love her. Thus, -in this book, you will find no lists of houses where famous people -lived. This may seem strange, but it wakes in me no thrill to see a -circular plate of debased wedgwood imposed by a maternal L.C.C. upon a -wall of innocent stucco coated with eternal dirt. To read that William -Hazlitt died here, or lived there, does not add much to the fact that -William Hazlitt lived. It may be interesting to know that Hazlitt chose -that sort of house, though it is likely that he did not choose it, but -accepted it; a house does not define a man of worth, for men of worth -are mostly poor, and their houses reflect them not. Many must have -hated them. Yet, I happen to know Huxley’s house in St John’s Wood, -and Carlyle’s house in Chelsea (there is no getting over that one when -friends arrive from America), but it is not exciting knowledge, and I -incline to rejoice with Kingsley that it is not the house one lives -in matters, but the house opposite. Unfortunately, the house opposite -is generally just as bad: the only thing that reconciles one to one’s -house is that the people opposite see most of it. - -I shall not tell you anything of ‘quaint corners,’ or ‘picturesque -bits.’ I will not cut up and pickle London. Ever since the days of -Dickens (or is it since those of Dr Syntax?) people have ranged our -unfortunate town armed with a butterfly-net: swoop! caught Cloth Fair! -Another swoop! Staple Inn lies in the butterfly-net. Quick, into the -pickle-jar. Now for the cyanide. Here they are, London butterflies, -ready for delineation by Mr Hugh Thompson. No, I will pickle you no -living strips of London Town, and I promise that not once will I -portray a humorous bus-conductor. One reason is that there are no -humorous bus-conductors; there are only raucous brutes, working long -hours, and maintained in a state of pessimism because these long hours -separate them from the public-house. They do not, however, separate -them enough. - -There will be no East in the West, nor West in the East. There will be -no list of statues, for nobody ever looks at statues. There is a statue -of George Stephenson at Euston, and one of William Pitt in Hanover -Square. That is very interesting, isn’t it? It is a terrible commentary -upon fame that when you erect a statue to a man he becomes invisible. -You pass a statue every day, but you never look at it, you pass it. -Nobody cares for statues, except the birds, who make them a venue for -love and war. Christopher Wren did say that if you required a monument -you should look about you; thus does the London population. Those who -have noticed Mr Peabody, miraculously encased in a frock coat several -sizes too small, Mr Huskisson stark naked, and one of the Georges on -his little horse, trotting to nowhere in particular, as was the way of -his dynasty, will agree that it is no wonder statues fail to arouse -even merriment. - -No, there are no statues in this book. There are no pictures either. -I shall not tell you how to find the Madonna degli Ansidei in the -National Gallery, nor direct you to the Flaxmans of University College. -The catalogues can do that. That is, if you want to know, and are not -one of the ordinary beings who use the museums to get out of the rain -or for the innocent purposes of courtship. (I recommend the Geological; -chilly, but leads to concentration). Sometimes, in remorseful mood, -when the word ‘ought,’ which as a rule means little to me, suddenly -assumes material shape to the extent of a faint mist, I tell myself -that I am very uneducated, and regrettably unrepentant, that I ‘ought’ -to care that Swift lived in Bury Street and Sir Isaac Newton in Jermyn -Street, and that I ‘ought’ to find desecration in the fact that where -the dog Diamond barked, the plates of Jules’s Balkan waiters clatter. -And I go to Jules’s to lunch and to meditate on gravitation. But Jules -can cook, and while eating his meats you do not meditate; and he is so -popular that as soon as you have finished those meats, you are driven -out by the eyes of some young couple, beaming with love and appetite. -Nor may you meditate opposite the houses of the great; it annoys the -police. So, after this faint attempt, the slender ‘ought’ evaporates. -Perhaps because of that I have not yet succeeded in visiting the Tower, -the Roman Bath, the Foundling, the Soane Museum, the Mint, and many -other places which doubtless would improve my mind. - -I am not a student, but a lover of London; it amuses me much more to -notice that one man shouts: ‘Paw Maw! Exper! Paw Maw!’ while another -does it like this: ‘Per Mer! Gateshpozervenment!’ than to bask in the -knowledge that Johnson lived in Gough Square. This arises, I suppose, -from having taken London as I found her, and from not being a Londoner. -The first twenty years of my life having been spent in another country, -I did not treat London as a relation, but as some one whom I liked. -Everything of her was interesting, and there is to-day no mews where I -cannot hear the footsteps of her smutty nymphs. The entry into London -is such a romantic march; I say march because it is worth doing on -foot. But as I speak to Londoners, we had better do it by train, for -they would grow tired of her. When Londoners say ‘London,’ they mean -Piccadilly, Selfridges, Covent Garden, that sort of thing, and that is -not London. London is Tottenham and Chiswick, the ‘Paragon,’ Mile End, -Walker’s Court and what it sells, and the black doss places under the -railway arches. London is Houndsditch, where everybody looks bad, and -Cornwall Gardens where everybody looks good. London is a congress-house -of emotions. - -When one looks at the map, particularly if it is on a large scale, -London looks like a splash, rather longer than it is broad, with -railway lines radiating in all directions, rather like a spider’s web, -the centre being tenanted by whoever you like. And one thinks of Dick -Whittington gaily treading in the spider’s web. But, in fact, one does -not come out of the everywhere into the here of London. One melts into -London, and one hardly knows how one comes to abandon the rest of the -world. There is a moment when the Essex or Kentish marsh ceases to lap -so uniformly against Medway or Thames. One has a sense of population, -of rather large houses set rather far apart, but not yet so far apart -as in the counties; of grounds less richly endowed with the high walls -crowned with broken glass which announce that respectable people live -inside. One reads names on the platforms: ‘Brentwood,’ or ‘Malling,’ -and there is a sprinkling of villas, with plenty of white paint and -concrete, and red roofs and leaded panes. One glimpses cerise curtains, -and one knows with painful accuracy where to look for the back of the -swing mirror. Then, again, gaps, cows. It must have been a mistake, it -is not London after all! But there come more platforms and more villas, -then a row of shops, shops not branded with the names one would expect -to find, such as ‘Boots’ or ‘Home and Colonial,’ but brisk, individual -little shops belonging to Smith, and to Jones, yet strangely alike in -build, furnished by the same shopfitter, just as the owners will be -buried by the same undertaker. (He is quite ready, for he owns one of -the shops.) That is individualism, which, like the camomile plant, is -ever bruised and ever arises. - -The train rumbles on, and the houses change. They are still detached, -but less detached: they are separated by privet hedges over which a -man can look, and so they have an air of fellowship. Suddenly, one -enters a little colony of houses; one sees a postman on foot instead -of on a bicycle, a horse omnibus and no carrier’s cart; one sees a -policeman too: the world is growing less respectable; it must be London -after all. But again come gaps and cows, except that now the gaps -are described as ‘desirable freehold sites’ with loudly advertised -frontages. The earth is already torn up, and excavations are turning -into roads; one observes a solitary gas-lamp, and on a board the -words ‘Macedonia Avenue.’ No avenue is built yet, but it is foredoomed -to Macedonia. - -[Illustration: - - THE REGENT CANAL - AT MAIDA HILL] - -All that is the overflow of London; it is the fugitive London which -has no love or understanding of the town. The movement of a Londoner -who rises in life seems to follow a definite curve; if he begins in -Whitechapel the wheel of fortune may take him to Streatham; after a -while he will dream of a place in the country and realise his dream -perhaps at Purley Oaks; by the time his son has come back from Oxford, -his wife will have been ambitious enough to remove him to South -Kensington; thence, the last step, to God’s quadrilateral between -Oxford Street and Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Park Lane. After the -bankruptcy the process is reversed. Outward, then inward, and outward -again. It is like the tide. - -But the train goes on, and unexpectedly, we find age after youth, -Croydon, Sydenham, Edmonton, places where again the walls are high, the -oaks thick, where are deep lawns, heavy stucco fronts, little crowded -streets with spreading market places. We breathe the air of genteel -sleep. Genteel, perhaps, but restless sleep, for these are old villages -made into islands. - -They seem vaguely annoyed among the trams; they blink at the sky-signs -and the objurgations of Bovril. But it is too late; round each little -group run fifty streets, each one comprising a hundred houses or so, -all complete, with Nottingham lace curtain and Virginia creeper. The -old house may call itself ‘The Lodge,’ but ‘Chatsworth’ and ‘Greville -Towers’ are round the corner. Indeed, we forget them as we go on, for -now, as the train roars over railway bridges, through cuttings, we look -down on the endless congestion of suburban roofs, each one separated -from its neighbour by what the builder regrettably calls a ‘worm.’ - -And yet it is not London. For London has yet to burst upon our eyes, in -the shape of strident Clapham Road, or Brixton Road, true London of the -black, greasy pavement and the orange peel of which Private Ortheris -babbled in his delirium. We have still to come to the giant warehouses -and their ambitious grayness, to the flat mass of gray, yellow, and -black, broken only by the washing that hangs to dry, and the narrow -gardens where droops the nasturtium. At last here is working London, -little, nestling, hard, grimy London, gritty, troglodyte London, London -of crowded shop and public-house, of tramway and clotted traffic, and -yelping children. That is London of many heads and, to me, all smiling. - -It is only later, when at last we reach the river that is gray as a -cygnet, and see London rising in a hundred solemn spires, that we come -to understand London, to feel the use of that white, central pomp; as -well of that opulence as of the smiling cleanliness of the outer ring, -of the blackness of the inner ring. For all that is part of London’s -world, and it is well that she should, within herself, comprise all -ugliness and all beauty. For this makes her worth exploring. - -The secret of a city’s exploration does not lie in the dutiful -following of itineraries, but rather in a lover-like submission to -its moods. One should eat in various places, not only within the -stereotyped square mile which, in London, in Paris, or in Petrograd, is -loudly labelled as the foreigner’s restaurant. One must seek culinary -adventure far afield, at Harrow, and at Tulse Hill, in Piccadilly -and Norton Folgate; and let me assure you that there exists a subtle -difference between the cooking at the Cheapside A.B.C. and its fellow -in the Brixton Road. - -Also one should readily cede to the fancy that is bred by a beautiful -place name. It is true that, as a rule, the most attractive names -lead to the least attractive places, but on the way one touches -singularity often, and beauty sometimes. My Baedeker has always been -Kelly’s Directory; that is one of the books I should like to find in my -restricted library if I were wrecked on a desert island. For, sitting -under my bread-fruit tree, warm in my garment of yakskin, and smoking -an earthen pipe of dried I don’t know what leaf, Kelly’s Directory -would bring up dreams, dreams such as these: Seven Sisters’ Road, -Satchwell Rents, Beer Lane, and Whetstone Park. All those dreams have -come true, and thus a little of my fervour has been abated by their -materialisation; by the discovery of Seven Sisters’ Road as gray, -refuse-strewn, rich in Victorian goodness and in modern slum; of -Satchwell Rents as a dusty affluent into Bethnal Green Road, shuttered, -and locked, and suspicious. Whetstone Park, of course, is not at -Whetstone, but just off New Oxford Street, and there is no park there. -But still, those names, like Orme Square, that secludes itself from the -Bayswater Road behind its column and its defiant eagle, like Cumberland -Market, Hanoverian, naked, whose many iron posts await cattle that -never come, contain the seed of romance because they induce quest. And -so I will not be discouraged yet, but soon must discover what stones -have wrought Jedburgh Street and Parsifal Road. - -[Illustration: - - CUMBERLAND - HAY-MARKET] - -Yet those streets, and roads, and squares that have their place in -Kelly are, after all, only the outer shell which the true lover must -break through. If he is a true lover, he will soon understand that -London lies behind the streets. He will realise that between two -streets there is often more than two rows of houses and of gardens or -yards. He will have discovered that in the core of those blocks of -masonry lives an inner London. Into that core there is but one way, -which I will call the slits. We all know slits, little spaces between -houses, that lead inwards, you know not whither. You pass them every -day, perhaps, and never turn aside, yet through those slits is the way -in. There is one, for instance, near Notting Hill Gate. They call it -Bulmer Place, though it is only six feet broad and is buried under an -archway. Enter; ten yards lead you to an old cottage settlement, where -no house exceeds two floors, where each has its garden, its creeper and -its cat, where washing floats undisturbed, and, on fine afternoons, -public beanoes take place. This is an old London village, caught -between the warehouses and shops, yet maintained by the magic law of -ancient lights. - -There is another slit, less well known, quite near Kensington Square. -To the ordinary eye, Kensington Square is entirely civilised, and none -live there unless they have both money and good taste. In the far -south-west corner stands a convent, that stares forth blankly upon this -world. But walk south-east and turn to the right, and go on until, -past low, white cottages grown with sterile vine, you meet a brick -wall. On the way, small houses, well locked, that are quiet and green, -will have seen you pass without approval. If adventure is not for you, -you will turn back on seeing the brick wall; if, however, it is, you -will go on, and, on your right, find a slit so small that you may not -open your umbrella in it. This they call South End; if you persevere -you shall come to rustic cottages of plaster, and at last discover, -single-floored against the side of a great block of flats, the cottage -and garden where rot two old green, painted figure-heads. There live -Prunella, Mityl, Selysette, and their tribe. But go carefully to South -End, for the road is fugitive, and I cannot always find it myself. I -think I find it only on the days when I am not too impure in heart. - -Wherever flows London stone the slits exist. A deep, dark archway out -of Surrey Street dives under the Norfolk Hotel; follow it, go down -Surrey Steps, and you shall come to a water-gate, on which you may -yet lean and smell the tar of Henry Fitz Alwyn’s barge. Another slit, -behind the Alexandra Hotel, will lead you through Old Barrack Yard -(I do not know what barrack) and past low, industrial cottages, to -the petrified splendours of Belgravia. I wish I knew them all, for I -discovered yet another last week, after overlooking it for over sixteen -years. It is called St James’s Market, and leads off the Haymarket, -towards the neat elegancies of Jermyn Street. That does not sound -promising; yet, lost among the backs of warehouses and restaurants, -there stands a long, low house coated with _green_ plaster; it is a -workshop, but some sense of fitness had bidden the workers relieve -its green walls with claret curtains. I choose to be sure that in -this house Axford tried to imprison Hannah Lightfoot, until the fair -Quakeress fled to her Georgian lover. - -And follow the green spot on the map, on the borough map, that cares -so much for the borough, so little for the town. The borough map will -lead you to green fields where flourish the sardine tin and the wild -hyacinth. It will lead you to a churchyard, itself buried between -theatres and shops, behind St Ann’s, Soho, where King Theodore of -Corsica has laid his insurgent bones. It will lead you behind the -solemnities of South Paddington into the vast churchyard behind the -little Chapel of the Ascension. This is open to you all day; there you -will find sparse graves, vast lawns and, under the trees, friendly -seats where you may dream of death, or, if you prefer, of loves that -will companion you to that bourne. - - - - - II - PLAYGROUNDS - - -CHAPTER II - -PLAYGROUNDS - - -It is strange that the theatre should matter in a nation such as -ours, which has gained a reputation for liberalism and tolerance, -being tolerant because it cared for nothing, and liberal because it -understood little. The vogue of the theatre reflects the character of -urban England, which is as frivolous as that of urban Italy is dour; -because it is the symbol of pleasure, easily attained and still more -easily digested, it can always find room in the newspaper, where the -affairs of the nation flicker and the claims of art are unmet. For let -there be no confusion: art and the theatre are not the same thing; -almost one might say that if a play possesses artistic quality it holds -a passport to eternity, with this difference, that many things lost in -eternity are remembered. A little more may be said of this further on. - -London has always been a city of theatres, perhaps because we have, for -many centuries, laboured under the Puritan tradition: its bitterness -has attached to the theatre a glamour foreign to it in hotter lands. -When you open a book of memoirs by an Italian, a German, or a Russian, -you may be sure that it will consist in portraits of politicians, -biographies of cocottes, stories of riots and coronations, but if at -Hatchards you peer into any volume called _My Life_, or something like -that, you will almost invariably discover that the greater part of the -author’s life seems to have been employed in meeting Sir Henry Irving, -or waiting outside the Adelphi on first nights. The theatre, you see, -is wicked and winning; the most august of the augustine, Messrs Coutts -and Co., stamp upon their cheques their old sign: ‘At the “Three -Crowns” in the Strand, next door to the Globe Theatre, A.D. 1692.’ I -will wager those three crowns that no bank manager would ever think of -advertising on his cheques: ‘Next door to Westminster Abbey.’ Why this -should be is not entirely explained by the Puritan tradition, and it is -still less explained by the London theatres themselves, nearly all of -them, the meanest, dirtiest, dingiest, fustiest, frowstiest edifices -in the country. This is true, whether you pass from Drury Lane, that -cave of winds, to ‘behind,’ at the Kingsway, where the oldest rabbit -would get lost. Indeed, our theatres must have been influenced by the -Puritan tradition, for everything has been done to hide their addresses -in the papers, to make their doors invisible, their seating suitable -for a Christian martyr. There is not in London a pre-Boer War theatre -the pit of which is not summed up by Rutland Barrington’s song: ‘You -bark your shins, you bang your head, your knees are up to your nose in -bed ...’ and so on. They are so arranged that people delicately place -their feet in the small of your back, so that nobody can enter the -middle of a row without disturbing it, or leave it without infuriating -it; as for the rakes, in spite of the matinée hat, I suspect that they -have been planned to encourage expensive transfers. Of course, the -worst theatres are those which are known as the ‘good old’ ones. There -is no such thing as good old. There is nothing but bad old, and the -theatre is an example. It must have been that heathen god, Good Old, -invented Covent Garden. Good Old got it up in red and gold (Good Old -would); Good Old planned the slips, which on one side let you hear all -the strings and on the other all the brass. Good Old says it is cheap -for half a crown. Good Old planned Drury Lane and laid it down where -no buses pass. And, no doubt, Good Old handed over what was then Her -Majesty’s Theatre to Shakespeare as dramatised by Beerbohm Tree. - -Some of the old London theatres, it is true, are a little less -repulsive because they are not quite so large. Thus, the Haymarket, the -Royalty, and in a queer, insidious way old Sadler’s Wells. Sadler’s -Wells has gone; there to-day upon the film cowboys race and rescue, -and negroid heroines register their emotions, but not long ago it was -one of the few pleasant places Good Old had bequeathed us, with its -hemicycle of plush-backed stalls, its little boxes lined with an inch -of lush and half an inch of dirt, its heavy red hangings, favourable to -lovers, its preposterous plays of love, gold, faith, patriotism, and -banana falls. You see, at Sadler’s Wells, Good Old dated back to about -1780, while at most of our theatres he has brought himself up to date, -say to 1860, and has grown respectable; it has not agreed with him. -When we consider the few new theatres that have been built, such as the -Scala, the Little Theatre, the Ambassadors, we are sure that the old -cannot be brought up to date. Like most old institutions, the English -theatre can be reformed only by dynamite. - -As in many human things, architecture is at fault. The playhouse is -evolved from the Roman circus. But the circus offered a performance -without scenery, which could be seen from all sides. When scenery came, -it grew impossible to show the play except from one side, so as not to -give away the mystery; thus we obtained the semi-circular auditorium, -which would be quite satisfactory if it did not result in a perpetually -partial view for one half of the audience. The old play was mainly -pantomimic; when the play grew more articulate it became impossible to -hear the words very far, and as the theatre could not spread outwards -it spread upwards. Then chaos came, for rakes had to be so arranged as -to enable people to see, and yet packed close under another tier. The -result is sardines. - -Indeed, when we consider what it labours against, it is remarkable -that the theatre should be so healthy. Every year, well over half the -plays that are put on enjoy less than six weeks’ run, and if it were -not notorious that bankruptcy is a profitable trade one would wonder -how managers live. The managers seem to have done everything to achieve -financial suicide. Especially during the last twenty years; notably -stimulated by Mr Charles Frohman and Mr George Edwardes, they have -indulged in an endless competition in expensive staging. It grew quite -common for a play to cost £5000 to stage, and much more was spent -sometimes. Now, that large sum was risked, not invested, and so the -unfortunate manager had to pay his backers a heavy toll. I am sure -he was entirely wrong, for audiences prefer plays to scenery, and Mr -Cochran, one of the few managers who remembers that once upon a time -he was a public, has proved this by staging a successful revue for -about £150. Do not believe that I am a highbrow; I do not suggest that -_A Little Bit of Fluff_ should be staged without scenery, but with -curtains (though there is a lot in curtains, if discreetly drawn), but -I do suggest that the more elaborate the scenery, the more the play is -overlooked. Perhaps that is what the managers desire, and judging from -the condition of modern drama, perhaps they are right. But I attribute -to the managers no such profundities of psychology. Rather would I say -that they know what the public wants, and one thing they know well: the -public wants certain actors and wants them passionately. - -I shall never forget a certain performance of _King Henry V._ There -entered a man in silver armour, his visor down, and a gasping female -by my side said: ‘That’s Lewis Waller.’ And the worst of it is that -she was right, and that I knew she was right. Visor or no visor, I too -knew it was Lewis Waller; it was Lewis Waller, slamming and banging -British drama as none better could than he, by insisting, in his silver -armour, on being always Waller, never Henry V. They are all like that: -Mr Gerald du Maurier may dress himself up as a policeman, or swathe -his neck in a choker, or get into evening clothes and pretend to be a -burglar, but thick over those artifices lies always the charming du -Maurier trail. He is loved for that, just as Beerbohm Tree was loved -for the confectionery of his voice and the circular movement of his -hand, as Mr Hawtrey is loved for his sober cynicism, and Miss Doris -Keane for ... I don’t know exactly what. Whatever actors are loved for, -it is always for being themselves and never for being their parts; -whether, like Miss Lilian Braithwaite, they have cast themselves for -the lilies and languors of virtue, or, like Miss Dorothy Minto, for -the roses and raptures of vice, to those selections they must cleave, -or they shall be loved no more. But if they do cleave to these selves -of theirs, then shall they attain fame, and the public will not say: -‘Have you been to _Hamlet_?’ but ‘Have you seen Martin Harvey?’ And -this worship shapes yet another stone to hurl at the English theatre, -namely, fantastic salaries, varying between £100 and £300 a week. Call -me a Bolshevik if you like, but I say no man is worth £300 a week; -nobody knows this when the man is alive, but everybody does the day -after he is dead. This would not matter if it did not make the theatre -so expensive to run, therefore the prices of the seats so high that -only those who can afford it sit in them. The richer the staging, the -poorer the play; the dearer the seat, the greater its attraction to the -people who know ‘the price of everything and the value of nothing.’ For -long purses are made of sows’ ears. - -I wonder if something could be done for the theatre. Supposing it -were built like the Scala, so that nobody sat at the sides, so that -everybody might see the play instead of hats, so that one might have -a fit in the stalls and be removed without causing too much trouble -(you see, I think of everything), so that the people at the top were -not seated so high as to observe mainly the actors’ upper skulls. -Supposing a theatre like the Munich Kammerspiele, which holds five -hundred, were to be built. Supposing, like that one, it had but one -balcony; supposing it were cheap to light; supposing, too, that it had -no programme sellers, but delivered programmes at the doors from a -penny-in-the-slot machine; supposing it had no cloak-room attendants, -but hooks with a number and a padlock; supposing it had no ... I forget -the name of the attendant, something like pew-opener, and that the -seats were not numbered from A.26 to M.34 in the stalls, not numbered -at all in the pit, and re-numbered again in the upper circle; supposing -the seats were just numbered 1, 2, 3, so that one could find them; -supposing we paid actors for rehearsals and engaged them for a certain -term; supposing all this, would the public be pleased? I wonder! I -wonder whether the public would like paying less for its seats. If -stalls did not cost 10s. 6d., would it trust the play? It certainly -does not trust the doctor who charges less than 10s. 6d. And yet, once -upon a time, the theatre was cheap. When, sixty years ago, Ben Webster -was producing at the Adelphi, a stall cost 5s., and Mr Webster offered -amphitheatre stalls ‘with elbows and cushions, secured the whole -evening’ for 1s. - -Yes, a good deal might be done like this. A good deal might be done by -the Lord Chamberlain and the London County Council, if only they would -cease to devote all their thoughts to exits from the theatre. (On -consideration, this may be well advised.) They might allow smoking, and -best of all, they might allow everything, suspend all censorship, and -be assured that the plays which are called objectionable would not be -staged. I do not mean that there is no demand for objectionable plays; -there is; indeed, we nearly all of us like objectionable plays, but the -Puritans can trust our Puritan feeling, which makes it impossible for -us to enjoy objectionable plays because we dare not be seen enjoying -them by other people who are also enjoying them. Ah! if you could go to -the play masked it would be different. - -What is wrong with the drama is that it does not hold an idea to the -square act; is it worth saving? For it may truly be said that the -only fault the public finds in a stupid play is that it is not stupid -enough. You do not believe me. Let us look at the list of plays in -to-day’s paper. To-day there are open thirty-six metropolitan theatres, -including some we can leave out, Maskelyne’s, Drury Lane (Opera), the -Philharmonic. Of the remaining thirty-three, musical comedy occupies -six stages. Say no more about that. If it were not for the lips that -sing, our attention would be concentrated on English music. Revue rages -at five theatres. This leaves twenty-two plays running. Among them are -two spy plays, two comic war plays, a mystical melodrama, four farces; -the rest consists in plays made by hands unassisted by heads, plays -that the next generation may make by machinery. The groans of old age -are heard as Sir Arthur Pinero rigs _The Freaks_ upon their legs, as Mr -Somerset Maugham presents _Love in a Cottage_. And _Dear Brutus_ is the -twinkling star that makes darker the Thalian night. - -In hardly one of these plays is there a single moment of intellectual -distinction. I do not mean that I ask those twenty-two stages to make -up the night’s programme of _King Lear_, _Ghosts_, _Les Trois Filles -de Monsieur Dupont_, the _Sunken Bell_, _The Knight of the Burning -Pestle_, but I do think that their coalition might give us more than -_Dear Brutus_. There should be plenty of room for true comedy of the -type of _The Admirable Crichton_, _Mrs Gorringe’s Necklace_, _John -Bull’s Other Island_, _The Cassilis Engagement_, _Chains_, comedy with -ideas. There should be room for _The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnett_, -_The Playboy of the Western World_ and other solid plays. But one -condition is that we should pay for plays, not players. We do not. If -you want evidence consider the following advertisement of _When Knights -were Bold_ (a really amusing play):-- - - WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD. - - BROMLEY ‘Bromley Challenor has a personality and fun of his - CHALLENOR own.’--_Times._ - - ‘An individual style of his own.’--_Daily Telegraph._ - - ‘A manner quite his own.’--_The Queen._ - - ‘Nothing funnier than the second act.’--_Daily Telegraph._ - - ‘His fun is infectious.’--_Daily Graphic._ - - ‘Keeps his audience in convulsions.’--_Star._ - - ‘Had a triumphant reception.’--_Daily Chronicle._ - - ‘Bromley Challenor extracts every spark of fun.’--J. T. - GREIN, _Sunday Times_. - - ‘The play went more gloriously than ever.’--_Referee._ - - MARJORIE ‘Miss Marjorie Bellairs is a charming actress with a - BELLAIRS singularly sweet voice.’--_Era._ - -Ten press quotations. Two refer to the play; one may refer to play -or to actor; seven refer to the actor only. (The playwright is not -mentioned, but never mind). This does not mean that the newspapers -confined their notices to Mr Bromley Challenor, but it does mean that -the management selected for quotation only the phrases which refer to -the actor, because that is what the public wants, and what it gets for -the hastening of its mental decay. - -What is wrong with the theatre is, to a certain extent, right with the -music-hall, and this for two reasons: we have to deal with a different -kind of playgoer, and the excessive valuation of the actor is sharply -limited by the worth of his songs. I have seen Ernie Mayne, Ella -Shields, and others rouse the house with one song and half-fail with -another. The theatre-goer, who, on the whole, is not a music-hall-goer, -is usually either in a smug condition, or over-conscious of his -digestive process. Nearly all the pit and upper circle, and the bulk of -the dress circle, feel that they are indulging in a respectable spree. -Leaving aside the one who, in the newspapers, signs his letters as ‘Old -Playgoer’ (generally an old fool), or ‘Old Firstnighter,’ probably an -old lunatic (because the first night is the worst night), the cheaper -seats in a theatre are tenanted mainly by people in a stupefied state -of admiration. They have escaped for a few hours from the dug-outs of -respectability; their families have not long emerged from the tradition -that the theatre is a place of evil repute; some even believe that they -are improving their minds, which is touching, whatever the condition -of their minds. They file their programmes. They loudly proclaim to -their friends that they ‘ought’ to go and see such and such a play. -Perhaps they go because they ought to. Perhaps they go to dream dreams; -no doubt nightmares do not disappoint them. The stalls are not in -search of virtue tempered with a little vice; most of their patrons -are confessedly in search of vice neat. They never get it. And if this -vice, invisible to anybody who is not a bishop or the editor of a -Sunday paper, is necessary to their health, it is because they visit -the theatre in a state of advanced repletion, because they are people -who manage to be replete in the middle of a European war; such is their -nature. No wonder, then, that the cold suet of the drama should have so -securely become wrapped in the wet dish-cloth of the playgoer. Thus, it -may be true to say that the playgoer gets the plays he deserves. The -music-hall-goer is different. - -If it is true that many go to the theatre when they have eaten too -much, it is, to a certain extent, true that many go to the music-hall -when they have drunk too much, which, if I must choose, is less -repulsive. They are frankly out for a rag; they want to laugh, -and I had rather they guffawed than drowsed. You can’t drowse in a -music-hall: from the moment when the conductor, in his elaborately -luxurious and irremediably faulty dress suit, addresses his first and -infinitely disabused bow to the audience, to the time when he calls -upon the band to produce the smallest possible scrap of ‘God Save -the King,’ and hurries out loyalty on the wings of ragtime, there is -no flagging. It is not only that red-nosed comedian and eccentric -comedienne, American dancer, or sketch got up regardless, tread upon -each other’s heels; the main thing is the band, the harsh, rapid band, -that never stops, that plays anything, providing it is the thing of the -day, with all the regularity and indifference of the typewriter. From -it gush patriotism, comedy or sentiment, and all three burst forth with -their full headline value. There is no tickling of big drums; when the -drum is banged you know it; nor is there measure in the sigh of the -oboe, for the music-hall paints not in wash-greens and grays; scarlet, -black, white, and electric-blue are its gamut. - -Nothing else would satisfy the audience that every music-hall comedian -must encounter every night. It is a mixed audience. There are old -stagers who sit in the same seat every Saturday night, without looking -at the programme, and this differentiates them from the playgoer: they -are bound for a playground. There are the discriminating who follow the -star, so long as the star’s songs refrain from appealing to what is -described as their better feelings; there are the very young in search -of excitement, and determined to get it; there are the slightly older, -who come in pairs, and do nothing to conceal the fact. (Of late years, -many of these have been lost to the music-halls and have taken to the -cinemas because they are darker.) But one thing unites them all: they -have come here to be amused, amused at once, amused all the time; they -are not ready to make allowances; if an old song is a good song, it is -a good song, but if it is not a good song the seasoned music-hall-goer -will know it at once. I have heard him turn to his neighbour and say: -‘It’s all up. She won’t get across.’ Getting across the footlights is -not, in a music-hall, the same thing as getting across in a theatre. -The music-hall performer has no scenery to help him, in this sense, -that the properties are well known to the audience. I have seen -at least twenty turns at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in front of a -drop-curtain which I swear is Croydon High Street. The words of the -song are, as a rule, difficult to sing. Often, as in the case of George -Robey, the costume is stereotyped and never varies. Thus the music-hall -performer, having not the scenery of Harry Hope, or the knee-breeches -of Malvolio, can rely on nothing but himself. He comes naked into an -entirely cold world. His situation is ideally expressed by the old -cartoon of the impresario, his foot bound up to show that he has gout. -Before him stands the dingy figure of a little performer. This is their -dialogue:-- - - _Impresario_: ‘What’s your line?’ - - _Performer_: ‘Comedian.’ - - _Impresario_: ‘Well! get on with it! Make me laugh.’ - -If within one minute of his appearance the performer has not got his -laugh he will probably not get it at all. If he is famous, and if his -turn is not too bad, nothing worse will happen than the administration -of the frozen lemon. It is rather tragic, feeling the lemon come. You -feel the audience leap up towards the performer, for it is always ready -to give him his chance, even if he is unknown; then, in a minute or -so, you feel the audience drop away from him; you are aware that he -is not being listened to, for people begin to talk, to flutter with -their programmes, and perhaps some one may hum an irrelevant air. The -wretched performer knows it. If you are sitting in the first row of the -stalls you see anxiety come over his face. He begins to shout or to -dance rather wildly; he knows that he is not getting across; he tries -to attract attention as a cockatoo if he cannot do so as an eagle. Then -some one laughs derisively, and there is something hideous in that -laughter; it makes one think of the thumb-down attitude in the Roman -circus. The curtain drops in the middle of something that is half hum -and half silence. That is the lemon. - -It is only in extreme cases that the audience manifests disapproval. -Indeed, it is an audience full of good-natured contempt, and if the -lemon is taken it willingly passes on to the next turn; as a rule, -the lemon is taken by the management, who ring down the curtain on -the first song and do not let the performer come on again. But if the -performer does come on again, and strives to recapture lost ground, -the audience will give him thirty seconds to do it; if he fails, the -hum grows angry as that of a swarm of bees. There is more derisive -laughter; a few yells come from the gallery; a general uproar develops -from the hum. You discern cries: ‘I want to go ’ome’.... ‘Take me back -to mother.’ ... Opponents reply as loudly: ‘Shut up! chuck him out!’ -But the voices resume in more and more sepulchral tones: ‘I want to go -’ome,’ while others join the rag for the rag’s sake, and some stentor -high above roars: ‘Shut yer face, dear, I see yer Christmas dinner.’ -And then everybody cries: ‘Chuck him out!’ while the performer sings -louder and louder, and the band makes still more desperate efforts to -drown his song. Then a large portion of the audience rise to their feet -and bellow enmity until the curtain goes down. That is the scarlet -bird, and I have not often seen it on the wing. - -No, there is no mercy in the music-hall audience. For it is an honest -audience, and is, therefore, capable of every brutality. Also, -everybody has paid for his seat. Nobody there can afford to waste -that small payment. They must get their money’s worth. They know -exactly what they want; they have been wanting it ever since the -Middle Ages, and, on the whole, have been getting it. They want rough -and obvious jokes told in a subtle and intelligent way; they want to -see the performer break plates or sit on the butter, but he must do -it in a debonair style; they want songs of which they know the tune -by the time the second couplet is reached, favourite songs of which -they can bellow the choruses while the triumphant performer whispers -it; above all, they want their traditional jokes. Cheese, lodgers, -mothers-in-law, twins, meeting the missus at 3 a.m., alcoholic excess, -one or more of these must be introduced to make a successful song. It -does not matter who you are, whether the great McDermott, Dan Leno, or -R. G. Knowles, you must tie your little bark to the great ship of the -English music-hall tradition. No famous song has become famous unless -a portion of it at least dealt with one of these subjects: ‘Champagne -Charlie,’ ‘I’m following in father’s footsteps,’ ‘The Girl, the Woman, -and the Widow,’ are clear evidences of this. Perhaps that is why some -delicate artists, such as Maidie Scott and Wish Wynne, have never -quite ‘got there.’ Maidie Scott is the most finished product on the -music-halls of to-day. As soon as she comes on, her quick, schoolgirl -walk, her red hair, her _distrait_ eyes, and the voice which she knows -so amazingly how to keep down to a minor key, cut her right out of -the stage. When Maidie Scott sings ‘Amen,’ or ‘Father’s got the sack -from the water-works’ (all along of his cherry briar pipe, because -they were afraid he’d set the water-works on fire), and still more -when she sings, ‘I’m glad I took my mother’s advice,’ one has a sense -of extraordinary detachment. She is aloof, alone. She is so entirely -under restraint; knows so well how, at last, to let her voice swell and -underline her point; she knows so well how not to waste during a song -the power of her splendid blue eyes, but to reserve them for that final -point. Thus she should wield astonishing power, yet does not quite; she -lacks grossness; like Wish Wynne, her art is a little too delicate to -get across. The audience like her, they like Wish Wynne singing ‘Oo! -er!’ and miserably dragging her little tin trunk, but never for either -do they rise and roar as they do for Marie Lloyd. - -It is true that Marie Lloyd takes us into another world, that of the -comfortable public-house, with plenty of lights and red plush; to the -publican’s dog-cart off to the Derby; to the large birthday party, -enlivened by plenty of sherry wine. In Marie Lloyd’s world everything -is fat, healthy, round, jolly, bouncing; when she keeps the old man’s -trousers to remember him by after he’s gone, she defines the human -quality of her sentiment: she can do nothing false and artificial, such -as pressing his nuptial buttonhole. Marie Lloyd is a woman before she -is an actress, and in this lies her strength. When she advises the -audience to ‘’Ave a little bit of what yer fancy (if you fancy it, if -you fancy it), ’Ave a little bit of what yer fancy, I say it does yer -good,’ Marie Lloyd is expressing the eternal claim of the flesh against -the spirit, which has been rediscovered a great many times since -Epicurus. She survives a great generation; there is nobody to-day fit -to wear her pleasantly-little shoes. - -There is nobody, because the spirit of the music-hall is changing, -and women, who are more adaptable than men, are feeling it first. An -awful thing is happening to most of the young women on the halls; they -are becoming refined. Louie and Toots Pounds, Ella Retford, Clarice -Mayne, Ella Shields, have nothing of the Marie Lloyd tradition; they -are almost creatures of the drawing-room. Even Beattie and Babs, though -Babs does what she can with stockings that nothing will ever keep up, -never seem to experience the thick joy of being alive that Marie Lloyd -conveys in one slow, sidelong raising of her immortal eyelid. There is, -perhaps, a white hope, Daisy Wood, but one cannot be sure. They sing -well, these young women, they dance well; they do it too well; women -of the older tradition, such as Victoria Monks and Nellie Wallace are -still themselves: they do not do it so well, but they do it. These -are not trained, like the young women, but they have grown up and -discovered themselves; they do not _act_ joy or distress: they cut joy -or distress out of common life and lay it down on the bare planks. All -that is going, for the music-hall is growing refined. - -Let me dispel a possible misunderstanding. When I say music-hall I do -not mean those sinks of virtue, the Coliseum, or the Palladium, the -Palace, and the Hippodrome. Those are royal theatres of varieties, -eminently suited for long skirts and acrobats, and large enough for -elephants. Two of them can safely be handed over to revue, and the -rest is silence. I have seen Mr George Robey, I forget whether it was -at the Palladium or the Coliseum, and the place was so broad, and so -deep, and so high, that his eyebrows looked normal: can I add anything -to the horror of this picture? The only comedian who ever seemed to me -a success in those barns was Little Tich, as little Miss Turpentine, -because they made him still smaller, which heightened his effect. But -those halls pay large salaries, and I suppose they will go on. Indeed, -I fear that they are gaining ground because we are daily sinking deeper -in the Joseph Lyons civilisation, where everything must be cheap, -gilt, and enormous. The old halls, the Holborn, the Metropolitan, the -Bedford, Collins’s, will not last long; already many halls have been -seized, the Tivoli and the Canterbury by cinemas, the Shepherd’s Bush, -I think the Paragon, Mile End, and certainly the Shoreditch Empire by -Sir Oswald Stoll. We have to count with Sir Oswald Stoll. Together with -Sir Joseph Lyons, he has done more to drive out Merrie England than -the dourest champion of methodism. You can go to his music-halls, or -to the Palladium, which is not a Stoll hall, but a stollomorphe, and -nothing will offend your good taste. During the last dozen years Sir -Oswald Stoll has been engaged in a continuous and painfully successful -campaign to raise the English music-hall; he has almost succeeded in -elevating it. True, in his halls appear all those men who carry on the -old tradition and glorify the flesh: George Robey, Sam Stern, Ernie -Mayne, Sam Mayo, who sing the crude joy of poor life, which is found in -drunken sprees and conjugal misunderstandings, but which yet is true -life. Little by little their songs grow less broad. Sam Mayo would -not, at a Stoll hall, sing the ditty which used to delight the old -Middlesex: ‘Ching Chang, wing wang, bing, bang, boo,’ nor would Dutch -Daly sing about the larks in May. Our old comedians are limiting their -humours, discolouring their noses, rolling their umbrellas. The young -ladies in the audience, and their young gentlemen, modern forms of the -donah and her bloke, would feel uncomfortable if too crudely reminded -that love is something more than kisses on Brighton Pier under a pale -pink sunshade. The old comedians are not yet dead, and Ernie Mayne can -still sing:-- - - ‘Last night I wandered thro’ the park, - I met a female after dark; - And, feeling faint for want of food, - I fell into her arms--how rude! - Just then she murmured “Kiss me, - George!” her face I chanced to see, - The girl was black, with nigger lips; - I shouted, “Not for me!” - It’s my meatless day, my meatless day, - I’m not going to eat any sort of meat. - Meat, meat, meat, meat, - I’m thin and pale, all I’ve put away - Is two roly-polies, never left a crumb, - Three currant puddings and a little bit of plum, - And five apple-dumplings are rolling round my tum, - ’Cos it’s my meatless day.’ - -Yes, Ernie Mayne may still sing his songs of Araby, but little by -little he is being borne down by the American raconteur, whose -impropriety is always in the best of taste, by the ragtime dancer, by -the wandering Italian fiddler, by the respectable eccentric at the -piano, by the juggler, by the refined soprano, who sings ‘God send you -back to me, over the mighty sea,’ or, ‘There’s a little mother always -yearning for the ones that long to roam.’ It’s all getting so clean, so -precious pure. The old comedian will not last long. He that was once a -bull in a china-shop will soon become a Stolled ox. - -But the worst may yet have to come. A new demon is arising in the -shape of the cinema. It is as if Merrie England, that once lived at -the Surrey Theatre and the Globe, and was driven out when the middle -class began to frequent the theatre about 1870 and took refuge in the -caves of harmony, then doubled back into the Tivoli and the Oxford -(fortunately to provide what the late W. T. Stead called ‘drivel -for the dregs’), were being pursued. Wherever Merrie England goes, -it seems that, as Mark Sheridan used to put it, ‘the villain thtill -purthued her, purthued her, purthued her.’ When the music-hall has been -completely improved I wonder whether he will be glad to have ‘purthued -her’ to such good purpose. Certainly, in the cinemas, little is left of -the old spirit that arose as one drank one’s beer in the stalls at the -old Mogul, for the cinema, let police magistrates say what they like, -bears deep upon its brow the brand of Abel. - -The cinema, like most new and virile things, has split opinion, and has -collected round itself more unwise friends and unthinking enemies than -any other form of entertainment. Few people like cinemas; they either -love them or loathe them, while a few, I suppose, fall into my section -of feeling and hate them for not being better than they are. For I -believe in the cinema; I do not think that the cinema will do away with -the theatre and the novel, but I do believe that it is destined to play -a still larger part in the amusement of the people. Also, I believe -that it is destined to play a cleaner, that is, a more artistic part. -How far it can be brought, I do not know, because I do not suppose that -I am the one chosen by nature to raise it high; but if we consider -films such as _The Birth of a Nation_, or _Intolerance_, where Mr -D. W. Griffith, a man of some slight culture, is not entirely devoid -of taste, and certainly bold in his conceptions, audacious in his -execution, we cannot wave the cinema away with a sneer at cowboy drama. - -The cinema began with cowboy drama, with silly pursuits on horseback, -by motor-car and by train, but that was only because, for the first -time, movement could be reproduced. The reproduction of movement was -a new pleasure, and so the mob clamoured for it. Carry yourself back -to your first film and, be you as highbrowed as you like, you will -not deny that you enjoyed those febrile races, those people falling -out of windows, crashing through ceilings, the violent opening and -shutting of doors, the rush of flying crockery. Then you grew tired of -it and began to think it silly. Well, it was silly, and it is silly, -but we should remember that the pioneers of the cinema were Americans -of the travelling-showman type, men whose fathers had exhibited -the _camera obscura_ loved of our fathers; they had passed through -dissolving views, and that type of man could not be expected to like, -and therefore to put forward, a dramatic version of _Paradise Lost_. -Briefly, the cinema was put forward by the vulgar, for the vulgar, -but by degrees, as the mob grew weary of movement for movement’s sake, -as the profits increased, new men such as Pathé, Urban, Gaumont, came -in. They were commercial men, but not vulgar men, men who realised -that if there was a public for the novels of Mr E. F. Benson and the -plays of Mr Alfred Sutro, there must be a cinema public for something -less lurid than the early films. By degrees, the cinema improved; it -improved in conceptions when subjects such as _Quo Vadis?_, _The Walls -of Jericho_, _Bella Donna_, appeared on the film; yet more ambitious -things were done in the shape of _Hamlet_, _Julius Cæsar_, _Justice_, -_Intolerance_, and many more. - -The film improved, too, in its actual execution. The earliest type of -film actor was scraped up from the East Side gutters of New York and -the graving-docks of Naples. For that early cinema you needed creatures -immensely unrestrained, yelling, dancing, dirty creatures, not at -all the people who could have impersonated what the old lady in the -pit called the ‘married life of the dear Queen.’ And as the subjects -changed the actors changed; many were taken from the stage; some, -to this day, preserve certain characteristics of the ordinary human -being. It is not quite their fault if they do not preserve them all; -the cinema has had time to make a tradition of its own, which is still -represented by the American posters we see upon the walls, where the -heroines have enormous eyes and more teeth than Lulu Dentifrice; where -the young men have straight backs to their heads, half a pound of white -meat on each cheek, a rugged brow, or an emetic grin, briefly, the -most brutal type of Chicago commercial rigged out in the dress clothes -of a suicide; where ladies whose clothing is too low for blouses and -too high for evening frocks, whose jewels flash beyond the dreams of -Gophir, quaff the sparkling champagne wine. Where the illustrator -manages to make Miss Irene Vanbrugh look vulgar. Where American -policemen (or admirals, you never know) arrest crooks in mid-air; -where all is six-shooters, bowie-knives, cinches, and snarks. Like -poster like player, is, to a certain extent, true, for the producer is -still a cross between Pimple and the sort of stockbroker whose silk -hat glitters in eight places. (Observe the band on his cigar.) But -that producer, like that poster, is the old tradition, and is giving -way before the ordinary business man who does not see the world in -terms of banana falls. That new man is not pressing his actors as the -old producer did. He still makes them register, but less intensely. -Register means to mark the emotions. When the hero is being filmed, and -the heroine enters, he smiles; if he does not smile beatifically enough -the producer will cry to him: ‘Register delight!’ You have all seen the -result. In the old days they were registering all the time; you could -see the heroine registering terror, while the hero registered nobility, -and the villain registered hate; meanwhile, the old mother dropped a -stitch and registered benevolence with extreme pertinacity, and, all -the time, servants in the background were registering national pride -and rectitude. One still has to do these things on the cinema because, -after all, the cinema picture has to be photographable. It has to be -seen rather plainly, but the cinema producer has begun to understand -that, to be effective, facial expression need not be recognisable a -mile away. - -It is the excessive vigour of the cinema has endeared it to Londoners; -most of them are a rather lymphatic crowd, because they live in too -large a city, surrounded by too many interesting things, because they -eat rather bad food and not enough of it, and also because most of them -work in stuffy offices and factories. Thus they need strong stimuli -if they are to react, and no doubt that is why cinemas are being -established one by the side of the other, and run for ten hours a day. -Like the sensational stories in the magazines, like the newspapers -which consist in much headline and little text, they spur this tired -creature. The more he is spurred, the more tired he grows. The more -tired he grows, the more he needs spurring. So the cinema must prosper. -But I think it will prosper in a more moderate way; it will continue -to grow, to absorb theatres and music-halls; it has already absorbed -the Coronet, the Canterbury, Sadler’s Wells, the Tivoli, the Scala, -the London Opera House, and others; but I think it will more and more -tend to produce the historical film, films based on novels and plays -of some slight merit; that it will increasingly provide bearable music. -For a while it may not originate much, and therefore it will not easily -become a form of art. I am not sure that it can become a form of art, -though I do not know why: the ballet is a form of art, and people like -Nijinsky, Pavlova, Madame Rambert (let alone Taglioni and Genée) have -made a great deal of it. I do not say that it is impossible for the -cinema to produce a work of art, but this must be within the limits -of pantomime, which are close and narrow limits. Subtle emotions it -cannot express, for pantomime cannot figure that ‘she thought this, -because she thought that he thought that.’ (If a cinema company will -film _The Golden Bowl_, I will burn seven candles as an offering to the -Albert Memorial.) All that, the cinema must leave to the play and the -novel. It cannot risk wearying the audience by leaving it for half an -hour before the same scene; the theatre can do that because the voices -of the actors afford relief; the cinema, being unable to reproduce -footsteps, is compelled to reproduce flying feet. Because it cannot -speak, it must move, and so it is a different kind of thing. - -That does not mean that it need always be the rather crude thing it is -to-day. As people of better taste come into the business, we are likely -to do away with a few of the continual changes of scene; we shall -reduce repetitions, such as the woman who endlessly rocks the baby’s -cradle between every tragic scene in _Intolerance_. Repetition is the -way in which a crude taste rams its point home; a fine taste will -select its points better, need to make them less obvious, know how to -vary them. The selective art of the novelist can thus be applied. Also, -the finer taste will not corrupt the actor as hitherto he has been -corrupted, by leading him into a wilderness of monkeys. The cinema will -learn restraint, that first need of all art. Some of the actors, such -as Norma Talmadge, Pauline Frederick, Mary Pickford, and especially -Charlie Chaplin, have already evolved a new form of acting, and not -a mean one. When Charlie Chaplin runs along a road, in that queer, -lolloping way which starts from the shoulders and animates his fingers -and his elbows, chasing a Rolls-Royce that is obviously travelling -at a hundred and twenty miles an hour, when thereupon he falls into -a ditch, and extricates himself with an air of incredulity, when he -then appears to realise, with a detachment that none but Plato could -have equalled, that he is not likely to catch that car, and decides to -go home, Charlie Chaplin does a wonderful thing: he turns his back on -the audience, and you know, from a little ripple in his back that he -is considering the situation. Then the head gives a jerk, one of the -shoulders goes up, the fingers give a twist, and long before Charlie -Chaplin turns round to face the audience, with his soft eyes laughing, -his animate body has told you what he meant: ‘It’s gone. Oh, well, I -don’t care.’ The popularity of others may wane, but Charlie Chaplin is -a monument. As in the case of the music-halls, a merciless audience has -formed, and its love has readily been given to the best. - - - - - III - THE FRIENDLY BOWL - - -CHAPTER III - -THE FRIENDLY BOWL - - -Hard things are said of the London public-house. It is dirty; it -is dingy; there is nothing to sit on; there is nothing to read; it -possesses neither intellect nor domino set; it is not a place where a -man can take his wife and family; it should be improved, it should be -suppressed (subtle distinction), and so on. The curious side of these -assaults is that the people who rave at the public-house are not the -people one sees in it, and one wonders whether they passionately desire -public-houses after their own heart, and, presumably, for their own -use. I have visions of the public-house of their dreams, æsthetic and -antiseptic, furnished, according to persuasion, with Fabian tracts, or -tracts of greater orthodoxy. I imagine a staid crowd in that reformed -public-house, let us say, the Reverend Dr Horton and party, quaffing -the foaming cider-cup and discussing the principles of reconstruction; -Mr Sidney Webb and Mr Bernard Shaw passionately engaged at spillikins -... and the working man in the modest background. - -The idea has little attraction, because, frankly, I like the London -public-house, just as I like the Paris café and the German beer-hall. -I do not see why we should make our public-houses into Parisian cafés, -for our needs differ from those of Parisians, and we do not, among -other things, visit public-houses to play dominoes or to read _The -Spectator_. Men go to public-houses to drink, either because they are -thirsty, or because they like drink. Notably, the working man goes -there to be rid of that wife and family of which he sees quite enough. -I know it is difficult for the well-to-do man, whose house contains ten -rooms, who has a private room at his office, and a sulking chair at -his club, to understand that the working man, who generally lives in -two rooms with several children and the scented memory of many meals, -should want to escape this felicitous atmosphere. It may also strike -him as strange that the working man should not, after a ten-hour day, -relish ‘a good, brisk walk.’ Also, he does not realise that ours is not -yet a kid-glove civilisation, and that most of our working people like -the sensual life. Being Anglo-Saxons, they are largely impervious to -art, and rather crude in love; so their sensuality finds an outlet in -drink. You may deplore this sensuality, but it is no use trying to stem -it by making distasteful the conditions under which it is indulged; the -way to stem it is to make a change in the creature, by treating it as a -man, by paying it as a citizen, and by granting it justice instead of -favour, education instead of teaching. - -A new English people will make a new public-house; to-day, they have -the public-house they deserve, and it is not such an evil place as -some like to make out. Pellucid reader, have you ever visited The -Green Man? The Red Lion? or The Bedford Head? Do you know the brew of -The Warrington and The Horseshoe’s chop? I like their busy bars, so -cunningly stratified into public bar, private bar, and saloon. They -are a microcosm of English society, where everybody keeps himself to -himself, where every class is defiled by every other class because -the one beneath is ‘low,’ and the one above ‘stuck up.’ In England, -classes barely establish internal toleration. There are few equals -inside classes. One either looks up or looks down, and one never looks -at. But in public-houses a rude toleration does exist. They are not -unattractive, for rough friendship is included by every barmaid in the -‘gin and peach.’ One talks to people one does not know. If one stays, -one may hear the history of their life. Nor are all public-houses ugly; -there is a Dickensian, a Jacobean charm in the dazzle of their many -glasses, in their piling bottles, their ash-trays presented by the -brewer, their match-stands, a gift from the distiller, in the portraits -of horses and dogs that proclaim the virtues of Johnny Walker, and -Black and White. Æsthetically speaking, these articles are ugly, but -they have a certain joviality which is not disagreeable. - -[Illustration: - - THE PUB] - -It is a mistake to think that public-houses are all alike. No two -places are alike; not even Lyons’s depots are all alike, for -the personality of the manageress reveals itself, say in strange -arrangements of salt-cellars. The casual visitor may not find much -difference between The Red Lion in the Harrow Road, The Hero of Maida, -Bricklayers’ Arms, or The Archway, and I will not stress it. But -it would need a more than casual observer to overlook the spacious -cleanliness of The Warrington, and its rather Victorian air of solid -comfort; should he go to Rule’s, or The Cheshire Cheese, he will -be obsessed by the domestic fustiness of places that have escaped -renovation for a century. Those old taverns reveal a London little -older than fifty years, when no Ritz-Carltons were open, when the young -man could join no club until he was a middle-aged one, and when he ate -his meals in his rooms in Bury Street off soiled mahogany. These old -places are traditional, and their ale is traditional. I suspect that it -is a secret blend of old ale and new ale, the new being poured into the -old casks, thus ever inheriting and ever bequeathing the virtues of the -family. - -And other inns have their temperament, which is that of their -customers. Thus, at the public-houses of London Wall, as also at -Coates’s Wine Bar, you never get away from the sense of business. These -places are friendly, but wary. Likewise, at The Cock, in Fleet Street, -there is more noise and less wariness, because here is an exchange -for news, and occasionally for facts; farther on, at Shirreff’s, the -attraction is sound wine under sound arches. Shirreff’s clientèle -numbers rather obese people who know how to treat a glass of port. Thus -should you treat a glass of port: let the glass be not quite full, -so that the holy wine may have space in which to unwind its lovely -surface; raise the glass, holding its stem so that the fingers may not -break the amber oval of its form; then raise it to the level of the -eyes, so that the pale light of the city may stream through that rich -amber, and emerge transfigured; draw closer; respectfully breathe in -the soft, insidious scent that rises to your nostrils like a prayer. -Then only, when the golden ghost has spoken to all senses save that of -taste, drink, and drink slowly, without haste, with respect, not as a -vulgar man, thirsty, but as a man without thirst, and risen over such -necessity. Thus only shall you be companions of Amarante, Miranda, and -Sabor. - -If all drank with such elegance we might hear less of public-house -reform. Of late years, attempts have been made to humanise the -public-house; the first result has been to make it inhuman. I lead -no attack upon the Public-House Trust and the People’s Refreshment -House Association. They are excellent bodies, and once upon a time I -supported them, but as I grow older, I think I grow more depraved. I -know it is not pleasant to see people drunk, though some are still more -unpleasant when they are sober; I do not support the public-house in -selling last week’s sandwiches and last year’s cheddar, but still ... -ale that hath no sting ... and leadless glaze! Instinct wars with my -reason; I see the public-houses grow more civilised, and a faint regret -creeps over me that good intentions should get into beer. - -It is true that at the other end of the scale luxury fights with good -intentions and produces, well, not the abomination of desolation, but -the greater abomination of delectation in the shape of the American -bar. Already a young civilisation has produced its first-fruits, such -as broncho busting, college yells, and cinema rides; already poets -quaff from the foaming soda-fountain in Hippocrene City, Pa. (or -possibly Minn.), and in the friendly bowl mix the cocktail. Magic -word, eloquent in form! I cannot express what I owe to the cocktail: -it provides half of what a dinner party needs, for it stimulates -conversation. The other half is provided by bridge, for it stops this -conversation. The power of the cocktail is not that of the pure in -heart; it is a complex, a modern; it is a congress of alcohols; nothing -is alien to it; nothing can hallow it; nothing can resist its repeated -assaults. With all drinks it has affinity. It carries the bar sinister -of all liqueurs. Bitters and curaçao, whisky and maraschino, brandy, -vermouth and cassis, Fernet Branca, gentle raspberry, all of these; and -crème de menthe, and gin, and absinthe, and apple-jack, these, too, -are of its fiery soul, and apricot brandy that is like a blush, sherry -like a burnt topaz, paprika to make you leap, and sly benedictine, -dancing anisette, and port like a minor canon, gins from Plymouth, -and Schiedam, virginal grenadine, all can join with all the fruits -the world has ever known, cherry, lemon, tangerine, olive, spray of -tarragon too. And thus one begins a cocktail. Let your basis be gin; -enlist vermouth; let bitter and maraschino creep in: behold Martini! -But expel the vermouth to substitute apricot brandy: then you have -Hungarian. But if for you gin has no fire, then let your mainstay be -rye whisky: its allies, bitter and vermouth, and Manhattan for you -appears. And others for you shall rise, soda cocktail and love tree, -or silver fizz, or blagden punch ... or hot apple toddy. Treat not the -cocktail rudely. Let all coalitions be gradual, and temper their fire -with ground ice; then cast the whole in the silver mixer and shake, -shake, shake. While you shake, meditate. - -In English bars they neither shake nor meditate; they drink too -uncritically the expression of the brewer’s artistic temperament, and -give forth too little of their own. But, still, they are pleasant -enough, these bars, whether British, as the gloomily popular Leicester -Lounge, or foreign as the Monico. They have all the well-bred -indifference of the Englishman who asks you no questions because he -seeks no answers, who makes no comments because he has nothing to say. -You need, you pay, you are satisfied, you go. There is no revelry. For -true revelry, the glass that sparkles and the jug that foams, you must -go to some club at least a hundred years old, and in St James’s Street -or Pall Mall, where ‘old man’ and ‘old thing’ know each other’s record -and capacity, where, under an ancient roof, the prairie oyster revives -the spirits that flagged in the Row. Watch the bow windows of some -ancient club, and, while still holding that good wine needs no bush, -confess that good wine gets it. - - - - - IV - WANDERERS - - -CHAPTER IV - -WANDERERS - - -Alphonse Daudet, when analysing Tartarin de Tarascon, found in him two -Tartarins, Tartarin Quixote and Tartarin Sancho. Tartarin Quixote liked -fighting, adventure, uncertainty, blood, knives, unscalable peaks, -tornadoes at sea. Tartarin Sancho liked flannel vests, long drinks -of lemonade on a hot day, chocolate in bed in the morning. No doubt, -Tartarin Quixote and Tartarin Sancho live in many of us, and certainly -I confess to desperate moods which, on the whole, I restrain, and to -self-indulgent moods which, on the whole, I encourage; but when we -consider men we know, it is curious how much more strongly Tartarin -Sancho or Tartarin Quixote is developed in them. Tartarin Sancho leads -the majority of mankind, that majority which is always looking for -a good billet, for a pension, for a nice little wife, a cat, and a -garden. Some, more ambitious, substitute for the nice little wife a -woman of title, for the cat a hunter, for the garden an estate, but -their desires, after all, are still those of Sancho, even though they -are those of Sancho become Governor of Barataria. Naturally they adopt -the wadded life. It is not a crime, and no doubt many of the Tartarin -Quixotes, who number among them tight-rope dancers, mining magnates, -card-sharpers, and cabinet ministers, often come to regret the bed -quilt of a blameless life. Only the bed quilt is not for them. - -Somehow, I don’t know why, I cannot help feeling that Tartarin Sancho -is less normal than Tartarin Quixote. He does such strange things; he -enlists in a bank, grinds out his little span of life and dies; or he -becomes a barrister, pleads cases he believes in, and also others; or -Tartarin Sancho turns into a respectable stockbroker, that is to say, -he never speculates, but induces other people to gamble; or he becomes -a professional soldier, and passes the first half of his life hoping -there will be a war; if there is none, then he passes the other half in -the rather more decayed parts of Earl’s Court. These are queer trades, -for they do not seem to satisfy anything that man needs if he is to -feel complete. It is not enough that a man should, by the time he dies, -have manufactured, let us say, large quantities of office furniture, -have played golf, have gone to Eastbourne or Monte Carlo, have met the -one girl whom he wrongly imagined to be the only girl in the world, -ignoring the fact that there are thousands like her, have reproduced -the species and left them behind to do likewise. ‘Such is life,’ says -my old friend the housekeeper of Wellington Buildings, Bethnal Green; -she is right, but somehow this explanation does not satisfy me, and -I wonder whether all those respectable, clean-living people are not -really degenerates, in so far as they have lost the desire for colour -in life. It may be that Tartarin Quixote does not desire colour in -life, and that he would gladly exchange the pebbly bed of romance for -the eiderdown of the regular life; still, what a man does matters, as -well as what a man desires. It is all very well praising the mute, -inglorious Milton in the factory or the shop, but the Milton who -manages to break the silence is also important in the scheme. The idea -is greater than the fact, but to deny the fact would be to run Plato -too far. - -Therein lies the charm of the queer people, in whom London is rich, -people who follow unexpected occupations, occupations that nobody -would naturally think of following. One can understand how Mrs Smith -comes to hear from one of her husband’s friends that they want an -apprentice in the printing shop; she sends little Tommy to the printing -shop, and he becomes a printer. But how does little Paolo become an -ice-cream man? There are lots of ice-cream men, and so we must believe -that some impulse directed young Paolo towards ice-cream. How did it -happen? Was it a vocation, this selling of ice-cream? Did he discover -an ice-cream opening? I don’t know; I once asked an ice-cream merchant -why he sold ice-cream. He told me that he did it because his father -did it. Then I asked him why his father sold ice-cream. He told me -that his father sold ice-cream because his grandfather sold ice-cream. -Then I saw that we might go on for a long time like this, and let him -alone, for the ice-cream merchant was growing suspicious. I am glad -that I do not know whether his grandfather sold ice-cream because -his great-grandfather sold ice-cream, for this leaves a little to my -imagination, and I am able to imagine that in the misty cinquecento, -some adventurous Florentine, some relative of Benvenuto Cellini, was -impelled to forsake a hospitable guild to push about the European -tracks the gay little carriage that to-day bears the Italian flag, -diplomatically intertwined with the flag of the country in which the -merchant happens to trade, the portrait of King Victor, and, on the -other side, some touching scene such as ‘Mother’s Last Kiss.’ - -The ice-cream man sets out every day on adventure. He may have a beat, -but I prefer to think that he follows in the wake of the sun, always -where it is hottest, caring little whether the street be mean or -opulent. I like to think of him as at the mercy of a cold snap that -ruins him, while it makes the fortune of his fellow merchant, the -hot-potato man. (What a beautiful poem Tennyson would have made of that -... the golden wheel turning, and raising high, now the ice-cream, then -the hot potato ... and always above a noble voice bidding them hope -and pray.) Of course, there are no hot-potato men now. I wonder what -happened to them. Indeed, that is what oppresses the curious when he -considers the wanderers: what becomes of them when they are no longer -strong enough to ply their strange trades and to range the world? Are -our workhouses full of crossing-sweepers who sweep no more? Perhaps it -is not so tragic, after all, to have been a crossing-sweeper and to end -in the workhouse; I cannot imagine a crossing-sweeper murmuring with -Mr Kipling: ‘Me that ’ave been what I’ve been!’ for he has never been -more than what Mr Tim Healy would call a movable fixture. He has just -sat and touched his cap, and been tipped, and has occasionally swept. -But he must have meditated. No man can sit for ten hours a day in the -same place without meditating; I say this without authority, for I have -known only one crossing-sweeper who meditated to any effect; he was a -pronounced optimist, and believed that the world was getting better -and better, this because, for forty years, he had been observing the -quality of people’s boots. As he put it, when he started in life some -of them wore no boots; later on, they began to wear other people’s -cast-off boots; now they were getting on to buy their own boots, and -what with that, and what with the skirts getting shorter and shorter, -and the stocking getting thinner and thinner, by gum, he was blowed if -he knew what was going to happen next. - -No, crossing-sweepers are not wanderers. They are limpets. I should -not have thought of them if they were not street folk, for it is a -distinguishing trait of the wanderer that he is a street creature, -something that appears from the stones in the early morning, and at -night into the stones seems to vanish. The London wanderer may have -a home, but only in the sense of the London sparrow. Can you imagine -the flower-girl’s home? If the flower-girl were indeed the sort of -flower-girl of whom you see half a hundred portraits every year in -the Royal Academy, a sort of pure and peach-blossom girl, she would -have a home like Mélisande, very, very small and dainty (you know, -the Charbonnel and Walker-Marcus Stone style), with chairs covered -in flowered chintzes, and a white cat. At night she would lie in her -little white bed, over the head of which would hang a text about the -lilies of the field; her fair hair would ripple over the pillow; her -rosy lips would open in a sweet smile as she dreamed of the dear little -faded flowers which she had stood for the night in her tooth-glass. -(Tooth-glass! Nasty realist touch; I shall never do this sort of thing -properly.) Ah, if it were only like that! If she were not a big, fine -woman of about forty, tied up in three thick shawls, which imperfectly -conceal her tidal bodice; if only she did not so much love a quartern -of gin. It would be much more romantic, but I should regret her if she -were to turn into a picture post card, for she is such a jolly good, -saucy sort, as a rule, and I like her thick hand terminated by five -sausages, one of these sausages strangulated by a wedding ring, the -thickness of which places one beyond all cynicism as to the permanence -of the tie. You see her in many places, by the fountain at Piccadilly -Circus, until all the nobs have bought a bunch of violets for -somebody, now that they have given up the habit of buying a flower -for themselves; then you see her near restaurant entrances, cleverly -shaming men into buying flowers for women who are already wearing -some, and who do not know what to do with the offering because it is -invariably very wet; later on, outside theatres near the queues; she is -all enterprise, and during the war I even saw her trying to sell to an -unpromising margarine queue. - -[Illustration: - - FLOWER-GIRL] - -She grows old at her trade; it is a healthy one, and she has no home. -Some of her fellows are stranger and still more definably homeless. -Thus the muffin-man, killed, perhaps, by the war. It is a long time -since I heard his bell, and was thereby assured that Sunday was getting -on nicely, and would be over by-and-by. There is the travelling -accountant, a real wanderer, that one, who, every day and night, -goes from little shop to little factory, continually confronted with -new names, new deals, and, perhaps, new and complicated methods of -dishonesty. There are the queerest and most incomprehensible of all, -the guides. I do not know what turns a man into a guide, but if you -stand awhile near Charing Cross, and make a noise like a Jugo-Slav, -it is likely that a seedily, respectably dressed man, with a badly -rolled umbrella, will offer to show you the town. Once it is clear -that he does not want to exchange pocket-books with you to show his -confidence, he may lead you to Henry V.’s chapel, to Westminster -Abbey, to Carlyle’s house, and so on, reciting as he goes, something -like this: ‘The painted ’all was originally planned by King John the -same who signed that Magna Charta in the year 1215 but the plans being -lost in the Wash the project did not come to take form before the year -1533 when King Henry VIII. after his marriage with Anne Boleyn laid -the foundations on the plans of Sir ’Erbert ’Opkins who was also the -architect of the golden tower of Muswell ’Ill where Nell Gwynn ...’ -and so on. That man is a gramophone; I once let him show me Saragossa, -but he shall never show me anything more. For one thing, I believe he -is respectable at heart, and there is no profit in his company. The -only good guide is the amateur guide. I met one in Brussels once, a -cab-driver, who stopped before the café where I was having a drink; -he so many times cried out to me, ‘Hi, Englishman! you’re a sportsman, -come along!’ that I fell a prey to his flattery. (Who told him that -every Englishman wants to be thought a sportsman?) He knew his Brussels -pretty well, but I will not tell you the rest of the story, for he also -knew his Englishman pretty well. - -There are many more of these strange people. A strange one was a woman -who offered to give me a thousand guesses at her profession; I declined -the proposal and found out that she was a pearl-threader. Few of us -know that the silken thread, on which collars of pearls are strung, -wears out, and that, from time to time, pearls have to be re-strung. -All women do not care to send their pearls to the jeweller, for the art -of Tecla is profound. Nor do they care to re-thread them themselves, -for the holes are so small that the work is infinitely wearisome. -So my pearl-threader, who looked like the most respectable type of -retired maid, spent her life in Mayfair and Belgravia, where she sat -re-threading pearls while the owner read a novel. The pearl-threader -smiled as she told this: ‘One of them,’ she said, ‘read a newspaper -upside down all the time while I was doing her pearls. And there -is another, so unsuspicious; she turns her back on me and smokes a -cigarette, and stares into the looking-glass, dreamy-like.’ - -But that is a high walk of wanderer. There are others more tragic. -There used to be a terrible creature, the runner, who followed -four-wheelers laden with luggage, and arrived at the end of his long -run too blown to be red in the face, but lead white, his right hand -gripped to his heart, his left hand spasmodically touching the greasy -brim of his cap. I have seen no greater agony than the hungry desire -in those filmy eyes, half-obscured by the wet, dust-laden eyelids. I -used to stop the runners when I could; often they persisted, their open -mouth close to the wheel; they could not see me wave them away, or they -could not hear me call out, as if all the energy of their poor senses -had passed into those eternally running legs. One of them seized my -trunk as we arrived, before I could ransom myself, hating my opulence, -full of shame. It is fifteen years ago, but I remember him, a big body, -but little flesh; I remember his eyes like glass, and the awful stagger -of him as he bent under the weight of the trunk, as he tottered, and as -I leaped to seize it when it fell. Then the door opened, and the hotel -waiter came out with the air of black hostility which the house dog -has for the street dog. The runner looked at us without anger, without -misery, though he understood very well that the job was not for him; -he was like a Greek peasant patiently encountering fate. But, as he -turned away, clasping my shilling in his hand, and I saw the foot in -the broken boot fumble for the step, a wave of self-hatred rose in me. -I told myself: ‘You have crucified him.’ - -They are not so tragic, all of them, unaccountable people, or even -people who have adopted trades one thinks queer because one would -not have adopted them oneself. Some are merely disgusting, such as -the bus-conductor. I have met a civil bus-conductor; I have even met -an optimistic one, but nowadays, especially, he stands exposed by -comparison with the girl-conductor. Oh, it is natural enough that the -girl should have been friendly, civil, clean, obliging, for to her the -job was new, varied, faintly exciting, probably better paid than her -previous work. But still, she made the man terrible. He seems to be -nearly always a rather grimy, ill-shaven, misanthropic man; something -of the watch-dog and of the bureaucrat has crept into his constitution; -he cannot gently ask for fares; the demand must come with a snap and -a snarl, pitched on a high note that shall reach the recesses of the -omnibus and of the traveller’s consciousness. When he yelps: ‘Fares!’ -I feel for my ticket as if I were guilty; when he looks at me, his -little, hard eye suggests that I am bilking the company, and then I -hate him so that, if I can, I do bilk the company, and get off four -hundred yards to the good, bursting with an unexpelled shout of ‘Yah!’ -I hate him above all because, so often, he companions my journey with -a snarly chorus, addressed sometimes to the wretched nearest occupant. -One hears him run on: ‘Some people can’t learn where buses stop; seem -to think it’s the Lord Mayor’s coach; pulling the string themselves, -too; might as well be no conductor.’ Or it is something like this: -‘Chucking their half-crowns about; taking about four hours finding ’em, -too; come into the bus and expect to get change as if it was a blooming -bank; gave her twenty-four ha’pennies though, that’ll learn her.’ Or, -during a shower: ‘Plenty room on top. Drop o’ rain won’t ’urt yer. When -it’s fine they all want to get on top.’ And so on, a regular orgy of -grace and charm. Growl, grouse, snap, snarl, grumble, yap, and long, -dirty moustaches, filthy hands, and if it is not a grudging black hand -to help a white sleeve on to the bus, it is a hand that has to restrain -itself not to shove the white shoulder off. All that because the poor -brute is not happy. I know I ought to be sympathetic, for it must be -dreadful to travel all day from Camden Town to Brixton and back, to -sell so small a variety of goods, never to feel steady ground under -your feet when you look for change, to answer the same idiotic question -seventy times a day, to tread on feet, to have your feet trodden on. -The bus-conductor is a nasty man because he is an unhappy man, because -he has no prospect in life, save that of growing older and, for all I -know, retiring without a pension. Those monotonous occupations, such -as the hellish one of lift-man, ought not to be human occupations, and -they will not be such some day. Meanwhile, they rack by boredom people -to whom has not been given the free expanse of the pedlar. What a brute -Charon must have become by now! - -Those people who range freely street and field are indeed of another -kind; there is in them less civilisation and more civility. They are -detached from their fellows; they lead lives of their own within the -beating life of the world. Many of the newspaper-sellers are pleasant, -ironic people, with a capacity for estimating character, with a quick -interest in the news they retail. Citizens of the world, they are -often so stimulated by their news that, as you buy, they must tell -you the contents of the stop-press. It is a hard trade. Before the -war they used to pay ninepence for twenty-seven halfpenny papers: -fourpence-halfpenny profit for selling twenty-seven papers! Still, -there is a nomadic satisfaction in their movable beat. They are not -locked up. They are in the midst of life, other people’s life, but yet -life. - -To quite another class belong the beggars, not the pseudo-beggars who -profess to sell laces or matches, or the blind, for these are inanimate -beggars and nobody knows what goes on behind their faces, but the -adventurous beggars, the old woman who follows you, shrilly asking -for the price of a cup of tea, or the well-known teacher of French, -who stops you in the street and asks you what chance he has of a -professorship at King’s College. Those adventurers are amusing because -they are coloured, because, if you stop, they will tell you where they -come from, the number and names of their children, the diseases from -which they suffer, and, indeed, recite you the shameless novel of their -lives. - -Of the same kind, but more offensive, is the fern-seller who is nearly -always (or was before the war) a particularly burly brute, carrying a -couple of potted ferns under each arm. He haunts the quieter streets -of the West End, and when a woman alone meets him late at night, she -will do well to make for the nearest policeman, the proper method being -to ask the fern-seller to carry the ferns home for her: a policeman -will doubtless be encountered on the way. I remember a fern-seller, -who accosted me once in Portman Square. It was about six o’clock -in the evening; I told the man that I wanted no ferns; he followed -me, rumbling abuse which I could hardly hear. As it happened, I was -looking for lodgings, and stopped at a likely house in Portman Street. -As I had been walking rather fast, I thought that I had got rid of -him, but, seeing I was going into a house, he ran up behind me, and -once more began his pressure. While I was ordering him off the door -opened, and a fat little landlord, with a grubby little white beard and -choleric little blue eyes in a puffy little pink face, stood staring -in the doorway. ‘If you don’t go,’ I said to the man, ‘I’ll give you -in charge.’ But the man went on whining and growling and, being very -young, I was filled with awful confusion at this brawl on the step. -This was increased by the nasty little landlord, who said: ‘What do you -want?’ - -‘I want to see some rooms,’ I replied, and to the fern-seller: ‘Did you -hear what I said?’ - -‘I’ve got no rooms,’ snapped the landlord, ‘get out of it, both of you.’ - -‘What the devil do you mean by both of you?’ I said to the landlord, -being thoroughly enraged. Then I became paralysed at having to quarrel -on two different subjects simultaneously. - -‘Mean by it!’ shouted the little landlord. ‘What do _you_ mean by -creating a disturbance on my doorstep? Let rooms to the likes of you! -You’re drunk!’ - -At that moment the fern-seller was breathing on me, and I saw that -the landlord’s words were well-founded, though ill-directed. Before I -could think of a reply, the little landlord slammed his door so as to -make the whole of Portman Street shake. And I remained alone with the -fern-seller, who still painstakingly and threateningly attempted to -make me buy ferns. He was the sort of man who speaks from under his -under lip. I was so ashamed that I did not say one word, but ran. Oh! -how good and free Oxford Street felt. - -I have not been much annoyed or interested by the more desperate -wanderers one comes across. Only once did anything perilous come my -way, and that I will call ‘The Row in Homer Row.’ It was many years -ago. I had, one evening, made an acquaintanceship with the light -fallibility that will, I hope, always characterise youth. It did not at -once have results; some other business intervened, but I remember quite -well that I returned at nine o’clock to a little block of flats, that -were not exactly flats, but superior model dwellings. I remember the -hard, stone stairs and the iron banisters, you will soon see why. As I -left, later in the evening, I shut the door of the flat behind me, and -stood for a second in the entire blackness of the landing. Then I felt -a foot against my left ankle, and a hand grip my left arm. It was the -darkness saved me, for it is not easy accurately to seize an arm in the -dark, and the notorious ‘pull-over’ is not suited for cellar blackness. -I remember that I did not think, that I did not have time to be afraid. -I remember only the vast unchaining of a self-protective instinct, -that swung my right hand across to the left. I swear I did not will it. -And I still have unforgettably in my knuckles the sensation of crash -and give, in my ears the curious, fat sound, something like ‘kroch,’ -that was made by some teeth giving way under the blow. And then there -was an immensely long pause, during which I had time to think; it may -have lasted a tenth of a second. There was a dull, muffled sound, that -of a head striking the iron banisters. That is all, except that I -remember the clatter of my feet on the stone stairs. - -But to the man who wanders in London streets at night, and I am one of -these, stranger things happen. One of those cases was ‘The Poisoned -Girl of Grosvenor Square.’ It was about twelve o’clock at night. As -I turned out of Brook Street into the Square, I saw on my right two -people by the railings of an area. One was a woman dressed in black, -kneeling down and holding on to the railings by one hand. The other -was a man, who stood a few yards off, with statue-like immobility. I -remember thinking: ‘This is awkward. He has been knocking her about, -and I suppose I shall have to say something, and if he attacks me in -front no doubt she’ll attack me from behind.’ But still, there was -nothing to do but to say something. So I went up to them, and suddenly -realised that the two people had nothing to do with each other. She was -kneeling in that frozen attitude, and he was looking on. The girl was -young, very white, with masses of fair hair. She was neatly dressed in -black, and looked like a parlourmaid. Her eyes were closed, and she -seemed hardly to breathe. Two or three times I asked her what was the -matter, but she did not reply. Then only did I look at the man, who was -evidently of another class. A rather large, square man, the sort of man -whom you know to be bald, though he has his hat on, with a moustache -that was too thick, and cheeks that were too healthy, a phlegmatic, -staring man. - -‘What’s the matter with her?’ I asked. - -‘I don’t know,’ said the man. - -As it was clear that he was the sort of man who wouldn’t know, I -turned to the girl and, taking her by the shoulder, tried to make her -stand up. I was surprised to find her limp instead of stiff, and she -fell back against my shoulder with a little groan. - -‘Let me alone,’ she murmured. - -‘What’s the matter?’ I asked again. ‘Are you in any trouble?’ - -‘Let me alone,’ she said again. - -I felt irritated because she did not realise that I couldn’t let her -alone, that man’s code compelled me to torture her, and that nothing in -the world could allow me to let her alone. - -‘Let me help you,’ I said, feeling that I behaved like a considerable -idiot. ‘What is it?’ - -She opened her eyes a little, and murmured: ‘I’ve taken something.’ - -‘Taken something?’ I repeated, vaguely thinking of theft. ‘What do you -mean? Taken something.’ - -‘Poison,’ she said. Then again: ‘Let me alone.’ - -I hear the shrillness of my voice as I cried out: ‘Poison!’; then I -found myself hurrying her along the pavement; ‘What is it?’ I said -to her, as we went. ‘Is it laudanum? You’ve got to walk, you know,’ -and to the man: ‘Hurry up. Get a cab.’ There was no cab to be seen. -‘Come along!’ I shouted. ‘Run ahead and get a cab.’ After a moment’s -hesitation he waddled away, not much faster than we. And now the girl -was almost weeping, while I tortured her with questions, tried to make -her run, this one idea of laudanum in my mind. At last she answered: -‘Spirits of salt.’ - -It took us very long, I think, to get up North Audley Street, and I -felt rent by her youth and her prettiness, for the fair hair was coming -unbound on my shoulder. There was a tenderness in me as I lifted her at -last into the cab. I remember saying to the man, ‘You’ve been pretty -slow about it. I hope you haven’t killed her. What were you doing -staring at her instead of doing something?’ - -Then he said: ‘Oh, well, one doesn’t want to be mixed up.’ - -[Illustration: - - THE HEART OF THE CITY] - -There is no end to this story. I took her to the Middlesex, and -they saved her by means of the stomach pump: to this day I cannot help -wishing that her salvation might have had a more romantic name. But -much more impressive is the man’s remark. I should not wonder if most -people go through life with a single end in view: not to be mixed up. -And one might as well be dead as not be mixed up. I have been much more -mixed up than I dare tell in this respectable volume. I stole a baby -once. - -That is the story of ‘The Stolen Baby of Pimlico.’ I was waiting -for an omnibus one night at the Chippenham. A young, dark girl was -also waiting for the omnibus, but as she was showing more signs of -impatience than are usual, namely, stamping, I could not help being -interested. At last, as she passed me and flung me a look of intense -malevolence, which I felt was rather unfair, I could not help smiling -and saying: ‘I wonder whether there are any more buses.’ (Now I come to -think of it, I might have said something more soothing.) This had the -unexpected result of arousing confidence. ‘There’s got to be another -bus,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to fetch my sister’s baby.’ - -‘Oh!’ I remarked. - -We said no more for some time, and still no omnibus came. Then a taxi -crawled up to us, and I said: ‘Well, if there are no more buses we had -better take this taxi.’ The dark girl, who was young and very pretty, -put on an expression of increased malevolence, but as I stopped the -taxi, she said: ‘Oh, all right then, but I give the cabman the address, -and not you.’ As we sat down, I gathered from this that my wanderer -was no fledgling. But, after a few minutes, as she discovered that I -made no attempt to kiss her, she became confidential. She had run away -from an evil stepmother. She had £2 10s. She had just taken a furnished -flat at £3 10s. a week. She was nineteen. She was going on the stage. -Also, she wouldn’t have gone away if it hadn’t been for her father. -(Rather mixed, this.) As we drew nearer to Pimlico I became more and -more confused, for the baby was turning into her sister-in-law’s baby, -and I swear that he became a she. We stopped in a little black street -in Pimlico, in front of an enormous Victorian house which was still -blacker than the street. ‘I must ring,’ said the girl, and promptly -took from her little bag a key. Therefore she did not ring, but -disappeared into the house, the inside of which was blacker than the -outside, leaving the door wide open. After I had waited for a moment -she came out again: ‘I say,’ she said, ‘I can’t carry him down; he’s -too heavy.’ - -‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘now I’m in for it. But they can’t have laid much of -a trap for a young man picked up outside the Chippenham.’ So, true to -my principles, I went in. The house stank of solitude. It was the sort -of house that does not even creak. I felt my way up to the first floor, -and in a back room where there was very little besides a bed and a -couple of chairs, I found asleep a pretty boy aged about five. ‘Pick -him up,’ murmured the girl, ‘and don’t make a noise, I don’t want to -wake the woman so late.’ Obediently I picked him up, and carried him -down into the taxi. Just as the girl was about to follow me in, she -said: ‘Now I’d better pay the woman. Lend me two shillings.’ In a few -moments she came back, and some time later made me pull up the taxi at -the corner of a side street, off Elgin Avenue. - -Only later did all these confusions, this mixture of sexes and -relationships, the silence in the silent house, lead me to theories. -Little by little they crystallised into this: I seem to have stolen a -baby I don’t know, belonging to somebody I don’t know, and taken it I -don’t know where, in the charge of I don’t know whom. It preyed on me -rather. I even worked up an alibi. Now I suppose it does not matter, as -the child may be a householder. - -There are many other stories I should like to tell, that of ‘The -Watchmaker and the Four Pounds of Black-Lead,’ though, really, the -adventure of ‘The Two Girls from County Cork and the Lost Camisole,’ -is much more remarkable, but these and others must appear in another -volume. There are many of these people, and one never discovers them -before ten o’clock or so. They live in the streets, where they have -their loves and their tragedies, and mainly in those places where -there is not too much light. They like the darkness because the light -of human understanding is not good for their peculiar affairs. We do -not think enough of the influence of light. When we stand on Primrose -Hill and, as Karl Baedeker would put it, behold before us the rich -expanse of a great and sleeping city, we do not individualise the -lights enough. When we look down upon Piccadilly Circus flaring from -every veranda, and, like the laburnum, dropping wells of fire, when in -these days we stand at the corner of Tottenham Court Road and watch -the electric signs: ‘Player’s Navy Mixture,’ ‘Meux’s London Original -Stout,’ ‘Y.M.C.A.,’ and ‘Tube,’ when we walk in all that brightness, we -do not realise that this is the spirit of our city, the rather crude, -commercial, and friendly spirit of London. Nor, in other cities at -night, say in Birmingham, where through the dirty glass falls dirty -yellow light, do we perceive in man unambitiousness. For mankind must -have light. Light alone opens the windows on life, and makes night -Arabian. - -Only one creature likes the dark, and that is a wanderer, the cat. Have -you watched cats at night? If you try in the street to stroke cats when -the mood of night is on them, when they crouch under a bush, rolled -up into tight balls, their sharp heads sunk into the woolly folds of -their shoulders, when some are shadows in the shadow, spotted with two -points of fire, they will not shrink from you, nor approach you, but so -remain in static life. Or they will swiftly pass you, at that queer, -soft trot, making towards a secret direction with entire intentness. -Or, one upon the steps of a house, the other on a balustrade, they -will face each other with swishing tails, and so remain in immense -motion within the same spot, an infinity of provocation in every shiver -of their sleek flanks; you, human, shall not know whether they are -minded to love or war. If you interfere, you break the spell of their -communication, but there is no room for you in their compact. You -are the spectre of the commander, and they flee. But you shall feel -the hostility they have left behind them; it flows from the immense -cruelty of their cold eyes, that are lovely as emerald and topaz, -that can harbour no love, but only voluptuousness, calm, deep eyes -that calculate and fix only upon that which can serve them, eyes that -glimpse only things they fear and things they desire, not things for -which they may suffer. You shall stay awhile in that hostile ambiance, -while they have fled into the night, to adventures more secret and -profound than any that may be yours, even though you, too, be one of -Diana’s foresters, a gentleman of the shade, a minion of the moon. - - - - - V - SOUPS AND STEWS - - -CHAPTER V - -SOUPS AND STEWS - - -In another chapter of this book the change that has come over London -feeding has already been indicated. The times when respectability -edicted that one should eat only within the family circle, when all -that could be obtained abroad was a stodgy meal of bread and cheese at -a coffee-house, or the lightest refreshment at Vauxhall or Cremorne, -are long gone by; to-day, almost as many meals are consumed at -restaurants as under homely roofs. It was a long battle the restaurants -waged under the early banners of Hatchett’s or the Café Royal and, -strange to say, the Grand Hotel. Yes, once upon a time the Grand Hotel, -that ancestor, was the latest thing; in the eighties it was ‘the thing’ -to lunch or stay at the Grand Hotel. But, in those days, ‘the thing’ -was rather a scandalous thing, and if one lunched or dined away from -home one felt dissipated; one had to choose one’s company when taking -a meal thus, for the worst was easily thought of one in 1880, while -to-day, the best is hoped for. (There is, perhaps, no great difference -between the two attitudes.) - -In those days the home was a British institution; it figured in the -solemn list which numbered suet pudding, the royal family, bustles, -Tennyson, the evangelical attitude, and chenille decoration of -mantelpieces. The home had its rights; indeed, it had all rights; -it was the place where you ought to want to be, and far from which -you would naturally feel remorse; it was the thing you had to ‘keep -together,’ the thing you had to ‘make,’ to ‘save’; your self-abnegation -should have told you that you had no rights except to add the pillar -of your person to those of the porch. It has gone, this Victorian -rectitude; it has gone the way of Dundreary whiskers and of weepers -round the hat; I suspect that the restaurant habit, as it is called, -has turned some of the sods for its grave. There is something relaxing -in a restaurant, at least to a people such as ours, afflicted with a -considerable sense of private licence and of public dignity. Restaurant -dining outrages in us a sort of modesty, and, like most Puritans, we -rather enjoy having our modesty outraged; it is the revenge of the -flesh, and it pleases us godly men to discover in ourselves a streak of -the devil. We feel this rather more in the foreign restaurants than in -the British; in the British eating-houses, where there is no menu, but -only a bill of fare, where understandable things, such as mock-turtle -soup, boiled mutton with caper sauce, and roly-poly are offered us, -we know too well where we are; we eat, instead of giving way to -greediness; by avoiding that temptation we avoid one of the cardinal -sins, and more’s the pity. In foreign restaurants, however, where -neither the name of the dish nor the form it assumes is understandable, -we can develop a sense of sin; we can do this because our feet are set -on foreign ways, all of which lead to Babylon. Foreign waiters address -us, and there is no virtue in their eyes; they look like assassins, -and it is thrilling to think that they may be assassins, or nihilists, -or grand-dukes. Foreigners dine at the tables; their women are too -smart to be good; the yellow-backed novels they bring in must surely be -undesirable; they are poorly clad, which proves that they lead sinful -lives; they are richly dressed, which points to evil courses. They are -foreign. Is not the Drury Lane villain foreign? - -[Illustration: - - SOHO MARKET] - -From this sense of sin arose in the beginning the popularity of the -Soho restaurants. I do not know when they began to be popular. Some, -such as the Restaurant d’Italie, the Monico, the Villa Villa, are old -stagers, but when I first came to town their customers were mostly -men; if couples came they generally included a man who did not care -to take his womenkind to such places, but did not mind taking other -people’s womenkind. (Thus it worked out just the same in the end.) -The growth of London, which compelled men to live farther and farther -out, favoured the restaurants, for distant dormitories drive men to -proximate refectories. The Soho restaurant grew in numbers, together -with the Cabins, the Lyons’s, the J.P.’s, and others, but at the -same time, because they provided pleasant fare at low prices, they -gained advertisement from the men who first frequented them. Thus -the women heard of them, and they liked them immensely, for the Soho -restaurant provides exactly the sort of meal that many women want: -next to nothing, pleasantly served. So, in the last dozen years, they -have prospered enormously; the early ones, such as Brice’s, Le Diner -Français, Au Petit Riche, found many rivals such as the Moulin d’Or, -the Mont Blanc, Chantecler, Maxim’s, the Rendezvous, etc. Their career -has been curiously uniform. Nearly all have been started by a chef, a -waiter who had saved up a small working capital or married well. Being -foreigners, the proprietors liked good cooking, and in the beginning -every Soho restaurant offered a good meal. To-day there are still -a few where the proprietor circulates among the tables, asking you -whether you are satisfied, and naïvely begs congratulation, but that -state of mind is rare. So long as the customers were mainly foreign, -the standard was kept up: small, important, subtle things were done, -such as steaming vegetables instead of boiling them, such as putting -in salt while the meat cooked. But the Englishmen who came to lunch, -having advertised their wonderful find, grew very proud of it, began to -bring their friends, their sisters, and, nowadays, even their aunts. -They came in increasing numbers, and the proprietors discovered three -things: that there were in London more Londoners than foreigners; that -the Londoners were willing to pay more than the foreigners; that they -either didn’t know what they ate, or that they didn’t care. As very few -of the proprietors were in business as artists; as, moreover, they grew -discouraged when they went round the tables and asked people whether -they had enjoyed the stuffed mushrooms and were asked: ‘Were they -stuffed?’ they ceased to take pains. They found out what the English -customer wanted: paper flowers on the tables, Japanese fans, and dishes -with incomprehensible names. So, one after the other, they began to -cater for a purely English clientèle; a good many have discovered that -the English customers expect made-up meats instead of, say, roast beef, -and are willing to take those meats on trust; so the wise proprietor, -in many cases, makes up his menu from the dishes left over from the -night before at the Carlton or the Ritz. After all, he gives them what -they want: a dissipated atmosphere. Not long ago, I watched four school -mistresses in a state of considerable dissipation. They sat in the -little restaurant, laughing rather more shrilly than they would have at -Simpson’s, as if excited by the rather excessive effect of prettiness, -the mauve walls, the blue and yellow curtains, the pretty fringed -shades. Oh, how one understood Sally Bishop! How the mellow spirit of -Mr Temple Thurston brooded with folded wings over the little place! The -school mistresses listened hungrily for French, which was being spoken -by the attendants, and they kept a wary eye upon their fellow lunchers: -sober couples drinking claret; young men and women, the latter -unpowdered, the former oppressed by sartorial self-righteousness. There -was nothing against the lunch; it was a nice, ordinary little lunch; -the sort of well-cooked little lunch that could be turned out by the -gross, out of a machine, all the year round, every little lunch alike, -for ever and ever. But my school mistresses were tasting dissipation -while avoiding vice. - -In true cooking one does not avoid vice. One courts vice. One says: -‘Eating is a sensuality, and we shall satisfy our senses as much as we -can. We shall sing hymns to it; people have sung hymns to drinking, why -not to eating? We are not ashamed of “feasting” our eyes and our ears; -why not our palates?’ Some people understand this. Mr Anatole France -sums it up well when analysing a Castelnaudary stew:-- - -‘The Castelnaudary stew contains the preserved thighs of geese, -whitened beans, bacon, and a little sausage. To be good it must have -been cooked lengthily upon a gentle fire. Clemence’s stew has been -cooking for twenty years. She puts into the stew sometimes goose or -bacon, sometimes sausage or beans, but it is always the same stew. The -foundation endures; this ancient and precious foundation gives the stew -the quality that in the picture of old Venetian masters you find in the -women’s amber flesh.’ - -If you are a proper person you will call this disgusting; you will feel -that this is an indecent subject, and that an author who dares to head -his chapter ‘Soups and Stews’ ought in another world to be chained -for a thousand years to the ghost of Colonel Newnham Davis. That is -a legacy of the past; not more than twenty years ago it was indeed -indecent to discuss food, and if a vulgarian did so, the only thing the -lady of the house could reply was: ‘Oh, really!’ The war has altered -that, and I am inclined to hope that people who endlessly discussed the -difference between butter and margarine, the advantages to be found -in neck of mutton, will maintain these not ignoble preoccupations. I -believe they will, for they were moving that way; they had already -left far behind the Victorian lady with a wasp waist who ‘daintily -pecked at her dinner like a little bird.’ They may one day adopt -Brillat-Savarin’s dictum: ‘Let me cook your ministers’ dishes, and they -will give you good laws.’ - -But, leaving aside Soho, which is, after all, only the culinary -frontier, we find that the restaurant has spread over the whole -of London, carrying everywhere its gospel of satisfaction. This -gospel takes various forms, for restaurants fall into different -classes according to their locality and their prices. There are the -pompous, like the Carlton, the Savoy, the Popular Café; there are the -distinguished, such as Claridge’s, Jules’s, Dieudonné’s; there are the -fanciful, such as Pagani, Verrey’s, old Gambrinus, Bellomo’s, Gustave, -the Savoyard, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Greek; there is the -slab-of-meat class, such as Gatti’s, Simpson’s, to say nothing of the -Shepherd’s Bush Restaurant, and the Tulse Hill Hotel; above all there -is the restaurant of the Joseph Lyons civilisation, the Strand Palace -Hotel, the Regent Palace, the Strand Corner House. - -They all deserve their little word, and it is difficult to say of -each of them just what should be said, because they have so much in -common, yet are so far apart, like brothers and sisters. There is a -flavour of Joseph Lyons at the Savoy, while Gatti has Reggiori for a -little relative. Yet, when one comes to know them well, they are all -so different. No one, for instance, could mistake the Carlton for -the Savoy; both have a broad spaciousness born of their size, of the -comparative expensiveness of their meats; both are lofty and white and -clean; their glass is pretty good, and their plate so-so. But while the -Carlton maintains a certain air of having selected from among the not -very select, the Savoy shows little sign of having tried that much. -To lunch at the Savoy makes one feel not so much that one is among -the rich as among the well-to-do on short leave. The Savoy is sober; -its luxury is quieter than that of the Joseph Lyons restaurant; in a -way, with its top lights, its flowers, it recalls the Joseph Lyons -civilisation; the flowers are real, but not much more so; the band -is more discreet, but it plays the same tunes. Its population, too, -is different; at the Savoy, you do not see the young clerk, but you -do see what some of the young clerks will become if they are lucky; -many foreigners in a state of gormandise and bejewelment; rather dowdy -people, too, the well-off dowdy, whose sideboards must be taken to -pieces before they can be got into country cottages. The business -element is strong. Somehow, one tells a business man fairly easily; -he wears good clothes that nearly fit him; his hair is well cut, his -cheek is well shaved, but a consciousness of the barber’s art hangs -about his head; his elegance is not a natural product, it is one of the -goods which he produces; he misses ‘the line’ which some sediment of -aristocracy or musical-comedy upstart achieves better than will ever -the business man’s solidities. There is too much meat upon his cheeks; -you feel that he is a little too rich, just as his eyes are a little -too bright; he is like a very new knife that has not yet learned to cut. - -[Illustration: - - THE SAVOY] - -Others, too, Americans, who are happier in those big hotels than any -of the English, because hotel-life is, in many of them, an acquired -characteristic. They are interesting, those Savoy Americans, abundant -women, exquisite girls made of beautifully tinted steel-plate, those -men with the square shoulders, square chins, square heads, cubic -cheeks; you know, without being told, that they are connected with the -cinema trade, or that they are producing a play by Mr Montague Glass -or Mr Bayard Veiller, or that they are selling many motor-cars, or -something like that. (The American who comes to Europe for the purpose -of exporting art to Pittsburg is not found at the Savoy; he goes to -Chelsea and Fitzroy Square.) And yet it is not a disagreeable place; -its breadth, the airy width of plate-glass that looks out upon the -Thames, the cheapness and the adequacy of its food, all these are part -of the new restaurant of the new civilisation, which has replaced the -little taverns in the little corners of the town. It is no use being -sentimental over the little restaurant, or, indeed, over anything -little: there are too many of us for anything little to be much more -than a survival. If restaurants did not feed us a thousand at a time, -they would never manage to feed us all. - -One thinks of that in the small restaurants that have survived, such as -Verrey’s. To many people it seems a queer thing to lunch at Verrey’s; -it seems rather out of date, and, indeed, when one approaches that -frontage, painted a sort of faded 1850 blue and provided with coloured -glass, one has a sense of antiquity. Inside antiquity is still more -striking, for the big, square room under the skylight manages at the -same time to be drab in colour and Moorish Gothic in architecture. It -still has the many mirrors of the ’fifties, an air of being comfortably -off enough to afford to be dowdy. Rakish and dowdy! Can anything better -translate the amusements of two generations ago? To-day, Verrey’s -gives you a fair lunch, and at its café tables, which are somehow more -substantial than the café tables of Paris, you understand what England -thought the Continent must be like in the days of the Grand Tour. - -There are other places, fanciful as Verrey’s. There is Bellomo’s, in -Jermyn Street, a modest, pleasant little place, a long, narrow back -room filled with agreeable young couples. Bellomo’s is rather like a -young-old man, with its panelled wainscoting, its wallpaper of faded -gold, and its moulded, early Victorian frieze. There is something solid -about its dumb waiters; Bellomo’s is somehow benevolent. - -But then Verrey’s and Bellomo’s are within limited flights of fancy. -The curious gastronome will, in London, easily find queerer places and -foods. At Pagani’s he can come to understand that risotto may well be -eaten in Valhalla; at Gambrinus’s, the Regent Street one, of course, -he could, before the war, when it was German, find unexpected delight -in liver-sausage sandwiches, with perfectly sour gherkins, and, heaven -of heavens, really cold beer. In those days it was decorated with -antlers, enormous fanciful jugs, out of which you enormously drank the -frozen gold of that beer. I think it has become Belgian since the war; -I am not quite sure, for I went there only once after the transfer. - -But the truly curious go not to foreigners like Pagani or Gambrinus, -or even to Gustave, where the foods are truly French, or to the -Savoyard, where they are French and eatable under the eye of strange -pictures; the truly curious go not to the foreigner, but to the -professional foreigner, to restaurants such as the Greek, the Chinese, -or the Japanese. Of these the Chinese is the most attractive. I mean -the Cathay, next door to the Monico, not the Chinese restaurants -in Limehouse, where nothing is eatable, and nothing is tragic, and -nothing is coloured, let Mr Thomas Burke say what he likes. A lunch -at the Chinese restaurant is really an adventure, for nearly all the -dishes are made of the same things, and yet they all taste different. -There is an admirable dish, hang-yang-kai-ting, made of fried chicken -with almonds and bamboo shoots. That is a simple one, and the curious -will find more profit in a dish the name of which I have forgotten, -which contains fried sliced pork, celery, beans, sprouts, mushrooms, -bamboo shoots, and green chutney. Eat that, and it is a very large, -overflowing, savoury portion; flavour it well with chop-suey (which you -can call liquid salt if you are a foreign devil). Eat it immediately -after chicken liver soup, and if you do not forget before swallowing -the bamboo shoots to chew, and chew, and chew, then a true mellowness -will be known to you. Also, do not forget the great bowl of boiled -rice, pure, white rice, perfectly dried, not sticky rice _à la A.B.C._, -but rice where every grain remembers that it has a personality. Don’t -ask for chopsticks: the best people in China do not use chopsticks; -they use forks. (There used to be a Chinese restaurant where they -provided chopsticks for the English; it was great fun watching them -pour their food down their sleeves with that conscious air of duty -that seems to overwhelm the Englishman experiencing pleasure.) And -don’t forget dessert, ginger in syrup, fire in the midst of sweetness, -like a red-haired girl; and ly-chee, large, sweet, white nuts in an -opalescent syrup, extraordinarily good. - -But, in a way, all those places, the very rich and the very odd, are -running on their own ticket, and do not express the times in which -we live. Our modern times are the Strand Corner House. I should not -wonder if many of my readers had never been into the Strand Corner -House; that is, if they are incurious of life. If they repent their -acceptance of things as they are, they will find an unexpectedly -large building decorated with heavily flowered stucco mouldings, -with plate-glass, with stained glass, with panels of crimson satin. -They will find light, co-operative luxury; superposed tiers, bearing -crowds of people lunching on the top of one another’s heads, and at -the bottom of a deep well, a band that can be heard above the clatter -of twelve hundred pairs of jaws. A thousand people at a time really -eat all together at the Strand Corner House, and, in a way, no wonder. -The place is quite clean, not offensive in its appurtenances, and can -supply three courses for less than two shillings; the music is the -ordinary dance or sentimental music, the sort that makes you feel -friendly or affectionate as required. The public of the Strand Corner -House is, therefore, the world. Its variety is much greater than that -of any other place. One might think that this public would consist -exclusively of flappers and their escorts, and, indeed, the flapper -is prevalent, though she comes in threes and fours quite as much -as more ostentatiously with a ‘boy.’ Also the suburbs, middle-aged -couples, when the wife has been shopping in St Paul’s Churchyard and -has strayed down the Strand; unexpectedly you see people with an air of -modish vanity, dashing people who smoke cigarettes and drink claret, -damning both the expense and the consequences. Though very few of the -frequenters could be mistaken for members of the classes, none are -members of the masses; they seem to be in a state of social suspension; -they are, especially the girls, of a rather crystalline type. I mean -that you realise their good looks at once instead of by degrees. If -you look about you, you will not fail to find half a dozen faces that -can give you the knock ... only, if you look round the other way, you -will probably see another half a dozen faces that can give you exactly -the same knock, and when one is an old Londoner and has been getting -the knock all one’s life, well, one unfortunately comes to stand it -rather well. - -These great crowds of young people with a little money in their pocket -and much zest in their hearts tend to fall into uniform types. The men -nearly all buy their collars at the Regent Street branches of city -hosiers; the girls seem to skim the lighter froth of the big West End -stores, except that Marshall’s knows them not. This produces a uniform -quality: they have to overtake the fashions, and so become a little -_outrées_. - -Women, more readily than men, respond to the stratifications of -restaurants, because they are more adaptable. Their very clothes show -it; women are like cats, they have no bones, and easily suit themselves -to bell-mouthed skirt or hobble. The female form is infinitely -squashable and extensible; any fashion can transform it, and if a woman -has the wit to shun the becoming, she can always be in the fashion if -she dares. If she fails, it is because she does not dare to underline -her deficiency. If I were a woman and extraordinarily tall, I should -dress myself in vertical stripes; if I were very short and very -stout, I should insert the hoops of barrels under my skirt; I should -be hideous, but I should be It, for the essence of true fashion is -extremism. I said fashion, not elegance; that is quite another story, -but then, to be elegant you must be born as the greyhound, and if you -strive to elegance you are more likely to resemble the mouse. Fashion -is much easier. - -[Illustration: - - SHOPPING] - -Not only in her clothes, but in herself, does the metropolitan girl -define her city. She is always the creature of the day, who heavily -overlays the creature of all time. In soups and stews she has little -part, for a woman is a poor partner at the table. She eats and drinks, -as a rule, without much science or much intentness; she eats too -little, she bolts; she does not realise that she is doing something -important and artistic. Oh, it is not that she is lifted high -above material desires, for, indeed, certain articles of food, such -as chocolates, certain drinks, such as liqueurs, make her accept the -society of the dullest and the most dreary, but such trifles are -merely the preludes and the coronals of the true soup and the true -stew. Still, she is the decoration and the charm of the table; when Mr -Lauzerte said that where there are no women there is no true elegance, -he was speaking the truth. In matters of food they care very little -what it is and very much what it looks. Also, because few of them -neglect an advantage and prove the old adage that what woman most -desires is mastery over man, they never ignore what they look upon as a -gross means of seduction. It was a woman, I think, who told another to -‘feed the brute.’ What an illusion! If you have to deal with a brute, -indeed, you can keep him quiet by feeding him, just as you mollify -Cerberus with a sop, but to keep a man quiet ... how unnecessary in the -early days of marriage! and how disastrous after! It is unconsciously, -I think, that women strive to please the palate of men, that is they -are unconscious of the effects of such a course. Unless they are very -unhappy they do not want to soothe the sullen creature; they wish to -produce in him a light and airy grace, a not very promising ambition. -For some men, who are in possession of all their senses, will feel -true gratitude, which is akin to love, to the one who knows how so to -flatter them. One of them said to me not long ago: ‘It makes the day -easier to feel that I shall go back to-night to a perfectly cooked -meal, and a perfectly dressed wife.’ I am not quite sure whether he -said that, or whether it was ‘a perfectly dressed wife, and a perfectly -cooked meal,’ but anyhow, it does not matter, for in that man’s mind -the two delights had grown mixed. That is what every woman knows, and -perhaps she is wise as well as humble in hoping to mingle with the -_potage velouté_ some of the old philtres of love. - - - - - VI - IN SEARCH OF VICE - - -CHAPTER VI - -IN SEARCH OF VICE - - -When I first came to London I was twenty years old; I came from Paris, -and, being twenty, felt sure that there remained no sensations for -me to experience, no realms of passion to explore. I felt that I had -lived--well, lived; that I came from Babylon city, and was now entering -a Puritanic world, a place of dignities and parliaments, of clergymen -with white bibs, of ladies with prominent teeth and elastic-sided boots -who said ‘shocking’; I also felt that I was entering the country of -_le sport, le flirt_; I had also been told that the English were a -strange people, adepts in every depravity, of which the secret drinking -of methylated spirits was a minor example. I admired them thoroughly, -as I admired Westminster Abbey. Briefly, a land of virtue. This state -of mind was fairly well kept up for the first year, because it rained -nearly all the time, and there is nothing like a rainy summer to raise -the moral tone of the streets. I was interested by the life I saw round -me, bored by the life I led on thirty-eight shillings a week; I could -afford little in the way of theatres; whisky made me sick; so did Irish -stew and suet pudding; I did not see as much of my fellows as I wanted, -because, in those days, I often had to choose between a clean shirt -in the evening, and a cut from the joint at lunch. Also, my landlady -washed the collie in the bath, which annoyed me. - -It is not surprising, then, that I did not at once enter London’s -‘gilded haunts of vice.’ It took me a little time to discover them, -and, to be truthful, I am still looking for them. Indeed, I can say -that I have employed a considerable portion of the last eighteen years -in search of vice, and it may be that I must blame a Parisian education -for my disappointment. I thought I had found vice the first time I saw -a couple publicly embrace, opposite Marble Arch, never having seen -anything so indecent in a Continental city; but this was an illusion, -just like another illusion when, for the first time, I heard a speaker -in the Park state his true opinion of the Royal Family: I thought -this was the beginning of the revolution, and could not understand why -the police looked so bored. I do now, for I suppose that meetings have -been going on for several generations. But when it came to vice, when -I explained to my new and fast English friends that I was looking for -vice, when they took me to the old Empire Promenade, when they bade -me be shocked at the condition of Regent Street, between Vigo Street -and Piccadilly Circus, when they took me to Earl’s Court to ogle and -to drink milk-coffee, when they drew my attention to the chorus girls -performing what they called orgies in the punts near Maidenhead, a -certain melancholy crept over me. English vice was overrated. Indeed, -to this day, I am sure that there is very little vice in England, that -the Londoner, particularly, is a flighty creature, who kills virtue -with his mouth, who tells unpleasant stories about the deeds of other -people, and paints the town red with the assistance of his fancy socks. -They are cowards, really, and most of them, when they slip at all, seem -to slip ignobly into the rare satisfaction of a purely animal instinct; -also, to do this, they need drink. Nero would not have understood them -at all. - -Since those days much time has passed, and now and then, here and -there, I have come a little closer to those strange and secret -depravities of which, according to the Continent, London holds the -monopoly. The newspapers are helpful; for they have occasional fits -of virtue and begin to expose something, thus, at last, giving it an -advertisement; or the police intervene and shut up a restaurant, thus -focusing all eyes upon its proprietor and making him so famous that -when he opens another restaurant next door he is assured of custom. And -so I have known dreadful places, manicure shops where hands were held -longer than filing demands, tea shops where the depraved waitresses -call you ‘old dear,’ and demonstrate that in a chair when there is -room for one there is room for two. It is perfectly appalling. I have -been to the old Continental and to the old Globe Restaurant to spend -considerable sums on not very satisfactory meals, to see a number of -ladies manifest a little more clearly than is the custom the liberalism -of their mind. I don’t know why it strikes the Puritan faction as -so terrible that the women whom they call lost should congregate in -a particular place; it cannot be because thus they can be found, for -the Puritans must know that there is no street in central London, no -tube, no omnibus, which does not hold as much temptation and as much -opportunity as a small room in a quiet restaurant. I suppose it is the -openness of the thing shocks them, the fact that they cannot cover it -up and, therefore, pretend it is not there. But if that is vice, if -that is ‘the smirch on our fair escutcheon,’ then, indeed, must English -prudery be easily offended. It must be a sensitive prudery, for it -cried out against night-clubs, against the Cave of the Golden Calf, -where a few people did drink too much, against the excessive dancing at -poor Ciro’s, which for a time fell among Y.M.C.A.’s. - -Also, during the war, a great fuss was raised in the newspapers over -the flappers in the Strand. I do not think anybody would have bothered -much about the flappers if, at that time, we had not had among us a -number of Anzacs who, as everybody knows, are the gentlest and most -guileless of men. These unfortunate young soldiers, finding themselves -lonely in a town such as ours, where no man needs go lonely along a -street if he has a little determination, lacking all the home comforts -which are implied in the possession of aunts, made their acquaintances -where they could. The flappers in the Strand who, to my knowledge, -have always been in the Strand, particularly on Saturday afternoon -and on Saturday night, when they descend upon Villiers Street and -the bandstand, coming from Aldgate and alighting at Charing Cross, -naturally welcomed them. Now, in the old days the flappers attached -themselves to any young man they met; sometimes he was a soldier in -a red coat, sometimes just a civilian, and nobody bothered, because -in those days it was not evident that anything unusual existed in the -association. Common sense revealed to all of us that these friendships -had been formed round the bandstand, but nobody was compelled to know -that they did not arise out of engagements of five years’ standing. On -the other hand, the Anzacs, with their beautiful bodies, their bronzed -faces and their squash hats, were noticeable; a Puritan, after having, -in the course of Saturday afternoon, seen several hundred Anzacs -accompanied by pretty girls, was compelled to realise that there could -not be so many Anzacs united by engagements of five years’ standing, -to the flappers in the Strand. The Puritan hates realising, because -when he realises he has to do something energetic, write to a paper, or -form a committee, or something. He does not mind writing to a paper or -forming a committee, but the whole thing upsets him; he cannot cover it -up, and he runs about with wild eyes, terrified because the thing which -is generally covered up has got loose. - -It was that gave rise to the trouble, and the Puritans, determined that -the flappers should flap no more, had to manufacture a theoretical -Anzac, a young man from Melbourne (but born in the Bush, where no woman -had ever been before), a young man extraordinarily pure in spirit, -but liable to fall into temptation even if he had to cross the road -to do so, a young man imbued by his past education with a profound -reverence for womankind, whose feelings of reverence were daily being -outraged by shameless exhibitions into which he was reluctantly drawn. -It’s queer; this flapper question occupied the Press for months; now -and then the controversy died down, and then a Bishop or a special -article writer brought it up again; agents-general were called upon -to proclaim that our soldiers feared no foe in shining armour because -their heart was pure, while, in the same column, presidents of watch -committees gloomily acknowledged that something seemed to have happened -to the purity of those hearts. But all agreed that that purity must -at once be restored, that the Anzacs, which includes the Canadians, -the South Africans, and other moral weaklings, must be protected. To -this day we are protecting men of thirty against girls of fifteen: I -never heard anybody talk of protecting the flappers, for it was assumed -that, by the time they were fifteen, they had sunk too deep in iniquity -to deserve better protection than four walls in Holloway. And no one -seems to have asked himself whether these young men, cut away from old -habits, from their friends and their work, did not desperately want -feminine companionship; the members of watch committees did not ask -Colonials to stay with them for the weekend; for a long time they did -not even provide them with sufficient sleeping places, but seemed to -expect them to make merry all night in the ribald waiting-rooms of -Waterloo. Briefly, their virtue was to be its own reward, and certainly -we could not take from Nietzsche the aphorism that man is for war, -woman for the recreation of the warrior. Above all, we could not let -them alone. - -Owing to this, my moral sense being aroused by an article in a Sunday -paper, I devoted a Saturday to a search for vice. Of course, I began -in the Strand, where I was told vice reigns. I saw a great number of -soldiers, doubtless viciously employed, but conducting their debauches -with singular restraint and dignity. Outside the Corner House stood -a number of boudoir ladies from the Government offices, who were -deplorably waiting for omnibuses; many of them may have been viciously -employed, but as their company was mostly confined to their own sex, -they were not sliding very fast down the butter-slide of perdition; -mostly, they were eating chocolates, and the fact that chocolates then -cost four shillings a pound may be sufficient evidence of undesirable -conduct, but this seems to me hardly enough to hang even a girl on. -I proceeded up the Strand where the East End was slowly beginning to -arrive, mostly in twos and threes. Often, indeed, I met the regrettable -flapper; certainly she was powdered and lip-salved, and I do not know -that this is exceptional, but right up to Temple Bar not a single -flapper made an effort to draw me from the straight path. (It is all -very well saying that I may not be the sort of person whom the flapper -would want to draw from the straight path, but surely vice has no -pride, and stoops to all men.) The most vicious thing I saw was two -soldiers and two girls walking rudely arm in arm. - -I did my best. Indeed, I think I became a regular _agent provocateur_, -but I did not seem able to provoke anybody. So, desperately, I turned -back and crossed the river towards Waterloo Road. The reputation of -this gray and green commercial track was made by the street arab in -_Captain Brassbound’s Conversion_, who declared that if he did in -Morocco the things he did in Waterloo Road he would be hanged. But -nothing was happening in Waterloo Road; many people were drinking in -many public-houses; I entered a few public-houses, and though I tried -as hard as the two houses of convocation put together, I found nothing. -I will not weary you with details; it is enough to say that, still -guided by my Sunday newspaper, I proceeded on my footsore search. By -evening, I was lurking round Victoria, watching from the corner of my -eyes for the harpies who drug veteran members of the Band of Hope, and -after I had loafed about for a while, no doubt I must have conveyed a -harpy-like suggestion; I was seen in a picture palace, peering into -the dimness of the curtained boxes, which was easy, as they were not -dim. That night I was seen in many places, searching the blackness -of railway arches, furtively peering down the staircases of tubes, -hoping to discover the worst; I appeared in the deserted City; the back -streets of Theobald’s Road, the confidences of a hall porter in Gerrard -Street (expensive and uneventful), a long inspection of the first -floor fronts of Vauxhall Bridge Road, seen from the top of a tram, -all these grew familiar to me; and still nothing. As time went on, my -legs grew more and more woolly; my mind so obsessed and incoherent, -that I realised time would soon fit me for membership of the National -Vigilance Society. I even entered the Leicester Lounge, where there was -hardly anybody, as it was not Boat Race night; then I wondered whether -a visit to North Bank, St John’s Wood ... and awoke from my trance, -remembering that this would be thirty years late. There is no vice in -London; at least, there is nothing deliberate and artistic, just as -there is very little in Paris or Vienna that would justify a Welsh -elder in taking so long a journey. It is a pity that so fair a bubble -should be pricked. - -This does not mean that London is a magnified Exeter Hall. There are, -in this town, about half a million bachelors, and that is enough to -lower the moral status of any city. There are also rather more married -men, which does not mend matters. Observe the bias of my mind: I have -forgotten to tell you the number, frequently quoted by indignant letter -writers to the Press, of women who hold forth temptation. For it may -be true that supply assists demand, but it is much more certain that -demand makes supply. During the war, for instance, there was great -agitation in the Upper House of Convocation, where the Bishop of London -revealed that in Cayeux and Havre undesirable houses were frequented -by British troops. Canon Burroughs went on to ask for purity patrols, -while the Bishop of Oxford presented a resolution designed to protect -our troops from molestation in London. This is all very well, and -deserves all sympathy, but the Bishop of London unfortunately read out -a protest addressed to the Mayor of the French town by its inhabitants, -and this protest referred to ‘crowds of English soldiers waiting -outside the houses.’ Does one, then, wait for temptation? Does not -temptation steal upon one as a thief in the night, or as a raging lion, -seeking whom it may devour? It is a picturesque idea this, of crowds -of innocent victims impatiently waiting for an opportunity to degrade -their eternal spirit. - -Temptation is nonsense. I have spoken to many men about temptation; -they are seldom tempted, and this for very good reasons: men do not -fall, they dive. The women who ‘prey on them,’ fulfil a function -which will be necessary so long as society is as vilely constituted -as it is, so long as life is hard and insecure, so long as social -relations are false, so long as marriage is expensive and difficult of -dissolution, and, especially, so long as the hearts of men are brutish -and the hearts of women soft. The class which for centuries has been -hunted, has for centuries been maintained by the hunter, just as the -fox is bred and protected for the pleasure of the chase. Those women -do not seem to me to lead as easy lives as the men who profit by their -weakness; they look rather less well-fed, less well-clad; they wear -gold of a lesser carat; when they die their names do not appear in the -newspapers under the final advertisement: ‘To-day’s wills.’ Truly, the -wages of sin are low. Should we not conclude that if bread is so dear, -and flesh and blood cheap, there is no great inducement for the sale of -flesh and blood, except the cost of bread? Perhaps it is the easiest -way, but only for those to whom all ways would be easy. - -There is no remedy for what the social campaigners call the condition -of our streets, except an alteration in the mind of the men who walk -in them; Christianity cannot help, for Christianity attempts to solve -this problem by purging sin, instead of realising misfortune. Thus too -many Christians justify Tacitus: ‘After the burning of Rome, suspicion -fell on the Emperor. In order to allay them, the Emperor embarked on -a series of persecutions; among those he persecuted was a sect that -called themselves Christians, who had incurred the animosity of the -populace owing to their sullen hatred of mankind.’ - -Tacitus was wrong, but then he was judging the Christians of his day -as agitators. The streets will alter when the houses along the streets -alter, when mankind has found love in the mind, when it is no longer -content with the love of the body. The majority of men seem to approach -life as pigs do the trough. Visit a West End restaurant, and you will -be sure. In that trough are not only curds and whey, and truffles, and -other suitable dainties; but excessive clothes and jewellery, honours, -false social values, irrelevant powers; so long as the Gadarene crowd -nuzzle and fight about that trough, so long will many of those, who are -not Gadarene in the spirit, be infected with envy and desire, so long -will they be driven to shrillness and self-advertisement, so long drawn -by popularity and repelled by fame. Meanwhile, it naturally follows -that what many call vice should endure, for vice is the satisfaction -that dulls the flesh when the spirit aches. Happy men have no vices; -it is only the unhappy, the hungry, fly to them. For my part, if I had -to make laws for a new society, I would make few. I should say rather -that we will build our new society so that all may be assured security -and justice, but no more. If we were to establish justice, we should -automatically do away with the curse of the world, which is wealth. It -might be a pity. It may be that Anatole France is right when he says: -‘The devil dead, good-bye sin. Maybe beauty, this ally of the devil, -will vanish with him. Maybe that we shall not again see the flowers -that intoxicate, and the eyes that slay.’ Still, one would like to see -it tried. - -[Illustration: - - THE CHELSEA ARTS BALL] - - - - - VII - THE POOR - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE POOR - - -Not much more than a dozen years ago, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman -startled England by stating that thirteen million of our people stood, -at all times, on the edge of starvation. He took as a basis the study -of the condition of the poor, made by Mr Charles Booth in a great -number of volumes, containing a great number of columns of figures, and -was alluding in general to the large class that existed on a family -income of twenty-three shillings a week. There was something terrible -about those figures, so terrible that even the press was shocked. But -there was something uninspired and inhuman about Mr Booth’s columns -of figures; it is all very well telling us that so many thousands of -people live five in a room, and so many thousands six in a room, and so -on, but it does not mean anything. The ordinary man finds it almost as -difficult to imagine that kind of life as to visualise a million; he -can see six people in a room, but his mind does not bring up the idea -of those six people in material attitudes, sleeping, eating, courting, -making merry; figures create no microcosm. I suspect that to understand -the poor, a little, you need to know very well the places where the -poor live. The house is a fairly clear indication of the inhabitant; -it is the house he chose, or the house to which he submitted. Then who -is this poor man? this poor man round whom so many essays have been -written? by the Fabian Society, judicial; by the Charity Organisation -Society, severe; by Mr John Galsworthy, understanding and tender? The -poor man is of the same genus as the rich man, but of a different -species. (I mean the born poor man as opposed to the born rich man.) -The rich man is no better than the poor man; the poor man is no better -than the rich man; they are different creatures, made such by different -conditions, just as a Spaniard and a Lancastrian are made different by -their various lives. Only, and there’s the political rub, Englishmen -have not to administer the affairs of Spaniards, while they do have to -administer the affairs of their own poor; thus it is important that -they should not blunder, because the poor are not good at improving -conditions; their attitude is to grin and bear, and then, one day, to -cease to bear. - -To understand them at all one must take an imaginative leap; if you -find this difficult, Mr John Galsworthy has taken it admirably in _The -Freelands_. Listen to his description of a labourer’s life:-- - -‘He gets up summer and winter ... out of a bed that he cannot afford -time or money to keep too clean or warm, in a small room that probably -has not a large enough window; into clothes stiff with work, and -boots stiff with clay; makes something hot for himself, very likely -brings some of it to his wife and children; goes out, attending to -his digestion crudely and without comfort; works with his hands and -feet from half-past six or seven in the morning till past five at -night, except that twice he stops for an hour or so and eats simple -things that he would not altogether have chosen to eat, if he could -have had his will. He goes home to a tea that has been got ready for -him, and has a clean-up without assistance, smokes a pipe of shag, -reads a newspaper perhaps two days old, and goes out again to work for -his own good, in his vegetable patch, or to sit on a wooden bench in -an atmosphere of beer and “baccy.” And so, dead tired, but not from -directing other people, he drowses himself to early lying again in his -doubtful bed.’ - -One should read, as a contrast, Mr Galsworthy’s description of the rich -man he calls Malloring:-- - -‘Your Malloring is called with a cup of tea, at, say, seven o’clock, -out of a nice, clean, warm bed; he gets into a bath that has been got -ready for him; into clothes and boots that have been brushed for him; -and goes down to a room where there’s a fire burning already if it’s -a cold day, writes a few letters, perhaps, before eating a breakfast -of exactly what he likes, nicely prepared for him, and reading the -newspaper that best comforts his soul; when he has eaten and read, -he lights his cigar or his pipe, and attends to his digestion in the -most sanitary and comfortable fashion; then in his study he sits down -to the steady direction of other people, either by interview or by -writing letters, or what not. In this way, between directing people -and eating what he likes, he passes the whole day, except that for -two or three hours, sometimes indeed seven or eight hours, he attends -to his physique by riding, motoring, playing a game, or indulging -in a sport that he has chosen for himself. And, at the end of all -that, he probably has another bath that has been made ready for him, -puts on clean clothes that have been put out for him, goes down to a -good dinner that has been cooked for him, smokes, reads, learns, and -inwardly digests, or else plays cards, billiards, and acts host until -he is sleepy, and so to bed, in a clean, warm bed, in a clean, fresh -room.’ - -I challenge you to say that this is exaggerated. If you like, say you -don’t care; but don’t say it isn’t true. And I will not preach at you, -but suggest, to such as detect in me sentimentality, that if we belong -to a refined and gifted class into whose hands the world has been -given, if, indeed, we are refined and gifted people, a condition such -as that of the poor man should offend our æsthetic sense. I have known -a rather larger number of poor men than is usual in my class; I have -not known them very well, because the worst of the difference between -the rich and the poor is that the poor cannot trust the rich; they know -them too well. The poor know that the rich conduct against them the -class-war, and so they are defensive, inclined either to say the thing -that will procure a tip, or a post as office-boy for little Tommy, or -they will turn savagely on you to show you they are as good as you, and -tell you that though margarine is good enough for you, their inborn -good taste makes it impossible for them to consume anything but the -best butter. One does not get together, any more than that Spaniard and -that Lancastrian would get together, after five years of Ollendorff. -Still, if one passionately wants to understand, one sometimes, for a -moment, perceives the shadow of a hint of what another creature is. I -remember perceiving it, for the first time, in the midst of an alien -family in Widegate Street, just off Petticoat Lane; I had been sent by -the firm who employed me to make searching inquiries and to dispense -small bounties. My aliens were, I think, German Jews, who called -themselves Russian refugees because it sounded more appealing; they -were not a pleasant crowd; the man was a great, big, heavy, fat fellow, -with greasy, black hair, a rather surly brigand; there was a woman, -too, lying in a corner, dirtier than the man, presumably because she -had been lying there for some time; there were four little children, -exceedingly fat and well kept, the usual mystery of Jewish poverty; -there was an extraordinarily old woman who sat next to the woman on the -floor, and from the beginning to the end of the interview said not a -word and moved not a feature. But the horror of it came from the woman -on the floor, who also said not a word: there was no furniture in the -room, not a table, not a chair, not even a bed; the woman lay on a few -crumpled newspapers ... and had, the night before, given birth to a -child, who lay naked between her indescribably filthy bodice and her -breast. They were there, all together, in the midst of life, left and -abandoned, hungrily desirous of the moment when the great industrial -machine of London would be ready to consume them. Impostors, perhaps, -but if so, hard is the way of imposture and slender the wages thereof. - -I remember thinking, after that, as I went along Petticoat Lane, -that is become Middlesex Street, how much the district resembled the -people. There is no Petticoat Lane now; Middlesex Street holds nothing -picturesque or national; even its open-air market on Sunday morning can -be paralleled by any Saturday afternoon scene in the little streets -of Edgware Road, or in Walker’s Court, Soho. It is a street mainly of -warehouses; Widegate Street and Sandys Row exhibit the oddity of narrow -crookedness and no more. Petticoat Lane, where the shops are paltry, -and the folk divide into too fat and too lean, is not even a mean -street. Its one charm is the prevalent, handsome young Jewess, aged -about fourteen, with high tasselled boots, and plenty of silk stocking, -containing plenty of leg. She is a fine girl; she haunts you all along -Whitechapel Road, and so to Mile End, with her rude air of wealth and -wealth-consciousness. I don’t know how she does it; with very little -money, some crude colour and some light furs, she suggests opulence. -There is something matronly about her, too; she looks so marriageable -... and when one looks into the humid softness of her brown eyes, one -finds a limitless rectitude of morals, which may arise from a limitless -power to resist temptation. - -Her thick mouth is tight closed; her stays are tight; her mind is -tight. She is fair and square, and will give her husband value for his -money, but somehow one feels it a pity that all she will give him is -value. - -Those girls are part of a certain reckless gaiety that pervades -Whitechapel. I like Whitechapel Road; the streets that run off it are -indeed tragic with dirt and desolation, but the road itself, which is -the pleasure-house of the inhabitants, is full of vitality. At all -times it is thickly peopled, mostly with foreign Jews of all types, -many of them scrubby little men with beards, who gesticulate in groups -at street corners, and argue with their co-religionists. Some are in a -state of offensive prosperity. Those Jewish crowds are more alive than -the average London crowd; their eyes shine more, as if they were more -capable of conceiving desire. They are at their most intense before the -many open-air stalls, where you may buy boots and clothing, flowers, -toys, and books, and music, and furniture, and every food you know, and -some you do not; and teasers for ladies, and surprises for gents, and -penny boxes of tricks that will make you popular at a social evening, -and collections of jokes of ancient lineage. It is a wonderful show; -it is, in many ways, more wonderful than Williamson’s Bonanza in the -Brixton Road, because it is cheaper, because a penny goes farther, and -thus the penn’orth is more hotly desired. All that points to another -side of the poor, the side Mr Galsworthy never sees: their joys. - -It is true that the joyous side of poverty is much less evident -than the unhappy side; this because the pleasures of the poor are -either localised within their own homes (instead of outcropping in -restaurants), or because they are confined every year to a limited -number of delirious days. Also, the places in which they live are -mostly so abominable that it is difficult for men of our sort to -understand that delight may dwell in a slum a little more easily, and a -little longer than love in a cottage. - -The slums are so evident to our eyes; they are everywhere. For -instance, there is an unexpected little slum in the middle of Mayfair, -round Shepherd Market and Shepherd Street. I believe the whole place -is insanitary and should be pulled down (I have no love for the -picturesque). It is surprising to think that the inhabitants of Mayfair -must now and then go through the little, cramped market with the small, -dirty houses, yet fail to discover that here, between Curzon Street and -Piccadilly, stands a knot of public-houses at one of which, perhaps, -Sam Weller was asked to take part in a swarry of boiled mutton; the -hypothetical investigator from Grosvenor Square would be surprised -to find out that here one can buy a shirt for 3s. 6d., sweets by the -ounce, underclothes for 2s. 11d., and that for 2d. a hungry man can -purchase a meat pie. It is like that all over London, in Belgravia, -in Marylebone, just as in St Giles’s. They have not quite slain St -Giles’s, the street-improvers, and there still is charm in Seven Dials, -where once seven little public-houses stood at seven little corners, -and each public-house had a dial. You told the time by tossing up or -averaging. And now there is but one dial left, and it has lost its -hands. (Hush, my soul! Do not let the spirit of Mr E. V. Lucas invade -thee.) - -[Illustration: - - SHEPHERD’S MARKET] - -There is more truth in the frank slums over the river. I once enjoyed -the services of a supernumerary postman, who frequently came to -my house to make experiments on the garden, to put up shelves, to -interfere with the gas, or to drown kittens. In the end he went too -far, for he attempted to cure the ball-cock of some obscure disease, -and it responded to his treatment by flooding the kitchen three feet -deep. But before that tragic day (you should have seen my cat swim), -I visited him in Rotherhithe, because, among his many supernumerary -trades, he numbered that of vine grower. Against the back of his -house in West Lane he had, indeed, managed to grow a splendid, -muscular-looking vine, which produced great quantities of grapes; these -grapes, when eaten, reproduced what is probably the flavour of vitriol, -but he was very proud of them, and ate them, and he kept his vine in -condition by occasionally watering its roots with a bucket of bullock’s -blood. He received this free, because he kept the slaughterer’s books -in his spare time. But all this is by the way, and there are many -respectable old gentlemen who do all these things and are thought none -the worse of; as everybody knows, lunacy in the poor is originality -in the rich. What was interesting about the supernumerary’s home was -the breadth of West Lane, that is really a dingy square of bare earth -planted with trees whose every sooty leaf whispers: ‘Oh! had I the -wings of a dove!’ It is a square of crumbling Georgian frontages not -devoid of a certain splendour. That discovery is one of the keys to the -condition of the poor. You find this not only in Rotherhithe, but in -Clapham, in Brixton, in the New Kent Road; here and there, behind the -board of a photographer, where are exposed pictures of young men with -all their hair brushed off their foreheads, and of young girls with -all their hair brushed into their eyes, you see a beautiful old house -with a porch of the Adams type. Many of these streets, such as Old Kent -Road, such as Tooley Street, have become wholly commercial, have turned -into long lines of gray warehouses and decaying side streets, haunted -by many children; some, like Jamaica Road, and most of Bermondsey, -have entirely fallen into the hands of the grayest commerce, but here -and there you are bound to find a still splendid Georgian house, -looking rather like a distressed Irish lady, who does her best to -keep her transformation combed, and to maintain the traditions of the -Ballymullins of County Mayo. These houses are in the hands of the -poor, which means that, originally intended for prosperous people with -several servants, they have been cut up into tenements; this also means -that the stairs have not been mended since the days of William IV.; -that Queen Victoria came to the throne, and married and mourned, that -Disraeli passed reform bills while no bathrooms were put in; that the -tap went on running in the backyard, where Georgian wealth used to fill -the jugs; it means that the old house has lost most of its glass, and -is running with mice and stinking with beetles; that the drains have -been left by the local to a higher authority. Part of the tragedy of -the poor is that few houses have been built for them, and that they -have to adapt themselves to houses discarded by the rich, which are -not meant for them, which are not usable by them. The rooms are so -large that the poor cannot afford them unless they overcrowd them; or -they have tiny windows because they were limited by the old window -tax. There is only one thing to do for them, as is the case with most -institutions: blow them up. - -Will the superman be bred by the L.C.C.? I do not know, but I am sure -that the superman will not be bred in any numbers in the middle of the -stench of the past. Evil and old are almost synonyms, and I confess -that I like better the vulgarity of the suburban street, with its -concrete that pretends to be stone, and its plaster beams that pretend -to be wood, its wooden pillars that pretend to be marble. I like it -better, with its bay windows, so built that no article of furniture -will fit it, with its awful ingle nooks, its sham gables and its sham -dormer windows, than the awful old Georgian houses near Lamb’s Conduit -Street, where, crowded together under a ceiling still flecked with -gold, on which naked cherubs sprawl, a dozen Russian furriers sit and -scratch. For the hideous modern house can at least be clean; it is -small; it is washable; a through draught can be arranged; a very little -it opens the window on life. - -In the sense of housing we have never housed our poor; hardly anywhere, -up to 1900 or so, have we done anything but run up rude brick boxes -as shelters, or adapt the dwellings of the rich. Hence, I believe, -a stricken, scrofulous generation. Yes, I know there is a charm -about all this black filth, as if, indeed, flowers did sprout from -dunghills. It is the charm of contrast, it is singularity. You feel -it in every poor region. You feel it at the Elephant and Castle, for -instance, though why the Elephant should alone be famous, while at the -two opposite corners sit the Rockingham and Alfred’s Head, equally -great public-houses, I do not know; you feel it in the rowdiness of -London Road, and in a sort of ‘none-of-your-lip’ air that hangs over -Newington Causeway. You feel it still more in Deptford; indeed, -Deptford is a pitiful place, all gray stone and gray slate, but the -smell of the sea hangs about it, and as it lies along the docks, often -above these slate roofs, above the timber stacks of strange wood, you -see the tangled masts and cranes cut out against the sky, patterns -evidently designed by Nevinson. I remember once seeing on the shoulder -of an old woman who kept a stationer’s shop, a gorgeous parrot. It had -a yellow and blue body, scarlet feathers in its tail, a bill of ebony, -and eyes like molten gold. It sat on her shoulder, thinking of things -old as the willow pattern. The parrot looked out upon Deptford High -Street, through the flaming topaz of its eyes at the young men who -passed now and then, sun-burnt starvelings of the merchant service, in -blue jerseys; the sailors rolled and the parrot thought, and in the -heat the East breathed from the logs of mahogany and sandalwood. But -under all that, under all that theatrical charm was buried the same old -thing, the bad old house made to fit the bad new time. - -Yet, the poor are not as unhappy as they look. They do not, in the -accepted sense, live a life of pleasure, but to say that they have no -pleasures, or can have none because they are poor, is a mistake. The -poor have cheap pleasures, pleasures which many of us do not care for, -and they take no part in what we choose to call pleasures. If I were -compelled to say something sweeping, I should say that the rich have -less pleasures than the poor; they are free from more pains, but that -is not the same thing. The pleasures of the poor reside much more than -do ours in animal comforts; whereas the rich take a good dinner and -its wines as a matter of course, the poor make a feast of a joint or a -gallon of beer. Things such as these, food, drink, warmth, second-class -travelling, arm-chairs, extra blankets, translate themselves, not into -the mere satisfaction of needs, but into recognisable pleasures. It is -so in the whole field of their amusements, the cinema, the music-hall, -the football and cricket fields, where many watch matches, and a few -play them; it is so in regard to bank holidays, to journeys to Southend -or Margate, to bathing, to visiting the Chamber of Horrors, to being -photographed. All these things matter more to the poor than they do -to the rich, and you will realise that this is true, if you recall -that you have never met an underpaid clerk or a working girl who did -not passionately look forward to holidays. On the other hand, you -are all familiar with the state of mind of a well-to-do family, who -solemnly discuss one May evening, ‘Where shall we go in August?’ When -the poor discuss where they shall go to in August, and most of them -mean on August Bank Holiday, they do not come together in the spirit of -profound misery and grim hostility that characterises the respectable -classes. They do not go away because they must go away in August, nor -must they go away in August because everybody goes away in August: it -costs them something to go away. The holiday is a treat, and is not a -part of the household budget estimated for in every income. I need not -stress this, but we all know that when estimates are prepared one must -put in rent, rates, taxes, doctor, dentist, chemist ... _holidays_. -That is not pleasure. But it is pleasure when Alf tells Ethel that he -has had a rise, and that they can this year rise to Cromer instead of -Ramsgate. The difference is still more remarkable if we recall the -‘thank-God-that’s-over’ attitude of the rich when, at last, their -holiday is done, and the beneficent train pants into Paddington or -Victoria. I have known many poor young men and women, and never met one -who had not enjoyed a perfect holiday. I have met some who had passed -seven days in a mackintosh, and even then had enjoyed a perfect holiday. - -The poor have pleasures, because they draw more than we can from -pleasures; they anticipate more, because they are less spoilt by the -experience of pleasures, and have not yet found out that these have -mutable faces. To make their good fortune more complete, they are even -capable of anticipating pleasure without being disappointed when they -attain it. Their pleasures are keen, because they are rare. They are -keen, because they obtain very little pleasure without paying for it, -and as they have little money they must scheme, plan, save; so pleasure -becomes a thing to strive for, a true reward; they have to climb the -fig tree to secure the figs; they are not cursed with the ownership of -the fig tree, cannot lie under its boughs until a ripe fig drops into -their mouth. - -We must not forget, too, that poverty has psychological reactions. -Mr Bernard Shaw says that poverty is a disgusting disease, and, on -the whole, he is right, but the sufferer has marvellous moments of -recovery. In those moments the poor man does what the rich man, by -long education, has been taught not to do: he lets himself go. He -can hold arms with half a dozen companions and proceed uproariously -along a pier, singing abominably an excellent music-hall tune, to the -inefficient accompaniment of a concertina or mouth-organ; he can reel -out of public-houses in a state of complete indifference to public -opinion, instead of being secreted by the club waiter and paternally -controlled by a taxi-driver; indeed, the poor man can derive much -vanity from his condition, and rise in the esteem of his fellows next -day, because he took part in such a spree. (In this country, if you -can’t be great, be drunk.) Above all, he can make love in public. -He can, unashamedly, sit upon a bench in the park, complicatedly -intertwined with his beloved, sometimes with two beloveds; nobody -minds, and the little god of love will, for a moment, blind the -policeman’s bull’s eye. He needs no Sussex down, nor footmen, nor -thermos flasks, to make a picnic; with the _Daily Mirror_ beneath the -bough, a flask of ginger beer, and her beside him singing, ‘Who were -you with Last Night?’ Battersea Park is Paradise enow. - -Their social functions, too, are more social, and less functional. -They do not, in our sense, entertain, that is to say they do not, at -given intervals, go through their address book and say: ‘We can’t ask -Lady So-and-So, because she has refused our last two invitations, and -I suppose we must ask the Fitz-Thompsons. Or do you think we could get -out of it?’ No, they don’t entertain; they prefer to be entertained, -and so, on strictly scheduled occasions, namely, Christmas, birthdays, -wedding anniversaries, and engagements, _and on no others_, the whole -family and a few very old friends are asked to a spread. And it _is_ a -spread. It is not compulsory jellies from Gunter’s, or game pie from -the Café Royal, or, still worse, a dinner no better than every day’s -dinner, but merely a little longer; it is a real spread comprising -three times the food that is normally eaten, choice food, such as -tinned salmon, lobster, trifle with real brandy, stuffed loin of pork, -likely to be remembered. If there is wine it is port wine, the real -article. The real article and not the rotten routine. So the people -they bring together are not the frigid crowd we call acquaintances, -whom most of us ask because they have asked us, or because they -threaten to do so, people whom we do not know very well and whom we -don’t want to know very well, people, therefore, on whom our display -cannot make a great impression. The poor ask the people they know well, -people who know their exact income. Thus they attain a great human -pleasure: ostentation. The life of the poor is harsh, but their joys -are keen. I used to know a woman who called them the poor poor. What a -fool she was! - - - - - VIII - STONES - - -CHAPTER VIII - -STONES - - -A critical foreigner, whose impressions of London I collected, (a -thing one does to foreigners because that at least is common ground), -gave words to the usual complaint of the Continental: London was a -mean-looking city; its bricks were dirty; it used so little stone; -lacked we stone? And the buildings were low. And some stuck out beyond -the common frontage, while some set back. And so on, the whole served -with the usual sauce made up mainly of respect for our practical spirit -and our commercial success, the things we are not proud of because, -indeed, they are ours. - -Almost every foreigner has that impression of London, and he mistakes -the spirit of our city so much that, to restore him, one has to show -him typical American architecture such as Selfridge’s, Kingsway, -or older buildings of greater majesty, such as the Quadrant or the -terraces round Regent’s Park. Failing stone, we exhibit stucco, and the -intelligent foreigner discerns no irony in the epigram on Nash:-- - - ‘Augustus, at Rome, was for building renowned, - And of marble he left what of brick he had found; - But is not our Nash, too, a very great master? - He finds us all brick and he leaves us all plaster.’ - -Now stucco is an unfairly scorned material; it produces a pleasantly -smooth surface, which weathers to creamy-olive, and, indeed, its only -crime is that it conceals brick. Brick and tile are two of our most -delightful materials; people do wrong to sneer at them just because -poor cottages are so built. Red brick, when not too large, such as the -delightful little Tudor brick, is smiling and domestic. The progress of -building has, in this case, proved a retrogress for art. Nowadays, the -big red bricks are so angular, so perfectly cemented that most blocks -of flats approximate to workhouses, while the yellow brick now current -should be reserved for public buildings of special distinction, such as -national memorials and academies of painting. But the little red brick -that you could hold in your hand, the irregular lines of which bespoke -a temperament, which fitted tenderly into patchy cement, as an almond -of alabaster into the green velvet of its sheath, was quite another -kind of stone. Still, we must take our stones as we find them, and I -do not agree with the intelligent foreigner who thinks London a mean -city. Many of us find the fine Continental cities, such as new Paris, -new Barcelona, and new Frankfurt, as painful to live in as might be the -Agricultural Hall. The houses are too high, their flanks too white, -their alignment dull as a righteous life. When one considers towns like -New York, one wonders how the inhabitant finds his way home. By scent, -I suppose, for little can his eyes help him among those vast buildings, -all alike. - -In London, few streets and not many squares are alike. The detestable -institution of the leasehold has had this good result, that few ground -landlords in central London have built the houses they own. They have -merely imposed upon the leaseholder the obligation to build a good -house worth so much. As a result, the leaseholder has built what he -fancied, and, therefore, London is not the result of the schemes of -some horrid central office, but of the oddities and taste of thousands -of men. That is why our sky-line is so broken, why, in Berkeley Square, -we find two charming little, narrow houses close to a tall block of -flats; that is why, in Oxford Street, tottering little shops, built -under William IV., hug the Tube Station and its monster hotel. Variety -is the salt of London life. - -[Illustration: - - THE TUBE, 9.30 A.M.] - -Where London has, to a certain extent, abandoned variety, and that to -good purpose, is in the squares. London, more than any in the world, -is a city of squares; a feudal remnant has there set most of the -important houses, while those of the vassals were placed in the side -streets, and those of the churls in the mews. The squares imply social -classifications, and though many of them, such as Golden Square, Soho -Square, Regent Square, have fallen into the hands of the poor or of -commerce, they all began by being centres of polite society. To this -day there is something in a square that no other thoroughfare has; -a sort of measured enclosedness, a finished privacy. The garden in -the middle that none enter save lovers and cats, a garden sometimes -sooty, sometimes kept trim by a gardener born old, is cut off from -the rough movement of the city. Those who have been interested enough -to penetrate into the green part of Cavendish Square or Craven Hill -Gardens, will know that there one is as truly lost as in any lane -of West Anglia. Those green spots are almost untrodden, and, to all -visitors, are virginal. The impression of privacy extends also to the -houses; though these may differ they do not vastly do so. The contrasts -between them are those which appear among the members of a family. All -are, to a certain extent, traditional, and it is mainly in the squares -that you find remnants of Georgian London. - -Most of Georgian London has fallen into the hands of the tenement -maker, because the people of the Georgian period built in districts -now populous, such as Clapham, Highbury, Soho, Chalk Farm, because the -leases were long and the houses good enough to make it unbusinesslike -to pull them down. Still, some Georgian London, and especially some -London of William IV., has preserved its old, flat face, sober and -dignified, yet has been modernised, internally, by anachronistic -organs such as the bathroom, the telephone, electric light. Those -houses are delightful, for the adventure of the present has purged -them of the sins of the past. Such houses as the one now tenanted -by Messrs Thornton Smith, in Soho Square, the small houses with the -Adams doorways that make up the Adelphi, the slim exquisiteness of -Westminster in Barton Street or North Street, all these, by their very -form, suggest that inside all is order and courtesy. Those houses were -built when land was cheap, when we did not need to pile Smith upon -Jones and call the result Cornucopia Court, or what not; in those -days they did not need to store coal in the pantry, and, for historic -reasons, they did not combine the bathroom with the kitchens. Still, -these are only survivals, and though the late William Willett did what -he could near Avenue Road to restore the Georges under an Edward, the -Georgian house is dead. It is too large; it leaves aside the servant -problem; its rooms are too square, difficult to light, difficult to -furnish in a period when furniture is small and tortured in design. It -is almost as dead as the Elizabethan house, which is only a curiosity. - -People still talk of Cloth Fair, but if you go to Smithfield you will -find no Cloth Fair now, only a dirty little back street, not at all the -scenery which Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree would have thought suitable -for the entry of Bolingbroke into London. If you are wise, you will -at once step back farther into the past and enter St Bartholomew’s, -where arches and pillars, broad and solid as those of hell, will -make you understand the Mosaic quality of the Christian faith. In -St Bartholomew’s, that is black and dispassionate, dwells no gentle -Redeemer, but the spirit of the Lord of Hosts. - -True, there is Crosby Hall, though it is hard to shake off the -connection between Crosby Hall and chops, for I knew it best in the -days when, there, one ate chops (and sirloin, yes, sirloin). In those -days, in the City, Crosby Hall was really an Elizabethan place, a -mullioned old house, with sunken beams. For most of the day it held -people who ate a great deal, drank a great deal, and bellowed, and -played billiards, and flirted with the waitresses, and made bets, and -told undesirable stories. Yes, it was real Shakespeare, all the time. -But one day they pulled down Crosby Hall and re-erected it in Chelsea, -near the end of Oakley Street; the last time I went in they were -holding an exhibition of arts and crafts, which proved that leather -might be compelled to assume many forms it didn’t like. I never saw -it again. Then there is St Ethelburga, the little wooden church in -Bishopsgate, which takes, I believe, a special interest in seamen. A -pleasant little church, for there is something very human and pre-Fire -in its having let off its frontage to an optician. (I wonder whether -the optician and the incumbent both labour under the motto of Usebius.) - -But if Georgian London has left so little, and Elizabethan London -hardly anything, it is not so of the Victorian period, which still -hangs over most of the city like the shadow of a great tree which will -not let the flowers grow. Nearly all the houses in central London are -Victorian; most are early Victorian, because the building rush in the -’eighties and ’nineties affected mainly the suburbs, where a ribald -æstheticism combined with the discovery of the quaint by Charles -Dickens. Now the Victorian period was neither picturesque nor quaint; -it looked upon that sort of thing as indecent. It liked a plain house -for a plain man, and the Victorian man got his house. In another fifty -years or so, when time has done with the houses of the ’sixties, on -their tombstone shall be inscribed: ‘Eight steps and a brass knocker, -such are the wages of virtue.’ Some think that too much evil is spoken -of the Victorian period, and that much that was solid, sound, truly -English came to fruition in those days. For my part, I think that the -Victorian period was nothing but a bad dream, that the English are -essentially the people who drank sack, and danced round the maypole, -just as now they drink beer and go to the cinema. The English are a -pleasure-loving people, an emotional, perhaps a hysterical people; -they are gay, improvident, thriftless, adventurous, reckless people; -there is little to pick between them and the Neapolitans. Yes, there -has been a lot of respectability and talk of carriage folk, and -heavy sideboards, and being shocked, and all that sort of thing; but -I submit that English history extends farther back than 1830, that -there were happy days before the English grew oppressed with their new -respectability, which arose slowly out of the sudden growth of wealth -among numbers of ill-educated people. Before the ’thirties there were -only two kinds of people: those who did what they were told, and those -who did what they liked. The factory had begun to take shape in 1770; -towards 1830 occurred the rise, all over the Midlands and North, of -small workshops that became mills. This turned some members of the -working class into capitalists. As the workshops grew, the working -class population grew round them and formed towns. To serve the needs -of these towns shops arose; these became prosperous, and produced -another fairly rich class, the shopkeeping class. From the ’sixties -onwards, the workshops, warehouses, and shops grew so much that those -who, once upon a time, were scriveners, became managers and agents. -This produced a third class of ill-educated people endowed with some -money. - -The result was soon felt: we had created the middle class, and as, in -those days, the middle class was still conscious of the upper class, -realised itself as lowly bred, it concluded that the only way of living -up to its new money was to be more moral and especially more refined -than either the upper class or the lower class. That is the origin of -the red damask curtains, of the English Sunday (which once upon a time -was debauched and delicious), of wax fruit, tall hats, black silk, jet, -and such like horrors. - -But is that the end? No. Round about 1890, the middle class having -made still more money, having split itself up into upper middle class -and lower middle class, having sent its sons to the public schools and -universities, its daughters to Brussels or Dresden, began swiftly _to -slough off the old virtues which it no longer needed_. The daughters -went to dances under slender chaperonage; some of them became Fabians; -red paper was scraped off and replaced by brown; Jacobean furniture -came in; respectable people began to dine at hotels and, what was much -more fatal, to lunch at restaurants. Bridge came in ... cigarettes -crept in. I do not say the middle class is dead, but when you are -tempted to think that the Victorian period represented, in English -history, anything but an accident, anything but the formulation of -a class, then consider most of your young acquaintances, and ask -yourself, honestly, whether those very people, fifty years ago, would -not have gone to funerals with weepers tied round their hats. To-day, -there is a continuous impulse in the middle class to grow smart, fast, -intellectual, all that. Call this progress or call it decay, never -mind; I submit that it exhibits Victorian respectability as merely a -stage in the development of English people, and that we are tending -towards a time when the jolly 1780’s will live again with something -hectic and abandoned thrown in. The English people are a light people, -a gay people, and the famous period 1830–1880 was, after all, a short -period in the eight hundred years odd which separate us from the -Conqueror. It was a period of reconstruction, and the English emerged -from it as new English, not very different from the old English. We -have digested our money; of course, England was sleepy while she did -that; those who believe that that sleep was natural to her suffer from -illusion. Now she has begun to spend the resultant energy. Bustles, -daguerreotypes, Sunday rest, and whiskers, Pecksniff will find all that -in another region. - -Pecksniff will also, at least I hope so, if he is to be happy, find -the Victorian house. It was not a bad house inside, in spite of its -vast, incoherent basement, the ell at the back of the drawing-room, -and the shameful servants’ bedrooms; it was a roomy house, but there -was too much in it for the cockroach and the mouse. Most of Bayswater, -Paddington, Kensington, and Marylebone, are Victorian; all depend upon -slave labour. Few of those houses can be managed properly on less than -three servants; some are still run by one servant assisted by the young -ladies, who do the dusting, but the importance of the point lies in -this: with one servant they are dirtily run; with two servants they -are barely run. They are full of corners, corridors, cupboards; they -collect dust, and eat up light. In days when flesh and blood was cheap, -when you could easily get young girls to wear the skin off their knees -on the steps, the edifice stood up pretty well. But those days are -gone; the servant problem is partly due to the Victorian house, which -became almost too much to bear when the servants developed enough to -understand that there were things they need not bear. What will replace -it, we do not yet know. It is too early to talk of a revolutionary -change into blocks of flats with common kitchens, common dining-rooms, -and common nurseries; all that will come, has come, is extending, but -it is not yet general. The first step is the break-up of the Victorian -house into maisonettes. You can see this going on all over central -London, where two families now share a house built for one. Others are -being absorbed by the boarding-house. Briefly, we are packing closer -into the old spaciousness, partly because we do not need it for the -purposes of ostentation, partly because we cannot afford it. - -Still, there is much left of old, bleak London, Highbury Crescent, -Warwick Street (Pimlico), Mornington Crescent, and many others. There -is, about those places, what there is more proximately about Bayswater, -a sense of past comfort, dating back to the days when comfort meant red -paper in the hall, brown paint, thick stuff curtains, polished boards, -large and straight chairs with hard seats for the young, stuffed seats -for the old. Those houses were comfortable in a frowzy way; they were -houses in which one ate a great deal, slept a great deal, drank a -great deal, and thought within the limits of genteel taste. Little -by little people began to stay up later, so had less time to sleep; -then, their fathers having drunk too much, they found that their -inherited constitutions did not allow of similar excess, while the -intrusive foreigner brought in his curious dishes which taught us to -eat less, if more peculiarly. Picture galleries were opened on Sunday, -concerts were held upon that day; matinees, cinemas, other pleasures, -all these things making a continual call upon time and purse, have -stolen some of its privileges from the old home, until it ceased to be -home in the sacramental sense, a pleasure in itself, and turned into -a dormitory. The bleak old houses of London have responded to this -movement, by breaking up into maisonettes, converting themselves into -boarding-houses and lodgings; there are now few claimants to their -five floors; indeed, the five floors grow more and more disliked. -To-day, when you walk along a street such as Mornington Crescent, -whose gray face wears the inscription: ‘Joy forbidden,’ you are to a -certain extent, labouring under an illusion, for the life behind those -gray fronts is not gray. It is, more and more, the life of people -who have no roots, who have settled for a short time in rooms, whose -employment is precarious, whose fortunes are small, people who live -on small weekly wages, or even on social piracy, whose presence must -cause uneasiness among the portly Victorian ghosts. Inside those houses -live few families, because no families of wealth care to live in such -districts, while poor families cannot afford the servants to keep -such houses clean. So their dwellers are, many of them, adventurers, -semi-respectable people who have something to do with the stage, or who -are in a sort of way in the city. They never want the windows cleaned, -and when they sit down at the Victorian writing-desk with the waggly -legs, they care little if it is not dusted: they blow. That is the end -of those old houses; to-day, most of them are spinning out the last of -their long leases in a truly Victorian way: keeping up appearances, and -pretending to be as respectable as ever. - -[Illustration: - - AN ABSENT DESERT - THE CROMWELL ROAD] - -In South Kensington and Bayswater, the bleakness is less complete, -because those districts are dimly in the West End, with a little too -much End about it. They are ‘possible’ districts, as the phrase goes -among some of us; a ‘possible’ district is one the name of which -can be stamped upon one’s note-paper. The tenants of Bayswater and -South Kensington number many of the old-fashioned people who like -quiet places, comfortable homes, in some cases gardens, but many more -are making of those places a jumping-off ground. They pass through -Bayswater or South Kensington on the way to Mayfair, Belgravia, and -Marylebone; they are already well-to-do, and intend to be better-to-do; -in those places they associate with the people who, once upon a time, -were very well-to-do and are now less so; those districts are social -junctions. But everywhere the boarding-house is gaining ground, and -nowhere does one see this so well as in Cromwell Road. Cromwell Road is -a remarkable street; its length has, on a warm and hazy day, a quality -of eternity. It seems to have no beginning, no end; one might walk -for ever along its broad stretch, between those high walls; a prison -yard must be like that. This does not mean that I dislike Cromwell -Road; far from it; I visit it at least once a week, for purposes of -meditation. One can meditate in Cromwell Road, because nothing ever -seems to have happened there; it certainly looks as if nothing could -happen. It holds no tragedy, no comedy. You pass along the endless -series of houses, all of which have four and a half or five and a half -floors, the half being accounted for by the servants’ rooms, to which -the Victorian builder never accorded a complete floor; they are nearly -all alike, having five to nine steps, a porch on pillars, and a flat -face; the only difference between one house and another is the age of -their lease, the age being revealed by the condition of the paint: some -were repainted three years ago, some two years, some recently. White, -gray, black, such is their symphony. If you look in at the windows -of the dining-room you will generally see a large mahogany table: in -the middle of this stands a heavy brass pot; in the brass pot grows a -big green fern. Behind the green fern, and always facing the window, -stands a colossal sideboard, surmounted by a mirror against which -is outlined a tantalus and sometimes, which is very regrettable, a -cruet. (You do not see a bottle of salad-dressing in Cromwell Road, -but a little farther west you do.) Near the tantalus sometimes dwell a -silver cup or two. On one side of the room you discern a mantelpiece, -decorated with coloured pots, a large, black marble clock, suitably -representing a tomb. There may also be some brass ash-trays and bowls -of obviously Indian pattern. The carpet one cannot see, but I feel -sure that it is generally a red and blue Turkey. That is old Cromwell -Road, grandpapa’s old Cromwell Road, comfortable in its stifled sort -of way. Rail as I may at the Victorian period, I have a vague liking -for those old solidities, that mean pleasant, saddleback chairs, pipes -(not cigarettes), the _Spectator_, port, and evenings devoted to the -reading of travel books and memoirs (not novels). Dull, but solid, and -in Cromwell Road one is aware of a certain merit in solidity because it -finds itself at the point of flux between the old civilisation and the -new. - -The new civilisation has already set its teeth into Cromwell Road. The -houses are unchanged, but a great many have been bought up and joined -together, decorated with stained glass, re-named as hotels. These -have fancy pots instead of brass pots, ferns from strange bournes; -curtains of lesser conventionality; looking out from a window you no -longer see Mary Jane in a pink dress, but a sombre face, which may be -that of a musician or a poet; or of a Balkanic waiter stained with -political conspiracy. The inhabitants of those hotels are Americans, -provincials, people who have grown tired of housekeeping and like to -buy it ready-made; they number many widows who behave as if they were -conscious of a transitory condition, actors, unattached people of all -kinds. These are not the old Cromwell Road people; they are a new type, -which you might call the Cromwell light-Roadster, people who drive up -in taxis at all times, and even after eleven o’clock. Kensington means -nothing to them; not one of them will ever be an alderman. They are -breaking up the Cromwell Road, and many of those who read these lines -will see Cromwell Road without a private dwelling-house, except that -here and there a pair of very old maids, accompanied by some very fat -dogs, will stick to the old house. They will groan at the taxis which -stop at the Grand Imperial next door, send out an old retainer to warn -off the street band, and grumble at the electric underground, just as -they grumbled at the smoky steam underground. Then they will die, and -the Grand Imperial will extend its possessions. - -The Grand Imperial is extending all over London. Not only have hotels, -undreamt of twenty years ago, sprung up at unexpected corners near -the Strand and over the tube stations, not only have they taken over -anything between two and six private houses at a time, but they are -buying up site after site: a big one in Piccadilly near Down Street, -also the St George’s Hospital site, perhaps. They are extending -everywhere, communising life. It is all very well saying that the hotel -is a sign of the decadent luxury of the day, but that is not true. In -the first place there is in hotels no such thing as decadent luxury; -all that the best offer are things such as plenty of light, air, space -to move in, electric light when you want it, hot water day and night, -a telephone by your bedside, a comfortable common room to write in, a -band to amuse you while you have your meals; such like simple, obvious -things which make up the ordinary comfort of life. The old-fashioned -people look upon this as luxury, but I submit that the facility of -having a hot bath when you want it is a natural thing, and one of the -first things that a developing civilisation should give us all. Some -people seem to think it morally wrong to be comfortable, and it shocks -one to think that so many of our best minds should, for so long, have -been working out ideas for pleasant and harmonious heating, lighting, -cooking, only to be told that they are pampering us. The whole object -of civilisation is to pamper us, to get rid of nature. Nature is all -very well in the summer numbers of the magazines; it looks very pink -and scented with hay, but real nature is rather cold, damp, earwiggy, -dark, always ill-drained, and much less healthy than London. The object -of civilisation is to reduce the struggle for life, and to make the -material side of it pleasant enough to be forgotten. If that is not -true, then let us back to the caveman forthwith. - -The truth is that hotels are not luxurious and not dear. It sounds -dear to pay a pound a day for a bedroom and your board, which is what -one paid before the war, but if one reflects that for that pound one -also has the use of excellent common rooms, that one pays nothing -whatever for all sorts of racking things such as gas, electric light, -water rate, borough rate, inhabited house duty, house repairs, that -one owes nothing to the sweep, no tips to tradesmen, it is not dear. -One has the space one needs to live in, and that is the essence of the -old-fashioned opposition to hotel life: it does away with the large -number of rooms that people used to think they needed, rooms in which -they shut themselves up behind closed windows and drawn blinds. The -old-fashioned hate the simplification of life; they do not like to -think that people need no longer tie themselves down, define and label -themselves: hotels are meant for those who do not go to the Zoo. - -[Illustration: - - BEASTS AT THE ZOO] - -Indeed, the Zoo is a tragic hint of the period we have just left -behind. It was founded in 1826, its object being, of course, ‘to -further the study of animal life,’ but it did not very long retain -that character. The only character it retained was a sort of brutal -insensibility, a capacity for not understanding what it means to -animals, accustomed to run forty miles a day, or to fly out of sight, -to find themselves boxed up in small cages. The treatment of animals -in the Victorian period was very like the treatment of children; -people meant well by their children, which did not prevent their -constraining them to immobility on Sundays, forcing them into careers -they disliked, or into marriages with people they detested. They were a -sentimental and brutal generation, mainly because they were stupid. So -the Zoo, which is now a vulgar gapery, remains as one of the ugly blots -inherited by our people; I hope to live long enough to see Parliament -pass an act for its suppression. It seems to me indecent that people -who do not know the difference between a leopard and a yak should, any -afternoon, for sixpence or a shilling, or on Sundays if they are the -friends or the servants of a Fellow, line up in hundreds outside cages -anything between six feet and thirty feet long, to see wretched animals -pace up and down, up and down eternally, or tragic birds hop from an -upper stick to a lower stick and then back again, not one of them with -the space for a full spring or a flight, sentenced to penal servitude -for life, a sentence which we inflict on no man except for murder. I -agree with Mr Galsworthy that the Zoo is one of the saddest and most -disgusting sights in the world. At least, I know that I never leave -the Zoo, which I seldom visit, because it hurts me, without feeling a -partner in a national crime. You can defend vivisection by saying that -it has valuable medical results. I know nothing about that, but you -cannot defend the Zoo by saying that you give some snivelling boy an -opportunity to know what the mandril looks like. What is the use (I put -it on the lowest ground, that of use) of knowing what a mandril looks -like? And if it is of any use, is that use not counterbalanced by the -poison poured into that boy, which is that he shall consent to the -life-long imprisonment of a helpless creature? - -This Zoo question was discussed in the _Weekly Dispatch_ some years -ago; I think that one of the points, in defence, was that most of the -animals were born in the Zoo, and, knowing not liberty, could not be -unhappy. That may be, even if nothing in you answers when you look into -the eyes of the animals in those empty cages where there is nothing to -do, when all their nature, thousands of generations of it, is calling -in their blood to hunt and to fly. Is not the test this: would you be -satisfied if at birth your son were placed in a room eight feet by -four, and told to grow up in it? Do you really believe that he would be -content when he reached manhood? even if he had never known freedom. -The truth is represented by opinions such as that of the secretary of -the Zoo, Doctor Chalmers Mitchell, who summed up Mr Galsworthy’s attack -on the Zoo by saying: ‘Mr Galsworthy knows nothing about the subject. -His attack is rubbish, pure rubbish.’ It may be that, on second -thoughts, Doctor Chalmers Mitchell might find one or two more arguments -to put up against Mr Galsworthy, but this one, while not lacking in -force, somehow fails to convince. One is more impressed by the argument -of Mr J. D. Hamlyn, an animal trainer, who said: ‘After the war, the -business of importing animals will go on exactly as it did before. In -the first place, too much capital is at stake, too much money has been -expended to give up the trade altogether.’ The only comment I have to -make on this is that this argument was continually used, first in the -West Indies, and later in the southern states of America, when it was -suggested that we should do away with slavery. - -Yes, the Zoo carries on to-day the old tradition of Victorian -brutality. But enough of the Zoo, and of its visitors, so like the -yokels at a fair, that guffaw with their heads through horse collars. -I would rather think that in a few of those Victorian places, sweet -old ladies in mauve silk and lace serve tea in Rockingham cups, which -they dust themselves for fear of Sarah Jane. One such place is Crescent -Grove. That is the sort of place one would like to live in, when one -feels rather older. It is near Clapham Common, and, of course, it -is a blind alley, so that no rude traffic may pass up and down when -the milkman has finished his melodious round. The houses are clean, -stuccoed, comfortable. The knockers are cleaned every day. The glass -is cleaned often, the curtains are changed, and I am sure that when -they go up, a whiff of lavender spreads. Crescent Grove is, perhaps, -a little too clean; in those rooms where everything has its place, -just as in the past every one had his place, there must be so much -order and regularity of life that, as Mirbeau said: ‘On doit rudement -s’embêter là-dedans.’ Still, at the very end of Crescent Grove, there -is one house that should be preserved as a monument of its period. Of -course, it is double-fronted; in front are planted evergreens, and -there is a drive. By the side runs a large garden beyond a wall; on the -other side of the wall one hears children at play. That is the house -to which father came back round about 1860, with his top hat and his -mutton-chop whiskers. If this description does not convince you, let -me give you the clinching fact: it is a private road. Yet Crescent -Grove stands very near to the suburbs. Not far are Streatham, Tooting, -the new streets of Clapham and Brixton. Imbedded among the new streets -are old houses with columns, plaster fronts, stucco mouldings, squares -surrounding a single column that bears a moulting golden eagle, but -the suburbs are overwhelming them. These are not the inner suburbs, -such as Brixton, where the feeling is, on the whole, one of poverty and -dirt. Those inner suburbs have a certain vigour of coarse life; thus, -the Brixton Road is a place of immense activity, notably round the -great, open-air ironmonger, Williamson’s Bonanza; there are shops and -shops, nearly all of the multiple type, Salmon and Gluckstein, Maypole -Dairies, Home and Colonials, the shops that Private Ortheris must -have raved of in his Indian delirium. Likewise, in Kilburn, where the -Kilburn Bon Marché and B. B. Evans struggle in zealous commercialism. -Those inner suburbs are hardly suburbs now, for the trams run through -them and bleed them of their population; tubes tap them; everywhere -the motor-buses stop. The true suburbs lie farther out. You have to -go well beyond the Brixton Bon Marché before you can find such a -place as Streatham, with its endless, well-kept, villa streets of -red brick houses, nearly all alike, creeper and grass plot complete. -Those suburbs outline a new social order; with a little experience -you can easily tell the thirty-five-pounds-a-year street from the -fifty-two-pounds-a-year street; you come with a feeling of familiarity -upon the corner house, where lives the doctor or the surgeon. It is a -new order, for all those houses are small, manageable, clean, modern, -in every way satisfactory, except that they are all alike, made for -people who may not be all alike, but tend so to become. For if one -buys one’s food, one’s clothes, one’s furniture at the same big, local -store, and if one takes one’s literature from the same bookstall, one -attains to a sort of nationality. But it is not the nationality of the -village, where local effort can develop into art, because it develops -slowly and creeps back upon itself. In the suburbs everything is -supplied on the model of central London, and is turned out in hundreds -of thousands by machines. Perhaps the houses are made by machines. -Maybe, one day the people will be made by machines. Near those streets, -all alike, generally survives an older quarter of poor streets where -live the ‘little women,’ the sweep, the turncock, the dependents of -the semi-poor; there, also, small shopkeepers live by undercutting the -big stores. They do this by selling the vegetables that are too stale -for the stores, by washing the linen which cannot be sent to the steam -laundry because it would fall to pieces, and especially by lowering -their own standard of living to the lowest possible level. They are the -last ramparts of suburban individualism, and they will not last long. -As time goes on, the bigger villa streets, many of whose houses have -pretensions, exemplified by their architecture of concrete and tile, by -their barbarous roofs which make evil, dusty corners in the rooms, by -the select flowers in their front gardens, will turn away from those -little shops and, more and more, deal with Whiteley’s and Harrod’s. - -Thus, when one passes through London, from old Victorian street to -inner suburb, then to outer suburb, until one comes to the spreading -country of Tooting Bec Common, when one has seen the homes of the -rich, their marble solemnity, when one has seen those of the poor in -the grimy suburbs that cluster, and emerges at last into those clean -suburban streets, where in almost every window an aspidistra wilts in -its pot, one may grow a little doubtful of the social revolution. We -educate the poor, and sometimes we give them their chance: the next -step is the aspidistra. The aspidistra goes to the grammar school; -clever aspidistra wins a scholarship and goes to Oxford. Then a house -is taken, let us say, in Barkston Gardens; instead of the aspidistra -it is marguerites in the window boxes. The marguerite goes to Oxford as -a matter of course, and may give place to a lily in a green art-pot. -By that time it understands nothing. If it retains its money, the -marguerite goes on having marguerites potted in the window-boxes by the -nurseryman; if it loses its money, it goes back to the aspidistra. Upon -this gloomy botanical note I close this chapter. - - - - - IX - CAFÉ ROYAL - - -CHAPTER IX - -CAFÉ ROYAL - - -Why did they call it Café Royal? It has nothing of the opulent white -and gold quality which naturally would go with such a name, nothing -expensive or elaborate. Here and there, in the only room I know, -namely, the café itself, is an escutcheon impressed with the letter N. -It makes one think of Napoleon, and the name Café Royal clashes still -more. But, after all, that matters very little, for who cares what the -Café Royal was? or under whose auspices it was founded. I suppose that -for antiquity it treads upon the heels of Verrey’s; it has a flavour -of 1870 rather than 1860; what matters much more is that the Café -Royal always savours of the day, that it concentrates within itself -more of the feeling of the day, as exemplified by current art, than -any other spot in this country. Thus, when calling this chapter Café -Royal, I do not mean to devote it to an anecdotic study of the famous -tavern, but rather to those things which it represents and contains, -to some slight impression of the arts as they develop, flourish, and -wilt in this city. The Café itself should never have been called Royal, -for an eternal opposition exists between the pomp of such a name and -the rebellious young arts; in no essential do they oppose the royal -suggestion, but they are remote therefrom, live in a world where the -values are different, not related to class or fortune, artificial, -perhaps, but created in virtue of a private political economy. -Thus, the Café Royal should have been called something dashing and -picturesque, such as ‘Café des Mille Colonnes,’ or ‘Café de la Pomme -Vermeille.’ How well it would have looked, sparsely decorated with -rubicund apples painted by Cézanne! As it is, the Café Royal is a very -large room in Regent Street. Its ceiling, a mass of gold scrollings -that embrace frescoes darkened by smoke and time into the colour of old -masters, is sustained by many columns with a golden base and a green -stem. Round that stem intertwine golden leaves from which hang golden -grapes. The effect of the Café is one of rather excessive gilding: the -walls are crowded with gilt figures and baskets of flowers that leave -space only for many mirrors; as if the wall had been hidden away at the -behest of some obscure modesty. Yet the effect is pleasant, for this -gold is old and tarnished. It has nothing blatant, and the whole effect -is one of comfortable decency, as if this excessive room had been -built by a parvenu, but had been lived in so long by his successors -as to lose the parvenu spirit. The furnishing, plain tables with -marble tops, long seats with red plush backs, also resolve themselves -into good-humoured comfort, while, at the end, a prince of bars with -something like ten score bottles, each one filled with something -individual, produces an impression of eclectic welcome. - -The Café Royal may have been built to astound, but nowadays it is just -the comfortable background of people who like to drink a little, to -pay moderately, and to talk enormously. The conversations at the Café -Royal are not, probably, such as would make a good book of memoirs, but -its mixed public has, at one time or another, numbered everybody who -did something (whatever that may mean), so that many good things and -many spiteful ones are spoken every day under its golden roof. Before -the war, the violent young men and the much more violent young women -seemed to meet there every night, with an almost sacramental air, to -discuss, that is to scarify, reputations. That was good, for Renan was -right when he said that if a young man, aged twenty, had not always -ready a mouthful of insults for his predecessors, he would pronounce no -judgments fit to be heard when he attained the age of forty. - -[Illustration: - - THE CAFÉ ROYAL] - -This does not mean that the Café Royal is a literary café, or an -artistic café. The literary, dramatic, and pictorial elements are -certainly stronger there than in any other London resort, but at any -time you may see there the strangest assembly: foreigners, a great -many; smart people who are seeing life; and very dull, ordinary, fat -men who stop on their way from business or shop to have a drink before -dinner. At dinner time the room is not itself, for half of it sees its -marble tables covered with cloths, which means that eating proceeds, -and eating does not, so well as drinking, favour turbulent debate. -It is just before dinner, and especially after dinner, that the Café -Royal enters upon its true function: to provide a pleasant, cheap -place, fairly noisy, fairly smoky, and fairly comfortable, where the -young arts may meet and joust. During the war it did not quite do this, -for many of the young men had joined the army, and it was strange -suddenly to recognise over a tunic, in a well-kept, well-brushed -head, the outlines of somebody whom once one knew with endless locks, -whiskers, or a beard. Even in khaki they did what they could. Military -discipline did not completely dominate those rebellious beings; their -moustaches were either a little more luxuriant or very much more hogged -than usual. The Café Royal platoon was still faintly noticeable. - -Some, however, were not in khaki, for theirs was not a very fit -generation, and even now many a table throws back a memory to 1914. -In those days the frequent visitor to the Café Royal soon knew many -people by sight, and if he was of that world, or had somebody to guide -him, he soon could pick out those who were celebrated and those who -were notorious; with time, he even came to recognise those who were -extremely well known. I do not know if, nowadays, one often sees at -the Café Royal, Mr Jacob Epstein, but once it was difficult to detach -one’s eyes from the sleepy strength of his heavy profile. One wanted to -look into those eyes with the thick lids, in which strangely mingled -so much detachment and so much kinetic energy. He was seldom alone; -there was always a little Epstein group about his table. Indeed, it is -a characteristic of the Café Royal that few people sit alone. They form -groups. One I remember well. It always contained a tall young man with -very long, thin features, and hair grown low about the cheek; he had a -fancy for clothes faintly 1860 in feeling, notably, for stocks. There -was an extremely beautiful girl, thin, dark, and languid as some warm -Italian greyhound. There was a young man who wore a velvet coat, whose -fair hair fell in long wisps upon his collar, a strange young man, with -a peculiar grayish skin and an air of nervous excitement. Round these -moved other figures less definite, but all of them young: square men -in knickerbockers, with short pipes stuck precisely in the middle of -their faces; girls, outrageously florid or eloquently simple, round -whose long necks hung the flowered yokes of Chelsea, on whose hands -clustered many rings of turquoise and aquamarine, or whose hands were -virgin of all decoration save that of black finger-nails. The smart -people used to watch them steadily and feel that, at last, they were -really seeing life. - -Sometimes they saw people whose names could serve as conversation at -the morrow’s lunch party. Sometimes they caught sight of Mr C. R. W. -Nevinson, and could describe his square figure, his rather blunt, -pleasant face with the bright, live, brown eyes. It does one good to -look at Mr Nevinson, though, nowadays, something oppressed has crept -into his expression; there is, in those rather thick features, a sense -of life and desire. With him sometimes goes his wife, slight, white and -rose, and bending a little under the heavy sunshine of her hair. - -Until recently the Café Royal also often contained Mr Augustus John, -and one could sit for a long time, wondering what it was gave his -features that air of tautness. There is always about Mr John a feeling -that he is imprisoned within himself.... Equally with Mr Epstein he had -his court, young men in a state of extreme reverence, and other men -who preached to him in attitudes of hostility tinged with nervousness, -which is the ordinary approach to the successful painter of those who -are less successful. I think that, now and then, Mr Arthur Symons used -to draw them away, so as to procure for Mr John a greater peace. It -was as if he were trying to create about him an atmosphere of hush. At -the Café Royal this is not easily done. Notably, it was difficult to -create hush among the reverential young men, for I suspect that they -all wanted to know what Mr John thought of their work, that is meant -to tell him what he ought to think. The young women were more easily -managed, and it is interesting to note that they tended to approximate -in appearance to the John type. Nearly all were what the vulgar call -plain, in some cases because they were perfectly beautiful: that which -is perfectly beautiful is severe and separate; it does not arouse -desire, it arouses respect, and this most of humanity cannot forgive. -Those strange young women, apparently long-legged and long-armed, in -their simply-cut high frocks that hung straight from shoulder to ankle, -young women with hair plainly banded, rather long noses, strong chins, -thick, dark mouths, like open fruits. They seemed to come straight out -of some sketch in Donegal. - -There were many others, too. Now and then one caught sight of Mr -Wyndham Lewis who, nowadays, is plump, but in those was tall and white -and rather slim, often silent and generally weary; it was an education -in negligence to watch the depressed droop of the cigarette stump -which generally hung from his underlip. There were others, too, a -woman with small, humorous eyes and a pleasant coppery complexion, who -wore turbans of purple silk and gold, who never thought or spoke an -evil thing of any creature alive. One saw Mr Gertler, very young and -seductive, perhaps a little conscious of it; Mr Gilbert Cannan, oozing -defiance from every sharp angle and confining his conversation to this -process. The other young writers came now and then: Mr Swinnerton -before he grew his beard, Mr Hugh Walpole, who always seemed slightly -out of place in so ill-regulated a spot. People less definable float -through my mind: a young girl who had been told that she looked like -a Russian, and thenceforth appeared attired in a red sarafan; a young -man with black locks massed upon his eyebrows, locks he often tossed -back to show the running water of his pale eyes. There was a young -woman who believed in asceticism; as she looked rather like a brick, I -was told that her beliefs had never been put to a rude test. There was -another young woman, too, who seriously informed any marble table that -she believed in reincarnation, and that within her breathed the soul -of Shelley. Nearly everybody painted, some wrote verse, a few ventured -on prose; the talk was of art and of sinners against art. Swiftly -they passed from studio scandal to the declarations, manifestoes, -proclamations which made the arts sound foolish in 1914, but actually -were evidences of their vigour. Indeed, the modern forms of art tend to -shock the Philistine: I am not with him; I like my paint wet. - -The old arts are unkind to the young arts. Struck by a certain wilful -outrageousness which often overlays talent and in the beginning always -heralds it, the old arts make as much fun of the new arts, as the old -arts made of the older when they were young. Some of my readers may -remember Mr Epstein’s rather theoretical Venus, at whose feet reposed -a wheel. It was an abstract piece of sculpture, but, however abstract, -I think it was a little harsh of Mrs Aria to describe it as a sick -penguin sitting on a broken bicycle. The truth is that the modern -forms of art are not as wilful or as intentionally shocking as their -adepts choose to make out. It may be true that most schools, from the -impressionists onwards, have formed round one man who had something -original to say in an original way, and that most of the pupils, having -nothing original to say, found it necessary to say it in a violently -original way. That is true to a certain extent; truer, perhaps, is it -to say that ‘genius creates the taste with which it is enjoyed.’ Thus, -I think it quite as likely that people like Manet created the taste for -impressionism, just as Wagner created a taste for music in reaction -against, let us say, Rossini. Nature, after all, is only a thing which -one conceives, and not a thing which really exists; it varies with the -eye that beholds it, and if a man sincerely and violently feels that -trees are pink, then to him they are pink, and if he has art enough to -translate his temperament into those pink trees, then the people who -can understand him will learn to see trees like him, that is, pink. We -need not stress this, because it is an extreme case, but I submit that -the modern forms of art, during the last dozen years, have all of them -tended to express nature on the lines of certain conventions, and that -instead of taking up an attitude of contempt, it was easy to understand -these conventions, therefore, to understand the artist, therefore, to -collect from the canvas the impression he painted there. Here, I will -be told by the Philistine: ‘Why should I see that a face looks like -a cube?’ Well, nobody wants to force him to see a face as a cube if -he doesn’t want to, but one is entitled to point out to him that he -has already accepted many conventions. He is quite willing to look at -Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy,’ and to see it as a human figure, though -it has only surface and not volume. He is quite willing to look at -Venus of Milo and to accept it as a reproduction of a beautiful woman, -though it has no colour. He is quite willing to go to a play the action -of which extends over five years, and to see this action condensed into -two and a half hours. The public has to accept the arts conventionally -because the arts do not reproduce nature, they interpret it. - -[Illustration: - - PRIVATE VIEW - THE A.A.A.] - -It may, therefore, be suggested that our young post-impressionists, -futurists, and cubists were badly treated by the public, for the public -never tried to understand the new conventions on which they worked. -With all the power of my sincerity, and in the name of such honesty as -may be in me, I assure my readers that if they will take the trouble -to master the conventions the work can be interpreted. I possess an -excellent non-representational picture, by Mr Wadsworth, inspired by -the roofs of a Yorkshire village; it is entirely composed of black -and white planes. When, lately, this was shown to a friend, she asked -why she should be told to admire a set of decayed dominoes. But the -picture is not made up of decayed dominoes; it is a highly simplified -impression of walls and roofs, and when you have sympathetically sought -for what we may call the key plane, the picture becomes absolutely -obvious. - -But what if it were not obvious? Many of the modern men, such as Mr -Wadsworth, Mr McKnight Kauffer, Mr Wyndham Lewis, do not aspire to -represent anything at all. What they want to do is to sketch or paint -an interesting pattern. Mr Ezra Pound has put the attitude clearly -in his book, _Gaudier Brzeska_, where he says, more or less: ‘When -you hear a sonata played, you do not say, “Oh, what an eloquent -reproduction of the waves upon the shore!” or, “This is where the sheep -begin to baa.” What you do is to ask yourself whether this combination -of sounds is pleasant or moving. That is the freedom we wish to find -in painting or sculpture. We are not interested in painting the -Mayor of Leeds in such a way as to make it clear that he is a mayor, -possibly of Leeds, but we are interested in setting together lines and -coloured surfaces, irrespective of any meaning, and to be judged on -that, according to whether these lines and colours produce a pleasant -sensation.’ - -This position appears to me above attack. The technical improvements in -painting, which began in the seventeenth century, producing Rembrandt, -Raphael, Velasquez, and, in due course, Sir Edward Poynter, seem to -have set a heavy yoke upon the painter’s neck, for the painter grew -enthralled by technique, became more and more inclined to represent a -baby so life-like that everybody expected it to howl; he grew liable -to lose sight of the one thing that matters, namely, that to represent -a baby is nothing, and to represent the artist through the baby, -everything. (If I am wrong, consider a picture by Mr Clausen and a -photograph by Mr Park; Mr Clausen knows how to paint, but Mr Park will -far more exactly reproduce the sitter, do it quicker, and much more -cheaply.) The thesis of the modern artist, of which I am trying to give -an impression, therefore involves that while we bow to the undeniable -greatness of men such as Rembrandt, Botticelli, Leonardo, we wonder -whether a greater emancipation from their technique might not have -allowed them to soar higher into the abstract region where none save -an artist can breathe. The plea is that in a more abstract field they -might have been still greater. - -Undeniably, the modern forms of art have emancipated themselves too -much from technical restrictions. It is dangerous to have too much -technique; it is dangerous to have too little, and I could not say who -suavely broods in the golden mean. Still, when we consider what a dead -and damnable thing technique alone can be, when we consider the annual -mortuary at Burlington House, when we stand awhile before a work of -Mr Frank Dicksee, and stare incredulously at Sir Luke Fildes’s ‘The -Doctor,’ or attempt to solve the Hon. John Collier’s psycho-pictorial -mysteries, we are indeed assured that though technique may exclude a -man both from heaven and from hell, it shall, for certain, land him in -purgatory. - -I remember very well the first ‘advanced’ pictures I ever saw. They -were twelve impressions of a bridge over a brook by Claude Monet. -That must have been nearly twenty years ago, and I thought them very -beautiful. It is strange that nowadays they seem so tame. But it does -not matter to me that I thought them beautiful then, just as when I -first saw a Matisse I thought it interesting, that my first Gauguin, -with its queer brown figures stirred me; it matters to me that when the -futurists came to town, Mr Marinetti did not strike me as a marionette, -and that later all the others, cubists, boulists, imagists, vorticists, -were taken by me as honest men. You may call me a fool; you may even -think worse of me and say that I was so anxious to be in the movement -that I liked every movement; I prefer to say that I was always ready -to try to understand a new pictorial convention. When I cease to be -able to do that, when I cease to see in painting that Mr Wadsworth is -deeply interesting, in literature, that Mr James Joyce is strikingly -individual, when I am Philistine enough to hang a painter because I -won’t hang his picture, then, indeed, shall I be middle-aged and take -to meals. - -The years between 1908 or so and 1914 were some of the most important -English art has passed through. In those six or seven years, for the -first time, London saw the post-impressionists, not only Matisse, -but also Cézanne and Picasso; she saw the futurists, the singular -pictures of views from a moving train which, faulty as they were, -were well worth painting, because from a moving train one does see -things, therefore material for art. She saw Severini’s ‘Pan-Pan Dance,’ -where colour and surface dance rather than men and women; she saw the -coming of Mr Epstein, first in the statues outside the British Medical -Association, which were said to be indecent and became famous; she also -saw reproductions of Mr Epstein’s Oscar Wilde monument, which went -to Paris and was said to be indecent and became kilted. The cubists -came in the train of Mr Metzinger. The non-representational movement -extended, radiating round Mr Wyndham Lewis, impressing many men and -women, among whom, in those days, was found true ability. It was a -breathless and beautiful period, where everybody was under thirty and -many were under twenty, when people painted not for art’s sake, but -consciously for the expression of self. When that self was feeble, the -painting was feeble. But it was not always so. Many ridiculous things -were done; many ridiculous things were said in the Café Royal and out -of it, but, as Miss May Sinclair puts it very well, these young men had -not come to destroy the pictorial glories of the past; they had come -to destroy their imitators. Conscious of their period, they wanted to -express it. - -Some have suggested that the modern forms of painting were merely -outbreaks of youth, that these movements had severed the continuity -which should exist between one period and another. Now the modern young -man is generally arrogant, and if you talked to him of continuity would -say, perhaps: ‘I don’t want any ancestors; I am an ancestor.’ But -he would be wrong. From Monet to Matisse, from Matisse to the early -Nevinson, from the early Nevinson to the modern Wyndham Lewis, the link -is close. No doubt a pen better versed than mine could link Monet with -Giotto. I cannot; for I find it difficult to think back further than -fifty years. - -[Illustration: - - THE GOOD INTENT - CHELSEA] - -There have been reactions. One of the most notable is that of Mr -Nevinson, who is to-day the most popular of the young men, the one who -has been most completely recognised by a broad public. Certainly he has -become more recognisable, though I am not of those who think that his -work has thereby lost. A man may be great and esoteric, or he may be -great and lucid. It all depends on the way in which the dice fall. The -several exhibitions of Mr Nevinson’s work, during the war, have shown -him more and more gaining independence. He began by adopting one of -the cubist conventions; he is still able to do so when he wishes, but -he is also able to use other conventions, even the most stereotyped, -when his subject seems to demand it. He paints pattern, or subject, or -idea, but an interesting sidelight on his attitude is hatred of all -cliques. In the preface of his last exhibition, he bitterly assails -the people who seek ‘pure form through nothing but still life, endless -green apples, saucepans, and oranges, picasized and cezanned with a -ponderous and self-conscious sub-consciousness.’ He hates what he calls -the child-like antics and the gambolling of the elect of Bloomsbury. -He may not be quite fair, but when I remember the various cliques to -which I had occasional access, the Rhythm clique, for whom nobody -existed except Anne Estelle Rice, J. D. Fergusson, Jessie Dismorr, and -George Banks ... until the review changed its name, when most of these -people ceased to exist and nobody but Mr Albert Rutherston was granted -physical likelihood, when I reflect how Mr Nevinson used to cluster -with many others in a cosy cube, only to be driven out at last at the -point of a cone, when I reflect upon the sombre mystery that surrounds -the adepts of Mr Roger Fry (a mystery recently grown less sombre with -success), I am assured that cliques are the necessary breeding-ground -of talent because they fortify its members against the cackling -Philistine. But they are also the thing which keeps talent small and -parochial once they have helped it to grow. The clique is the nursery, -and the test of a man is whether he knows when he is grown up. The art -clique is like journalism, which can lead you anywhere provided you -forsake it. - -Most of the cliques have their being in Chelsea, though Fitzroy Square -and the Garden City occasionally put forward claims, and Bedford Park -asserts itself. I suspect that the movement is nowadays away from -Chelsea. King’s Road grows every day more mercantile; nothing in it -recalls the arts except a slight excess of shops which sell artists’ -materials. One does meet the Chelsea girl, no longer in a jibbah, but -more likely in an eloquent sweater, with her hair cut short and her -feet brogued, but then the Chelsea style has crept into many circles. -You can go into the Chenil Gallery, where you will always find works -by Mr Augustus John and Mr Gill; you can even go and have lunch at the -Good Intent, but somehow Chelsea will not seem to you very Chelsea-ish. -Indeed, there are rows and rows of studios near Glebe Place, Church -Street, Redcliffe Square, in all sorts of odd back-yards and shanties, -but the whole thing does not hold together. At the Good Intent, for -instance, you will find a small, quiet restaurant, decorated with old -furniture, pictures that may have been advanced once upon a time, -a jolly old pug, very fat and wheezing, its portraits on the wall, -grossly flattered, with a mauve ribbon round its neck; you will see -at the tables mainly women who live at local diggings, rather tired -and lonely looking, as women grow when they live in diggings and toast -muffins on the gas stove. - -No, Chelsea is nowadays too successful to be a locality for artists. -Cheyne Walk has become too famous and too rich, for artists cannot live -together, unless it is in a sort of Alsatia where you must pay your -footing in such coin as the keeper thinks fit. Nowadays, the arts tend -to scatter. They can be found in Chalk Farm, even in Paddington, some -say in Bayswater, though this is not likely. They tend to live more -privately than they do in Paris, where half the day seems to be spent -at the Lilas. (Oh, how I hate the Lilas! The last time I went there, -there was an enormous crowd; a hairy Russian philosopher stood on my -right foot while he read bad French translations from the Sanskrit; -meanwhile, two young people stood on my left foot and made love.) In -London the arts meet at their communal places, in certain restaurants -which they discover and then forsake, at the Coq d’Or, at little -dancing clubs. If only the Philistine hated them more, they might cling -closer. - -Still, the arts are not, in London, as absent and ignored as the -foreigner likes to think. It is true, as Mr Nevinson says, that owing -chiefly to our Press, to our loathsome, tradition-loving public schools -and our antiquity-stinking universities, the average Englishman is -not merely suspicious of the new in all intellectual and artistic -experiment, but he is mentally trained to be so unsportsmanlike as to -try to kill every new endeavour in embryo. It is true, but it does not -matter. The arts are vigorous, and in the end, those who came to kill -stay to buy. That will be seen as time goes on. - -Is it, I wonder, a symptom of the English attitude to the arts, that -the chapter which concerns them should, in the words of Mr Henry -James, drag far in the dusty rear of this book? Perhaps, though London -of to-day is so vivid and so eloquent, so full of sharp colour and true -line that, when I consider her music, I am inclined to think that she -would not have attained her crisp and harmonious form if some creative -instinct within her humorous, pessimistic, and languid people had not -presided over her birth, and favoured her composite life. - - - - - * * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s note: - -Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a -predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they -were not changed. - -Simple typographical errors were corrected; unpaired quotation -marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left -unbpaired. - -Except for the cover and Frontispiece, all of the original images -were shades of green. In other copies of the original book, those -images were black/gray. The Transcriber believes the green was due to -discoloration caused by ageing, so in this eBook, those images appear -in black/gray. - -Page 20: “Somerset Maugham” was misprinted as “Somerset Maughan”; -corrected here. - -Page 114: “s’embêter” was printed as “s’embèter”; corrected here. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LONDON MOSAIC*** - - -******* This file should be named 60280-0.txt or 60280-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/0/2/8/60280 - - -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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- margin-bottom: .1em; - visibility: hidden; - color: white; - width: .01em; - display: none; - } - - blockquote {margin: 1.5em 3% 1.5em 3%;} - - .poem-container {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%;} - .poem {display: block;} - .poem .stanza {page-break-inside: avoid;} - - .transnote { - page-break-inside: avoid; - margin-left: 2%; - margin-right: 2%; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - padding: .5em; - } -} - - - h1.pg { text-align: center; - margin-top: 0em; - word-spacing: 0em; } - h2.pg { word-spacing: 0em; } - h3,h4 { text-align: center; - clear: both; } - hr.full { width: 100%; - margin-top: 3em; - margin-bottom: 0em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - height: 4px; - border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ - border-style: solid; - border-color: #000000; - clear: both; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, A London Mosaic, by Walter Lionel George, -Illustrated by Philippe Forbes-Robertson</h1> -<p>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 <a -href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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.</p> -<p>Title: A London Mosaic</p> -<p>Author: Walter Lionel George</p> -<p>Release Date: September 11, 2019 [eBook #60280]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LONDON MOSAIC***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4>E-text prepared by Charlie Howard<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive<br /> - (<a href="https://archive.org">https://archive.org</a>)</h4> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - <a href="https://archive.org/details/londonmosaic00georiala"> - https://archive.org/details/londonmosaic00georiala</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<div class="body"> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<h1>A LONDON MOSAIC</h1> - -<hr /> - -<div class="newpage p4 narrow"> -<h2 id="WRITINGS_OF_W_L_GEORGE"><span class="smaller notbold">WRITINGS OF W. L. GEORGE</span></h2> - -<p class="p0 in0 b0 larger"><i>NOVELS</i></p> - -<p class="p0 in0 in2"> -CALIBAN<br /> -BLIND ALLEY<br /> -THE STRANGERS’ WEDDING<br /> -THE SECOND BLOOMING<br /> -A BED OF ROSES<br /> -THE CITY OF LIGHT<br /> -ISRAEL, KALISCH<br /> -<span class="smaller in2">(<i>American Title</i>: <span class="smcap">Until the Day Break</span>)</span><br /> -THE MAKING OF AN ENGLISHMAN<br /> -<span class="smaller in2">(<i>American Title</i>: <span class="smcap">The Little Beloved</span>)</span><br /> -OLGA NAZIMOV (<span class="smcap">Short Stories</span>) -</p> - -<p class="p1 in0 b0 larger"><i>MISCELLANEOUS</i></p> - -<p class="p0 in0 in2"> -WOMAN AND TO-MORROW<br /> -DRAMATIC ACTUALITIES<br /> -ANATOLE FRANCE<br /> -THE INTELLIGENCE OF WOMAN<br /> -A NOVELIST ON NOVELS<br /> -<span class="smaller in2">(<i>American Title</i>: <span class="smcap">Literary Chapters</span>)</span><br /> -EDDIES OF THE DAY -</p> -</div> - -<hr /> -<div id="i_frontis" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 32em;"><img src="images/i_001.jpg" width="509" height="335" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -HYDE PARK<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<hr /> - -<p class="newpage p4 center xxlarge wspace"> -A LONDON MOSAIC</p> - -<p class="p2 center vspace wspace"><i>Text by</i><br /> -<span class="large">W. L. GEORGE</span></p> - -<p class="p2 center vspace wspace"><i>Pictures by</i><br /> -<span class="large">PHILIPPE FORBES-ROBERTSON</span></p> - -<p class="p4 center vspace wspace">NEW YORK<br /> -<span class="larger">FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY</span><br /> -PUBLISHERS -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="newpage p4 center smaller"> -Copyright, 1921</p> - -<p class="p4 center smaller"><i>Manufactured in Great Britain</i> -</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="CONTENTS" class="chapheadleft">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table id="toc" summary="Contents"> - <tr class="small"> - <td class="tdr top">CHAP.</td> - <td class="tdr" colspan="2">PAGE</td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr top">I.</td> - <td class="tdl">PRELUDE</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr top">II.</td> - <td class="tdl">PLAYGROUNDS</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">13</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr top">III.</td> - <td class="tdl">THE FRIENDLY BOWL</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">35</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr top">IV.</td> - <td class="tdl">WANDERERS</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">43</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr top">V.</td> - <td class="tdl">SOUPS AND STEWS</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">61</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr top">VI.</td> - <td class="tdl">IN SEARCH OF VICE</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">75</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr top">VII.</td> - <td class="tdl">THE POOR</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">85</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr top">VIII.</td> - <td class="tdl">STONES</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">99</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr top">IX.</td> - <td class="tdl">CAFÉ ROYAL</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">119</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="ILLUSTRATIONS" class="chapheadleft">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> -</div> - -<table id="loi" summary="List of Illustrations"> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">HYDE PARK</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> - <tr class="small"> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdr"><i>Facing page</i></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">THE REGENT CANAL AT MAIDA HILL</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_6">6</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">CUMBERLAND HAY-MARKET</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_9">9</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">THE PUB</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_38">38</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">FLOWER-GIRL</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_48">48</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">THE HEART OF THE CITY</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_56">56</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">SOHO MARKET</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_64">64</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">THE SAVOY</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_68">68</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">SHOPPING</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_72">72</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">THE CHELSEA ARTS BALL</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_84">84</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">SHEPHERD’S MARKET</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_92">92</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">THE TUBE, 9.30 A.M.</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_103">103</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">AN ABSENT DESERT: THE CROMWELL ROAD</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_109">109</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">BEASTS AT THE ZOO</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_113">113</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">THE CAFÉ ROYAL</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_122">122</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">PRIVATE VIEW: THE A.A.A.</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_126">126</a></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdl">THE GOOD INTENT, CHELSEA</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_131">131</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">1</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="chapheadright" id="CHAPTER_I">I<br /> -PRELUDE</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span></p> - -<h2 class="chapheadleft">CHAPTER I<br /> - -<span class="subhead">PRELUDE</span></h2> - -<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">The</span> first thing that impresses me as I begin this short book on -London is the large number of subjects of which I will say nothing. -There are many reasons for this. One is that a title such as <i>A -London Mosaic</i> is as difficult to compose to as <i>Life</i> or <i>Love</i>. (Two -novels are still on sale under these somewhat atlasian titles, but -as an author does not wish to be unkind in the first paragraphs -of a book, they need not be reviewed.) Another reason is that -Mr E. V. Lucas, Mrs E. T. Cook, John o’ London, Mr G. R. -Sims, have compiled various volumes of passionate Baedeker, -and I hesitate to set my feet in their mighty footprints. For so -much of this London is unknown to me, and I have learnt little -of her, indeed, learned little except to love her. Thus, in this -book, you will find no lists of houses where famous people lived. -This may seem strange, but it wakes in me no thrill to see a -circular plate of debased wedgwood imposed by a maternal L.C.C. -upon a wall of innocent stucco coated with eternal dirt. To read -that William Hazlitt died here, or lived there, does not add much -to the fact that William Hazlitt lived. It may be interesting to know -that Hazlitt chose that sort of house, though it is likely that he -did not choose it, but accepted it; a house does not define a man -of worth, for men of worth are mostly poor, and their houses -reflect them not. Many must have hated them. Yet, I happen -to know Huxley’s house in St John’s Wood, and Carlyle’s house -in Chelsea (there is no getting over that one when friends arrive -from America), but it is not exciting knowledge, and I incline to -rejoice with Kingsley that it is not the house one lives in matters, -but the house opposite. Unfortunately, the house opposite is -generally just as bad: the only thing that reconciles one to one’s -house is that the people opposite see most of it.</p> - -<p>I shall not tell you anything of ‘quaint corners,’ or ‘picturesque -bits.’ I will not cut up and pickle London. Ever since the days -of Dickens (or is it since those of Dr Syntax?) people have ranged<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span> -our unfortunate town armed with a butterfly-net: swoop! caught -Cloth Fair! Another swoop! Staple Inn lies in the butterfly-net. -Quick, into the pickle-jar. Now for the cyanide. Here they are, -London butterflies, ready for delineation by Mr Hugh Thompson. -No, I will pickle you no living strips of London Town, and I -promise that not once will I portray a humorous bus-conductor. -One reason is that there are no humorous bus-conductors; there -are only raucous brutes, working long hours, and maintained in -a state of pessimism because these long hours separate them -from the public-house. They do not, however, separate them -enough.</p> - -<p>There will be no East in the West, nor West in the East. -There will be no list of statues, for nobody ever looks at statues. -There is a statue of George Stephenson at Euston, and one of -William Pitt in Hanover Square. That is very interesting, isn’t -it? It is a terrible commentary upon fame that when you erect -a statue to a man he becomes invisible. You pass a statue every -day, but you never look at it, you pass it. Nobody cares for -statues, except the birds, who make them a venue for love and war. -Christopher Wren did say that if you required a monument you -should look about you; thus does the London population. Those -who have noticed Mr Peabody, miraculously encased in a frock -coat several sizes too small, Mr Huskisson stark naked, and one -of the Georges on his little horse, trotting to nowhere in particular, -as was the way of his dynasty, will agree that it is no wonder -statues fail to arouse even merriment.</p> - -<p>No, there are no statues in this book. There are no pictures -either. I shall not tell you how to find the Madonna degli Ansidei -in the National Gallery, nor direct you to the Flaxmans of -University College. The catalogues can do that. That is, if -you want to know, and are not one of the ordinary beings who -use the museums to get out of the rain or for the innocent purposes -of courtship. (I recommend the Geological; chilly, but leads to -concentration). Sometimes, in remorseful mood, when the word -‘ought,’ which as a rule means little to me, suddenly assumes -material shape to the extent of a faint mist, I tell myself that I am<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span> -very uneducated, and regrettably unrepentant, that I ‘ought’ -to care that Swift lived in Bury Street and Sir Isaac Newton in -Jermyn Street, and that I ‘ought’ to find desecration in the fact -that where the dog Diamond barked, the plates of Jules’s Balkan -waiters clatter. And I go to Jules’s to lunch and to meditate on -gravitation. But Jules can cook, and while eating his meats you -do not meditate; and he is so popular that as soon as you have -finished those meats, you are driven out by the eyes of some young -couple, beaming with love and appetite. Nor may you meditate -opposite the houses of the great; it annoys the police. So, after -this faint attempt, the slender ‘ought’ evaporates. Perhaps -because of that I have not yet succeeded in visiting the Tower, -the Roman Bath, the Foundling, the Soane Museum, the Mint, -and many other places which doubtless would improve my -mind.</p> - -<p>I am not a student, but a lover of London; it amuses me -much more to notice that one man shouts: ‘Paw Maw! Exper! -Paw Maw!’ while another does it like this: ‘Per Mer! Gateshpozervenment!’ -than to bask in the knowledge that Johnson -lived in Gough Square. This arises, I suppose, from having taken -London as I found her, and from not being a Londoner. The -first twenty years of my life having been spent in another country, -I did not treat London as a relation, but as some one whom I -liked. Everything of her was interesting, and there is to-day no -mews where I cannot hear the footsteps of her smutty nymphs. -The entry into London is such a romantic march; I say march -because it is worth doing on foot. But as I speak to Londoners, -we had better do it by train, for they would grow tired of her. -When Londoners say ‘London,’ they mean Piccadilly, Selfridges, -Covent Garden, that sort of thing, and that is not London. London -is Tottenham and Chiswick, the ‘Paragon,’ Mile End, Walker’s -Court and what it sells, and the black doss places under the railway -arches. London is Houndsditch, where everybody looks bad, -and Cornwall Gardens where everybody looks good. London -is a congress-house of emotions.</p> - -<p>When one looks at the map, particularly if it is on a large<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span> -scale, London looks like a splash, rather longer than it is broad, -with railway lines radiating in all directions, rather like a spider’s -web, the centre being tenanted by whoever you like. And one -thinks of Dick Whittington gaily treading in the spider’s web. -But, in fact, one does not come out of the everywhere into the here -of London. One melts into London, and one hardly knows how -one comes to abandon the rest of the world. There is a moment -when the Essex or Kentish marsh ceases to lap so uniformly -against Medway or Thames. One has a sense of population, of -rather large houses set rather far apart, but not yet so far apart -as in the counties; of grounds less richly endowed with the high -walls crowned with broken glass which announce that respectable -people live inside. One reads names on the platforms: ‘Brentwood,’ -or ‘Malling,’ and there is a sprinkling of villas, with plenty -of white paint and concrete, and red roofs and leaded panes. One -glimpses cerise curtains, and one knows with painful accuracy -where to look for the back of the swing mirror. Then, again, gaps, -cows. It must have been a mistake, it is not London after all! -But there come more platforms and more villas, then a row of -shops, shops not branded with the names one would expect to -find, such as ‘Boots’ or ‘Home and Colonial,’ but brisk, individual -little shops belonging to Smith, and to Jones, yet strangely alike -in build, furnished by the same shopfitter, just as the owners will -be buried by the same undertaker. (He is quite ready, for he -owns one of the shops.) That is individualism, which, like the -camomile plant, is ever bruised and ever arises.</p> - -<p>The train rumbles on, and the houses change. They are still -detached, but less detached: they are separated by privet hedges -over which a man can look, and so they have an air of fellowship. -Suddenly, one enters a little colony of houses; one sees a postman -on foot instead of on a bicycle, a horse omnibus and no carrier’s -cart; one sees a policeman too: the world is growing less respectable; -it must be London after all. But again come gaps and cows, -except that now the gaps are described as ‘desirable freehold sites’ -with loudly advertised frontages. The earth is already torn up, -and excavations are turning into roads; one observes a solitary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span> -gas-lamp, and on a board the words ‘Macedonia Avenue.’ No -avenue is built yet, but it is foredoomed to Macedonia.</p> - -<div id="ip_6" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 44em;"> - <img src="images/i_006.jpg" width="689" height="473" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -THE REGENT CANAL<br /> -AT MAIDA HILL -</p></div></div> - -<p>All that is the overflow of London; it is the fugitive London -which has no love or understanding of the town. The movement -of a Londoner who rises in life seems to follow a definite curve; -if he begins in Whitechapel the wheel of fortune may take him to -Streatham; after a while he will dream of a place in the country -and realise his dream perhaps at Purley Oaks; by the time his son -has come back from Oxford, his wife will have been ambitious -enough to remove him to South Kensington; thence, the last -step, to God’s quadrilateral between Oxford Street and Piccadilly, -Regent Street, and Park Lane. After the bankruptcy the process -is reversed. Outward, then inward, and outward again. It is -like the tide.</p> - -<p>But the train goes on, and unexpectedly, we find age after -youth, Croydon, Sydenham, Edmonton, places where again the -walls are high, the oaks thick, where are deep lawns, heavy stucco -fronts, little crowded streets with spreading market places. We -breathe the air of genteel sleep. Genteel, perhaps, but restless -sleep, for these are old villages made into islands.</p> - -<p>They seem vaguely annoyed among the trams; they blink at -the sky-signs and the objurgations of Bovril. But it is too late; -round each little group run fifty streets, each one comprising a -hundred houses or so, all complete, with Nottingham lace curtain -and Virginia creeper. The old house may call itself ‘The Lodge,’ -but ‘Chatsworth’ and ‘Greville Towers’ are round the corner. -Indeed, we forget them as we go on, for now, as the train roars -over railway bridges, through cuttings, we look down on the -endless congestion of suburban roofs, each one separated from its -neighbour by what the builder regrettably calls a ‘worm.’</p> - -<p>And yet it is not London. For London has yet to burst upon -our eyes, in the shape of strident Clapham Road, or Brixton -Road, true London of the black, greasy pavement and the orange -peel of which Private Ortheris babbled in his delirium. We -have still to come to the giant warehouses and their ambitious -grayness, to the flat mass of gray, yellow, and black, broken only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span> -by the washing that hangs to dry, and the narrow gardens where -droops the nasturtium. At last here is working London, little, -nestling, hard, grimy London, gritty, troglodyte London, London -of crowded shop and public-house, of tramway and clotted traffic, -and yelping children. That is London of many heads and, to me, -all smiling.</p> - -<p>It is only later, when at last we reach the river that is gray as -a cygnet, and see London rising in a hundred solemn spires, that -we come to understand London, to feel the use of that white, -central pomp; as well of that opulence as of the smiling cleanliness -of the outer ring, of the blackness of the inner ring. For all that -is part of London’s world, and it is well that she should, within -herself, comprise all ugliness and all beauty. For this makes her -worth exploring.</p> - -<p>The secret of a city’s exploration does not lie in the dutiful -following of itineraries, but rather in a lover-like submission to -its moods. One should eat in various places, not only within the -stereotyped square mile which, in London, in Paris, or in Petrograd, -is loudly labelled as the foreigner’s restaurant. One must seek -culinary adventure far afield, at Harrow, and at Tulse Hill, in -Piccadilly and Norton Folgate; and let me assure you that there -exists a subtle difference between the cooking at the Cheapside -A.B.C. and its fellow in the Brixton Road.</p> - -<p>Also one should readily cede to the fancy that is bred by a -beautiful place name. It is true that, as a rule, the most attractive -names lead to the least attractive places, but on the way one touches -singularity often, and beauty sometimes. My Baedeker has -always been Kelly’s Directory; that is one of the books I should -like to find in my restricted library if I were wrecked on a desert -island. For, sitting under my bread-fruit tree, warm in my -garment of yakskin, and smoking an earthen pipe of dried I don’t -know what leaf, Kelly’s Directory would bring up dreams, dreams -such as these: Seven Sisters’ Road, Satchwell Rents, Beer Lane, -and Whetstone Park. All those dreams have come true, and thus -a little of my fervour has been abated by their materialisation; by -the discovery of Seven Sisters’ Road as gray, refuse-strewn, rich<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span> -in Victorian goodness and in modern slum; of Satchwell Rents -as a dusty affluent into Bethnal Green Road, shuttered, and locked, -and suspicious. Whetstone Park, of course, is not at Whetstone, -but just off New Oxford Street, and there is no park there. But -still, those names, like Orme Square, that secludes itself from the -Bayswater Road behind its column and its defiant eagle, like -Cumberland Market, Hanoverian, naked, whose many iron posts -await cattle that never come, contain the seed of romance because -they induce quest. And so I will not be discouraged yet, but soon -must discover what stones have wrought Jedburgh Street and -Parsifal Road.</p> - -<div id="ip_9" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 41em;"> - <img src="images/i_009.jpg" width="650" height="427" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -CUMBERLAND<br /> -HAY-MARKET<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>Yet those streets, and roads, and squares that have their place -in Kelly are, after all, only the outer shell which the true lover -must break through. If he is a true lover, he will soon understand -that London lies behind the streets. He will realise that between -two streets there is often more than two rows of houses and of -gardens or yards. He will have discovered that in the core of -those blocks of masonry lives an inner London. Into that core -there is but one way, which I will call the slits. We all know -slits, little spaces between houses, that lead inwards, you know not -whither. You pass them every day, perhaps, and never turn -aside, yet through those slits is the way in. There is one, for -instance, near Notting Hill Gate. They call it Bulmer Place, -though it is only six feet broad and is buried under an archway. -Enter; ten yards lead you to an old cottage settlement, where no -house exceeds two floors, where each has its garden, its creeper -and its cat, where washing floats undisturbed, and, on fine afternoons, -public beanoes take place. This is an old London village, -caught between the warehouses and shops, yet maintained by the -magic law of ancient lights.</p> - -<p>There is another slit, less well known, quite near Kensington -Square. To the ordinary eye, Kensington Square is entirely -civilised, and none live there unless they have both money and -good taste. In the far south-west corner stands a convent, that -stares forth blankly upon this world. But walk south-east and -turn to the right, and go on until, past low, white cottages grown<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span> -with sterile vine, you meet a brick wall. On the way, small houses, -well locked, that are quiet and green, will have seen you pass -without approval. If adventure is not for you, you will turn back -on seeing the brick wall; if, however, it is, you will go on, and, -on your right, find a slit so small that you may not open your -umbrella in it. This they call South End; if you persevere you -shall come to rustic cottages of plaster, and at last discover, single-floored -against the side of a great block of flats, the cottage and -garden where rot two old green, painted figure-heads. There -live Prunella, Mityl, Selysette, and their tribe. But go carefully -to South End, for the road is fugitive, and I cannot always find -it myself. I think I find it only on the days when I am not too -impure in heart.</p> - -<p>Wherever flows London stone the slits exist. A deep, dark -archway out of Surrey Street dives under the Norfolk Hotel; -follow it, go down Surrey Steps, and you shall come to a water-gate, -on which you may yet lean and smell the tar of Henry Fitz -Alwyn’s barge. Another slit, behind the Alexandra Hotel, will -lead you through Old Barrack Yard (I do not know what barrack) -and past low, industrial cottages, to the petrified splendours of -Belgravia. I wish I knew them all, for I discovered yet another -last week, after overlooking it for over sixteen years. It is called -St James’s Market, and leads off the Haymarket, towards the -neat elegancies of Jermyn Street. That does not sound promising; -yet, lost among the backs of warehouses and restaurants, -there stands a long, low house coated with <em>green</em> plaster; it -is a workshop, but some sense of fitness had bidden the -workers relieve its green walls with claret curtains. I -choose to be sure that in this house Axford tried to imprison -Hannah Lightfoot, until the fair Quakeress fled to her Georgian -lover.</p> - -<p>And follow the green spot on the map, on the borough map, -that cares so much for the borough, so little for the town. The -borough map will lead you to green fields where flourish the -sardine tin and the wild hyacinth. It will lead you to a churchyard, -itself buried between theatres and shops, behind St Ann’s,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span> -Soho, where King Theodore of Corsica has laid his insurgent -bones. It will lead you behind the solemnities of South Paddington -into the vast churchyard behind the little Chapel of the Ascension. -This is open to you all day; there you will find sparse graves, -vast lawns and, under the trees, friendly seats where you may -dream of death, or, if you prefer, of loves that will companion -you to that bourne.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="chapheadright" id="CHAPTER_II">II<br /> -PLAYGROUNDS</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span></p> - -<h2 class="chapheadleft">CHAPTER II<br /> - -<span class="subhead">PLAYGROUNDS</span></h2> - -<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">It</span> is strange that the theatre should matter in a nation such as -ours, which has gained a reputation for liberalism and tolerance, -being tolerant because it cared for nothing, and liberal because it -understood little. The vogue of the theatre reflects the character -of urban England, which is as frivolous as that of urban Italy is -dour; because it is the symbol of pleasure, easily attained and -still more easily digested, it can always find room in the newspaper, -where the affairs of the nation flicker and the claims of art are -unmet. For let there be no confusion: art and the theatre are -not the same thing; almost one might say that if a play possesses -artistic quality it holds a passport to eternity, with this difference, -that many things lost in eternity are remembered. A little more -may be said of this further on.</p> - -<p>London has always been a city of theatres, perhaps because -we have, for many centuries, laboured under the Puritan tradition: -its bitterness has attached to the theatre a glamour foreign to it in -hotter lands. When you open a book of memoirs by an Italian, -a German, or a Russian, you may be sure that it will consist in -portraits of politicians, biographies of cocottes, stories of riots -and coronations, but if at Hatchards you peer into any volume -called <i>My Life</i>, or something like that, you will almost invariably -discover that the greater part of the author’s life seems to have -been employed in meeting Sir Henry Irving, or waiting outside -the Adelphi on first nights. The theatre, you see, is wicked and -winning; the most august of the augustine, Messrs Coutts and -Co., stamp upon their cheques their old sign: ‘At the “Three -Crowns” in the Strand, next door to the Globe Theatre, <span class="smcap smaller">A.D.</span> 1692.’ -I will wager those three crowns that no bank manager would -ever think of advertising on his cheques: ‘Next door to Westminster -Abbey.’ Why this should be is not entirely explained -by the Puritan tradition, and it is still less explained by the London -theatres themselves, nearly all of them, the meanest, dirtiest,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span> -dingiest, fustiest, frowstiest edifices in the country. This is true, -whether you pass from Drury Lane, that cave of winds, to -‘behind,’ at the Kingsway, where the oldest rabbit would get -lost. Indeed, our theatres must have been influenced by the -Puritan tradition, for everything has been done to hide their -addresses in the papers, to make their doors invisible, their seating -suitable for a Christian martyr. There is not in London a pre-Boer -War theatre the pit of which is not summed up by Rutland -Barrington’s song: ‘You bark your shins, you bang your head, -your knees are up to your nose in bed ...’ and so on. They are -so arranged that people delicately place their feet in the small -of your back, so that nobody can enter the middle of a row without -disturbing it, or leave it without infuriating it; as for the rakes, -in spite of the matinée hat, I suspect that they have been planned -to encourage expensive transfers. Of course, the worst theatres -are those which are known as the ‘good old’ ones. There is no -such thing as good old. There is nothing but bad old, and the -theatre is an example. It must have been that heathen god, Good -Old, invented Covent Garden. Good Old got it up in red and -gold (Good Old would); Good Old planned the slips, which on one -side let you hear all the strings and on the other all the brass. -Good Old says it is cheap for half a crown. Good Old planned -Drury Lane and laid it down where no buses pass. And, no -doubt, Good Old handed over what was then Her Majesty’s -Theatre to Shakespeare as dramatised by Beerbohm Tree.</p> - -<p>Some of the old London theatres, it is true, are a little less -repulsive because they are not quite so large. Thus, the Haymarket, -the Royalty, and in a queer, insidious way old Sadler’s -Wells. Sadler’s Wells has gone; there to-day upon the film -cowboys race and rescue, and negroid heroines register their -emotions, but not long ago it was one of the few pleasant places -Good Old had bequeathed us, with its hemicycle of plush-backed -stalls, its little boxes lined with an inch of lush and half an inch -of dirt, its heavy red hangings, favourable to lovers, its preposterous -plays of love, gold, faith, patriotism, and banana falls. You see, -at Sadler’s Wells, Good Old dated back to about 1780, while at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span> -most of our theatres he has brought himself up to date, say to 1860, -and has grown respectable; it has not agreed with him. When -we consider the few new theatres that have been built, such as -the Scala, the Little Theatre, the Ambassadors, we are sure -that the old cannot be brought up to date. Like most old institutions, -the English theatre can be reformed only by dynamite.</p> - -<p>As in many human things, architecture is at fault. The -playhouse is evolved from the Roman circus. But the circus -offered a performance without scenery, which could be seen from -all sides. When scenery came, it grew impossible to show the -play except from one side, so as not to give away the mystery; -thus we obtained the semi-circular auditorium, which would be -quite satisfactory if it did not result in a perpetually partial view -for one half of the audience. The old play was mainly pantomimic; -when the play grew more articulate it became impossible to hear -the words very far, and as the theatre could not spread outwards -it spread upwards. Then chaos came, for rakes had to be so -arranged as to enable people to see, and yet packed close under -another tier. The result is sardines.</p> - -<p>Indeed, when we consider what it labours against, it is remarkable -that the theatre should be so healthy. Every year, well over -half the plays that are put on enjoy less than six weeks’ run, and -if it were not notorious that bankruptcy is a profitable trade one -would wonder how managers live. The managers seem to have -done everything to achieve financial suicide. Especially during -the last twenty years; notably stimulated by Mr Charles Frohman -and Mr George Edwardes, they have indulged in an endless -competition in expensive staging. It grew quite common for a -play to cost £5000 to stage, and much more was spent sometimes. -Now, that large sum was risked, not invested, and so the unfortunate -manager had to pay his backers a heavy toll. I am sure he was -entirely wrong, for audiences prefer plays to scenery, and Mr -Cochran, one of the few managers who remembers that once -upon a time he was a public, has proved this by staging a successful -revue for about £150. Do not believe that I am a highbrow; -I do not suggest that <i>A Little Bit of Fluff</i> should be staged without<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span> -scenery, but with curtains (though there is a lot in curtains, if -discreetly drawn), but I do suggest that the more elaborate the -scenery, the more the play is overlooked. Perhaps that is what -the managers desire, and judging from the condition of modern -drama, perhaps they are right. But I attribute to the managers -no such profundities of psychology. Rather would I say that -they know what the public wants, and one thing they know well: -the public wants certain actors and wants them passionately.</p> - -<p>I shall never forget a certain performance of <i>King Henry V.</i> -There entered a man in silver armour, his visor down, and a -gasping female by my side said: ‘That’s Lewis Waller.’ And -the worst of it is that she was right, and that I knew she was right. -Visor or no visor, I too knew it was Lewis Waller; it was Lewis -Waller, slamming and banging British drama as none better -could than he, by insisting, in his silver armour, on being always -Waller, never Henry V. They are all like that: Mr Gerald -du Maurier may dress himself up as a policeman, or swathe his -neck in a choker, or get into evening clothes and pretend to be a -burglar, but thick over those artifices lies always the charming -du Maurier trail. He is loved for that, just as Beerbohm Tree -was loved for the confectionery of his voice and the circular -movement of his hand, as Mr Hawtrey is loved for his sober -cynicism, and Miss Doris Keane for ... I don’t know exactly -what. Whatever actors are loved for, it is always for being themselves -and never for being their parts; whether, like Miss Lilian -Braithwaite, they have cast themselves for the lilies and languors -of virtue, or, like Miss Dorothy Minto, for the roses and raptures -of vice, to those selections they must cleave, or they shall be loved -no more. But if they do cleave to these selves of theirs, then shall -they attain fame, and the public will not say: ‘Have you been to -<i>Hamlet</i>?’ but ‘Have you seen Martin Harvey?’ And this -worship shapes yet another stone to hurl at the English theatre, -namely, fantastic salaries, varying between £100 and £300 a week. -Call me a Bolshevik if you like, but I say no man is worth £300 -a week; nobody knows this when the man is alive, but everybody -does the day after he is dead. This would not matter if it did<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span> -not make the theatre so expensive to run, therefore the prices of -the seats so high that only those who can afford it sit in them. -The richer the staging, the poorer the play; the dearer the seat, -the greater its attraction to the people who know ‘the price of -everything and the value of nothing.’ For long purses are made -of sows’ ears.</p> - -<p>I wonder if something could be done for the theatre. -Supposing it were built like the Scala, so that nobody sat at -the sides, so that everybody might see the play instead of -hats, so that one might have a fit in the stalls and be removed -without causing too much trouble (you see, I think of everything), -so that the people at the top were not seated so high as to observe -mainly the actors’ upper skulls. Supposing a theatre like the -Munich Kammerspiele, which holds five hundred, were to be -built. Supposing, like that one, it had but one balcony; supposing -it were cheap to light; supposing, too, that it had no programme -sellers, but delivered programmes at the doors from a penny-in-the-slot -machine; supposing it had no cloak-room attendants, -but hooks with a number and a padlock; supposing it had no ... -I forget the name of the attendant, something like pew-opener, -and that the seats were not numbered from A.26 to M.34 in the -stalls, not numbered at all in the pit, and re-numbered again in -the upper circle; supposing the seats were just numbered 1, 2, -3, so that one could find them; supposing we paid actors for -rehearsals and engaged them for a certain term; supposing all -this, would the public be pleased? I wonder! I wonder whether -the public would like paying less for its seats. If stalls did not -cost 10s. 6d., would it trust the play? It certainly does not trust -the doctor who charges less than 10s. 6d. And yet, once upon -a time, the theatre was cheap. When, sixty years ago, Ben -Webster was producing at the Adelphi, a stall cost 5s., and Mr -Webster offered amphitheatre stalls ‘with elbows and cushions, -secured the whole evening’ for 1s.</p> - -<p>Yes, a good deal might be done like this. A good deal might -be done by the Lord Chamberlain and the London County Council, -if only they would cease to devote all their thoughts to exits from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span> -the theatre. (On consideration, this may be well advised.) They -might allow smoking, and best of all, they might allow everything, -suspend all censorship, and be assured that the plays which are -called objectionable would not be staged. I do not mean that -there is no demand for objectionable plays; there is; indeed, we -nearly all of us like objectionable plays, but the Puritans can trust -our Puritan feeling, which makes it impossible for us to enjoy -objectionable plays because we dare not be seen enjoying them -by other people who are also enjoying them. Ah! if you could -go to the play masked it would be different.</p> - -<p>What is wrong with the drama is that it does not hold an -idea to the square act; is it worth saving? For it may truly be -said that the only fault the public finds in a stupid play is that it -is not stupid enough. You do not believe me. Let us look at -the list of plays in to-day’s paper. To-day there are open thirty-six -metropolitan theatres, including some we can leave out, -Maskelyne’s, Drury Lane (Opera), the Philharmonic. Of the -remaining thirty-three, musical comedy occupies six stages. Say -no more about that. If it were not for the lips that sing, our -attention would be concentrated on English music. Revue rages -at five theatres. This leaves twenty-two plays running. Among -them are two spy plays, two comic war plays, a mystical melodrama, -four farces; the rest consists in plays made by hands unassisted -by heads, plays that the next generation may make by machinery. -The groans of old age are heard as Sir Arthur Pinero rigs <i>The -Freaks</i> upon their legs, as Mr Somerset Maugham presents <i>Love -in a Cottage</i>. And <i>Dear Brutus</i> is the twinkling star that makes -darker the Thalian night.</p> - -<p>In hardly one of these plays is there a single moment of -intellectual distinction. I do not mean that I ask those twenty-two -stages to make up the night’s programme of <i>King Lear</i>, -<i>Ghosts</i>, <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Les Trois Filles de Monsieur Dupont</i>, the <i>Sunken Bell</i>, <i>The -Knight of the Burning Pestle</i>, but I do think that their coalition -might give us more than <i>Dear Brutus</i>. There should be plenty -of room for true comedy of the type of <i>The Admirable Crichton</i>, -<i>Mrs Gorringe’s Necklace</i>, <i>John Bull’s Other Island</i>, <i>The Cassilis<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span> -Engagement</i>, <i>Chains</i>, comedy with ideas. There should be room -for <i>The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnett</i>, <i>The Playboy of the Western -World</i> and other solid plays. But one condition is that we should -pay for plays, not players. We do not. If you want evidence -consider the following advertisement of <i>When Knights were Bold</i> -(a really amusing play):—</p> - -<blockquote class="unit"> - -<p class="p1 b0 center larger intact">WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.</p> - -<p class="p1 in0 larger vtight">BROMLEY<br />CHALLENOR</p> - -<blockquote class="hang"> - -<p>‘Bromley Challenor has a personality and fun of his own.’—<i>Times.</i></p> -<p>‘An individual style of his own.’—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> -<p>‘A manner quite his own.’—<i>The Queen.</i></p> -<p>‘Nothing funnier than the second act.’—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> -<p>‘His fun is infectious.’—<i>Daily Graphic.</i></p> -<p>‘Keeps his audience in convulsions.’—<i>Star.</i></p> -<p>‘Had a triumphant reception.’—<i>Daily Chronicle.</i></p> -<p>‘Bromley Challenor extracts every spark of fun.’—<span class="smcap">J. T. Grein</span>, <i>Sunday Times</i>.</p> -<p>‘The play went more gloriously than ever.’—<i>Referee.</i></p> -</blockquote> - -<p class="p1 in0 larger vtight">MARJORIE<br />BELLAIRS</p> - -<blockquote class="hang"> -<p>‘Miss Marjorie Bellairs is a charming actress with a singularly sweet voice.’—<i>Era.</i></p> -</blockquote> -</blockquote> - -<p class="p1 in0">Ten press quotations. Two refer to the play; one may refer to -play or to actor; seven refer to the actor only. (The playwright -is not mentioned, but never mind). This does not mean that the -newspapers confined their notices to Mr Bromley Challenor, but -it does mean that the management selected for quotation only -the phrases which refer to the actor, because that is what the -public wants, and what it gets for the hastening of its mental -decay.</p> - -<p>What is wrong with the theatre is, to a certain extent, right<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span> -with the music-hall, and this for two reasons: we have to deal -with a different kind of playgoer, and the excessive valuation of the -actor is sharply limited by the worth of his songs. I have seen -Ernie Mayne, Ella Shields, and others rouse the house with one -song and half-fail with another. The theatre-goer, who, on the -whole, is not a music-hall-goer, is usually either in a smug condition, -or over-conscious of his digestive process. Nearly all the pit -and upper circle, and the bulk of the dress circle, feel that they -are indulging in a respectable spree. Leaving aside the one who, -in the newspapers, signs his letters as ‘Old Playgoer’ (generally -an old fool), or ‘Old Firstnighter,’ probably an old lunatic (because -the first night is the worst night), the cheaper seats in a theatre -are tenanted mainly by people in a stupefied state of admiration. -They have escaped for a few hours from the dug-outs of respectability; -their families have not long emerged from the tradition -that the theatre is a place of evil repute; some even believe that -they are improving their minds, which is touching, whatever the -condition of their minds. They file their programmes. They -loudly proclaim to their friends that they ‘ought’ to go and see -such and such a play. Perhaps they go because they ought to. -Perhaps they go to dream dreams; no doubt nightmares do not -disappoint them. The stalls are not in search of virtue tempered -with a little vice; most of their patrons are confessedly in search -of vice neat. They never get it. And if this vice, invisible to -anybody who is not a bishop or the editor of a Sunday paper, is -necessary to their health, it is because they visit the theatre in a -state of advanced repletion, because they are people who manage -to be replete in the middle of a European war; such is their -nature. No wonder, then, that the cold suet of the drama should -have so securely become wrapped in the wet dish-cloth of the -playgoer. Thus, it may be true to say that the playgoer gets the -plays he deserves. The music-hall-goer is different.</p> - -<p>If it is true that many go to the theatre when they have eaten -too much, it is, to a certain extent, true that many go to the music-hall -when they have drunk too much, which, if I must choose, -is less repulsive. They are frankly out for a rag; they want to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span> -laugh, and I had rather they guffawed than drowsed. You can’t -drowse in a music-hall: from the moment when the conductor, -in his elaborately luxurious and irremediably faulty dress suit, -addresses his first and infinitely disabused bow to the audience, -to the time when he calls upon the band to produce the smallest -possible scrap of ‘God Save the King,’ and hurries out loyalty -on the wings of ragtime, there is no flagging. It is not only that -red-nosed comedian and eccentric comedienne, American dancer, -or sketch got up regardless, tread upon each other’s heels; the -main thing is the band, the harsh, rapid band, that never stops, -that plays anything, providing it is the thing of the day, with all -the regularity and indifference of the typewriter. From it gush -patriotism, comedy or sentiment, and all three burst forth with -their full headline value. There is no tickling of big drums; -when the drum is banged you know it; nor is there measure in -the sigh of the oboe, for the music-hall paints not in wash-greens -and grays; scarlet, black, white, and electric-blue are -its gamut.</p> - -<p>Nothing else would satisfy the audience that every music-hall -comedian must encounter every night. It is a mixed audience. -There are old stagers who sit in the same seat every Saturday -night, without looking at the programme, and this differentiates -them from the playgoer: they are bound for a playground. There -are the discriminating who follow the star, so long as the star’s -songs refrain from appealing to what is described as their better -feelings; there are the very young in search of excitement, and -determined to get it; there are the slightly older, who come in -pairs, and do nothing to conceal the fact. (Of late years, many -of these have been lost to the music-halls and have taken to the -cinemas because they are darker.) But one thing unites them -all: they have come here to be amused, amused at once, amused -all the time; they are not ready to make allowances; if an old -song is a good song, it is a good song, but if it is not a good song -the seasoned music-hall-goer will know it at once. I have heard -him turn to his neighbour and say: ‘It’s all up. She won’t get -across.’ Getting across the footlights is not, in a music-hall, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span> -same thing as getting across in a theatre. The music-hall performer -has no scenery to help him, in this sense, that the properties -are well known to the audience. I have seen at least twenty turns -at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in front of a drop-curtain which -I swear is Croydon High Street. The words of the song are, as -a rule, difficult to sing. Often, as in the case of George Robey, -the costume is stereotyped and never varies. Thus the music-hall -performer, having not the scenery of Harry Hope, or the -knee-breeches of Malvolio, can rely on nothing but himself. He -comes naked into an entirely cold world. His situation is ideally -expressed by the old cartoon of the impresario, his foot bound up -to show that he has gout. Before him stands the dingy figure of -a little performer. This is their <span class="locked">dialogue:—</span></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p><i>Impresario</i>: ‘What’s your line?’</p> - -<p><i>Performer</i>: ‘Comedian.’</p> - -<p><i>Impresario</i>: ‘Well! get on with it! Make me laugh.’</p></blockquote> - -<p>If within one minute of his appearance the performer has not -got his laugh he will probably not get it at all. If he is famous, -and if his turn is not too bad, nothing worse will happen than the -administration of the frozen lemon. It is rather tragic, feeling -the lemon come. You feel the audience leap up towards the -performer, for it is always ready to give him his chance, even if -he is unknown; then, in a minute or so, you feel the audience -drop away from him; you are aware that he is not being listened -to, for people begin to talk, to flutter with their programmes, and -perhaps some one may hum an irrelevant air. The wretched -performer knows it. If you are sitting in the first row of the -stalls you see anxiety come over his face. He begins to shout or -to dance rather wildly; he knows that he is not getting across; -he tries to attract attention as a cockatoo if he cannot do so as an -eagle. Then some one laughs derisively, and there is something -hideous in that laughter; it makes one think of the thumb-down -attitude in the Roman circus. The curtain drops in the middle -of something that is half hum and half silence. That is the lemon.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span> -It is only in extreme cases that the audience manifests disapproval. -Indeed, it is an audience full of good-natured contempt, -and if the lemon is taken it willingly passes on to the next turn; -as a rule, the lemon is taken by the management, who ring down -the curtain on the first song and do not let the performer come -on again. But if the performer does come on again, and strives -to recapture lost ground, the audience will give him thirty seconds -to do it; if he fails, the hum grows angry as that of a swarm of -bees. There is more derisive laughter; a few yells come from -the gallery; a general uproar develops from the hum. You -discern cries: ‘I want to go ’ome’.... ‘Take me back to mother.’ ... -Opponents reply as loudly: ‘Shut up! chuck him out!’ -But the voices resume in more and more sepulchral tones: ‘I -want to go ’ome,’ while others join the rag for the rag’s sake, and -some stentor high above roars: ‘Shut yer face, dear, I see yer -Christmas dinner.’ And then everybody cries: ‘Chuck him out!’ -while the performer sings louder and louder, and the band makes -still more desperate efforts to drown his song. Then a large portion -of the audience rise to their feet and bellow enmity until the -curtain goes down. That is the scarlet bird, and I have not often -seen it on the wing.</p> - -<p>No, there is no mercy in the music-hall audience. For it is an -honest audience, and is, therefore, capable of every brutality. -Also, everybody has paid for his seat. Nobody there can afford -to waste that small payment. They must get their money’s -worth. They know exactly what they want; they have -been wanting it ever since the Middle Ages, and, on the whole, -have been getting it. They want rough and obvious jokes told -in a subtle and intelligent way; they want to see the performer -break plates or sit on the butter, but he must do it in a debonair -style; they want songs of which they know the tune by the time -the second couplet is reached, favourite songs of which they can -bellow the choruses while the triumphant performer whispers it; -above all, they want their traditional jokes. Cheese, lodgers, -mothers-in-law, twins, meeting the missus at 3 a.m., alcoholic -excess, one or more of these must be introduced to make a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span> -successful song. It does not matter who you are, whether the great -McDermott, Dan Leno, or R. G. Knowles, you must tie your -little bark to the great ship of the English music-hall tradition. -No famous song has become famous unless a portion of it at -least dealt with one of these subjects: ‘Champagne Charlie,’ -‘I’m following in father’s footsteps,’ ‘The Girl, the Woman, and -the Widow,’ are clear evidences of this. Perhaps that is why -some delicate artists, such as Maidie Scott and Wish Wynne, -have never quite ‘got there.’ Maidie Scott is the most finished -product on the music-halls of to-day. As soon as she comes on, -her quick, schoolgirl walk, her red hair, her <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">distrait</i> eyes, and the -voice which she knows so amazingly how to keep down to a minor -key, cut her right out of the stage. When Maidie Scott sings -‘Amen,’ or ‘Father’s got the sack from the water-works’ (all -along of his cherry briar pipe, because they were afraid he’d set -the water-works on fire), and still more when she sings, ‘I’m -glad I took my mother’s advice,’ one has a sense of extraordinary -detachment. She is aloof, alone. She is so entirely under restraint; -knows so well how, at last, to let her voice swell and underline -her point; she knows so well how not to waste during a song the -power of her splendid blue eyes, but to reserve them for that final -point. Thus she should wield astonishing power, yet does not -quite; she lacks grossness; like Wish Wynne, her art is a little -too delicate to get across. The audience like her, they like Wish -Wynne singing ‘Oo! er!’ and miserably dragging her little -tin trunk, but never for either do they rise and roar as they do for -Marie Lloyd.</p> - -<p>It is true that Marie Lloyd takes us into another world, that of -the comfortable public-house, with plenty of lights and red plush; -to the publican’s dog-cart off to the Derby; to the large birthday -party, enlivened by plenty of sherry wine. In Marie Lloyd’s -world everything is fat, healthy, round, jolly, bouncing; when -she keeps the old man’s trousers to remember him by after he’s -gone, she defines the human quality of her sentiment: she can -do nothing false and artificial, such as pressing his nuptial buttonhole. -Marie Lloyd is a woman before she is an actress, and in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span> -this lies her strength. When she advises the audience to ‘’Ave -a little bit of what yer fancy (if you fancy it, if you fancy it), ’Ave a -little bit of what yer fancy, I say it does yer good,’ Marie Lloyd -is expressing the eternal claim of the flesh against the spirit, which -has been rediscovered a great many times since Epicurus. She -survives a great generation; there is nobody to-day fit to wear -her pleasantly-little shoes.</p> - -<p>There is nobody, because the spirit of the music-hall is -changing, and women, who are more adaptable than men, are -feeling it first. An awful thing is happening to most of the young -women on the halls; they are becoming refined. Louie and -Toots Pounds, Ella Retford, Clarice Mayne, Ella Shields, have -nothing of the Marie Lloyd tradition; they are almost creatures -of the drawing-room. Even Beattie and Babs, though Babs -does what she can with stockings that nothing will ever keep up, -never seem to experience the thick joy of being alive that Marie -Lloyd conveys in one slow, sidelong raising of her immortal -eyelid. There is, perhaps, a white hope, Daisy Wood, but one -cannot be sure. They sing well, these young women, they dance -well; they do it too well; women of the older tradition, such as -Victoria Monks and Nellie Wallace are still themselves: they -do not do it so well, but they do it. These are not trained, like -the young women, but they have grown up and discovered themselves; -they do not <em>act</em> joy or distress: they cut joy or distress -out of common life and lay it down on the bare planks. All that -is going, for the music-hall is growing refined.</p> - -<p>Let me dispel a possible misunderstanding. When I say -music-hall I do not mean those sinks of virtue, the Coliseum, or -the Palladium, the Palace, and the Hippodrome. Those are royal -theatres of varieties, eminently suited for long skirts and acrobats, -and large enough for elephants. Two of them can safely be -handed over to revue, and the rest is silence. I have seen Mr -George Robey, I forget whether it was at the Palladium or the -Coliseum, and the place was so broad, and so deep, and so high, -that his eyebrows looked normal: can I add anything to the horror -of this picture? The only comedian who ever seemed to me a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span> -success in those barns was Little Tich, as little Miss Turpentine, -because they made him still smaller, which heightened his effect. -But those halls pay large salaries, and I suppose they will go on. -Indeed, I fear that they are gaining ground because we are daily -sinking deeper in the Joseph Lyons civilisation, where everything -must be cheap, gilt, and enormous. The old halls, the Holborn, -the Metropolitan, the Bedford, Collins’s, will not last long; -already many halls have been seized, the Tivoli and the Canterbury -by cinemas, the Shepherd’s Bush, I think the Paragon, Mile End, and -certainly the Shoreditch Empire by Sir Oswald Stoll. We have to -count with Sir Oswald Stoll. Together with Sir Joseph Lyons, he has -done more to drive out Merrie England than the dourest champion -of methodism. You can go to his music-halls, or to the -Palladium, which is not a Stoll hall, but a stollomorphe, and nothing -will offend your good taste. During the last dozen years Sir Oswald -Stoll has been engaged in a continuous and painfully successful -campaign to raise the English music-hall; he has almost succeeded -in elevating it. True, in his halls appear all those men who carry -on the old tradition and glorify the flesh: George Robey, Sam -Stern, Ernie Mayne, Sam Mayo, who sing the crude joy of -poor life, which is found in drunken sprees and conjugal misunderstandings, -but which yet is true life. Little by little their -songs grow less broad. Sam Mayo would not, at a Stoll hall, -sing the ditty which used to delight the old Middlesex: ‘Ching -Chang, wing wang, bing, bang, boo,’ nor would Dutch Daly -sing about the larks in May. Our old comedians are limiting -their humours, discolouring their noses, rolling their umbrellas. -The young ladies in the audience, and their young gentlemen, -modern forms of the donah and her bloke, would feel uncomfortable -if too crudely reminded that love is something more than -kisses on Brighton Pier under a pale pink sunshade. The old -comedians are not yet dead, and Ernie Mayne can still <span class="locked">sing:—</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span></p> - -<div class="poem-container"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="iq">‘Last night I wandered thro’ the park,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I met a female after dark;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, feeling faint for want of food,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I fell into her arms—how rude!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just then she murmured “Kiss me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">George!” her face I chanced to see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The girl was black, with nigger lips;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I shouted, “Not for me!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It’s my meatless day, my meatless day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I’m not going to eat any sort of meat.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Meat, meat, meat, meat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I’m thin and pale, all I’ve put away<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is two roly-polies, never left a crumb,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Three currant puddings and a little bit of plum,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And five apple-dumplings are rolling round my tum,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">’Cos it’s my meatless day.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Yes, Ernie Mayne may still sing his songs of Araby, but -little by little he is being borne down by the American raconteur, -whose impropriety is always in the best of taste, by the ragtime -dancer, by the wandering Italian fiddler, by the respectable -eccentric at the piano, by the juggler, by the refined soprano, -who sings ‘God send you back to me, over the mighty sea,’ or, -‘There’s a little mother always yearning for the ones that long -to roam.’ It’s all getting so clean, so precious pure. The old -comedian will not last long. He that was once a bull in a china-shop -will soon become a Stolled ox.</p> - -<p>But the worst may yet have to come. A new demon is arising -in the shape of the cinema. It is as if Merrie England, that once -lived at the Surrey Theatre and the Globe, and was driven out -when the middle class began to frequent the theatre about 1870 -and took refuge in the caves of harmony, then doubled back into -the Tivoli and the Oxford (fortunately to provide what the late -W. T. Stead called ‘drivel for the dregs’), were being pursued. -Wherever Merrie England goes, it seems that, as Mark Sheridan -used to put it, ‘the villain thtill purthued her, purthued her, -purthued her.’ When the music-hall has been completely improved -I wonder whether he will be glad to have ‘purthued her’ to such -good purpose. Certainly, in the cinemas, little is left of the old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span> -spirit that arose as one drank one’s beer in the stalls at the old -Mogul, for the cinema, let police magistrates say what they like, -bears deep upon its brow the brand of Abel.</p> - -<p>The cinema, like most new and virile things, has split opinion, -and has collected round itself more unwise friends and unthinking -enemies than any other form of entertainment. Few people like -cinemas; they either love them or loathe them, while a few, I -suppose, fall into my section of feeling and hate them for not -being better than they are. For I believe in the cinema; I do not -think that the cinema will do away with the theatre and the novel, -but I do believe that it is destined to play a still larger part in the -amusement of the people. Also, I believe that it is destined to -play a cleaner, that is, a more artistic part. How far it can be -brought, I do not know, because I do not suppose that I am the -one chosen by nature to raise it high; but if we consider films -such as <i>The Birth of a Nation</i>, or <i>Intolerance</i>, where Mr D. W. -Griffith, a man of some slight culture, is not entirely devoid of -taste, and certainly bold in his conceptions, audacious in his -execution, we cannot wave the cinema away with a sneer at cowboy -drama.</p> - -<p>The cinema began with cowboy drama, with silly pursuits on -horseback, by motor-car and by train, but that was only because, -for the first time, movement could be reproduced. The reproduction -of movement was a new pleasure, and so the mob -clamoured for it. Carry yourself back to your first film and, be -you as highbrowed as you like, you will not deny that you enjoyed -those febrile races, those people falling out of windows, crashing -through ceilings, the violent opening and shutting of doors, the -rush of flying crockery. Then you grew tired of it and began to -think it silly. Well, it was silly, and it is silly, but we should -remember that the pioneers of the cinema were Americans of the -travelling-showman type, men whose fathers had exhibited the -<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">camera obscura</i> loved of our fathers; they had passed through -dissolving views, and that type of man could not be expected -to like, and therefore to put forward, a dramatic version of <i>Paradise -Lost</i>. Briefly, the cinema was put forward by the vulgar, for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span> -vulgar, but by degrees, as the mob grew weary of movement for -movement’s sake, as the profits increased, new men such as Pathé, -Urban, Gaumont, came in. They were commercial men, but -not vulgar men, men who realised that if there was a public for -the novels of Mr E. F. Benson and the plays of Mr Alfred Sutro, -there must be a cinema public for something less lurid than the -early films. By degrees, the cinema improved; it improved in -conceptions when subjects such as <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">Quo Vadis?</i>, <i>The Walls of -Jericho</i>, <i xml:lang="it" lang="it">Bella Donna</i>, appeared on the film; yet more ambitious -things were done in the shape of <i>Hamlet</i>, <i>Julius Cæsar</i>, <i>Justice</i>, -<i>Intolerance</i>, and many more.</p> - -<p>The film improved, too, in its actual execution. The earliest -type of film actor was scraped up from the East Side gutters of -New York and the graving-docks of Naples. For that early -cinema you needed creatures immensely unrestrained, yelling, -dancing, dirty creatures, not at all the people who could have -impersonated what the old lady in the pit called the ‘married life -of the dear Queen.’ And as the subjects changed the actors -changed; many were taken from the stage; some, to this day, -preserve certain characteristics of the ordinary human being. -It is not quite their fault if they do not preserve them all; the -cinema has had time to make a tradition of its own, which is still -represented by the American posters we see upon the walls, -where the heroines have enormous eyes and more teeth than Lulu -Dentifrice; where the young men have straight backs to their -heads, half a pound of white meat on each cheek, a rugged brow, -or an emetic grin, briefly, the most brutal type of Chicago commercial -rigged out in the dress clothes of a suicide; where ladies -whose clothing is too low for blouses and too high for evening -frocks, whose jewels flash beyond the dreams of Gophir, quaff -the sparkling champagne wine. Where the illustrator manages -to make Miss Irene Vanbrugh look vulgar. Where American -policemen (or admirals, you never know) arrest crooks in mid-air; -where all is six-shooters, bowie-knives, cinches, and snarks. Like -poster like player, is, to a certain extent, true, for the producer is -still a cross between Pimple and the sort of stockbroker whose silk<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span> -hat glitters in eight places. (Observe the band on his cigar.) -But that producer, like that poster, is the old tradition, and is -giving way before the ordinary business man who does not see -the world in terms of banana falls. That new man is not pressing -his actors as the old producer did. He still makes them register, -but less intensely. Register means to mark the emotions. When -the hero is being filmed, and the heroine enters, he smiles; if he -does not smile beatifically enough the producer will cry to him: -‘Register delight!’ You have all seen the result. In the old days -they were registering all the time; you could see the heroine -registering terror, while the hero registered nobility, and the -villain registered hate; meanwhile, the old mother dropped a -stitch and registered benevolence with extreme pertinacity, and, -all the time, servants in the background were registering national -pride and rectitude. One still has to do these things on the cinema -because, after all, the cinema picture has to be photographable. -It has to be seen rather plainly, but the cinema producer has -begun to understand that, to be effective, facial expression need -not be recognisable a mile away.</p> - -<p>It is the excessive vigour of the cinema has endeared it to -Londoners; most of them are a rather lymphatic crowd, because -they live in too large a city, surrounded by too many interesting -things, because they eat rather bad food and not enough of it, -and also because most of them work in stuffy offices and factories. -Thus they need strong stimuli if they are to react, and no -doubt that is why cinemas are being established one by the side -of the other, and run for ten hours a day. Like the sensational -stories in the magazines, like the newspapers which consist in -much headline and little text, they spur this tired creature. The -more he is spurred, the more tired he grows. The more tired he -grows, the more he needs spurring. So the cinema must prosper. -But I think it will prosper in a more moderate way; it will continue -to grow, to absorb theatres and music-halls; it has already -absorbed the Coronet, the Canterbury, Sadler’s Wells, the Tivoli, -the Scala, the London Opera House, and others; but I think it -will more and more tend to produce the historical film, films based<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span> -on novels and plays of some slight merit; that it will increasingly -provide bearable music. For a while it may not originate much, -and therefore it will not easily become a form of art. I am not -sure that it can become a form of art, though I do not know why: -the ballet is a form of art, and people like Nijinsky, Pavlova, -Madame Rambert (let alone Taglioni and Genée) have made a -great deal of it. I do not say that it is impossible for the cinema -to produce a work of art, but this must be within the limits of -pantomime, which are close and narrow limits. Subtle emotions -it cannot express, for pantomime cannot figure that ‘she thought -this, because she thought that he thought that.’ (If a cinema -company will film <i>The Golden Bowl</i>, I will burn seven candles as an -offering to the Albert Memorial.) All that, the cinema must leave -to the play and the novel. It cannot risk wearying the audience -by leaving it for half an hour before the same scene; the theatre -can do that because the voices of the actors afford relief; the -cinema, being unable to reproduce footsteps, is compelled to -reproduce flying feet. Because it cannot speak, it must move, -and so it is a different kind of thing.</p> - -<p>That does not mean that it need always be the rather crude -thing it is to-day. As people of better taste come into the business, -we are likely to do away with a few of the continual changes of -scene; we shall reduce repetitions, such as the woman who endlessly -rocks the baby’s cradle between every tragic scene in -<i>Intolerance</i>. Repetition is the way in which a crude taste rams its -point home; a fine taste will select its points better, need to make -them less obvious, know how to vary them. The selective art of -the novelist can thus be applied. Also, the finer taste will not -corrupt the actor as hitherto he has been corrupted, by leading -him into a wilderness of monkeys. The cinema will learn restraint, -that first need of all art. Some of the actors, such as Norma -Talmadge, Pauline Frederick, Mary Pickford, and especially -Charlie Chaplin, have already evolved a new form of acting, and -not a mean one. When Charlie Chaplin runs along a road, in -that queer, lolloping way which starts from the shoulders and -animates his fingers and his elbows, chasing a Rolls-Royce that is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span> -obviously travelling at a hundred and twenty miles an hour, -when thereupon he falls into a ditch, and extricates himself with -an air of incredulity, when he then appears to realise, with a -detachment that none but Plato could have equalled, that he is -not likely to catch that car, and decides to go home, Charlie Chaplin -does a wonderful thing: he turns his back on the audience, and -you know, from a little ripple in his back that he is considering -the situation. Then the head gives a jerk, one of the shoulders -goes up, the fingers give a twist, and long before Charlie Chaplin -turns round to face the audience, with his soft eyes laughing, -his animate body has told you what he meant: ‘It’s gone. Oh, -well, I don’t care.’ The popularity of others may wane, but -Charlie Chaplin is a monument. As in the case of the music-halls, -a merciless audience has formed, and its love has readily -been given to the best.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="chapheadright" id="CHAPTER_III">III<br /> -THE FRIENDLY BOWL</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span></p> - -<h2 class="chapheadleft">CHAPTER III<br /> - -<span class="subhead">THE FRIENDLY BOWL</span></h2> - -<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">Hard</span> things are said of the London public-house. It is dirty; -it is dingy; there is nothing to sit on; there is nothing to read; -it possesses neither intellect nor domino set; it is not a place -where a man can take his wife and family; it should be improved, -it should be suppressed (subtle distinction), and so on. The -curious side of these assaults is that the people who rave at the -public-house are not the people one sees in it, and one wonders -whether they passionately desire public-houses after their own -heart, and, presumably, for their own use. I have visions of the -public-house of their dreams, æsthetic and antiseptic, furnished, -according to persuasion, with Fabian tracts, or tracts of greater -orthodoxy. I imagine a staid crowd in that reformed public-house, -let us say, the Reverend Dr Horton and party, quaffing -the foaming cider-cup and discussing the principles of reconstruction; -Mr Sidney Webb and Mr Bernard Shaw passionately -engaged at spillikins ... and the working man in the modest -background.</p> - -<p>The idea has little attraction, because, frankly, I like the -London public-house, just as I like the Paris café and the German -beer-hall. I do not see why we should make our public-houses -into Parisian cafés, for our needs differ from those of Parisians, -and we do not, among other things, visit public-houses to play -dominoes or to read <i>The Spectator</i>. Men go to public-houses to -drink, either because they are thirsty, or because they like drink. -Notably, the working man goes there to be rid of that wife and -family of which he sees quite enough. I know it is difficult for -the well-to-do man, whose house contains ten rooms, who has -a private room at his office, and a sulking chair at his club, to -understand that the working man, who generally lives in two -rooms with several children and the scented memory of many -meals, should want to escape this felicitous atmosphere. It may -also strike him as strange that the working man should not, after<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span> -a ten-hour day, relish ‘a good, brisk walk.’ Also, he does not -realise that ours is not yet a kid-glove civilisation, and that most -of our working people like the sensual life. Being Anglo-Saxons, -they are largely impervious to art, and rather crude in love; so -their sensuality finds an outlet in drink. You may deplore this -sensuality, but it is no use trying to stem it by making distasteful -the conditions under which it is indulged; the way to stem it is -to make a change in the creature, by treating it as a man, by -paying it as a citizen, and by granting it justice instead of favour, -education instead of teaching.</p> - -<p>A new English people will make a new public-house; to-day, -they have the public-house they deserve, and it is not such an -evil place as some like to make out. Pellucid reader, have you -ever visited The Green Man? The Red Lion? or The Bedford -Head? Do you know the brew of The Warrington and The -Horseshoe’s chop? I like their busy bars, so cunningly -stratified into public bar, private bar, and saloon. They are a -microcosm of English society, where everybody keeps himself to -himself, where every class is defiled by every other class because -the one beneath is ‘low,’ and the one above ‘stuck up.’ In -England, classes barely establish internal toleration. There are -few equals inside classes. One either looks up or looks down, -and one never looks at. But in public-houses a rude toleration -does exist. They are not unattractive, for rough friendship is -included by every barmaid in the ‘gin and peach.’ One talks to -people one does not know. If one stays, one may hear the history -of their life. Nor are all public-houses ugly; there is a Dickensian, -a Jacobean charm in the dazzle of their many glasses, in their -piling bottles, their ash-trays presented by the brewer, their -match-stands, a gift from the distiller, in the portraits of -horses and dogs that proclaim the virtues of Johnny Walker, -and Black and White. Æsthetically speaking, these articles -are ugly, but they have a certain joviality which is not disagreeable.</p> - -<div id="ip_38" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 31em;"> - <img src="images/i_038.jpg" width="484" height="471" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -THE PUB<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>It is a mistake to think that public-houses are all alike. No -two places are alike; not even Lyons’s depots are all alike, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span> -the personality of the manageress reveals itself, say in strange -arrangements of salt-cellars. The casual visitor may not find -much difference between The Red Lion in the Harrow Road, -The Hero of Maida, Bricklayers’ Arms, or The Archway, and I -will not stress it. But it would need a more than casual observer -to overlook the spacious cleanliness of The Warrington, and its -rather Victorian air of solid comfort; should he go to Rule’s, or -The Cheshire Cheese, he will be obsessed by the domestic fustiness -of places that have escaped renovation for a century. Those -old taverns reveal a London little older than fifty years, when no -Ritz-Carltons were open, when the young man could join no -club until he was a middle-aged one, and when he ate his meals -in his rooms in Bury Street off soiled mahogany. These old -places are traditional, and their ale is traditional. I suspect that -it is a secret blend of old ale and new ale, the new being poured -into the old casks, thus ever inheriting and ever bequeathing the -virtues of the family.</p> - -<p>And other inns have their temperament, which is that of -their customers. Thus, at the public-houses of London -Wall, as also at Coates’s Wine Bar, you never get away from the -sense of business. These places are friendly, but wary. Likewise, -at The Cock, in Fleet Street, there is more noise and less wariness, -because here is an exchange for news, and occasionally for facts; -farther on, at Shirreff’s, the attraction is sound wine under sound -arches. Shirreff’s clientèle numbers rather obese people who -know how to treat a glass of port. Thus should you treat a glass -of port: let the glass be not quite full, so that the holy wine may -have space in which to unwind its lovely surface; raise the glass, -holding its stem so that the fingers may not break the amber oval -of its form; then raise it to the level of the eyes, so that the pale light -of the city may stream through that rich amber, and emerge -transfigured; draw closer; respectfully breathe in the soft, -insidious scent that rises to your nostrils like a prayer. Then -only, when the golden ghost has spoken to all senses save that of -taste, drink, and drink slowly, without haste, with respect, not as -a vulgar man, thirsty, but as a man without thirst, and risen over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span> -such necessity. Thus only shall you be companions of Amarante, -Miranda, and Sabor.</p> - -<p>If all drank with such elegance we might hear less of public-house -reform. Of late years, attempts have been made to humanise -the public-house; the first result has been to make it inhuman. -I lead no attack upon the Public-House Trust and the People’s -Refreshment House Association. They are excellent bodies, and -once upon a time I supported them, but as I grow older, I think -I grow more depraved. I know it is not pleasant to see people -drunk, though some are still more unpleasant when they are -sober; I do not support the public-house in selling last week’s -sandwiches and last year’s cheddar, but still ... ale that hath -no sting ... and leadless glaze! Instinct wars with my reason; I -see the public-houses grow more civilised, and a faint regret -creeps over me that good intentions should get into beer.</p> - -<p>It is true that at the other end of the scale luxury fights with -good intentions and produces, well, not the abomination of -desolation, but the greater abomination of delectation in the -shape of the American bar. Already a young civilisation has -produced its first-fruits, such as broncho busting, college yells, -and cinema rides; already poets quaff from the foaming soda-fountain -in Hippocrene City, Pa. (or possibly Minn.), and in the -friendly bowl mix the cocktail. Magic word, eloquent in form! -I cannot express what I owe to the cocktail: it provides half of -what a dinner party needs, for it stimulates conversation. The -other half is provided by bridge, for it stops this conversation. -The power of the cocktail is not that of the pure in heart; it is a -complex, a modern; it is a congress of alcohols; nothing is alien -to it; nothing can hallow it; nothing can resist its repeated -assaults. With all drinks it has affinity. It carries the bar sinister -of all liqueurs. Bitters and curaçao, whisky and maraschino, -brandy, vermouth and cassis, Fernet Branca, gentle raspberry, -all of these; and crème de menthe, and gin, and absinthe, and -apple-jack, these, too, are of its fiery soul, and apricot brandy -that is like a blush, sherry like a burnt topaz, paprika to make -you leap, and sly benedictine, dancing anisette, and port like a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span> -minor canon, gins from Plymouth, and Schiedam, virginal -grenadine, all can join with all the fruits the world has ever known, -cherry, lemon, tangerine, olive, spray of tarragon too. And thus one -begins a cocktail. Let your basis be gin; enlist vermouth; let -bitter and maraschino creep in: behold Martini! But expel the -vermouth to substitute apricot brandy: then you have Hungarian. -But if for you gin has no fire, then let your mainstay be rye whisky: -its allies, bitter and vermouth, and Manhattan for you appears. -And others for you shall rise, soda cocktail and love tree, or silver -fizz, or blagden punch ... or hot apple toddy. Treat not the -cocktail rudely. Let all coalitions be gradual, and temper their -fire with ground ice; then cast the whole in the silver mixer and -shake, shake, shake. While you shake, meditate.</p> - -<p>In English bars they neither shake nor meditate; they drink -too uncritically the expression of the brewer’s artistic temperament, -and give forth too little of their own. But, still, they are pleasant -enough, these bars, whether British, as the gloomily popular -Leicester Lounge, or foreign as the Monico. They have -all the well-bred indifference of the Englishman who asks -you no questions because he seeks no answers, who makes -no comments because he has nothing to say. You need, you pay, -you are satisfied, you go. There is no revelry. For true revelry, -the glass that sparkles and the jug that foams, you must go to -some club at least a hundred years old, and in St James’s Street or -Pall Mall, where ‘old man’ and ‘old thing’ know each other’s -record and capacity, where, under an ancient roof, the prairie -oyster revives the spirits that flagged in the Row. Watch the -bow windows of some ancient club, and, while still holding that -good wine needs no bush, confess that good wine gets it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="chapheadright" id="CHAPTER_IV">IV<br /> -WANDERERS</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span></p> - -<h2 class="chapheadleft">CHAPTER IV<br /> - -<span class="subhead">WANDERERS</span></h2> - -<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">Alphonse Daudet</span>, when analysing Tartarin de Tarascon, found -in him two Tartarins, Tartarin Quixote and Tartarin Sancho. -Tartarin Quixote liked fighting, adventure, uncertainty, blood, -knives, unscalable peaks, tornadoes at sea. Tartarin Sancho -liked flannel vests, long drinks of lemonade on a hot day, chocolate -in bed in the morning. No doubt, Tartarin Quixote and Tartarin -Sancho live in many of us, and certainly I confess to desperate -moods which, on the whole, I restrain, and to self-indulgent -moods which, on the whole, I encourage; but when we consider -men we know, it is curious how much more strongly Tartarin -Sancho or Tartarin Quixote is developed in them. Tartarin -Sancho leads the majority of mankind, that majority which is -always looking for a good billet, for a pension, for a nice little -wife, a cat, and a garden. Some, more ambitious, substitute for -the nice little wife a woman of title, for the cat a hunter, for the -garden an estate, but their desires, after all, are still those of -Sancho, even though they are those of Sancho become Governor -of Barataria. Naturally they adopt the wadded life. It is not a -crime, and no doubt many of the Tartarin Quixotes, who number -among them tight-rope dancers, mining magnates, card-sharpers, -and cabinet ministers, often come to regret the bed quilt of a -blameless life. Only the bed quilt is not for them.</p> - -<p>Somehow, I don’t know why, I cannot help feeling that -Tartarin Sancho is less normal than Tartarin Quixote. He does -such strange things; he enlists in a bank, grinds out his little -span of life and dies; or he becomes a barrister, pleads cases he -believes in, and also others; or Tartarin Sancho turns into a -respectable stockbroker, that is to say, he never speculates, but -induces other people to gamble; or he becomes a professional -soldier, and passes the first half of his life hoping there will be -a war; if there is none, then he passes the other half in the rather -more decayed parts of Earl’s Court. These are queer trades, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span> -they do not seem to satisfy anything that man needs if he is to -feel complete. It is not enough that a man should, by the time he -dies, have manufactured, let us say, large quantities of office -furniture, have played golf, have gone to Eastbourne or Monte -Carlo, have met the one girl whom he wrongly imagined to be -the only girl in the world, ignoring the fact that there are thousands -like her, have reproduced the species and left them behind to do -likewise. ‘Such is life,’ says my old friend the housekeeper of -Wellington Buildings, Bethnal Green; she is right, but somehow -this explanation does not satisfy me, and I wonder whether all -those respectable, clean-living people are not really degenerates, -in so far as they have lost the desire for colour in life. It may be -that Tartarin Quixote does not desire colour in life, and that -he would gladly exchange the pebbly bed of romance for the -eiderdown of the regular life; still, what a man does matters, as -well as what a man desires. It is all very well praising the mute, -inglorious Milton in the factory or the shop, but the Milton who -manages to break the silence is also important in the scheme. -The idea is greater than the fact, but to deny the fact would be to -run Plato too far.</p> - -<p>Therein lies the charm of the queer people, in whom London -is rich, people who follow unexpected occupations, occupations -that nobody would naturally think of following. One can understand -how Mrs Smith comes to hear from one of her husband’s -friends that they want an apprentice in the printing shop; she -sends little Tommy to the printing shop, and he becomes a printer. -But how does little Paolo become an ice-cream man? There are -lots of ice-cream men, and so we must believe that some impulse -directed young Paolo towards ice-cream. How did it happen? -Was it a vocation, this selling of ice-cream? Did he discover an -ice-cream opening? I don’t know; I once asked an ice-cream -merchant why he sold ice-cream. He told me that he did it -because his father did it. Then I asked him why his father sold -ice-cream. He told me that his father sold ice-cream because his -grandfather sold ice-cream. Then I saw that we might go on -for a long time like this, and let him alone, for the ice-cream<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span> -merchant was growing suspicious. I am glad that I do not -know whether his grandfather sold ice-cream because his great-grandfather -sold ice-cream, for this leaves a little to my imagination, -and I am able to imagine that in the misty cinquecento, some -adventurous Florentine, some relative of Benvenuto Cellini, was -impelled to forsake a hospitable guild to push about the European -tracks the gay little carriage that to-day bears the Italian flag, -diplomatically intertwined with the flag of the country in which -the merchant happens to trade, the portrait of King Victor, and, -on the other side, some touching scene such as ‘Mother’s Last -Kiss.’</p> - -<p>The ice-cream man sets out every day on adventure. He -may have a beat, but I prefer to think that he follows in the wake -of the sun, always where it is hottest, caring little whether the -street be mean or opulent. I like to think of him as at the mercy -of a cold snap that ruins him, while it makes the fortune of his -fellow merchant, the hot-potato man. (What a beautiful poem -Tennyson would have made of that ... the golden wheel turning, -and raising high, now the ice-cream, then the hot potato ... and -always above a noble voice bidding them hope and pray.) Of -course, there are no hot-potato men now. I wonder what happened -to them. Indeed, that is what oppresses the curious when he -considers the wanderers: what becomes of them when they are -no longer strong enough to ply their strange trades and to range -the world? Are our workhouses full of crossing-sweepers who -sweep no more? Perhaps it is not so tragic, after all, to have been -a crossing-sweeper and to end in the workhouse; I cannot imagine -a crossing-sweeper murmuring with Mr Kipling: ‘Me that ’ave -been what I’ve been!’ for he has never been more than what -Mr Tim Healy would call a movable fixture. He has just sat -and touched his cap, and been tipped, and has occasionally swept. -But he must have meditated. No man can sit for ten hours a -day in the same place without meditating; I say this without -authority, for I have known only one crossing-sweeper who -meditated to any effect; he was a pronounced optimist, and -believed that the world was getting better and better, this because,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span> -for forty years, he had been observing the quality of people’s -boots. As he put it, when he started in life some of them wore -no boots; later on, they began to wear other people’s cast-off -boots; now they were getting on to buy their own boots, and -what with that, and what with the skirts getting shorter and -shorter, and the stocking getting thinner and thinner, by gum, -he was blowed if he knew what was going to happen next.</p> - -<p>No, crossing-sweepers are not wanderers. They are limpets. -I should not have thought of them if they were not street folk, -for it is a distinguishing trait of the wanderer that he is a street -creature, something that appears from the stones in the early -morning, and at night into the stones seems to vanish. The -London wanderer may have a home, but only in the sense of the -London sparrow. Can you imagine the flower-girl’s home? -If the flower-girl were indeed the sort of flower-girl of whom you -see half a hundred portraits every year in the Royal Academy, -a sort of pure and peach-blossom girl, she would have a home -like Mélisande, very, very small and dainty (you know, the -Charbonnel and Walker-Marcus Stone style), with chairs covered -in flowered chintzes, and a white cat. At night she would lie in -her little white bed, over the head of which would hang a text -about the lilies of the field; her fair hair would ripple over the -pillow; her rosy lips would open in a sweet smile as she dreamed -of the dear little faded flowers which she had stood for the night -in her tooth-glass. (Tooth-glass! Nasty realist touch; I shall -never do this sort of thing properly.) Ah, if it were only like that! -If she were not a big, fine woman of about forty, tied up in three -thick shawls, which imperfectly conceal her tidal bodice; if only -she did not so much love a quartern of gin. It would be much -more romantic, but I should regret her if she were to turn into a -picture post card, for she is such a jolly good, saucy sort, as a rule, -and I like her thick hand terminated by five sausages, one of -these sausages strangulated by a wedding ring, the thickness -of which places one beyond all cynicism as to the permanence -of the tie. You see her in many places, by the fountain at Piccadilly -Circus, until all the nobs have bought a bunch of violets for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span> -somebody, now that they have given up the habit of buying a -flower for themselves; then you see her near restaurant entrances, -cleverly shaming men into buying flowers for women who are -already wearing some, and who do not know what to do with the -offering because it is invariably very wet; later on, outside theatres -near the queues; she is all enterprise, and during the war I even -saw her trying to sell to an unpromising margarine queue.</p> - -<div id="ip_48" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 31em;"> - <img src="images/i_048.jpg" width="483" height="543" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -FLOWER-GIRL<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>She grows old at her trade; it is a healthy one, and she has -no home. Some of her fellows are stranger and still more definably -homeless. Thus the muffin-man, killed, perhaps, by the war. -It is a long time since I heard his bell, and was thereby assured -that Sunday was getting on nicely, and would be over by-and-by. -There is the travelling accountant, a real wanderer, that one, -who, every day and night, goes from little shop to little factory, -continually confronted with new names, new deals, and, perhaps, -new and complicated methods of dishonesty. There are the -queerest and most incomprehensible of all, the guides. I do not -know what turns a man into a guide, but if you stand awhile near -Charing Cross, and make a noise like a Jugo-Slav, it is likely that -a seedily, respectably dressed man, with a badly rolled umbrella, -will offer to show you the town. Once it is clear that he does not -want to exchange pocket-books with you to show his confidence, -he may lead you to Henry V.’s chapel, to Westminster Abbey, -to Carlyle’s house, and so on, reciting as he goes, something like -this: ‘The painted ’all was originally planned by King John the -same who signed that Magna Charta in the year 1215 but the -plans being lost in the Wash the project did not come to take -form before the year 1533 when King Henry VIII. after his -marriage with Anne Boleyn laid the foundations on the plans of -Sir ’Erbert ’Opkins who was also the architect of the golden -tower of Muswell ’Ill where Nell Gwynn ...’ and so on. That -man is a gramophone; I once let him show me Saragossa, but he -shall never show me anything more. For one thing, I believe he -is respectable at heart, and there is no profit in his company. The -only good guide is the amateur guide. I met one in Brussels -once, a cab-driver, who stopped before the café where I was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span> -having a drink; he so many times cried out to me, ‘Hi, Englishman! -you’re a sportsman, come along!’ that I fell a prey to his -flattery. (Who told him that every Englishman wants to be -thought a sportsman?) He knew his Brussels pretty well, but I -will not tell you the rest of the story, for he also knew his -Englishman pretty well.</p> - -<p>There are many more of these strange people. A strange one -was a woman who offered to give me a thousand guesses at her -profession; I declined the proposal and found out that she was -a pearl-threader. Few of us know that the silken thread, on which -collars of pearls are strung, wears out, and that, from time to -time, pearls have to be re-strung. All women do not care to -send their pearls to the jeweller, for the art of Tecla is profound. -Nor do they care to re-thread them themselves, for the holes are -so small that the work is infinitely wearisome. So my pearl-threader, -who looked like the most respectable type of retired -maid, spent her life in Mayfair and Belgravia, where she sat -re-threading pearls while the owner read a novel. The pearl-threader -smiled as she told this: ‘One of them,’ she said, ‘read -a newspaper upside down all the time while I was doing her pearls. -And there is another, so unsuspicious; she turns her back on -me and smokes a cigarette, and stares into the looking-glass, -dreamy-like.’</p> - -<p>But that is a high walk of wanderer. There are others more -tragic. There used to be a terrible creature, the runner, who -followed four-wheelers laden with luggage, and arrived at the end -of his long run too blown to be red in the face, but lead white, -his right hand gripped to his heart, his left hand spasmodically -touching the greasy brim of his cap. I have seen no greater -agony than the hungry desire in those filmy eyes, half-obscured -by the wet, dust-laden eyelids. I used to stop the runners when -I could; often they persisted, their open mouth close to the -wheel; they could not see me wave them away, or they could not -hear me call out, as if all the energy of their poor senses had -passed into those eternally running legs. One of them seized -my trunk as we arrived, before I could ransom myself, hating<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span> -my opulence, full of shame. It is fifteen years ago, but I remember -him, a big body, but little flesh; I remember his eyes like glass, -and the awful stagger of him as he bent under the weight of the -trunk, as he tottered, and as I leaped to seize it when it fell. Then -the door opened, and the hotel waiter came out with the air of -black hostility which the house dog has for the street dog. The -runner looked at us without anger, without misery, though he -understood very well that the job was not for him; he was like -a Greek peasant patiently encountering fate. But, as he turned -away, clasping my shilling in his hand, and I saw the foot in the -broken boot fumble for the step, a wave of self-hatred rose in me. -I told myself: ‘You have crucified him.’</p> - -<p>They are not so tragic, all of them, unaccountable people, -or even people who have adopted trades one thinks queer because -one would not have adopted them oneself. Some are merely -disgusting, such as the bus-conductor. I have met a civil bus-conductor; -I have even met an optimistic one, but nowadays, -especially, he stands exposed by comparison with the girl-conductor. -Oh, it is natural enough that the girl should have been -friendly, civil, clean, obliging, for to her the job was new, varied, -faintly exciting, probably better paid than her previous work. But -still, she made the man terrible. He seems to be nearly always -a rather grimy, ill-shaven, misanthropic man; something of the -watch-dog and of the bureaucrat has crept into his constitution; -he cannot gently ask for fares; the demand must come with a -snap and a snarl, pitched on a high note that shall reach the -recesses of the omnibus and of the traveller’s consciousness. -When he yelps: ‘Fares!’ I feel for my ticket as if I were guilty; -when he looks at me, his little, hard eye suggests that I am bilking -the company, and then I hate him so that, if I can, I do bilk the -company, and get off four hundred yards to the good, bursting -with an unexpelled shout of ‘Yah!’ I hate him above all because, -so often, he companions my journey with a snarly chorus, addressed -sometimes to the wretched nearest occupant. One hears him run -on: ‘Some people can’t learn where buses stop; seem to think -it’s the Lord Mayor’s coach; pulling the string themselves, too;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span> -might as well be no conductor.’ Or it is something like this: -‘Chucking their half-crowns about; taking about four hours -finding ’em, too; come into the bus and expect to get change -as if it was a blooming bank; gave her twenty-four ha’pennies -though, that’ll learn her.’ Or, during a shower: ‘Plenty -room on top. Drop o’ rain won’t ’urt yer. When it’s fine they -all want to get on top.’ And so on, a regular orgy of grace and -charm. Growl, grouse, snap, snarl, grumble, yap, and long, -dirty moustaches, filthy hands, and if it is not a grudging black -hand to help a white sleeve on to the bus, it is a hand that has to -restrain itself not to shove the white shoulder off. All that because -the poor brute is not happy. I know I ought to be sympathetic, -for it must be dreadful to travel all day from Camden Town to -Brixton and back, to sell so small a variety of goods, never to feel -steady ground under your feet when you look for change, to -answer the same idiotic question seventy times a day, to tread on -feet, to have your feet trodden on. The bus-conductor is a nasty -man because he is an unhappy man, because he has no prospect -in life, save that of growing older and, for all I know, retiring -without a pension. Those monotonous occupations, such as the -hellish one of lift-man, ought not to be human occupations, and -they will not be such some day. Meanwhile, they rack by -boredom people to whom has not been given the free expanse -of the pedlar. What a brute Charon must have become by -now!</p> - -<p>Those people who range freely street and field are indeed -of another kind; there is in them less civilisation and more civility. -They are detached from their fellows; they lead lives of their own -within the beating life of the world. Many of the newspaper-sellers -are pleasant, ironic people, with a capacity for estimating -character, with a quick interest in the news they retail. Citizens -of the world, they are often so stimulated by their news that, as -you buy, they must tell you the contents of the stop-press. It is -a hard trade. Before the war they used to pay ninepence for -twenty-seven halfpenny papers: fourpence-halfpenny profit for -selling twenty-seven papers! Still, there is a nomadic satisfaction<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span> -in their movable beat. They are not locked up. They are in the -midst of life, other people’s life, but yet life.</p> - -<p>To quite another class belong the beggars, not the pseudo-beggars -who profess to sell laces or matches, or the blind, for -these are inanimate beggars and nobody knows what goes on -behind their faces, but the adventurous beggars, the old woman -who follows you, shrilly asking for the price of a cup of tea, or the -well-known teacher of French, who stops you in the street and -asks you what chance he has of a professorship at King’s College. -Those adventurers are amusing because they are coloured, -because, if you stop, they will tell you where they come from, the -number and names of their children, the diseases from which -they suffer, and, indeed, recite you the shameless novel of their lives.</p> - -<p>Of the same kind, but more offensive, is the fern-seller who -is nearly always (or was before the war) a particularly burly brute, -carrying a couple of potted ferns under each arm. He haunts -the quieter streets of the West End, and when a woman alone -meets him late at night, she will do well to make for the nearest -policeman, the proper method being to ask the fern-seller to -carry the ferns home for her: a policeman will doubtless be -encountered on the way. I remember a fern-seller, who accosted -me once in Portman Square. It was about six o’clock in the -evening; I told the man that I wanted no ferns; he followed -me, rumbling abuse which I could hardly hear. As it happened, -I was looking for lodgings, and stopped at a likely house in -Portman Street. As I had been walking rather fast, I thought -that I had got rid of him, but, seeing I was going into a house, -he ran up behind me, and once more began his pressure. While -I was ordering him off the door opened, and a fat little landlord, -with a grubby little white beard and choleric little blue eyes in a -puffy little pink face, stood staring in the doorway. ‘If you don’t -go,’ I said to the man, ‘I’ll give you in charge.’ But the man -went on whining and growling and, being very young, I was -filled with awful confusion at this brawl on the step. This was -increased by the nasty little landlord, who said: ‘What do you -want?’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span> -‘I want to see some rooms,’ I replied, and to the fern-seller: -‘Did you hear what I said?’</p> - -<p>‘I’ve got no rooms,’ snapped the landlord, ‘get out of it, -both of you.’</p> - -<p>‘What the devil do you mean by both of you?’ I said to the -landlord, being thoroughly enraged. Then I became paralysed -at having to quarrel on two different subjects simultaneously.</p> - -<p>‘Mean by it!’ shouted the little landlord. ‘What do <em>you</em> -mean by creating a disturbance on my doorstep? Let rooms to -the likes of you! You’re drunk!’</p> - -<p>At that moment the fern-seller was breathing on me, and I -saw that the landlord’s words were well-founded, though ill-directed. -Before I could think of a reply, the little landlord -slammed his door so as to make the whole of Portman Street -shake. And I remained alone with the fern-seller, who still -painstakingly and threateningly attempted to make me buy -ferns. He was the sort of man who speaks from under his under -lip. I was so ashamed that I did not say one word, but ran. Oh! -how good and free Oxford Street felt.</p> - -<p>I have not been much annoyed or interested by the more -desperate wanderers one comes across. Only once did anything -perilous come my way, and that I will call ‘The Row in Homer -Row.’ It was many years ago. I had, one evening, made an -acquaintanceship with the light fallibility that will, I hope, -always characterise youth. It did not at once have results; some -other business intervened, but I remember quite well that I -returned at nine o’clock to a little block of flats, that were not -exactly flats, but superior model dwellings. I remember the -hard, stone stairs and the iron banisters, you will soon see why. -As I left, later in the evening, I shut the door of the flat behind -me, and stood for a second in the entire blackness of the landing. -Then I felt a foot against my left ankle, and a hand grip my left -arm. It was the darkness saved me, for it is not easy accurately -to seize an arm in the dark, and the notorious ‘pull-over’ is not -suited for cellar blackness. I remember that I did not think, -that I did not have time to be afraid. I remember only the vast<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span> -unchaining of a self-protective instinct, that swung my right -hand across to the left. I swear I did not will it. And I still -have unforgettably in my knuckles the sensation of crash and -give, in my ears the curious, fat sound, something like ‘kroch,’ -that was made by some teeth giving way under the blow. And -then there was an immensely long pause, during which I had -time to think; it may have lasted a tenth of a second. There -was a dull, muffled sound, that of a head striking the iron banisters. -That is all, except that I remember the clatter of my feet on the -stone stairs.</p> - -<p>But to the man who wanders in London streets at night, and -I am one of these, stranger things happen. One of those cases -was ‘The Poisoned Girl of Grosvenor Square.’ It was about -twelve o’clock at night. As I turned out of Brook Street into the -Square, I saw on my right two people by the railings of an area. -One was a woman dressed in black, kneeling down and holding -on to the railings by one hand. The other was a man, who stood -a few yards off, with statue-like immobility. I remember thinking: -‘This is awkward. He has been knocking her about, and I -suppose I shall have to say something, and if he attacks me in -front no doubt she’ll attack me from behind.’ But still, there was -nothing to do but to say something. So I went up to them, and -suddenly realised that the two people had nothing to do with -each other. She was kneeling in that frozen attitude, and he was -looking on. The girl was young, very white, with masses of -fair hair. She was neatly dressed in black, and looked like a -parlourmaid. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed hardly to -breathe. Two or three times I asked her what was the matter, -but she did not reply. Then only did I look at the man, who -was evidently of another class. A rather large, square man, the -sort of man whom you know to be bald, though he has his hat -on, with a moustache that was too thick, and cheeks that were -too healthy, a phlegmatic, staring man.</p> - -<p>‘What’s the matter with her?’ I asked.</p> - -<p>‘I don’t know,’ said the man.</p> - -<p>As it was clear that he was the sort of man who wouldn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span> -know, I turned to the girl and, taking her by the shoulder, tried -to make her stand up. I was surprised to find her limp instead of -stiff, and she fell back against my shoulder with a little groan.</p> - -<p>‘Let me alone,’ she murmured.</p> - -<p>‘What’s the matter?’ I asked again. ‘Are you in any -trouble?’</p> - -<p>‘Let me alone,’ she said again.</p> - -<p>I felt irritated because she did not realise that I couldn’t let -her alone, that man’s code compelled me to torture her, and that -nothing in the world could allow me to let her alone.</p> - -<p>‘Let me help you,’ I said, feeling that I behaved like a -considerable idiot. ‘What is it?’</p> - -<p>She opened her eyes a little, and murmured: ‘I’ve taken -something.’</p> - -<p>‘Taken something?’ I repeated, vaguely thinking of theft. -‘What do you mean? Taken something.’</p> - -<p>‘Poison,’ she said. Then again: ‘Let me alone.’</p> - -<p>I hear the shrillness of my voice as I cried out: ‘Poison!’; -then I found myself hurrying her along the pavement; ‘What is -it?’ I said to her, as we went. ‘Is it laudanum? You’ve got to -walk, you know,’ and to the man: ‘Hurry up. Get a cab.’ There -was no cab to be seen. ‘Come along!’ I shouted. ‘Run ahead -and get a cab.’ After a moment’s hesitation he waddled away, -not much faster than we. And now the girl was almost weeping, -while I tortured her with questions, tried to make her run, this -one idea of laudanum in my mind. At last she answered: ‘Spirits -of salt.’</p> - -<p>It took us very long, I think, to get up North Audley Street, -and I felt rent by her youth and her prettiness, for the fair hair -was coming unbound on my shoulder. There was a tenderness -in me as I lifted her at last into the cab. I remember saying to -the man, ‘You’ve been pretty slow about it. I hope you haven’t -killed her. What were you doing staring at her instead of doing -something?’</p> - -<p>Then he said: ‘Oh, well, one doesn’t want to be mixed up.’</p> - -<div id="ip_56" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 42em;"> - <img src="images/i_056.jpg" width="658" height="430" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -THE HEART OF THE CITY<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>There is no end to this story. I took her to the Middlesex,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span> -and they saved her by means of the stomach pump: to this day -I cannot help wishing that her salvation might have had a more -romantic name. But much more impressive is the man’s remark. -I should not wonder if most people go through life with a single -end in view: not to be mixed up. And one might as well be -dead as not be mixed up. I have been much more mixed up than -I dare tell in this respectable volume. I stole a baby once.</p> - -<p>That is the story of ‘The Stolen Baby of Pimlico.’ I was -waiting for an omnibus one night at the Chippenham. A young, -dark girl was also waiting for the omnibus, but as she was showing -more signs of impatience than are usual, namely, stamping, I -could not help being interested. At last, as she passed me and -flung me a look of intense malevolence, which I felt was rather -unfair, I could not help smiling and saying: ‘I wonder whether -there are any more buses.’ (Now I come to think of it, I might -have said something more soothing.) This had the unexpected -result of arousing confidence. ‘There’s got to be another bus,’ -she said. ‘I’ve got to fetch my sister’s baby.’</p> - -<p>‘Oh!’ I remarked.</p> - -<p>We said no more for some time, and still no omnibus came. -Then a taxi crawled up to us, and I said: ‘Well, if there are no -more buses we had better take this taxi.’ The dark girl, who was -young and very pretty, put on an expression of increased -malevolence, but as I stopped the taxi, she said: ‘Oh, all right then, but -I give the cabman the address, and not you.’ As we sat down, -I gathered from this that my wanderer was no fledgling. But, -after a few minutes, as she discovered that I made no attempt to -kiss her, she became confidential. She had run away from an -evil stepmother. She had £2 10s. She had just taken a furnished -flat at £3 10s. a week. She was nineteen. She was going on the -stage. Also, she wouldn’t have gone away if it hadn’t been for -her father. (Rather mixed, this.) As we drew nearer to Pimlico -I became more and more confused, for the baby was turning -into her sister-in-law’s baby, and I swear that he became a she. -We stopped in a little black street in Pimlico, in front of an -enormous Victorian house which was still blacker than the street.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span> -‘I must ring,’ said the girl, and promptly took from her little bag -a key. Therefore she did not ring, but disappeared into the -house, the inside of which was blacker than the outside, leaving -the door wide open. After I had waited for a moment she came -out again: ‘I say,’ she said, ‘I can’t carry him down; he’s too -heavy.’</p> - -<p>‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘now I’m in for it. But they can’t have -laid much of a trap for a young man picked up outside the -Chippenham.’ So, true to my principles, I went in. The house -stank of solitude. It was the sort of house that does not even -creak. I felt my way up to the first floor, and in a back room -where there was very little besides a bed and a couple of chairs, -I found asleep a pretty boy aged about five. ‘Pick him up,’ -murmured the girl, ‘and don’t make a noise, I don’t want to -wake the woman so late.’ Obediently I picked him up, and -carried him down into the taxi. Just as the girl was about to -follow me in, she said: ‘Now I’d better pay the woman. Lend -me two shillings.’ In a few moments she came back, and some -time later made me pull up the taxi at the corner of a side street, -off Elgin Avenue.</p> - -<p>Only later did all these confusions, this mixture of sexes and -relationships, the silence in the silent house, lead me to theories. -Little by little they crystallised into this: I seem to have stolen a -baby I don’t know, belonging to somebody I don’t know, and -taken it I don’t know where, in the charge of I don’t know whom. -It preyed on me rather. I even worked up an alibi. Now I -suppose it does not matter, as the child may be a householder.</p> - -<p>There are many other stories I should like to tell, that of -‘The Watchmaker and the Four Pounds of Black-Lead,’ though, -really, the adventure of ‘The Two Girls from County Cork and -the Lost Camisole,’ is much more remarkable, but these and -others must appear in another volume. There are many of these -people, and one never discovers them before ten o’clock or so. -They live in the streets, where they have their loves and their -tragedies, and mainly in those places where there is not too much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span> -light. They like the darkness because the light of human understanding -is not good for their peculiar affairs. We do not think -enough of the influence of light. When we stand on Primrose -Hill and, as Karl Baedeker would put it, behold before us the -rich expanse of a great and sleeping city, we do not individualise -the lights enough. When we look down upon Piccadilly -Circus flaring from every veranda, and, like the laburnum, -dropping wells of fire, when in these days we stand at the corner -of Tottenham Court Road and watch the electric signs: -‘Player’s Navy Mixture,’ ‘Meux’s London Original Stout,’ -‘Y.M.C.A.,’ and ‘Tube,’ when we walk in all that brightness, -we do not realise that this is the spirit of our city, the rather -crude, commercial, and friendly spirit of London. Nor, in other -cities at night, say in Birmingham, where through the dirty glass -falls dirty yellow light, do we perceive in man unambitiousness. -For mankind must have light. Light alone opens the windows -on life, and makes night Arabian.</p> - -<p>Only one creature likes the dark, and that is a wanderer, the -cat. Have you watched cats at night? If you try in the street -to stroke cats when the mood of night is on them, when they -crouch under a bush, rolled up into tight balls, their sharp heads -sunk into the woolly folds of their shoulders, when some are -shadows in the shadow, spotted with two points of fire, they -will not shrink from you, nor approach you, but so remain in -static life. Or they will swiftly pass you, at that queer, soft trot, -making towards a secret direction with entire intentness. Or, -one upon the steps of a house, the other on a balustrade, they -will face each other with swishing tails, and so remain in immense -motion within the same spot, an infinity of provocation in every -shiver of their sleek flanks; you, human, shall not know whether -they are minded to love or war. If you interfere, you break the -spell of their communication, but there is no room for you in -their compact. You are the spectre of the commander, and they -flee. But you shall feel the hostility they have left behind them; -it flows from the immense cruelty of their cold eyes, that are lovely -as emerald and topaz, that can harbour no love, but only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span> -voluptuousness, calm, deep eyes that calculate and fix only upon that -which can serve them, eyes that glimpse only things they fear -and things they desire, not things for which they may suffer. You -shall stay awhile in that hostile ambiance, while they have fled -into the night, to adventures more secret and profound than any -that may be yours, even though you, too, be one of Diana’s foresters, -a gentleman of the shade, a minion of the moon.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="chapheadright" id="CHAPTER_V">V<br /> -SOUPS AND STEWS</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span></p> - -<h2 class="chapheadleft">CHAPTER V<br /> - -<span class="subhead">SOUPS AND STEWS</span></h2> - -<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">In</span> another chapter of this book the change that has come over -London feeding has already been indicated. The times when -respectability edicted that one should eat only within the family -circle, when all that could be obtained abroad was a stodgy meal -of bread and cheese at a coffee-house, or the lightest refreshment -at Vauxhall or Cremorne, are long gone by; to-day, almost as -many meals are consumed at restaurants as under homely roofs. -It was a long battle the restaurants waged under the early banners -of Hatchett’s or the Café Royal and, strange to say, the Grand -Hotel. Yes, once upon a time the Grand Hotel, that ancestor, -was the latest thing; in the eighties it was ‘the thing’ to lunch -or stay at the Grand Hotel. But, in those days, ‘the thing’ was -rather a scandalous thing, and if one lunched or dined away from -home one felt dissipated; one had to choose one’s company when -taking a meal thus, for the worst was easily thought of one in 1880, -while to-day, the best is hoped for. (There is, perhaps, no great -difference between the two attitudes.)</p> - -<p>In those days the home was a British institution; it figured -in the solemn list which numbered suet pudding, the royal family, -bustles, Tennyson, the evangelical attitude, and chenille decoration -of mantelpieces. The home had its rights; indeed, it had all -rights; it was the place where you ought to want to be, and far -from which you would naturally feel remorse; it was the thing -you had to ‘keep together,’ the thing you had to ‘make,’ to -‘save’; your self-abnegation should have told you that you had -no rights except to add the pillar of your person to those of the -porch. It has gone, this Victorian rectitude; it has gone the way -of Dundreary whiskers and of weepers round the hat; I suspect -that the restaurant habit, as it is called, has turned some of the -sods for its grave. There is something relaxing in a restaurant, -at least to a people such as ours, afflicted with a considerable -sense of private licence and of public dignity. Restaurant dining<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span> -outrages in us a sort of modesty, and, like most Puritans, we -rather enjoy having our modesty outraged; it is the revenge of -the flesh, and it pleases us godly men to discover in ourselves a -streak of the devil. We feel this rather more in the foreign -restaurants than in the British; in the British eating-houses, -where there is no menu, but only a bill of fare, where understandable -things, such as mock-turtle soup, boiled mutton with caper -sauce, and roly-poly are offered us, we know too well where we -are; we eat, instead of giving way to greediness; by avoiding -that temptation we avoid one of the cardinal sins, and more’s the -pity. In foreign restaurants, however, where neither the name -of the dish nor the form it assumes is understandable, we can -develop a sense of sin; we can do this because our feet are set on -foreign ways, all of which lead to Babylon. Foreign waiters -address us, and there is no virtue in their eyes; they look like -assassins, and it is thrilling to think that they may be assassins, -or nihilists, or grand-dukes. Foreigners dine at the tables; their -women are too smart to be good; the yellow-backed novels they -bring in must surely be undesirable; they are poorly clad, which -proves that they lead sinful lives; they are richly dressed, which -points to evil courses. They are foreign. Is not the Drury Lane -villain foreign?</p> - -<div id="ip_64" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 36em;"> - <img src="images/i_064.jpg" width="564" height="472" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -SOHO MARKET<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>From this sense of sin arose in the beginning the popularity -of the Soho restaurants. I do not know when they began to be -popular. Some, such as the Restaurant d’Italie, the Monico, -the Villa Villa, are old stagers, but when I first came to town -their customers were mostly men; if couples came they generally -included a man who did not care to take his womenkind to such -places, but did not mind taking other people’s womenkind. -(Thus it worked out just the same in the end.) The growth of -London, which compelled men to live farther and farther out, -favoured the restaurants, for distant dormitories drive men to -proximate refectories. The Soho restaurant grew in numbers, -together with the Cabins, the Lyons’s, the J.P.’s, and others, but -at the same time, because they provided pleasant fare at low prices, -they gained advertisement from the men who first frequented<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span> -them. Thus the women heard of them, and they liked them -immensely, for the Soho restaurant provides exactly the sort of -meal that many women want: next to nothing, pleasantly served. -So, in the last dozen years, they have prospered enormously; -the early ones, such as Brice’s, Le Diner Français, Au Petit Riche, -found many rivals such as the Moulin d’Or, the Mont Blanc, -Chantecler, Maxim’s, the Rendezvous, etc. Their career has -been curiously uniform. Nearly all have been started by a chef, -a waiter who had saved up a small working capital or married -well. Being foreigners, the proprietors liked good cooking, and -in the beginning every Soho restaurant offered a good meal. -To-day there are still a few where the proprietor circulates among -the tables, asking you whether you are satisfied, and naïvely begs -congratulation, but that state of mind is rare. So long as the -customers were mainly foreign, the standard was kept up: small, -important, subtle things were done, such as steaming vegetables -instead of boiling them, such as putting in salt while the meat -cooked. But the Englishmen who came to lunch, having advertised -their wonderful find, grew very proud of it, began to bring -their friends, their sisters, and, nowadays, even their aunts. They -came in increasing numbers, and the proprietors discovered -three things: that there were in London more Londoners than -foreigners; that the Londoners were willing to pay more than -the foreigners; that they either didn’t know what they ate, or -that they didn’t care. As very few of the proprietors were in -business as artists; as, moreover, they grew discouraged when -they went round the tables and asked people whether they had -enjoyed the stuffed mushrooms and were asked: ‘Were they -stuffed?’ they ceased to take pains. They found out what the -English customer wanted: paper flowers on the tables, Japanese -fans, and dishes with incomprehensible names. So, one after -the other, they began to cater for a purely English clientèle; a good -many have discovered that the English customers expect made-up -meats instead of, say, roast beef, and are willing to take those -meats on trust; so the wise proprietor, in many cases, makes up -his menu from the dishes left over from the night before at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span> -Carlton or the Ritz. After all, he gives them what they want: -a dissipated atmosphere. Not long ago, I watched four school -mistresses in a state of considerable dissipation. They sat in the -little restaurant, laughing rather more shrilly than they would -have at Simpson’s, as if excited by the rather excessive effect of -prettiness, the mauve walls, the blue and yellow curtains, the -pretty fringed shades. Oh, how one understood Sally Bishop! -How the mellow spirit of Mr Temple Thurston brooded with -folded wings over the little place! The school mistresses listened -hungrily for French, which was being spoken by the attendants, -and they kept a wary eye upon their fellow lunchers: sober couples -drinking claret; young men and women, the latter unpowdered, -the former oppressed by sartorial self-righteousness. There -was nothing against the lunch; it was a nice, ordinary little lunch; -the sort of well-cooked little lunch that could be turned out by -the gross, out of a machine, all the year round, every little lunch -alike, for ever and ever. But my school mistresses were tasting -dissipation while avoiding vice.</p> - -<p>In true cooking one does not avoid vice. One courts vice. -One says: ‘Eating is a sensuality, and we shall satisfy our senses -as much as we can. We shall sing hymns to it; people have sung -hymns to drinking, why not to eating? We are not ashamed of -“feasting” our eyes and our ears; why not our palates?’ Some -people understand this. Mr Anatole France sums it up well -when analysing a Castelnaudary <span class="locked">stew:—</span></p> - -<p>‘The Castelnaudary stew contains the preserved thighs of -geese, whitened beans, bacon, and a little sausage. To be good -it must have been cooked lengthily upon a gentle fire. Clemence’s -stew has been cooking for twenty years. She puts into the stew -sometimes goose or bacon, sometimes sausage or beans, but it is -always the same stew. The foundation endures; this ancient -and precious foundation gives the stew the quality that in the -picture of old Venetian masters you find in the women’s amber -flesh.’</p> - -<p>If you are a proper person you will call this disgusting; you -will feel that this is an indecent subject, and that an author who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span> -dares to head his chapter ‘Soups and Stews’ ought in another -world to be chained for a thousand years to the ghost of Colonel -Newnham Davis. That is a legacy of the past; not more than -twenty years ago it was indeed indecent to discuss food, and if a -vulgarian did so, the only thing the lady of the house could reply -was: ‘Oh, really!’ The war has altered that, and I am inclined -to hope that people who endlessly discussed the difference between -butter and margarine, the advantages to be found in neck of -mutton, will maintain these not ignoble preoccupations. I believe -they will, for they were moving that way; they had already left -far behind the Victorian lady with a wasp waist who ‘daintily -pecked at her dinner like a little bird.’ They may one day adopt -Brillat-Savarin’s dictum: ‘Let me cook your ministers’ dishes, -and they will give you good laws.’</p> - -<p>But, leaving aside Soho, which is, after all, only the culinary -frontier, we find that the restaurant has spread over the whole of -London, carrying everywhere its gospel of satisfaction. This -gospel takes various forms, for restaurants fall into different -classes according to their locality and their prices. There are the -pompous, like the Carlton, the Savoy, the Popular Café; there -are the distinguished, such as Claridge’s, Jules’s, Dieudonné’s; -there are the fanciful, such as Pagani, Verrey’s, old Gambrinus, -Bellomo’s, Gustave, the Savoyard, the Chinese, the Japanese, -the Greek; there is the slab-of-meat class, such as Gatti’s, -Simpson’s, to say nothing of the Shepherd’s Bush Restaurant, -and the Tulse Hill Hotel; above all there is the restaurant of the -Joseph Lyons civilisation, the Strand Palace Hotel, the Regent -Palace, the Strand Corner House.</p> - -<p>They all deserve their little word, and it is difficult to say of -each of them just what should be said, because they have so much -in common, yet are so far apart, like brothers and sisters. There -is a flavour of Joseph Lyons at the Savoy, while Gatti has Reggiori -for a little relative. Yet, when one comes to know them well, -they are all so different. No one, for instance, could mistake the -Carlton for the Savoy; both have a broad spaciousness born of -their size, of the comparative expensiveness of their meats;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span> -both are lofty and white and clean; their glass is pretty good, -and their plate so-so. But while the Carlton maintains a certain -air of having selected from among the not very select, the Savoy -shows little sign of having tried that much. To lunch at the -Savoy makes one feel not so much that one is among the rich as -among the well-to-do on short leave. The Savoy is sober; its -luxury is quieter than that of the Joseph Lyons restaurant; in a -way, with its top lights, its flowers, it recalls the Joseph Lyons -civilisation; the flowers are real, but not much more so; the -band is more discreet, but it plays the same tunes. Its population, -too, is different; at the Savoy, you do not see the young clerk, -but you do see what some of the young clerks will become if they -are lucky; many foreigners in a state of gormandise and bejewelment; -rather dowdy people, too, the well-off dowdy, whose -sideboards must be taken to pieces before they can be got into -country cottages. The business element is strong. Somehow, -one tells a business man fairly easily; he wears good clothes that -nearly fit him; his hair is well cut, his cheek is well shaved, but -a consciousness of the barber’s art hangs about his head; his -elegance is not a natural product, it is one of the goods which he -produces; he misses ‘the line’ which some sediment of aristocracy -or musical-comedy upstart achieves better than will ever the -business man’s solidities. There is too much meat upon his -cheeks; you feel that he is a little too rich, just as his eyes are a -little too bright; he is like a very new knife that has not yet learned -to cut.</p> - -<div id="ip_68" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 42em;"> - <img src="images/i_068.jpg" width="657" height="450" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -THE SAVOY<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>Others, too, Americans, who are happier in those big hotels -than any of the English, because hotel-life is, in many of them, -an acquired characteristic. They are interesting, those Savoy -Americans, abundant women, exquisite girls made of beautifully -tinted steel-plate, those men with the square shoulders, square -chins, square heads, cubic cheeks; you know, without being -told, that they are connected with the cinema trade, or that they -are producing a play by Mr Montague Glass or Mr Bayard Veiller, -or that they are selling many motor-cars, or something like that. -(The American who comes to Europe for the purpose of exporting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span> -art to Pittsburg is not found at the Savoy; he goes to Chelsea -and Fitzroy Square.) And yet it is not a disagreeable place; its -breadth, the airy width of plate-glass that looks out upon the -Thames, the cheapness and the adequacy of its food, all these -are part of the new restaurant of the new civilisation, which has -replaced the little taverns in the little corners of the town. It is -no use being sentimental over the little restaurant, or, indeed, -over anything little: there are too many of us for anything little -to be much more than a survival. If restaurants did not feed us -a thousand at a time, they would never manage to feed us all.</p> - -<p>One thinks of that in the small restaurants that have survived, -such as Verrey’s. To many people it seems a queer thing to -lunch at Verrey’s; it seems rather out of date, and, indeed, when -one approaches that frontage, painted a sort of faded 1850 blue -and provided with coloured glass, one has a sense of antiquity. -Inside antiquity is still more striking, for the big, square room -under the skylight manages at the same time to be drab in colour -and Moorish Gothic in architecture. It still has the many mirrors -of the ’fifties, an air of being comfortably off enough to afford to -be dowdy. Rakish and dowdy! Can anything better translate -the amusements of two generations ago? To-day, Verrey’s gives -you a fair lunch, and at its café tables, which are somehow more -substantial than the café tables of Paris, you understand what -England thought the Continent must be like in the days of the -Grand Tour.</p> - -<p>There are other places, fanciful as Verrey’s. There is Bellomo’s, -in Jermyn Street, a modest, pleasant little place, a long, narrow -back room filled with agreeable young couples. Bellomo’s is -rather like a young-old man, with its panelled wainscoting, its -wallpaper of faded gold, and its moulded, early Victorian frieze. -There is something solid about its dumb waiters; Bellomo’s is -somehow benevolent.</p> - -<p>But then Verrey’s and Bellomo’s are within limited flights of -fancy. The curious gastronome will, in London, easily find queerer -places and foods. At Pagani’s he can come to understand that -risotto may well be eaten in Valhalla; at Gambrinus’s, the Regent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span> -Street one, of course, he could, before the war, when it was German, -find unexpected delight in liver-sausage sandwiches, with perfectly -sour gherkins, and, heaven of heavens, really cold beer. In those -days it was decorated with antlers, enormous fanciful jugs, out -of which you enormously drank the frozen gold of that beer. -I think it has become Belgian since the war; I am not quite sure, -for I went there only once after the transfer.</p> - -<p>But the truly curious go not to foreigners like Pagani or -Gambrinus, or even to Gustave, where the foods are truly French, -or to the Savoyard, where they are French and eatable under the -eye of strange pictures; the truly curious go not to the foreigner, -but to the professional foreigner, to restaurants such as the Greek, -the Chinese, or the Japanese. Of these the Chinese is the most -attractive. I mean the Cathay, next door to the Monico, not the -Chinese restaurants in Limehouse, where nothing is eatable, and -nothing is tragic, and nothing is coloured, let Mr Thomas Burke -say what he likes. A lunch at the Chinese restaurant is really an -adventure, for nearly all the dishes are made of the same things, -and yet they all taste different. There is an admirable dish, -hang-yang-kai-ting, made of fried chicken with almonds and -bamboo shoots. That is a simple one, and the curious will find -more profit in a dish the name of which I have forgotten, which -contains fried sliced pork, celery, beans, sprouts, mushrooms, -bamboo shoots, and green chutney. Eat that, and it is a very -large, overflowing, savoury portion; flavour it well with chop-suey -(which you can call liquid salt if you are a foreign devil). -Eat it immediately after chicken liver soup, and if you do not -forget before swallowing the bamboo shoots to chew, and chew, -and chew, then a true mellowness will be known to you. Also, -do not forget the great bowl of boiled rice, pure, white rice, -perfectly dried, not sticky rice <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">à la A.B.C.</i>, but rice where every -grain remembers that it has a personality. Don’t ask for chopsticks: -the best people in China do not use chopsticks; they use -forks. (There used to be a Chinese restaurant where they provided -chopsticks for the English; it was great fun watching them pour -their food down their sleeves with that conscious air of duty that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span> -seems to overwhelm the Englishman experiencing pleasure.) And -don’t forget dessert, ginger in syrup, fire in the midst of sweetness, -like a red-haired girl; and ly-chee, large, sweet, white nuts -in an opalescent syrup, extraordinarily good.</p> - -<p>But, in a way, all those places, the very rich and the very odd, -are running on their own ticket, and do not express the times in -which we live. Our modern times are the Strand Corner House. -I should not wonder if many of my readers had never been into -the Strand Corner House; that is, if they are incurious of life. -If they repent their acceptance of things as they are, they will find -an unexpectedly large building decorated with heavily flowered -stucco mouldings, with plate-glass, with stained glass, with panels -of crimson satin. They will find light, co-operative luxury; -superposed tiers, bearing crowds of people lunching on the top -of one another’s heads, and at the bottom of a deep well, a band -that can be heard above the clatter of twelve hundred pairs of -jaws. A thousand people at a time really eat all together -at the Strand Corner House, and, in a way, no wonder. -The place is quite clean, not offensive in its appurtenances, and -can supply three courses for less than two shillings; the music -is the ordinary dance or sentimental music, the sort that makes -you feel friendly or affectionate as required. The public of the -Strand Corner House is, therefore, the world. Its variety is -much greater than that of any other place. One might think that -this public would consist exclusively of flappers and their escorts, -and, indeed, the flapper is prevalent, though she comes in threes -and fours quite as much as more ostentatiously with a ‘boy.’ -Also the suburbs, middle-aged couples, when the wife has been -shopping in St Paul’s Churchyard and has strayed down the -Strand; unexpectedly you see people with an air of modish vanity, -dashing people who smoke cigarettes and drink claret, damning -both the expense and the consequences. Though very few of -the frequenters could be mistaken for members of the classes, -none are members of the masses; they seem to be in a state of -social suspension; they are, especially the girls, of a rather crystalline -type. I mean that you realise their good looks at once instead<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span> -of by degrees. If you look about you, you will not fail to find -half a dozen faces that can give you the knock ... only, if you -look round the other way, you will probably see another half a -dozen faces that can give you exactly the same knock, and when -one is an old Londoner and has been getting the knock all one’s -life, well, one unfortunately comes to stand it rather well.</p> - -<p>These great crowds of young people with a little money in -their pocket and much zest in their hearts tend to fall into uniform -types. The men nearly all buy their collars at the Regent Street -branches of city hosiers; the girls seem to skim the lighter froth -of the big West End stores, except that Marshall’s knows them -not. This produces a uniform quality: they have to overtake -the fashions, and so become a little <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">outrées</i>.</p> - -<p>Women, more readily than men, respond to the stratifications -of restaurants, because they are more adaptable. Their very -clothes show it; women are like cats, they have no bones, and -easily suit themselves to bell-mouthed skirt or hobble. The -female form is infinitely squashable and extensible; any fashion -can transform it, and if a woman has the wit to shun the becoming, -she can always be in the fashion if she dares. If she fails, it is -because she does not dare to underline her deficiency. If I were -a woman and extraordinarily tall, I should dress myself in vertical -stripes; if I were very short and very stout, I should insert the -hoops of barrels under my skirt; I should be hideous, but I should -be It, for the essence of true fashion is extremism. I said fashion, -not elegance; that is quite another story, but then, to be elegant -you must be born as the greyhound, and if you strive to elegance -you are more likely to resemble the mouse. Fashion is much -easier.</p> - -<div id="ip_72" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 31em;"> - <img src="images/i_072.jpg" width="483" height="473" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -SHOPPING<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>Not only in her clothes, but in herself, does the metropolitan -girl define her city. She is always the creature of the day, who -heavily overlays the creature of all time. In soups and stews she -has little part, for a woman is a poor partner at the table. She -eats and drinks, as a rule, without much science or much intentness; -she eats too little, she bolts; she does not realise that she is -doing something important and artistic. Oh, it is not that she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span> -is lifted high above material desires, for, indeed, certain articles -of food, such as chocolates, certain drinks, such as liqueurs, make -her accept the society of the dullest and the most dreary, but -such trifles are merely the preludes and the coronals of the true -soup and the true stew. Still, she is the decoration and the charm -of the table; when Mr Lauzerte said that where there are no -women there is no true elegance, he was speaking the truth. In -matters of food they care very little what it is and very much what -it looks. Also, because few of them neglect an advantage and -prove the old adage that what woman most desires is mastery -over man, they never ignore what they look upon as a gross means -of seduction. It was a woman, I think, who told another to ‘feed -the brute.’ What an illusion! If you have to deal with a brute, -indeed, you can keep him quiet by feeding him, just as you mollify -Cerberus with a sop, but to keep a man quiet ... how unnecessary -in the early days of marriage! and how disastrous after! -It is unconsciously, I think, that women strive to please the palate -of men, that is they are unconscious of the effects of such a course. -Unless they are very unhappy they do not want to soothe the -sullen creature; they wish to produce in him a light and airy -grace, a not very promising ambition. For some men, who are -in possession of all their senses, will feel true gratitude, which -is akin to love, to the one who knows how so to flatter them. One -of them said to me not long ago: ‘It makes the day easier to feel -that I shall go back to-night to a perfectly cooked meal, and a -perfectly dressed wife.’ I am not quite sure whether he said that, -or whether it was ‘a perfectly dressed wife, and a perfectly cooked -meal,’ but anyhow, it does not matter, for in that man’s mind the -two delights had grown mixed. That is what every woman knows, -and perhaps she is wise as well as humble in hoping to mingle -with the <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">potage velouté</i> some of the old philtres of love.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="chapheadright" id="CHAPTER_VI">VI<br /> -IN SEARCH OF VICE</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span></p> - -<h2 class="chapheadleft">CHAPTER VI<br /> - -<span class="subhead">IN SEARCH OF VICE</span></h2> - -<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">When</span> I first came to London I was twenty years old; I came -from Paris, and, being twenty, felt sure that there remained no -sensations for me to experience, no realms of passion to explore. -I felt that I had lived—well, lived; that I came from Babylon -city, and was now entering a Puritanic world, a place of dignities -and parliaments, of clergymen with white bibs, of ladies with -prominent teeth and elastic-sided boots who said ‘shocking’; -I also felt that I was entering the country of <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">le sport, le flirt</i>; I -had also been told that the English were a strange people, adepts -in every depravity, of which the secret drinking of methylated -spirits was a minor example. I admired them thoroughly, as I -admired Westminster Abbey. Briefly, a land of virtue. This -state of mind was fairly well kept up for the first year, because it -rained nearly all the time, and there is nothing like a rainy summer -to raise the moral tone of the streets. I was interested by the -life I saw round me, bored by the life I led on thirty-eight shillings -a week; I could afford little in the way of theatres; whisky made -me sick; so did Irish stew and suet pudding; I did not see as -much of my fellows as I wanted, because, in those days, I often had -to choose between a clean shirt in the evening, and a cut from -the joint at lunch. Also, my landlady washed the collie in the -bath, which annoyed me.</p> - -<p>It is not surprising, then, that I did not at once enter London’s -‘gilded haunts of vice.’ It took me a little time to discover them, -and, to be truthful, I am still looking for them. Indeed, I can -say that I have employed a considerable portion of the last eighteen -years in search of vice, and it may be that I must blame a Parisian -education for my disappointment. I thought I had found vice -the first time I saw a couple publicly embrace, opposite Marble -Arch, never having seen anything so indecent in a Continental -city; but this was an illusion, just like another illusion when, for -the first time, I heard a speaker in the Park state his true opinion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span> -of the Royal Family: I thought this was the beginning of the -revolution, and could not understand why the police looked so -bored. I do now, for I suppose that meetings have been going -on for several generations. But when it came to vice, when I -explained to my new and fast English friends that I was looking -for vice, when they took me to the old Empire Promenade, when -they bade me be shocked at the condition of Regent Street, between -Vigo Street and Piccadilly Circus, when they took me to Earl’s -Court to ogle and to drink milk-coffee, when they drew my -attention to the chorus girls performing what they called orgies -in the punts near Maidenhead, a certain melancholy crept over -me. English vice was overrated. Indeed, to this day, I am sure -that there is very little vice in England, that the Londoner, particularly, -is a flighty creature, who kills virtue with his mouth, who tells -unpleasant stories about the deeds of other people, and paints the -town red with the assistance of his fancy socks. They are cowards, -really, and most of them, when they slip at all, seem to slip ignobly -into the rare satisfaction of a purely animal instinct; also, to do this, -they need drink. Nero would not have understood them at all.</p> - -<p>Since those days much time has passed, and now and then, -here and there, I have come a little closer to those strange and -secret depravities of which, according to the Continent, London -holds the monopoly. The newspapers are helpful; for they -have occasional fits of virtue and begin to expose something, -thus, at last, giving it an advertisement; or the police intervene -and shut up a restaurant, thus focusing all eyes upon its proprietor -and making him so famous that when he opens another -restaurant next door he is assured of custom. And so I have -known dreadful places, manicure shops where hands were held -longer than filing demands, tea shops where the depraved waitresses -call you ‘old dear,’ and demonstrate that in a chair when there is -room for one there is room for two. It is perfectly appalling. -I have been to the old Continental and to the old Globe Restaurant -to spend considerable sums on not very satisfactory meals, to see -a number of ladies manifest a little more clearly than is the custom -the liberalism of their mind. I don’t know why it strikes the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span> -Puritan faction as so terrible that the women whom they call lost -should congregate in a particular place; it cannot be because -thus they can be found, for the Puritans must know that there is -no street in central London, no tube, no omnibus, which does -not hold as much temptation and as much opportunity as a small -room in a quiet restaurant. I suppose it is the openness of the -thing shocks them, the fact that they cannot cover it up and, -therefore, pretend it is not there. But if that is vice, if that is -‘the smirch on our fair escutcheon,’ then, indeed, must English -prudery be easily offended. It must be a sensitive prudery, for -it cried out against night-clubs, against the Cave of the Golden -Calf, where a few people did drink too much, against the excessive -dancing at poor Ciro’s, which for a time fell among Y.M.C.A.’s.</p> - -<p>Also, during the war, a great fuss was raised in the newspapers -over the flappers in the Strand. I do not think anybody would -have bothered much about the flappers if, at that time, we had -not had among us a number of Anzacs who, as everybody knows, -are the gentlest and most guileless of men. These unfortunate -young soldiers, finding themselves lonely in a town such as ours, -where no man needs go lonely along a street if he has a little -determination, lacking all the home comforts which are implied -in the possession of aunts, made their acquaintances where they -could. The flappers in the Strand who, to my knowledge, have -always been in the Strand, particularly on Saturday afternoon -and on Saturday night, when they descend upon Villiers Street -and the bandstand, coming from Aldgate and alighting at -Charing Cross, naturally welcomed them. Now, in the old -days the flappers attached themselves to any young man -they met; sometimes he was a soldier in a red coat, sometimes -just a civilian, and nobody bothered, because in those days it -was not evident that anything unusual existed in the association. -Common sense revealed to all of us that these friendships had -been formed round the bandstand, but nobody was compelled -to know that they did not arise out of engagements of five years’ -standing. On the other hand, the Anzacs, with their beautiful -bodies, their bronzed faces and their squash hats, were noticeable;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span> -a Puritan, after having, in the course of Saturday afternoon, seen -several hundred Anzacs accompanied by pretty girls, was compelled -to realise that there could not be so many Anzacs united -by engagements of five years’ standing, to the flappers in the -Strand. The Puritan hates realising, because when he realises -he has to do something energetic, write to a paper, or form a -committee, or something. He does not mind writing to a paper -or forming a committee, but the whole thing upsets him; he -cannot cover it up, and he runs about with wild eyes, terrified -because the thing which is generally covered up has got loose.</p> - -<p>It was that gave rise to the trouble, and the Puritans, determined -that the flappers should flap no more, had to manufacture -a theoretical Anzac, a young man from Melbourne (but born in -the Bush, where no woman had ever been before), a young man -extraordinarily pure in spirit, but liable to fall into temptation -even if he had to cross the road to do so, a young man imbued -by his past education with a profound reverence for womankind, -whose feelings of reverence were daily being outraged by shameless -exhibitions into which he was reluctantly drawn. It’s queer; -this flapper question occupied the Press for months; now and -then the controversy died down, and then a Bishop or a special -article writer brought it up again; agents-general were called -upon to proclaim that our soldiers feared no foe in shining armour -because their heart was pure, while, in the same column, presidents -of watch committees gloomily acknowledged that something -seemed to have happened to the purity of those hearts. But all -agreed that that purity must at once be restored, that the Anzacs, -which includes the Canadians, the South Africans, and other -moral weaklings, must be protected. To this day we are protecting -men of thirty against girls of fifteen: I never heard anybody talk -of protecting the flappers, for it was assumed that, by the time -they were fifteen, they had sunk too deep in iniquity to deserve -better protection than four walls in Holloway. And no one -seems to have asked himself whether these young men, cut away -from old habits, from their friends and their work, did not desperately -want feminine companionship; the members of watch<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span> -committees did not ask Colonials to stay with them for the weekend; -for a long time they did not even provide them with sufficient -sleeping places, but seemed to expect them to make merry all -night in the ribald waiting-rooms of Waterloo. Briefly, their -virtue was to be its own reward, and certainly we could not take -from Nietzsche the aphorism that man is for war, woman for the -recreation of the warrior. Above all, we could not let them alone.</p> - -<p>Owing to this, my moral sense being aroused by an article -in a Sunday paper, I devoted a Saturday to a search for vice. Of -course, I began in the Strand, where I was told vice reigns. I saw -a great number of soldiers, doubtless viciously employed, but -conducting their debauches with singular restraint and dignity. -Outside the Corner House stood a number of boudoir ladies -from the Government offices, who were deplorably waiting for -omnibuses; many of them may have been viciously employed, -but as their company was mostly confined to their own sex, they -were not sliding very fast down the butter-slide of perdition; -mostly, they were eating chocolates, and the fact that chocolates -then cost four shillings a pound may be sufficient evidence of -undesirable conduct, but this seems to me hardly enough to -hang even a girl on. I proceeded up the Strand where the East -End was slowly beginning to arrive, mostly in twos and threes. -Often, indeed, I met the regrettable flapper; certainly she was -powdered and lip-salved, and I do not know that this is exceptional, -but right up to Temple Bar not a single flapper made an effort -to draw me from the straight path. (It is all very well saying -that I may not be the sort of person whom the flapper would -want to draw from the straight path, but surely vice has no pride, -and stoops to all men.) The most vicious thing I saw was two -soldiers and two girls walking rudely arm in arm.</p> - -<p>I did my best. Indeed, I think I became a regular <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">agent -provocateur</i>, but I did not seem able to provoke anybody. So, -desperately, I turned back and crossed the river towards Waterloo -Road. The reputation of this gray and green commercial track -was made by the street arab in <i>Captain Brassbound’s Conversion</i>, -who declared that if he did in Morocco the things he did in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span> -Waterloo Road he would be hanged. But nothing was happening -in Waterloo Road; many people were drinking in many public-houses; -I entered a few public-houses, and though I tried as -hard as the two houses of convocation put together, I found -nothing. I will not weary you with details; it is enough to say -that, still guided by my Sunday newspaper, I proceeded on my -footsore search. By evening, I was lurking round Victoria, -watching from the corner of my eyes for the harpies who drug -veteran members of the Band of Hope, and after I had loafed about -for a while, no doubt I must have conveyed a harpy-like suggestion; -I was seen in a picture palace, peering into the dimness of the -curtained boxes, which was easy, as they were not dim. That -night I was seen in many places, searching the blackness of railway -arches, furtively peering down the staircases of tubes, hoping to -discover the worst; I appeared in the deserted City; the back -streets of Theobald’s Road, the confidences of a hall porter in -Gerrard Street (expensive and uneventful), a long inspection of -the first floor fronts of Vauxhall Bridge Road, seen from the top -of a tram, all these grew familiar to me; and still nothing. As -time went on, my legs grew more and more woolly; my mind so -obsessed and incoherent, that I realised time would soon fit me -for membership of the National Vigilance Society. I even entered -the Leicester Lounge, where there was hardly anybody, as it -was not Boat Race night; then I wondered whether a visit to -North Bank, St John’s Wood ... and awoke from my trance, -remembering that this would be thirty years late. There is no -vice in London; at least, there is nothing deliberate and artistic, -just as there is very little in Paris or Vienna that would justify a -Welsh elder in taking so long a journey. It is a pity that so fair -a bubble should be pricked.</p> - -<p>This does not mean that London is a magnified Exeter Hall. -There are, in this town, about half a million bachelors, and that -is enough to lower the moral status of any city. There are also -rather more married men, which does not mend matters. Observe -the bias of my mind: I have forgotten to tell you the number, -frequently quoted by indignant letter writers to the Press, of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span> -women who hold forth temptation. For it may be true that supply -assists demand, but it is much more certain that demand makes -supply. During the war, for instance, there was great agitation in the -Upper House of Convocation, where the Bishop of London -revealed that in Cayeux and Havre undesirable houses were frequented -by British troops. Canon Burroughs went on to ask for -purity patrols, while the Bishop of Oxford presented a resolution -designed to protect our troops from molestation in London. -This is all very well, and deserves all sympathy, but the Bishop -of London unfortunately read out a protest addressed to the -Mayor of the French town by its inhabitants, and this protest -referred to ‘crowds of English soldiers waiting outside the houses.’ -Does one, then, wait for temptation? Does not temptation steal -upon one as a thief in the night, or as a raging lion, seeking whom -it may devour? It is a picturesque idea this, of crowds of innocent -victims impatiently waiting for an opportunity to degrade their -eternal spirit.</p> - -<p>Temptation is nonsense. I have spoken to many men about -temptation; they are seldom tempted, and this for very good -reasons: men do not fall, they dive. The women who ‘prey on -them,’ fulfil a function which will be necessary so long as society -is as vilely constituted as it is, so long as life is hard and insecure, -so long as social relations are false, so long as marriage is expensive -and difficult of dissolution, and, especially, so long as the hearts of -men are brutish and the hearts of women soft. The class which -for centuries has been hunted, has for centuries been maintained -by the hunter, just as the fox is bred and protected for the pleasure -of the chase. Those women do not seem to me to lead as easy -lives as the men who profit by their weakness; they look rather -less well-fed, less well-clad; they wear gold of a lesser carat; -when they die their names do not appear in the newspapers under -the final advertisement: ‘To-day’s wills.’ Truly, the wages of -sin are low. Should we not conclude that if bread is so dear, and -flesh and blood cheap, there is no great inducement for the sale -of flesh and blood, except the cost of bread? Perhaps it is the -easiest way, but only for those to whom all ways would be easy.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span> -There is no remedy for what the social campaigners call the -condition of our streets, except an alteration in the mind of the -men who walk in them; Christianity cannot help, for Christianity -attempts to solve this problem by purging sin, instead of realising -misfortune. Thus too many Christians justify Tacitus: ‘After -the burning of Rome, suspicion fell on the Emperor. In order -to allay them, the Emperor embarked on a series of persecutions; -among those he persecuted was a sect that called themselves -Christians, who had incurred the animosity of the populace owing -to their sullen hatred of mankind.’</p> - -<p>Tacitus was wrong, but then he was judging the Christians -of his day as agitators. The streets will alter when the houses -along the streets alter, when mankind has found love in the mind, -when it is no longer content with the love of the body. The -majority of men seem to approach life as pigs do the trough. -Visit a West End restaurant, and you will be sure. In that trough -are not only curds and whey, and truffles, and other suitable -dainties; but excessive clothes and jewellery, honours, false social -values, irrelevant powers; so long as the Gadarene crowd -nuzzle and fight about that trough, so long will many of those, -who are not Gadarene in the spirit, be infected with envy and -desire, so long will they be driven to shrillness and self-advertisement, -so long drawn by popularity and repelled by fame. Meanwhile, -it naturally follows that what many call vice should endure, -for vice is the satisfaction that dulls the flesh when the spirit -aches. Happy men have no vices; it is only the unhappy, the -hungry, fly to them. For my part, if I had to make laws for a -new society, I would make few. I should say rather that we -will build our new society so that all may be assured security and -justice, but no more. If we were to establish justice, we should -automatically do away with the curse of the world, which is wealth. -It might be a pity. It may be that Anatole France is right when -he says: ‘The devil dead, good-bye sin. Maybe beauty, this -ally of the devil, will vanish with him. Maybe that we shall not -again see the flowers that intoxicate, and the eyes that slay.’ Still, -one would like to see it tried.</p> - -<div id="ip_84" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 41em;"> - <img src="images/i_084.jpg" width="655" height="468" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -THE CHELSEA ARTS BALL<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="chapheadright" id="CHAPTER_VII">VII<br /> -THE POOR</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span></p> - -<h2 class="chapheadleft">CHAPTER VII<br /> - -<span class="subhead">THE POOR</span></h2> - -<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">Not</span> much more than a dozen years ago, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman -startled England by stating that thirteen million of -our people stood, at all times, on the edge of starvation. He took -as a basis the study of the condition of the poor, made by Mr -Charles Booth in a great number of volumes, containing a great -number of columns of figures, and was alluding in general to the -large class that existed on a family income of twenty-three shillings -a week. There was something terrible about those figures, so -terrible that even the press was shocked. But there was something -uninspired and inhuman about Mr Booth’s columns of figures; -it is all very well telling us that so many thousands of people live -five in a room, and so many thousands six in a room, and so on, -but it does not mean anything. The ordinary man finds it almost -as difficult to imagine that kind of life as to visualise a million; -he can see six people in a room, but his mind does not bring up -the idea of those six people in material attitudes, sleeping, eating, -courting, making merry; figures create no microcosm. I suspect -that to understand the poor, a little, you need to know very well -the places where the poor live. The house is a fairly clear indication -of the inhabitant; it is the house he chose, or the house to -which he submitted. Then who is this poor man? this poor man -round whom so many essays have been written? by the Fabian -Society, judicial; by the Charity Organisation Society, severe; -by Mr John Galsworthy, understanding and tender? The poor man -is of the same genus as the rich man, but of a different species. -(I mean the born poor man as opposed to the born rich man.) -The rich man is no better than the poor man; the poor man is no -better than the rich man; they are different creatures, made such -by different conditions, just as a Spaniard and a Lancastrian are -made different by their various lives. Only, and there’s the -political rub, Englishmen have not to administer the affairs of -Spaniards, while they do have to administer the affairs of their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span> -own poor; thus it is important that they should not blunder, -because the poor are not good at improving conditions; their -attitude is to grin and bear, and then, one day, to cease to bear.</p> - -<p>To understand them at all one must take an imaginative leap; -if you find this difficult, Mr John Galsworthy has taken it admirably -in <i>The Freelands</i>. Listen to his description of a labourer’s -<span class="locked">life:—</span></p> - -<p>‘He gets up summer and winter ... out of a bed that he -cannot afford time or money to keep too clean or warm, in a small -room that probably has not a large enough window; into clothes -stiff with work, and boots stiff with clay; makes something hot -for himself, very likely brings some of it to his wife and children; -goes out, attending to his digestion crudely and without comfort; -works with his hands and feet from half-past six or seven in the -morning till past five at night, except that twice he stops for an -hour or so and eats simple things that he would not altogether -have chosen to eat, if he could have had his will. He goes home to -a tea that has been got ready for him, and has a clean-up without -assistance, smokes a pipe of shag, reads a newspaper perhaps two -days old, and goes out again to work for his own good, in his -vegetable patch, or to sit on a wooden bench in an atmosphere of -beer and “baccy.” And so, dead tired, but not from directing -other people, he drowses himself to early lying again in his doubtful -bed.’</p> - -<p>One should read, as a contrast, Mr Galsworthy’s description -of the rich man he calls <span class="locked">Malloring:—</span></p> - -<p>‘Your Malloring is called with a cup of tea, at, say, seven -o’clock, out of a nice, clean, warm bed; he gets into a bath that -has been got ready for him; into clothes and boots that have -been brushed for him; and goes down to a room where there’s a -fire burning already if it’s a cold day, writes a few letters, perhaps, -before eating a breakfast of exactly what he likes, nicely prepared -for him, and reading the newspaper that best comforts his soul; -when he has eaten and read, he lights his cigar or his pipe, and -attends to his digestion in the most sanitary and comfortable -fashion; then in his study he sits down to the steady direction of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span> -other people, either by interview or by writing letters, or what -not. In this way, between directing people and eating what he -likes, he passes the whole day, except that for two or three hours, -sometimes indeed seven or eight hours, he attends to his physique -by riding, motoring, playing a game, or indulging in a sport that -he has chosen for himself. And, at the end of all that, he probably -has another bath that has been made ready for him, puts on clean -clothes that have been put out for him, goes down to a good dinner -that has been cooked for him, smokes, reads, learns, and inwardly -digests, or else plays cards, billiards, and acts host until he is -sleepy, and so to bed, in a clean, warm bed, in a clean, fresh -room.’</p> - -<p>I challenge you to say that this is exaggerated. If you like, -say you don’t care; but don’t say it isn’t true. And I will not -preach at you, but suggest, to such as detect in me sentimentality, -that if we belong to a refined and gifted class into whose hands -the world has been given, if, indeed, we are refined and gifted -people, a condition such as that of the poor man should offend -our æsthetic sense. I have known a rather larger number of -poor men than is usual in my class; I have not known them very -well, because the worst of the difference between the rich and the -poor is that the poor cannot trust the rich; they know them too -well. The poor know that the rich conduct against them the -class-war, and so they are defensive, inclined either to say the -thing that will procure a tip, or a post as office-boy for little Tommy, -or they will turn savagely on you to show you they are as good as -you, and tell you that though margarine is good enough for you, -their inborn good taste makes it impossible for them to consume -anything but the best butter. One does not get together, any -more than that Spaniard and that Lancastrian would get together, -after five years of Ollendorff. Still, if one passionately wants to -understand, one sometimes, for a moment, perceives the shadow -of a hint of what another creature is. I remember perceiving it, -for the first time, in the midst of an alien family in Widegate Street, -just off Petticoat Lane; I had been sent by the firm who employed -me to make searching inquiries and to dispense small bounties.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span> -My aliens were, I think, German Jews, who called themselves -Russian refugees because it sounded more appealing; they were -not a pleasant crowd; the man was a great, big, heavy, fat fellow, -with greasy, black hair, a rather surly brigand; there was a woman, -too, lying in a corner, dirtier than the man, presumably because -she had been lying there for some time; there were four little -children, exceedingly fat and well kept, the usual mystery of -Jewish poverty; there was an extraordinarily old woman who -sat next to the woman on the floor, and from the beginning to -the end of the interview said not a word and moved not a feature. -But the horror of it came from the woman on the floor, who also -said not a word: there was no furniture in the room, not a table, -not a chair, not even a bed; the woman lay on a few crumpled -newspapers ... and had, the night before, given birth to a -child, who lay naked between her indescribably filthy bodice and -her breast. They were there, all together, in the midst of life, -left and abandoned, hungrily desirous of the moment when the -great industrial machine of London would be ready to consume -them. Impostors, perhaps, but if so, hard is the way of imposture -and slender the wages thereof.</p> - -<p>I remember thinking, after that, as I went along Petticoat -Lane, that is become Middlesex Street, how much the district -resembled the people. There is no Petticoat Lane now; Middlesex -Street holds nothing picturesque or national; even its open-air -market on Sunday morning can be paralleled by any Saturday -afternoon scene in the little streets of Edgware Road, or in -Walker’s Court, Soho. It is a street mainly of warehouses; -Widegate Street and Sandys Row exhibit the oddity of narrow -crookedness and no more. Petticoat Lane, where the shops are -paltry, and the folk divide into too fat and too lean, is not even a -mean street. Its one charm is the prevalent, handsome young -Jewess, aged about fourteen, with high tasselled boots, and plenty -of silk stocking, containing plenty of leg. She is a fine girl; she -haunts you all along Whitechapel Road, and so to Mile End, with -her rude air of wealth and wealth-consciousness. I don’t know -how she does it; with very little money, some crude colour and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span> -some light furs, she suggests opulence. There is something -matronly about her, too; she looks so marriageable ... and -when one looks into the humid softness of her brown eyes, one -finds a limitless rectitude of morals, which may arise from a limitless -power to resist temptation.</p> - -<p>Her thick mouth is tight closed; her stays are tight; her -mind is tight. She is fair and square, and will give her husband -value for his money, but somehow one feels it a pity that all she -will give him is value.</p> - -<p>Those girls are part of a certain reckless gaiety that pervades -Whitechapel. I like Whitechapel Road; the streets that run -off it are indeed tragic with dirt and desolation, but the road -itself, which is the pleasure-house of the inhabitants, is full of -vitality. At all times it is thickly peopled, mostly with foreign -Jews of all types, many of them scrubby little men with beards, -who gesticulate in groups at street corners, and argue with their -co-religionists. Some are in a state of offensive prosperity. -Those Jewish crowds are more alive than the average -London crowd; their eyes shine more, as if they were -more capable of conceiving desire. They are at their most intense -before the many open-air stalls, where you may buy boots and -clothing, flowers, toys, and books, and music, and furniture, and -every food you know, and some you do not; and teasers for ladies, -and surprises for gents, and penny boxes of tricks that will make -you popular at a social evening, and collections of jokes of ancient -lineage. It is a wonderful show; it is, in many ways, more -wonderful than Williamson’s Bonanza in the Brixton Road, -because it is cheaper, because a penny goes farther, and thus the -penn’orth is more hotly desired. All that points to another side -of the poor, the side Mr Galsworthy never sees: their joys.</p> - -<p>It is true that the joyous side of poverty is much less evident -than the unhappy side; this because the pleasures of the poor -are either localised within their own homes (instead of outcropping -in restaurants), or because they are confined every year to a limited -number of delirious days. Also, the places in which they live are -mostly so abominable that it is difficult for men of our sort to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span> -understand that delight may dwell in a slum a little more easily, -and a little longer than love in a cottage.</p> - -<p>The slums are so evident to our eyes; they are everywhere. -For instance, there is an unexpected little slum in the middle of -Mayfair, round Shepherd Market and Shepherd Street. I believe -the whole place is insanitary and should be pulled down (I have -no love for the picturesque). It is surprising to think that the -inhabitants of Mayfair must now and then go through the little, -cramped market with the small, dirty houses, yet fail to discover -that here, between Curzon Street and Piccadilly, stands a knot of -public-houses at one of which, perhaps, Sam Weller was asked to -take part in a swarry of boiled mutton; the hypothetical investigator -from Grosvenor Square would be surprised to find out that here -one can buy a shirt for 3s. 6d., sweets by the ounce, underclothes -for 2s. 11d., and that for 2d. a hungry man can purchase a meat -pie. It is like that all over London, in Belgravia, in Marylebone, -just as in St Giles’s. They have not quite slain St Giles’s, the -street-improvers, and there still is charm in Seven Dials, where -once seven little public-houses stood at seven little corners, and -each public-house had a dial. You told the time by tossing up or -averaging. And now there is but one dial left, and it has lost its -hands. (Hush, my soul! Do not let the spirit of Mr E. V. Lucas -invade thee.)</p> - -<div id="ip_92" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 30em;"> - <img src="images/i_092.jpg" width="480" height="569" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -SHEPHERD’S MARKET<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>There is more truth in the frank slums over the river. I once -enjoyed the services of a supernumerary postman, who frequently -came to my house to make experiments on the garden, to put up -shelves, to interfere with the gas, or to drown kittens. In the -end he went too far, for he attempted to cure the ball-cock of some -obscure disease, and it responded to his treatment by flooding -the kitchen three feet deep. But before that tragic day (you -should have seen my cat swim), I visited him in Rotherhithe, -because, among his many supernumerary trades, he numbered that -of vine grower. Against the back of his house in West Lane he -had, indeed, managed to grow a splendid, muscular-looking vine, -which produced great quantities of grapes; these grapes, when -eaten, reproduced what is probably the flavour of vitriol, but he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span> -was very proud of them, and ate them, and he kept his vine in -condition by occasionally watering its roots with a bucket of -bullock’s blood. He received this free, because he kept the -slaughterer’s books in his spare time. But all this is by the way, -and there are many respectable old gentlemen who do all these -things and are thought none the worse of; as everybody knows, -lunacy in the poor is originality in the rich. What was interesting -about the supernumerary’s home was the breadth of West Lane, -that is really a dingy square of bare earth planted with trees whose -every sooty leaf whispers: ‘Oh! had I the wings of a dove!’ It is -a square of crumbling Georgian frontages not devoid of a certain -splendour. That discovery is one of the keys to the condition of -the poor. You find this not only in Rotherhithe, but in Clapham, -in Brixton, in the New Kent Road; here and there, behind the -board of a photographer, where are exposed pictures of young -men with all their hair brushed off their foreheads, and of young -girls with all their hair brushed into their eyes, you see a beautiful -old house with a porch of the Adams type. Many of these streets, -such as Old Kent Road, such as Tooley Street, have become -wholly commercial, have turned into long lines of gray warehouses -and decaying side streets, haunted by many children; some, -like Jamaica Road, and most of Bermondsey, have entirely fallen -into the hands of the grayest commerce, but here and there you -are bound to find a still splendid Georgian house, looking rather -like a distressed Irish lady, who does her best to keep her transformation -combed, and to maintain the traditions of the Ballymullins -of County Mayo. These houses are in the hands of the poor, -which means that, originally intended for prosperous people -with several servants, they have been cut up into tenements; this -also means that the stairs have not been mended since the days of -William IV.; that Queen Victoria came to the throne, and married -and mourned, that Disraeli passed reform bills while no bathrooms -were put in; that the tap went on running in the backyard, -where Georgian wealth used to fill the jugs; it means that -the old house has lost most of its glass, and is running with mice -and stinking with beetles; that the drains have been left by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span> -local to a higher authority. Part of the tragedy of the poor is -that few houses have been built for them, and that they have to -adapt themselves to houses discarded by the rich, which are not -meant for them, which are not usable by them. The rooms are so -large that the poor cannot afford them unless they overcrowd -them; or they have tiny windows because they were -limited by the old window tax. There is only one thing to -do for them, as is the case with most institutions: blow them -up.</p> - -<p>Will the superman be bred by the L.C.C.? I do not know, -but I am sure that the superman will not be bred in any numbers -in the middle of the stench of the past. Evil and old are almost -synonyms, and I confess that I like better the vulgarity of the -suburban street, with its concrete that pretends to be stone, and -its plaster beams that pretend to be wood, its wooden pillars -that pretend to be marble. I like it better, with its bay windows, -so built that no article of furniture will fit it, with its awful ingle -nooks, its sham gables and its sham dormer windows, than the -awful old Georgian houses near Lamb’s Conduit Street, where, -crowded together under a ceiling still flecked with gold, on which -naked cherubs sprawl, a dozen Russian furriers sit and scratch. -For the hideous modern house can at least be clean; it is small; -it is washable; a through draught can be arranged; a very little -it opens the window on life.</p> - -<p>In the sense of housing we have never housed our poor; -hardly anywhere, up to 1900 or so, have we done anything but -run up rude brick boxes as shelters, or adapt the dwellings of -the rich. Hence, I believe, a stricken, scrofulous generation. -Yes, I know there is a charm about all this black filth, as if, indeed, -flowers did sprout from dunghills. It is the charm of contrast, -it is singularity. You feel it in every poor region. You feel it at -the Elephant and Castle, for instance, though why the Elephant -should alone be famous, while at the two opposite corners sit the -Rockingham and Alfred’s Head, equally great public-houses, -I do not know; you feel it in the rowdiness of London Road, -and in a sort of ‘none-of-your-lip’ air that hangs over Newington<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span> -Causeway. You feel it still more in Deptford; indeed, Deptford -is a pitiful place, all gray stone and gray slate, but the smell of the -sea hangs about it, and as it lies along the docks, often above these -slate roofs, above the timber stacks of strange wood, you see the -tangled masts and cranes cut out against the sky, patterns evidently -designed by Nevinson. I remember once seeing on the shoulder -of an old woman who kept a stationer’s shop, a gorgeous parrot. -It had a yellow and blue body, scarlet feathers in its tail, a bill of -ebony, and eyes like molten gold. It sat on her shoulder, thinking -of things old as the willow pattern. The parrot looked out upon -Deptford High Street, through the flaming topaz of its eyes at -the young men who passed now and then, sun-burnt starvelings -of the merchant service, in blue jerseys; the sailors rolled and -the parrot thought, and in the heat the East breathed from the -logs of mahogany and sandalwood. But under all that, under all -that theatrical charm was buried the same old thing, the bad old -house made to fit the bad new time.</p> - -<p>Yet, the poor are not as unhappy as they look. They do not, -in the accepted sense, live a life of pleasure, but to say that they -have no pleasures, or can have none because they are poor, is a -mistake. The poor have cheap pleasures, pleasures which many -of us do not care for, and they take no part in what we choose to -call pleasures. If I were compelled to say something sweeping, -I should say that the rich have less pleasures than the poor; they -are free from more pains, but that is not the same thing. The -pleasures of the poor reside much more than do ours in animal -comforts; whereas the rich take a good dinner and its wines as -a matter of course, the poor make a feast of a joint or a gallon of -beer. Things such as these, food, drink, warmth, second-class -travelling, arm-chairs, extra blankets, translate themselves, not -into the mere satisfaction of needs, but into recognisable pleasures. -It is so in the whole field of their amusements, the cinema, the -music-hall, the football and cricket fields, where many watch -matches, and a few play them; it is so in regard to bank holidays, -to journeys to Southend or Margate, to bathing, to visiting the -Chamber of Horrors, to being photographed. All these things<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span> -matter more to the poor than they do to the rich, and you will -realise that this is true, if you recall that you have never met an -underpaid clerk or a working girl who did not passionately look -forward to holidays. On the other hand, you are all familiar -with the state of mind of a well-to-do family, who solemnly discuss -one May evening, ‘Where shall we go in August?’ When the -poor discuss where they shall go to in August, and most of them -mean on August Bank Holiday, they do not come together in the -spirit of profound misery and grim hostility that characterises -the respectable classes. They do not go away because they must -go away in August, nor must they go away in August because -everybody goes away in August: it costs them something to go -away. The holiday is a treat, and is not a part of the household -budget estimated for in every income. I need not stress this, -but we all know that when estimates are prepared one must put -in rent, rates, taxes, doctor, dentist, chemist ... <em>holidays</em>. -That is not pleasure. But it is pleasure when Alf tells Ethel that -he has had a rise, and that they can this year rise to Cromer instead -of Ramsgate. The difference is still more remarkable if we recall -the ‘thank-God-that’s-over’ attitude of the rich when, at last, their -holiday is done, and the beneficent train pants into Paddington or -Victoria. I have known many poor young men and women, and -never met one who had not enjoyed a perfect holiday. I have met -some who had passed seven days in a mackintosh, and even then -had enjoyed a perfect holiday.</p> - -<p>The poor have pleasures, because they draw more than we -can from pleasures; they anticipate more, because they are less -spoilt by the experience of pleasures, and have not yet found out -that these have mutable faces. To make their good fortune more -complete, they are even capable of anticipating pleasure without -being disappointed when they attain it. Their pleasures are -keen, because they are rare. They are keen, because they obtain -very little pleasure without paying for it, and as they have little -money they must scheme, plan, save; so pleasure becomes a -thing to strive for, a true reward; they have to climb the fig tree -to secure the figs; they are not cursed with the ownership of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span> -fig tree, cannot lie under its boughs until a ripe fig drops into -their mouth.</p> - -<p>We must not forget, too, that poverty has psychological -reactions. Mr Bernard Shaw says that poverty is a disgusting -disease, and, on the whole, he is right, but the sufferer has marvellous -moments of recovery. In those moments the poor man -does what the rich man, by long education, has been taught not -to do: he lets himself go. He can hold arms with half a dozen -companions and proceed uproariously along a pier, singing -abominably an excellent music-hall tune, to the inefficient accompaniment -of a concertina or mouth-organ; he can reel out of -public-houses in a state of complete indifference to public opinion, -instead of being secreted by the club waiter and paternally controlled -by a taxi-driver; indeed, the poor man can derive much vanity -from his condition, and rise in the esteem of his fellows next day, -because he took part in such a spree. (In this country, if you -can’t be great, be drunk.) Above all, he can make love in public. -He can, unashamedly, sit upon a bench in the park, complicatedly -intertwined with his beloved, sometimes with two beloveds; -nobody minds, and the little god of love will, for a moment, blind -the policeman’s bull’s eye. He needs no Sussex down, nor footmen, -nor thermos flasks, to make a picnic; with the <i>Daily Mirror</i> beneath -the bough, a flask of ginger beer, and her beside him singing, -‘Who were you with Last Night?’ Battersea Park is Paradise -enow.</p> - -<p>Their social functions, too, are more social, and less functional. -They do not, in our sense, entertain, that is to say they do not, at -given intervals, go through their address book and say: ‘We -can’t ask Lady So-and-So, because she has refused our last two -invitations, and I suppose we must ask the Fitz-Thompsons. -Or do you think we could get out of it?’ No, they don’t entertain; -they prefer to be entertained, and so, on strictly scheduled occasions, -namely, Christmas, birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and engagements, -<em>and on no others</em>, the whole family and a few very old friends -are asked to a spread. And it <em>is</em> a spread. It is not compulsory -jellies from Gunter’s, or game pie from the Café Royal, or, still<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span> -worse, a dinner no better than every day’s dinner, but merely a -little longer; it is a real spread comprising three times the food -that is normally eaten, choice food, such as tinned salmon, lobster, -trifle with real brandy, stuffed loin of pork, likely to be remembered. -If there is wine it is port wine, the real article. The real article -and not the rotten routine. So the people they bring together -are not the frigid crowd we call acquaintances, whom most of us -ask because they have asked us, or because they threaten to do so, -people whom we do not know very well and whom we don’t want -to know very well, people, therefore, on whom our display cannot -make a great impression. The poor ask the people they know well, -people who know their exact income. Thus they attain a great -human pleasure: ostentation. The life of the poor is harsh, but -their joys are keen. I used to know a woman who called them the -poor poor. What a fool she was!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="chapheadright" id="CHAPTER_VIII">VIII<br /> -STONES</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span></p> - -<h2 class="chapheadleft">CHAPTER VIII<br /> - -<span class="subhead">STONES</span></h2> - -<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">A critical</span> foreigner, whose impressions of London I collected, -(a thing one does to foreigners because that at least is common -ground), gave words to the usual complaint of the Continental: -London was a mean-looking city; its bricks were dirty; it used -so little stone; lacked we stone? And the buildings were low. -And some stuck out beyond the common frontage, while some -set back. And so on, the whole served with the usual sauce made -up mainly of respect for our practical spirit and our commercial -success, the things we are not proud of because, indeed, they are -ours.</p> - -<p>Almost every foreigner has that impression of London, and -he mistakes the spirit of our city so much that, to restore him, -one has to show him typical American architecture such as -Selfridge’s, Kingsway, or older buildings of greater majesty, -such as the Quadrant or the terraces round Regent’s Park. Failing -stone, we exhibit stucco, and the intelligent foreigner discerns no -irony in the epigram on <span class="locked">Nash:—</span></p> - -<div class="poem-container"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="iq">‘Augustus, at Rome, was for building renowned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of marble he left what of brick he had found;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But is not our Nash, too, a very great master?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He finds us all brick and he leaves us all plaster.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Now stucco is an unfairly scorned material; it produces a -pleasantly smooth surface, which weathers to creamy-olive, and, -indeed, its only crime is that it conceals brick. Brick and tile are -two of our most delightful materials; people do wrong to sneer at -them just because poor cottages are so built. Red brick, when -not too large, such as the delightful little Tudor brick, is smiling -and domestic. The progress of building has, in this case, proved -a retrogress for art. Nowadays, the big red bricks are so angular, -so perfectly cemented that most blocks of flats approximate to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span> -workhouses, while the yellow brick now current should be reserved -for public buildings of special distinction, such as national -memorials and academies of painting. But the little red brick -that you could hold in your hand, the irregular lines of which -bespoke a temperament, which fitted tenderly into patchy cement, -as an almond of alabaster into the green velvet of its sheath, was -quite another kind of stone. Still, we must take our stones as -we find them, and I do not agree with the intelligent foreigner -who thinks London a mean city. Many of us find the fine -Continental cities, such as new Paris, new Barcelona, and new -Frankfurt, as painful to live in as might be the Agricultural Hall. -The houses are too high, their flanks too white, their alignment -dull as a righteous life. When one considers towns like New York, -one wonders how the inhabitant finds his way home. By scent, -I suppose, for little can his eyes help him among those vast -buildings, all alike.</p> - -<p>In London, few streets and not many squares are alike. The -detestable institution of the leasehold has had this good result, that -few ground landlords in central London have built the houses -they own. They have merely imposed upon the leaseholder the -obligation to build a good house worth so much. As a result, -the leaseholder has built what he fancied, and, therefore, London -is not the result of the schemes of some horrid central office, but -of the oddities and taste of thousands of men. That is why -our sky-line is so broken, why, in Berkeley Square, we find -two charming little, narrow houses close to a tall block of flats; -that is why, in Oxford Street, tottering little shops, built under -William IV., hug the Tube Station and its monster hotel. -Variety is the salt of London life.</p> - -<div id="ip_103" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 42em;"> - <img src="images/i_103.jpg" width="660" height="442" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -THE TUBE, 9.30 <span class="smcap smaller">A.M.</span><br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>Where London has, to a certain extent, abandoned variety, -and that to good purpose, is in the squares. London, more than -any in the world, is a city of squares; a feudal remnant has there -set most of the important houses, while those of the vassals were -placed in the side streets, and those of the churls in the mews. -The squares imply social classifications, and though many of -them, such as Golden Square, Soho Square, Regent Square, have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span> -fallen into the hands of the poor or of commerce, they all began -by being centres of polite society. To this day there is something -in a square that no other thoroughfare has; a sort of measured -enclosedness, a finished privacy. The garden in the middle that -none enter save lovers and cats, a garden sometimes sooty, sometimes -kept trim by a gardener born old, is cut off from the rough -movement of the city. Those who have been interested enough -to penetrate into the green part of Cavendish Square or Craven -Hill Gardens, will know that there one is as truly lost as in any -lane of West Anglia. Those green spots are almost untrodden, -and, to all visitors, are virginal. The impression of privacy -extends also to the houses; though these may differ they do not -vastly do so. The contrasts between them are those which appear -among the members of a family. All are, to a certain extent, -traditional, and it is mainly in the squares that you find remnants -of Georgian London.</p> - -<p>Most of Georgian London has fallen into the hands of the -tenement maker, because the people of the Georgian period built -in districts now populous, such as Clapham, Highbury, Soho, -Chalk Farm, because the leases were long and the houses good -enough to make it unbusinesslike to pull them down. Still, some -Georgian London, and especially some London of William IV., -has preserved its old, flat face, sober and dignified, yet has been -modernised, internally, by anachronistic organs such as the bathroom, -the telephone, electric light. Those houses are delightful, -for the adventure of the present has purged them of the sins of the -past. Such houses as the one now tenanted by Messrs Thornton -Smith, in Soho Square, the small houses with the Adams doorways -that make up the Adelphi, the slim exquisiteness of Westminster -in Barton Street or North Street, all these, by their very form, -suggest that inside all is order and courtesy. Those houses were -built when land was cheap, when we did not need to pile Smith -upon Jones and call the result Cornucopia Court, or what not; -in those days they did not need to store coal in the pantry, and, -for historic reasons, they did not combine the bathroom with the -kitchens. Still, these are only survivals, and though the late<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span> -William Willett did what he could near Avenue Road to restore -the Georges under an Edward, the Georgian house is dead. It -is too large; it leaves aside the servant problem; its rooms are -too square, difficult to light, difficult to furnish in a period when -furniture is small and tortured in design. It is almost as dead -as the Elizabethan house, which is only a curiosity.</p> - -<p>People still talk of Cloth Fair, but if you go to Smithfield you -will find no Cloth Fair now, only a dirty little back street, not at -all the scenery which Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree would have -thought suitable for the entry of Bolingbroke into London. If -you are wise, you will at once step back farther into the past and -enter St Bartholomew’s, where arches and pillars, broad and solid -as those of hell, will make you understand the Mosaic quality of -the Christian faith. In St Bartholomew’s, that is black and -dispassionate, dwells no gentle Redeemer, but the spirit of the -Lord of Hosts.</p> - -<p>True, there is Crosby Hall, though it is hard to shake off the -connection between Crosby Hall and chops, for I knew it best in -the days when, there, one ate chops (and sirloin, yes, sirloin). In -those days, in the City, Crosby Hall was really an Elizabethan -place, a mullioned old house, with sunken beams. For most of -the day it held people who ate a great deal, drank a great deal, -and bellowed, and played billiards, and flirted with the waitresses, -and made bets, and told undesirable stories. Yes, it was real -Shakespeare, all the time. But one day they pulled down Crosby -Hall and re-erected it in Chelsea, near the end of Oakley Street; -the last time I went in they were holding an exhibition of arts and -crafts, which proved that leather might be compelled to assume -many forms it didn’t like. I never saw it again. Then there is -St Ethelburga, the little wooden church in Bishopsgate, which -takes, I believe, a special interest in seamen. A pleasant little -church, for there is something very human and pre-Fire in its -having let off its frontage to an optician. (I wonder whether the -optician and the incumbent both labour under the motto of -Usebius.)</p> - -<p>But if Georgian London has left so little, and Elizabethan<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span> -London hardly anything, it is not so of the Victorian period, which -still hangs over most of the city like the shadow of a great tree -which will not let the flowers grow. Nearly all the houses in -central London are Victorian; most are early Victorian, because -the building rush in the ’eighties and ’nineties affected mainly -the suburbs, where a ribald æstheticism combined with the -discovery of the quaint by Charles Dickens. Now the Victorian -period was neither picturesque nor quaint; it looked upon that -sort of thing as indecent. It liked a plain house for a plain man, -and the Victorian man got his house. In another fifty years or -so, when time has done with the houses of the ’sixties, on their -tombstone shall be inscribed: ‘Eight steps and a brass knocker, -such are the wages of virtue.’ Some think that too much evil is -spoken of the Victorian period, and that much that was solid, -sound, truly English came to fruition in those days. For my -part, I think that the Victorian period was nothing but a bad -dream, that the English are essentially the people who drank -sack, and danced round the maypole, just as now they drink beer -and go to the cinema. The English are a pleasure-loving people, -an emotional, perhaps a hysterical people; they are gay, improvident, -thriftless, adventurous, reckless people; there is little to -pick between them and the Neapolitans. Yes, there has been a -lot of respectability and talk of carriage folk, and heavy sideboards, -and being shocked, and all that sort of thing; but I submit that -English history extends farther back than 1830, that there were -happy days before the English grew oppressed with their new -respectability, which arose slowly out of the sudden growth of -wealth among numbers of ill-educated people. Before the ’thirties -there were only two kinds of people: those who did what they were -told, and those who did what they liked. The factory had begun -to take shape in 1770; towards 1830 occurred the rise, all over -the Midlands and North, of small workshops that became mills. -This turned some members of the working class into capitalists. -As the workshops grew, the working class population grew -round them and formed towns. To serve the needs of these -towns shops arose; these became prosperous, and produced<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span> -another fairly rich class, the shopkeeping class. From the ’sixties -onwards, the workshops, warehouses, and shops grew so much -that those who, once upon a time, were scriveners, became managers -and agents. This produced a third class of ill-educated people -endowed with some money.</p> - -<p>The result was soon felt: we had created the middle class, -and as, in those days, the middle class was still conscious of the -upper class, realised itself as lowly bred, it concluded that the -only way of living up to its new money was to be more moral and -especially more refined than either the upper class or the lower -class. That is the origin of the red damask curtains, of the English -Sunday (which once upon a time was debauched and delicious), -of wax fruit, tall hats, black silk, jet, and such like horrors.</p> - -<p>But is that the end? No. Round about 1890, the middle -class having made still more money, having split itself up into -upper middle class and lower middle class, having sent its sons -to the public schools and universities, its daughters to Brussels -or Dresden, began swiftly <em>to slough off the old virtues which it no -longer needed</em>. The daughters went to dances under slender -chaperonage; some of them became Fabians; red paper was -scraped off and replaced by brown; Jacobean furniture came in; -respectable people began to dine at hotels and, what was much -more fatal, to lunch at restaurants. Bridge came in ... cigarettes -crept in. I do not say the middle class is dead, but when you are -tempted to think that the Victorian period represented, in English -history, anything but an accident, anything but the formulation -of a class, then consider most of your young acquaintances, and -ask yourself, honestly, whether those very people, fifty years ago, -would not have gone to funerals with weepers tied round their -hats. To-day, there is a continuous impulse in the middle class -to grow smart, fast, intellectual, all that. Call this progress or call -it decay, never mind; I submit that it exhibits Victorian respectability -as merely a stage in the development of English people, -and that we are tending towards a time when the jolly 1780’s will -live again with something hectic and abandoned thrown in. The -English people are a light people, a gay people, and the famous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span> -period 1830–1880 was, after all, a short period in the eight hundred -years odd which separate us from the Conqueror. It was a period -of reconstruction, and the English emerged from it as new English, -not very different from the old English. We have digested our -money; of course, England was sleepy while she did that; those -who believe that that sleep was natural to her suffer from illusion. -Now she has begun to spend the resultant energy. Bustles, -daguerreotypes, Sunday rest, and whiskers, Pecksniff will find -all that in another region.</p> - -<p>Pecksniff will also, at least I hope so, if he is to be happy, -find the Victorian house. It was not a bad house inside, in spite -of its vast, incoherent basement, the ell at the back of the drawing-room, -and the shameful servants’ bedrooms; it was a roomy -house, but there was too much in it for the cockroach and the -mouse. Most of Bayswater, Paddington, Kensington, and -Marylebone, are Victorian; all depend upon slave labour. Few -of those houses can be managed properly on less than three servants; -some are still run by one servant assisted by the young ladies, who -do the dusting, but the importance of the point lies in this: with -one servant they are dirtily run; with two servants they are barely -run. They are full of corners, corridors, cupboards; they collect -dust, and eat up light. In days when flesh and blood was cheap, -when you could easily get young girls to wear the skin off their -knees on the steps, the edifice stood up pretty well. But those -days are gone; the servant problem is partly due to the Victorian -house, which became almost too much to bear when the servants -developed enough to understand that there were things they need -not bear. What will replace it, we do not yet know. It is too -early to talk of a revolutionary change into blocks of flats with -common kitchens, common dining-rooms, and common nurseries; -all that will come, has come, is extending, but it is not yet general. -The first step is the break-up of the Victorian house into maisonettes. -You can see this going on all over central London, where -two families now share a house built for one. Others are being -absorbed by the boarding-house. Briefly, we are packing closer -into the old spaciousness, partly because we do not need<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span> -it for the purposes of ostentation, partly because we cannot -afford it.</p> - -<p>Still, there is much left of old, bleak London, Highbury -Crescent, Warwick Street (Pimlico), Mornington Crescent, and -many others. There is, about those places, what there is more -proximately about Bayswater, a sense of past comfort, dating -back to the days when comfort meant red paper in the hall, brown -paint, thick stuff curtains, polished boards, large and straight -chairs with hard seats for the young, stuffed seats for the old. -Those houses were comfortable in a frowzy way; they were -houses in which one ate a great deal, slept a great deal, drank a -great deal, and thought within the limits of genteel taste. Little -by little people began to stay up later, so had less time to sleep; -then, their fathers having drunk too much, they found that their -inherited constitutions did not allow of similar excess, while the -intrusive foreigner brought in his curious dishes which taught us -to eat less, if more peculiarly. Picture galleries were opened on -Sunday, concerts were held upon that day; matinees, cinemas, -other pleasures, all these things making a continual call upon -time and purse, have stolen some of its privileges from the old -home, until it ceased to be home in the sacramental sense, a -pleasure in itself, and turned into a dormitory. The bleak old -houses of London have responded to this movement, by breaking -up into maisonettes, converting themselves into boarding-houses -and lodgings; there are now few claimants to their five floors; -indeed, the five floors grow more and more disliked. To-day, -when you walk along a street such as Mornington Crescent, -whose gray face wears the inscription: ‘Joy forbidden,’ you are -to a certain extent, labouring under an illusion, for the life behind -those gray fronts is not gray. It is, more and more, the life of -people who have no roots, who have settled for a short time in -rooms, whose employment is precarious, whose fortunes are -small, people who live on small weekly wages, or even on social -piracy, whose presence must cause uneasiness among the portly -Victorian ghosts. Inside those houses live few families, because -no families of wealth care to live in such districts, while poor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span> -families cannot afford the servants to keep such houses clean. -So their dwellers are, many of them, adventurers, semi-respectable -people who have something to do with the stage, or who are in a -sort of way in the city. They never want the windows cleaned, and -when they sit down at the Victorian writing-desk with the waggly -legs, they care little if it is not dusted: they blow. That is the -end of those old houses; to-day, most of them are spinning out -the last of their long leases in a truly Victorian way: keeping up -appearances, and pretending to be as respectable as ever.</p> - -<div id="ip_109" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 41em;"> - <img src="images/i_109.jpg" width="654" height="427" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -AN ABSENT DESERT<br /> -THE CROMWELL ROAD<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>In South Kensington and Bayswater, the bleakness is less -complete, because those districts are dimly in the West End, -with a little too much End about it. They are ‘possible’ districts, -as the phrase goes among some of us; a ‘possible’ district is one -the name of which can be stamped upon one’s note-paper. The -tenants of Bayswater and South Kensington number many of the -old-fashioned people who like quiet places, comfortable homes, -in some cases gardens, but many more are making of those places -a jumping-off ground. They pass through Bayswater or South -Kensington on the way to Mayfair, Belgravia, and Marylebone; -they are already well-to-do, and intend to be better-to-do; in -those places they associate with the people who, once upon a time, -were very well-to-do and are now less so; those districts are social -junctions. But everywhere the boarding-house is gaining ground, -and nowhere does one see this so well as in Cromwell Road. -Cromwell Road is a remarkable street; its length has, on a warm -and hazy day, a quality of eternity. It seems to have no beginning, -no end; one might walk for ever along its broad stretch, between -those high walls; a prison yard must be like that. This does not -mean that I dislike Cromwell Road; far from it; I visit it at least -once a week, for purposes of meditation. One can meditate in -Cromwell Road, because nothing ever seems to have happened -there; it certainly looks as if nothing could happen. It holds -no tragedy, no comedy. You pass along the endless series of -houses, all of which have four and a half or five and a half floors, -the half being accounted for by the servants’ rooms, to which the -Victorian builder never accorded a complete floor; they are nearly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span> -all alike, having five to nine steps, a porch on pillars, and a flat -face; the only difference between one house and another is the -age of their lease, the age being revealed by the condition of the -paint: some were repainted three years ago, some two years, -some recently. White, gray, black, such is their symphony. If -you look in at the windows of the dining-room you will generally -see a large mahogany table: in the middle of this stands a heavy -brass pot; in the brass pot grows a big green fern. Behind the -green fern, and always facing the window, stands a colossal sideboard, -surmounted by a mirror against which is outlined a -tantalus and sometimes, which is very regrettable, a cruet. (You -do not see a bottle of salad-dressing in Cromwell Road, but a little -farther west you do.) Near the tantalus sometimes dwell a silver -cup or two. On one side of the room you discern a mantelpiece, -decorated with coloured pots, a large, black marble clock, suitably -representing a tomb. There may also be some brass ash-trays -and bowls of obviously Indian pattern. The carpet one cannot -see, but I feel sure that it is generally a red and blue Turkey. -That is old Cromwell Road, grandpapa’s old Cromwell Road, -comfortable in its stifled sort of way. Rail as I may at the Victorian -period, I have a vague liking for those old solidities, that mean -pleasant, saddleback chairs, pipes (not cigarettes), the <i>Spectator</i>, -port, and evenings devoted to the reading of travel books -and memoirs (not novels). Dull, but solid, and in Cromwell -Road one is aware of a certain merit in solidity because it finds -itself at the point of flux between the old civilisation and the -new.</p> - -<p>The new civilisation has already set its teeth into Cromwell -Road. The houses are unchanged, but a great many have been -bought up and joined together, decorated with stained glass, -re-named as hotels. These have fancy pots instead of brass pots, -ferns from strange bournes; curtains of lesser conventionality; -looking out from a window you no longer see Mary Jane in a pink -dress, but a sombre face, which may be that of a musician or a -poet; or of a Balkanic waiter stained with political conspiracy. -The inhabitants of those hotels are Americans, provincials, people<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span> -who have grown tired of housekeeping and like to buy it ready-made; -they number many widows who behave as if they were -conscious of a transitory condition, actors, unattached people of -all kinds. These are not the old Cromwell Road people; they -are a new type, which you might call the Cromwell light-Roadster, -people who drive up in taxis at all times, and even after eleven -o’clock. Kensington means nothing to them; not one of them -will ever be an alderman. They are breaking up the Cromwell -Road, and many of those who read these lines will see Cromwell -Road without a private dwelling-house, except that here and -there a pair of very old maids, accompanied by some very fat dogs, -will stick to the old house. They will groan at the taxis which -stop at the Grand Imperial next door, send out an old retainer to -warn off the street band, and grumble at the electric underground, -just as they grumbled at the smoky steam underground. Then -they will die, and the Grand Imperial will extend its -possessions.</p> - -<p>The Grand Imperial is extending all over London. Not -only have hotels, undreamt of twenty years ago, sprung up at -unexpected corners near the Strand and over the tube stations, -not only have they taken over anything between two and six -private houses at a time, but they are buying up site after site: a -big one in Piccadilly near Down Street, also the St George’s -Hospital site, perhaps. They are extending everywhere, communising -life. It is all very well saying that the hotel is a sign of -the decadent luxury of the day, but that is not true. In the first -place there is in hotels no such thing as decadent luxury; all that -the best offer are things such as plenty of light, air, space to move -in, electric light when you want it, hot water day and night, a -telephone by your bedside, a comfortable common room to write -in, a band to amuse you while you have your meals; such like -simple, obvious things which make up the ordinary comfort of -life. The old-fashioned people look upon this as luxury, but I -submit that the facility of having a hot bath when you want it is -a natural thing, and one of the first things that a developing -civilisation should give us all. Some people seem to think it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span> -morally wrong to be comfortable, and it shocks one to think that -so many of our best minds should, for so long, have been working -out ideas for pleasant and harmonious heating, lighting, cooking, -only to be told that they are pampering us. The whole object of -civilisation is to pamper us, to get rid of nature. Nature -is all very well in the summer numbers of the magazines; -it looks very pink and scented with hay, but real nature is rather -cold, damp, earwiggy, dark, always ill-drained, and much less -healthy than London. The object of civilisation is to reduce the -struggle for life, and to make the material side of it pleasant enough -to be forgotten. If that is not true, then let us back to the caveman -forthwith.</p> - -<p>The truth is that hotels are not luxurious and not dear. It -sounds dear to pay a pound a day for a bedroom and your board, -which is what one paid before the war, but if one reflects that for -that pound one also has the use of excellent common rooms, that -one pays nothing whatever for all sorts of racking things such as -gas, electric light, water rate, borough rate, inhabited house duty, -house repairs, that one owes nothing to the sweep, no tips to -tradesmen, it is not dear. One has the space one needs to live in, -and that is the essence of the old-fashioned opposition to hotel life: -it does away with the large number of rooms that people used to -think they needed, rooms in which they shut themselves up -behind closed windows and drawn blinds. The old-fashioned -hate the simplification of life; they do not like to think -that people need no longer tie themselves down, define and -label themselves: hotels are meant for those who do not go to -the Zoo.</p> - -<div id="ip_113" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 41em;"> - <img src="images/i_113.jpg" width="655" height="442" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -BEASTS AT THE ZOO<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>Indeed, the Zoo is a tragic hint of the period we have just -left behind. It was founded in 1826, its object being, of course, -‘to further the study of animal life,’ but it did not very long retain -that character. The only character it retained was a sort of brutal -insensibility, a capacity for not understanding what it means to -animals, accustomed to run forty miles a day, or to fly out of sight, -to find themselves boxed up in small cages. The treatment of -animals in the Victorian period was very like the treatment of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span> -children; people meant well by their children, which did not -prevent their constraining them to immobility on Sundays, forcing -them into careers they disliked, or into marriages with people they -detested. They were a sentimental and brutal generation, mainly -because they were stupid. So the Zoo, which is now a vulgar -gapery, remains as one of the ugly blots inherited by our people; -I hope to live long enough to see Parliament pass an act for -its suppression. It seems to me indecent that people who do not -know the difference between a leopard and a yak should, any -afternoon, for sixpence or a shilling, or on Sundays if they are -the friends or the servants of a Fellow, line up in hundreds outside -cages anything between six feet and thirty feet long, to see wretched -animals pace up and down, up and down eternally, or tragic birds -hop from an upper stick to a lower stick and then back again, not -one of them with the space for a full spring or a flight, sentenced -to penal servitude for life, a sentence which we inflict on no man -except for murder. I agree with Mr Galsworthy that the Zoo -is one of the saddest and most disgusting sights in the world. -At least, I know that I never leave the Zoo, which I seldom visit, -because it hurts me, without feeling a partner in a national crime. -You can defend vivisection by saying that it has valuable medical -results. I know nothing about that, but you cannot defend the -Zoo by saying that you give some snivelling boy an opportunity -to know what the mandril looks like. What is the use (I put it on -the lowest ground, that of use) of knowing what a mandril looks -like? And if it is of any use, is that use not counterbalanced by -the poison poured into that boy, which is that he shall consent to -the life-long imprisonment of a helpless creature?</p> - -<p>This Zoo question was discussed in the <i>Weekly Dispatch</i> some -years ago; I think that one of the points, in defence, was that most -of the animals were born in the Zoo, and, knowing not liberty, -could not be unhappy. That may be, even if nothing in you -answers when you look into the eyes of the animals in those empty -cages where there is nothing to do, when all their nature, thousands -of generations of it, is calling in their blood to hunt and to fly. -Is not the test this: would you be satisfied if at birth your son<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span> -were placed in a room eight feet by four, and told to grow up in it? -Do you really believe that he would be content when he reached -manhood? even if he had never known freedom. The truth is -represented by opinions such as that of the secretary of the Zoo, -Doctor Chalmers Mitchell, who summed up Mr Galsworthy’s attack -on the Zoo by saying: ‘Mr Galsworthy knows nothing about -the subject. His attack is rubbish, pure rubbish.’ It may be that, -on second thoughts, Doctor Chalmers Mitchell might find one or -two more arguments to put up against Mr Galsworthy, but this -one, while not lacking in force, somehow fails to convince. One -is more impressed by the argument of Mr J. D. Hamlyn, an -animal trainer, who said: ‘After the war, the business of importing -animals will go on exactly as it did before. In the first place, too -much capital is at stake, too much money has been expended to -give up the trade altogether.’ The only comment I have -to make on this is that this argument was continually used, -first in the West Indies, and later in the southern states of -America, when it was suggested that we should do away with -slavery.</p> - -<p>Yes, the Zoo carries on to-day the old tradition of Victorian -brutality. But enough of the Zoo, and of its visitors, so like the -yokels at a fair, that guffaw with their heads through horse collars. -I would rather think that in a few of those Victorian places, sweet -old ladies in mauve silk and lace serve tea in Rockingham cups, -which they dust themselves for fear of Sarah Jane. One such -place is Crescent Grove. That is the sort of place one would -like to live in, when one feels rather older. It is near Clapham -Common, and, of course, it is a blind alley, so that no rude traffic -may pass up and down when the milkman has finished his melodious -round. The houses are clean, stuccoed, comfortable. The -knockers are cleaned every day. The glass is cleaned often, the -curtains are changed, and I am sure that when they go up, a whiff -of lavender spreads. Crescent Grove is, perhaps, a little too -clean; in those rooms where everything has its place, just as in -the past every one had his place, there must be so much order and -regularity of life that, as Mirbeau said: ‘On doit rudement s’embêter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span> -là-dedans.’ Still, at the very end of Crescent Grove, there is one -house that should be preserved as a monument of its period. Of -course, it is double-fronted; in front are planted evergreens, and -there is a drive. By the side runs a large garden beyond a wall; -on the other side of the wall one hears children at play. That is -the house to which father came back round about 1860, with his -top hat and his mutton-chop whiskers. If this description does -not convince you, let me give you the clinching fact: it is a private -road. Yet Crescent Grove stands very near to the suburbs. Not -far are Streatham, Tooting, the new streets of Clapham and -Brixton. Imbedded among the new streets are old houses with -columns, plaster fronts, stucco mouldings, squares surrounding -a single column that bears a moulting golden eagle, but the -suburbs are overwhelming them. These are not the inner suburbs, -such as Brixton, where the feeling is, on the whole, one of poverty -and dirt. Those inner suburbs have a certain vigour of coarse -life; thus, the Brixton Road is a place of immense activity, -notably round the great, open-air ironmonger, Williamson’s -Bonanza; there are shops and shops, nearly all of the multiple -type, Salmon and Gluckstein, Maypole Dairies, Home and Colonials, -the shops that Private Ortheris must have raved of in his Indian -delirium. Likewise, in Kilburn, where the Kilburn Bon Marché -and B. B. Evans struggle in zealous commercialism. Those inner -suburbs are hardly suburbs now, for the trams run through them -and bleed them of their population; tubes tap them; everywhere -the motor-buses stop. The true suburbs lie farther out. You -have to go well beyond the Brixton Bon Marché before you can -find such a place as Streatham, with its endless, well-kept, villa -streets of red brick houses, nearly all alike, creeper and grass plot -complete. Those suburbs outline a new social order; with a -little experience you can easily tell the thirty-five-pounds-a-year -street from the fifty-two-pounds-a-year street; you come with a -feeling of familiarity upon the corner house, where lives the doctor -or the surgeon. It is a new order, for all those houses are small, -manageable, clean, modern, in every way satisfactory, except that -they are all alike, made for people who may not be all alike, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span> -tend so to become. For if one buys one’s food, one’s clothes, one’s -furniture at the same big, local store, and if one takes one’s literature -from the same bookstall, one attains to a sort of nationality. But -it is not the nationality of the village, where local effort can develop -into art, because it develops slowly and creeps back upon itself. -In the suburbs everything is supplied on the model of central -London, and is turned out in hundreds of thousands by machines. -Perhaps the houses are made by machines. Maybe, one day the -people will be made by machines. Near those streets, all alike, -generally survives an older quarter of poor streets where live the -‘little women,’ the sweep, the turncock, the dependents of the -semi-poor; there, also, small shopkeepers live by undercutting -the big stores. They do this by selling the vegetables that are -too stale for the stores, by washing the linen which cannot be sent -to the steam laundry because it would fall to pieces, and especially -by lowering their own standard of living to the lowest possible -level. They are the last ramparts of suburban individualism, -and they will not last long. As time goes on, the bigger villa -streets, many of whose houses have pretensions, exemplified by -their architecture of concrete and tile, by their barbarous -roofs which make evil, dusty corners in the rooms, by the -select flowers in their front gardens, will turn away from -those little shops and, more and more, deal with Whiteley’s -and Harrod’s.</p> - -<p>Thus, when one passes through London, from old Victorian -street to inner suburb, then to outer suburb, until one comes to -the spreading country of Tooting Bec Common, when one has -seen the homes of the rich, their marble solemnity, when one has -seen those of the poor in the grimy suburbs that cluster, and -emerges at last into those clean suburban streets, where in almost -every window an aspidistra wilts in its pot, one may grow a little -doubtful of the social revolution. We educate the poor, and -sometimes we give them their chance: the next step is the -aspidistra. The aspidistra goes to the grammar school; clever -aspidistra wins a scholarship and goes to Oxford. Then a -house is taken, let us say, in Barkston Gardens; instead of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span> -aspidistra it is marguerites in the window boxes. The marguerite -goes to Oxford as a matter of course, and may give place to -a lily in a green art-pot. By that time it understands nothing. -If it retains its money, the marguerite goes on having marguerites -potted in the window-boxes by the nurseryman; if it loses its -money, it goes back to the aspidistra. Upon this gloomy botanical -note I close this chapter.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="chapheadright" id="CHAPTER_IX">IX<br /> -CAFÉ ROYAL</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span></p> - -<h2 class="chapheadleft">CHAPTER IX<br /> - -<span class="subhead">CAFÉ ROYAL</span></h2> - -<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">Why</span> did they call it Café Royal? It has nothing of the opulent -white and gold quality which naturally would go with such a -name, nothing expensive or elaborate. Here and there, in the -only room I know, namely, the café itself, is an escutcheon impressed -with the letter N. It makes one think of Napoleon, and the -name Café Royal clashes still more. But, after all, that matters very -little, for who cares what the Café Royal was? or under whose -auspices it was founded. I suppose that for antiquity it treads upon -the heels of Verrey’s; it has a flavour of 1870 rather than 1860; -what matters much more is that the Café Royal always savours -of the day, that it concentrates within itself more of the feeling of -the day, as exemplified by current art, than any other spot in this -country. Thus, when calling this chapter Café Royal, I do not -mean to devote it to an anecdotic study of the famous tavern, but -rather to those things which it represents and contains, to some -slight impression of the arts as they develop, flourish, and wilt in -this city. The Café itself should never have been called Royal, -for an eternal opposition exists between the pomp of such a name -and the rebellious young arts; in no essential do they oppose the -royal suggestion, but they are remote therefrom, live in a world -where the values are different, not related to class or fortune, -artificial, perhaps, but created in virtue of a private political -economy. Thus, the Café Royal should have been called something -dashing and picturesque, such as ‘Café des Mille Colonnes,’ -or ‘Café de la Pomme Vermeille.’ How well it would have -looked, sparsely decorated with rubicund apples painted by -Cézanne! As it is, the Café Royal is a very large room in Regent -Street. Its ceiling, a mass of gold scrollings that embrace frescoes -darkened by smoke and time into the colour of old masters, is -sustained by many columns with a golden base and a green stem. -Round that stem intertwine golden leaves from which hang -golden grapes. The effect of the Café is one of rather excessive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span> -gilding: the walls are crowded with gilt figures and baskets of -flowers that leave space only for many mirrors; as if the wall -had been hidden away at the behest of some obscure modesty. -Yet the effect is pleasant, for this gold is old and tarnished. It -has nothing blatant, and the whole effect is one of comfortable -decency, as if this excessive room had been built by a parvenu, -but had been lived in so long by his successors as to lose the -parvenu spirit. The furnishing, plain tables with marble tops, -long seats with red plush backs, also resolve themselves into -good-humoured comfort, while, at the end, a prince of bars with -something like ten score bottles, each one filled with something -individual, produces an impression of eclectic welcome.</p> - -<p>The Café Royal may have been built to astound, but nowadays -it is just the comfortable background of people who like to drink -a little, to pay moderately, and to talk enormously. The conversations -at the Café Royal are not, probably, such as would make -a good book of memoirs, but its mixed public has, at one time or -another, numbered everybody who did something (whatever -that may mean), so that many good things and many spiteful -ones are spoken every day under its golden roof. Before the war, -the violent young men and the much more violent young women -seemed to meet there every night, with an almost sacramental air, -to discuss, that is to scarify, reputations. That was good, for -Renan was right when he said that if a young man, aged twenty, -had not always ready a mouthful of insults for his predecessors, -he would pronounce no judgments fit to be heard when he attained -the age of forty.</p> - -<div id="ip_122" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 31em;"> - <img src="images/i_122.jpg" width="483" height="439" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -THE CAFÉ ROYAL<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>This does not mean that the Café Royal is a literary café, or an -artistic café. The literary, dramatic, and pictorial elements are -certainly stronger there than in any other London resort, but at -any time you may see there the strangest assembly: foreigners, -a great many; smart people who are seeing life; and very dull, -ordinary, fat men who stop on their way from business or shop -to have a drink before dinner. At dinner time the room is not -itself, for half of it sees its marble tables covered with cloths, -which means that eating proceeds, and eating does not, so well as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span> -drinking, favour turbulent debate. It is just before dinner, and -especially after dinner, that the Café Royal enters upon its true -function: to provide a pleasant, cheap place, fairly noisy, fairly -smoky, and fairly comfortable, where the young arts may meet -and joust. During the war it did not quite do this, for many -of the young men had joined the army, and it was strange suddenly -to recognise over a tunic, in a well-kept, well-brushed head, the -outlines of somebody whom once one knew with endless locks, -whiskers, or a beard. Even in khaki they did what they could. -Military discipline did not completely dominate those rebellious -beings; their moustaches were either a little more luxuriant or very -much more hogged than usual. The Café Royal platoon was still -faintly noticeable.</p> - -<p>Some, however, were not in khaki, for theirs was not a very fit -generation, and even now many a table throws back a memory -to 1914. In those days the frequent visitor to the Café Royal -soon knew many people by sight, and if he was of that world, or -had somebody to guide him, he soon could pick out those who -were celebrated and those who were notorious; with time, he -even came to recognise those who were extremely well known. -I do not know if, nowadays, one often sees at the Café Royal, -Mr Jacob Epstein, but once it was difficult to detach one’s eyes -from the sleepy strength of his heavy profile. One wanted to -look into those eyes with the thick lids, in which strangely mingled -so much detachment and so much kinetic energy. He was seldom -alone; there was always a little Epstein group about his table. -Indeed, it is a characteristic of the Café Royal that few people sit -alone. They form groups. One I remember well. It always -contained a tall young man with very long, thin features, and -hair grown low about the cheek; he had a fancy for clothes faintly -1860 in feeling, notably, for stocks. There was an extremely -beautiful girl, thin, dark, and languid as some warm Italian greyhound. -There was a young man who wore a velvet coat, whose -fair hair fell in long wisps upon his collar, a strange young man, -with a peculiar grayish skin and an air of nervous excitement. -Round these moved other figures less definite, but all of them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span> -young: square men in knickerbockers, with short pipes stuck -precisely in the middle of their faces; girls, outrageously florid -or eloquently simple, round whose long necks hung the flowered -yokes of Chelsea, on whose hands clustered many rings of turquoise -and aquamarine, or whose hands were virgin of all decoration -save that of black finger-nails. The smart people used to watch -them steadily and feel that, at last, they were really seeing life.</p> - -<p>Sometimes they saw people whose names could serve as -conversation at the morrow’s lunch party. Sometimes they caught -sight of Mr C. R. W. Nevinson, and could describe his square -figure, his rather blunt, pleasant face with the bright, live, brown -eyes. It does one good to look at Mr Nevinson, though, nowadays, -something oppressed has crept into his expression; there is, in -those rather thick features, a sense of life and desire. With him -sometimes goes his wife, slight, white and rose, and bending a -little under the heavy sunshine of her hair.</p> - -<p>Until recently the Café Royal also often contained Mr Augustus -John, and one could sit for a long time, wondering what it was -gave his features that air of tautness. There is always about -Mr John a feeling that he is imprisoned within himself.... -Equally with Mr Epstein he had his court, young men in a state -of extreme reverence, and other men who preached to him in -attitudes of hostility tinged with nervousness, which is the ordinary -approach to the successful painter of those who are less successful. -I think that, now and then, Mr Arthur Symons used to draw -them away, so as to procure for Mr John a greater peace. It was -as if he were trying to create about him an atmosphere of hush. -At the Café Royal this is not easily done. Notably, it was difficult -to create hush among the reverential young men, for I suspect -that they all wanted to know what Mr John thought of their -work, that is meant to tell him what he ought to think. The -young women were more easily managed, and it is interesting to -note that they tended to approximate in appearance to the John -type. Nearly all were what the vulgar call plain, in some cases -because they were perfectly beautiful: that which is perfectly -beautiful is severe and separate; it does not arouse desire, it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span> -arouses respect, and this most of humanity cannot forgive. Those -strange young women, apparently long-legged and long-armed, -in their simply-cut high frocks that hung straight from shoulder -to ankle, young women with hair plainly banded, rather long -noses, strong chins, thick, dark mouths, like open fruits. They -seemed to come straight out of some sketch in Donegal.</p> - -<p>There were many others, too. Now and then one caught -sight of Mr Wyndham Lewis who, nowadays, is plump, but -in those was tall and white and rather slim, often silent and -generally weary; it was an education in negligence to watch the -depressed droop of the cigarette stump which generally hung -from his underlip. There were others, too, a woman with small, -humorous eyes and a pleasant coppery complexion, who wore -turbans of purple silk and gold, who never thought or spoke an -evil thing of any creature alive. One saw Mr Gertler, very young -and seductive, perhaps a little conscious of it; Mr Gilbert Cannan, -oozing defiance from every sharp angle and confining his conversation -to this process. The other young writers came now and -then: Mr Swinnerton before he grew his beard, Mr Hugh -Walpole, who always seemed slightly out of place in so ill-regulated -a spot. People less definable float through my mind: a young -girl who had been told that she looked like a Russian, and thenceforth -appeared attired in a red sarafan; a young man with black -locks massed upon his eyebrows, locks he often tossed back to -show the running water of his pale eyes. There was a young -woman who believed in asceticism; as she looked rather like a -brick, I was told that her beliefs had never been put to a rude test. -There was another young woman, too, who seriously informed -any marble table that she believed in reincarnation, and that -within her breathed the soul of Shelley. Nearly everybody -painted, some wrote verse, a few ventured on prose; the talk -was of art and of sinners against art. Swiftly they passed from -studio scandal to the declarations, manifestoes, proclamations -which made the arts sound foolish in 1914, but actually were -evidences of their vigour. Indeed, the modern forms of art tend -to shock the Philistine: I am not with him; I like my paint wet.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span> -The old arts are unkind to the young arts. Struck by a certain -wilful outrageousness which often overlays talent and in the -beginning always heralds it, the old arts make as much fun of the -new arts, as the old arts made of the older when they were young. -Some of my readers may remember Mr Epstein’s rather theoretical -Venus, at whose feet reposed a wheel. It was an abstract piece of -sculpture, but, however abstract, I think it was a little harsh of -Mrs Aria to describe it as a sick penguin sitting on a broken -bicycle. The truth is that the modern forms of art are not as -wilful or as intentionally shocking as their adepts choose to make -out. It may be true that most schools, from the impressionists -onwards, have formed round one man who had something original -to say in an original way, and that most of the pupils, having -nothing original to say, found it necessary to say it in a violently -original way. That is true to a certain extent; truer, perhaps, -is it to say that ‘genius creates the taste with which it is enjoyed.’ -Thus, I think it quite as likely that people like Manet created the -taste for impressionism, just as Wagner created a taste for music -in reaction against, let us say, Rossini. Nature, after all, is only -a thing which one conceives, and not a thing which really exists; -it varies with the eye that beholds it, and if a man sincerely and -violently feels that trees are pink, then to him they are pink, and -if he has art enough to translate his temperament into those pink -trees, then the people who can understand him will learn to see -trees like him, that is, pink. We need not stress this, because it -is an extreme case, but I submit that the modern forms of art, -during the last dozen years, have all of them tended to express -nature on the lines of certain conventions, and that instead of -taking up an attitude of contempt, it was easy to understand -these conventions, therefore, to understand the artist, therefore, -to collect from the canvas the impression he painted there. Here, -I will be told by the Philistine: ‘Why should I see that a face -looks like a cube?’ Well, nobody wants to force him to see a -face as a cube if he doesn’t want to, but one is entitled to point out -to him that he has already accepted many conventions. He is -quite willing to look at Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy,’ and to see it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span> -as a human figure, though it has only surface and not volume. -He is quite willing to look at Venus of Milo and to accept it as a -reproduction of a beautiful woman, though it has no colour. He -is quite willing to go to a play the action of which extends -over five years, and to see this action condensed into two -and a half hours. The public has to accept the arts conventionally -because the arts do not reproduce nature, they -interpret it.</p> - -<div id="ip_126" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 41em;"> - <img src="images/i_126.jpg" width="655" height="345" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -PRIVATE VIEW<br /> -THE A.A.A.<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>It may, therefore, be suggested that our young post-impressionists, -futurists, and cubists were badly treated by the public, -for the public never tried to understand the new conventions on -which they worked. With all the power of my sincerity, and in -the name of such honesty as may be in me, I assure my readers -that if they will take the trouble to master the conventions -the work can be interpreted. I possess an excellent non-representational -picture, by Mr Wadsworth, inspired by the -roofs of a Yorkshire village; it is entirely composed of black and -white planes. When, lately, this was shown to a friend, she -asked why she should be told to admire a set of decayed dominoes. -But the picture is not made up of decayed dominoes; it is a highly -simplified impression of walls and roofs, and when you have -sympathetically sought for what we may call the key plane, the -picture becomes absolutely obvious.</p> - -<p>But what if it were not obvious? Many of the modern men, -such as Mr Wadsworth, Mr McKnight Kauffer, Mr Wyndham -Lewis, do not aspire to represent anything at all. What they -want to do is to sketch or paint an interesting pattern. Mr Ezra -Pound has put the attitude clearly in his book, <i>Gaudier Brzeska</i>, -where he says, more or less: ‘When you hear a sonata played, -you do not say, “Oh, what an eloquent reproduction of the waves -upon the shore!” or, “This is where the sheep begin to baa.” -What you do is to ask yourself whether this combination of sounds -is pleasant or moving. That is the freedom we wish to find in -painting or sculpture. We are not interested in painting the -Mayor of Leeds in such a way as to make it clear that he is a -mayor, possibly of Leeds, but we are interested in setting together<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span> -lines and coloured surfaces, irrespective of any meaning, and to -be judged on that, according to whether these lines and colours -produce a pleasant sensation.’</p> - -<p>This position appears to me above attack. The technical -improvements in painting, which began in the seventeenth century, -producing Rembrandt, Raphael, Velasquez, and, in due course, -Sir Edward Poynter, seem to have set a heavy yoke upon the -painter’s neck, for the painter grew enthralled by technique, -became more and more inclined to represent a baby so life-like -that everybody expected it to howl; he grew liable to lose sight -of the one thing that matters, namely, that to represent a baby is -nothing, and to represent the artist through the baby, everything. -(If I am wrong, consider a picture by Mr Clausen and a photograph -by Mr Park; Mr Clausen knows how to paint, but Mr Park -will far more exactly reproduce the sitter, do it quicker, and much -more cheaply.) The thesis of the modern artist, of which I am -trying to give an impression, therefore involves that while we -bow to the undeniable greatness of men such as Rembrandt, -Botticelli, Leonardo, we wonder whether a greater emancipation -from their technique might not have allowed them to soar higher -into the abstract region where none save an artist can breathe. -The plea is that in a more abstract field they might have been -still greater.</p> - -<p>Undeniably, the modern forms of art have emancipated -themselves too much from technical restrictions. It is dangerous -to have too much technique; it is dangerous to have too little, -and I could not say who suavely broods in the golden mean. Still, -when we consider what a dead and damnable thing technique -alone can be, when we consider the annual mortuary at Burlington -House, when we stand awhile before a work of Mr Frank Dicksee, -and stare incredulously at Sir Luke Fildes’s ‘The Doctor,’ or -attempt to solve the Hon. John Collier’s psycho-pictorial mysteries, -we are indeed assured that though technique may exclude a man -both from heaven and from hell, it shall, for certain, land him in -purgatory.</p> - -<p>I remember very well the first ‘advanced’ pictures I ever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span> -saw. They were twelve impressions of a bridge over a brook by -Claude Monet. That must have been nearly twenty years ago, -and I thought them very beautiful. It is strange that nowadays -they seem so tame. But it does not matter to me that I thought -them beautiful then, just as when I first saw a Matisse I thought -it interesting, that my first Gauguin, with its queer brown -figures stirred me; it matters to me that when the futurists came -to town, Mr Marinetti did not strike me as a marionette, and that -later all the others, cubists, boulists, imagists, vorticists, were -taken by me as honest men. You may call me a fool; you may -even think worse of me and say that I was so anxious to be in the -movement that I liked every movement; I prefer to say that I -was always ready to try to understand a new pictorial convention. -When I cease to be able to do that, when I cease to see in painting -that Mr Wadsworth is deeply interesting, in literature, that Mr -James Joyce is strikingly individual, when I am Philistine enough -to hang a painter because I won’t hang his picture, then, indeed, -shall I be middle-aged and take to meals.</p> - -<p>The years between 1908 or so and 1914 were some of the -most important English art has passed through. In those six or -seven years, for the first time, London saw the post-impressionists, -not only Matisse, but also Cézanne and Picasso; she saw the -futurists, the singular pictures of views from a moving train -which, faulty as they were, were well worth painting, because -from a moving train one does see things, therefore material for -art. She saw Severini’s ‘Pan-Pan Dance,’ where colour and -surface dance rather than men and women; she saw the coming -of Mr Epstein, first in the statues outside the British Medical -Association, which were said to be indecent and became famous; -she also saw reproductions of Mr Epstein’s Oscar Wilde -monument, which went to Paris and was said to be indecent and -became kilted. The cubists came in the train of Mr Metzinger. -The non-representational movement extended, radiating round -Mr Wyndham Lewis, impressing many men and women, among -whom, in those days, was found true ability. It was -a breathless and beautiful period, where everybody was under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span> -thirty and many were under twenty, when people painted not -for art’s sake, but consciously for the expression of self. When -that self was feeble, the painting was feeble. But it was not always -so. Many ridiculous things were done; many ridiculous things -were said in the Café Royal and out of it, but, as Miss May Sinclair -puts it very well, these young men had not come to destroy the -pictorial glories of the past; they had come to destroy their -imitators. Conscious of their period, they wanted to -express it.</p> - -<p>Some have suggested that the modern forms of painting were -merely outbreaks of youth, that these movements had severed the -continuity which should exist between one period and another. -Now the modern young man is generally arrogant, and if you talked -to him of continuity would say, perhaps: ‘I don’t want any -ancestors; I am an ancestor.’ But he would be wrong. From -Monet to Matisse, from Matisse to the early Nevinson, from the -early Nevinson to the modern Wyndham Lewis, the link is close. -No doubt a pen better versed than mine could link Monet with -Giotto. I cannot; for I find it difficult to think back further than -fifty years.</p> - -<div id="ip_131" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 36em;"> - <img src="images/i_131.jpg" width="562" height="478" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"> - -<p> -THE GOOD INTENT<br /> -CHELSEA<br /> -</p></div></div> - -<p>There have been reactions. One of the most notable is that -of Mr Nevinson, who is to-day the most popular of the young -men, the one who has been most completely recognised by a -broad public. Certainly he has become more recognisable, -though I am not of those who think that his work has thereby -lost. A man may be great and esoteric, or he may be great and -lucid. It all depends on the way in which the dice fall. The -several exhibitions of Mr Nevinson’s work, during the war, have -shown him more and more gaining independence. He began -by adopting one of the cubist conventions; he is still able to do -so when he wishes, but he is also able to use other conventions, -even the most stereotyped, when his subject seems to demand it. -He paints pattern, or subject, or idea, but an interesting sidelight -on his attitude is hatred of all cliques. In the preface of his last -exhibition, he bitterly assails the people who seek ‘pure form -through nothing but still life, endless green apples, saucepans,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span> -and oranges, picasized and cezanned with a ponderous and self-conscious -sub-consciousness.’ He hates what he calls the -child-like antics and the gambolling of the elect of Bloomsbury. -He may not be quite fair, but when I remember the various -cliques to which I had occasional access, the Rhythm clique, for -whom nobody existed except Anne Estelle Rice, J. D. Fergusson, -Jessie Dismorr, and George Banks ... until the review changed -its name, when most of these people ceased to exist and nobody -but Mr Albert Rutherston was granted physical likelihood, -when I reflect how Mr Nevinson used to cluster with many others -in a cosy cube, only to be driven out at last at the point of a cone, -when I reflect upon the sombre mystery that surrounds the adepts -of Mr Roger Fry (a mystery recently grown less sombre with -success), I am assured that cliques are the necessary breeding-ground -of talent because they fortify its members against the -cackling Philistine. But they are also the thing which keeps -talent small and parochial once they have helped it to grow. -The clique is the nursery, and the test of a man is -whether he knows when he is grown up. The art clique -is like journalism, which can lead you anywhere provided you -forsake it.</p> - -<p>Most of the cliques have their being in Chelsea, though -Fitzroy Square and the Garden City occasionally put forward -claims, and Bedford Park asserts itself. I suspect that the movement -is nowadays away from Chelsea. King’s Road grows every -day more mercantile; nothing in it recalls the arts except a slight -excess of shops which sell artists’ materials. One does meet -the Chelsea girl, no longer in a jibbah, but more likely in an -eloquent sweater, with her hair cut short and her feet brogued, -but then the Chelsea style has crept into many circles. You can -go into the Chenil Gallery, where you will always find works by -Mr Augustus John and Mr Gill; you can even go and have -lunch at the Good Intent, but somehow Chelsea will not seem to -you very Chelsea-ish. Indeed, there are rows and rows of studios -near Glebe Place, Church Street, Redcliffe Square, in all sorts of -odd back-yards and shanties, but the whole thing does not hold<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span> -together. At the Good Intent, for instance, you will find a small, -quiet restaurant, decorated with old furniture, pictures that may -have been advanced once upon a time, a jolly old pug, very fat -and wheezing, its portraits on the wall, grossly flattered, with a -mauve ribbon round its neck; you will see at the tables mainly -women who live at local diggings, rather tired and lonely looking, -as women grow when they live in diggings and toast muffins on -the gas stove.</p> - -<p>No, Chelsea is nowadays too successful to be a locality for -artists. Cheyne Walk has become too famous and too rich, for -artists cannot live together, unless it is in a sort of Alsatia where -you must pay your footing in such coin as the keeper thinks fit. -Nowadays, the arts tend to scatter. They can be found in Chalk -Farm, even in Paddington, some say in Bayswater, though this is -not likely. They tend to live more privately than they do in Paris, -where half the day seems to be spent at the Lilas. (Oh, how I -hate the Lilas! The last time I went there, there was an enormous -crowd; a hairy Russian philosopher stood on my right foot while -he read bad French translations from the Sanskrit; meanwhile, -two young people stood on my left foot and made love.) In -London the arts meet at their communal places, in certain -restaurants which they discover and then forsake, at the Coq d’Or, -at little dancing clubs. If only the Philistine hated them more, -they might cling closer.</p> - -<p>Still, the arts are not, in London, as absent and ignored as the -foreigner likes to think. It is true, as Mr Nevinson says, that -owing chiefly to our Press, to our loathsome, tradition-loving -public schools and our antiquity-stinking universities, the average -Englishman is not merely suspicious of the new in all intellectual -and artistic experiment, but he is mentally trained to be so unsportsmanlike -as to try to kill every new endeavour in embryo. -It is true, but it does not matter. The arts are vigorous, and in the -end, those who came to kill stay to buy. That will be seen as -time goes on.</p> - -<p>Is it, I wonder, a symptom of the English attitude to the arts, -that the chapter which concerns them should, in the words of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span> -Mr Henry James, drag far in the dusty rear of this book? Perhaps, -though London of to-day is so vivid and so eloquent, so full of -sharp colour and true line that, when I consider her music, I am -inclined to think that she would not have attained her crisp and -harmonious form if some creative instinct within her humorous, -pessimistic, and languid people had not presided over her birth, -and favoured her composite life.</p> - -<div class="chapter"><div class="transnote"> -<h2 id="Transcribers_Notes" class="nobreak p1">Transcriber’s Note</h2> - -<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made -consistent when a predominant preference was found -in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.</p> - -<p>Simple typographical errors were corrected; unpaired -quotation marks were remedied when the change was -obvious, and otherwise left unpaired.</p> - -<p>Except for the cover and Frontispiece, all of the -original images were shades of green. In other -copies of the original book, those images were -black/gray. 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