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diff --git a/old/62297-0.txt b/old/62297-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e4c896d..0000000 --- a/old/62297-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4673 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Patchwork Papers, by E. Temple Thurston - -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: The Patchwork Papers - -Author: E. Temple Thurston - -Release Date: June 1, 2020 [EBook #62297] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATCHWORK PAPERS *** - - - - -Produced by Sonya Schermann, Nahum Maso i Carcases, and -the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - Transcriber’s Notes: - -The original spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been retained, -with the exception of apparent typographical errors which have been -corrected. - -Text in Italics is indicated between _underscores_. - -Text in small capitals has been replaced by regular uppercase text. - -In the original, the Table of Contents does not contain the entries to -Chapters XI, XII, and XIII. However, in the electronic version, they -have been added. - - * * * * * - - - - - THE PATCHWORK PAPERS - - - - - _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ - - - THE APPLE OF EDEN - MIRAGE - THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL NONSENSE - - - - - THE - PATCHWORK PAPERS - - BY - E. TEMPLE THURSTON - - [Illustration: D·M·&·Co] - - NEW YORK - DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY - 1910 - - - - - _Some eight of these papers appear in print for the first time. For - those which have been published before, my thanks are due to the - Editors of “The Onlooker” and “The Ladies’ Field” for permission to - reprint._ - - _THE AUTHOR._ - - - COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY - E. TEMPLE THURSTON - - _Published February 1911_ - - - - - _To_ - NORMAN FORBES ROBERTSON - - - - - MY DEAR NORMAN, - -Here are my Patchwork Papers for you to unpick at your leisure. I have -not presumed to call them essays, since it is nowadays unseemly for a -novelist to attempt anything worthy of the name of letters—moreover, -would any one read them? By the same token, I have not dared to -call them short stories, and that, mainly because the so-called -essential love interest is conspicuous by its absence. Really they are -illustrated essays. What better name then than papers can be given them? - -It may, for example, be pardonable in a paper to split an infinitive -for the sake of euphony, as I have done in “From my Portfolio,”—but to -split an infinitive in an essay! It were better to rob a church, or -speak out one’s mind about the monarchy. All such things as these are -treasonable. To call them papers then will save me much from my friends. - -When they appeared serially, it was under the title “Beauties which are -Inevitable.” I altered that when I thought of you trying to remember -what the book was called, as you recommended it with a twinkle in -your eye to your friends. But that title still stands justified in my -mind, since these papers express the things which latterly have become -realities to me. For wheresoever you may go in this world—whether it be -striving to the highest heights, or descending, as some would have it, -to the deepest depths—life is just as ugly or just as beautiful as you -are inclined to find it. - -In all my early work, until, in fact, I wrote “Sally Bishop,” I was -inclined to find it ugly enough in all conscience. But now beauty does -seem inevitable and, what is more, the only reality we have. For if, -as they say, God made man in His own image, then to call the ugliness -of man a reality is to curse the sight of God; in which case, it were -as well to die and have done with this business of existence altogether. - -To see nothing but ugliness then, or, as the modern school would have -it, to see nothing but realism, is a form of mental suicide which, -thank God, no longer appeals to me. For when every year I find the -daffodils bringing up their glory of colour and beauty of line with -unfailing perfection, I cannot but think that man, made in God’s image, -was meant to be still more beautiful in his thoughts and deeds even -than they. Then surely what man was meant to be must be the only true -reality of what he is. All else happens to him. That is all. - -Wherefore, when, in these pages, you read of Bellwattle and of Emily -the housemaid, of my little old pensioner, or of the poor woman in -Limehouse; when, too, you read my attempt to give words to the maternal -instinct; then you will see realities as I have seen them over the past -two years and I dedicate this true record of them to you, because I -know that you will take them to be as real as the beauty of Livy, the -manliness of Nod, or the colour of those wall-flowers which bloom by -the little red-brick paths in that graceful garden of yours in Kent. - - Yours always, - E. TEMPLE THURSTON. - - Eversley, 1910. - - - - - CONTENTS - - - I. THE PENSION OF THE PATCHWORK QUILT 3 - - II. THE MOUSE-TRAP, HENRIETTA STREET 13 - - III. THE WONDERFUL CITY 25 - - IV. BELLWATTLE AND THE LAWS OF GOD 33 - - V. REALISM 43 - - VI. THE SABBATH 55 - - VII. HOUSE TO LET 67 - - VIII. A SUFFRAGETTE 77 - - IX. BELLWATTLE AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 87 - - X. MAY EVE 101 - - XI. THE FLOWER BEAUTIFUL 111 - - XII. THE FEMININE APPRECIATION OF MATHEMATICS 123 - - XIII. THE MATERNAL INSTINCT 135 - - XIV. FROM MY PORTFOLIO 147 - - XV. AN OLD STRING BONNET 159 - - XVI. THE NEW MALADY 167 - - XVII. BELLWATTLE AND THE DIGNITY OF MEN 179 - - XVIII. THE NIGHT THE POPE DIED 193 - - XIX. ART 203 - - XX. THE VALUE OF IDLENESS 217 - - XXI. THE SPIRIT OF COMPETITION 229 - - XXII. BELLWATTLE ON THE HIGHER MATHEMATICS 243 - - XXIII. THE MYSTERY OF THE VOTE 257 - - XXIV. SHIP’S LOGS 269 - - - - - I - - THE PENSION OF THE PATCHWORK QUILT - - - - - I - - THE PENSION OF THE PATCHWORK QUILT - - -So much more than you would ever dream lies hidden behind the beauty -of “The Blue Bird,” by Maurice Maeterlinck. Beauty may be the first of -its qualities. By the same token, beauty may be the last. But in the -midst, in the heart of it, there is set a deep well of truth—fathomless -almost—one of those natural wells which God, with His omnipotent -disregard of limitations, has sunk into the heart of the world. - -That utter annihilation of death must be confusion to many when -expressed in terms of St. Joseph lilies. Ninety per cent. of people -will be likely to say, “How pretty!” That is the worst of it. They -ought to be feeling, “How true!” - -Yet what is a man to do? He can only express the immortality that he -knows in terms of the material things he sees. St. Joseph lilies are -as good as, if not better than anything else. But they might as well -have been artichokes, which come up every year. Artichokes would have -done just as well, only that people who object to artichokes would have -said, “How silly!” - -No one can object to St. Joseph lilies. Yet, whatever they are, you -will never be able to persuade the world to see the immortal truth -behind the mortal and material fact. - -It was the chance of circumstance which gave me an example of that -amazing truth that old people, when they have passed away, are given -life whenever the young people think of them. To the hundreds and -thousands who have been to see “The Blue Bird” there are hundreds and -thousands to say, “How charming that idea is—the old people coming to -life again whenever any one thinks of them!” - -“And how amazingly true,” said I to one who had made the remark to me. - -The lady looked at me as at one who has made a needless jest and then -she laughed. Being a lady, she was polite. - -But I hated that politeness. I hated the laugh which expressed it. If -chance should make her eye to fall upon this page, she will see how -I hated it. She will see also how earnestly I had meant what I said. -For I have found a proof of the truth. I know now that the old people -live. What is more, they know it too. When it comes that they pass that -Rubicon which takes them into the shadow of those portals beneath which -all the old people must wait until the Great Gates are opened—when once -they near the three-score years and ten—then they know. But they may -not speak. They may not say they know. They can only hint. - -It was that an old lady hinted to me. Oh, such a broad hint it was! And -that is how I know. - -She was close on seventy. Another summer, another winter, and yet -another spring, would see her three-score years and ten. The pension of -the country would be given her then and this great ambition had leapt -into the heart of her: - -“I want to leave off work then, sir,” she said and a smile parted her -thin, wrinkled lips, lit two fires in her eyes, making her whole face -sparkle. “I want to leave off work then, sir, and I want to take a -little cottage. I only work now so that my sons shan’t have the expense -of keeping me. They’ve got expenses enough of their own.” Then her -little brown eyes, like beads in the deep hollows, took into them a -tender look as she thought of the trials and troubles which they had to -bear. - -“Will you ever be able to get a cottage and keep yourself alive on -five shillings a week?” I asked. - -She set her little mouth. She was a wee, tiny creature, shrivelled with -age. Everything about her was little and crumpled and old. - -“It doesn’t need much to keep me alive now, sir,” she said. “The -cottage I can get for half a crown a week; and, of course, my sons are -real good boys—they send me a little now and then.” - -I gazed at her—at her wee, withered body, wasted away to nothing in -tireless energy. - -“You know you won’t care to leave off work when it comes to the time,” -said I; “you’ll hate to have nothing to do.” - -She looked back at me with a cunning twinkle in her bright brown eyes. -As if she were fool enough to think that life would be bearable with -nothing to do! As if she had ever dreamed that the hands could be idle -while the heart was beating! As if she did not know that each must -labour until death stilled them both! - -“I shan’t have nothing to do, sir,” she said when she had said it -already with her eyes. “Why, it’s just the time I’ve been looking for. -I’m too busy now.” - -“What are you going to do?” I asked. - -“Make a patchwork quilt.” - -“A patchwork quilt?” - -“Yes.” - -“What for?” - -“So that I can leave something behind me for people to remember me when -I’m gone.” - -She said it quite cheerfully, quite happily. Her bright eyes glistened -like a wink of light in an old brown china tea-pot. She said it, too, -in that half-reserved way as though there were more to tell, but she -was not allowed even to whisper it. - -Of course, there was more to tell! She never would be gone! Not really -gone! Every time you thought of her, the light of the other life would -start back into her eyes, the wrinkled lips would smile again. She -would never be really gone! And this was a hint—just a hint to let me -at least, for one, make sure about it. - -“Then every night they go to bed,” said I, “and pull the patchwork -quilt tight round them——” - -“Yes—and every time they throw it off in the morning——” said she. - -“They’ll think of you?” - -“They’ll think of me,” and she chuckled like a little child to think -how clever it was of her. - -“Supposing,” said I, suddenly, in a whisper as the thought occurred to -me—“supposing you could do without any assistance from your boys——” - -“I wish I could,” she said; “p’raps I can.” - -“You wait and see,” said I. - -Her seventieth birthday came round, and the evening before I posted to -her my little present. I made her my pensioner as long as she lives, -and on the twentieth day of each month she receives her tiny portion, -and on the twenty-first day of that month I get back in return a wee -bunch of flowers tied with red Angola wool. - -“In payment of the Pension of the Patchwork Quilt,” I write, just on a -slip of paper; then off it goes every month. And as I drop it in the -letterbox, I can see her surrounded with all sorts of materials in -divers colours. I can hear the scratching of her needle as she sews -them together. I can picture her little eyes bent eagerly upon the -stitches for fear it might not be done in time. - -And I take her gentle hint. - -I know. - - - - - II - - THE MOUSE-TRAP, HENRIETTA STREET - - - - - II - - THE MOUSE-TRAP, HENRIETTA STREET - - -In Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, there is a mouse-trap, a cunningly -devised contrivance in which many a timid little mouse is caught. You -will find them in other streets than this. They are set in exactly the -same way, the same alluring bait, the same doors that open with so -generous an admission of innocence, the same doors that close with so -final and irrevocable a snap. - -I have never watched the other ones at work. But I have seen four mice -caught at different times in Henrietta Street. Therefore, it is about -the mouse-trap in Henrietta Street that I feel qualified to speak. - -One of these little mice I knew well. I knew her by name, where she -lived—the little hole in this great labyrinth of London down which she -vanished when the day’s work was done, or when any one frightened her -little wits and made her scamper home for safety. She even came once -and sat in my room, just on the edge of an armchair, taking tea and -cake in that frightened way, eyes ever peering, head ever on the alert, -as mice will eat their food. - -So you will see I knew a good deal about her. It was through no -accident of chance that I saw her walk into the trap. I had heard that -such an event was likely. I was on the lookout for it. - -During the day-time, she waited at the tables in an A.B.C. shop. Don’t -ask me what they paid her for it. I marvel at the wage for manual -labour when sometimes I am compelled to do a little job for myself. I -wonder why on earth the woman comes to tidy my rooms for ten shillings -a week. But she does. What is more, I find myself on the very point of -abusing her when she breaks a piece of my Lowestoft china, coming with -tears in her eyes to tell me of it. - -Whatever it was they paid this little mouse of a child, she found it -a sufficient inducement to come there day after day, week after week, -with just that one short, marvellous evening in the six days and the -whole of the glorious seventh in which to do what she liked. - -I suppose it would have gone on like that for ever. She would have -continued creeping in and out amongst the tables, her body on tip-toe, -her voice on tip-toe, the whole personality of her almost overbalancing -itself as it worked out its justification on the very tip of its toes. - -She would have continued waiting on her customers, writing her little -checks in a wholly illegible handwriting, which only the girl at the -desk could read. She would have continued supplying me with the -three-pennyworth of cold cod steak for my kitten until I should have -been ordering five cold cod steaks for the entire family that was bound -to come. All these things would have gone on just the same, had not -the tempter come to lure her into the mouse-trap in Henrietta Street, -Covent Garden. - -I saw him one morning, a dandy-looking youth from one of the hosier’s -shops in the Strand near by. He was having lunch—a cup of coffee and -some stewed figs and cream. Taste is a funny thing. And she was serving -him. She had served him. He was already hustling the food into his -mouth as he talked to her. But it was more than talking. He was saying -things with a pair of large calf eyes and she was laughing as she -listened. - -I would sooner see a woman serious than see her laugh; that is, if some -one else were making love to her. For when she is serious there are two -ways about it; but when she laughs there is only time for one. - -When she saw me, the little mouse came at once to the counter and took -down the piece of cold cod steak without a word. As she handed me the -bag and the little paper check, she said— - -“How’s the kitten to-day?” - -Then I knew she felt guilty, and was trying to distract my mind from -what she knew I had seen. - -“Why are you ashamed of talking to the young man?” I asked. - -“I’m not,” said she. - -“Did you notice his eyes?” said I. - -She looked at me for a moment, quite frightened, then she scampered -away into a corner and began wetting her pencil with her lips and -scribbling things. When the young man tapped his coffee-cup, she -pretended not to hear. But as soon as I stepped out into the street, I -turned round and saw her hurrying back to his table. - -You guess how it went along. He asked her to marry him—then—there—at -once. You might have known he was a man of business. - -She told me all about it when she came on one of those short evenings, -and nibbled a little piece of cake as she sat on the edge of my chair. - -He wanted to marry her at once, but he was earning only eighteen -shillings a week and, as far as I could see, spent most of that on -neckties, socks and hair oil. He would no doubt begin to save it -directly they were married; but eighteen shillings was not enough to -keep them both. - -“He’d better wait, then,” said I. - -“He’s so afraid he’d lose me,” she whispered. - -“And would he?” I asked. - -She picked up a crumb from the floor, seeming thereby to suggest that -it was not in the nature of her to waste anything. - -“Then I suppose you’ll be married in secret and go on just the same?” - -She nodded her head. - -“Where does he propose you should be married?” - -“At the registry office in Henrietta Street.” - -“The mouse-trap,” said I. - -“No; the registry office,” she replied. - -“And when’s it to be?” I asked. - -“My next evening after this.” - -Well, it came to that next evening. I got permission from a firm of -book-buyers to occupy a window opposite. And there I observed that -little parlour tragedy which you can see in the corner of any old -wainscotted room if only you keep quiet long enough. - -It did not happen successfully that first time. For half an hour he -walked her up and down Henrietta Street. I saw my publisher come out -of his door, little dreaming of the comedy that was being played as -he passed them by. And every time they stopped outside the Registry -Office windows, she stood and read the notices of soldiers deserted the -army, of children that were lost, while he talked of the great things -that life was offering to them both just inside those varnished doors. - -After a time they walked away and I came out from my hiding-place. -Something must have upset her, I thought, and I went across to look at -the notices in the window. There was nothing to frighten her there; yet -she had scampered away home to that little hole in Clapham, and there -vanished out of sight. - -But it came at last. It came the very next of her short evenings. I was -on the lookout again. I saw them march up to the door. No hesitation -this time. He must have been eloquent indeed to have led her so surely -as that. - -I saw him lift the spring of the trap. I saw her enter with tip-toe -steps, but more full of confidence now. Then I heard the sharp snap of -the door as it fell. - -“They’ve caught a mouse,” said I to the book-buyer as I came downstairs. - -“’Tis a good thing,” said he; “they’re the very devil for eating my -bindings.” - - - - - III - - THE WONDERFUL CITY - - - - - III - - THE WONDERFUL CITY - - -I saw a wonderful city to-day. Rows of houses there were. Domes of -great buildings with their dull brown roofs lifted silently into -the sky. Long streets in tireless avenues led from one cathedral to -another; some with the straightness of an arrow, others twisting and -turning in devious ways, yet all leading, as a well-planned street -should lead, to the crowning glory of some great edifice. - -By the chance of Destiny I stood above it all and looked down. It was -strange that only the night before I had been dreaming that I was in -the City of New York, with its vast maze of buildings leaping to the -sky. In my dream I had stood wrapt in amazement. But I was silent with -a greater astonishment here. For as I gazed upon it, there had come a -man to my side and, seeing the direction of my eyes, he had said— - -“There warn’t a trace o’ that there last night.” - -“Not a trace?” said I. And I said it in amazement, for frankly I -disbelieved him. - -“Not a trace,” he repeated solemnly. - -“All that built in one night?” I asked again. - -“In one night,” said he. - -“But doesn’t it astound you?” said I. I tried to lift his lethargy to -the wonderment and admiration that was thrilling in my mind. - -“It do seem strange,” he replied, “when yer come to think of it.” - -“Well, then, come to think of it!” I exclaimed. “You can’t do better -than find the world strange. Come to think of it and, finding it -strange, you’ll come to believe in it!” - -He stared at me with solemn eyes. - -“Look at the dome of that cathedral,” I went on. “Could you set to work -and, in a single night, build a vast piece of architecture like that, -so many times higher than yourself?” - -“That ain’t no cathedral,” said he. - -“Have you ever seen a cathedral?” I asked. - -“No.” - -“Well, then, how do you know it isn’t?” - -He could give me no reply and I continued in my enthusiasm— - -“Look at that street, cut through all obstacles, leading straight as -though a thousand instruments of latter-day science had been used in -the making of it. Look at this avenue turning to right and to left. -Do you see that great cluster of buildings, a very parliament of -houses, set round a vast space that would shame the great square of St. -Peter’s, in Rome. Only look at the——” - -I turned round and he had gone. I could see his figure retreating in -the distance. Every moment he turned his head, looking round, as one -who is pursued yet fears to show his cowardice by running away. He -thought I was mad, I have no doubt. Every one thinks you mad when you -say the moon is a dead world or the sun is a fiery furnace. To be sane, -you must only remark upon the coldness of the moon, or the warmth of -the sun. To be sane, you must speak of the things of this world only in -terms of people’s bodies. They do not understand unless. - -And so, when the man left me, I was alone, looking over the wonderful -city. For an hour then, I amused myself by naming the different -streets, by assigning to the various buildings the uses to which it -seemed they might be put. - -That huge edifice with the cupola of bronze was the Cathedral of -Shadows, where prayers were said in darkness and never a lamp was lit. -The street which led to its very steps, that was called the Street of -Sighs. Here, in a lighter part of the city, approached to its silent -doors by Tight Street, was the Bat’s Theatre, where you could hear, -but never see the performance as it progressed. A little further on -there was Blind Alley—a cul-de-sac, terminating in a tiny building, the -Chapel of Disappointment. There was the Avenue of Progress, the Church -of Whispers, the Bridge of Stones and a thousand other places, the -names of which went from me no sooner than they crossed my mind. - -It may be possible to build a wonderful city in a night. I only know -how utterly impossible it is to name all its streets and its palaces in -one day. - -And then, while I was still thus employed, I saw the man returning with -a jug of beer. - -I nodded to the vessel which he carried in his hand. - -“You don’t need to think about that,” said I, “to understand it.” - -A broad grin spread across his face. He had found me sane after all. I -had talked about beer in terms of bodily comfort. - -“I need to drink it,” said he with a laugh. - -“You do,” said I. - -Then, as if to appease me for the moment e’er he passed on his way, he -returned to our former subject and, with a serious voice, he said— - -“When yer come to think of it,” said he, “it do seem wonderful that -them moles is blind.” - -“Not so blind,” said I, looking down at the wonderful city, “not so -blind as those who can see.” - -He thought I had gone mad again, and he walked away with his jug of -beer. - - - - - IV - - BELLWATTLE AND THE LAWS OF GOD - - - - - IV - - BELLWATTLE AND THE LAWS OF GOD - - -I often wonder why God evolved a creature so antagonistic to all His -laws as woman. I must tell you what I mean. - -Bellwattle—she is named Bellwattle for the simple reason that one -day in an inspired moment, she called her husband Cruikshank, and he -replied giving her the name Bellwattle, quite foolish except between -husband and wife—Bellwattle has the genuine mother’s heart for animals. -Everything that crawls, walks or flies, Bellwattle loves. Some things, -certainly, she loves more than others; but for all she has the -deep-rooted, protective instinct. Spiders, for example, terrify her; -flies and beetles she loathes, but would not kill one of them even if -they crawled upon her dress. And they do. - -Now Bellwattle has a garden which she loves. You can see already, if -you have but the mind for it, the tragic conflict which, with that love -of her flowers, she must wage between her own soul and the laws of God. - -For this, I must tell you, is a lovely garden—not one of those prim-set -portions, with well-cut hedges and beds in orthodox array. It is an old -garden that has been allowed to run to ruin and Bellwattle, possessing -it in the nick of time, has planted primroses amongst the nettles; has -carved a little herbaceous border where once potatoes grew. She has -thrown roses here, there, and everywhere and, in soap and sugar boxes -covered with glass at the bottom of the garden under the nut trees, she -forces the old-fashioned flowers that we knew—you and I—in the long-ago -days when sweet-william and candytuft were things to boast about and -foxgloves grew like beanstalks up to heaven. - -But perhaps the most glorious thing in Bellwattle’s garden, that also -in which she takes the greatest pride, is her hedges of sweet pea. They -grow in great walls of dazzling colour, and the bees hum about them all -day long. But they are the devil and all to raise. - -Now this is where the tragic conflict comes in, between the mice and -the birds and the slugs and Bellwattle’s kitten and Bellwattle’s heart. -It is a terrible conflict, I can tell you; for the laws of God are -unalterable, and so is the heart of Bellwattle. - -This, then, is what happens: Bellwattle forgot to cover the sweet pea -seeds with red lead. It is just the sort of thing a woman would forget. -I doubt if I could think of it myself. Then followed the natural -result. A shrew-mouse got hold of one or two of them, and Bellwattle -wondered why on earth God ever made shrew-mice. - -“But they’re dear little things,” I told her. - -“I can’t help that,” said she. “What’s the sense in making a thing that -goes and eats up other things?” - -Which, of course, was unanswerable. - -Two days after this had happened, the kitten was seen playing with a -live shrew-mouse. - -Bellwattle screamed. - -“Oh, the little wretch! If I could only catch it!” - -“What—the mouse?” shouted Cruikshank. - -“No, no; the wretched little kitten! Look at the way she’s torturing -it! Oh, I never saw such a cruel little beast in all my life!” and her -face grew rosy red. - -Now, Cruikshank is a dutiful husband. Moreover, he knows positively -nothing about women. Perhaps that is why. When, therefore, he realised -that it was the kitten who was the cruel little beast, and a sense of -duty claiming him, he chased it all over the garden, picking up stones -as he ran. - -“Make her drop it!” cried Bellwattle. - -“I will, if I can hit her,” replied Cruikshank and, like a cowboy -throwing a lasso from a galloping horse, he flung a stone. The kitten -was struck upon the flank and in its terror it dropped the mouse and -fled. Cruikshank approached it and, he assures me, with much pride in -his prowess picked up the poor little mouse by the hind leg. Then he -looked up and saw Bellwattle’s face. It was white—ashen white. - -“You’ve hurt her,” she said, half under her breath. - -“It’s better than hurt,” said Cruikshank—“it’s dead.” - -“No—the kitten—you hit it with a stone.” - -“’Twas a jolly good shot,” said Cruikshank. - -“I never meant you to hit her,” said Bellwattle. - -Cruikshank looked disappointed. To hit a flying object whilst one is in -a tornado of motion one’s self is no mean feat. Failing an appreciation -of the woman herself, I am not surprised he was disappointed. - -“I made her drop it, anyhow,” he said. - -“You’ve frightened her out of her life and now perhaps she’ll never -come back,” said Bellwattle, and in and out of the garden she went, -all through the forests of rhododendra—where the kitten, I should tell -you, hunts for big game—and with the gentlest, the softest, the most -wooing voice in the world, she cried the kitten’s name. Cruikshank was -at a loss to understand it. When he met her down one of the paths still -calling, with tears in her eyes, he assures me he felt so ashamed of -himself that he began, in a feeble way, calling for the kitten too. -When they met again, still unsuccessful in their search, he dared not -look her in the face. - -Now this is only one of the conflicts that take place in Bellwattle’s -soul. She worships the birds, but they eat the young shoots of the -sweet peas. Then she hates them; then the kitten catches one. And now, -Cruikshank tells me, he will have no hand in the matter. - -“You leave it to God,” I advised. - -“I do,” said he; “it’s too difficult for me.” - -I believe myself it is too difficult for God. - -Only the other day, in the farmyard, Bellwattle saw two cocks -fighting—fighting for the supremacy of the yard. Cruikshank and I -looked on, really enjoying the sport of it in our hearts, yet deadly -afraid of saying so. - -“Can’t you stop them?” exclaimed Bellwattle. “They’re hurting each -other!” - -We neither of us moved a hand. - -“If you don’t, I shall have to go and do it myself,” said she. - -“Much better leave it to God,” said I. “They’re settling matters that -have nothing to do with you.” - -But do you think logic so profound as that deterred her? Not a bit -of it! Out she ran into the farmyard, throwing her arms about in the -air—as women will when they wish to interfere with the laws of God. - -“Shoo! shoo! shoo!” shouted Bellwattle. - -And one of the cocks, at the critical moment of victory, reluctantly -leaving go of its opponent’s comb, looked up with considerable -annoyance into her face and shrieked back— - -“Cock-a-doodle-do!” - -Cruikshank glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, and out of the -corner of his mouth he whispered— - -“We shan’t have any eggs to-morrow.” - - - - - V - - REALISM - - - - - V - - REALISM - - -This word—realism—has lost its meaning. So, for that matter, has many -another word in the language. Sentiment is one and, as a natural -consequence, the word sentimental is another. Realism and sentiment, -in fact, have got so shuffled about, for all the world like the King -and Queen in a pack of cards that now, instead of sentiment being hand -in hand with reality, they have become almost opposed. To express a -sentiment is now tantamount to ignoring a reality. - -Joseph Surface may be responsible for this. It would not seem unlikely. -But wherever the responsibility lies, it is an everlasting pity; no one -has had the common politeness to replace or even create a substitute -for the thing which they have taken away. - -Realism, which now means an expression of things as they happen without -any relation to things as they immortally are, is robbed of its true -significance. But no word is left in its place. Sentiment, which now -means an expression of momentary emotionalism, instead of what one -perceives to be true in the highest moments of one’s thoughts, has left -a blank in the language which no one seems willing to or capable of -filling up. - -Now all this is an irreparable loss. How great a loss it is can be seen -by the fact that no two people’s terminology is the same when they are -discussing a subject wherein these words must be employed. In the space -of five minutes both are at cross purposes; in a tangle from which they -find it well-nigh impossible to extricate themselves. - -I do not for one instant propose to supply here a solution to the -difficulty; nor can I coin two words to repair the loss sustained. All -I wish to do is to tell a real story, one that happened only a short -while ago, to illustrate what seems to me to be realism in comparison -with what realism is supposed to be. - -Our little servant-girl was married—married to the young man who -brought the milk of a morning. The courtship had been going on for some -time before I realised the glorious things that were happening. Then, -when I was told about it, I used to peep out of my bedroom window. As -soon as I heard that cry of his—impossible to write—when he opened the -gate and rattled with his can down the area steps, then up I jumped -from my bed and lifted the window. - -They must have been wonderful moments for Emily, those early mornings -when, with heart beating at the sound of his cry, she had run for the -big white jug, then dragged out the time lest he should think she had -opened the door too eagerly. - -Many a time have I seen them down at the bottom of those area steps; -she leaning up against the pillar of the door watching him, rapt in -admiration, while he filled up the big white jug. - -It is a fine thing for you when your little maid has eyes for the -milkman. You get a good measure, I can tell you. He would not seem -stingy to her for the world. I have seen him dipping his little -half-pint measure times and again into the big can as he talked to her -and, as she held out the white jug, just trickling it in till our two -pints were more than accounted for. - -All this went on for weeks together. Emily sang like a lark in the -morning when she rose betimes to do her work. The worst of the -scrubbing was all finished with and Emily’s hair was tidy long before -there came that weird falsetto cry, or the sound of the milk cans -rattled down the area steps. Oh, I can assure you, it is an excellent -thing when your little maid has eyes for the milkman. She never gets up -late of a morning. - -And then, at last, with great to-doings in Emily’s home out at Walham -Green, they were married. I asked Emily what she would like for a -wedding present and she said: - -“I’d like one o’ them old brass candlesticks—same as what you ’ave in -your study.” - -You see Emily had acquired some taste. I call it taste because it is -mine. Good or bad, she had acquired it. - -“Wouldn’t you prefer silver?” I asked, thinking I knew what silver -would mean in Walham Green. - -But she only replied: - -“No—I like the brass ones—’cos they’re old. I’ve a fancy for old -things.” - -So a pair of old brass candlesticks was what I gave her. She wrote -and thanked me for them. She said they looked just lovely on George’s -writing table and that one of these days, when I was passing that way, -I ought to go and look at them. - -I did pass through Walham Green eventually. It was some months later. -She had probably forgotten all about having asked me, but I paid my -visit all the same. - -For a moment or so, as I stood on the doorstep, I felt a twinge of -trepidation. I could not remember her married name. But it was all -right. She opened the door herself. Then, as she stood there, with a -beaming smile lighting her face from ear to ear, reminding me so well -of those early mornings when I used to peep out of my bedroom window -and peer into the area below, I saw that soon there would be another -little Emily or another perky little George to bring a smile or a cry -into the world. - -“You’re happy?” said I. - -“Oh—sir!” said she. - -She showed me up then to the sitting-room where was George’s writing -table and the pair of old brass candlesticks. She pointed to the table. - -“’E made it ’imself,” she said, not meaning it in explanation; but -it did explain the queer shape. “’E made it out of an old box and I -covered it with felt. Ain’t it splendid?” - -I agreed with my whole heart. Everything was splendid. The whole room -might have been made out of an old box. And yet I could see what a joy -it was to her. There was her acquired taste in evidence everywhere, -but except for my poor pair of candlesticks, everything was imitation. -It made no matter. She thought they were really old and liked them -immeasurably better than the things I had collected with such care at -home. - -“Could anything be nicer than this?” said I with real enthusiasm. - -“I don’t believe it could, sir,” said she. - -And then, in little half-amused, half-curious, half-frightened -whispers, she told me how they were going to call the baby after me. - -“Supposing it’s a girl,” said I. - -No—they had not reckoned on that. When you make up your mind properly -to a boy—a boy it is up to the last moment. After that, you forget how -you made up your mind, you are so wildly delighted that it is alive at -all. - -I walked across to the window. - -“So you’re radiantly happy,” I said. - -“’E’s just wonderful,” she replied; “I thought it couldn’t last at -first—but it’s just the same.” - -I gazed out of the window—envious, perhaps. - -“What does this look on to?” I asked. - -“A slaughter-house, sir.” - -She said it full of cheerfulness, full of the joy of her own -life. I stared and stared out of the window. A slaughter-house! A -slaughter-house! and here was a little slip of a woman passing through -those trembling hours before the birth of her first child! - -Now _that_ is what your realist would call a chance! He would make a -fine subject out of that. He would show you the growth of that idea -in the woman’s mind. He would picture her drawn to gaze out of that -awesome window whenever they dragged the lowing, frightened cattle to -their doom. And last of all, with wonderful photographic touches, he -would describe for you the birth of a _still-born_ child. Then with a -feeling of sickness in the heart of you, you would lay down the story -and exclaim, “How real!” - -That is what is meant by realism to-day. - -Yet somehow or other I prefer my Emily; not because the boy _is_ called -after me—but because, whatever he may be called, he is alive, he is -well, and he kicks his little legs like wind-mills. - -Now _that_ is an immortal truth. - - - - - VI - - THE SABBATH - - - - - VI - - THE SABBATH - - -When I was a little boy—younger even than I am now—my father had strict -ideas upon Sabbath behaviour. We might read nothing, I remember, but -what was true. Now, if you come to think of it, that limits your range -of literary entertainment in a terrible way. It drove me to such books -as “Little Willie’s Promise—a True Story” or “What Alice Found—Taken -from Life.” - -One Sunday afternoon, perched high in the mulberry-tree, I was found -with a copy of the Saturday’s daily paper. It was smeared with the -bloodstains of many mulberries, whose glorious last moments had been -with me. - -“What have you got there?” asked my father from below. - -I told him. It was Sunday. My story at least was true. - -“Come down at once!” said he. - -I descended, finding many more difficulties to overcome than I had -discovered in my ascent. - -My father waxed impatient. - -“Can’t you get down any quicker than that?” he asked. He had a book on -rose-growing in his hand, which, being quite true, he was taking out on -that glorious afternoon to read and enjoy in the garden. - -With all respect, I told him that I did not want to break my neck and I -continued slowly with my laborious descent. When I reached the ground, -he eyed me suspiciously. - -“How dare you read the paper on Sunday?” he asked. - -“I was only reading the police reports,” said I, humbly; “I thought -they were true.” - -He held out his hand expressively. I timidly put forth mine, thinking -he wanted to congratulate me on my taste. - -“The paper!” said he, emphatically. - -I yielded, without a word. - -“Now, if you want to read on Sunday,” said he, “go into the house and -learn the Collect for the third Sunday after Trinity. And never let me -see a boy of your age reading the paper again.” - -“Not on week-days?” said I. - -“No, never!” he replied, and, as he walked away, he scanned the Stock -Exchange quotations with a stern and unrelenting face. - -I do not want to argue about the justice of this, for now that I am a -little older, the after effect, though not what my father expected, has -proved quite admirable. If the newspaper was not true enough to read on -week-days, let alone Sundays, I came to the conclusion that it must be -very full of lies indeed. And all this has been very helpful to me ever -since. I think of it now as I open my daily paper in the morning, and I -thank my father for it from the bottom of my heart. It has saved me a -deal of unnecessary credulity. - -I remember, too, that all games—all games but chess—were strictly -forbidden. That also has left an impression on my mind—an ineffaceable -impression about the game of chess. It seems a very stern game to me—a -game rigid in its expression of the truth. The King and Queen are -always real people, moving—far be it from me to allude to Royalty—in -straightened paths; the Queen impulsively, the King in staid dignity, -one step at a time. I always behold the Knight as one, erratic and -Quixotic in all he does; the Bishop swift and to the point, thereby -connecting himself in my mind with the days when the Bishops went out -to war and brought the Grace of God with them on to the battlefield, -rather than with the Bishops of to-day, who keep the Grace of God at -home. - -So I think of the game of Chess—the only game we were ever allowed to -play on Sunday—the game my father loved so well above all others. - -I don’t know what it is about the observance of the Sabbath, but to me -it seems a beautiful idea, like a beautiful bell; yet a bell that has -been cracked and rings with a strange, false, unmeaning note. No one -seems to be able to get the true tone of it. Heaven knows they ring it -enough. The Church and such followers of the Church as my father are -always pealing its message for the world to hear; yet I wonder how many -people detect in it the sound of that discordant note of hypocrisy. - -Nevertheless, there is something grand in that conception of One -creating a vast universe in six days or six ages—whichever you will—and -resting at His ease upon the seventh. Nor is it less grand to work -throughout a common week, making a home, and on the Sabbath to cease -from labour. The whole world is agreed that that day of rest is needed; -but are they to lay down a law that what is rest for one man is rest -for another? - -If that is the only way they can think of doing it; if that is the -only interpretation of the word—rest—which they can find, then, so far -as the Sabbath is concerned, we shall be a nation of hypocrites or -lawbreakers for the rest of our days. And of the two, may I be one who -breaks the law. For, do what you will with it, human nature has reached -that development when it insists upon thinking for itself and, one man, -thinking it all out most carefully, will declare that a game of chess -is not an abomination of the Sabbath, while another will read the -police reports in the daily papers because they are true. - -Fifty years ago, Charles Kingsley, that strenuous apostle of health, -urged that it was better to play cricket on the Green at Eversley than -stay at home and be a hypocrite—or a gambler, which is much the same -thing. But his was only one honest voice amongst the thousands of -others who have preached a very different gospel to that. - -Only a short while ago, at a little tennis club in the suburbs of -London, there came up before the committee the question as to whether -play should not be allowed on Sunday. The club was composed of city -clerks, of members of the Stock Exchange, of men labouring the daily -round to keep together those homes of which both the Church and the -nation are so justly proud. - -Every one seemed in favour of it, until the Vicar of the parish rose -and said that seeing there was a high fence all round the ground, -and that the players would be hidden from the sight of the public at -large, he saw no reason why play should not be allowed out of Church -hours—that was to say, from two till six. - -“But,” said he, “I must most vehemently protest against any playing of -the game of croquet.” - -A member of the committee, one with a lame leg, who was debarred from -tennis, but was known to make his ten hoop break at croquet, asked -immediately for the reason of this protest. - -“I work all the week in the city,” said he; “I have no other chance for -playing except late on Saturday and on Sunday. Why should you prevent -croquet?” - -“Because,” said the Vicar, “the sound of the croquet balls would reach -the ears of people passing by. And what do you imagine they’d think -if they heard people playing croquet? I make no objection to tennis -because, if played in a gentlemanly way, no one outside need know that -a game was going on—but croquet! You must remember we have to consider -others as well as ourselves.” - -“You think it would make them feel envious?” asked the lame man. - -“I mean nothing of the kind,” said the Vicar. - -“Then what do you imagine they would think?” - -“They would realise that the Sabbath—the day of rest—was being broken.” - -“Then we have your consent to break it with tennis,” said the Chairman. - -“It seems to me,” said the Vicar, “that this discussion is being -carried into the region of absurdity.” - -“I quite agree with the Vicar,” said the lame man. - - - - - VII - - HOUSE TO LET - - - - - VII - - HOUSE TO LET - - -If I only knew more about women than I do—if I only knew anything about -them at all—I might be able to understand the vagarious indetermination -of the lady who is contemplating the occupation of a little house quite -close to me here in the country. - -But I know nothing about the sex—well, next to nothing. That is as near -to the truth as a man will get on this subject. His next to nothing, -in fact, is next to the truth. And so, with this open confession of -ignorance, I can explain nothing about this lady. I can only tell you -all the funny things she does. - -There is this house to let. Well, it is less than a house. An agent, -flourishing his pen over the book of orders to view, would call it a -maisonette—what is more, he would be right. It is a little house—a -little, tiny house. The view from the balcony round the top of it is -beautiful; but from inside, I doubt if you can see anything at all. I -have never been inside, but that is what I imagine. - -Now, the strange thing about this lady’s attraction for it is that she -has occupied it once before. There her children were brought up. From -there they were sent out into the world upon that hazardous journey of -fortune: that same journey in quest of the golden apple for which the -three sons have always set forth, ever since the first fairy tale was -written. And so the little house is filled with recollections for her. - -She remembers—I have heard her speak of it—the day when Dicky, the -youngest boy, fell out from one of the windows. Not a long fall, but -it was the devil and all to carry him back into the house. She did not -say it was the devil and all. I say it for her, because I know when she -was telling it, that was the way she wanted to put it. But a woman can -look a little phrase like that, which is so much better than saying it. - -She remembers also the day when they had nothing in the house to eat -and she, saying such things to her husband as God has given him memory -for the rest of his life, had to go out and scrape together whatever -she could find. It was a cold day. There was snow on the ground. Snow -in the beginning of May! Heaven only knows how she managed. But she -succeeded. - -There is that about women. They will get food for their children, even -when famine is in the land, or they will die. I know that much about -them. They have died in Ireland. - -Well, all these things she remembers; things which, softened by time, -are no doubt pleasant memories ere this. And yet she cannot make up -her mind. Where she has been since they went away, I do not know. -Travelling, I imagine. But here she is back once more, doubtless -worrying the life out of the house agent, who is continually being -jostled in the balance of thinking he has, then thinking he has not, -let a very doubtful property. - -Every morning she comes and looks over the old place. I suppose she -is staying in the neighbourhood. From every side she views it and all -the while she talks to herself. Now, women do this more than you would -think. They do it when they are going to bed at night. They do it when -they are getting up in the morning. It always seems as if there were -some one inside them to whom they must tell the truth, because, I -believe, they are the most truthful beings in the world—to themselves. - -Only yesterday, when she thought she was absolutely alone, I heard her -saying— - -“You wouldn’t like it, you know, once you were fixed up there again. -It’s out of the way, of course, quiet, but you wouldn’t like it.” - -And then, having told herself the truth, she began immediately to -contradict it. - -Why they do this is more than I can tell you. The only people who can -tell the truth, they seemingly dislike it more than any one else. A man -loves the truth, lives for it, dies for it, but seldom tells it. With a -woman it is just the opposite, and I cannot for the life of me tell you -why. - -“You’d be a fool if you took it,” she said to herself as she went away -to the house agent’s. “You don’t know who you’ll have for neighbours. -They might be disgusting people.” - -I followed her to the house agent’s, and this, if you please, was the -first question she put to him— - -“What sort of people do you think’ll take the house over the way?” - -I pitied the house agent from the bottom of my heart, because how -on earth could he know? Yet upon his answer hung all his chances of -letting. I thought he replied very cleverly. - -“They’re sure to be good people,” said he; “we only get the best class -round here.” - -And then, just listen to her retort— - -“But you can’t tell,” said she. “What’s the good of pretending you -know. It might be a butcher and his family. You couldn’t stop them if -they wanted the house.” - -The agent leaned back in his chair, then leaned forward over his desk, -turning over pages and pages of a ledger. - -“Well, will you take an order to view this one?” said he. “Same rent—a -little more accommodation.” - -“No, I don’t want to see any more,” she replied. “This is the one I -like best.” - -“Well, would you like to settle on that?” said the agent. “I’ll write -to the landlord to-night.” - -“I’ll let you know to-morrow,” said she. - -For three weeks she has gone on just like this. - -And it is still to let, that little house in the bowl of my old apple -tree. But every morning she comes just the same and, sitting on the -topmost branch, she chatters to herself incessantly for half an hour, -as starlings and women do—for she is a lady starling. I shall be -curious to know when she makes up her mind, but, knowing nothing about -women and less than nothing about starlings, I cannot say when or what -it will be. - - - - - VIII - - A SUFFRAGETTE - - - - - VIII - - A SUFFRAGETTE - - -She thanked God, she told me, that she had never been married. - -She was quite old—well, quite old? Can you ever say that of a woman? -Women are quite old for five years, but that is all. They are quite old -between the ages of thirty-five and forty. Then, if God has given them -a heart and they have taken advantage of the gift, youth comes back -again. It is not the youth under the eyes, perhaps; it is the youth in -the eyes. It is not the youth around the lips; it is the youth of the -words that issue from them. - -Between thirty-five and forty a woman is trying to remember her youth -and forget her age. That makes her quite old—quite, quite old. After -that—well, I have said, it rests with God and her. - -So Miss Taviner was not quite old. She was quite young. She was -sixty-three. Her eyes twinkled, even when she thanked God for her -spinsterdom. - -“You’ve got,” said I, “a poor opinion of men.” - -“’Tisn’t my opinion—’tis my mother’s,” said she. - -I felt there was nothing to be said to that. It would have been -unseemly on my part—who have only just found my own youth—to disagree -with an opinion of such long standing. - -You must understand that Miss Taviner could never have been beautiful. -God may have meant her to be; I don’t know anything about that. I am -only aware how Nature interfered. For when she was young—a child not -more, I think, than six—she was struck by lightning, paralysed for a -time, and, when she recovered, her eyes were at loggerheads. They -looked every way but one. - -But I like her little shrivelled face, nevertheless. It is crafty, -perhaps. She looks as if she counts every apple on the trees in her old -garden. Why shouldn’t she? She has a poor opinion of men. Besides, the -apples at Beech House Farm—where her father lived and his father before -him—those apples are part of the slender income by which she manages to -cling to the old home. Who could blame her for counting them? I don’t -even blame her for having the cunning look of it in her eyes. - -No—I suppose, though I do like her face, it is because I haven’t got to -love it. Possibly that is why she has so poor an opinion of men. Some -man found that he could not love her face and broke his faith with her. -At least, I thought that then. Some heartless wretch has jilted her, I -thought—taught her to love, and then caught sight of a prettier pair -of eyes. I must admit he need not have been on the lookout for them. - -“But,” said I presently, when these ideas had passed away, “don’t you -admit men have their uses?” - -“None!” she said emphatically. - -“Then why,” I asked, “do you hang up that old top hat of your father’s -on a peg in the kitchen, so that the first tramp, as you open the door -to him, may see it?” - -“So that he’ll think I’ve got a man in the house, I suppose,” she -replied. - -“That’s why you have a couple of glasses and a whiskey bottle on the -table in the evening?” - -“Yes.” - -“Then a man is useful,” said I, “as far as his hat is concerned?” - -She winked her crooked eyes at me and she said, “Yes, so long as there -isn’t a head inside of it.” - -I laughed. “Then really,” I concluded, “you do hate men?” - -“I suppose I do,” said she. - -“Why?” - -I thought I was going to hear of her little romance with its pitiable -ending. - -But no, she merely shrugged her shoulders, stuck an old tam-o’-shanter -on her head, and went out to see if the gardener was doing his fair -share of work. - -I might never have thought of this again, but it chanced that I bought -from her, amongst her old relics of the family property, a mahogany -box, with brass lock and brass handle. Inlaid, it was, round the edge -of the lid. Quite a handsome thing. She had lost its key. It was locked -and, seeing that she did not want to go to the expense of getting a key -made, she sold it to me. - -I got a key made. I opened it. It was empty, but for one thing. There -was a letter at the bottom. It is unquestionable that I had no right -to read it. It is also unquestionable that I did. - - “_My dear Miss Taviner,_” it ran, “_these evenings that it is so light - they may be playing cricket on the green. Shall we meet at the Cross - beyond the forge?—Yrs. in haste, Henry Yeoman._” - -“That’s the man,” said I to myself. “He was ashamed of being seen with -her even then. No wonder she has a poor opinion of men.” My anger went -out to Henry Yeoman on the spot. - -But I did him an injustice. For, inquiring at the forge, which I -happened to pass some days later, I stopped and asked the smith about -him. - -“Henry Yeoman,” said he, “why he’s left these parts nigh fifteen years. -He’s gone to live at Reading.” - -“Is he married?” I asked. - -“Yes; married Miss Taviner.” - -“Miss Taviner?” - -“Yes; sister of her down at Beech House Farm.” - -“Never knew she had a sister,” said I. - -“Yes. Oh, she had three; all married, they are.” - -“Why did she never marry?” I asked, for then I knew the letter was not -to her. - -“Why?” He tapped the anvil with his hammer and he laughed a bass -accompaniment to its ring. “Because no one ’ud ever look at her, I -suppose.” - -I saw it then. I saw why she had so poor opinion of men. I saw why she -thanked God she had never married. - -No man had ever taught her what love was. No man had ever even jilted -her. No wonder she hated them. No wonder she counted her apples. - - - - - IX - - BELLWATTLE AND THE LAWS OF NATURE - - - - - IX - - BELLWATTLE AND THE LAWS OF NATURE - - -It is not mine to distinguish between the laws of God and the laws of -Nature. This is a distinction peculiar to Bellwattle. - -It would be difficult to give precise definition to her conception of -the subtle and imaginary line which divides the two, but, so far as I -can grasp it, it would seem to be this: The laws of God determine those -things which happen despite themselves and to the confusion of all -Bellwattle’s pre-conceived opinions. When, for example, a caterpillar, -in its hazardous struggle for existence, eats into the heart of her -favourite rosebud, that is, for Bellwattle, one of the laws of God. - -Now, the laws of Nature are quite different to this. The laws of -Nature—so Bellwattle, I fancy, would tell you—command those things -which happen of their own accord and to the satisfaction of all -Bellwattle’s pre-conceived anticipations. When, for example, a rose -tree bears a thousand blossoms from May to the end of December; -when the peas are ready to pick in the first week in June, and the -delphiniums have grown yet another inch when, every morning, she steps -out into the garden to look at them—these are, for Bellwattle, the -orderly workings of the laws of Nature. - -I see her point. I sympathise with her distinction and I wish—oh, -_how_ I wish!—that I could think as she does. For it is a fixed idea -with her. Nothing will shake it. And I have never met any one whose -appreciation of Nature is as great as hers. - -Only the other day—so Cruikshank, her husband, tells me—they came -across a wild flower in one of the hedges. In blossom and general -appearance it bore so close a relation to Shepherd’s Needle that at -first sight of it, he dubbed it straight away. On closer examination it -was found that there were no needles; neither could it be Shepherd’s -Purse, for there were no purses. - -“Perhaps it’s a Shepherd’s Needle gone wrong?” suggested Bellwattle, -and Cruikshank tells me he left it at that. The sublime conception of -it was beyond the highest reaches of his imagination. - -On another occasion, when I had the honour to accompany her on her -walk, we heard the raucous note of a bird from somewhere away in the -meadows. - -“I bet you don’t know what that is!” said I, to test her knowledge; but -she answered quite easily— - -“It’s a partridge.” - -“No,” said I, a little disappointed at her mistake, “that’s a -pheasant.” - -“Oh, the same thing,” said Bellwattle, unperturbed. - -“Of course; they both begin with a P,” said I. - -And then she looked at me out of the corner of her eyes and blinked. I -thank God I did not smile. She would never have believed in me again. - -But it is when Bellwattle puts out her gentle hand to help Nature in -her schemes that I think she is most lovable of all. This is the way -with all true women when they love Nature for Nature’s sake. In fact, -it sometimes seems to me, when I watch Bellwattle forestalling God -at every turn, that she is Eve incarnate, the mother of all living. -For to see her in the garden and the country, you would feel that she -almost believes she has suffered the labours of maternity for every -single thing that lives, from the first snowdrop opening its eyes to -the spring to the last little tremulous calf, with its quaking knees, -which the old cow in the farmyard presents to our neighbour over the -way. - -“The poor wee mite,” she says, and she gives it the tips of her fingers -with which to ease its toothless gums. - -But sometimes, as woman will, she carries this motherdom to excess. You -may aid Nature to a point. Men do it in their pre-eminently practical -way, which has science for the dry heart of it. Watch them pruning -rose trees. I believe they take a positive pleasure in the knife. I am -perfectly sure Bellwattle’s garden would be a forest of briars were -it not that Cruikshank keeps locked within a little drawer a knife -with a handle of horn, which he takes out in the month of March, when -Bellwattle goes to pay a visit to her mother up in town. In fact, the -visit is arranged for that purpose. - -“I suppose it has to be done,” she says, packing her trunk. “But it -seems a silly business to me that you should have to cut the arms and -legs off a thing before it can grow properly. They bore roses last -year. Why not this?” - -But where Nature needs no aid, there is Bellwattle ready with her -ever-helping hand. She constitutes herself in the capacity of nurse to -all the birds in the garden. - -Only this spring a linnet built its nest in the yew tree that grows in -our hedge. In an unwise moment Cruikshank informed her of it. She ran -off at once and counted the eggs. Five there were. She had seen eggs -before, but these were the most beautiful that any bird had ever laid -in its life. - -From that moment she became so fussy and excitable that Cruikshank was -at a loss to know what to do with her. - -“She’ll drive the bird away,” said Cruikshank to me. - -“Well, tell her so,” said I. - -“I did.” - -“Well?” - -“She simply said, ‘The bird must know that I don’t mean to do any -harm.’” - -“No doubt she’s right,” said I. “I don’t suppose there’s an animal in -the whole of creation that doesn’t recognise the maternal instinct when -it sees it.” - -That was all very well while there were only eggs to be reckoned with. -But when one morning Bellwattle went to the nest and found five black -little heads, like five little Hottentots grown old and grizzled, with -shrivelled tufts of grey hair, there was no containing her. - -She clapped her hands. She danced up and down and— - -“Oh, the dears!” she cried. “Oh, the little dears! I must give them -something to eat. What will they eat?” - -I looked at Cruikshank. I had come round that morning to count his -rosebuds with him—a weakness of his to which he always succumbs. He -tells me it is the only way he can justify his use of the knife. I -looked at him and he looked at me. - -“This is going too far,” he whispered. “Can’t we put a stop to it?” - -“Leave it to me,” said I, and Bellwattle, hearing our whispers, turned -round and stared at us. - -“What is it?” she asked. - -“We were talking,” said I. - -“Yes, but what about?” - -She was fired with suspicion. - -“We were wondering the best thing you could feed them with.” - -Suspicion fell from her. - -“What do you think?” she asked. “Would corn be any good?” - -Cruikshank blew his nose. - -“A little bit solid,” he said dubiously. - -“You can’t do better than give them the same as their mother does,” I -suggested. - -“What’s that?” she asked. - -“Small worms,” I replied, and I watched her face; “those little thin, -red, raw ones.” - -She walked away, saying nothing. She hates worms. Well, naturally—every -woman does. - -Cruikshank laid an appreciative hand on my shoulder. - -“That’s done it,” he said. “I was afraid she’d go worrying about till -she made the poor little beast desert, but that’s done it.” - -I was not so sure myself. Therefore it surprised me not at all the next -morning when, arriving unexpectedly in the garden, I came upon her -unawares, carrying at arm’s length two little wriggling worms. There -was an expression on her face which will live in my memory for ever. I -concealed myself behind a tree and watched. I could see nothing, but -this is what I heard— - -“Oh, you funny little mites! Bless your little hearts! Here, take -it—take it! Open your mouth, you silly! Not so wide—not so wide. Well, -if you all sit up like that you’ll fall out, you know. Lie down, you -silly little fools; lie down! lie down! Now shut your mouth on it and -you’ll find it. Shut your mouth!” - -And so on and so on, till my laughter gave me away. - -“Were you listening all the time?” she asked. - -I nodded my head. - -“So was the mother linnet,” said I, “up in that lilac tree. What do you -think she’ll do now? She’ll think you’ve been trying to kill them.” - -“No, she won’t,” said Bellwattle. “I left a big worm on the edge of the -nest for her, so that she’ll know I’ve been feeding them.” - -But something worse than that happened. With all this attention paid -to that which by every law of Nature should have been kept a dead -secret, the attention of Bellwattle’s cat was attracted to the spot. -Next morning the nest was found empty and one of those brown little -Hottentots hung dangling in the branches. - -Bellwattle came running down the garden, wringing her hands, the tears -glittering in her eyes, her lips quivering as she told us what had -happened. - -“That comes of meddling with Nature,” began Cruikshank, but I stopped -him very quickly. - -“If you stop her tears and make her angry,” I whispered, “she’ll never -forgive you. Let her cry; it’s the way women learn.” - - - - - X - - MAY EVE - - - - - X - - MAY EVE - - -I was told that some one wanted to see me. - -“Who is it?” I asked. - -They told me it was an old lady, who would give no name. I inquired of -her appearance. “She is an old lady,” they replied, “and very, very -small.” I think I must have guessed, for I asked no further questions. -I told them to show her in. - -If I could only describe to you the way she came into the room! She was -so wee and so tiny. Her eyes sparkled with such brilliancy, she might -have been seven instead of seventy. Then, when she bobbed me a curtsey -as she entered, I could have believed she was a fairy come from the -uttermost ends of the earth to attend a christening. - -There was every good reason for my belief, not the least of which was -that it was May Eve. In Ireland, as you know, the folk dare not go out -after dark on this eventful day. The fairies are in the fields, fairies -good and bad, and heaven only knows what you may not come across if you -wander through the boreens or across the hillside when once the evening -has put on her mantle of grey. - -Not only will you meet them in the fields, moreover; they come to your -very door and milk they ask of you, and fire and water. Now, except -that she asked for nothing, but rather brought a gift to me, my wee -visitor might have been a fairy come out of the land beyond the edge of -Time; come ten million miles to this old farmhouse which hugs itself so -close to the land in the valley between the hills. - -For the moment I felt my heart in my throat. I had added things -together so quickly in my mind that I was sure my belief was right. -She was a fairy. May Eve—the very time of day, when the grey mist is -creeping over the meadows, and the river runs _blip, blip_ between -the reeds—the strange and youthful glitter in her wee brown eyes, -set deep in the hollows of that old and wrinkled face; then last of -all, her bobbing curtsey and the way she smiled at me as though she -had a blessing in her pocket—these were the things I added so swiftly -together in my mind. The result was inevitable. Undoubtedly she was a -fairy. Now see how strange the tricks life plays with you; for, whereas -I had believed in fairies before, I knew now that my belief had been -vain. I had only believed in the idea of them—that was all. I had only -said I believed because I knew I should never see one to contradict the -doubt which still lingered in my heart. That is the way most of us say -our credo. - -“I’ve brought you your travelling-rug,” said she, and she bobbed again. - -“What travelling-rug?” I asked. - -And then, what happened, do you think? I could hardly believe my eyes. -She took from off her arm what seemed at first to me some garment, -lined richly with orange-coloured sateen. My eyes grew wider in wonder -as she laid it down and spread it out upon the floor. - -It was a patchwork quilt! - -Oh, you never did see such a galaxy of colours in all your life! Blues -and reds, greens, yellows and purples, they all jostled each other for -a place upon that square of orange-coloured sateen. All textures they -were, too; some velvet, some silk, and some brocade. It was as if the -caves of Aladdin had been thrown open to me, and I were allowed just -for one moment to peep within. - -But that was not all. - -For when I said: “You’ve finished it, then?” I saw to what purpose -that completion had been made. Right in the centre of all those -dazzling patches was a square of purple—purple that the Emperors used -to wear—while worked across in regal letters of gold there were my own -initials. - -I stared at them. I went down on my knees, looking close into the -stitches to make sure that there was no mistake. Then I gazed up at her. - -“But it’s for me?” said I. - -She nodded her head and her whole face was lighted up with pride and -satisfaction. She was so excited, too. Her eyes danced with excitement. -You know the quaint little twisted attitudes that children get into -when they are giving you a present which they have made themselves; -they are half consumed with fear that you are going to laugh at them -and half consumed with pride in their own handiwork. She was just like -that. - -Lest you do not know already, I should tell you that I had made her my -pensioner as long as she lives, in order to enable her to leave off -work and make this patchwork quilt whereby she might be remembered -by those who slept beneath it when she had gone to sleep. But I had -thought to myself, surely it will be in the family. I had wondered who -would become the proud possessor of it. Imagine my amazement, then, -when I realised that it was my very own. - -“And you’ll think of me when I’m gone, won’t you, sir—when you go to -bed at night?” she said. - -“Think of you?” said I. “You may well call it a travelling-rug. I only -have to wrap this round me and, with the mere wish of it, I shall be in -the land of dreams—millions and millions of miles away.” - -“P’raps I shall be there, too,” said she, clasping her hands. - -“And then we’ll meet,” said I. - -She began folding it up with just that care which she had used in the -making of it. She folded it one way. - -“It’s nice and warm,” said she. - -She doubled it another way. - -“Every one of the squares is lined with sateen.” - -She redoubled it once more. - -“And it’s all padded with cotton wool.” - -When she said that, she stood up with her face all beaming with smiles, -and she laid it in my hands. - -Then I did what I had wanted to do from the very first moment I saw -her. I took her little face in my hands and I kissed the soft, warm, -wrinkled cheeks. - -“When I was very unhappy,” said I, “I used to entertain what is called -a belief in fairies. Now that I know what it is to be happy, I find -them. It’s a very different thing.” - - - - - XI - - THE FLOWER BEAUTIFUL - - - - - XI - - THE FLOWER BEAUTIFUL - - -Limehouse, Plaistow, and the East India Docks—these are places in the -world to wonder about. Yet even there beauty manages to creep in and -grow in a soil where there would seem to be nothing but decay. - -There are societies, I believe, which exist in those quarters, whose -endeavour it is to lift the mind of the East End inhabitant to an -appreciation of what the West End knows to be Art. I am sure that all -their intentions are the sincerest in the world. But what is the good -of Art to a dock labourer and his wife? - -We have only arrived at Art ourselves after generations and -generations of a knowledge of what is beautiful. So absolutely have -we arrived, moreover, that we care no longer for what is beautiful; we -only care for Art. - -That, however, is another question too long to enter into here. But to -teach Art to the East India dock labourer when he knows so little of -beauty, that is a process of putting carts before horses—a reduction to -absurdity which can be seen at once. - -Now when I was a journalist—that is to say, when I wrote lines of -words for a paper which paid me so much per line for the number of -lines which the chief sub-editor was good enough to use—I was one day -despatched to the East End to see if there were any stuff—I speak -colloquially—in a poor people’s flower show. - -“It may be funny,” said the editor. - -“It might be,” said I. - -“Well, make it funny,” said he, for I think he caught the note in my -voice. - -I pocketed my notebook and set off for the East End. Oh, there were all -sorts of flowers and doubtless it looked the funniest of flower shows -you would ever have seen. For example, the qualification necessary -for exhibition was that your plant had been grown in a pot and on a -window sill. It was a qualification not difficult to fulfil. In all my -wanderings there to find the place, no plot of ground did I see, save a -graveyard around a church. But the only things that grew there were the -stones in memory of the dead; and they, begrimed with soot and dirt, -were sorry flowers to grace a tomb. - -You can imagine the pitiful, shrivelled little things that had -struggled to maintain life on the window sills of the houses in those -dingy courts and darksome alleys. Never did I see such an array in all -my life. They would almost, when you thought of country gardens where -the daffodils stand up and brave the April winds, they would almost -have brought the tears to your eyes. - -Little geraniums there were, blinking their poor, tired eyes at the -light. One woman brought a plant of sweet pea, which was climbing so -wearily, yet so anxiously out of its little pot of red up a wee thin -stake of wood. You knew it would never reach the light of the heaven it -so yearned to see. The two faint blossoms that it bore were pale, like -fragile slum children. What would I not have given then to wrench it -out of its poor bed and give it to the great generous sweep of an open -field, with a hedge of hawthorn perhaps on which to lean its tired arms. - -The woman saw my eyes in its direction and she beamed with conscious -pride. - -“It doesn’t look very healthy,” said I. - -She gazed at it and then at me with open wonder in her eyes. - -“Not ’ealthy?” she said—“why, I’ve never seen none looking better. Look -at that pansy over there—it can’t ’old its ’ead up.” - -“But why compare it with the worst one in the show?” I asked—“I didn’t -mean it as a personal criticism when I said it wasn’t healthy. I’m sure -you’ve taken a tremendous amount of care over it.” - -“Care!” she exclaimed—“I should just think I ’ave. It’s ’ad all the -scrapin’s off the road in front of our ’ouse.” - -I passed on, for the judges were coming round and the young curate just -down from the university has not a proper respect for the Press. He has -probably written for it. Now the young curate of the parish was the -principal judge. - -I did not hear what he said about the sweet pea. I had gone further on -to where a woman was standing with her hand affectionately round a pot -from which rose a fine, healthy plant, with rich, deep purple flowers -nestling in the leaves that grew to the very pinnacle of the stem. -There I waited. I wanted to hear what the judges were going to say -about this one. I wanted to hear very much indeed. - -This woman, too, seeing my interest in her exhibit, smiled with -generous satisfaction. - -“Think I’ve got a chanst, sir?” - -“I don’t know,” said I—“it’s fine and strong.” - -“And look at all the blossoms,” said she with enthusiasm—“you wouldn’t -believe it, but my son brought that from the country last year when -’e went for the houtin’. ’E brought it back, dragged up almost to -the roots it was—an’ it was in flower then. ‘Put it in a vawse,’ I -says, but my ole man, ’e says—‘Shove it in a bloomin’ pot,’ ’e says, -‘that’ll grow,’ ’e says—‘it’s got roots to it.’ So we puts it in a pot -and sticks it out on a window sill, and there it is. It died down to -nothin’ last winter, but my ole man, ’e wouldn’t let me throw the pot -away. ‘Give it a chanst of the spring,’ ’e says—‘give it a chanst of -the spring.’ And bless my soul, if we didn’t see little bits of green -sticking up through the mould before the beginning of last March.” - -“It’s been a constant interest since then?” said I. - -“Hinterest! Why my ole man said as I was killin’ it, the way I watered -it and looked after it.” - -“And what do you call it?” I asked. - -“I don’t know what it is,” she said. “Nobody seems to know. We call -it—William.” - -I laughed. “There is a flower called Sweet William,” said I. - -“Perhaps that’s it,” she answered, thoughtfully. “But it don’t -smell—leastways, I’ve never smelt nothin’ from it.” - -I stood aside as the judges came up. When he saw the plant, standing so -bravely and so healthily, and so beautifully in its bright red pot, the -curate laughed out loud. - -“Look here,” said he to one of the other judges, who came up and -laughed as well. - -“Do you know what you’ve got here, my good woman?” asked the curate. - -She shook her head. - -“Well, we can’t give you anything for this—it’s only a common nettle—a -red dead nettle.” - -“But it’s a beautiful colour—ain’t it?” said she, with a flame of red -in her face. - -“Oh—it’s a beautiful colour, no doubt,” replied the curate easily—“so, -I hope, is every plant that grows in the highways and the byways.” - -“Well, then, why shouldn’t it get a prize?” she demanded. - -“Because it’s only a common dead nettle,” said the curate, very softly, -turning away wrath. - -“But it’s ’ealthier and stronger and finer than any o’ them other -flowers,” said she. - -“Quite so—no doubt—you might expect that. These others are cultivated -flowers, you see. This is only a common dead nettle.” - -I saw the editor when I returned. - -“No stuff worth having,” said I—disconsolately, for I was thinking of -my few short lines. - -“Nothing funny at all?” he asked. - -“Nothing,” said I, and I told him about the red dead nettle. - -“But I think that’s dammed funny,” he said. - -“Do you?” I said. - - - - - XII - - THE FEMININE APPRECIATION OF MATHEMATICS - - - - - XII - - THE FEMININE APPRECIATION OF MATHEMATICS - - -If I could approach mathematics with the same spirit as do ninety-eight -women out of a hundred, I might be rather good at them. As it is, my -power of will in face of algebraical figures, in face even of numbers -that exceed the functions of the simplest forms of arithmetic, my power -of will stands aghast. I can do nothing. - -Now, ninety-eight women out of a hundred are far more ignorant of the -mere rudiments of mathematics than am I; yet with an instinct which -I would give my soul to possess they can solve problems and carry on -the ordinary business of life with an ability that is little short of -marvellous. - -Truly, a little learning is a dangerous thing, and most especially -when that learning is of mathematics. If once you have tried to weigh -hydrogen on an agate-balanced scale, you are for ever unfitted for the -common-or-garden mathematical exigencies of life. Now this is where a -woman has all the pull. The most that she has ever had to calculate the -weight of is a pound of flour or seven and a half pounds of sirloin -already weighed and attested by the butcher. When, then, it comes to -weighing the baby on the scale-pans in the kitchen, she will fling on -the weights with such a degree of confidence that the result is bound -to be correct. You and I, on the other hand, would approach the matter -with such delicacy of touch—believing, and quite rightly, that a baby -was of far more importance than all the immeasurable quantities of -hydrogen in the world—with such delicacy and care should we approach -it that the poor infant would have caught its death of cold and be -in a comatose condition of exhaustion before we had decided that the -scale-pan was clean or the weights were in proper condition to be used. - -This smattering of general education is a fatal business. It unfits men -for all the real and useful demands of life. - -Only the other day, my friend Cruikshank broke a brass candlestick and -looked up helplessly from the wreck. - -“Where on earth can I get any solder from?” said he. - -“What’s solder?” asked Bellwattle, his wife. - -The question was so direct that, for the moment, it confused him. - -“Solder?” he repeated. “Solder? Oh, it’s stuff to mend metal with.” - -“I’ll do it with sealing-wax,” said Bellwattle. - -Cruikshank laughed and, as he said to me afterwards— - -“I gave it to her to do. It’s best to let women learn by experience. -Sealing-wax!” And he laughed knowingly at me. I knew he meant it -kindly, so I laughed with him; but the next day I made inquiries about -the candlestick. - -“How did she get on?” I asked. - -“By Jove, she’s done it,” said he. “It won’t bear much knocking about, -of course, but it stands as firm as a rock. It’s only a woman,” he -added, “who’d think of mending a brass candlestick with sealing-wax.” - -“It’s only a woman who’d succeed,” said I. - -But this has nothing to do with mathematics, and it is of mathematics -that I want to speak. - -If you have any interest in photography, you know how tricksy a matter -is the exposure of a plate. It is tricksy to you and I will tell you -why. It is because your academic study of the process has taught you -that the two-thousandth part of a second is sufficient exposure in -order to get cloud effects. Conceive, then, how your brain whirls with -figures when you come to take a photograph of an interior or a portrait -of some one sitting in a room. I will not remind you of the tortures -which your mind must suffer, nor the result of such torture when at -last you develop the plate in the dark-room—both are too painful to -speak about. Now, a woman knows nothing about this two-thousandth -part of a second. She would not believe there were such a measurable -fraction of time if you told her. She just exposes the plate; that is -all. - -One day I had to get a photograph taken in a hurry. I marched into -a photographer’s in the Strand. There was first a narrow passage, -hung with frames filled with photos of young men and young women -looking their worst in their best. Then I was confronted by a flight -of stairs which I mounted, to find myself in a great big room hung -also with photographs—photographs of family groups, of babies in their -characteristic attitudes as their mothers had given them to the world. -Every conceivable sort of photograph was there, but the room, except -for an American roll-topped desk near the window, was empty. - -I coughed, and the head of a young girl—not more than twenty years of -age—popped up above the desk. - -“Can Mr. Robinson take my photograph this morning?” I asked. - -“Mr. Robinson is not in at present,” she replied. - -“I rather wanted my photograph taken in a hurry,” said I. - -“Oh, you can have it taken,” said she. “Would you like it done at once?” - -“At once, if you please,” I answered. - -She rose from her seat behind the roll-topped desk and she walked to -the door. - -“Then will you step into the waiting-room?” she asked. - -I obeyed. The waiting-room had a mirror and a pair of brushes. When I -thought of the families whose portraits I had seen within—I refrained. - -“I shall do,” said I, “as I am.” - -After a few moments’ delay there was a knock on the door. I opened it. -There again was the little lady waiting for me. - -“Will you step up to the studio, please?” she said, and I received -the impression from her voice of anxious assistants waiting in rows -to receive me, ready to take my features and record them upon a -photographic plate for the benefit of posterity. - -Up into the studio, then, I went; a gaunt, great place with -white-blinded windows that stared up to the dull, grey sky. But it was -empty. I looked in vain for the assistants—there were none. And when -she began to wheel the camera into place I stood amazed. - -“Are you the whole business of Robinson and Co.?” I asked. - -She smiled encouragingly. - -“Mr. Robinson is out,” said she. - -“I don’t believe there is a Mr. Robinson,” I replied. - -She laughed gleefully at that and repeated that there was such a -person, but he was out. - -“And does he leave you to the responsibility of the entire premises?” I -asked. - -“Yes,” said she. - -“What do you do if any one comes into the portrait gallery downstairs -while you’re up here?” - -“Oh, that’s all right,” she replied confidently; “they don’t often -come.” - -I let her fix that abominable instrument of torture at the back of -my neck. Her fingers tickled me as she did it, but I said nothing. I -was trying in my mind to assess the value of this business of Mr. -Robinson. It was no easy job. I had not got beyond single figures when -she walked back to the camera. - -I glanced up at the leaden sky. - -“It’s rather dull,” said I; “what exposure are you going to give?” - -“Oh, I think once will be enough.” - -“Once what?” I asked. - -“Just once,” said she. - -“But, good heavens!” I exclaimed, and I thought of the two-thousandth -part of a second—“it must be one of something. Is it seconds or minutes -or half-hours or what?” - -She burst out laughing. - -“I don’t know what it is,” she replied, as if it were the simplest -matter in the world, “only Mr. Robinson says my once is as good as his -twice.” - -“Is it?” said I. “As good as his twice? What a splendid once it must -be!” - -Now that is what I mean. That is the feminine appreciation of -mathematics. I wish I had it. It may not be of much service on the -office stool, but in a world of men and women it is invaluable. - - - - - XIII - - THE MATERNAL INSTINCT - - - - - XIII - - THE MATERNAL INSTINCT - - -Some things there are which you may count upon for ever. The fittest -will always survive, despite the million charities to aid the -incompetent; the maternal instinct will always be the deepest human -incentive, no matter who may gibe at the sentiment which clings about -little children. - -Now, if it be true that Art is the voice of the Age in which we live; -that the painter paints what the eye of the Age has seen, the singer -sings the songs which the Age has heard, the man of letters writes the -thoughts which have passed through the mind of the Age—if all this is -true, then how strange and unreal an Age this must be. - -For if for one moment you chose to consider it, there are but few -painters, few singers, few writers who express the immutable laws of -life. Among writers most of all, perhaps, this is an age which devotes -itself to the unfittest. The physically unfit, the morally unfit, the -socially unfit—these are the characters which fill the pages of those -who write to-day. - -The old hero, the man of great strength, of great honour, of -great courage, he no longer exists in literature. I am told he is -old-fashioned, a copy-book individual, a puppet set in motion with no -subtle movements of character, but with wires too plainly seen, worked -by a hand too obviously visible. There is no Art in him, I am told. I -am glad there is not. He would lose all the qualities of heroship for -me if there were. - -In times gone by, though, this old-fashioned hero was just as real -a man as is the hero of to-day. In times gone by this hero was not -unnatural, not wanting in character or humanity when he slept with -the maid of his choice, a naked sword between them guarding the -pricelessness of her virginity. But now—to-day—how wanting in character -do you imagine would he be thought for such a deed as that? How -painfully unreal? - -Is this the fault of the Age? Or is it the fault of the writer? Is it -that the Age cannot produce a real hero? Or is it that he is there in -numbers in the midst of us and the man of letters has not the clearness -of vision to see him? For it is not the fittest, but the unfittest who -survives in the pages of literature now. - -And thus it is also when you find treatment in fiction of that -immutable law, the maternal instinct. If in the novel of to-day -you meet the character of a woman with a child, you may be fairly -confident that it will be shown to you sooner or later in the ensuing -pages how easily she will desert it for the love of some man other than -her husband, or how, loving that man, her soul will be wracked ere she -bids it farewell. But, tortured or not, she will go. No matter how -skilfully she is shown to repent of it later, still she will go. - -Now, is that the fault of the Age, or is it the fault of the writer? In -danger or in love, do women desert their children? It may happen that -they do, but that is a very different matter. All that glitters is not -gold—all that happens is not real. Yet it seems to be the choice of -the modern writer to seize upon these isolated happenings, give them a -coating of reality, and offer them to the public as life. - -But life is not a narrow business where things just happen and that -is all. Life is the length and breadth of this great universe -where things are, in relation to the whole system of suns and moons -and stars. Now the maternal instinct is a law without which this -wonderfully regulated system would shatter and crumble into a thousand -little pieces. - -But no one extols it in this age of ours. Talk of it and you are dubbed -a sentimentalist at once. Write of it and the cheap irony of critics is -heaped upon you. Yet there seems no greater and no grander struggle to -me than when these inevitable laws march through the invading army of -vermin and of parasites to their inevitable end of victory. - -The other day I witnessed a most thrilling spectacle: a mother -defending her child from death—a duel where the odds against victory -were legion. - -In the hedge that shields my garden from the road there is a thrush’s -nest. I saw her build it. She was very doubtful about me at first; -played all sorts of tricks to deceive me; decoyed my attention away -while her mate was a-building; sent him to distract my mind while she -was putting those finishing touches to the house of which only a woman -knows the secret—and knows it so well. - -I think before it was completed she had lost much of her distrust in -me, for I did nothing to disturb her. It was not in my mind to see what -she would do if things happened. I just wanted everything to be—that -was all. And so, after a time, she would hop about the lawn where I was -sitting, taking me silently thereby into her confidence, making me feel -that I was not such an outcast of Nature as she had supposed me to be -at first. - -I tried to live up to that as well as I could. Whenever I passed the -nest and saw her uplifted beak, her two watchful eyes gazing alert over -the rim of it, I assumed ignorance at the expense of her thinking what -an unobservant fool I must be. But there were always moments when she -was away from home and I, stealing to the nest, found opportunity for -discovering how things were going on. Five fine blue eggs were laid -at last. I think she must have guessed that I counted them, for one -morning she caught me with my hand in the nest. I slunk away feeling a -sorry sort of fool for my clumsy interference. She flew at once to see -what I had done. I guess the terror that must have filled her heart. -But when she had counted them herself and found her house in order, she -came out on to the lawn and looked at me as though I were one of those -strange enigmas which life sometimes offers to every one of us. - -At length one day, when I called and gently put in my hand—leaving my -card, as you might say—the eggs were there no longer. In place of them -was a soft, warm mass like a heap of swan’s-down, palpitating with life. - -I met her later on the lawn, when she perked her head up at me and as -good as said: - -“I suppose you know I’ve got other things to do now, besides looking -beautiful.” - -But I thought she looked splendid. What is more, I told her so, and -it seemed just for the moment as if she understood, as if there came -back into her eyes that look of grateful vanity which she wore last -spring when her mate was wooing her with his songs from the elm tree -across the way. But the next moment she had put all flattery behind her -and was haggling with a worm, not as to price no doubt, but haggling -nevertheless for possession. - -Well, the household went on splendidly, until one day I saw my cat -sitting on the path below the nest staring up into the bushes. - -“You little devil!” I shouted, and she went galloping down the garden -with a stone trundling at her heels. - -I kept a closer watch after that and, one morning, hearing a great -noise as of the songs of many birds while I was at my breakfast, I just -stepped out to see what was happening. - -I was held spellbound by what I saw. For there, on the path again -below the nest, sat the cat and two yards from her—scarcely more—stood -my little mother-thrush, her eyes dilated with terror, her feathers -ruffled and swelling on her throat, singing—singing—singing, as though -her heart would burst. - -It can only last a moment, I thought. One spring and the cat will have -her. But, no! Before the greatness of that courage, before the glory -of that song, the cat was silenced and made impotent to move. There, -within a few feet of her was her prey. With one swift rush, with one -fell stroke of her velvet paw, she could have laid it low. But she -was up against a law greater than that which nerves the hunter to his -cunning. - -For five minutes, with throat swelling and eyes like little pins of -fire, the mother sang her song of fearless maternity. The glorious -notes rang from her in ceaseless trills and tireless cadences. I have -heard a singer at Covent Garden, when the whole house rose as one -person and applauded her to the very roof, but never have I heard such -a song as this, which put to silence the very laws of God that His -greatest law might triumph. - -For five minutes she sang and then, with crouching steps, the cat -turned tail and crawled away into the garden. The thrush ceased her -singing and fluttered exhausted up to the nest. - -And they write of women deserting their children! - - - - - XIV - - FROM MY PORTFOLIO - - - - - XIV - - FROM MY PORTFOLIO - - -He has just reached his eightieth year. Eighty times—not conscious -perhaps of them all—he has seen the wall-flowers blossom in his old -garden; well-nigh eighty times has he thinned out his lettuces and his -spring onions, pruned his few rose trees, weeded his gravel paths. - -Now he is bent with rheumatism; his rounded back and stooping head, -his tremulous knees in their old corduroy breeches, are but sorry -promises of what he was. Yet with what I have been told and what I can -easily imagine, it is plainly that I can see the fine stalwart fellow -he has been. Until the age of seventy-two he was the carrier for our -village. How many journeys he made, fair weather or foul, always up -to the stroke of time, never forgetting the message for this person, -the purchase for that, they will all tell you here in the village. I -know nothing of his life as a carrier. It is of an old man I give you -my picture—an old man awaiting the coming of death with a clear eye and -a sturdy heart, enjoying the last moments of life while he may, and -facing those sorrows and deprivations which come with old age in a way -that many a younger man might learn and profit from. - -Only a short time since, his wife departed upon her last journey. The -winter came and snatched her from him just as the first frost nips the -last of the autumn flowers. Her frail white petals drooped and then -they fell. He was left to press them between the leaves of that book of -Life which, with trembling fingers, he still clutched within his hand. - -He was too ill to follow her body to its quiet little bed in that -corner of God’s acre where it was made; but I can feel the loneliness -in the heart of him when he turned and turned with wakeful eyes that -night, stretching out his knotted fingers to the empty place beside -him—the place in that bed which had been hers for so many happy years -and was hers no longer. - -They thought he would never pull through that winter after his loss; -and indeed he must have fought manfully with that undaunted courage of -a man who clings to life, no matter what misfortune, because it is his -right—his heritage. For imagine the long, sleepless nights which must -have followed the departure of his gentle bed-fellow! Think of those -weary, endless silences which once had been filled by the whisperings -of their voices! For in bed and at night-time, the old people always -whisper. It is as though they were deeply conscious of the invisible -presence of God and His angels. They talk in hushed voices as though -they were in church. - -I can hear her saying— - -“John.” - -“Yes,” I can hear him reply. - -“Are you awake?” - -“Yes—are you?” - -“I am. Isn’t it a windy night?” - -“’Tis a fine storm—and I never put in they pea-sticks. I was going to -do ’en to-morrow.” - -And then I can hear her little whisper of consolation— - -“Maybe they’ll be safe till then. They’re sturdy plants.” At which I -can see him turning over in his bed and passing into one of those short -hours of sleep into which Nature so gently divides the night for the -old people. - -Then think of the long and weary silences through which he must have -endured before he grew accustomed to the absence of his bed-fellow. -For there seem to me few things more pathetic yet more beautiful than -two old people who have long passed the passions of youth, sharing -their bed together, with the simplicity and innocence of little -children. I can, too, so readily conceive how dread the terror of the -night becomes when one of them is taken and the other left. I can hear -the sounds at night that frighten, the storms that rattle the tiles on -the old roof making the one who is left behind stretch out his groping -hand for the trembling touch of another hand in vain. - -Yet through all this he survived. Cruelly though his heart had been -dealt with, he still retained the whole spirit of courage in his soul. -With all its chill winds and bitter frosts, he braved out that winter -and two years have passed now since his wife died. - -I see him nearly every day in his garden, walking up and down the -paths, picking out a weed here, a weed there. Two walking-sticks he -has to help him on his journeys. They are called simply, number one and -number two. And when it is a fine morning, with the sun riding fiercely -in a cloudless sky, his daughter will say to him— - -“You need only take number one to-day.” - -So he takes number one and a look comes into those child’s eyes of his -as though he would say— - -“Ah—you see I’m not done for yet. There’s many an old fellow of eighty -can’t get along without two sticks to help him.” - -One day, too, this summer, I found him working with a bill-hook in his -garden. The grass had grown up high under the quick-set hedge on one of -the paths. He was clearing it all away. - -“Must keep the little place tidy, sir,” he said, with a bright twinkle -in his eye. “They grasses do grow up so quick there’d be no seeing -the path at all.” Then with little suppressed grunts of his breath -to every swing of the bill-hook, he went on steadily with his work, -leaning heavily upon number one with the other hand. - -Rather strenuous labour you would think for an old man of eighty to be -doing. But as he worked, I saw that all the stems of the grass had been -cut for him beforehand with a scythe. He was only sweeping it together -into heaps with the aid of a bill-hook. So long as it was a bill-hook -it seemed man’s labour to him. - -I try sometimes to find out what he thinks about life and its swiftly -approaching end. But he is very reticent to speak of it—so unlike our -little serving-maid, who takes her evenings out alone, and when I asked -her why she did not prefer company, replied— - -“I like to think, sir.” - -“What of?” said I. - -“Of life and the night,” said she. - -But if he thinks of life and the night, as indeed I am sure he must, he -tells his thoughts to no one. It was only once, when I was praising the -scent and the show of his glorious wall-flowers, that he said to me— - -“I like to think they’re the best this year that I’ve ever had. I grow -them all from our own seed, sir. I save it up myself every year. And I -like to think this year that they’re the very best, because you know, -sir, I may not see them again.” - -I tried to imagine what would be the state of my own mind, if I thought -I should never see wall-flowers again. I wondered could I say it with -such courage, such resignation as he. - -To never see wall-flowers again! It seems in a nonsensical, childish -way to me to sum up the whole tragedy—if tragedy there really be—in -Death. It seems, moreover, to give just that little stroke of the -brush, that little line of the pen in completion of this thumb-nail -portrait of mine. An old man in an old garden that he loves, telling -himself that his wall-flowers are the best that year of all—telling -himself bravely night after night when he goes to bed, morning after -morning when he rises to the new day—which is one more day nearer the -end—telling himself that they are the best this year of all, because he -may not see them any more. - -To never see wall-flowers again! - - - - - XV - - AN OLD STRING BONNET - - - - - XV - - AN OLD STRING BONNET - - -I care not what it is, so long as it be old; but if an object has -passed through other hands than mine, it gathers an indefinable charm -about it. Old china, old cups and saucers, whether they be ugly or -beautiful, are priceless by reason of that faint murmuring of other -lives which clings around them. In the mere tinkling of the china as it -is brought in upon the tray, I can hear a thousand conversations and -gossipings coming dimly to my ears out of the wealth of years which is -heaped upon them. - -For this reason would I always use the old china which it is my good -fortune to possess. A breakfast-table, a tea-table spread with china -which can tell you nothing than that it has but lately come from the -grimy potteries, makes poor company to sit down with. Yet let it be but -Spode, or Worcester, or Lowestoft, and every silence that falls upon -you is filled with the whisperings of these priceless companions. - -I have no sympathy with the collector who locks his china away because -it is rare and worth so much in pounds and shillings and pence. He is -no more than a gaoler, incarcerating in an eternal prison the very best -friends he has, and just, if you please, because they are his. - -What if there is the risk of their being broken! A rivet here, a -rivet there will make them speak again. I have a Spode milk-jug with -forty-five rivets in it and it is more eloquent to me than all the -modern china you could find, however perfect it may be. In fact, I -would sooner have a piece that has been mended. It shows that in those -long-ago days, where all romance lies hiding for us now, it shows that -they cared for their treasures and would not let them be discarded -because they happened upon evil times. I have also an old blue and -white tea-pot with a silver spout. A dealer sniffed at it the other day. - -“May have been good once,” said he. - -“’Tis better now,” said I. “So would you and I be if we’d been through -the wars.” - -“Do you mean to say you’d prefer me with a wooden arm?” he asked. - -“I would,” said I. “You’d be a better man. You couldn’t grasp so much.” - -But the other day I found a treasure. Miss B——, the old spinster -lady in whose farm I have my little dwelling, is by way of being the -reincarnation of a jackdaw. She has cupboards and chests in every room -in which lie hidden a thousand old things which have been in her family -for years. Yesterday, in turning out an old drawer, I came across a -quaint little contrivance that looked like a string bag, only it was -beautifully made in three parts, all composed of a wonderful lace-work -of fine string and knitted together, each one by a delicate stitching -of white horsehair. - -I brought it out into the kitchen, tenderly in my hand. - -“Whatever is this?” I asked. - -She took it in her fingers and looked at it for a moment, then, -inconsequently, she laid it down upon the kitchen table. - -“That—” said she, “that was my great, great grandmother’s bonnet. She -wore it up till the time she died.” - -“Why, it’s nearly two hundred years old!” I exclaimed. - -“If it’s a day,” said she. - -I gazed at it for some moments. Then suddenly it seemed to move, to -raise itself from the table. Another instant and it was spread out, -decked with a tiny piece of pink ribbon, on the head of an old lady—but -oh, so old! Her silvery white hair thrust out in little curls and -coils through the mesh of the string, and there she was, with a great -broad skirt and big puff sleeves bobbing me a curtsey before my very -eyes. - -I turned to Miss B—— - -“Do you see?” I asked. - -“See what?” said she. - -“Your great, great grandmother.” - -“I never saw her in my life,” she replied. - -“But under the string bonnet!” I exclaimed. - -“Goodness! That ’ud fall to pieces if any one tried to put it on now. -It’s no good to me. You can have it if you like.” - -Then I understood why she could not see her great, great grandmother, -and, with a feeling of compassion for her loneliness, I took the old -lady into my arms. Miss B—— went to the sink to peel some potatoes. - -“You’re perfectly beautiful,” I whispered, and her old face wrinkled -all over with smiles. - -“They used to tell me that when I was a girl,” said she. - -“You’re more beautiful now,” said I. - -“What’s that you’re saying?” asked Miss B—— over her shoulder. - -“What I should have said,” said I, “if I’d lived two hundred years -ago.” - - - - - XVI - - THE NEW MALADY - - - - - XVI - - THE NEW MALADY - - -In every age there is a new disease—there is a new malady—a strange -sickness. The whole army of medical science goes out to meet it and -there is pitched a battle wherein lives are sacrificed, honour made and -lost. But in the end the glorious banner of medical skill is generally -carried triumphant from the field. Some old foes truly there are who -are not conquered yet, with whom a guerilla warfare is continuously -being waged. Never can they be brought into the open field; never can -they be come upon at close quarters. Sometimes in a skirmish they are -routed and put to flight; yet ever they return, lessened in numbers, no -doubt, weakened in strength, but still a marauding enemy to mankind. - -Then apart from these, there is that new malady, which, with its stern -inevitability, the age always brings amidst its retinue of civilisation. - -It would seem, notwithstanding the dictum of the Bab Ballad-maker, that -they are not always blessings which follow in Civilisation’s train. -One disease after another has come amongst us from out the ranks of -civilisation. And now appears the latest of all, seizing upon its -victims under the very walls of that fortress of medical science. - -It is the disease of bearing children, the disease of making life. - -We all know how science with its anæsthetics, with its deftly made -instruments and its consummate skill, is attacking the enemy from every -quarter. Yet the fatality of the sickness is steadily growing. More -women die in childbirth now than ever fell its victims in the days -when the services of a common mid-wife were all that were at their -disposal. - -It is terrible sometimes to think how rapidly this most natural of -all functions—since upon it hangs the existence of all people in the -world—it is terrible to think how rapidly it is shaping into the -awesome features of a disease. Women are as ashamed of its conditions -now as they would be if smallpox had pitted their delicate skins. -They speak of it as of some dreadful operation—which indeed it has -become—and, instead of glorying over a possession which they alone -command, they will talk of it as a curse which, suffering alone, they -should be given compensation for. They ask for the vote! Great God! -As if the vote could compensate them for the loss of bearing children -as the God of nature meant they should be borne! As if any form of -compensation could ease such a loss as that! - -Success and civilisation—these are the two subtle poisons from the -effects of which we are all suffering. Nothing fails like success! -Nothing degrades so much as civilisation! - -A little while ago a woman who had given birth to a fine child told me -quite frankly that she herself was not going to feed it. - -“Do you mean suckle it?” said I. - -She did not like that word and she shuddered. - -“You object to the use of the word?” I suggested. - -“Is it _quite_ nice?” she asked. - -I shrugged my shoulders. - -“Words are only ugly,” said I, “when they express ugly deeds. I can -understand if you find the deed ugly you don’t like the word.” - -She answered that she did not mind the thing itself. “You see,” said -she, “it’s quite impossible for me to do it. We’ve been asked up—my -husband and I—to Chatsworth to meet the King, and it would be foolish -to lose such an opportunity—wouldn’t it? I can’t go up like this, so I -must have a sort of operation.” - -“So you’ve made up your mind?” said I. - -She screwed up her eyes as her conscience faltered in her breast. - -“Practically,” she replied. - -“Well, if not quite,” I suggested, “write to the King, and ask him -whether he would sooner meet you at Chatsworth or have a stalwart son -given to the country.” - -She told me I made the most absurd remarks she had ever heard from any -one and she walked away. “Besides,” said she, over her shoulder, “it’s -a daughter.” - -I found her name amongst those invited to Chatsworth to meet the King. -I saw her picture in a photograph of the Chatsworth group and she -looked beautiful. Her figure was that of a child who had never known -maternity. - -There are traitors even in the camp of medical science, thought I. -Nothing degrades science so much as the march of civilisation—no social -woman fails so utterly as when she succeeds in meeting the King. - -I have a friend, in the tiny chintz parlour of whose cottage in the -country a certain collection of prints adorn the walls. For the most -part they are steel engravings, valuable enough in their way. But it is -the subject common to them all, rather than the intrinsic value of each -picture, which has persuaded my friend to their collection. One and -all, with the tenderest treatment you can imagine, they portray a baby -feeding at the gentle breast of its mother. No other pictures in the -room are there but these, and there must at least be a fair dozen of -them. You cannot fail but notice them. The similarity of their subject -alone would force itself upon your mind. - -Yet, would you believe it, the ladies who come there to call upon my -friend’s wife, regard them with horror and alarm. As their eyes fall -upon them, they turn sharply away, only to be met with yet another -of those improper pictures upon an opposite wall. With far greater -equanimity and even interest would they look upon a series of Hogarth’s -prints. The vicar of the parish, too, was alarmed. He asked my friend -whether he did not think that such pictures did harm. - -“Of course I know,” said he, “it is a natural function and is all right -in its proper place. I don’t mean to say that it would do harm to you -or to me, of course—we’re old enough to discriminate. But younger -people are apt to look at these things in a different light.” - -“Do you know that as a fact?” asked my friend quietly. - -Now, the vicar was a truthful man, who had read that the devil is the -father of all liars. He held his head thoughtfully for a moment. - -“It is what I imagine would be the case,” said he. “On which account I -always disapprove of those pictures which, what you might say, expose -the body of a woman in the so-called interests of Art. With a man and -his wife—if I may say so—such things are different; but to make a show -of a woman’s nakedness, that is to me a form of prostitution at which -honestly I shudder every time it comes my way.” - -“I see—I see your point,” said my friend. “If there is to be -prostitution, let it be that of the wife. I see your point. But why -call marriage a sacrament? And why solemnise it in a church? I should -have thought the meat-market had been a better place.” - -Great heavens! No wonder the disease is spreading! No wonder is it -that women approach the hour of deliverance in fear and trembling, -for neither do they fit themselves for it, nor are they proud of the -birthright which is theirs alone. For the sake of appearances, because -they are not well enough off, because of inconvenience, they will give -up all they possess for the mess of pottage. Civilisation indeed has -made a strange place of the world. There are few men and women left in -it now. - -Now and again you may run across a true mother, but all the rest of -women that you meet are only fit to be called by a name that is indeed -too ugly to write. - -A true woman I heard of only the other day. She was brought to her -bed of childbirth. In the room there was that still hush, the hush -of awe when out of the “nowhere into here” the something which is -life is about to be conjured out of the void of nothingness which is -death. For long, trembling moments all was still. The faint whispers -and muffled sounds only made the quietness yet more potent. And then, -suddenly, out of the silence, came the shrill living, trumpet-cry of a -new voice—the voice of a little child. - -The woman stretched her arms and smiled, as if in that cry she had -heard the voice of God. - -“You must lie still,” they whispered in her ear—“there is yet another -child.” - -“Thank God!” she moaned, and the silence fell round them once more. - - - - - XVII - - BELLWATTLE AND THE DIGNITY OF MEN - - - - - XVII - - BELLWATTLE AND THE DIGNITY OF MEN - - -We were all sitting out in the garden having tea under the nut -trees—Bellwattle, Cruikshank and I. They use the old Spode -tea-service—apple green and gold and black—whenever tea is taken out -of doors, and I would give anything to describe to you the pictures -that rise in my mind with the sight of that quaint old tea-service, -the smell of the sweetbriars and the scent of the stocks. They are -indescribable, those pictures. No one will ever paint them to my -satisfaction, neither with colours nor with words. They are composed -with such historical accuracy, are so redolent of their time, that it -would need somebody with a memory reaching over one hundred and fifty -years to trace them as they appear to me. Now, if my memory reaches -over five minutes it is doing well—and many there are the same as I. - -The characters I see are arrayed in costumes so befitting to their -period, they speak of things so faithful to their day, that no man, -unless he had lived in the eighteenth century, could possibly reproduce -them. I see their dainty costumes—I hear their quaint speech, but not -one jot or one tittle of it all could I put down upon paper. Yet I know -those pictures are true as true can be. - -Why is this? Is there a memory within us which harks back to lives -we have lived before? Is it by the same reason we feel that certain -incidents have come to us again out of the far-off past? I was -pondering over it all that afternoon, when suddenly Bellwattle broke -the silence which surrounded us. - -“Why were elephants called elephants?” she asked. - -Cruikshank—of whom, if it cannot be said that he knows the woman in his -wife, at least knows her queer little habits—passed his cup without -amazement for more tea. But I—well, it took my breath away. - -“Whatever made you ask that?” I inquired. - -She shrugged her shoulders as eloquently as she could, being occupied -with Cruikshank’s third cup of tea. - -“I don’t know,” she replied—“Who called them elephants, anyhow?” - -To this second question, Cruikshank was as ready as if he were at -Sunday school. - -“Adam,” said he. “Adam named all the beasts and he called them -elephants.” - -“But why elephants?” asked Bellwattle. - -Cruikshank looked at me across the little garden table. There was an -appeal in his eyes, as though he would say, “Go on—I’ve answered mine. -It’s your turn now. Don’t let her think we don’t know.” - -For you must understand that, in their dealings with women, there is -a certain freemasonry amongst men. If by nature their sex is debarred -from the greatest of all functions, they must at least steal dignity -by the assumption of great wisdom. No man may ever admit ignorance to -a woman. So long as her questions have nothing to do with instinct, he -will answer them, whether or no he tells her the greatest balderdash -you ever heard. All men in their vows of masonry must swear to do -this. We should be in a sorry way if women did not look up to us for -knowledge. - -When then I received this secret sign from Cruikshank, I did the best -thing I could for the sex—I answered at a hazard. - -“He called it an elephant,” said I, “because the impression he received -of its size may have suggested that word to his mind. He may for -example have been trodden upon by one of those huge brutes—in which -case,” said I, “the impression would have been a vivid one.” - -“If one of them trod on me, it wouldn’t suggest the word elephant,” -said Bellwattle. “I should think of squash.” - -“Probably you would,” said Cruikshank; “but then you’re not Adam.” By -which I think he meant to convey the mental superiority of his sex. - -Therefore—“She might be Eve,” said I. - -Bellwattle closed one eye and looked at me. - -I met her gaze steadily and then, as suddenly, she put another question -to us. - -“Did Adam name everything?” - -“Every single thing,” said Cruikshank. - -“All the insects?” - -“Every blessed one.” - -“Why did he call it Daddy Long Legs, then?” - -Cruikshank seized the opportunity. - -“That was what its long legs suggested to him.” - -“But why Daddy?” said Bellwattle very quickly. - -Cruikshank dipped into his third cup of tea, drowning all possible -answer. - -“Why Daddy?” she repeated. - -“Because,” said I, “Adam was the father of all living.” - -For the moment Cruikshank forgot his table manners and choked. It -took a great deal of serious assurance on our part then to convince -Bellwattle that we were in earnest. For we were in earnest. No man is -so serious, or so put upon his mettle as when a woman bows to him for -knowledge. There comes that look into his face as well I remember -would creep into the face of the master when I was at school. No doubt -it is the same now. The vanity of men does not alter in ten years, or -in ten thousand for that matter. - -I can see now the German master—that is to say the stolid Englishman -who taught us German—I can see him now reading out a sentence for us to -translate into the language. - -“My heart,” read he, most solemnly, “my heart is in the Highlands—my -heart is not here.” - -And there was such pathos, such a tone of exile in his voice, that I -was prompted to ask him whether, under the circumstances, he could give -his proper attention to the class. - -“Might we not shut up our books,” said I—“straight away?” - -The look that came into his face then was the look—exaggerated a little -perhaps—which comes into the faces of most men when the dignity of -their great wisdom is upset. Cruikshank and I, then, were struggling -for our dignity against the fire of Bellwattle’s questions. It was no -good talking about the evolution of language to her. She would never -have understood a word of it. Now, when a man tells a woman anything -which she does not understand, she is just as likely to think him a -consummate fool. And a man will always be a fool rather than be thought -one. - -We were trying, therefore, to answer Bellwattle as she would have -answered herself. In other words, we were making fools of ourselves in -order that Bellwattle should think us wise. - -It was here that Cruikshank tempted providence. Doubtless he thought we -were getting on so well that we could afford to be generous with our -information, for in quite an uncalled-for way he volunteered to tell -her more. - -“Is there anything else,” said he, “that you want to know?” - -She nodded her head and around the corners of her lips I believe I -caught the suspicion of a smile. - -“If Adam called it a cow,” she began—— - -“He did,” interrupted Cruikshank. “In those days it probably made that -sort of noise.” - -“Then why,” said Bellwattle, giving him never a moment to retract, “why -do they call it a _vache_ in France?” - -We all looked at each other—I at Cruikshank, Cruikshank at me, and -Bellwattle alternately at both of us. - -After a pregnant pause, Cruikshank began to temporise. - -“That’s very like a woman,” said he—“you’re going into another issue -altogether.” - -“Now,” said I, “you’re coming to Bible history.” - -“Yes, that’s Bible history,” repeated Cruikshank, “you’re going back -to the Tower of Babel.” - -“Is that where they wanted to get up to Heaven?” she asked. - -We nodded our heads emphatically. - -“And it all smashed up, and they began talking like a crowd of -tourists?” - -“Something like that,” we agreed. - -“Then, don’t you see,” went on Cruikshank, finding his feet once more. -“Then they all separated, went into different countries, and when they -saw a cow in France they called it _vache_—it’s quite simple.” - -“Oh, yes, I see that part of it,” said Bellwattle. You have only to say -to a woman—and moreover be it in the proper tone of voice—that a thing -is quite simple and she will see it through and through. I have known -Bellwattle understand a proposition of Euclid by telling her it was -quite simple. - -As I say, “If that point is the centre of this circle, all lines drawn -from that point to the circumference must be equal; that’s quite -simple, isn’t it?” - -And she has replied, “Oh—quite—I see that—but who says it’s the centre?” - -If I say Euclid, she then asks me if I believe everything which people -tell me. - -In this manner she saw Cruikshank’s point about the people in France -calling a cow _vache_. But after seeing it, she was silent for a long -time. She was giving it due consideration. I knew that another question -was to come. At last she looked up. - -“But can you explain,” said she, “how they happened to hit upon the -same animal? I know _vache_ means cow, but how did the people in France -know that it should be that particular animal that they were to call -_vache_? They might have called a pig _vache_, and then we should all -have been topsy-turvy.” - -I ran my fingers through my hair. - -“My God!” said I—— - -“It’s no good swearing,” said Bellwattle, “I can see you don’t know.” - - - - - XVIII - - THE NIGHT THE POPE DIED - - - - - XVIII - - THE NIGHT THE POPE DIED - - -It comes back into my mind now, as an echo that is lost among the -hills, that night in Ardmore in Ireland, that night when they heard the -Pope was dead. I can hear the low, deep note of the sea, monotonous -and even as the beating of a heavy drum when the waves rolled up the -boat cove, or leapt upon the rocks that crouch to meet the sea beneath -the Holy Well. I can see the clouds, great banks of grey, as though a -furnace were smouldering below the horizon, I can see them hanging in -sullen wet masses, hanging low over the white crests that were breaking -away by Helvic Head. I can see the dank, dark coils of seaweed lying, -like the hair of women that are drowned, along the dim curved line of -the strand. And around the first head, where the bay spreads wide into -the great Atlantic, the sound of a rushing wind, muted by the hills, -dimly reaches my ears. - -It seems fitting that when any great catastrophe falls upon the -trembling little people of this world there should be sounded an -ominous note—a discord struck upon that great orchestra of the -elements. It is the only true accompaniment to the sorrows of mankind, -when the thunder bursts, the lightning rends the raiment of the sky and -the winds play wildly on their shrillest instruments. - -There was no thunder, no lightning that night, but all across the bay -and round the headlands you might have felt the despairing sense of -foreboding, the heavy hour before a storm, when the very ground seems -angry beneath your feet. - -Such was the night in Ardmore when they heard the Pope was dead. - -In one moment the whole Roman Catholic world had been robbed of its -father; the great Church of Christ was without its head on earth. From -that moment and for the anxious days to come they were as orphans, -knowing not where to turn. The Pope was dead. But there was none to cry -in the market-place, there was none to stand upon the chapel steps and -shout, “Long live the Pope!” - -The Pope was dead. There was no Pope. - -You must have seen the silent, questioning faces to have known what -such a loss could mean. Around the counters in the public-houses the -fishermen sat, afraid to drink. The women crept into their cottages and -shut the doors. Presently little flickers of light glowed from each -window—candle flames trembling as the draughts of wind caught their -feeble glow. - -It was as though the spirit of that old aristocrat, with his death-like -head and piercing eyes, were making its way to Heaven through the -little street of Ardmore, and these few feeble glimmers were set out, -tiny beacons, to point his road. - -For an hour they were burning before there came from the village -courthouse the sounds of instruments being blown, all those weird, -unearthly noises which tell you that a village band is about to play. - -In ten minutes they were ready—the public-houses were empty. In ten -minutes they were putting their instruments to their lips; their cheeks -were swelling with the first ready breath to start. A little crowd of -boys and girls were surrounding them ready to march by their sides; and -then, with a one—two—three, they began. The little solemn, serious -crowd strode forth. - -Up by the post-office they went, round by the Protestant Church, along -down Coffee Lane to where stands the seawall hung with its festoons of -red-brown nets. Then through the main street they marched and round -again the same route as before. - -And ever as they marched, like the band of an army playing the death -march at the funeral of their chief, they played the same grim tune—the -grimmest tune at such a time I think I have ever heard—“Good-bye, -Dolly, I must leave you.” It was the only tune they knew. - -After the second round of their journey, the playing ceased while -the players gained their breath. In silence then, they tramped over -the same ground, the little crowd, eager for the music again, still -following at their heels. - -When they reached the top of Coffee Lane once more, where the road runs -up to meet the Holy Well and wanders from there in a thin straggling -path around the wild cliff-heads, there came an elderly woman and a -child out of the darkness. - -Seven miles they had walked around that dangerous path from the little -fishing hamlet of Whiting Bay—seven miles over a way where a goat must -choose its steps, where at moments the sheer cliff rushes down four -hundred feet to meet the sea—seven miles in that chill darkness with -never a lantern’s light to guide their feet—seven miles with hearts -throbbing, hope rising and falling, whispering a word to each other now -and then, always straining on—seven miles just to learn the truth. - -As they came out of the shadows, the woman stopped. The -clarionet-player was wetting his lips, fitting his fingers with -infinite care upon the notes of his instrument. She caught his arm -before he could raise it to his mouth. - -“What is ut?” she asked. - -“Shure, the Pope’s dead,” he whispered back. - -And then, with its one—two—three once more, the band struck up again. -The woman and the child stood there silently under a cottage window, -the light of the burning candle within making pin-points in their eyes, -while in their ears echoed and re-echoed the words, “The Pope is dead,” -mingling with the refrain, “Good-bye, Dolly, I must leave you.” - - - - - XIX - - ART - - - - - XIX - - ART - - -It was explained to me the other day, the meaning of this elusive -little word of three letters. All my pre-conceived opinions were dashed -to the ground and, in the space of half an hour, I was taught the -modern appreciation of the meaning of that word—Art. - -It chanced I wanted a copy of that picture by Furze, “Diana of the -Uplands”—Furze whom the gods loved or envied, I don’t know which. I -wanted a copy of it to hang in my bedroom in a little farmhouse in -the country. I wanted to hang it near my bed so that when I woke of a -morning, I could start straight away across the Uplands, feeling the -generous give of the heather beneath my feet, tasting the freshening -draught of wind in my nostrils, taking into my limbs the energy of -those hounds ever ready to strain away from their leash and leave their -mistress a speck upon a dim horizon. - -It chanced that I wanted all that—which is not a little. But these are -the real good things of life which are so seldom bought because they -are so cheap. A small print-seller’s in Regent Street was good enough -for me. - -I walked in. On the threshold I was met by a little serving-maid with a -chubby red face and a brand-new green apron. - -“Yes?” said she. - -It opened the conversation excellently. - -“I want a coloured print of ‘Diana of the Uplands,’” said I. - -She hurried to a portfolio and began turning over coloured prints at -an incredible speed. Before she had found it, she looked up. - -“Will you have it plain?” she asked, “or with a B.A.M.?” - -“A B.A.M.?” said I. I could not describe to you the effect of those -three mysterious letters. It sounded almost improper. “You ought not to -say things like that to me,” I continued solemnly. “Supposing I said -that you were a V.P.G.” - -She became at a loss between confusion and amusement. - -“I forgot,” she said, apologetically. “I’m new here, and that’s what we -call them. It means British Art Mount.” - -At that moment there came another serving-maid in a green apron. - -“What is it you want, sir?” she asked. - -“Oh, I’m being attended to, thank you,” I replied. - -“Yes, but this young lady’s new to the shop,” she said; “she’s not -quite used to serving yet.” - -“She’s doing very well indeed,” said I. “She’s already nearly persuaded -me to buy a thing I don’t want—a thing I don’t even know the meaning -of.” - -The little girl with the chubby cheeks wriggled her shoulders with -delight. - -“I asked him if he wanted a B.A.M.,” she explained. - -The other looked quite shocked. - -“You know I’ve told you not to say that,” she said. “You’d better go up -to Miss Nelson, she wants you upstairs.” - -The little maid departed. I was left with her more elderly and more -experienced sister in trade. In a moment she had discovered the picture -in question and had laid it out for my approval. I did approve; and -then she asked me if I wanted it framed. - -“If you do framing here, I shall be very glad,” said I. - -“Then what sort of frame would you like?” she asked. - -I hesitated. I was trying to see it in my mind’s eye on that bedroom -wall; see it when the sun was pouring in through the open window; -when the rain was pattering against the panes, and the sky was grey. -Therefore, while I made up my mind—just, perhaps, to conceal from her -the fact that I could be in doubt about such a matter—I asked her what -she would suggest. - -She drew herself up, conscious of the state of importance which she had -attained with my question. - -“Well,” she said, and her head hung thoughtfully on one side—“that -depends on what room it’s for. Is it for the dining-room or the -drawing-room?” - -Now what possessed me, I do not know; but when I thought of that little -farmhouse in the valley between the Uplands, the words dining-room and -drawing-room sounded ridiculous. There is just a sitting-room—and -a small sitting-room—that is all. This dining-room and drawing-room -seemed nonsensical, and what with one thing and another it put me in a -nonsensical mood. - -“’Tis for the cook’s bedroom,” said I. - -If only you had seen her face! It fell like a stone over a cliff and, -what is more, it never seemed to reach the bottom of that expression of -bewilderment. - -“Oh,” she replied—“I see. Well, then, I’m sure I couldn’t advise you. -Tastes differ—don’t they?” - -“So I’ve heard,” said I. “But I wish you would advise me, all the -same. I’m quite ignorant about these things. I’m only a farmer. I’ve -just come up to London for the day and I’ve been given this commission -for—well, she’s more than the cook—she’s the housekeeper. She didn’t -tell me anything about the frame. What frame would you suggest? I -thought a nice rosewood one; but you know much better about these sort -of things than I do.” - -“A rosewood one won’t be bad,” said she, in a quaint little tone of -voice that gently patronised me. “A rosewood one’ll do,” she repeated; -“but it’s not Art.” - -That phrase had an electrical sound to me; and when I say electrical, I -mean, beside the shock of it, something which neither you nor I nor any -of us understand. - -“Why isn’t it Art?” I asked quickly. “You mustn’t think me foolish,” -I added, “but really I suppose I’m what you call a country bumpkin; I -know nothing about these things. Why isn’t it Art?” - -“Just——it isn’t,” she replied, and she took down a sample of black -moulding and a sample of gold; then she laid a sample of rosewood on -one side of the picture. “There,” she said, “that’s your cook’s taste.” -She did not quite like to call it mine. Then she laid the other two -samples on the other sides of the print—“and that’s Art.” - -I looked at the picture, then I looked at her. Then I looked back at -the picture again. - -“But how do you know it’s Art?” said I. - -She pulled herself up still straighter and she answered, with all the -confidence in the world— - -“Because I’ve been taught—that’s why. Because I’ve been educated to -it. I haven’t spent five years here amongst all these pictures without -learning what’s Art and what isn’t.” - -“And now you know?” said I. - -She nodded her head heavily with wisdom. - -“But are you sure you’ve been taught right?” I went on. “How are you to -know that the people who taught you knew?” - -“’Cos they’ve been in the business all their lives,” she replied. -“’Cos they’ve found out what the public like and they give it to them. -It’s like one person learning music on a grand piano and another -learning music on a cheap cottage piano. Do you mean to tell me that -the one as learns on the grand piano isn’t going to be a better -musician than the one as learns on the cottage?” - -“It’s more likely that they’d be a better judge of pianos,” said I. - -She told me I was talking silly and which frame would I have. - -“I’m trying not to talk silly,” I assured her. “I mean every word I -say, only I haven’t been educated as you have. You must remember that, -and make allowances. I only said that about the piano because I knew a -lady who had a satinwood Blüthner grand piano, and she never played on -it from one day to another, so that she did not even know what a good -piano was, and much less did she know about music.” - -“I wish she’d give it to me,” said the little serving-maid. - -“I wish she would,” said I; “then perhaps you’d admit that there was -something in what I said, after all. But, joking aside, if you’ve been -taught what is Art and what isn’t, couldn’t you teach me? I love the -country. I think the fields of corn that grow up on my land every year -are beautiful. And when I see them getting ripe and being gathered, -then going out to feed the whole world—you here in the cities, who -don’t know the gold of a ripening field of corn—every single one of -you, all fed from those wonderful fields that have waves like the sea -when the winds blow across them—things like that I know about—things -like that I appreciate.” - -“Oh—well—that’s Nature,” said she. “We were talking about Art. Art’s -holdin’ the mirror up to Nature—see.” - -“Then what’s the matter with the mirror?” I asked. - -“What mirror?” - -“The mirror of Art?” - -“Why there’s nothing the matter with it.” - -“Well—I don’t know,” said I, “but it seems to me as if so many people -have been taught to look into it, that it has become dulled with their -breath and won’t reflect anything now.” - -“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. - -“I don’t believe I know myself,” I replied. “I haven’t been taught like -you have.” - -“Well—which frame would you like?” she asked a little testily. - -“I’m afraid my housekeeper’ll be annoyed if I don’t take the rosewood -one,” said I. - - - - - XX - - THE VALUE OF IDLENESS - - - - - XX - - THE VALUE OF IDLENESS - - -“If you want to be quiet,” said my friend, “you had better go and sit -up in the old mill.” - -I acquiesced at once. - -“Just give me a table and a chair,” said I. “I shall be quite -comfortable.” - -“Are you going to write?” he asked. - -I nodded my head. - -“What?” - -“An essay.” - -“On what?” - -“The Value of Idleness.” - -“You’ll do that well,” said he, and he told the gardener to take up to -the mill all that I required. - -So here am I, writing the Value of Idleness in the little oak-beamed -loft of an old mill. - -To do nothing is to be receptive of everything. Idleness of the body -alone will serve you not at all. It is only when the mind—but to follow -the mood, to understand the drift of this philosophy of idleness, you -must see, as I see it, this old white mill in which I sit and write. - -Last night, as we walked out in the garden, the moon was in her -chariot, whirling in a mad race through the heavens. In and out of a -thousand clouds she rode recklessly. - -She carries news, thought I, and were she the daughter of Nimshi, she -could not drive more furiously. - -And there, under her shifting light, with great arms raised appealingly -into the wind, stood the old wind-mill, just at the end of the little -red-brick path which runs through an avenue of gnarled apple trees. - -I touched my friend’s arm and pointed. - -“She’s very beautiful,” said I. - -“She’s very old,” said he. - -Then I suddenly saw in her the figure of a patient woman, who has given -up her youth, appealing with passionate arms to God to grant her rest. -Another moment and there came a faint moaning sigh falling upon my -ears—a sigh like the fluttering of an autumn leaf that eddies slowly to -the ground. - -“What is that?” I asked. - -“The wind-mill,” said my friend. “She’s crying to be set free, to have -her arms unloosed.” - -As he said that, I saw her as a tired woman no longer. She became -majestic in her agony then. So it seemed to me must the women in -Siberia cry at night with faces turned, and hands stretched forth -towards their native Russia. - -“How long has she been idle?” I inquired. - -“Oh—many, many years,” said he. - -It was this which made me think of writing the Value of Idleness. So -here am I, writing my essay on Idleness in the little oak-beamed loft -of an old mill. - -You cannot think how silent it is. I feel away and above the world. -From the wee square window between the beams I can see the miller’s -cottage with its broad sloping roof of old red tiles, leaning down -until it nearly touches the ground. But beyond that, on one side, -stretches the whole weald of Kent and, on the other, lie the Romney -marshes spreading forth to meet the sea. And there is the sea—that -faint, far margin of blue—a chaplet upon the smooth, broad forehead of -the world. - -Yet silent and still as it all is, I can nevertheless hear voices. -Upon the great oak shaft, the tireless vertebra of this goddess of the -wind, there are two initials carved by some patient hand. L.B. are the -letters cut, and following them comes the date—1790. There is a voice -to be heard from that, if you do but listen well. I can see one of -those young millers who, when never a leaf was rustling on the trees -and the air was still in a breathless calm, I can see him sitting there -in a moment of idleness, carving out his initials and the date in deep, -bold characters. Then saying aloud to himself, “Maybe there’ll be some -as’ll read that in a hundred years, and wonder who be I.” - -I can hear the incisions of his knife as he cut into the stern hard -oak, the little silences, the little grunts of his breath as he -laboured over each letter. No—for all its stillness, there are voices -in this old mill. Up the oak ladder that leads through the ceiling to -another floor I can just see the great heavy wheel that turned the -shaft. It is grey even now with the dust of flour and, as its sharp -teeth gleam down at me out of the darkness, the echoes of those -rumbling sounds when the wind was high and the sails were racing round, -comes faintly to my ears like thunder afar off. - -So here am I, in the midst of these silent voices of the mill—here am -I, writing an essay on the Value of Idleness. - -“Idleness of the body,” I had begun, “will serve you not at all. It is -only when the mind is yielding to the drug of laziness as well, that -your ears are attuned to the silent voices and you can speak——” - -What was that? - -A sudden clatter, a beating of sudden wings around my head! - -Only a bat. I watch it as it circles round the old loft. The evening is -beginning to fall; I see the cows being driven home along the road. A -soft greyness is wrapping its fine web about the world and this little -creature is venturing forth from its hiding-place before the day is -yet quite dead. - -What a wonderful house to live in—this old, old mill! I scarcely wonder -at the beauty and simplicity of the “Lettres de mon Moulin” as I sit -here with the upper half of the creaking door wide open, and the far -hills stretching out to sleep as the night draws round about them. - -But now, as the grey light grows deeper and twilight hangs upon a frail -thread ere it drops into the lap of darkness; now, as though it were a -herald of the night to come, a wind springs up across the land. I hear -it as its first whispers begin to tell their secrets in the corners -and the crevices. Yet it whispers not for long. Soon, with a loud, -insistent voice, it is crying its importunate passion to the mill. But -she is chained. The fetters cling unmercifully to her arms. She cannot -move. Again and again the wind envelops her in its embrace, but she -makes no answer to its passion. Only now and again there comes her -faint, despairing cry—the cry of a woman in pain—the cry of a woman in -prison. I feel so sorely tempted to set her free, just to see her great -generous arms sweeping in a joyous abandonment of life before the wind -she loves so well. - -And here am I, in this old, old silent mill, writing an essay on the -Value of Idleness. - -Night is on the verge now. The words run into one another upon the -paper. It is so dark that my pen wanders from the faint ruled line and -sets out on its own account across the dim grey page. - -At last comes the voice of my friend far below. - -“Have you finished your idleness yet?” - -“It’s finished,” say I with a sense of loss of the moments that have -been mine—mine and this dear, sad woman’s in prison. I bolt the doors -and come down. - -“Come and read it to me now,” says he. - -And I read it all. - - * * * * * - -“But there’s nothing about idleness,” he said. “Where’s the Value of -Idleness?” - -“Here,” said I, and I threw the papers across to him. “It’s all -Idleness. To do nothing is to be receptive of everything. I’ve been -doing nothing.” - - - - - XXI - - THE SPIRIT OF COMPETITION - - - - - XXI - - THE SPIRIT OF COMPETITION - - -Not a few are there to applaud this spirit of competition, this modern -endeavour to do things well, not because they are worth doing, but from -the desire to do them better than other people. - -Yet it is a canker that eats its way into the heart of everything. -Bellwattle, in her happiest mood of distinction, would call it one of -the laws of God. But whether it be a law of God or of Nature; whether, -in fact, it be a law at all and not simply one of these fungoid growths -of civilisation, it is a deceptive matter whichever way you look at it. - -You would imagine, whether you were Jesuit or not, that the end would -justify the means in such a question as this. You might believe that, -so long as the thing were done well, it would matter little, if at -all, the motive which prompted its well-doing. Yet this is just where -the subtle poison of it lurks. For it is not of necessity doing a -thing well, to do it better than any one else. The moment you begin -to work like this, you create a false standard, lowering the value of -everything you do. It is not the spirit of charity to give more than -your next door neighbour. That is the spirit of competition. The spirit -of charity it is to give the last penny you can spare. The widow’s mite -is charity. The millionaire’s thousand is bombast. - -But this confusion of terms—this confusion of motives is so growing -into the language we speak that words, which once were so priceless, -are become like weapons worn out and blunted. There is but little edge -left to any words now. They will cut nothing. - -And so this spirit of competition is a fetish to-day. We do not speak -of having done a thing as well as we can do it, but of having done it -better than this man or that. - -“I bet you,” says the actor, “I could play that part better than the -man who plays it now.” - -“Do you mean to tell me,” says the politician, “that the speech I made -last Friday wasn’t as good as Disraeli at his best?” - -“That last book of mine,” says the writer, “was nearly as good as ‘The -Old Curiosity Shop.’ I think myself that the death-scene was better in -a way.” - -Ah! but if we only did say these things aloud, instead of thinking them -in silence. For ’tis only in silence now—as they would understand it in -Ireland—that we say what we really mean. - -So is it that there creeps this spirit of working by comparison into -the soul and tissue of everything we do. Yet you would think, would you -not, that the Church had kept herself free of it? But the Church is -more eaten away with the spirit of competition than is many a humble -labourer, driven to earn his living wage by making his work better than -the rest. - -Take this story for what it is worth; apply it as you will. It has only -one meaning for me. - -In Ireland, they call the wandering beggars, who live an itinerant -existence, living from one town to another—they call them tinkers. A -certain tinker woman, then, came into the city of Cork. Down one of the -quays, seeking the scraps that fall in these places, dragging three -wretched children at the frayed hem of her skirt, she was seen by a -Protestant vicar. - -Shifting one bare foot behind the other, she bobbed him a curtesy. - -“For the love an’ honour av God, yeer riv’rance, give a poor ’ooman -a copper, that the Almighty blessin’s av God may discind on ye, yeer -riv’rance. Oh, sure, God Almighty give ye grace.” - -The Vicar stopped. - -“Where do you come from?” he asked. - -“I’m after walkin’ all the ways from Macroon, yeer riv’rance—an’ I in -me feet.” - -She held up a bare blistered foot, at the sight of which the Vicar -shudderingly closed his eyes. - -“Where’s your husband?” he inquired. - -“Me husband, yeer riv’rance? Shure, glory be, I haven’t had a sight or -a sound av him these two years. ’Twas the day Ginnet’s circus was in -Dingarvin, an’ he along wid ’em clanin’ the horses, and faith that was -the last I saw av him, good or bad. I’m thinkin’ he’s gone foreign—he -has indeed.” - -“Why don’t you go to a priest? He’s the person to help you—not me. I’m -a Protestant clergyman.” - -“Shure, I know that yeer riv’rance—an’ why would I be goin’ -to a preyst, an’ I wid me three little children here—the poor -darlin’s—they’ve had divil a bit to eat this whole day.” - -The competitive instincts of the Vicar cried aloud with a resonant -voice in his ear. - -“Do you mean to say they haven’t been brought up in the Roman Catholic -Church?” he asked quickly. - -“They have not indeed. Shure, what good would that be doin’ them?” - -“Haven’t they been baptised at all into any Church?” - -“They have not.” - -The Vicar felt in his pocket and produced a sixpence. - -“Get them something to eat,” said he, “and then come and see me. I -shudder when I think they haven’t been baptised. Have you?” - -“I was when I was a child,” said she, “but I haven’t been to Mass these -fifteen years. Glory be to God, what’ud I be doin’ at Mass when I might -be gettin’ charity from a grand gintleman like yeerself?” - -“My poor woman,” said the Vicar, “it was Christ’s wish that we should -help the poor. I’m thinking, too, of the hereafter of those poor little -children of yours. What hope of salvation do you think there is for -them if they have never been baptised?” - -“If ’tis as difficult in this world as it is to get a bite or a sup, -’tis a hard thing indeed. But what good would I be getting to baptise -’em?” - -“If you let them come to my church and be baptised, I’ll see that you -won’t be forgotten.” - -“Will yeer riv’rance give me something the way I cud be goin’ on with?” - -“I will, of course.” - -“An’ how much?” - -“I’ll give you five shillings, my poor woman. You can get a week’s -lodging and food with that.” - -“Oh—shure I’d want five shillings for each wan of them,” she replied -quickly. - -The Vicar paused. The tone of this bargaining jarred upon his ears; -but yet, as he thought of it—three little souls saved—three little -souls caught from the grasp of the Roman Church—three more names upon -his baptismal register. And only fifteen shillings! It was money nobly -spent, honourably set aside for the great interest and reward hereafter. - -“I’ll give you fifteen shillings,” said he, “if you bring them to the -church to-morrow morning to be baptised.” - -She clasped her hands in ecstasy. - -“May the Almighty God give ye the blessings of his Holy Name, and may -all the saints be wid ye in the hour of need. Faith, I niver met a -finer Christian or a grander gintleman in all me life.” - -She caught her children round her and told them the great things that -were in store for them. With a warm feeling that the day had not passed -in vain, the Vicar hurried away. - -Directly he was out of sight, the woman made her way to the presbytery -of the first Roman Catholic church she could find. - -“I want to see the preyst,” said she, when they opened the door to her -knocking. - -They looked at her ragged clothes. It was with difficulty that she -gained an audience. - -“Go round into the chapel,” they said, “and Father —— will be with you -in a minute.” - -She plunged quickly into her story directly he came. - -“Indeed, he was a nice gintleman,” she concluded, “and ’twas fifteen -shillings he offered me if I’d bring the three of them to the church -to-morrow morning.” - -She gazed down at them and they gazed up at her. In some vague way they -realised that they were under discussion. Their little mouths were open -in wonder. - -“’Tis a disgraceful thing, indeed!” said the priest in wrath, “to -think ye’d go and sell the souls of yeer own children to one of those -Protestant fellas who’d only be too glad the way they could be counting -three more names in their Church. I’m ashamed of ye—I am indeed! If I -give ye twelve shillings now, will ye bring them here to me?” - -“Oh—glory be to God, Father—shure that’s only four shillings for each -wan of the pore t’ings. I thought ’twas the way ye’d have offered me -a poond at least to save the pore creatures the way they wouldn’t be -havin’ their souls damned.” - -“Yeer a disgraceful woman,” said he, “to barter the souls of yeer -children like that. I’ll give ye seventeen shillings, and I won’t give -ye a penny more.” - -She clasped her hands again and the tears rolled down her cheeks. - -“The blessing av God and av the Blessed Mother be wid ye,” she cried. -“Ye’ve saved the souls of three pore creatures this blessed day.” - - - - - XXII - - BELLWATTLE ON THE HIGHER MATHEMATICS - - - - - XXII - - BELLWATTLE ON THE HIGHER MATHEMATICS - - -I have already been at some pains in a few of these pages to give an -idea of the feminine appreciation of mathematics. Undoubtedly it is -more practical than that of many an eminent mathematician. For let it -at once be understood that the first function of a higher mathematician -is to express himself in terms of mathematics, just as an artist -expresses himself in the colours he lays upon his canvas, or a musician -by the little black and white dots he writes between and through the -lines. - -“Nobody”—so a scientist once said to me—“nobody seems to understand -this. They have never learnt the language we talk in and they fancy -that we only fit our place in the universe so long as we are useful. If -I were to talk to you now of the things I am doing in my laboratory, -using the terms and the technicalities that I use there, you’d -probably think I was endeavouring to be scientifically brilliant in -my conversation, stringing together all the most exaggerated words to -get an effect which you could not understand; whereas, in reality, I -should be talking the most ordinary commonplaces which even the boy -who cleans out the vessels and the flasks can probably understand. Let -a man invent a talking machine, or a calculating machine, and they -call him a great scientist. Good heavens! If you knew how the real -scientists and the real mathematicians despise him. Why, I’ve seen a -mathematician express the soul in himself so absolutely by the solution -of an abstruse problem, that he has cried with joy like a child—like -an artist when he has finished his masterpiece, a writer when he has -ended his book.” - -“May I never burst into tears, if ever I write a book,” said I. - -“Well—you know what I mean,” said he. - -And I suppose I did know. Utility is the prostitution of most things -as well as science and mathematics. But that is just where women are -more practical mathematicians than men. I have never known a woman -set out to express herself in mathematics yet. What is more, I pray -God, most fervently, I never shall. She will employ the wildest means -of expression in the world, but nothing so wild or incoherent as -mathematics. - -I try to conceive a woman in a fit of jealousy sitting down to express -her emotions through the medium of the binomial theorem—which I must -tell you I know to be a method of expanding X and Y, bracketed to the -Nth power, to an infinite series of powers—I try to conceive her doing -that, but my conception always fails. Far more readily can I see her -inviting to tea the creature who is the cause of her jealousy, and -evincing the sweetest friendship for her. Now that is expression, if -you like, bracketed, moreover, without any necessity for your binomial -theorem, to the Nth power, and expanded to an infinite expression of -femininity. - -To give you just the simplest example of this matter of the -practicality of women in mathematics, I must tell you that Cruikshank -and I the other evening were recalling our prowess at Euclid; setting -each other problems to prove—well, you know the routine of the -propositions of Euclid. - -In the midst of darning some socks and, having listened to us in -silence for at least an hour, Bellwattle looked up. - -“Was Euclid mad?” she asked, quite seriously. - -There was something in the nature of a ricochet in that question. It -touched not only Euclid, for whom we have infinite respect, but also -ourselves, for whom we have more. - -“The sanest person that ever lived,” said Cruikshank, shortly. - -“Then why did he waste his time inventing all that rubbish? What’s the -good of it, anyhow?” - -I put away my pencil with which from memory I had just been drawing the -diagram for the fourth proposition of the second book. - -“It develops,” I answered, “the reasoning power in the human animal—a -not unworthy or wholly unnecessary purpose.” - -She darned a few stitches in silence. - -“Has it ever done any good besides that?” she inquired presently. - -“Well,” said Cruikshank, “it teaches you, for example, how, without -measuring and purely by the light of reason, to construct an -equilateral triangle on a given finite straight line.” - -Bellwattle laid down her sock with the knob of wood inside it and she -looked at both of us as though we were creatures from another world. - -“And what in the name of goodness,” said she, “is an -equi—whatever-you-call-it triangle?” - -Cruikshank went on with his explanation quite cheerily. On this -proposition he was so sure of himself that confidence was actually -glowing in his face. - -“Well,” said he, “you know what a triangle is, don’t you?” - -She nodded her head promisingly. - -“One of those things they sometimes play in bands.” - -The look of confidence dropped heavily from Cruikshank’s face; but I -seized the opportunity. She understood. At least she had grasped the -shape of it. It mattered not at all that in her mind its functions were -to play a tune. She appreciated the shape of it. That served its end. - -“You’re quite right,” said I quickly. “They have it in an orchestra. It -has three sides to it—hasn’t it?” - -She nodded her head vivaciously. - -“Yes, and two little curly bits at the top where they tie the string on -to hang it up by.” - -“My God!” said Cruikshank in despair. - -But I acceded her the little curly bits. She had grasped the shape of a -triangle. - -“Well, try and forget the curly bits,” said I. “They have three -sides—haven’t they?” - -She acquiesced. - -“Like this,” I went on hurriedly, and, dragging out my pencil again, I -drew a triangle on a piece of paper. - -“That’s it,” said she; “but they don’t meet at the top.” - -“Some do,” I replied; “the ones that Euclid made did.” - -“Well, go on,” she said, with greater interest. “What’s an -equitriangle?” - -“An equilateral triangle,” said Cruikshank, now stepping in when I -had done all the hard work for him, “is a triangle which has all its -sides of equal length. That side,”—he pointed to my drawing—“that side -and that side all equal. Now Euclid’ll show you,” he continued, “how -to construct an equilateral triangle on a given finite straight line. -You needn’t measure anything. You only want a compass to make a couple -of circles, and he’ll prove to your reason that all the lines of that -triangle are one and the same length as this line you see on the paper -now.” - -He turned to me. - -“Lend me a ha’penny,” said he. - -I gave him the only one I had and he set to work to draw the most -beautiful circles, though they had but little relation to A as their -centre and B as their circumference, which were the letters he had -written at each end of his given finite straight line. - -“Nevertheless, that’ll do,” said he. - -And then, forthwith, he began to prove it to her. - -I went out to get myself a cigar in the dining-room, and while there, -cutting off the end of it and smiling gently to myself as I did so, I -heard the voice of Cruikshank raised in the passion of despair. - -“My God! my dear child,” I heard him say. “I proved those two were -equal because they both came from the centre of this circle—B.F.G. to -the circumference. You don’t remember anything.” - -I lit my cigar with a trembling hand. Then I walked to the window -of the dining-room and looked out into the garden. There were the -tom-tits pecking away at the cocoa-nut shell which Bellwattle had hung -up with such infinite trouble; there were the kittens, lapping from a -saucer of milk as Bellwattle and their mother had taught them; there -were the sweet peas in great walls of colour with the old pieces of -red flannel still clinging to the pea-sticks, those same pieces of -flannel which Bellwattle had tied to keep off the birds when the shoots -were young and green; there was the little robin which Bellwattle fed -every afternoon at tea-time; there, in fact, were all the signs of -Bellwattle’s beautiful and wonderful and practical utility. - -I came back into the other room at the sound of Cruikshank’s voice as -he called me. - -“She sees it!” he exclaimed in an ecstasy. “She understands it all -right. I made it clear, didn’t I, Bellwattle?” - -“Oh, quite,” said she. “I understand it now right enough. But I never -knew Euclid made instruments for bands.” - -Cruikshank tore up his piece of paper and flung it in the grate. - -So you see, if she really knew, I’ve no doubt she’d return to question -Euclid’s sanity once more. I feel inclined to question it myself, but -then that is because I know he did not make instruments for bands. He -only expressed himself—that was all. - - - - - XXIII - - THE MYSTERY OF THE VOTE - - - - - XXIII - - THE MYSTERY OF THE VOTE - - -I never knew how really splendid a possession was this of the vote -until the last election. It is no wonder to me now that women throw -dignity to the four winds of heaven, leaving it to chance and the grace -of God whether it ever blows back to them again. It is no wonder to me -that, for the moment, they can forget their glorious heritage in order -to obtain this mysterious joy of recording their vote on a little slip -of paper in the secrecy of the ballot-box. - -As a mystery—and all mysteries are power—it had never appealed to me. -As a means of urging the laws of the country in such direction as one -was pleased to consider for that country’s good, it did once seem to -me to be invaluable. I know by now what a hopeless fallacy that is. -But at that time, nursing a political conviction that Home Rule would -be good for Ireland as a people, much as I am led to believe food is -good to a starving man, or a sense of religion to a drifting woman, I -listened to the eloquent appeal of a canvasser for a Unionist candidate. - -When he had finished telling me much more than either of us knew about -Tariff Reform, and had built such a Navy before my eyes as would have -frightened the whole German Government and any single English ratepayer -out of their wits, I asked him what the Unionist candidate felt about -Home Rule. - -“Home Rule?” said he, carefully—“You approve of Home Rule?” - -I walked gently and easily into the canvasser’s trap. - -“You don’t denationalise a country,” said I, “because you conquer it. -You can’t cut the soul out of Ireland any more than you can wash a -nigger white. You can only boycott it. You can only paint a nigger. But -boycotting won’t starve the soul of any nation. If it can’t get food -for itself from the nation’s stores, it will still live, feeding from -the country-side on the wild herb of endurance. But there is that which -you can do. You _can_ boycott it.” - -“And you think that Home Rule will encourage the development of the -Irish people?” said he. - -I admitted that the idea had occurred to me. - -“Well, Mr. —— is quite of your way of thinking,” he replied. - -“He would support it with his vote in the House?” said I. - -“Most assuredly!” he declared. - -“I shall vote for Mr. ——,” said I. - -And so I should, had I not gone to one of his meetings in the Town -Hall. He, too, spoke eloquently about Tariff Reform and a Navy that -would keep our country what it was; but in the midst of it, a cockney -voice endeavoured to heckle him from the back of the hall. - -“’Ow about ’Ome Rule?” shouted the voice. - -The Unionist candidate had been heckled before. - -“How about it?” he asked sharply, like the crack of a pistol. - -“Are you going to let the Roman Catholics get the ’old in Ireland?” - -“And make them a menace to England, too—do you think it’s likely?” -replied the candidate. - -I walked away. “The vote,” said I to myself, “the vote is only a -catchpenny title for a popular game. It would be much better to gamble -than vote. You might get something for your money if you backed the -right man with a shilling; but you get nothing for backing him with -your vote. In future,” said I, “I shall bet.” - -Yet only a little while afterwards I was to learn what a glorious thing -the vote is. - -In my village there is an amiable labourer with that cast of -countenance upon which, as on the possessions of his great country, the -sun never sets. And with it all, he has that placidity of manner, that -evenness of gait which suggest that he is always going to or coming -from a service at his chapel. - -No one would ever dream of consulting him upon anything, though, -indeed, I once did ask him the name of a certain plant. - -“There be some as call it the Deadly shade,” said he, “and some as call -it the Nightly shade, but I don’t know rightly which it be.” - -When later on, for my own foolish amusement, I said I had heard it was -called the Deadly shade, he replied in precisely the same fashion. -I tried him once more, by saying that I had looked up a book on the -subject and found it to be the Nightly shade. Again he replied, word -for word, as before. - -At last, a few weeks later, I came to him and said— - -“You know we were all wrong about that plant. I find at South -Kensington Museum that the proper name for it is the Deadly Nightshade.” - -And what do you think he replied? “There be some,” said he, “as call it -the Deadly shade, and some as call it the Nightly shade, but I don’t -know rightly which it be.” - -Now that man’s wife had no respect for him, and truly I’m not -surprised. I found out, too, that he knew it—it would not, of course, -be a difficult fact to ascertain—and I felt sorry for him. - -And then one day—the day before the polling in our village—all my pity -for him was ended. I met him on the road, carrying home his bag of -tools. - -“Well,” said I, “are you going to vote to-morrow?” - -His face broadened with a beaming smile. - -“I am that,” said he. - -“Who are you going to vote for?” I asked. - -A cunning look crept into his little twinkling eyes, and he said— - -“Ah—that’s telling.” - -I admitted that there was that to it and asked him to tell me. - -He shook his head. - -“I keeps that to myself,” said he. “We’re not supposed to tell who we -vote for. All they votes is counted secret.” - -“Do you mean to say you don’t tell anybody?” I asked. - -“No,” he replied—“I don’t tell none.” - -“But you tell your wife,” said I. - -He shook his head again, and his smile was broader and his eyes more -cunning than ever. - -“Surely she wants to know,” I exclaimed. - -“Ah—she may want to know, but that ain’t my tellin’ her—is it?” - -Then I suddenly realised what a glorious weapon he possessed. A weapon -which, when everything else—even intelligence—failed, would make him -master in his own house. - -“That must give you a splendid sense of importance in your own home,” -said I—“Don’t they think you’re a fine fellow?” - -“P’raps they do.” - -“And all because you’ve got the mystery of a vote.” - -“I can’t think of no other reason,” said he. - -So whenever the question of giving women the vote is raised, I can -think, too, of no other reason for their wanting it. A woman will bow -her head before a mystery when all sense of worship has left her. It -is this which gives her so much respect for the priesthood; it is this -perhaps which gives her her desire for the vote. - - - - - XXIV - - SHIP’S LOGS - - - - - XXIV - - SHIP’S LOGS - - -There is a yard by the river-side in London—opposite Lambeth or -somewhere thereabouts, I think it must be—where you may come so close -in touch with Romance as will set your fancy afire and transport you -thousands of miles away upon the far-off seas of the Orient. - -You may talk in disbelieving tones of wishing-rings, of seven-leagued -boots and magic carpets, counting them as fairy tales, food only -for the minds of children; but they are after all only the poetic -materialisation of those same subtle things in life which give wings -to our own imagination, or bring to eyes tired with reality the gentle -sleep of a day dream. - -Nearly every one must know the place I write of. It is where they break -up into logs the timber of those ships which have had their day—the -ships that have ridden fearless and safe through a thousand storms, -that have set forth so hopefully into the dim horizon of the unknown -and evaded to the last the grim, grasping fingers of the hungry sea. - -And there you will see their death masks, those silent figureheads -which, for so many nights and so many days with untiring, ever-watchful -eyes have faced the mystery of the deep waters unafraid. There is -something pathetic—there is something majestic, too—about those -expressionless faces. They seem so wooden and so foolish when first you -look at them; but as your fancy sets its wings, as your ears become -attuned to the inwardness that can be found in all things, however -material, you will catch the sound of dim, faint voices that have a -thousand tales of the sea to tell, a thousand yarns to spin, a thousand -adventures to relate. - -Nothing is silent in this world. There is only deafness. - -It has always appealed to me as the most noble of human conceptions, -that burial of the Viking lord. The grandeur of it is its simplicity. -There is a fine spectacular element in it, too, but never a trace of -bombast. The modern polished oak coffin with its gaudy brass fittings, -the super-ornate hearse, the prancing black stallions, the butchery -of a thousand graceful flowers—all this is bombast if you wish. It no -more speaks of death than speaks the fat figure of Britannia on the top -of the highest circus car of England. Funerals to-day have lost all -the grandeur of simplicity. But that riding forth in a burning ship, -stretched out with folded hands upon the deck his feet had paced so -oft; riding forth towards that far horizon which his eyes had ever -scanned, there is a generous nobility in that form of burial. You can -imagine no haggling with an undertaker over the funeral about this. -Here was no cutting down of the prices, saving a little on the coffin -here, there a little on the hearse. - -No—this was the Viking’s own ship—the most priceless possession that he -had. Can you not see it plainly, with sails set, speeding forth upon -its last voyage—the last voyage for both of them? And then, as the -lapping, leaping flames catch hold upon the bellied canvas, I can see -her settling down in the swinging cradle of the waves. I can see the -dense column of smoke mingling with and veiling the tongues of orange -flame, until she becomes like a little Altar set out upon a vast sea, -offering up its sacrifice of a human soul to the ever-implacable gods. - -Now every time you burn a ship’s log you attend a Viking’s burial. In -those flames of green and gold, of orange, purple and blue, there is -to be found, if you will use but the eyes for it, all the romance, -all the spirit and colour of that majestic human sacrifice—the burial -of a Viking lord. As you sit through the long evenings, while the -rain is beating in sudden, whipping gusts upon the streaming window -pane and the drops fall spitting and hissing down the chimney into -the fire below, then the burning of a ship’s log is company enough -for any one. With every spurt of flame as the tar oozes out from the -sodden wood, and the water, still clinging in the tenacious timber, -bubbles and boils, you can distinguish but faintly the stirring voice -of Romance telling of thrilling enterprise and of great adventure. -There are few sailors can spin a yarn so much to your liking. Never -was there a pirate ship so fleet or so bold; there were never escapes -so miraculous, or battles so stern, as you can see when in those -long-drawn evenings you sit alone in the unlighted parlour and watch a -ship’s log burning on the fire. - -Pay no heed to them when they tell you the green flames come from -copper, the blue from lead, the pale purple from potassium. The -chemist’s laboratory has its own romance, but it shares nothing in -common with the high seas of imagination upon which you are riding -now. Let the green flames come from copper! They are the emeralds, the -treasure of the Orient to you. Let the blue flames come from lead, -the pale purple from potassium! In your eyes as you sit there in that -darkened room, with the flame-light flickering upon the ceiling and -the shadows creeping near to listen to it all, they are the blue sash -around the waist, the purple ’kerchief about the head of the bravest -and the most bloodthirsty pirate that ever stepped. - -At all times a fire is a companion. Yet set but a ship’s log upon the -flames and I warrant you will lose yourself and all about you; lose -yourself until the last light flickers, the last red ember falls, and -the good ship that has borne you so safely over a thousand seas sinks -down into the grey ashes of majestic burial. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Patchwork Papers, by E. 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