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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16520.txt b/16520.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5531cb6 --- /dev/null +++ b/16520.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4133 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lost Leaders, by Andrew Lang + +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 +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Lost Leaders + +Author: Andrew Lang + +Editor: W. Pett Ridge + +Release Date: August 14, 2005 [eBook #16529] +[Most recently updated: May 5, 2023] + +Language: English + +Produced by: David Price + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOST LEADERS *** + + + + +LOST LEADERS +by +ANDREW LANG + + +LONDON + +KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE +1889 + + + + +PREFACE. + + +These articles are reprinted, by the permission of the Editor, from the +_Daily News_. They were selected and arranged by Mr. Pett Ridge, who, +with the Publishers, will perhaps kindly take a share in the +responsibility of republishing them. + + + + +LOST LEADERS. + + +SCOTCH RIVERS. + + +September is the season of the second and lovelier youth of the river- +scenery of Scotland. Spring comes but slowly up that way; it is June +before the woods have quite clothed themselves. In April the angler or +the sketcher is chilled by the east wind, whirling showers of hail, and +even when the riverbanks are sweet with primroses, the bluff tops of the +border hills are often bleak with late snow. This state of things is +less unpropitious to angling than might be expected. A hardy race of +trout will sometimes rise freely to the artificial fly when the natural +fly is destroyed, and the angler is almost blinded with dusty snowflakes. +All through midsummer the Scotch rivers lose their chief attractions. The +bracken has not yet changed its green for the fairy gold, the hue of its +decay; the woods wear a uniform and sombre green; the waters are low and +shrunken, and angling is almost impossible. But with September the +pleasant season returns for people who love "to be quiet, and go +a-fishing," or a-sketching. The hills put on a wonderful harmony of +colours, the woods rival the October splendours of English forests. The +bends of the Tweed below Melrose and round Mertoun--a scene that, as +Scott says, the river seems loth to leave--may challenge comparison with +anything the Thames can show at Nuneham or Cliefden. The angler, too, is +as fortunate as the lover of the picturesque. The trout that have hidden +themselves all summer, or at best have cautiously nibbled at the worm- +bait, now rise freely to the fly. Wherever a yellow leaf drops from +birch tree or elm the great trout are splashing, and they are too eager +to distinguish very subtly between flies of nature's making and flies of +fur and feather. It is a time when every one who can manage it should be +by the water-side, and should take with him, if possible, the posthumous +work of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder on the "Rivers of Scotland." + +This book, as the author of "Rab and his Friends" tells us in the +preface, is a re-publication of articles written in 1848, on the death- +bed of the author, a man of many accomplishments and of a most lovable +nature. He would lie and dictate or write in pencil these happy and +wistful memories of days passed by the banks of Tweed and Tyne. He did +not care to speak of the northern waters: of Tay, which the Roman +invaders compared to Tiber; of Laxford, the river of salmon; or of the +"thundering Spey." Nor has he anything to say of the west, and of +Galloway, the country out of which young Lochinvar came, with its soft +and broken hills, like the lower spurs of the Pyrenees, and its streams, +now rushing down defiles of rock, now stealing with slow foot through the +plains. He confines himself to the limits of the Scottish Arcadia; to +the hills near Edinburgh, where Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd loved and sang +in a rather affected way; and to the main stream and the tributaries of +the Tweed. He tells, with a humour like that of Charles Lamb in his +account of his youthful search for the mysterious fountain-head of the +New River, how he sought among the Pentland Hills for the source of the +brook that flowed past his own garden. The wandering stream led him +through many a scene renowned in Border history, up to the heights whence +Marmion surveyed the Scottish forces encamped on Borough Moor before the +fatal day of Flodden. These scenes are described with spirit and loving +interest; but it is by Tweedside that the tourist will find his most +pleasant guide in Lauder's book. Just as Cicero said of Athens, that in +every stone you tread on a history, so on Tweedside by every nook and +valley you find the place of a ballad, a story, or a legend. From +Tweed's source, near the grave of the Wizard Merlin, down to Berwick and +the sea, the Border "keeps" and towers are as frequent as castles on the +Rhine. Each has its tradition, its memory of lawless times, which have +become beautiful in the magic of poetry and the mist of the past. First +comes Neidpath Castle, with its vaulted "hanging chamber" in the roof, +and the rafter, with the iron ring to which prisoners were hanged, still +remaining to testify to the lawless power of Border lords. Neidpath has +a softer legend of the death of the lady of the house, when her lover +failed to recognize the features that had wasted with sorrow for his +absence. Lower down the river comes Clovenfords, with its memories of +Christopher North, and Peebles, where King James sings that there was +"dancing and derray" in his time; and still lower Ashiesteel, where Scott +was young and happy, and Abbotsford, where his fame and his misfortunes +found him out. It was on a bright afternoon in late September that he +died there, and the mourners by his bed heard through the silence the +murmuring of Tweed How many other associations there are by the tributary +rivers! what a breath of "pastoral melancholy"! There is Ettrick, where +the cautious lover in the old song of Ettrick banks found "a canny place +of meeting." Oakwood Tower, where Michael Scott, the wizard, wove his +spells, is a farm building--the haunted magician's room is a granary, +Earlstone, where Thomas the Rhymer dwelt, and whence the two white deer +recalled him to Elfland and to the arms of the fairy queen, is noted "for +its shawl manufactory." Only Yarrow still keeps its ancient quiet, and +the burn that was tinged by the blood of Douglas is unstained by more +commonplace dyes. + +All these changes make the "Rivers of Scotland" rather melancholy +reading. Thirty years have not passed since Lauder died, and how much he +would miss if he could revisit his beloved water! Spearing salmon by +torchlight is a forbidden thing. The rocks are no longer lit up with the +red glow; they resound no longer with the shouts and splashing of the +yeomen. You might almost as readily find a hart on Harthope, or a wild +cat at Catslack, or a wolf at Wolf-Cleugh, as catch three stone-weight of +trout in Meggat-water. {6} The days of guileless fish and fabulous +draughts of trout are over. No sportsman need take three large baskets +to the Gala now, as Lauder did, and actually filled them with thirty-six +dozen of trout. The modern angler must not allow his expectations to be +raised too highly by these stories. Sport has become much more difficult +in these times of rapidly growing population. It is a pleasant sight to +see the weavers spending their afternoons beside the Tweed; it is such a +sight as could not be witnessed by the closely preserved rivers of +England. But the weavers have taught the trout caution, and the dyes and +various pollutions of trade have thinned their numbers. Mr. Ruskin sees +no hope in this state of things; he preaches, in the spirit of old +Hesiod, that there is no piety in a race which defiles the "holy waters." +But surely civilization, even if it spoil sport and degrade scenery, is +better than a state of things in which the laird would hang up his foes +to an iron ring in the roof. The hill of Cowden Knowes may be a less +eligible place for lovers' meetings than it was of old. But in those +times the lord of Cowden Knowes is said by tradition to have had a way of +putting his prisoners in barrels studded with iron nails, and rolling +them down a brae. This is the side of the good old times which should +not be overlooked. It may not be pleasant to find blue dye and wool yarn +in Teviot, but it is more endurable than to have to encounter the bandit +Barnskill, who hewed his bed of flint, Scott says, in Minto Crags. Still, +the reading of the "Rivers of Scotland" leaves rather a sad impression on +the reader, and makes him ask once more if there is no way of reconciling +the beauty of rude ages with the comforts and culture of civilization. +This is a question that really demands an answer, though it is often put +in a mistaken way. The teachings of Mr. Ruskin and of his followers +would bring us back to a time when printing was not, and an engineer +would have been burned for a wizard. {8} But there is a point at which +civilization and production must begin to respect the limits of the +beautiful, on which they so constantly encroach. Who is to settle the +limit, and escape the charge of being either a _dilettante_ and a +sentimentalist on the one hand, or a Philistine on the other? + + + +SALMON-FISHING. + + +Salmon-fishing for this season is over, and, in spite of the fresh and +open weather, most anglers will feel that the time has come to close the +fly-book, to wind up the reel, and to consign the rod to its winter +quarters. Salmon-fishing ceases to be very enjoyable when the _snaw +broo_, or melted snow from the hilltops, begins to mix with the brown +waters of Tweed or Tay; when the fallen leaves hamper the hook; and when +the fish are becoming sluggish, black, and the reverse of comely. Now +the season of retrospect commences, the time of the pleasures of memory, +and the delights of talking shop dear to anglers Most sporting talk is +dull to every one but the votaries of the particular amusement. Few +things can be drearier to the outsider than the conversation of +cricketers, unless it be the recondite lore which whist-players bring +forth from the depths of their extraordinary memories. But angling talk +has a variety, recounts an amount of incident and adventure, and wakens a +feeling of free air in a way with which the records of no other sport, +except perhaps deer-stalking, can compete. The salmon is, beyond all +rivalry, the strongest and most beautiful, and most cautious and artful, +of fresh-water fishes. To capture him is not a task for slack muscles or +an uncertain eye. There is even a slight amount of personal risk in the +sport. The fisher must often wade till the water reaches above the waist +in cold and rushing streams, where his feet are apt to slip on the smooth +stones or trip on the rough rocks beneath him. When the salmon takes the +fly, there is no time for picking steps. The line rushes out so swiftly +as to cut the fingers if it touches them, and then is the moment when the +angler must follow the fish at the top of his speed. To stand still, or +to go cautiously in pursuit, is to allow the salmon to run out with an +enormous length of line; the line is submerged--technically speaking, +_drowned_--in the water, the strain of the supple rod is removed from the +fish, who finds the hook loose in his mouth, and rubs it off against the +bottom of the river. Thus speed of foot, in water or over rocks, is a +necessary quality in the angler; at least in the northern angler. By the +banks of the Usk a contemplative man who likes to take things easily may +find pretty sure footing on grassy slopes, or on a gravelly bottom. But +it is a different thing to hook a large salmon where the Tweed foams +under the bridge of Yair down to the narrows and linns below. If the +angler hesitates there, he is lost. Does he stand still and give the +fish line? The astute creature cuts it against the sharp rocks below the +bridge, and the rod, relieved of the weight, leaps straight in the +fisher's hand, and in his heart there is a sense of emptiness and sudden +desolation. Does he try to follow, the chances are that his feet slip; +after one or two wild struggles he is on his back in the water, and +nearly strangled with his fishing-basket. In either case the fish goes +on his way rejoicing, and, after the manner of his kind, leaps out of the +water once or twice--a maddening sight. + +Adventures like this are among the bitter memories of the angler. The +fish that break away are monstrous animals; imagination increases their +bulk, and fond desire paints them clean-run and bright as silver. There +are other chances of the angler's life scarcely less sad than this. When +a hook breaks just as the salmon was losing strength, was ceasing to +struggle, and beginning to sway with the mere force of the stream, and to +show his shining sides--when a hook breaks at such a moment, it is very +hard to bear. The oath of Ernulphus seems all too weak to express the +feelings of the sportsman and his wrath against the wretched +tackle-maker. Again, when the fish is actually conquered; when he is +being towed gently into some little harbour among the tall slim water- +grasses, or into a pebbly cove, or up to a green bank; when the +bitterness of struggle is past, and he seems resigned and almost happy; +when at this crisis the clumsy gilly with the gaff scratches him, rouses +him to a last exertion, and entangles the line, so that the salmon breaks +free--that is an experience to which language cannot do justice. The +ancient painter drew his veil over the face of Agamemnon present at his +daughter's sacrifice. Silence and sympathy are all one can offer to the +angler who has toiled all day, and in this wise caught nothing. There is +yet another very bitter sorrow. It is a hard thing for a man to leave +town and hurry to a river in the west, a river that perhaps he has known +since he fished for minnows with a bent pin in happy childhood. The west +is not a dry land; effeminate tourists complain that the rain it raineth +every day. But the heavy soft rain is the very life of an angler. It +keeps the stream of that clear brown hue, between porter and amber, which +he loves; and it encourages the salmon to keep rushing from the estuary +and the sea right up to the mountain loch, where they rest. But suppose +there is a dry summer--and such things have been even in Argyleshire. The +heart of the tourist is glad within him, but as the river shrinks and +shrinks, a silver thread among slimy green mosses in the streams, a sheet +of clear water in the pools, the angler repines. Day after sultry day +goes by, and there is no hope. There is a cloud on the distant hill; it +is only the smoke from some moor that has caught fire. The river grows +so transparent that it is easy to watch the lazy fish sulking at the +bottom. Then comes a terrible temptation. Men, men calling themselves +sportsmen, have been known to fish in the innocent dewy morning, with +worm, with black lob worm. Worse remains behind. Persons of ungoverned +passions, maddened by the sight of the fish, are believed to have poached +with rake-hooks, a cruel apparatus made of three hooks fastened back to +back and loaded with lead. These are thrown over the fish, and then +struck into him with a jerk. But the mind willingly turns away from the +contemplation of such actions. + +It is pleasanter to think of not unsuccessful days by lowland or highland +streams, when the sun was veiled, the sky pearly grey, the water, as the +people say, in grand order. There is the artistic excitement of choosing +the hook, gaudy for a heavy water, neat and modest for a clearer stream. +There is the feverish moment of adjusting rod and line, while you mark a +fish "rising to himself." You begin to cast well above him, and come +gradually down, till the fly lights on the place where he is lying. Then +there is a slow pull, a break in the water, a sudden strain at the line, +which flies through the rings of the rod. It is not well to give too +much line; best to follow his course, as he makes off as if for Berwick +and the sea. Once or twice he leaps clean into the air, a flying bar of +silver. Then he sulks at the bottom, a mere dead weight, attempting +devices only to be conjectured. A common plan now is to tighten the +line, and tap the butt end of the rod. This humane expedient produces +effects not unlike neuralgia, it may be supposed, for the fish is off in +a new fury. But rush after rush grows tamer, till he is drawn within +reach of the gaff, and so on to the grassy bed, where a tap on the head +ends his sorrows, and the colours on his shining side undulate in +delicate and beautiful radiance. It may be dreadfully cruel, as cruel as +nature and human life; but those who eat salmon or butcher's meat cannot +justly protest, for they, desiring the end, have willed the means. As +the angler walks home, and watches the purple Eildon grow grey in the +twilight, or sees the hills of Mull delicately outlined between the faint +gold of sky and sea, it is not probable that his conscience reproaches +him very fiercely. He has spent a day among the most shy and hidden +beauties of nature, surprising her here and there in places where, unless +he had gone a-fishing, he might never have penetrated. He has set his +skill against the strength and skill of the monarch of rivers, and has +mastered him among the haunts of fairies and beneath the ruined towers of +feudalism. These are some of the delights that to-day end for a season. +{16} + + + +WINTER SPORTS. + + +People to whom cold means misery, who hate to be braced, and shudder at +the word "seasonable," can have little difficulty in accounting for the +origin of the sports of winter. They need only adapt to the +circumstances that old Lydian tradition which says that games of chance +were invented during a great famine. Men permitted themselves to eat +only every second day, and tried to forget their hunger in playing at +draughts and dice. That is clearly the invention of a southern people, +which never had occasion to wish it could become oblivious of the +weather, as too many of us would like to be in England. Such shivering +and indolent folks may be inclined to say that skating and curling and +wildfowl-shooting, and the other diversions which seduce the able-bodied +from the warm precincts of the cheerful fire, were only contrived to +enable us to forget the state of the thermometer. Whether or not that +was the purpose of the first northerner who fixed sheep-bones beneath his +feet, to course more smoothly over the frozen sound, there can be no +doubt that winter sports answer their presumed purpose. They keep up +that glow which only exercise in the open air can give, and promote the +health which shows itself in the complexion. It is the young lady who +interprets literally the Scotch invitation "come into the fire," and who +spoils the backs of library novels by holding them too near the +comfortable hearth, she it is who suffers from the ignoble and unbecoming +liberties that winter takes with the human countenance. Happier and +wiser is she who studies the always living and popular Dutch roll rather +than the Grecian bend, and who blooms with continual health and good +temper. Our changeful climate affords so few opportunities of learning +to skate, that it is really extraordinary to find so much skill, and to +see feats so difficult and graceful. In Canada, where frost is a +certainty, and where the covered "rinks" make skating an indoor sport, it +is not odd that great perfection should be attained. But as fast as +Canadians bring over a new figure or a new trick it is picked up, and +critics may dispute as to whether the bold and dashing style of the +English school of skaters is not preferable to the careful and smooth, +but somewhat pretty and niggling manner of the colonists. Our skating +stands to the Canadian fashion somewhat as French does to English +etching. We have the dash and the _chic_ with skates which Frenchmen +show with the etching-needle, and the Canadian, on the other hand, is apt +to decline into the mere prettiness which is the fault of English +etchers. + +Skating has been, within the last few years, a very progressive art. +There was a time when mere speed, and the grace of speed, satisfied most +amateurs. The ideal spot for skating in those days must have been the +lakes where Wordsworth used to listen to the echoes replying from the +cold and moonlit hills, or such a frozen river as that on which the +American skater was pursued by wolves. No doubt such scenes have still +their rare charm, and few expeditions are more attractive than a +moonlight exploration of a winding river. But it is seldom that our +frosts make such tours practicable, whereas almost every winter it is +possible to skate with safety, at least on shallow ponds, or on places +like the ice-bound floods at Oxford. Thus figure-skating, which needs +but a surface of a few yards to each performer, has come into fashion, +and it is hard to imagine any exercise more elegant, or one that requires +more nerve. The novice is theoretically aware that if he throws his body +into certain unfamiliar postures, which are explained to him, the laws of +gravitation and of the higher curves will cause him to complete a certain +figure. But how much courage and faith it requires to yield to these +laws and let the frame swing round subject to the immutable rules of +matter! The temptation to stop half-way is almost irresistible, and then +there occurs a complicated fall, which makes the petrified spectator ask +where may be the skater's body--"which are legs, and which are arms?" Of +all sports, skating has the best claim to adopt Danton's motto, _Toujours +de l'audace_--the audacity meant being that of giving one's self up to +the laws of motion, and not the vulgar quality which carries its owner on +to dangerous ice. Something may now be learned of figure-skating on dry +land, and the adventure may be renewed of the mythical children who went +sliding all on a summer day. In this respect, skating has a great +advantage over its rival, the "roaring game" of curling. It would be +poor fun to curl on asphalte, with stones fixed on wheels, though the +amusement is possible, and we recommend the idea, which is not copyright, +to enthusiastic curlers; and curlers are almost always enthusiastic. It +is pleasant to think how the hills must be ringing with their shouts, +round many a lonely tarn, where the men of one parish meet those of the +next in friendly conflict north of the Tweed. The exhilarating yell of +"soop her up," whereby the curler who wields a broom is abjured to sweep +away the snow in front of the advancing stone, will many a time be heard +this winter. There is something peculiarly healthy about this sport--in +the ring with which the heavy stones clash against each other; in the +voices of the burly plaided men, shepherd, and farmer, and laird; in the +rough banquet of beef and greens and the copious toddy which close the +day's exertions. + +Frost brings with it an enforced close-season for most of furred and +feathered kind. The fox is safe enough, and, if sportsmen are right, +must be rather wearying for open weather, and for the return of his +favourite exercise with hounds. But even when the snow hangs out her +white flag of truce and goodwill between man and beast, the British +sportsman is still the British sportsman, and is not averse to going out +and killing something. To such a one, wild-fowl shooting is a +possibility, though, as good Colonel Hawker says, some people complain +forsooth that it interferes with ease and comfort. We should rather +incline to think it does. A black frost with no moon is not precisely +the kind of weather that a degenerate sportsman would choose for lying in +the frozen mud behind a bush, or pushing a small punt set on large skates +across the ice to get at birds. Few attitudes can be more cramping than +that of the gunner who skulks on one knee behind his canoe, pushing it +with one hand, and dragging himself along by the aid of the other. Then, +it is disagreeable to have to use a gun so heavy that the stock is fitted +with a horsehair pillow, or even with a small bolster. The whistle of +widgeon and the shrill-sounding pinions of wild geese may be attractive +noises, and no doubt all shooting is exciting; and a form of shooting +which stakes all on one shot must offer some thrilling moments of +expectation. The quarry has to be measured by number, not by size, and +fifty widgeon at one discharge, or a brace of wild swans may almost serve +to set against a stag of ten. {23} The lover of nature has glimpses in +wild-fowl shooting such as she gives no other man--the glittering expanse +of waters, the birds "all in a charm," all uttering their cry together, +the musical moan of the tide, and the "long glories of the winter moon." +But success is too difficult, equipment too costly, and rheumatism too +certain for wild-fowl shooting to be reckoned among popular winter +sports. + + + +HUMAN LEVITATION. + + +Why is it that living fish add nothing to the "weight of the bucket of +water in which they swim?" Charles II. is said to have asked the Royal +Society. A still more extraordinary question has been propounded in the +grave pages of the _Quarterly Journal of Science_, edited by Mr. Crookes, +a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the discoverer of the useful metal +thallium. The problem set in this learned review does not, like that of +the Merry Monarch, beg the question of facts. "What is the scientific +inference from the various accounts, modern and traditional, of human +levitation?" is the difficulty before the world at this present moment. +Now, there may be people who never heard of levitation, nor even of +"thaums," a term that frequently occurs in the article we refer to. A +slight acquaintance with the dead languages, whose shadows reappear in +this queer fashion, enables the inquirer to decide that "levitation" +means the power of becoming lighter than the surrounding atmosphere, and +setting at nought the laws of gravitation. + +Thaums, again, are wonders, and there is no very obvious reason why they +should not be called wonders. But to return to levitation. Most of us +have heard how Mr. Home and other gifted people possess the faculty of +being raised from the ground, and of floating about the room, or even out +of the window. There are clouds of witnesses who have observed these +phenomena, which generally occur in the dark. In fact, they are part of +that vague subject called spiritualism, about which opinion is so much +divided, and views are so vague. It has been said that the human race, +in regard to this high argument, is divided into five classes. There are +people who believe; people who investigate; people who think the matter +really ought to be looked into; people who dislike the topic, but who +would believe in the phenomena if they were proved; and people of common +sense, who would not believe in them if they were proved. Now, the +article in the _Journal of Science_ only deals with one of the phenomena +we hear so much of--that of the sudden suspension of the laws of +gravitation, in the case of individual men. The author has collected a +vast variety of traditions bearing on this subject, and his conclusion +apparently is, that events of this kind, though rather rare, are natural, +are peculiar to people of certain temperament and organization, and, +above all, bring no proof as to the truth of the doctrines asserted by +the persons who exhibit the phenomena. Now, men of science, as a rule, +and the world at large, look on stories of this sort as myths, romances, +false interpretations of subjective feelings, pious frauds, and absurd +nonsense. Before expressing an opinion, it may be well to look over the +facts, as they are called, which are brought under our notice. + +What accounts, then, are there of levitation among the civilized people +of the Old World? First, there is Abaris, the Scythian, "in the time of +Pythagoras," says our author. Well, as a matter of evidence, Abaris may +have been levitated in the eighth century before Christ, or it may have +been two hundred and fifty years later. Perhaps he was a Druid of the +Hebrides. Toland thought so, and Toland had as good a chance of knowing +as any one else. Our earliest authority, Herodotus, says he took no +earthly food, and "went with his arrow all round the world without once +eating." It seems that he rode on this arrow, which, Mr. Rawlinson +thinks, may possibly have been an early tradition of the magnet. All our +detailed information about him is of later date than the Christian era. +The fact remains that tradition says he was able to fly in the air. +Pythagoras is said to have had the same power, or rather the same faculty +came upon him. He was lifted up, with no will or conscious exertion of +his own. Now, our evidence as to the power of Pythagoras to be "like a +bird, in two places at once," is exactly as valuable as that about +Abaris. It rests on the tradition repeated by superstitious philosophers +who lived eight hundred years after his death. "To Pythagoras, +therefore," as Herodotus has it, "we now say farewell," with no further +knowledge than that vague tradition says he was "levitated." The writer +now leaves classical antiquity behind him--he does not repeat a saying of +Plotinus, the mystic of Alexandria, who lived in the third century of our +era. The best known anecdote of him is that his disciples asked him if +he were not sometimes levitated, and he laughed, and said, "No; but he +was no fool who persuaded you of this." Instead of Plotinus, we are +referred to a mass of Jewish and anti-Christian apocryphal traditions, +which have the same common point--the assertion of the existence of the +phenomenon of levitation. Apollonius of Tyana is also said to have been +a highly accomplished medium. We are next presented with a list of forty +"levitated" persons, canonized or beatified by the Church of Rome. Their +dates range from the ninth to the seventeenth century, and their +histories go to prove that levitation runs in families. Perhaps the best +known of the collection is St. Theresa (1515-1582), and it is only fair +to say that the stories about St. Theresa are very like those repeated +about our lady mediums. One of these, Mrs. Guppy, as every one knows, +can scatter flowers all over a room, "flowers of Paradise," unknown to +botanists. Fauna, rather than flora, was St. Theresa's province, and she +kept a charming pet, a little white animal of no recognized species. +Still, about her, and about her friend St John of the Cross, the legend +runs that they used to be raised off the ground, chairs and all, and +float about in the most soothing way. Poor Peter of Alcantara was +levitated in a less pleasant manner; "he uttered a frightful cry, and +shot through the air as if he had been fired from a gun." Peter had a +new form of epilepsy--the rising, not the falling, sickness. Joseph +Copertino, again, floated about to such good effect, that in 1650 Prince +John of Brunswick foreswore the Protestant faith. The logical process +which converted this prince is not a very obvious one. + +Why do we quote all these old monkish and neoplatonic legends? For some +the evidence is obviously nil; to other anecdotes many witnesses bear +testimony; but then, we know that an infectious _schwarmerei_ can +persuade people that the lion now removed from Northumberland House +wagged his tail. The fact is that there is really matter for science in +all these anecdotes, and the question to be asked is this--How does it +happen that in ages and societies so distant and so various identical +stories are current? What is the pressure that makes neoplatonic gossips +of the fourth century circulate the same marvels as spiritualist gossips +of the nineteenth? How does it happen that the mediaeval saint, the +Indian medicine-man, the Siberian shaman (a suggestive term), have nearly +identical wonders attributed to them? If people wanted merely to tell "a +good square lie," as the American slang has it, invention does not seem +to have such pitifully narrow boundaries. It appears to follow that +there are contagious nervous illusions, about which science has not said +the last word. We believe that the life of children, with its innocent +mixture of dreams and waking, facts and fancies, could supply odd +parallels to the stories we have been treated to. And as we are on the +subject, we should like, as the late President Lincoln said, to tell a +little story. It occurred to a learned divine to meet a pupil, who ought +by rights to have been in the University of Oxford, walking in Regent +Street. The youth glided past like a ghost, and was lost in the crowd; +next day his puzzled preceptor received a note, dated on the previous day +from Oxford, telling how the pupil had met the teacher by the Isis, and +on inquiry had heard he was in London. Here is a case of levitation--of +double levitation, and we leave it to be explained by the followers of +Abaris and of Mr. Home. + + + +A CHINAMAN'S MARRIAGE. + + +The Court of Assizes at Paris has lately been occupied with the case of a +Chinese gentleman, whose personal charms and literary powers make him +worthy to be the compatriot of Ah-Sin, that astute Celestial. Tin-tun- +ling is the name--we wish we could say, with Thackeray's F. B., "the +highly respectable name"--of the Chinese who has just been acquitted on a +charge of bigamy. In China, it is said that the more distinguished a man +is the shorter is his title, and the name of a very victorious general is +a mere click or gasp. On this principle, the trisyllabic Tin-tun-ling +must have been without much honour in his own country. In Paris, +however, he has learned Parisian aplomb, and when confronted with his +judges and his accusers, his air, we learn, "was very calm." "His smile +it was pensive and bland," like the Heathen Chinee's, and his calm +confidence was justified by events. It remains to tell the short, though +not very simple, tale of Tin-tun-ling. Mr. Ling was born in 1831, in the +province of Chan-li. At the interesting age of eighteen, an age at which +the intellect awakens and old prejudices lose their grasp, he ceased to +burn gilt paper on the tombs of his ancestors; he ceased to revere their +august spirits; he gave up the use of the planchette, rejected the +teachings of Confucius, and, in short, became a convert to Christianity. +This might be considered either as a gratifying testimony to the +persuasive powers of Catholic missionaries, or as an example of the wiles +of Jesuitism, if we did not know the inner history of Mr. Ling's soul, +the abysmal depths of his personality. He has not, like many other +modern converts, written a little book, such as "How I ceased to chinchin +Joss; or, from Confucius to Christianity," but he has told Madame Judith +Mendes all about it. Madame Mendes has made a name in literature, and +English readers may have wondered how the daughter of the poet Theophile +Gautier came to acquire the knowledge of Chinese which she has shown in +her translations from that language. It now appears that she was the +pupil of Tin-tun-ling, who, in a moment of expansion, confided to her +that he adopted the Catholic faith that he might eat a morsel of bread. +He was starving, it seems; he had eaten nothing for eight days, when he +threw himself on the charity of the missionaries, and received baptism. +Since Winckelmann turned renegade, and became a Roman Catholic merely +that the expenses of his tour to Rome and his maintenance there might be +paid, there have surely been few more mercenary converts. Tin-tun-ling +was not satisfied with being christened into the Church, he was also +married in Catholic rites, and here his misfortunes fairly began, and he +entered on the path which has led him into difficulty and discredit. + +The French, as a nation, are not remarkable for their accuracy in the use +of foreign proper names, and we have a difficulty in believing that the +name of Mr. Ling's first wife was really Quzia-Tom-Alacer. There is a +touch of M. Hugo's famous Tom Jim Jack, the British tar, about this +designation. Nevertheless, the facts are that Tin-tun-ling was wedded to +Quzia, and had four children by her. After years of domestic life, on +which he is said to look back but rarely and with reluctance, he got a +position as secretary and shoeblack and tutor in Chinese to a M. Callery, +and left the province of Chin-li for Paris. For three months this +devoted man sent Quzia-Tom-Alacer small sums of money, and after that his +kindness became, as Douglas Jerrold said, unremitting. Quzia heard of +her lord no more till she learned that he had forgotten his marriage vow, +and was, in fact, Another's. As to how Tin-tun-ling contracted a +matrimonial alliance in France, the evidence is a little confusing. It +seems certain that after the death of his first employer, Callery, he was +in destitution; that M. Theophile Gautier, with his well-known kindness +and love of curiosities, took him up, and got him lessons in Chinese, and +it seems equally certain that in February, 1872, he married a certain +Caroline Julie Liegeois. In the act of marriage, Tin-tun-ling described +himself as a baron, which we know that he was not, for in his country he +did not rejoice in buttons and other insignia of Chinese nobility. As +Caroline Julie Ling (_nee_ Liegeois) denounced her lord for bigamy in +1873, and succeeded, as has been seen, in proving that he was husband of +Quzia-Tom-Alacer, it may seem likely that she found out the spurious +honours of the pretended title. But whatever may be thought of the +deceitful conduct of Ling, there is little doubt apparently that Caroline +is really his. He stated in court that by Chinese law a husband who has +not heard of his wife for three years may consider that his marriage has +legally ceased to be binding. Madame Mendes proved from the volume Ta- +Tsilg-Leu-Lee, the penal code of China, that Ling's law was correct. It +also came out in court that Quzia-Tom-Alacer had large feet. The jury, +on hearing this evidence, very naturally acquitted Tin-tun-ling, whom +Madame Mendes embraced, it is said, with the natural fervour of a +preserver of innocence. Whether Tin-tun-ling is now a bachelor, or +whether he is irrevocably bound to Caroline Julie, is a question that +seems to have occurred to no one. + +The most mysterious point in this dark business is the question, How did +Tin-tun-ling, who always spoke of his first marriage with terror, happen +to involve himself in the difficulties of a second? Something more than +the common weakness of human nature must have been at work here. Madame +Mendes says, like a traitor to her sex, that Tin espoused Caroline Julie +from feelings of compassion. He yielded, according to Madame Mendes, "to +the entreaties of this woman." The story of M. Gustave Lafargue confirms +this ungallant tale. According to M. Lafargue, Tin's bride was a +governess, and an English governess, or at least one who taught English. +She proposed to marry Tin, who first resisted, and then hesitated. In a +matter of this kind, the man who hesitates is lost. The English +governess flattered Tin's literary as well as his personal vanity. She +proposed to translate the novels which Tin composes in his native tongue, +and which he might expect to prove as popular in France as some other +fictions of his fatherland have done in times past. So they were +married. Tim, though on pleasure bent, had a frugal mind, and after a +wedding-breakfast, which lasted all day, he went to a theatre to ask for +two free passes. When he came back his bride was gone. He sought her +with all the ardour of the bridegroom in the ballad of "The Mistletoe +Bough," and with more success. Madame Ling was reading a novel at home. +Mr. Carlyle has quoted Tobias Smollett as to the undesirability of giving +the historical muse that latitude which is not uncommon in France, and we +prefer to leave the tale of Ling's where Mr. Carlyle left that of +Brynhild's wedding. {37} + + + +SIEUR DE MONTAIGNE. + + +The French National Library has recently, as it is said, made an +acquisition of great value and interest. The books, and better still the +notes, of Montaigne, the essayist, have been bought up at the not very +exorbitant price of thirty-six thousand francs. The volumes are the +beautiful editions of the sixteenth century--the age of great scholars +and of printers, like the Estiennes, who were at once men of learning and +of taste. It is almost certain that they must be enriched with marginal +notes of Montaigne's, and the marginal notes of a great man add even more +to the value of a book than the scribblings of circulating library +readers detract from its beauty. There is always something +characteristic in a man's treatment of his books. Coleridge's marginalia +on borrowed works, according to Lamb, were an ornament of value to his +friends, if they were lucky enough to get the books back again. Poe's +marginalia were of exquisite neatness, though in their printed form they +were not very interesting. Thackeray's seem mostly to have taken the +shape of slight sketches in illustration of the matter. Scaliger's notes +converted a classic into a new and precious edition of one example. +Casaubon's, on the other hand, were mere scratches and mnemonic lines and +blurs, with which he marked his passage through a book, as roughly as the +American woodsman "blazes" his way through a forest. "None could read +the comment save himself," and the text was disfigured. We may be sure +that Montaigne's marginalia are of a very different value. As he walked +up and down in his orchard, or in his library, beneath the rafters +engraved with epicurean maxims, he jotted his thoughts hastily on the +volume in his hand--on the Pliny, or Suetonius, or Livy. His library was +probably not a large one, for he had but a few favourite authors, the +Latin historians, moralists, and anecdotists, and for mere amusement +Terence and Catullus, Boccaccio and Rabelais. His thoughts fell asleep, +he says, if he was not walking about, and his utter want of memory made +notes and note-books necessary to him. He who could not remember the +names of the most ordinary tools used in agriculture, nor the difference +between oats and barley, could never keep in his head his enormous stock +of classical anecdotes and modern instances. His thoughts got innocently +confused with his recollections, and his note-books will probably show +whence he drew many of his stories, and the quotations that remain +untraced. They will add also to our knowledge of the man and of his +character, though it might seem difficult to give additional traits in +the portrait of himself which he has painted with so many minute touches. + +With the exception of Dr. Johnson, there is scarcely any great man of +letters whom we are enabled to know so intimately as the Sieur de +Montaigne. He has told us all about himself; all about his age, as far +as it came under his eager and observant eyes; all about the whole world, +as far as it made part of his experience. Rousseau is not more frank, +and not half so worthy of credit, for Rousseau, like Topsy in the novel, +had a taste for "'fessing" offences that he had never committed rather +than not "'fess" at all. Montaigne strikes no such attitudes; he does +not pose, he does not so much confess as blab. His life stands before +the reader "as in a picture." We learn that his childhood was a happier +one than usually fell to the lot of children in that age when there was +but little honey smeared on the cup of learning. We know that his father +taught him Greek in a kind of sport or game, that the same parent's +relations with the fair sex were remarkable, and that he had +extraordinary strength in his thumb. For his own part, Montaigne was so +fresh and full of life that Simon Thomas, a great physician, said it +would make a decrepit old man healthy again to live in his company. One +thinks of him as a youth like the irrepressible Swiss who amused the +_ennui_ of Gray. + +Even in his old age, Montaigne was a gay, cheerful, untiring traveller, +always eager to be going on, delighted with every place he visited, and +yet anxious for constant change of scene and for new experience. To be +amusingly and simply selfish is ever part of the charm of Montaigne. He +adds to his reader's pleasure in life by the keenness with which he +relished his own existence, and savoured every little incident as a man +relishes the bouquet of wine. Without selfishness, how can this be +managed? and without perfect simplicity and the good faith on which he +prided himself, how could Montaigne, how could Pepys, have enriched the +world as they have done? His essays are among the few works that really +and literally make life more opulent with accumulated experience, +criticism, reflection, humour. He gives of his rich nature, his lavish +exuberance of character, out of that fresh and puissant century to this +rather weary one, just as his society in youth might have been given to +the sick old man. + +Besides what he has to give in this manner, Montaigne seems to express +French character, to explain the French genius and the French way of +looking at life, more clearly and completely than any other writer. He +has at bottom the intense melancholy, the looking forward to the end of +all, which is the ground-note of the poetry of Villon, and of Ronsard, as +of the prose of Chateaubriand. The panelled library in Montaigne's +chateau was carven with mottoes, which were to be charms against too +great fear of death. "For my part," he says, "if a man could by any +means avoid death, were it by hanging a calf-skin on his limbs, I am one +that would not be ashamed of the shift." Happy it is, he thinks, that we +do not, as a rule, meet death on a sudden, any more than we encounter the +death of youth in one day. But this is only the dark background of the +enjoyment of life, to which Montaigne clings, as he says, "even too +eagerly." Merely to live, merely to muse over this spectacle of the +world, simply to feel, even if the thing felt be agony, and to reflect on +the pain, and on how it may best be borne--this is enough for Montaigne. +This is his philosophy, reconciling in a way the maxims of the schools +that divided the older worlds, the theories of the Stoic and wiser +Epicurean. To make each moment yield all that it has of experience, and +of reflection on that experience, is his system of existence. Acting on +this idea, all contrasts of great and petty, mean and divine, in human +nature do not sadden, but delight him. It was part of the play to see +the division between the King of Navarre (Henri IV.) and the Duke of +Guise. He told Thuanus that he knew the most secret thoughts of both +these princes, and that he was persuaded that neither of them was of the +religion he professed. This scandal gave him no concern, compared with +his fear that his own castle would suffer in wars of the League. As to +the Reformation, he held it for a hasty, conceited movement on the part +of persons who did not know what they were meddling with, and, being a +perfect sceptic, he was a perfectly good Churchman. Full of tolerance, +good-humour, and content, cheerful in every circumstance, simple and +charming, yet melancholy in his hour, Montaigne is a thorough +representative of the French spirit in literature. His English +translator in 1776 declares that "he meets with a much more favourable +entertainment in England than in his native country, a servile nation +that has lost all sense of liberty." Like many other notions current in +1776, this theory of Montaigne's popularity at home and abroad has lost +its truth. Perhaps it would be more true to say that Montaigne is one of +the last authors whom modern taste learns to appreciate. He is a man's +author, not a woman's; a tired man's, not a fresh man's. We all come to +him, late indeed, but at last, and rest in his panelled library. + + + +THACKERAY'S DRAWINGS. + + +The advertisements of publishers make a very pleasant sort of reading. +They offer, as it were, a distant prospect of the great works of the +future, looming in a golden haze of expectation. A gentleman or lady may +acquire a reputation for wide research by merely making a careful study +of the short paragraphs in the literary papers. + +There are three classes of people who take an interest in letters. There +are the persons who read books; the much larger class which reads +reviews; and, again, they who merely skim over the advertisements of new +works. The last set live in a constant enjoyment of the pleasure of +expectation; they pretend to themselves that some day they will find time +to peruse the volumes in the birth of which they are interested, but, in +fact, they live in the future. They are a month ahead of their friends +who read reviews, and six months of the students who actually devour +books themselves. Not only these eager lovers of literary "shop," but +all friends of English humour, must be glad to see that a collection of +Mr. Thackeray's sketches and drawings has been prepared for publication. + +When the news spread over England of Mr. Thackeray's sudden death, it was +felt that a personal loss had been sustained by every one who cared for +books and for style. Other men might write themselves out, their +invention might become weary; and, indeed, Mr. Thackeray himself felt +this fatigue. He wished he could get some one to do "the business" of +his stories he told the world in a "Roundabout Paper." The love-making +parts of "the business" annoyed him, and made him blush, in the privacy +of his study, "as if he were going into an apoplexy." Some signs of this +distaste for the work of the novelist were obvious, perhaps, in "Philip," +though they did not mar the exquisite tenderness and charm of "Denis +Duval." However that might be, his inimitable style was as fresh as +ever, with its passages of melancholy, its ease, its flexible strength, +and unlooked-for cadences. It was the talk about life, and the tone of +that talk, which fell silent when Thackeray died, that we all felt as an +irremediable loss. There is an old story that Pindar had never in his +lifetime written an ode in praise of Persephone, the goddess of death and +the dead, and that after he had departed from among living men, his shade +communicated to the priests a new hymn on the Queen of Hades. The works +of great writers published after their decease have somewhat of the charm +of this fabled hymn; they are voices, familiar and unlooked for, out of +the silence. They are even stranger, when they have such a slight and +homelike interest as the trifles that fell unheeded from the pen or +pencil of one who has done great things in poetry or art. Mr. +Thackeray's sketches in the "Orphan of Pimlico" are of this +quality--caricatures thrown off to amuse children who are now grown men +and women. They have the mark of the old unmistakable style, humorous +and sad, and, as last remains, they are to be welcomed and treasured. + +Mr. Thackeray's skill with the pencil bore very curious relations to his +mastery of the other art, in which lay his strength, but to which perhaps +he never gave his love. Everyone has heard how, when a young man, he was +anxious to illustrate "Pickwick," which found more fitting artists in +Seymour and H. K. Browne. Mr. Thackeray seems to have been well aware of +the limitations of his own power as a draughtsman. In one of his +"Roundabout Papers" he described the method--the secret so to say--of +Rubens; and then goes on to lament the impotence of his own hand, the +"pitiful niggling," that cannot reproduce the bold sweep of Ruben's +brush. + +Thackeray was like Theophile Gautier, who began life as a painter, and +who has left to posterity a wonderful etching of his own portrait, pale, +romantic, with long sweeping moustache, and hair falling over his +shoulders. Both writers found their knowledge of the technique of +painting useful in making their appreciation of art and nature more keen +and versatile. But Mr. Thackeray's powers had another field--he really +did succeed in illustrating some of his own writings. Accomplished his +style never was. There was a trace of the old school of caricature in +the large noses and thin legs which he gave his figures. Nor was his +drawing very correct; the thin legs of the heroes of "The Virginians" are +often strangely contorted. He has even placed a thumb on the wrong side +of a hand! For all that, he gave to many of his own characters a visible +embodiment, which another artist would have missed. Mr. Frederick +Walker, for instance, drew Philip Firmin admirably--a large, rough man, +with a serious and rather worn face, and a huge blonde beard. Mr. +Walker's Philip has probably become the Philip of many readers, but he +was not Mr. Thackeray's. It is delightful to be sure, on the other hand, +that we have the author's own Captain Costigan before us, in his habit as +he lived--the unshaven chin, the battered hat, the high stock, the blue +cloak, the whiskeyfied stare, and the swagger. Mr. Thackeray did not do +his young men well. Arthur Pendennis is only himself as he sits with +Warrington over a morning paper; in his white hat and black band at the +Derby, he has not the air of a gentleman. Harry Foker is either a coarse +exaggeration, or the modern types of Fokers have improved in demeanour on +the great prototype. But Costigan is always perfect; and the nose and +wig of Major Pendennis are ideally correct. In his drawings of women, +Mr. Thackeray very much confined himself to two types. There was the +dark-eyed, brown-haired, bright-complexioned girl who was his +favourite--Laura, Betsinda, Amelia; and the blonde, ringletted, clever, +and false girl--Becky, Blanche, Angelica, who was the favourite of the +reader. He did not always succeed in making them pretty, though there is +a beautiful head of Amelia, in a court dance at Pumpernickel; but he +always made the dark young lady look honest, and the fair young minx look +a thing all soul and enthusiasm. + +It was a note of Mr. Thackeray's art, and probably one among other proofs +that the higher fields of art were closed to him, that his success by no +means corresponded to the amount of pains he took with his work. His +drawings which appeared as steel engravings, were not unfrequently weak, +while his sketches on the wood and his lithographs were much more free +and masterly. There is, indeed, a sketch on the steel of poor Pen +tossing feverishly in his mother's comforting arms, which is full of +passion and life and sentiment. But it was rare that success attended +his ambition, and, indeed, another drawing of Pen and his mother admiring +a sunset might have come out of a book of fashions of that remote period. +It was in his initial letters and slight designs that Thackeray showed +his best powers. There is much wistful tenderness in the little +Marquise's face as she trips down a rope-ladder in an initial letter of +_Vanity Fair_. The bewigged shepherds and powdered shepherdesses of his +favourite period are always reproduced with grace, and the children of +his drawings are almost invariably charming. In the darker moods, when +"man delighted him not, nor woman either," children did not fail to +please him, and he sketched them in a hundred pathetic attitudes. There +are the little brother and sister of the doomed House of Gaunt, sitting +under the ancestral sword that seems ready to fall. There is little +Rawdon Crawley, manly and stout, in his great coat, watching the thin +little cousin Pitt, whom he was "too big a dog to play with." There is +the printer's devil, asleep at Pen's door; and the small boy in "Dr. +Birch," singing in his nightgown to the big boy in bed. There is +Betsinda dancing with her plum-bun in "The Rose and the Ring." The +burlesque drawings of that delightful child's book are not its least +attraction. Not arriving at the prettiness of Mr. Tenniel, and the +elegance of Mr. Du Maurier, and falling far short of their ingenious +fantasy, they are yet manly delineations of great adventures. The count +kicking the two black men into space is a powerful design, full of +action; and it would be hard to beat the picture of the fate of +Gruffanuf's husband. These and the rest are old friends, and there are +hosts of quaint scribblings, signed with the mark of a pair of +spectacles, scattered through the pages of _Punch_. + + + +GOLF. + + +While pheasant-shooters are enjoying the first day of the season, the +votaries of a sport not less noble, though less noisy, are holding the +great festival of their year. The autumn meeting of the Royal and +Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews is in full swing, and the words will +suggest pleasant memories to many a golfer. Golf is not one of the more +brilliant and famous pastimes of the day, though it yields to none in +antiquity and in unassuming merit. The names of the winners of the gold +medal and of the silver cross are not telegraphed all over the world as +widely as Mr. Tennyson's hero wished the news that Maud had accepted him +to be. The red man may possibly "dance beneath his red cedar tree" at +the tidings of the event of one of our great horse-races, or great +university matches. At all events, even if the red man preserves his +usual stoicism of demeanour, his neighbours, the pale-faces, like to know +all about the result of many English sports the moment they are decided. +Golf, as we have said, excites less general enthusiasm; but in people who +love it at all, the love is burning, consuming; they will talk golf-shop +in season and out of season. Few persons, perhaps, will call golf the +very first and queen of games. Cricket exercises more faculties of body, +and even of mind, for does not the artful bowler "bowl with his head?" +Football demands an extraordinary personal courage, and implies the +existence of a fierce delight in battle with one's peers. Tennis, with +all its merits, is a game for the few, so rare are tennis-courts and so +expensive the pastime. But cricketers, football-players, tennis-players, +would all give golf the second place after their favourite exercise; and +just as Themistocles was held to be the best Greek general, because each +of his fellows placed him second, so golf may assert a right to be +thought the first of games. One great advantage it certainly has--it is +a game for "men" of all ages, from eight, or even younger, to eighty. The +links of St. Andrews are probably cleared just now of the little lads and +the veterans, they make room for the heroes, the medalists, the great +players--Mr. Mackay, Mr. Lamb, Mr. Leslie Balfour, and the rest. But at +ordinary times there are always dozens of tiny boys in knickerbockers and +scarlet stockings, who "drive out" the first hole in some twenty strokes +of their little clubs, and who pass much of their time in fishing for +their lost balls in the muddy burn. As for the veterans "on the +threshold of old age," it is pleasant to watch their boyish eagerness, +the swaying of their bodies as they watch the short flight of their +longest hits; their delight when they do manage to hit further than the +sand-pit, or "bunker," which is named after the nose of a long-dead +principal of the university; their caution, nay, their almost tedious +delay in the process of putting, that is, of hitting the ball over the +"green" into the neighbouring hole. They can still do their round, or +their two rounds, five or ten miles' walking a day, and who can speak +otherwise than well of a game which is not too strenuous for healthy age +or tender childhood, and yet allows an athlete of twenty-three to put out +all his strength? + +Golf is a thoroughly national game; it is as Scotch as haggis, cockie- +leekie, high cheekbones, or rowanberry jam. A spurious imitation, or an +arrested development of the sport, exists in the south of France, where a +ball is knocked along the roads to a fixed goal. But this is naturally +very poor fun compared to the genuine game as played on the short turf +beside the grey northern sea on the coast of Fife. Golf has been +introduced of late years into England, and is played at Westward Ho, at +Wimbledon, at Blackheath (the oldest club), at Liverpool, over Cowley +Marsh, near Oxford, and in many other places. It is, therefore, no +longer necessary to say that golf is not a highly developed and +scientific sort of hockey, or bandy-ball. Still, there be some to whom +the processes of the sport are a mystery, and who would be at a loss to +discriminate a niblick from a bunker-iron. The thoroughly equipped golf- +player needs an immense variety of weapons, or implements, which are +carried for him by his caddie--a youth or old man, who is, as it were, +his esquire, who sympathizes with him in defeat, rejoices in his success, +and aids him with such advice as his superior knowledge of the ground +suggests. The class of human beings known as caddies are the offspring +of golf, and have peculiar traits which distinguish them from the +professional cricketer, the waterman, the keeper, the gillie, and all +other professionals. It is not very easy to account for their little +peculiarities. One thing is certain--that when golf was introduced by +Scotchmen into France, and found a home at Pau, in the shadow of the +Pyrenees, the French caddie sprang, so to speak, from the ground, the +perfect likeness of his Scottish brother. He was just as sly, just as +importunate in his demands to be employed, just as fond of "putting at +short holes," more profane, and every bit as contemptuous of all non-golf- +playing humanity as the boyish Scotch caddie, in whom contempt has +reversed the usual process, and bred familiarity with all beginners. + +The professional cricketer can instruct an unskilled amateur, can take +his ill-guarded wicket, and make him "give chances" all over the field, +without bursting into yells of unseemly laughter. But the little caddie +cannot restrain his joy when the tyro at golf, after missing his ball +some six times, ultimately dashes off the head of his club against the +ground. Nor is he less exuberant when his patron's ball is deep in a +"bunker," or sand-pit, where the wretch stands digging at it with an +iron, hot, helpless, and wrathful. And yet golf is a sport not learned +in a day, and caddies might be more considerate. The object of the game +is to strike a small gutta-percha ball into a hole about five inches +wide, distant from the striker about three hundred yards, and separated +from him by rough grass and smooth sand-pits, furze bushes, and perhaps a +road or a brook. He who, of two players, gets his ball into the hole in +the smallest number of strokes is the winner of that hole, and the party +then play towards the next hole. All sorts of skill are needed--strength +and adroitness, and a certain supple "swing" of the body, are wanted to +send the ball "sure and far" in the "driving" part of the game. Nothing +is so pleasant as a clean "drive." The sensation is like that of hitting +a ball to square-leg, fair and full, at cricket. Then the golfer must +have the knack to lift his ball out of deep sand with the "iron," and to +strike it deftly "a half-shot" up to the hole with the "cleek;" and, +lastly, coolness and a good eye when he "putts" or hits his ball actually +up to the very hole. + +Any degree of skill in these varied feats makes golf a delightful game, +if the opponents are well matched. Nor are the charms of scenery wanting +at St. Andrews, the headquarters of the sport. There is no more +picturesque town in Scotland than the little university city. From the +plain of the estuary of the river Eden, across the long leagues of marsh +land and the stretches of golden sand and brown, the towers of St. +Andrews--for it is a town of many towers--are seen breaking the sky-line. +Built on a windy headland, running out to the grey northern sea, it +reaches the water with an ancient pier of rugged stone. Immediately +above is the site of a chapel of immemorial age, and above that again are +the ruins of the cathedral--gaunt spires with broken tracery, standing +where once the burnished roof of copper flashed far across the deep. The +high street winds from the cathedral precinct past an old house of Queen +Mary Stuart, past ruined chapels of St. Leonard's, and the university +chapel with its lovely spire, down to the shores of the bay; and along +the bay run the famous "links," where the royal and ancient game has its +cradle and home. Other links, as Prestwick, or North Berwick, may vie +with those of St. Andrews in extent, or in the smoothness of the putting +greens, or in the number and hardness of the "hazards," or difficult +places; but none offer so wide and varied an extent of scenery, from the +melancholy stretch of the parallel sands to the hills in the west, the +golden glitter of the beach, beneath the faint aerial blue of the still +more distant hills across the firth, while behind is the city set on its +cliffs, and proud with its crown of spires. The reflected sunset lingers +on the walls and crags and towers, that shine imaged in the wet sands, +the after-glow hangs over the eastern sky, and these have their charm; +but their charm yields to that of golf. It is a sign that a man has lost +heart and hope when he dilates on the beauty of the scenery, and +abstracts his attention from what alone would interest him were he +winning--the "lie" of his ball. Who can stop to think of the beauties of +nature, when he and his antagonist are equal, and there are only two more +holes left to play in the match for the medal? It is a serious moment; +not one of the little crowd of observers, the gallery that accompany the +players, dares to speak, or even cough. The caddie who sneezes is lost, +for he will be accused of distracting his master's attention. The ladies +begin to appear in the background, ready to greet the players, and to +tell the truth, are not very welcome to the nervous golfer. Everything +turns on half an inch of leather in a "drive," or a stiff blade of grass +in a putt, and the interest is wound up to a really breathless pitch. +Happy he is who does not in his excitement "top" his ball into the +neighbouring brook, or "heel" it and send it devious down to the depths +of ocean. Happy is he who can "hole out the last hole in four" beneath +the eyes of the ladies. Striding victorious into the hospitable club, +where beer awaits him, he need not envy the pheasant-slayer who has slain +his hundreds. + + + +ART OF DINING. + + +There is such a thing as nationality in dining, just as Mr. Browning has +proved, in a brilliant poem, that there is nationality in drinks. +Surveying mankind with extensive view, the essayist recognizes that the +science is not absolutely ignored in Turkey, where we cannot but think +that an archaic school retains too much wool with the mutton, and that +dining (like Egyptian Art) is rather a matter of sacred and immemorial +rules than in any worthy sense of the word a science. The Chinese and +Japanese have long been famous for their birds'-nest soup, and for making +the best, after his lamented decease, of the friend of man--the dog. +About the Australians and New Zealanders, perhaps the less said the +better. Many students will feel that our own colonists have neglected to +set a proper example to these poor heathen races, who, save kangaroos, +have no larger game than rats. The Englishman in Australia revels in +boundless mutton, in damper, in tea, and in the vintages of his adopted +soil, which he playfully, and patriotically, compares to those of the +Rhine. It is impossible, on the other hand, not to recognize the merits +of the Russian _cuisine_, where the imported civilization of France has +found various good traditional ideas still retained by the Sclavonic +people; and where the _caviare_, "with that pale green hue which denotes +the absence of salt," is not to be overlooked. In melancholy contrast to +the native genius of the Sclavs is the absolute dearth of taste and sense +in gastronomic Germany. If a map of the world could be made--and why +not?--in which lands of utter darkness in culinary matters should be +coloured black (like heathen countries in the missionary atlas, and +coalfields in the map of physical geography), the German Empire would be +one vast blot on Central Europe. Science might track Teutonic blood by +the absence of respectable cookery; and in England too obvious tokens +would be found of that incapacity of the art of dining which we brought +from the marshes of Holstein. In America, nature herself has put the +colonists on many schemes for the improvement of dinner, and terrapin +soup is gratefully associated with memoirs of Virginia--in the minds of +those who like terrapin soup. The canvas-backed duck has been praised as +highly as the "swopping, swopping mallard" of a comfortable college in +Oxford. As to the wild turkey, the poet has not yet risen in America who +can do justice to the charms of that admirable bird. Mr. Whitman, who +has much to say about "bob-a-links" and "whip-poor-wills," and some other +fowl which sing "when lilacs bloom in the garden yard," has neglected, we +fear, the wild turkey, simply because the Muse has not given this bird +melody, and made it, like the robin-redbreast, which goes so well with +bread-crumbs, "an amiable songster." American genius neglects the +turkey, and positively takes more interest in the migrations of the +transatlantic sparrow. If the nobler fowl can cross the water as safely +as the beef and mutton of everyday life, he will receive the honour he +deserves in this country. Some students with the deathless thirst of +scientific men for acclimatization, speak well of the Bohemian pheasant, +which, unlike some other denizens of Bohemia, is fat. But there are +probably less familiar birds in America that rival the duck and the wild +turkey, and excel the Bohemian pheasant. The existence of maize, +however, on the Western Continent has been a snare to American cooks, who +have yielded to an absorbing passion for hot corn-cakes. + +France is, of course, the land in which the Muse of cooking is native. +"If we turn north towards Belgium," says a modern author, "we shall find +much that is good in cooking and eating known, if not universally +practised." He has also made the discovery that the Belgian air and +climate are admirably suited to develop the best qualities of Burgundy. +It is from these favoured and ingenious people that England ought to +learn a lesson, or rather a good many lessons. To begin at the +beginning, with soup, does not every one know that all domestic soups in +England, which bear French names, are really the same soup, just as +almost all puddings are, or may be, called cabinet pudding? The one word +"Julienne" covers all the watery, chill and tasteless, or terribly salt, +decoctions, in which a few shreds of vegetables appear drifting through +the illimitable inane. Other names are given at will by the help of a +cookery-book and a French dictionary; but all these soups, at bottom, are +attempts to be Julienne soup. The idea of looking on soup "as a vehicle +for applying to the palate certain herbal flavours," is remote indeed +from the Plain Cook's mind. There is a deeply rooted conviction in her +inmost soul that all vegetables, which are not potatoes or cabbages, +partake of the nature of evil. As to eating vegetables apart from meat, +it was once as hard to get English domestics to let you do that, as to +get a Cretan cook to serve woodcock with the trail. "_Kopros_ is not a +thing to be eaten," says the Cretan, according to a traveller; and the +natural heart of the English race regards vegetables, when eaten as a +_plat_ apart, with equal disfavour. Probably the market gardener's +ignorance and conservatism are partly in fault. Cabbage he knows, and +potatoes he knows, but what are pennyroyal and chervil? He has +cauliflower for you, but never says, "Here is rue for you, and rosemary +for you." Cooks do not give him botany lessons, and a Scottish cook, +deprived of bay-leaf, has been known to make an experiment in the use of +what she called "Roderick Randoms," members of the vegetable kingdom +which proved to be rhododendron. As for pennyroyal, most people have +only heard of it through Mr. Bonn's crib to Aristophanes. + +When it comes to fish, it is allowed that we are not an insular people +for nothing. There are other forms of good living that Paris knows not +of, so to speak, at first hand, native to England. Turtle soup, turbot +and lobster sauce, a haunch of venison, and a grouse, are, we may say +without chauvinism, a "truly royal repast." But we incur the contempt of +foreigners once more in the matter of wines. To like sherry, the coarse +and fiery, is a matter of habit, which would teach us to love betel-root, +and rejoice in the very peculiar drink of the South Sea islanders. Some +purists include champagne in the same condemnation--the champagne, that +is, of this degenerate day. When the Russians drank up the contents of +the widow Clicquot's cellars, they found a sweet natural wine, to which +they have constantly adhered. But Western Europe, all the Europe which, +as M. Comte puts it, "synergizes" after light and positivism, has tended +towards champagnes more or less dry. The English serve this "grog +mousseux" as a necessity for social liveliness, and have not come back to +the sweet wine which was only meant to be drunk with sweets. A +_Quarterly_ reviewer is very severe in his condemnation of a practice +which will only yield to the stress of some European convulsion in +politics and society. These matters are like certain large reforms, they +either come to pass without observation in the slow changes of things, or +great movements in the world are accompanied by small ones in everyday +life. Dry champagne came in after the Revolution; it may go out after a +European war, which will make wine either expensive, or, if cheap, a +palpably spurious article. "Monotony and base servile imitation" may be +the bane of eating and drinking in England; but the existence of monotony +shows that the English really do not care very much about dining +considered as a fine art. When they do care, they cover their interest +in the matter decently, with the veil of humorous affectation. They +cannot spontaneously and sincerely make a business of it, as the French +do in all good faith. Even if they had a genius for dining, we doubt if +a critic is right in thinking they should dine at six o'clock or seven at +latest. Whether in the country or in town, the business or amusement of +the day claims more time. Sportsmen, for example, in early autumn could +not possibly return home by six very frequently, and in summer six +o'clock may be so sultry an hour that the thought of food is intolerable. +Still, it must be admitted that the unawakened state of the +market-gardener and the condition of English soups are matters deserving +serious consideration. + + + +AMERICAN HUMOUR. + + +One of the most popular of American humorists has elicited from a member +of an English audience, who did not quite hear him lecture, a remark of +an amusing sort. The aggrieved listener proclaimed that he "had a right +to hear." This was one of the turbulent people who should read Mazzini, +and learn that man has no rights worth mentioning--only duties, one of +which is to hold his tongue in season. If Mr. Bret Harte's words did not +reach all his audience, his writings at least have come home to most +English readers. They suggest a consideration of the many points of +difference which distinguish American from English humour. The Americans +are of our own stock, yet in their treatment of the ludicrous how unlike +us they are! As far as fun goes, the race has certainly become +"differentiated," as the philosophers say, on the other side of the +Atlantic. It does not seem probable that the infusion of alien blood has +caused the difference. The native redskin can claim few descendants +among the civilized Americans, and the native redskin had no sense of +humour. We all remember Cooper's Hawk-eye or Leather Stocking, with his +"peculiar silent laugh." He was obliged to laugh silently for fear of +attracting the unfavourable notice of the Mingo, who might be hiding in +the nearest bush. The red men found it simpler and safer not to laugh at +all. No, it is not from the natives that the people of the States get +their peculiar fun. As to the German emigrants--But why pursue the +subject? The Abbe Bouhours told the bitter truth about German wit, +though, in new conditions and on a fresh soil, the Teuton has helped to +produce Hans Breitmann. We laugh at Hans, however, and with his creator. +Hans does not make us laugh by conscious efforts of humour. Whence, +then, come Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, and Mr. Bret Harte, who are probably +the American humorists whose popularity is widest? Mr. Bret Harte's own +fun is much more English and less thoroughly Yankee than that of his +contemporaries. He is a disciple of Thackeray and Dickens. Of all the +pupils of Dickens he is perhaps the only one who has continued to be +himself, who has not fallen into a trick of aping his master's +mannerisms. His mixture of the serious, the earnest, the pathetic, makes +his humour not unlike the melancholy mirth of Thackeray and Sterne. He +is almost the only American humorist with sentiment. It is only the air, +not the spirit, that is changed--_coelum non animus_. + +The changed atmosphere, the new conditions, do, however, make an immense +superficial difference between the humour even of Mr. Bret Harte and that +of English writers. His fun is derived from the vagaries of huge, rough +people, with the comic cruelty of the old Danes, and with the unexpected +tenderness of a sentimental time. The characters of the great Texan and +Californian drama are like our hackneyed friends, the Vikings, with a +touch, if we may use the term, of spooniness. Their humour is often +nothing more than a disdainful trifling with death; they seize the comic +side of manslaughter very promptly, and enjoy all the mirth that can be +got out of revolvers and grizzly bears. In Mr. Bret Harte's poems of +"The Spelling Bee" and of "The Break-up of the Society upon the +Stanislaw," the fun is of this practical sort. The innate mirthfulness +of a chunk of old red sandstone is illustrated, and you are introduced to +people who not only take delight of battle with their peers, but think +the said battle the most killing joke in the world. The incongruities of +these revels of wild men in a new world; their confusion when +civilization meets them in the shape of a respectable woman or of a baby; +their grotesque way of clinging to religion, as they understand it, make +up the transatlantic element in this American humour. The rest of it is +"European quite," though none the worse for that. It is more humane, on +the whole, than the laughable and amazing paradoxes of Mark Twain, or the +_naivetes_ of Artemus Ward. + +Two remarkable features in American humour, as it is shown in the great +body of comic writers who are represented by Mark Twain and the "Genial +Showman," are its rusticity and its puritanism. The fun is the fun of +rough villagers, who use quaint, straightforward words, and have +developed, or carried over in the _Mayflower_, a slang of their own. They +do not want anything too refined; they are not in the least like the farm- +lad to whose shirt a serpent clung as he was dressing after bathing. Many +people have read how he fled into the farm-yard, where the maidens were +busy; how he did not dare to stop, and sought escape, not from woman's +help--he was too modest--but in running so fast that, obedient to the +laws of centrifugal motion, the snake waved out behind him like a flag. +The village wits are not so shy. The young ladies, like Betsy Ward, say, +"If you mean getting hitched, I'm on." The public is not above the most +practical jokes, and a good deal of the amusement is derived from the +extreme dryness, the countrified slowness of the narrative. The +humorists are Puritans at bottom, as well as rustics. They have an +amazing familiarity with certain religious ideas and certain Biblical +terms. There is a kind of audacity in their use of the Scriptures, which +reminds one of the freedom of mediaeval mystery-plays. Probably this +boldness began, not in scepticism or in irreverence, but in honest +familiar faith. It certainly seems very odd to us in England, and +probably expressions often get a laugh which would pass unnoticed in +America. An astounding coolness and freedom of manners probably go for +something in the effect produced by American humour. There is nothing of +the social flunkeyism in it which too often marks our own satirists. +Artemus Ward's reports of his own conversations with the mighty of the +earth were made highly ludicrous by the homely want of self-consciousness, +displayed by the owner of the Kangaroo, that "amoosin' little cuss," and +of the "two moral B'ars." But it is vain to attempt to analyze the fun +of Artemus Ward. Why did he make some people laugh till they cried, +while others were all untouched? His secret probably was almost entirely +one of manner, a trick of almost idiotic _naivete_, like that of Lord +Dundreary, covering real shrewdness. He had his rustic chaff, his +Puritan profanity; his manner was the essence of his mirth. It was one +of the ultimate constituents of the ludicrous, beyond which it is useless +to inquire. + +With Mark Twain we are on smoother ground. An almost Mephistophilean +coolness, an unwearying search after the comic sides of serious subjects, +after the mean possibilities of the sublime,--these, with a native sense +of incongruities and a glorious vein of exaggeration, make up his stock- +in-trade. The colossal exaggeration is, of course, natural to a land of +ocean-like rivers and almighty tall pumpkins. No one has made such +charming use of the trick as Mark Twain. The dryness of the story of a +greenhorn's sufferings who had purchased "a genuine Mexican plug," is one +of the funniest things in literature. The intense gravity and self-pity +of the sufferer, the enormous and Gargantuan feats of his steed, the +extreme distress of body thence resulting, make up a passage more moving +than anything in Rabelais. The same contrast, between an innocent style +of narrative and the huge palpable nonsense of the story told, marks the +tale of the agricultural newspaper which Mr. Twain edited. To a joker of +jokes of this sort, a tour through Palestine presented irresistible +attractions. It is when we read of the "Innocents Abroad" that we +discern the weak point of American humour when carried to its extreme. +Here, indeed, is the place where the most peculiarly American fun has +always failed. It has lacked reverence and sympathy, and so, when it was +most itself, never approached the masterpieces of Thackeray and Dickens. +To balance its defect by its merit, American humour has always dared to +speak out, and Mark Twain especially has hit hard the errors of public +opinion and the dishonest compromises of custom. + + + +SUSPENDED ANIMATION. + + +It used to be thought that a man who said he liked dry champagne would +say anything. In the same way, some persons may hold that a person who +could believe in the recurrent Australian story of "suspended +animation"--artificially produced in animals, and prolonged for +months--could believe in anything. It does not do, however, to be too +dogmatic about matters of opinion in this world. Perhaps the Australian +tale of an invention by which sheep and oxen are first made lifeless, +then rendered "stiff ones" by freezing, and then restored to life, and +reproduced with gravy, may be like the genius of Beethoven. Very few +persons (and these artists) believed in Beethoven at first, but now he is +often considered to be the greatest of composers. Perhaps great +discoveries, like the works of men of original genius, are certain to be +received at first with incredulity and mockery. We will not, therefore, +take up a dogmatic position, either about the painting or the preserved +meats of the future; but will hope for the best. The ideally best, of +course, is that the tale from Australia may prove true. In that case the +poorest will be able to earn "three square meals a day," like the +Australians themselves; and while English butchers suffer (for some one +must suffer in all great revolutions), smiling Plenty will walk through +our land studying a cookery-book. There are optimistic thinkers, who +gravely argue that the serious desires of humanity are the pledges of +their own future fulfilment. If that be correct, the Australian myth may +be founded on fact. There is no desire more deep-rooted in our +perishable nature than that which asks for plenty of beef and mutton at +low prices. Again, humanity has so often turned over the idea of +conveniently suspended animation before, that there must be something in +that conception. If we examine the history of ideas we shall find that +they at first exist "in the air." They float about, beautiful alluring +visions, ready to be caught and made to serve mortal needs by the right +man at the right moment. Thus Empedocles, Lucretius, and the author of +"Vestiges of Creation," all found out Darwinism before Mr. Darwin. They +spied the idea, but they left it floating; they did not trap it, and +break it into scientific harness. Solomon De Caus, as all the world has +heard, was put into a lunatic asylum for inventing the steam-engine, +though no one would have doubted his sanity if he had offered to raise +the devil, or to produce the philosopher's stone, or the _elixir vitae_. +Now, these precious possessions have not been more in men's minds than a +system of conveniently suspended animation. There is scarcely a +peasantry in Europe that does not sing the ballad of the dead bride. This +lady, in the legends, always loves the cavalier not selected by her +parents, the detrimental cavalier. To avoid the wedding which is thrust +on her, she gets an old witch to do what the Australian romancer +professes to do--to suspend her animation, and so she is carried on an +open bier to a chapel on the border of her lover's lands. There he +rides, the right lover, with his men-at-arms, the bride revives just in +time, is lifted on to his saddle-bow, and "they need swift steeds that +follow" the fugitive pair. The sleeping beauty, who is thrown into so +long a swoon by the prick of the fairy thorn, is another very old +example, while "Snow-white," in her glass coffin, in the German nursery +tale, is a third instance. + +It is not only the early fancy of the ballad-mongers and fairy +tale-tellers that has dwelt longingly on the idea of suspended animation. +All the mystics, who all follow the same dim track that leads to nothing, +have believed in various forms of the imaginary Australian experiment. +The seers of most tribes, from Kamschatka to Zululand, and thence to +Australia, are feigned to be able to send their souls away, while their +bodies lie passive in the magical tent. The soul wanders over the +earthly world, and even to the home of the dead, and returns, in the +shape of a butterfly or of a serpent, to the body which has been lying +motionless, but uncorruptible, in apparent death. The Indian Yogis can +attain that third state of being, all three being unknown to Brahma, +which is neither sleeping nor waking, but trance. To produce this +ecstasy, to do for themselves what some people at the Antipodes pretend +to do to sheep and cattle, is the ideal aim of the existence of the Yogi. +The Neoplatonists were no wiser, and Greek legend tells a well-known +story of a married mystic whose suspended animation began at last to bore +his wife. "Dear Hermotimus"--that was his name, if we have not forgotten +it--"is quite the most absent of men," his spouse would say, when her +husband's soul left his body and took its walks abroad. On one occasion +the philosopher's spiritual part remained abroad so long that his lady +ceased to expect its return. She therefore went through the usual +mourning, cut her hair, cried, and finally burned the body on the funeral- +pyre. "We can do no more for miserable mortals, when once the spirit has +left their bones," says Homer. + +At that very moment the spirit returned, and found its uninsured tenement +of clay reduced to ashes. The sequel may be found in a poem of the late +Professor Aytoun's, and in the same volume occurs the wondrous tale of +Colonel Townsend, who could suspend his animation at pleasure. + +There is certainly a good deal of risk, as well as of convenience, in +suspended animation. People do not always welcome Rip Van Winkle when he +returns to life, as we would all welcome Mr. Jefferson if he revisited +the glimpses of the footlights, + + "The hard heir strides about the lands, + And will not yield them for a day." + +There is the horrible chance of being buried alive, which was always +present to the mind of Edgar Poe. It occurs in one of his half-humorous +stories, where a cataleptic man, suddenly waking in a narrow bed, in the +smell of earthy mould, believes he has been interred, but finds himself +mistaken. In the "Fall of The House of Usher" the wretched brother, with +his nervous intensity of sensation, hears his sister for four days +stirring in her vault before she makes her escape. In the "Strange +Effects of Mesmerism on a Dying Man," the animation is mesmerically +suspended at the very instant when it was about naturally to cease. The +results, when the passes were reversed, and the half fled life was half +restored, are described in a passage not to be recommended to sensitive +readers. M. About, uses the same general idea in the fantastic plot of +his "L'Homme a l'Oreille Cassee," and the risk of breakage was insisted +on by M. About as well as by the inventive Australian reporter. Mr. +Clarke Russell has also frozen a Pirate. Thus the idea of suspended +animation is "in the air," is floating among the visions of men of +genius. It is, perhaps, for the great continent beneath the Southern +Cross to realize the dreams of savages, of seers, of novelists, of poets, +of Yogis, of Plotinus, of M. About, and of Swedenborg. Swedenborg, too, +was a suspended animationist, if we may use the term. What else than +suspension of outer life was his "internal breathing," by which his body +existed while his soul was in heaven, hell, or the ends of the earth? +When the Australian discovery is universally believed in (and acted on), +then, and perhaps not till then, will be the time for the great +unappreciated. They will go quietly to sleep, to waken a hundred years +hence, and learn how posterity likes their pictures and poems. They may +not always be satisfied with the results, but no artist will disbelieve +in the favourable verdict of posterity till the supposed Australian +method is applied to men as well as to sheep and kangaroos. + + + +BREAKING UP. + + +The schools have by this time all "broken up," if that is still the term +which expresses the beginning of their vacation. "Breaking up" is no +longer the festival that it was in the good old coaching days--nothing is +what it was in the good old coaching days. Boys can no longer pass a +whole happy day driving through the country and firing peas at the +wayfaring man. They have to travel by railway, and other voyagers may +well pray that their flight be not on breaking-up day. The untrammelled +spirits of boyhood are very much what they have always been. Boys fill +the carriages to overflowing. They sing, they shout, they devour +extraordinary quantities of refreshment, they buy whole libraries of +railway novels, and, generally speaking, behave as if the earth and the +fulness of it were their own. This is trying to the mature traveller, +who has plenty of luggage on his mind, and who wishes to sleep or to read +the newspaper. Boys have an extraordinary knack of losing their own +luggage, and of appearing at home, like the companions of Ulysses, +"bearing with them only empty hands." This is usually their first +exploit in the holidays. Their arrival causes great excitement among +their little sisters, and in the breasts of their fathers wakens a +presentiment of woe. When a little boy comes home his first idea is to +indulge in harmless swagger. When Tom Tulliver went to school, he took +some percussion caps with him that the other lads might suppose him to be +familiar with the use of guns. The schoolboy has other devices for +keeping up the manly character in the family circle. The younger ones +gather round him while he narrates the adventures of himself, and Smith +minor, and Walker (of Briggs's house), in a truly epic spirit. He has +made unheard-of expeditions up the river, has chaffed a farmer almost +into apoplexy, has come in fifth in the house paper-chase, has put the +French master to open shame, and has got his twenty-two colours. These +are the things that make a boy respected by his younger brothers, and +admired by his still younger sisters. They of course have a good deal to +tell him. The setter puppies must be inspected. A match is being got up +with the village eleven, who are boastful and confident in the possession +of a bowling curate. To this the family hero rejoins that "he will crump +the parson," a threat not so awful as it sounds. There is a wasps' nest +which has been carefully preserved for this eventful hour, and which is +to be besieged with boiling water, gunpowder, and other engines of +warfare. Thus the schoolboy's first days at home are a glorious hour of +crowded sport. + +It cannot be denied that, as the holidays go on, a biggish boy sometimes +finds time hang heavy on his hands, while his father and mother find him +hang heavy on theirs. The first excitement rubs off. The fun of getting +up handicap races among children under twelve years of age wears away. +One cannot always be taking wasps' nests. Of course there are many happy +boys who live in the country, and pursue the pleasures of manhood with +the zest of extreme youth. Before they are fourteen, they have a rod on +a salmon river, a gun on a moor, horses and yachts, and boats at their +will, with keepers and gillies to do their bidding. Others, not so much +indulged by fortune and fond parents, live at least among hills and +streams, or by the sea. They are never "in the way," for they are always +in the open air. Their summer holidays may be things to look back upon +all through life. Natural history, and the beauty of solitary nature; +the joys of the swimmer in deep river pools shut in with cool grey walls +of rock, and fringed with fern; the loveliness of the high table lands, +and the intense hush that follows sunset by the trout stream--these +things are theirs, and become a part of their consciousness. In later +and wearier years these spectacles will flash before their eyes unbidden, +they will see the water dimpled by rising trout, and watch the cattle +stealing through the ford, and disappearing, grey shapes, in the grey of +the hills. + +In boyhood, the legends that cling to ancient castles where only a shell +of stone is standing, and to the ash-trees that grow by the feudal +gateway, and supplied the wood for spear shafts--these and all the +stories of red men that haunt the moors, and of kelpies that make their +dwelling in the waters, become very real to us when standing in the dusk +by a moorland loch. If some otter or great fish breaks the water and the +stillness with a sudden splash, a boy feels a romantic thrill, a pause of +expectation, that later he will never experience. "The thoughts of a boy +are long, long thoughts," says the poet; he thinks them out by himself on +the downs, or the hills, and tells them to nobody. + +If we all lived in the country, the advent of boys would not be a thing +to contemplate with secret dread. It is rather a terrible thing, a +houseful of boys in a town, or in a pretty thickly populated district. +Boys, it is true, are always a source of pleasure to the humorist and the +scientific observer of mankind. They are scarcely our fellow-creatures, +so to speak; they live in a world of their own, ruled by eccentric +traditional laws. They have their own heroes, and are much more +interested in Mr. Alan Steel or Lohmann than in persons like Mr. Arthur +Balfour, whose cricket is only middling. They have rules of conduct +which cannot be called immoral, but which are certainly relics of a very +ancient state of tribal morality. The humour of it is that the modern +boy is so grave, so self-assured, and has such abundance of aplomb. He +has acquired an air of mysterious sagacity, and occasionally seems to +smile at the petty interests with which men divert themselves. In a +suburban or city home, he can find very little that he thinks worth +doing, and then he becomes discontented and disagreeable. It is better +that he should do that, perhaps, than that he should aim at being a +dandy. The boy-dandy is an odd, and at bottom a slovenly, creature. He +is fond of varnished boots, of pink neckties, of lavender-coloured +gloves, and, above all, of scent. The quantity of scent that a lad of +sixteen will pour on his handkerchief is something perfectly astounding. +In this stage of his development he is addicted to falling into love, or +rather into flirtation. He keeps up a correspondence with a young lady +in Miss Pinkerton's establishment. They see each other in church, when +he looks unutterable things from the gallery. This kind of boy is not +unlikely to interest himself, speculatively, in horse-races. He has +communications with a bookmaker who finds Boulogne a salubrious +residence. He would like to know the officers, if his home is in a +garrison town, and he humbly imitates these warriors at an immense +distance. He passes much time in trying to colour a pipe. This is not a +nice sort of boy to have at home for the holidays, nor is it likely that +he does much good when he is at school. It is pleasanter to think of the +countless jolly little fellows of twelve, who are happily busy all day +with lawn-tennis, cricket, and general diversion in the open air. Their +appearance, their manly frankness, their modesty and good temper, make +their homes happier in the holidays than in the quieter nine months of +the year. Let us hope that they will not put off their holiday tasks to +be learned in the train on their way back to school. This, alas, is the +manner of boyhood. + + + +ON SHAVING. + + +A philanthropist has published a little book which interests persons who +in civilized society form a respectable minority, and in the savage world +an overpowering majority. But, savage or polite, almost all men must +shave, or must be shaved, and the author of "A Few Useful Hints on +Shaving," is, in his degree, a benefactor to his fellow-creatures. The +mere existence of the beard may be accounted for in various ways; but, +however we explain it, the beard is apt to prove a nuisance to its +proprietor. Speculators of the old school may explain the beard as part +of the punishment entailed on man with the curse of labour. The toilsome +day begins with the task of scraping the chin and contemplating, as the +process goes on, a face that day by day grows older and more weary. No +race that shaves can shirk the sense of passing time, or be unaware of +the approach of wrinkles, of "crow's-feet," of greyness. Shaving is the +most melancholy, and to many people the most laborious of labours. It +seems, therefore, more plausible (if less scientific) to look on the +beard as a penalty for some ancient offence of our race, than to say with +Mr. Grant Allen, and perhaps other disciples of Mr. Darwin, that the +beard is the survival of a very primitive decoration. According to this +view man was originally very hairy. His hair wore off in patches as he +acquired the habits of sleeping on his sides and of sitting with his back +against a tree, or against the wall of his hut. The hair of dogs is not +worn off thus, but what of that? After some hundreds of thousands of +years had passed, our ancestors (according to this system) awoke to the +consciousness that they were patchy and spotty, and they determined to +eradicate all hair that was not ornamental. The eyebrows, moustache, +and, unfortunately, the beard seemed to most races worth preserving. +There are, indeed, some happy peoples who have no beards, or none worth +notice. Very early in their history they must have taken the great +resolve to "live down" and root out the martial growth that fringes our +lips. But among European peoples the absence of a beard has usually been +a reproach, and the enemies of Njal, in ancient Iceland, could find +nothing worse to say of him than that he was beardless. Mehemet Ali +bought sham beards for his Egyptian grenadiers, that they might more +closely resemble the European model. The soldiers of Harold thought that +the Normans were all priests, because they were "shavelings;" and it is +only natural that soldiers should in all countries be bearded. It is +almost impossible to shave during a campaign. Stendhal, the French +novelist and critic, was remarkable as the best, perhaps the only, clean- +shaved man in the French army during the dreadful retreat from Moscow. In +his time, as in that of our fathers, ideas of beauty had changed, and the +smooth chin was as much the mark of a gentleman as the bearded chin had +been the token of a man. + +The idea that shaving is a duty--ceremonial, as among the Egyptian +priests, or social merely, as among ourselves--is older than the +invention of steel or even of bronze razors. Nothing is more remarkable +in savage life than the resolution of the braves who shave with a shell +or with a broken piece of glass, left by European mariners. A warrior +will throw himself upon the ground, and while one friend sits on his +head, and another holds his arms and prevents him from struggling, a +third will scrape his chin with the shell or the broken bottle-glass till +he rises, bleeding, but beardless. Macaulay, it seems, must have shaved +almost as badly with the razor of modern life. When he went to a barber, +and, after an easy shave, asked what he owed, the fellow replied, "Just +what you generally give the man who shaves you, sir." "I generally give +him two cuts on each cheek," said the historian of England. Shaving +requires a combination of qualities which rarely meet in one amateur. You +should have plenty of razors, unlike a Prussian ambassador of the stingy +Frederick. This ambassador, according to Voltaire, cut his throat with +the only razor he possessed. The chin of that diplomatist must have been +unworthy alike of the Court to which he was accredited, and of that from +which he came. The exquisite shaver who would face the world with a +smooth chin requires many razors, many strops, many brushes, odd soaps, a +light steady hand, and, perhaps, a certain gaiety of temper which +prevents edged weapons from offering unholy temptations. Possibly the +shaver is born, not made, like the poet; it is sure that many men are +born with an inability to shave. Hence comes the need for the kindly +race of barbers, a race dear to literature. Their shops were the +earliest clubs, their conversation was all the ancient world knew in the +way of society journals. Horace, George Eliot, Beaumarchais, Cervantes, +and Scott have appreciated the barber, and celebrated his +characteristics. If the wearing of the beard ever became universal, the +world, and especially the Spanish and Italian world, would sadly miss the +barber and the barber's shop. The energy of the British character, our +zeal for individual enterprise, makes us a self-shaving race; the Latin +peoples are economical, but they do not grudge paying for an easy shave. +Americans in this matter are more Continental than English in their +taste. Was it not in Marseilles that his friends induced Mark Twain to +be shaved by a barber worthy of the bottle-glass or sea-shell stage of +his profession? They pretended that his performances were equal to those +of the barber on board the ship that brought them from America. + +Englishmen, as a rule, shave themselves when they do not wear beards. The +author of the little pamphlet before us gives a dozen curious hints which +prove the difficulty of the art. Almost all razors, he seems to think, +were "made to sell." He suggests that razors of tried and trusty +character, razors whose public form can be depended upon, should be +purchased of barbers. But it is not every barber who will part with such +possessions. Razors are like Scotch sheep dogs; no one would keep a bad +one, or sell, or give away a good one. Coelebs did not find the quest of +a wife more arduous than all men find that of a really responsible razor. +You may be unlucky in the important matter of lather. For soap our +author gives a recipe which reminds one of Walton's quaint prescriptions +and queer preparations. Shaving soap should be made at home, it seems, +and the mystery of its manufacture is here disclosed. The only way to +keep razors "set" is to persevere in sending them to various barbers till +the genius who can "set" them to your hand is discovered. Perhaps he +lives at Aleppo; perhaps, like the father of a heroine of comic song, at +Jerusalem. Till he is discovered the shaver wins no secure happiness, +and in the search for the barber who has an elective affinity for the +shaver may be found material for an operetta or an epic. The shaver +figures as a sort of Alastor, seeking the ideal setter of razors, as +Shelley's Alastor sought ideal beauty in the neighbourhood of +Afghanistan, and in the very home of the Central Asian Question. No +razor should be condemned till it has been "stropped" well and carefully. +And this brings us to the great topic of strops. Some say that soldiers' +old buff belts make the best strops. The Scotch peasantry use a peculiar +hard smooth fungus which grows in decaying elm trees. Our author has +heard that "Government now demands the return of" the old buff belts. +Government cannot want them all for its own use, and perhaps will see to +it that old buff strops once more find an open market. In the lack of +old buff belts, you may mix up tallow and the ashes of burnt newspaper, +and smear this unctuous compound on the strop. People who neglect these +"tips," and who are clumsy, like most of us, may waste a forty-eighth +part of their adult years in shaving. This time is worth economizing, +and with a little forethought, an ideal razor-setter, tallow, buff belts, +burnt newspapers, and the rest, we may shave in five minutes daily. + + + +STREET NOISES. + + +"If any calm, a calm despair," is the portion of people who would like to +reform, that is to abolish, the street noises of London. These noises +are constantly commented upon with much freedom in the columns of various +contemporaries. Nor is this remarkable, for persons who are occupied +with what is called "brainwork," are peculiarly sensitive to the +disturbances of the streets. Sometimes they cannot sleep till morning, +sometimes they can only sleep in the earlier watches of the night, and, +as a rule, they cannot write novels, or articles, or treatises; they +cannot compose comic operas, or paint, in the midst of a row. Now, the +streets of London are the scenes of rows at every hour of night and day- +light. It is not the roll of carriages and carts that provokes +irritation, and drives the sensitive man or woman half mad. Even the +whistling of the metropolitan trains may, perhaps, be borne with if the +drivers are not too ambitious artists, and do not attempt fantasias and +variations on their powerful instrument. The noises that ruin health, +temper, and power of work; the noises that cause an incalculable waste of +time, money, and power, are all voluntary, and perhaps preventable. Let +us examine the working hours of the nervous or irritable musician, +mathematician, man of letters, or member of Parliament. On second +thoughts, the last may be omitted, as if he cannot sleep in a tedious +debate, his case is beyond cure. + + "Not bromide of potassium + Nor all the drowsy speeches in the world" + +can medicine him to forgetfulness of street noises. For the others, the +day may be said to begin about five, when the voice of the chimney-sweep +is heard in the land. Here we may observe that servants are the real +causes of half the most provoking noises in London. People ask why the +sweep cannot ring the bell, like other people. But the same people +remark that even the howl of the sweep does not waken the neighbours' +servants. Of what avail, then, could his use of the bell prove? It +generally takes the sweep twenty-five minutes exactly to bring the +servants to open the door. Meanwhile, the eminent men of letters in the +street open their windows, and show a very fair command of language +understanded by the people. But the sweep only laughs, and every three +minutes utters a howl which resembles no other noise with which men are +acquainted. Where do young sweeps learn to make this cry which can only +be acquired by long practice? Perhaps it is inherited, like the music of +"the damned nightingales," as the sleepless political economist called +the Daulian birds. + +When the sweep is silent, when slumber is stealing over the weary +eyelids, then traction engines, or steam-rollers, or some other +scientific improvement on wheels begin to traverse the streets and shake +the houses. This does not last more than a quarter of an hour, and then +a big bell rings, and the working men and women tramp gaily by, chatting +noisily and in excellent spirits. Now comes the milkman's turn. He, +like the chimney-sweep, has his own howl, softer, more flute-like in +quality than that of the sweep, but still capable of waking any one who +is not a domestic servant in hard training. The milkman also cries "woa" +to his horse at every house, and accompanies himself on his great tin +cans, making a noise most tolerable, and not to be endured. Is it +necessary, absolutely necessary, that the milkman should howl? In some +parts of town milkwomen distribute their wares without howling. They do, +certainly, wear very short petticoats, but that is matter, as Aristotle +says, for a separate disquisition. On the other hand, milkwomen exist +who howl as loudly as milkmen. We cannot but fear that without these +noises it would be difficult to attract the notice of servants. If this +pessimistic view be correct, sweeps and milkmen will howl while London is +a city inhabited. And even if we could secure the services of milkwomen +of the silent species that ring the bell, could we hope to have female +chimney-sweeps as well behaved? Here, at all events, is a new opening +for female labour. When the milkman has done his worst, the watercress +people come and mournfully ejaculate. Now it is time for the sleepless +and nervous to get up and do their work. Now, too, the barrel-organ +comes round. There are persons who, fortunately for themselves, are so +indifferent to music that they do not mind the barrel-organ. It is +neither better nor worse to them than the notes of Patti, and from the +voice of that siren, as from all music, they withdraw their attention +without difficulty. But other persons cannot work while the dirty +grinder and the women that drag his instrument are within hearing. The +barrel-organ, again, is strong in the support of servants, especially +nurses, who find that the music diverts babies. The rest of the day is +made hideous by the awful notes of every species of unintelligible and +uncalled for costermonger, from him who (apparently) bellows "Annie +Erskine," to her who cries, "All a-blowing and a-growing." There are +miscreants who want to buy bones, to sell ferns, to sell images, wicker- +chairs, and other inutilities, while last come the two men who howl in a +discordant chorus, and attempt to dispose of the second edition of the +evening paper, at ten o'clock at night. At eleven all the neighbours +turn out their dogs to bark, and the dogs waken the cats, which scream +like demoniacs. Then the public houses close, and the people who have +been inebriated, if not cheered, stagger howling by. Stragglers yell and +swear, and use foul language till about four in the morning, without +attracting the unfavourable notice of the police. Two or three half +drunken men and women bellow and blaspheme opposite the sufferer's house +for an hour at a time. And then the chimneysweep renews his rounds, and +the milkman follows him. + +The screams of costermongers and of rowdies might surely be suppressed by +the police. A system of "local option" might be introduced. In all +decent quarters householders would vote against the licensed bellowings +of cads and costermongers. In districts which think a noise pleasant and +lively the voting would go the other way. People would know where they +could be quiet, and where noise would reign. Except Bologna, perhaps no +town is so noisy as London; but then, compared with Bologna, London is +tranquillity itself. It is fair to say that really nervous and irritable +people find the country worse than town. The noise of the nightingales +is deplorable. The lamentations of a cow deprived of her calf, or of a +passion-stricken cow, "wailing for her demon lover" on the next farm, +excel anything that the milkman can perpetrate, and almost vie with the +performances of the sweep. When "the cocks are crowing a merry +midnight," as in the ballad, the sleepless patient wishes he could make +off as quietly and quickly as the ghostly sons of the "Wife of Usher's +Well." Dogs delight to bark in the country more than in town. Leech's +picture of the unfortunate victim who left London to avoid noise, and +found that the country was haunted by Cochin-China cocks, illustrates the +still repose of the rural life. Nervous people, on the whole, are in a +minute minority. No one else seems to mind how loud and horrible the +noises of London are, and therefore we have faint hope of seeing +nocturnal 'Arry gagged, the drunken drab "moved on," and the sweep +compelled to ring the bell till some one comes and opens the door of the +house in whose chimneys he is professionally interested. + + + +LENDING OF BOOKS. + + +A popular clergyman has found it necessary to appeal to his friends in a +very touching way. The friends of the divine are requested to return +"Colenso on the Pentateuch," and another volume which they have borrowed. +The advertisement has none of that irony which finds play in the notice, +"The Gentleman who took a brown silk umbrella, with gold crutch handle, +and left a blue cotton article, is asked to restore the former." The +advertiser seems to speak more in sorrow and in hope than in anger, and +we sincerely trust that he may get his second volume of "Colenso on the +Pentateuch." But if he does, he will be more fortunate than most owners +of books. Pitiful are their thoughts as they look round their shelves. +The silent friends of their youth, the acquisitions of their mature age, +have departed. Even popular preachers cannot work miracles, like Thomas +a Kempis, and pray back their borrowed volumes. As the Rev. Robert +Elsmere says, "Miracles do not happen"--at least, to book-collectors. + +"Murray sighs o'er Pope and Swift, and many a treasure more," said +Cowper, when Lord Mansfield's house was burned, and we have all had +experience of the sorrows of Murray. Even people who are not +bibliophiles, nay, who class bibliophiles with "blue-and-white young +men," know that a book in several volumes loses an unfair proportion of +its usefulness, and almost all its value, when one or more of the volumes +are gone. Grote's works, or Mill's, Carlyle's, or Milman's, seem nothing +when they are incomplete. It always happens, somehow, that the very tome +you want to consult is that which has fallen among borrowers. Even +Panurge, who praised the race of borrowers so eloquently, could scarcely +have found an excuse for the borrowers of books. + + "Tel est le triste sort de tout livre prete, + Souvent il est perdu, toujours il est gate." + +"Often lost, always spoiled," said Charles Nodier, "such is the fate of +every book one lends." The Parisian collector, Guibert de Pixerecourt, +would lend no books at all to his dearest friends. His motto, inscribed +above the lintel of his library-door, was, "Go to them that sell, and buy +for yourselves." As Pixerecourt was the owner of many volumes which +"they that sell" cannot procure, or which could only be bought at +enormous rates, his caution (we will not say churlishness) was rather +inconvenient for men of letters. But if hard pressed and in a strait, he +would make his friend a gift of the book which was necessary to his +studies. This course had the effect of preventing people from wishing to +borrow. But many of the great collectors have been more generous than +Pixerecourt. We forget the name (not an illustrious one) of the too good- +natured man who labelled his books, "Not my own, but my friends'." "Sibi +et amicis" ("His own and his friends' property") has been the motto of +several illustrious amateurs since Grolier and Maioli stamped it on the +beautifully decorated morocco of their bindings. Other people have +invented book-plates, containing fell curses in doggrel Latin or the +vernacular on the careless or dishonest borrower: + + "Aspice Pierrot pendut + Parceque librum non a rendu" + +is the kind of macaronic French and Latin which schoolboys are accustomed +to write under a sketch of the borrower expiating his offences on the +gallows. + +The mischief of borrowing, the persistent ill-luck which cleaves to +property thus obtained, have been proverbial since the young prophet +dropped the axe-head in the deep water, and cried, "Alas, for it is +borrowed." The old prophet, readily altering the specific gravity of the +article, enabled his disciple to regain it. But there are no prophets +now, none, at least, who can repair our follies, and remove their baneful +effects by a friendly miracle. What miracle can restore the books we +borrow and lose, or the books we borrow and spoil with ink, or with +candle-wax, or which children scrawl or paint over, or which "the dog +ate," like the famous poll-book at an Irish election, that fell into the +broth, and ultimately into the jaws of an illiterate animal? Books are +such delicate things! Yet men--and still more frequently women--read +them so close to the fire that the bindings warp, and start, and gape +like the shells of a moribund oyster. Other people never have a paper- +knife, and cut the leaves of books with cards, railway tickets, scissors, +their own fingers, or any other weapon that chances to seem convenient. +Then books are easily dirtied. A little dust falls into the leaves, and +is smudged by the fingers. No fuller on earth can cleanse it. The art +of man can remove certain sorts of stains, but only by stripping the book +of its binding, and washing leaf by leaf in certain acids, an expensive +and dangerous process. There are books for use, stout, everyday +articles, and books for pious contemplation, original editions, or tomes +that have belonged to great collectors. The borrower, who only wants to +extract a passage of which he is in momentary need, is a person heedless +of these distinctions. He enters a friend's house, or (for this sort of +borrower thrives at college) a friend's rooms, seizes a first edition of +Keats, or Shelley, or an Aldine Homer, or Elzevir Caesar of the good +date, and hurries away with it, leaving a hasty scrawl, "I have taken +your Shelley," signed with initials. Perhaps the owner of the book never +sees the note. Perhaps he does not recognize the hand. The borrower is +just the man to forget the whole transaction. So there is a blank in the +shelves, a gap among the orderly volumes, a blank never to be filled up, +unless our amateur advertises his woes in the newspapers. + +All borrowers are bad; but in this, as in other crimes, there are +degrees. The man who acts as Menage advises, in the aphorism which +Garrick used as a motto on his bookplate, the man who reads a book +instantly and promptly returns it, is the most pardonable borrower. But +how few people do this! As a rule, the last thing the borrower thinks of +is to read the book which he has secured. Or rather, that is the last +thing but one; the very last idea that enters his mind is the project of +returning the volume. It simply "lies about," and gets dusty in his +rooms. A very bad borrower is he who makes pencil marks on books. +Perhaps he is a little more excusable than the borrower who does not read +at all. + +A clean margin is worth all the marginalia of Poe, though he, to do him +justice, seems chiefly to have written on volumes that were his own +property. De Quincey, according to Mr. Hill Burton, appears to have +lacked the faculty of mind which recognizes the duty of returning books. +Mr. Hill Burton draws a picture of "Papaverius" living in a sort of cave +or den, the walls of which were books, while books lay around in tubs. +Who was to find a loved and lost tome in this vast accumulation? But De +Quincey at least made good use of what he borrowed. The common borrower +does nothing of the kind. Even Professor Mommsen, when he had borrowed +manuscripts of great value in his possession, allowed his house to get +itself set on fire. Europe lamented with him, but deepest was the wail +of a certain college at Cambridge which had lent its treasures. Even +Paul Louis Courier blotted horribly a Laurentian MS. of "Daphnis and +Chloe." When Chenier lent his annotated "Malherbe," the borrower spilt a +bottle of ink over it. Thinking of these things, of these terrible, +irreparable calamities, the wonder is, not that men still lend, but that +any one has the courage to borrow. It is more dreadful far to spoil or +lose a friend's book than to have our own lost or spoiled. Stoicism +easily submits to the latter sorrow, but there is no remedy for a +conscience sensible of its own unlucky guilt. + + + +CLUB BORES. + + +The London Club has been sitting in a judicial way on one of its members. +This member of the Club seems to have been what Thackeray's waiter called +"a harbitrary gent." The servants of the club had to complain that he +did not make "their lives so sweet to them that they (the servants) +greatly cared to live," if we may parody Arthur's address to his erring +queen. The Club has not made a vacancy in its ranks by requesting the +arbitrary member to withdraw. But his conduct was deemed, on the report +of the Committee, worthy of being considered by the Club. And that is +always something. In an age when clubs are really almost universal, most +men have had occasion to wish that their society would sit occasionally +on some of the members. The member who bullies the servants is a not +uncommon specimen of the club-bore. He may be called the bore truculent. +He has been excellently caricatured by Thackeray in the "Book of Snobs." + +There we have the club-bore who makes such a fuss about his chop, and +scolds the waiter so terribly. "Look at it, sir; is it a chop for a +gentleman? Smell it, sir; is it fit to put on a club table?" These, or +such as these, are the words of the gallant terror of waiters. Now it is +clearly unjust to make a waiter responsible for the errors, however +grave, of a very different character, the cook. But this mistake the +arbitrary gent is continually making. The cook is safe in his +inaccessible stronghold, down below. He cannot be paraded for punishment +on the quarter-deck, where Captain Bragg, of the Gunboat and Torpedo +Club, exercises justice. Therefore the miserable waiter is rebuked in +tones of thunder because the Captain's steak is underdone, or because +Nature (or the market gardener) has not made the stalks of asparagus so +green and succulent as their charming tops. People who do not know the +scolding club-bore at home are apt to be thankful that they are not +favoured with his intimate acquaintance, and are doubly grateful that +they are not members of his family. For if, in a large and quiet room +full of strangers, a man can give loose to his temper without +provocation, and outroar the thunder, what must this noisy person do at +home? "In an English family," says a social critic, "the father is the +man who shouts." How the club-bore must shout when he is in his own +castle, surrounded only by his trembling kindred and anxious retainers! +In his castle there is no one to resist or criticise him--unless indeed +his wife happen to be a lady, like Clytemnestra, of masculine resolution. +In that case the arbitrary gent may be a father of a family who is not +allowed to shout at home, but is obliged to give nature free play by +shouting abroad. + +There are plenty of other club-bores besides the man who rates these +generally affable and well-behaved persons, the club servants. One of +the worst is the man whom you never see anywhere except at the club, and +whom you never fail to see there. It is bad enough when you have no +acquaintance with him. Murders have probably been committed by sensitive +persons for no better reason (often for worse reasons) than that they are +tired of seeing some one else going about. His voice, his manner, his +cough, especially his cough, become unendurable. People who cough in +clubs are generally amateurs of the art. They are huskier, more +wheezing, more pertinacious in working away at a cough till they have +made it a masterpiece than any other mortals. We believe that club +Asthmats (it is quite as good a word as "AEsthetes") practise in the +Reading Room of the British Museum, where they acquire their +extraordinary compass and mastery of various notes. Be this as it may, +the cough which drives every one but its owner out of the room (though +doubtless an affliction to the proprietor) gives him rank as a club-bore +of the finest water. The bore who always enters into conversation, +though he has nothing to say, merely because you used to dislike him at +school, or college, or elsewhere, is another common annoyance. The man +who is engaged, apparently, on a large work, and who rushes about the +library hunting for Proclus and Jamblichus when other occupants of the +room wish to be quiet, is naturally detested. + +Most men are the bores of some other person. People of watchful mind and +intelligent habit, who talk in the drawing-room, are regarded as bores by +fat old gentlemen who wish to sleep there. And as these gentlemen turn +the drawing-room into a dormitory, which resounds with their snoring, +they in turn are bores to people who wish to read the papers. But if +these students drop the poker with a clang, or dash down small tables in +order to waken the sleepers, they, in their turn, give a good deal of +annoyance. The man who talks about politics at great length, is only one +of the common bores of the world transported into a club. But the man +with a voice which in ordinary conversation pierces through all the hum +of voices, like a clarion note in battle, would be a bore anywhere. If +he were in the wilderness of Sinai, he would annoy the monks in the +convent near the top. His voice is one of those terrible, inscrutable +scourges of nature, like the earthquake and the mosquito, which tax our +poor human wisdom to reconcile with any monistic theory of the benevolent +government of the universe. Once admit an evil principle, however, and +the thing is clear. The club-bore with the trumpet tones, which he +cannot moderate, is possessed, on this theory, by a fiend. As men are +talking quietly of turnips in one corner of the room, of rent in another, +and of racing in a third, his awful notes blend in from the fourth corner +with strident remarks on Bulgarian philology. + +The ancient Greeks were well accustomed to club life, for each of their +little cities was only a large club. They had, therefore, to deal with +the problem of bores. Some of them, consequently, had the institution of +annually devoting to the infernal gods the most unpopular citizens. These +persons were called _catharmata_, which may be freely translated +"scapegoats." Could not clubs annually devote one or more scapebores to +the infernal gods? They might ballot for them, of course, on some +merciful and lenient principle. One white ball in ten or twenty-black +ones might enable the bore to keep his membership for the next year. The +warning, if he only escaped this species of ostracism very narrowly, +might do him a great deal of moral good. Of course the process would be +unpleasant, but it is seldom agreeable to be done good to. Occasionally +even the most good-natured members would stand apart, not voting, or even +would place the black ball in the mystic urn. Then the scapebore would +have his subscription returned to him, and would be obliged to seek in +other haunts servants to swear at, and sofas to snore on. Another +suggestion, that members should be balloted for anew every five years, +would simply cause clubs to be depopulated. Pall-Mall and St. James's +would be desolate, mourning their children, and refusing comfort. The +system would act like a proscription. People would give up their friends +that they might purchase aid against their enemies. Clubs are more +endurable as they are, though members do suffer grievously from the +garrulity, the coughs, the slumbrous tendencies, and the temper of their +fellow-men. + + + +PHIZ. + + +Mr. Hablot K. Browne, better known as Phiz, was an artist of a departed +school to whom we all owe a great deal of amusement. He was not so +versatile nor so original as Cruickshank; he had not the genius, nor the +geniality, still less the sense of beauty, of John Leech. In his later +years his work became more and more unequal, till he was sometimes almost +as apt to scribble hasty scrawls as Constantin Guys. M. Guys was an +artist selected by M. Baudelaire as the fine flower of modern art, and +the true, though hurried, designer of the fugitive modern beauty. It is +recorded that M. Guys was once sent to draw a scene of triumph and +certain illuminations in London, probably about the end of the Crimean +War. His sketch did not reach the office of the paper for which he +worked in time, and some one went to see what the man of genius was +doing. He was found in bed, but he was equal to the occasion. Snatching +a sheet of paper and a pencil he drew a curve. "There," said he, "is the +triumphal arch, and here"--scribbling a number of scratches like +eccentric comets--"here are the fireworks." Mr. Browne's drawings +occasionally showed a tendency to approach the rudimentary sort of +"pictograph" rather than give what a dramatic critic calls "a solid and +studied rendering" of events. But many of Mr. Browne's illustrations of +Dickens are immortal. They are closely bound up with our earliest and +latest recollections of the work of the "incomparable Boz." Mr. +Pickwick, we believe, was not wholly due to the fancy of Mr. Browne, but +of the unfortunate Seymour, whom death prevented from continuing the +series. Every one has heard how Mr. Thackeray, then an unknown man, +wished to illustrate one of Mr. Dickens's early stories, and brought Mr. +Dickens examples of his skill. Fortunately, his offer was not accepted. +Mr. Thackeray's pencil was the proper ally of his pen. He saw and drew +Costigan, Becky, Emmy, Lord Steyne, as no one else could have drawn them. +But he had not beheld the creations of Boz in the same light of +imaginative vision. Sometimes, too, it must be allowed that Mr. +Thackeray drew very badly. His "Peg of Limavaddy," in the "Irish Sketch +Book," is a most formless lady, and by no means justifies the enthusiasm +of her poet. Thus the task of illustrating "Pickwick" fell to Mr. +Browne, and he carried on the conceptions of his predecessor with +extraordinary vigour. The old vein of exaggerated caricature he +inherited from the taste of an elder generation. But making allowance +for the exaggeration, what can be better than Mr. Pickwick sliding, or +the awful punishment of Stiggins at the hands of the long-suffering +Weller? We might wish that the young lady in fur-topped boots was +prettier, and indeed more of a lady. But Mr. Browne never had much +success, we think, in drawing pretty faces. He tried to improve in this +respect, but either his girls had little character, or the standard of +female beauty has altered. As to this latter change, there can be no +doubt at all. Leech's girls are not like Thackeray's early pictures of +women; and Mr. Du Maurier's are sometimes sicklied o'er with the pale +cast of an aesthetic period. + +It is probable that the influence of Mr. Browne's art reacted in some +degree on Dickens. In the old times every one whom the author invented +the artist was pretty certain to caricature. Thus the author may have +felt the temptation to keep pace with the frolic humour of the artist. +Mr. Browne cannot be blamed for a tendency to exaggerate noses and other +features, which was almost universal in his time. None of us can say +what conception would now be entertained of Dickens's characters if Mr. +Browne had not drawn them. In the later works of Dickens (when they were +illustrated) other artists were employed, as Mr. Stone and Mr. Fildes. +These are accomplished painters of established reputation, and they of +course avoided the old system of caricature, the old forced humour. But +we doubt whether their designs are so intimately associated with the +persons in the stories as are the designs of Mr. Browne. The later +artists had this disadvantage, that the later novels (except "Great +Expectations," which was not illustrated) were neither so good nor so +popular as "Pickwick," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Martin Chuzzlewit," "David +Copperfield," or even "Bleak House." We never can have any Mr. Micawber +but Phiz's indescribably jaunty Micawber. His Mr. Pecksniff is not very +like a human being, but his collars and his eye-glass redeem him, and +after all Pecksniff is a transcendental and incredible Tartuffe. Tom +Pinch is even less sympathetic in the drawings than in the novel. Jonas +Chuzzlewit is also "too steep," as a modern critic has said in modern +slang. But in the novel, too, Mr. Jonas is somewhat precipitous. +Nicholas Nickleby is a colourless sort of young man in the illustrations, +but then he is not very vividly presented in the text. Ralph Nickleby +and Arthur Gride may pair off with Jonas Chuzzlewit, but who can +disparage the immortal Mr. Squeers? From the first moment when we see +him at his inn, with the starveling little boys, through all the story, +Mr. Squeers is consistently exquisite. In spite of his cruelty, +coarseness, hypocrisy, there is a kind of humour in Mr. Squeers which +makes him not quite detestable. In "David Copperfield" Mr. Micawber is +perhaps the only artistic creation of much permanent merit, unless it be +the waiter who consumed David's dinner, and the landlady who gave him a +pint of the Regular Stunning. In "Bleak House" Mr. Browne made some +credible attempts to be tragic and pathetic. Jo is remembered, and the +gateway of the churchyard where the rats were, and the Ghost's Walk in +the gloomy domain of Lady Dedlock. + +It is a singular and gloomy feature in the character of young ladies and +gentlemen of a particular type that they have ceased to care for Dickens, +as they have ceased to care for Scott. They say they cannot read +Dickens. When Mr. Pickwick's adventures are presented to the modern +maid, she behaves like the Cambridge freshman. "Euclide viso, cohorruit +et evasit." When he was shown Euclid he evinced dismay, and sneaked off. +Even so do most young people act when they are expected to read "Nicholas +Nickleby" and "Martin Chuzzlewit." They call these masterpieces "too +gutterly gutter;" they cannot sympathize with this honest humour and +conscious pathos. Consequently the innumerable references to Sam Weller, +and Mrs. Gamp, and Mr. Pecksniff, and Mr. Winkle which fill our ephemeral +literature are written for these persons in an unknown tongue. The +number of people who could take a good pass in Mr. Calverley's Pickwick +Examination Paper is said to be diminishing. Pathetic questions are +sometimes put. Are we not too much cultivated? Can this fastidiousness +be anything but a casual passing phase of taste? Are all people over +thirty who cling to their Dickens and their Scott old fogies? Are we +wrong in preferring them to "Bootle's Baby," and "The Quick or the Dead," +and the novels of M. Paul Bourget? + + + +THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PROPOSALS. + + +There is no subject in the whole range of human affairs so interesting to +a working majority of the race as the theory and practice of proposals of +marriage. Men perhaps cease to be very much concerned about the ordeal +when they have been through it. But the topic never loses its charm for +the fair, though they are presumed only to wait and to listen, and never +to speak for themselves. That this theory has its exceptions appears to +be the conviction of many novelists. They not only make their young +ladies "lead up to it," but heroines occasionally go much further than +that, and do more than prompt an inexperienced wooer. But all these +things are only known to the world through the confessions of novelists, +who, perhaps, themselves receive confessions. M. Goncourt not long ago +requested all his fair readers to send him notes of their own private +experience. How did you feel when you were confirmed? How did Alphonse +whisper his passion? These and other questions, quite as intimate, were +set by M. Goncourt. He meant to use the answers, with all discreet +reserve, in his next novel. Do English novelists receive any private +information, and if they do not, how are we to reconcile their +knowledge--they are all love-adepts--with the morality of their lives? +"We live like other people, only more purely," says the author of "Some +Private Views," which is all very well. No man is bound to incriminate +himself. But as in the course of his career a successful novelist +describes many hundreds of proposals, all different, are we to believe +that he is so prompted merely by imagination? Are there no "documents," +as M. Zola says, for all this prodigious deal of love-making? These are +questions which await a reply in the interests of ethics and of art. +Meanwhile an editor of enterprise has selected five-and-thirty separate +examples of "popping the question," as he calls it, from the tomes of +British fiction. To begin with an early case--when Tom Jones returned to +his tolerant Sophia, he called her "Madam," and she called him "Mr. +Jones," not Tom. She asked Thomas how she could rely on his constancy, +when the lover of Miss Segrim drew a mirror from his pocket (like +Strephon in "Iolanthe"), and cried, "Behold that lovely figure, that +shape, those eyes," with other compliments; "can the man who shall be in +possession of these be inconstant?" Sophia was charmed by the "man in +possession," but forced her features into a frown. Presently Thomas +"caught her in his arms," and the rest was in accordance with what Mr. +Trollope and the best authorities recommend. How differently did Arthur +Pendennis carry himself when he proposed to Laura, and did not want to be +accepted! Lord Farintosh--his affecting adventure is published +here--proposed nicely enough, but did not behave at all well when he was +rejected. By the way, when young men in novels are not accepted, they +invariably ask the lady whether she loves another. Only young ladies, +and young men whom they have rejected, know whether this is common in +real life. It does not seem quite right. + +Kneeling has probably gone out, though Mr. Jingle knelt before the maiden +aunt, and remained in that attitude for no less than five minutes. In +Mr. Howell's "Modern Instance," kneeling was not necessary, and the +heroine kept thrusting her face into her lover's necktie; so the author +tells us. M. Theophile Gautier says that ladies invariably lay their +heads on the shoulder of the man who proposes (if he is the right man), +and for this piece of "business" (as we regret to say he considers it) he +assigns various motives. But he was a Frenchman, and the cynicism of +that nation (to parody a speech of Tom Jones's) cannot understand the +delicacy of ours. Mr. Blackmore (in "Lorna Doone") lets his lover make +quite a neat and appropriate speech, but that was in the seventeenth +century. When Artemus Ward began a harangue of this sort, Betsy Jane +knocked him off the fence on which he was sitting, and first criticising +his eloquence in a trenchant style, added, "If you mean being hitched, +I'm in it." In other respects the lover of Lorna Doone behaved as the +best authorities recommend. + +Mr. Whyte Melville ventured to describe Chastelard's proposal to Mary +Stuart, but it was not exactly in Mr. Swinburne's manner, and, where +historical opinions disagree, no reliance can be placed on speeches which +were not taken down by the intelligent reporters. Mr. Slope had his ears +boxed when he proposed to Mrs. Bold, but such Amazonian conduct is +probably rare, and neither party is apt to boast of it. He also, being +accepted, behaved in the manner to which the highest authorities have +lent their sanction, or, at least, he meant to do so, when the lady "fled +like a roe to her chamber." For all widows are not like widow Malone +(ochone!) renowned in song. When Arbaces, the magician, proposed to +Ione, he did so in the most necromantic and hierophantic manner in which +it could be done; his "properties" including a statue of Isis, an altar, +"and a quick, blue, darting, irregular flame." But his flame, quick, +blue, darting, and irregular as it was, lighted no answering blaze in the +ice-cold breast of the lovely lone. When rejected (in spite of a +splendid arrangement of magic lanterns, then a novelty, got up regardless +of expense) Arbaces swore like an intoxicated mariner, rather than a +necromaunt accustomed to move in the highest circles and pentacles. +Nancy, Miss Broughton's heroine, tells her middle-aged wooer, among other +things, that she accepts him, because "I did think it would be nice for +the boys; but I like you myself, besides." After this ardent confession, +he "kissed her with a sort of diffidence." Many men would have preferred +to go out and kick "the boys." + +Mr. Rochester's proposal to Jane Eyre should be read in the works both of +Bret Harte and of Miss Bronte. We own that we prefer Bret Harte's Mr. +Rawjester, who wearily ran the poker through his hair, and wiped his +boots on the dress of his beloved. Even in the original authority, Mr. +Rochester conducted himself rather like a wild beast. He "ground his +teeth," "he seemed to devour" Miss Eyre "with his flaming glance." Miss +Eyre behaved with sense. "I retired to the door." Proposals of this +desperate and homicidal character are probably rare in real life, or, at +least, out of lunatic asylums. To be sure, Mr. Rochester's house _was_ a +kind of lunatic asylum. + +Adam Bede's proposal to Dinah was a very thoughtful, earnest proposal. +John Inglesant himself could not have been less like that victorious +rascal, Tom Jones. Colonel Jack, on the other hand, "used no great +ceremony." But Colonel Jack, like the woman of Samaria in the Scotch +minister's sermon, "had enjoyed a large and rich matrimonial experience," +and went straight to the point, being married the very day of his +successful wooing. Some one in a story of Mr. Wilkie Collins's asks the +fatal question at a croquet party. At lawn-tennis, as Nimrod said long +ago, "the pace is too good to inquire" into matters of the affections. In +Sir Walter's golden prime, or rather in the Forty-five as Sir Walter +understood it, ladies were in no hurry, and could select elegant +expressions. Thus did Flora reply to Waverley, "I can but explain to you +with candour the feelings which I now entertain; how they might be +altered by a train of circumstances too favourable, perhaps, to be hoped +for, it were in vain even to conjecture; only be assured, Mr. Waverley, +that after my brother's honour and happiness, there is none which I shall +more sincerely pray for than yours." This love is indeed what Sidney +Smith heard the Scotch lady call "love in the abstract." Mr. Kingsley's +Tom Thurnall somehow proposed, was accepted, and was "converted" all at +once--a more complex erototheological performance was never heard of +before. + +Many of Mr. Abell's thirty-five cases are selected from novelists of no +great mark; it would have been more instructive to examine only the +treatment of the great masters of romance. But, after all, this is of +little consequence. All day long and every day novelists are teaching +the "Art of Love," and playing Ovid to the time. But what are novels +without love? Mere waste paper, only fit to be reduced to pulp, and +restored to a whiteness and firmness on which more love lessons may be +written. {135} + + + +MASTER SAMUEL PEPYS. + + +No man is a hero to his valet, and unluckily Samuel Pepys, by way of a +valet, chose posterity. All the trifles of temper, habit, vice, and +social ways which a keen-eyed valet may observe in his master Samuel +Pepys carefully recorded about himself, and bequeathed to the diversion +of future generations. The world knows Pepys as the only man who ever +wrote honest confessions, for Rousseau could not possibly be candid for +five minutes together, and St. Augustine was heavily handicapped by being +a saint. Samuel Pepys was no saint. We might best define him, perhaps, +by saying that if ever any man was his own Boswell, that man was Samuel +Pepys. He had Bozzy's delightful appreciation of life; writing in +cypher, he had Bozzy's shamelessness and more, and he was his own hero. + +It is for these qualities and achievements that he received a monument +honoured in St. Olave's, his favourite church. In St. Olave's, on +December 23, 1660, Samuel went to pray, and had his pew all covered with +rosemary and baize. Thence he went home, and "with much ado made haste +to spit a turkey." Here, in St. Olave's, he listened to "a dull sermon +from a stranger." Here, when "a Scot" preached, Pepys "slept all the +sermon," as a man who could "never be reconciled to the voice of the +Scot." What an unworthy prejudice! Often he writes, "After a dull +sermon of the Scotchman, home;" or to church again, "and there a simple +coxcombe preached worse than the Scot." Frequently have the sacred walls +of St. Olave's, where his effigy may be seen, echoed to the honest +snoring of the Clerk of the Navy. There Pepys lies now, his body having +been brought "in a very honourable and solemn manner," from Clapham, +where, according to that respected sheet, the _Post-boy_, he expired on +May 26, 1703. No stone marked the spot, when Mr. Mynors Bright's +delightful edition of Pepys was published in 1875. + +Now Pepys is honoured in that church where he sleeps even sounder than in +days when the Scot preached worse than usual. But he is rewarded in +death--not, it may be feared, for his real services to England, but +because he has amused us all so much. A dead humorist may be better than +a living official, however honest, industrious, and careful. + +In all these higher things Pepys was not found wanting. The son of a +tailor in the City, he yet had connections of good family, who were of +service to him when he entered public life. Samuel Pepys was born in +1632. He was educated at Magdalene, Cambridge, where he was once common- +roomed for being "scandalously overserved with liquor." Through life he +retained a friendly admiration of Magdalene strong ale. He married a +girl of fifteen when he was but twenty-two; he entered the service of the +State shortly afterwards. He was the Chief Secretary for Naval Affairs +during many years; he defended his department at the Bar of the House of +Commons after De Ruyter's attack in 1668, and he remained true to the +Stuart dynasty in heart after James was driven abroad. Yet, though his +contemporary biographer calls Pepys the greatest and most useful public +servant that ever filled the same situations in England, Pepys would not +now be honoured if he had not kept the most amusing diary in the world. +Samuel was a highly conscientious, truly pious man, constant in all +religious exercises, though he did slumber when the Scot wagged his pow +in a pulpit. At the same time, Samuel lived in a very fast age, an age +when pleasure was a business, and "old Rowley, the king," led the brawls. +He was young when society was most scandalously diverting. He had a +pretty wife, "poor wretch," of whom he stood in some awe; and yet this +inconsistent naval secretary liked to flit from flower to flower. He was +vain, greedy, wanton, fond of the delight of the eye and the pride of +life; he was loving and loose in his manners; he was pious, repentant, +profligate; and he deliberately told the whole tale of all his many +changes of mood and mistress, of piety and pleasure. One cannot open +Pepys at random without finding him at his delightful old games. On the +Lord's day he goes to church with Mr. Creed, and hears a good sermon from +the red-faced parson. He came home, read divinity, dined, and, he says, +"played the fool," and won a quart of sack from Mr. Creed. Then to +supper at the Banquet House, and there Mr. Pepys and his wife fell to +quarrelling over the beauty of Mrs. Pierce; "she against, and I for," +says superfluous Pepys. No one is in the least likely to suspect that +Mrs. Pepys was angry with her lord because he did not think Mrs. Pierce a +beauty. + +How living the whole story is! One can smell the flowers of that Sunday +in May, and the roast beef. The sack seems but newly drawn, the red +cheeks of Mrs. Pierce as fresh as ever. The flowers grow over them now, +or the church floor covers them; the sack is drunk, the roast beef is +eaten, the quarrel is over; the beauty and the red-faced parson, the +husband and wife, they are all with Tullus and Ancus. _Pulvis et +umbra_--that is the moral of "Pepys's Diary." Life yet lives so strong +in the cyphered pages; all the colour, all the mirth, all the little +troubles and sins, and vows, they are so real they might be of yesterday +or to-day, but the end of them came nigh two hundred years ago. +Therefore, to read Pepys is to enjoy our own brief innings better, as men +who know that our March is passing where Pepys' May has flown before, and +that we shall soon be with him and his wife, and the Scot, and the red- +faced parson. So fleeting is life, whose record outlives it for ever; so +brief, so swift, so faint the joys and sorrows, and all that we make +marvel of in our own fortunes and those of other men. + +Reading Pepys is thus like reading Montaigne, whose cheery scepticism his +revelations recall. But Pepys has all the advantage of the man living in +the busiest world over the recluse in that famed library, with the +mottoes on the wall. Montaigne wrote in a retired and contemplative +home, viewing life, as Osman Digna has viewed strife, "from afar," almost +safe from the shots of fortune. But Pepys writes day by day, like a war +correspondent, in the thick of the battle; his head "full of business," +as he declares; his heart full of many desires, many covetings, much +pride in matters that look small enough. He notes how, by chewing +tobacco, Mr. Chetwynde, who was consumptive, became very fat. He remarks +how a board fell, and the dust powdered the ladies' heads at the play, +"which made good sport." He records every venison-pasty, every flagon of +wine, every pretty wench whom he encountered in his march through his +youth towards the vault in St. Olave's. He is vexed with Mrs. Pepys and +troubled by "my aunt's base ugly humours." He is "full of repentance," +like the Bad Man in the Ethics, and thinks how much he is addicted to +expense and pleasure, "so that now I can hardly reclaim myself." He +interests himself in Dr. Williams's remarkable dog, which not only killed +cats, but buried them with punctilious obsequies, never leaving the tip +of puss's tail out of the ground. Then he goes to the play, "after +swearing to my wife that I would never go to the play without her." He +remembers one night that he passed "with the greatest epicurism of +sleep," because he was often disturbed, and so got out of sleeping more +conscious enjoyment. Now he sleeps what Socrates calls the sweetest +slumber of all, if it be but dreamless, or, somewhere, he enjoys all new +experience, with the lusty appetite of old. + + + +INVOLUNTARY BAILEES. + + +Lord Tennyson is probably the most extensive Involuntary Bailee at +present living. The term "Involuntary Bailee" may or may not be a +correct piece of legal terminology; at all events, it sounds very +imposing, and can be easily explained. + +An Involuntary Bailee is a person to whom people (generally unknown to +him) send things which he does not wish to receive, but which they are +anxious to have returned. Most of us in our humble way are or have been +Involuntary Bailees. When some one you meet at dinner recommends to your +notice a book (generally of verse), and kindly insists on sending it to +you next day by post as a loan, you are an Involuntary Bailee. You have +the wretched book in your possession; no inducement would make you read +it, and to pack it up and send it back again requires a piece of string, +energy, brown paper, and stamps enough to defray the postage. Now, +surely no casual acquaintance or neighbour for an hour at a dinner-party +has any right thus to make demands on a man's energy, money, time, brown +paper, string, and other capital and commodities. + +If the book be sent as a present, the crime is less black, though still +very culpable. You need take no notice of the present, whereby you +probably offend the author for life, and thus get rid of him anyhow. +Commonly, he is a minor poet, and sends you his tragedy on John Huss; or +he is a writer on mythological subjects, and is anxious to weary you with +a theory that Jack the Giant Killer was Julius Caesar. At the worst, you +can toss his gift into the waste-paper basket, or sell it for fourpence +three-farthings, or set it on your bookshelf so as to keep the damp away +from books of which you are not the Involuntary Bailee, but the unhappy +purchaser. The case becomes truly black, as we have said, when the +uncalled-for tribute has to be returned. Then it is sure to be lost, +when the lender writes to say he wishes to recover it. In future he will +go about telling people that the recipient stole his best ideas from the +manuscript (if it was a manuscript) which he pretends to have lost. + +Lord Tennyson has suffered from all these troubles to an extent which the +average Bailee can only fancy by looking with his mind's eye through +"patent double million magnifiers." A man so eminent as the Laureate is +the butt of all the miserable minor poets, all the enthusiastic school- +girls, all the autograph-hunters, all the begging-letter writers, all the +ambitious young tragedians, and all the utterly unheard-of and imaginary +relations in Kamschatka or Vancouver's Island with whom the wide world +teems. Lord Tennyson has endured these people for some fifty years, and +now he takes a decided line. He will not answer their letters, nor +return their manuscripts. + +Lord Tennyson is perfectly right to assume this attitude, only it makes +life even more hideous than of old to Mr. Browning and Mr. Swinburne. +Probably these distinguished writers are already sufficiently pestered by +the Mr. Tootses of this world, whose chief amusement is to address +epistles to persons of distinction. Mr. Toots was believed to answer his +own letters himself, but the beings who fill Lord Tennyson's, and Mr. +Gladstone's, and probably Mr. Browning's letterbox expect to receive +answers. Frightened away from Lord Tennyson's baronial portals, they +will now crowd thicker than ever round the gates of other poets who have +not yet announced that they will prove irresponsive. Cannot the Company +of Authors (if that be the correct style and title) take this matter up +and succour the profession? Next, of course, to the baneful publisher +and the hopelessly indifferent public, most authors suffer more from no +one than from the unknown correspondent. The unknown correspondent is +very frequently of the fair sex, and her bright home is not unusually in +the setting sun. "Dear Mr. Brown," she writes to some poor author who +never heard of her, nor of Idaho, in the States, where she lives, "I +cannot tell you how much I admire your monograph on Phonetic Decay in its +influence on Logic. Please send me two copies with autograph +inscriptions. I hope to see you at home when I visit Europe in the +Fall." + +Every man of letters, however humble, is accustomed to these salutations, +and probably Lord Tennyson receives scores every morning at breakfast. +Like all distinguished poets, like Scott certainly, we presume that he is +annoyed with huge parcels of MSS. These (unless Lord Tennyson is more +fortunate than other singers) he is asked to read, correct, and return +with a carefully considered opinion as to the sender's chance of having +"Assur ban-i-pal," a tragedy, accepted at the Gaiety Theatre. Rival but +unheard-of bards will entreat him to use his influence to get their +verses published. Others (all the world knows) will send him "spiteful +letters," assuring him that "his fame in song has done them much wrong." +How interesting it would be to ascertain the name of the author of that +immortal "spiteful letter"! Probably many persons have felt that they +could make a good guess; no less probably they have been mistaken. + +In no way can the recipient avoid making enemies of the authors of all +these communications if he is at all an honest, irascible man. Mr. +Dickens used to reply to total strangers, and to poets like Miss Ada +Menken, with a dignified and sympathetic politeness which disarmed wrath. +But he probably thereby did but invite fresh trouble of the same kind. +Mr. Thackeray (if a recently-published answer was a fair specimen) used +to answer more briefly and brusquely. One thing is certain. No +criticism not entirety laudatory, which the Involuntary Bailee may make +of his correspondent's MS., will be accepted without remonstrance. +Doubtless Lord Tennyson has at last chosen the only path of safety by +declining to answer his unknown correspondents, or to return their +rubbish, any more. + +Of course, it is a wholly different affair when the anonymous +correspondent sends several brace of grouse, or a salmon of noble +proportions, or rare old books bound by Derome, or a service of Worcester +china with the square mark, or other tribute of that kind. Probably some +dozen of rhymers sent Lord Tennyson amateur congratulatory odes when he +was raised to the peerage. If he is at all like other poets, he would +have preferred a few dozen of extremely curious old port, or a Villon +published by Galiot du Pre, or a gold nugget, or some of the produce of +the diamond mines, to any number of signed congratulations from total +strangers. Actors seem to receive nicer tributes than poets. Two brace +of grouse were thrown on the stage when Mr. Irving was acting in a +northern town. This is as picturesque as, and a great deal more +permanently enjoyable than, a shower of flowers and wreaths. Another day +a lady threw a gold cross on the stage, and yet another enthusiast +contributed rare books appropriately bound. These gifts will not, of +course, be returned by a celebrity who respects himself; but they bless +him who gives and him who takes, much more than tons of manuscript +poetry, and thousands of entreaties for an autograph, and millions of +announcements that the writer will be "proud to drink your honour's noble +health." + + + +SUMMER NIGHTS. + + +If the best of all ways of lengthening our days be to take a few hours +from the night, many of us are involuntarily prolonging existence at the +present hour. Macbeth did not murder sleep more effectually than the hot +weather does. At best, in the sultry nights, most people sleep what is +called "a dog's sleep," and by no means the sleep of a lucky dog. As the +old English writers say, taking a distinction which our language appears +to have lost, we "rather slumber than sleep," waking often, and full of +the foolishest of dreams. This condition of things probably affects +politics and society more than the thoughtless suppose. If literature +produced in the warm, airless fog of July be dull, who can marvel +thereat? + +"Of all gods," says Pausanias, "Sleep is dearest to the Muses;" and when +the child of the Muses does not get his regular nine hours' rest (which +he fails to do in warm weather), then his verse and prose are certain to +bear traces of his languor. It is true that all children of the Muses do +not require about double the allowance of the saints. Five hours was all +St. Jerome took, and probably Byron did not sleep much more during the +season when he wrote "Childe Harold." The moderns who agree with the +Locrians in erecting altars to Sleep, can only reply that probably +"Childe Harold" would have been a better poem if Byron had kept more +regular hours when he was composing it. So far they will, perhaps, have +Mr. Swinburne with them, though that author also has Sung before Sunrise, +when he would (if the wisdom of the ancients be correct) have been better +employed in plucking the flower of sleep. + +Leaving literature, and looking at society, it is certain that the human +temper is more lively, and more unkind things are said, in a sultry than +in a temperate season. In the restless night-watches people have time to +brood over small wrongs, and wax indignant over tiny slights and +unoffered invitations. Perhaps politics, too, are apt to be more +rancorous in a "heated term." Man is very much what his liver makes him. + +Hot weather vexes the unrested soul in nothing more than this, that (like +a revolution in Paris) it tempts the people to "go down into the +streets." The streets are cooler, at least, than stuffy gas-lit rooms; +and if the public would only roam them in a contemplative spirit, with +eyes turned up to the peaceful constellations, the public might fall down +an area now and then, but would not much disturb the neighbourhood. But +the 'Arry that walketh by night thinks of nothing less than admiring, +with Kant, the starry heavens and the moral nature of man. He seeks his +peers, and together in great bands they loiter or run, stopping to chaff +each other, and to jeer at the passer-by. Their satire is monotonous in +character, chiefly consisting of the words for using which the famous Mr. +Budd beat the baker. {152} Now, the sultry weather makes it absolutely +necessary to leave bedroom windows wide open, so that he who is courting +sleep has all the advantage of studying the dialogue of the slums. These +disturbances last till two in the morning in some otherwise quiet +districts near the river. When Battersea 'Arry has been "on the fly" in +Chelsea, while Chelsea 'Arry has been pursuing pleasure in Battersea, the +homeward-faring bands meet, about one in the morning, on the Embankment. +Then does Cheyne Walk hear the amoebean dialogues of strayed revellers, +and knows not whether Battersea or Chelsea best deserves the pipe, the +short black pipe, for which the rival swains compete in profanity and +slang. In music, too, does this modern Dionysiac procession rejoice, and +Kensington echoes like Cithaeron when Pan was keeping his orgies +there--Pan and the Theban nymphs. The music and the song of the London +street roamer is excessively harsh, crabbed, and tuneless. Almost as +provoking it is, in a quiet way, when three or four quite harmless people +meet under a bedroom window and converse in their usual tone of voice +about their private affairs. + +These little gatherings sometimes seem as if they would never break up, +and though the persons in the piece mean no harm, they are nearly as +noxious to sleep as the loud musical water-side rough or public-house +loafer. Dogs, too, like men, seem to feel it incumbent on them to howl +more than usual in hot weather, and to bay the moon with particular +earnestness in July. No enemy of sleep is deadlier than a dear, good, +affectionate dog, whose owners next door have accidentally shut him out. +The whole night long he bewails his loneliness, in accents charged with +profound melancholy. The author of the "Amusement Philosophique" would +have us believe that animals can speak. Nothing makes more for his +opinion than the exquisite variety of lyrical howl in which a shut-out +dog expresses every phrase of blighted affection, incommunicable longing, +and supreme despair. Somehow he never, literally never, wakens his +owners. He only keeps all the other people in a four-mile radius wide +awake. Yet how few have the energy and public spirit to get up and go +for that dog with sticks, umbrellas, and pieces of road-metal! The most +enterprising do little more than shout at him out of the window, or take +long futile shots at him with bits of coal from the fireplace. When we +have a Municipal Government of London, then, perhaps, measures will be +taken with dogs, and justice will be meted out to the owners of fowls. At +present these fiends in human shape can keep their detestable pets, and +defy the menaces, as they have rejected the prayers, of their neighbours. +The amount of profanity, insanity, ill-health, and general misery which +one rooster can cause is far beyond calculation. + +When London nights are intolerable, people think with longing of the +cool, fragrant country, of the jasmine-muffled lattices, and the groups +beneath the dreaming evening star. One dreams of coffee after dinner in +the open air, as described in "In Memoriam;" one longs for the cool, the +hush, the quiet. But try the country on a July night. First you have +trouble with all the great, big, hairy, leathery moths and bats which fly +in at the jasmine-muffled lattice, and endeavour to put out your candle. +You blow the candle out, and then a bluebottle fly in good voice comes +out too, and is accompanied by very fair imitations of mosquitoes. +Probably they are only gnats, but in blowing their terrible little +trumpets they are of the mosquito kind. Next the fact dawns on you that +the church clock in the neighbouring spire strikes the quarters, and you +know that you cannot fall asleep before the chime wakes you up again, +with its warning, "Another quarter gone." The cocks come forth and crow +about four; the hens proclaim to a drowsy world that they have fulfilled +the duties of maternity. All through the ambrosial night three cows, in +the meadow under your windows, have been lamenting the loss of their +calves. Of all terrible notes, the "routing" of a bereaved, or amorous, +or homesick cow is the most disturbing. It carries for miles, and keeps +all who hear it--all town-bred folk, at least--far from the land of Nod. +At dawn the song-birds begin, and hold you awake, as they disturbed +Rufinus long ago; but the odds are that they do not inspire you, like +Rufinus, with the desire to write poetry. The short and simple language +of profanity is more likely to come unbidden to the wakeful lips. Thus, +as John Leech found out, the country in July is almost as dreadful at +night as the town. Nay, thanks to the cow, we think the country may bear +away the prize for all that is uncomfortable, all that is hostile to +sleep and the Muses. Yet rustics always sleep very well, and no more +mind the noise of cocks, sparrows, cows, dogs, and ducks than the owner +of a town-bred dog minds when his faithful hound drives a whole street +beyond their patience. It is a matter of sound health and untaxed +brains. If we always gave our minds a rest, none of us would dread the +noises of the nights of summer. + + + +ON HYPOCHONDRIACS. + + +A nice state we are in, according to the _Medical Times_. If the secrets +of our "casebooks"--that is, we suppose, our medical _dossiers_, doctors' +records of the condition of their patients--could be revealed, it would +be shown that many clever people have a fancy skeleton in their +cupboards. By a fancy skeleton we mean, not some dismal secret of crime +or shame, but a melancholy and apprehensiveness without any ground in +outward facts. With the real skeleton doctors have nothing to do. He +rather belongs to the province of Scotland Yard. If a man has +compromised himself in some way, if he has been found out by some +scoundrel, if he is compelled to "sing," as the French say, or to pay +"blackmail," then the doctor is not concerned in the business. A +detective, a revolver, or a well-planned secret flight may be prescribed +to the victim. Other real skeletons men possess which do not come of +their own misdeeds. One of their friends or one of their family may be +the skeleton, or the consciousness of coming and veritable misfortune, +pecuniary or what-not. But the _Medical Times_, which no doubt ought to +know, refers purely to cases of vague melancholy and hypochondriac +foreboding. Apparently "The Spleen," the "English Disease," is as bad +now as when Green wrote in verse and Dr. Cheyne in prose. Prosperous +business men, literary gents in active employment, artists, students, +tradesmen, "are all visited by melancholy, revealed only to their +doctors, and sometimes to their domestic circle." + +Unhappy domestic circle, brooded over by a gloomy parent, who thinks that +life is too short, or faith too much a matter of speculation, or that the +country is going to the dogs! Then the doctor, it seems, hears his +patient, and recommends him only to drink a very little whisky and potash +water, or to take two bottles of port every day, or to take to angling, +or to give up smoking, or to work less or to work more, or to go to bed +early or to get up late, or to ride, or to fence, or to play golf, or to +go to Upper Egypt or the Engadine, or anything that fancy may dictate and +opportunity suggest. So the kind physician advises his mournful self- +tormentor, and then he himself flies round the corner and consults some +brother-healer about his own subjective gloom. + +Old ladies, in speaking of the misdeeds of youth, are apt to recommend "a +good shaking" as a panacea. Really those victims of whom our +contemporary speaks, appear to be persons on whom "a good shaking," +mental or physical, would produce a salutary effect. Cowardice, vanity, +overweening self-consciousness, are the causes of most melancholy. No +doubt it has physical causes too. Dr. Johnson suffered,--one of the best +and bravest of men. But most of us suffer--if suffer we do--because we +over-estimate ourselves and our own importance. Mr. Matthew Arnold has +tried to enforce this lesson. After a horrible murder in a railway +carriage, Mr. Arnold observed, with pain, the "almost bloodthirsty +clinging to life" of his fellow-passengers. In vain he pointed out to +them that even if they were to depart, "the great mundane movement" would +go on as usual. But they refused to be comforted. Every man was afraid +of meeting his own Muller; and as to the great mundane movement, no one +cared a pin. This selfishness is among the chief causes of melancholy. A +man persuades himself that he will not live long, or that his prospects +in this world or the next are gloomy; or he takes views as absurdly far- +reaching as those of the spinsters in the old tale, who wept over the +hypothetical fate of the child one of them might have had if she had been +married. Now, there is a certain melancholy not unbecoming a man; +indeed, to be without it is hardly to be human. Here we do find +ourselves, indeed, like the shipwrecked mariner on the isle of Pascal's +apologue; all around us are the unknown seas, all about us are the +indomitable and eternal processes of generation and corruption. "We come +like water, and like wind we go." Life is, indeed, as the great Persian +says-- + + "A moment's halt, a momentary taste + Of being from the well beside the waste." + +These just causes of melancholy and of awe have presented themselves to +all reflective men at all times. They deeply affect the thought, so +wholesome and so human, of Homer. They express themselves in that old +English pagan's allegory of the bird that flies from the dark into the +warm and lighted hall, and from the hall into the dark again. Not to be +capable of these reflections is to be incapable of tasting the noblest +poetry. Such thoughts actually give zest to our days, and sharpen our +enjoyment of that which we have only a brief moment to enjoy. Such +thoughts add their own sweetness and sadness to the song of the +nightingale, to the fall of the leaves, to the coming of the spring. Were +we "exempt from eld and age," this noble melancholy could never be ours, +and we, like the ancient classical gods, would be incapable of tears. +What Prometheus says in Mr. Bridge's poem is true-- + + "Not in heaven, + Among our easy gods, hath facile time + A touch so keen to wake such love of life + As stirs the frail and careful being of Man." + +Such are the benefits of Melancholy, when she is only an occasional +guest, and is not pampered or made the object of devotion. But +Melancholy, though an excellent companion for an hour, is the most +exacting and depressing of mistresses. The man who gives himself up to +her, who always takes too long views, who broods on the future of this +planet when the sun has burned out, is on the high-way to madness. The +odds are that he does not travel all the way. He remains a +self-tormented wretch, highly profitable to his medical man, and a +frightful nuisance to his family. Now, there are, of course, cases in +which this melancholy has physical causes. It may come of indigestion, +and then the remedy is known. Less dining out (indeed, no one will ask +the abjectly melancholy man out) and more exercise may be recommended. +The melancholy man had better take to angling; it is a contemplative +pastime, but he will find it far from a gloomy one. The sounds and +sights of nature will revive and relieve him, and, if he is only +successful, the weight of a few pounds of fish on his back will make him +toss off that burden which poor Christian carried out of the City of +Destruction. No man can be melancholy when the south wind blows in +spring, when the soft, feathery March-browns flit from the alders and +fall in the water, while the surface boils with the heads and tails of +trout. + +Perhaps, on the other hand, the melancholy one lives too much in the +country. Then let him go to Paris or Vienna; let him try the Palais +Royal, and spend a good deal of money in the shops. A course of this +might have cured even Obermann, whom there was nothing to check or divert +while he kept philandering on the mountains with the snows and his woes. +There are plenty of such cures for a melancholy not yet incurable; change +of air, scene, food, amusement, and occupation being the best. True, the +Romans tried this, as Seneca and Lucretius tells us, and found themselves +as much bored as ever. "No easier nor no quicker passed th' +impracticable hours." But the Romans were very extreme cases. + +When the cause of melancholy is religious or moral, there is little to be +done with the victim. In "Sartor Resartus" he will read how Mr. Carlyle +cured himself, if ever he was cured. To be brief, he said, "What then, +who cares?" and indeed, in more reverent form of expression, it is all +that can be said. When Nicias addressed the doomed and wasted remnant of +the Athenian expedition to Syracuse, he told them that "others, too, +being men, had borne things which had to be endured." That is the whole +philosophy of the matter. + + + +THACKERAY'S LONDON. + + +A house in a highly respectable square, where Jeames Yellowplush was in +service, had recently the fame of being haunted. No one knew exactly +what haunted this desirable mansion, or how, though a novelist was +understood to have supplied a satisfactory legend. The young man who +"investigated" the ghost rang the bell thrice violently, and then fell +down dead, nor could he in any wise satisfy the curiosity of his friends. +That fable is exploded. It was what is called an "aetiological myth;" by +the learned it was merely a story devised to account for the fact that +the house was not occupied. The imagination of man, confronted by so +strange a problem as money running to waste, took refuge in the +supernatural. Much more truly haunted than the house in "Buckley Square" +are the streets of London which are tenanted by the ghosts that genius +created. These, having never been born, can never die, and still we may +meet them in the roads and squares where they lived and took their +pastime. Mr. Rideing, an American author, has published (with Messrs. +Jarvis and Son) a little volume called "Thackeray's London," an account +of the places which that great novelist made household words, and filled +with genial spectres that time can never lay. Mr. Rideing's little book +does not strike us as being quite complete. Surely Thackeray, especially +in the "Ballads," mentions many places not alluded to by the new +topographer. Besides, Mr. Rideing says that Thackeray's readers forget +the localities in which his characters appear. Surely this is a calumny +on human memory. Who but thinks of Becky Sharp as he trudges down Curzon +Street? Has Bryanston Square properly any reason for existence, except +that the Hobson Newcomes dwelt there? Are the chambers of Captain +Costigan forgotten by the memory of any man, or those of Pen and George +Warrington? But Pen took better rooms, not so lofty, when he scored that +success with "Walter Lorraine." Where did Mr. Bowes, the hopeless +admirer of the Fotheringay, dwell? Every one should know, but that +question might puzzle some. Or where was the lair of the Mulligan? Like +the grave of Arthur, or of Moliere, it is unknown; the whole of the +postal district known as W. is haunted by that tremendous shade. "I live +there," says he, pointing down towards Uxbridge with the big stick he +carries; so his abode is in that direction, at any rate. No more has +been given to man to know. + +Many minor reminiscences occur to the mind. In Pump Court we encounter +the brisk little spectre of Mr. Frederick Minchin, and who can forget +that his club was The Oxford and Cambridge, than which what better could +he desire? Mr. Thackeray himself was a member of The Garrick, The +Athenaeum, and The Reform, but the clubs of many of his characters, like +the "buth" of Jeames Yellowplush, are "wrapped up in a mistry." They are +alluded to by fancy names, but the scholiast on Thackeray will probably +be able to identify them. Is it not time, by the way, for that scholiast +to give his labours to the public? Thackeray's world is passing; the +children he knew, the boys he tipped and took to the play, are middle- +aged men--fogies, in fact. _Tempus edax rerum_, Time has an appetite as +good as that of a boy at his first club dinner. The meaning of the great +writer's contemporary allusions may be lost, like those of Villon and +Aristophanes. Such is the fate of comedy. Who knows, if we turn to +Dickens, what the "common profeel machine" was, or what were the steps of +the dance known as the Fanteag (the spelling is dubious); or what the +author meant by a "red-faced Nixon." Was it a nixie? Does the new +Professor of the English Language and Literature at Oxford hope to cast +the light of Teutonic research on these and similar inquiries? Sam +Weller found that oysters always went hand-in-hand with poverty. How +this must astonish a generation which finds the oyster nearly as extinct +as the ichthyosaurus! The "Book of Snobs" calls aloud for a commentator. +Who is the nobleman holding his boots out of the hotel window--an act +which the Snob very properly declined to classify as snobbish? Who are +the originals of Henry Foker (this, indeed, is known), and of Wagg and +Wenham? Or did Wenham's real name _rhyme_ to Foker, as, according to the +Mulligan, "Perkins rhymes to Jerkins, my man of firkins"? Posterity will +insist on an answer, which will be nothing if not authentic. Posterity, +_pace_ Mr. Rideing, will remember very well that George Osborne's father +lived in Russell Square, and will hunt in vain for 96. There is no such +number, any more than there ever was such a Pope as he to whom the +unfortunate old woman in "Candid" attributed her birth. Here once more, +as Voltaire justly remarks in a footnote, we observe the discretion of +our author. + +Colonel Newcome lived, as is well known, in Fitzroy Square, and died in +the Charter House. To these shrines the pious go in pilgrimage; the +rather dingy quarters are brightened by the memory of his presence, as we +think of Scott in Castle Street, Edinburgh, or of Dr. John Brown in +Princes Street--Dr. John Brown who was a Colonel Newcome that had gone +into medicine instead of the army. Smithfield is hardly more memorable +for her martyrs than for the battles fought on neighbouring ground +between Biggs and Berry, between Cuff and old Figs. Kentish Town, but +little sought for sentimental reasons, is glorified by the memory of +Adolphus Larkins; "Islington, Pentonville, Somers Town, were the scenes +of many of his exploits." Brompton, again, passionate Brompton, lent her +shelter--or rather, sold it, for the poetess lived in a boarding-house--to +Miss Bunnion. Cursitor Street might be unknown as the great men before +Agamemnon (many of whom, by the way, as Meleager and Pirithous, are known +well enough) had not Cursitor Street contained the sponging-house where +Rawdon Crawley was incarcerated. + +In addition to these scholia on Thackeray so sadly needed, and so little +likely to be published, we need novelists' maps and topographies of +London and Paris. These will probably be constructed by some American of +leisure; they order these things better in America. When we go to Paris +we want to know where Balzac's men and women lived, Z. Marcas and Cesar +Birotteau, and Le Cousin Pons, and Le Pere Goriot, and all the duchesses, +financiers, scoundrels, journalists, and persons of both sexes and no +character "Comedie Humaine." London also might be thus spaced out--the +London of Richardson, and Fielding, and Miss Burney, as well as the +London of Thackeray or Dickens. Already, to speak of to-day, Rupert +Street is more interesting, because there, fallen in fortune, but +resolute of heart and courtly as ever, Prince Florizel of Bohemia held +his cigar divan. + + + +TORRID SUMMER. + + +"Is it very cold?" asks the Prince of Denmark, according to a familiar +reading. No one has any occasion to consult the thermometer before +answering the question, "Is it very hot?" All things combine to prove +that it is very hot. Even the man of metal who used, according to +legend, to patrol the coast of Crete, the man with only one vein from +head to heel, would admit (could he appear in the Machineries at present) +that it is very hot indeed. He might not feel any subjective sensation +of heat (for he seems to have been a mythical anticipation of the +Conquering Machine which is to dominate the world), but he would have +inferred the height of the temperature from a number of phenomena. He +would have seen the ticket-clerks in the railway stations with their +coats off. He would have observed imitation Japanese parasols at a penny +among the ware of enterprising capitalists in the streets. He would have +marked the very street-boys in wide, inexpensive straw hats of various +and astonishing colours. Woman he would have found in beautiful shades +of blue, in such light garments "woven wind" as Theocritus speaks of when +he presents the wife of his doctor with a new ivory distaff. + +As to men, they in their attire do show their wit or their want of +courage, as the case may be. It is not easy for modern man, when he +"repairs to the metropolis," to dress up to the heat of the weather. An +ingenious though too hasty philosopher once observed that all men who +wear velvet coats are atheists. He probably overstated the amount of +intellectual and spiritual audacity to be expected from him who, setting +the picturesque before the conventional, dons a coat of velvet. But it +really does require some originality even to wear a white hat and a white +waistcoat in a London July. The heat is never so great but that the +majority of males endure black coats and black shiny hats. The others +are in a minority. The voice of public opinion is not on their side. +"Who stole the moke, Anna?" asked suspicion; and the answer came, "The +man in the _chapeau blanc_." There is something daring, something +distinctive in a white hat; and it may be doubted whether the amount of +comfort obtained by the revolutionary wearer is in a due ratio to the +conspicuousness which his action entails on him. Members of Parliament +are singularly emancipated from these fears of the brave; but members of +Parliament cannot supply the whole contingent of white-hatted men now to +be seen in the streets of the metropolis. Their presence proves that it +is very hot indeed. One swallow does not make a summer, but half a dozen +pairs of "ducks" beheld in public places would mark a summer of unusually +high temperature. + +There are, of course, alleviations. Nature compensates all who can +afford to purchase the compensations. Strawberries, long waited for, +shy, retiring fruit, have now nearly approached the popular price of +sixpence a basket. A divine of a past generation declared that in his +opinion the joys of Paradise would consist of eating strawberries to the +sound of a trumpet. For a poor sixpence half of this transcendental +pastime may be partaken of, and probably the brass band which is usually +round the corner could supply the sound of the trumpet at a small extra +charge. + +Unluckily, doctors have decided that many of us must not eat +strawberries, nor drink champagne cup, nor iced coffee. That is the way +with doctors. AEsculapius was originally worshipped in the form of a +serpent; in the guise of a serpent he came to Rome. Medical men still +hold of their heroic father, and physicians are the serpents in the +Paradise of a warm summer. Mortals, in their hands, are like Sancho +Panza with his medical adviser. Here is summer, provoking a gentle +interest in every method of assuaging thirst, and almost every method is +condemned by one member of the faculty or another. Champagne cannot be +so royally sound, nor is shandy-gaff so humble, that it 'scapes whipping. +How melancholy a thing is human life at best! In boyhood we can eat more +ices than our pocket-money enables us to purchase; in maturity we have +the pocket-money without the powers of digestion. The French lady said +that if strawberry ices were only sinful, no pleasure could exceed that +which is to be enjoyed in the consumption of the congealed fruit. +Strawberry ices are sinful now, and under the medical ban. The French +lady, were she living still, might be at ease on that score. But her +audacity is not given to all, and many fall back on that poor creature, +lemon-squash, when they are conscious of a thirst worthy of being +quenched by the most imperial beverages in imperial quarts. + +Men, being reasonable, must hurry about town when the thermometer is at +something fabulous, wearing black clothes, going to parties, and larding +the lean earth. Beasts are not so foolish. To the pious Brahmin Vishnu +accords the power of becoming what animal he pleases, with a break in the +lease, so to speak, when circumstances alter. Had a sage this power at +this moment he would become a cow, standing up to her middle in the +clear, cool water of the Kennet, under the shade of a hanging willow +tree. What bliss can equal that of a cow thus engaged? Her life must, +indeed, be burning with a hard gem-like flame. She must be plucking the +flower of a series of exquisite moments. The rich, deep grass, with the +buttercups and forget-me-nots, is behind her, but she has had enough of +that, and is open to more spiritual pleasures. The kingfishers and water- +wagtails flit about her. The water-rat jumps into the stream with a soft +plash, and his black body scuttles along to the opposite bank. The green +dragon-flies float hither and thither; the beautiful frail-winged water- +flies float over trout too lazy to snatch at them. The cow, in her +sensuous nirvana, may see and marvel at the warm boating-man as he tows +two stout young ladies in a heavy boat, or labours with the oar. Her +pleasure is far more enduring than that of the bathers in the lasher up +stream, and she has an enormous advantage over the contemplative man +trying to lie on the grass and enjoy nature, for he really is not +enjoying nature. The pleasures of lying on the grass are chiefly those +of imagination. You cannot get into a truly comfortable position. Your +back has a lump of grass under it here, or your arm tingles and "falls +asleep," as children say. No attitude will enable you to read, and the +black flies hover around and alight on such of your features as are +tempting--to a fly. Then you begin to be quite sure it is damp, and, as +you have nothing else to sit on, you sit down on your book, which no one +can call comfortable. + +The notion of reclining on cushions in a punt is equally fallacious, and, +while promising much, ends in a headache. Besides, the river does not +always smell very nicely now that it has so long been unrelieved by rain. +All through the hot day, in fact, civilized northern man finds loafing +very difficult, especially as his Aryan impetuosity is always urging him +to do something active. Cows in this climate are the only true lotus- +eaters. Next to them in enjoyment comes the angler who approaches the +river about eight o'clock, at the time of the "evening rise." He, like +the cow, is knee-deep in water, wading; he listens to the plash of big, +hungry trout, sucking down gnats under the alders; he casts over them, +and if he catches them, who more content than he, as the sky turns from +amber to purple and silvery grey, and the light fades till one cannot +thread the gut through the eye-hole of one of the new-fashioned hooks? +Certainly this man is more blessed than he who is just coming to the ices +at a big, hot London dinner, and knows that his physician has forbidden +him this form of enjoyment. What a struggle in that person's mind! and +how almost predestined is his fall! how sure his repentance next morning! + + + +WESTERN DROLLS. + + +The death of Mr. "Josh Billings" may have diminished the stock of +harmless pleasures, but can hardly be said to have eclipsed the gaiety of +nations. In this country, at least, however it may have been in the +States, Josh Billings was by no means the favourite or leading American +humorist. If phonetic spelling were universal, much of his fun would +disappear. His place was nearer that of Orpheus C. Kerr than of Artemus +Ward, or of Mark Twain. It has long been the English habit to look for +most of our broad fun across the Atlantic. Americans say we are not a +funny people. A chivalrous and mediaeval French writer, not unfrequently +quoted, once made a kindred remark. We are not at present a boisterously +comic lot of geniuses, and if you see the tears running down the eyes of +a fellow-countryman reading in a railway carriage, if he be writhing with +mirth too powerful for expression, the odds are that he has got hold of a +Yankee book. + +In American country newspapers there is usually one column entirely +devoted to facetiae, which appear to have been clipped out of the columns +of other country papers. They live on each other, just as the natives of +the Scilly Islands are feigned to eke out a precarious livelihood by +taking in each other's washing. It is averred that one American journal, +the _Danbury Newsman_, contains nothing but merriment--a fearful idea! We +have nothing like this at home, and as for writers who make a reader +giggle almost indelicately often, where are they to be found? "Happy +Thoughts" affect some of us in this way; others are convulsed by "Vice +Versa;" but, as George Eliot says, nothing is such a strain on the +affections as a difference of taste in jokes. It is unsafe to recommend +any writer as very funny. No man can ever tell how his neighbour will +take a joke. But it may safely be said that authors who really tickle +their students are extremely rare in England, except as writers for the +stage, and surely "The Great Pink Pearl" might have made Timon of Athens +shake his sides, or might convert a Veddah to the belief that "there is +something to laugh at." In literature, when we want to be even +hysterically diverted, we must, as a rule, buy our fun from the American +humorists. If we cannot make laughter ourselves, at least we can, and +do, laugh with them. + +A vast amount of American humour may be called local and middle-class. In +the youth of Dickens, there was a regular set of home-made middle-class +jokes about babies, about washing-day, about mothers-in-law, about dinner- +parties that were not successes, about curtain lectures, about feminine +extravagance in bonnet-buying, about drunken men, about beer, all of them +jokes worn threadbare. A similar kind of fun, with local differences, +prevails in the States, but is wonderfully mixed up with scriptural and +religious jokes. To us sober Britons, whatever our opinions, these +latter japes appear more or less ribald, though they are quite innocently +made. + +Aristophanes, a pious conservative, was always laughing consumedly at the +Greek gods, and the Greek gods were supposed to be in the joke. The +theatrical season was sacred to the deity of wine and fun, and he, with +the other Olympians, was not scandalized by the merriment. In the ages +of faith it is also notorious that saints, and even more sacred persons, +were habitually buffooned in the Mystery Plays, and the Church saw no +harm. The old leaven of American Puritanism has the same kind of +familiarity with ideas and words which we approach more delicately, +conscious that the place where we tread is holy ground. This +consciousness appears to be less present in the States, which are peopled +by descendants of the Puritans, and scores of good things are told in +"family" American journals and magazines which are received without a +grin in this country. "We are not amused," a great person is reported to +have once observed when some wit had ventured on a hazardous anecdote. +And we, meaning the people of England, are often not amused, but rather +vexed, by gaieties which appear absolutely harmless on the other side of +the ocean. These two kinds of humour, the middle-class jokes about +courting between lovers seated on a snake fence, or about Sunday schools +and quaint answers there given to Biblical questions, leave us cold. + +But surely we appreciate as well as the Americans themselves the +extraordinarily intellectual high spirits of Mark Twain, a writer whose +genius goes on mellowing, ripening, widening, and improving at an age +when another man would have written himself out. His gravity in +narrating the most preposterous tale, his sympathy with every one of his +absurdest characters, his microscopic imagination, his vein of +seriousness, his contrasts of pathos, his bursts of indignant plain +speaking about certain national errors, make Mark Twain an author of the +highest merit, and far remote from the mere buffoon. Say the "Jumping +Frog" is buffoonery; perhaps it is, but Louis Quinze could not have +classed the author among the people he did not love, _les buffons qui ne +me font rire_. The man is not to be envied who does not laugh over the +ride on "The Genuine Mexican Plug" till he is almost as sore as the +equestrian after that adventure. Again, while studying the narrative of +how Mark edited an agricultural paper in a country district, a person +with any sense of humour is scarcely a responsible being. He is quite +unfit (so doth he revel in laughter uncontrollable) for the society of +staid people, and he ought to be ejected from club libraries, where his +shouts waken the bald-headed sleepers of these retreats. It is one +example of what we have tried to urge, that "Mark's way" is not nearly so +acceptable in "The Innocents Abroad," especially when the Innocents get +to the Holy Land. We think it in bad taste, for example, to snigger over +the Siege of Samaria, and the discomfiture of "shoddy speculators" in +curious articles of food during that great leaguer. Recently Mark Twain +has shown in his Mississippi sketches, in "Tom Sawyer," and in +"Hucklebury Finn," that he can paint a landscape, that he can describe +life, that he can tell a story as well as the very best, and all without +losing the gift of laughter. His travel-books are his least excellent; +he is happiest at home, in the country of his own Blue Jay. + +The contrasts, the energy, the mixture of races in America, the +overflowing young life of the continent, doubtless give its humorists the +richness of its vein. All over the land men are eternally "swopping +stories" at bars, and in the long, endless journeys by railway and +steamer. How little, comparatively, the English "swop stories"! The +Scotch are almost as much addicted as the Americans to this form of +barter, so are the Irish. The Englishman has usually a dignified dread +of dropping into his "anecdotage." + +The stories thus collected in America are the subsoil of American +literary humour, a rich soil in which the plant cultivated by Mark Twain +and Mr. Frank Stockton grows with vigour and puts forth fruit and +flowers. Mr. Stockton is very unlike Mark Twain: he is quiet, +domesticated, the jester of the family circle. Yet he has shown in +"Rudder Grange," and in "The Transferred Ghost," very great powers, and a +pleasant, dry kind of Amontillado flavour in his fun, which somewhat +reminds one of Thackeray--the Thackeray of the "Bedford-row Conspiracy" +and of "A Little Dinner at Timmins." Mr. Stockton's vein is a little too +connubial--a little too rich in the humours and experiences of young +married people. But his fun is rarely strained or artificial, except in +the later chapters of "Rudder Grange," and he has a certain kindliness +and tenderness not to be always met with in the jester. His angling and +hunting pieces are excellent, and so are those of Mr. Charles Dudley +Warner. This humorist (like Alceste) was once "funnier than he had +supposed," when he sat down with a certain classical author, to study the +topography of Epipolae. But his talent is his own, and very agreeable, +though he once so forgot himself as to jest on the Deceased Wife's +Sister. When we think of those writers to whom we all owe so much, it +would be sheer ingratitude to omit the name of the master of them all, +Oliver Wendell Holmes. Here is a wit who is a scholar, and almost a +poet, and whose humour is none the less precious for being accompanied by +good humour, learning, a wide experience of the world. With Mr. Lowell, +he belongs to an older generation, yet reigns among the present. May the +reign be long! + + + +SHOW SUNDAY. + + +The years bring round very quickly the old familiar events. Yesterday +was Show Sunday. It scarcely seems a year since last the painters +received their friends, and perhaps a few of their enemies. These visits +to studios are very exciting to ladies who have read about studios in +novels, and believe that they will find everywhere tawny tiger-skins, +Venetian girls, chrysanthemum and hawthorn patterned porcelain, suits of +armour, old plate, swords, and guns, and bows, and all the other +"properties" of the painter of romance. Some of these delightful things, +no doubt, the visitors of yesterday saw, and probably some painters still +wear velvet coats and red neckties, and long hair and pointed beards. But +the typical artist is not what he was. He has become domesticated. +Sometimes he is nearly as rich and "apolaustic" as a successful stock- +broker, and much more fashionable. Then he dwells in marble halls, with +pleasing fountains, by whose falls all sorts of birds sing madrigals. He +has an entirely new house, in short, fitted up in the early Basque style, +or after the fashion of an Inca's palace, or like the Royal dwelling of a +Rajah, including, of course, all modern improvements. This is a very +desirable kind of artist to know at home; but, after all, it is not easy +to distinguish him from a highly-cultivated and successful merchant +prince, with a taste for _bric-a-brac_. He is not in the least like the +painter of romance; perhaps he is better--he is certainly more fortunate; +but he is not the real old thing, the Bohemian of Ouida and Miss Braddon. +One might as well expect a banker to be a Bohemian. + +Another class of modern painter is even more disappointing. He is +extremely neat and smooth in his appearance, and dresses in the height of +the most quiet fashion. His voice is low and soft, and he never (like +the artist of fiction) employs that English word whereby the Royalist +sailor was recognized when, attired as a Portuguee, he tried to blow up +one of the ships of Admiral Blake. This new kind of artist avoids studio +slang as much as he does long hair and red waistcoats. He might be a +young barrister, only he is more polished; or a young doctor, only he is +more urbane. No doubt there exist men of the ancient species--rough-and- +ready men as strong as bargees, given to much tobacco, amateurs of porter +or shandygaff, great hunters of the picturesque, such wild folk as +Thackeray knew and Mr. Charles Keene occasionally caricatures. These are +the artists whom young ladies want to see, but they are not in great +force on Show Sunday. They rather look on that festival as a day of +national mourning and humiliation and woe. They do not care to have all +Belgravia or South Kensington let loose in their places. They do not +wish the public to gaze and simper at pieces which will probably be +enskied or rejected, or hung at a dangerous corner next a popular +picture. + +No painter who is not of the most secure eminence can, perhaps, quite +enjoy Show Sunday. Many of his visitors know as much about Art as the +Fuegians do of white neckties. They come and gaze, and say, "How soft, +how sweet!" like Rosey Mackenzie, and have tea, and go away. Other +people offer amazing suggestions, and no one who thinks the pictures +failures quite manages to conceal his opinion. Poets are said to be fond +of reading their own poems aloud, which seems amazing; but then as they +read they cannot see their audience, nor guess how they are boring those +sufferers. The poet, like the domestic fowl which did not scream when +plucked, is "too much absorbed." But while his friends look at his +pictures, the painter looks at their faces, and must make many sad +discoveries. Like other artists, he does not care nearly so much for the +praise as he is dashed and discomfited by the slightest hint of blame. It +is a wonder that irascible painters do not run amuck among their own +canvases and their visitors on Show Sunday. That, at least, in Mr. +Browning's phrase, is "how it strikes a contemporary." Were the artists +to yield to the promptings of their lower nature, were they to hearken to +the Old Man within them, fearful massacres would occur in St. John's +Wood, and Campden Hill, and round Holland House. An alarmed public and a +powerless police would behold vast ladies of wealth, and maidens fair, +and wild critics with eye-glasses speeding, at a furious pace, along +certain roads, pursued by painters armed to the teeth with palette knives +and mahlsticks. + +This is what would occur if academicians and others gave way to the +natural passions provoked by criticism and general demeanour on Show +Sunday. But it is a proof of the triumph of civilization that nothing of +this kind occurs. Peace prevails in the street and studio, and at the +end of the day the artist must feel much as the critic does after the +private view at the Royal Academy. The artist has been having a private +view of the public on its good behaviour, and that wild contempt of the +bourgeois which burns in every artist's breast must reach its highest +temperature. However, the holidays are beginning, the working season is +over, and that reflection, doubtless, helps the weary painter through his +ordeal. But his friends also have to bear a good deal if they happen not +to like his performances. They must feign admiration as well as they +may, and the sun of Show Sunday goes down on a world rather glad that it +is well over. + +Lord Beaconsfield once said at an Academy dinner that originality was the +great characteristic of English art. So little was he supposed to have +spoken seriously that another, of whose ceasing to perorate there is no +prospect, characterized his criticism in language so strong that it +cannot well be repeated. Let us admit that Lord Beaconsfield was either +mistaken, or that, like the Consul Aulus, "he spake a bitter jest." Our +artists, when they have found their vein, go on working it. They do not +wander off in search of new veins, as a general rule. It would be unkind +to draw attention to personal proofs of this truism. He who has done +well with babies in fancy dresses will go on doing well with infants in +masquerade. There are moments when the arrival of Cronus to swallow the +whole family of painted babes, as he did his own, would be not unwelcome; +when an artistic Herod would be applauded for a general massacre of the +Burlington House innocents. But this may be only the jaundiced theory of +a jaded critic. The mothers of England are a much more important set of +judges, and they like the babies. Then the bishops, though a little +monotonous, must be agreeable to their flocks; while the hunting dogs, +and pugs, and kittens, and monks, and Venetian girls--_la blonde et la +brune_--and the Highland rivers of the colour of porter "with a head on +it," and the mackerel-hued sea, and the marble, and the martyrs, and the +Mediterranean--they are all dear to various classes of our teeming +population. The critic may say he has seen them all before, he knows +them off by heart; but then so does he know Raphael's infants, and +Botticelli's madonnas, and Fra Angelico's angel trumpeters, and Vecelli's +blue hills, and Robusti's doges, and Lionardo's smiling, enigmatic +ladies. He does not say he is tired of these, but that is only his +eternal affectation. He is afraid, perhaps, to say that the old masters +bore him--that is a compliment reserved for contemporaries. Let it be +admitted that in all ages artists have had their grooves, like other men, +and have reproduced themselves and their own best effects. But, as this +is inevitably true, how careful they should be that the effects are +really of permanent value and beauty! Realistic hansom cabs, and babies +in strange raiment, and schoolgirls of the last century, and Masters of +Hounds, are scarcely of so much permanent value as the favourite types +and characters which Lionardo and Carpaccio repeat again and again. We +no more think Claude monotonous than we think "the quiet coloured end of +evening" flat and stale. But we may, and must, tire of certain modern +combinations too often rehearsed, after the trick has become a habit, and +the method an open mystery. + + + +THE DRY FLY. + + +As the Easter vacation approaches, the cockney angler, the "inveterate +cockney," as Lord Salisbury did or did not say, begins to look to his +fishing tackle. Now comes in the sweet of the year, and we may regret, +with Mr. Swinburne, that "such sweet things should be fleet, such fleet +things sweet." There are not many days that the London trout-fisher gets +by the waterside. The streams worth his attention, and also within his +reach, are few, and either preserved so that he cannot approach them, or +harried by poachers as well as anglers. How much happier were men in +Walton's day who stretched their legs up Tottenham Hill and soon found, +in the Lea, trout which would take a worm when the rod was left to fish +for itself! In those old days Hackney might be called a fishing village. +There was in Walton's later years a writer on fishing named W. Gilbert, +"Gent." This gent produced a small work called the "Angler's Delight," +and if the angler was delighted, he must have been very easily pleased. +The book now sells for large sums, apparently because it is scarce, for +it is eminently worthless. The gentle writer, instead of giving +directions about fly-dressing, calmly tells his readers to go and buy his +flies at a little shop "near Powle's." To the "Angler's Delight" this +same W. Gilbert added a tract on "The Hackney River, and the best stands +there." Now there are no stands there, except cabstands, which of course +are uninteresting to the angler. Two hundred years have put his fishing +far away from him. + +However, the ancient longing lives in him, and the Sunday morning trains +from Paddington are full of early fishing-men. But it cannot be that +most of them are after trout, the Thames trout being so artful that it +needs a week's work and private information to come to terms with him. +Hitherto he has been spun for chiefly, or coaxed with live bait; but now +people think that a good big loch fly may win his affections. It is to +be hoped that this view is correct, for the attempts by spinning and with +live bait are calculated to stretch and crack even the proverbial +patience of anglers. Persons conscious of less enduring mettle in their +mind will soon be off to the moorland waters of Devonshire, or the +Border, where trout are small, fairly plentiful, and come early into +season. About the upper waters of Severn, where Sabrina is still unvexed +by pollution, and where the stream is not greater than Tweed at Peebles, +sport is fair in spring. + +Though the Devonshire, and Border, and probably the Welsh waters, are +just in their prime, the season is not yet for the Itchen and the Kennet, +with their vast over-educated and over-fed monsters of the deep. Though +there may be respectable angling for accomplished artists thereabouts in +late April and May, the true sport does not begin till the May-fly comes +in, which he generally does in June. Then the Kennet is a lovely and +seductive spectacle to the angler. Between the turns of sun and shower +the most beautiful delicate insects, frail as gossamer and fair as a +fairy, are born, and flit for their hour, and float down the water, soon +to be swallowed by the big four-pound trout. He who has no experience of +this angling, and who comes to it from practice in the North, at first +thinks he cannot go wrong. There is the smooth clear water, broken every +moment by a trout's nose, just gently pushed up, but indicating, by the +size of the ripple, that a monster is feeding below. You think, if you +are accustomed to less experienced fish, that all is well. You throw +your flies, two or three, a yard above the ripple, and wait to strike. +But the ripples instantly cease, and on the surface of the water you see +the long thin track of a broad back and huge dorsal fin. The trout has +been, not frightened--he is in no hurry--but disgusted by your clumsy +cast, which would readily have taken in a sea-trout or a loch-trout. They +of Kennet and Test know a good deal better than to approach your wet +flies. A few minutes of this failure reduce the novice to the despair of +Tantalus. _He_ never was set to such a torture as casting over big +feeding trout and never getting a rise. You feel inclined to throw your +fly-book bodily at the heads of the trout and bid them take their choice +of its contents. That method of angling would be quite as successful as +angling for large southern trout in the northern manner. So the novice +either loses his temper and walks away to take his ease and some shandy- +gaff at the Bear, or he sits down to smoke, or he potters botanically +among the flowering water-weeds. Then a southern angler comes near, and +is presently playing a trout which the northern man has not "put down," +or frightened into total abstinence for the day. Then the true method of +fishing for trout in a clear stream is illustrated in practice, and a +beautiful and most delicate art it proves to be. + +First, the angler notices a rising fish. Then he retires to a safe +distance from the bank, outflanks the trout, and comes round in his rear. +As fish always feed with their heads up stream, it is necessary in such +clear water to fish for them from below, from as far below as possible. +Every advantage is taken of cover, and the angler soon acquires the +habits of a skirmisher. A tuft of rushes, an inequality in the ground, +or an alder bush conceals him; behind this he kneels, and gets his tackle +in order. He uses only one fly, not two or three, as people do on the +Border. He carefully measures his ground, flicking his cast through the +air, so that the fly shall be perfectly dry. Then the trout rises, and +in a moment the dry fly descends as lightly as a living insect, half a +foot above the ripple. Down it floats, the fisher watching with a +beating heart: then there is a ripple, then a splash; the rod bends +nearly double, the line flies out to the further bank, and the struggle +begins. The fight is by no means over, for the fish instinctively makes +for a bed of weeds, where he can entangle and break the line, while the +angler holds him as hard as he dares, and, if tackle be sound and luck +goes not contrary, the big trout is landed at last. + +This is no trifling victory. Nay, a Kennet trout is far harder to catch +and kill than the capricious salmon, which will often take a fly, however +clumsy be the man who casts it. There is a profane theory that several +members of the Hungerford Club never catch the trout they pay so much to +have the privilege of trying to capture. A very sure eye and clever hand +are needed to make the fly light dry and neat so close above the fish +that he has not time to be alarmed by the gut. "Gut-shy" he is, and the +less he sees of it the better. Moreover, a wonderful temper is required, +for in the backward cast of the long line the hook will, ten to one, +catch in a tree, or a flower, or a straw, or a bit of hay, and then it +has to be disengaged by the angler crawling on hands and knees. Perhaps +a northern angler will never quite master the delicacy of this sport, nor +acquire the entomological knowledge which seems to be necessary, nor make +up his mind between the partisans of the light one-handed rod and the +double-handed rod. + + + +AMATEUR AUTHORS. + + +Literature knows no Trades Unions, but if things go on as they are at +present, perhaps we shall hear of literary rattening and picketing. The +_Kolnische Zeitung_, in Germany, has been protesting against the mob of +noble ladies who write with ease, though their works, even to persons +acquainted with the German tongue, are by no means easy reading. The +Teutonic paper requests these ambitious dames to conduct themselves as +amateurs, to write, if write they must, but to print only a few copies of +their books, and give these few copies only to their friends. This is +advice as morally excellent as it will be practically futile, nor does it +apply only to ladies of rank, but to amateur novelists in general. The +old quarrel between artists and amateurs is fiercely waged in dramatic +society, perhaps because actors and actresses feel the stress of +competing with cheap amateur labour. Now, though the professional +novelist has only of late begun to think seriously of the subject, it is +plain that he too is competing with labour unnaturally cheap, and is +losing in the competition. To define an amateur is difficult, as all +athletic clubs and rowing clubs are aware. But in this particular field +of human industry, the amateur may be defined with ease. The amateur +novelist is not merely the person who, having another profession, writes +a romance by way of "by-work," as the Greeks called it. Lord +Beaconsfield was no amateur in romance, and perhaps no novel was ever +sold at so high a ransom as "Endymion." Yet Lord Beaconsfield only +scribbled in his idle hours, and was not half so much an amateur novelist +as Mr. Gladstone is an amateur student of Homer. No; the true amateur is +he or she who publishes at his or her own expense. The labour of such +persons is not only cheap; its rewards may be estimated by a frightful +minus quantity--the publisher's bill. Every one must have observed that +when his box of books comes from the circulating library, it by no means +contains the books he has asked the librarian to send. The batch does +not exclusively consist of the plums and prizes of the publishing season, +of Sir Henry Gordon's book on his illustrious brother, of the most famous +novel of the month, of Mr. Romilly's "New Guinea and the Western +Pacific"--as diverting a book of travel as ever was written, of Mr. +Stockton's "Mrs. Null," and generally of all that is freshest and most +notable in biography, fiction, and history. A few of the peaches of the +best quality there are, but the rest are fruit less valued, are, in fact, +amateur novels. There are two sets of three gaudy novels by unheard-of +ladies; and perhaps three shilling novels, with such titles as "Who Did +It?" "Chopped in Cover," or "Under a Cloud," none of which names we +trust are copyright. A similar phenomenon presents itself at the +bookstalls, which are choked with cheap and unenticing brief tales of the +deadly sins. And whose fault is it that we do not get the good books and +are flooded with the bad books? Why, it is the fault of the ambitious +amateur, of the ladies and gentlemen who publish at their own risk, and +at the cost of the world of readers and professional writers. + +This is, with a few remarkable limitations, a free country. No law +exists which says to publishers, "Thou shalt not publish on commission." +No law confines the vagaries of amateur romance. Hence the market is +choked, and the circulating libraries are overwhelmed with rubbish, and +good books, as the Americans of the West say, "get no show." The +debauched novel reader, to whom every story is a story, and one no better +nor worse than another, may not heed it, but the judicious grieve, and +the artist in fiction returns a smaller income tax. Then the very +revenue suffers with the general decline of letters. It may, of course, +be urged that all artists are amateurs before they secure a paying +public. The amateur novelist may be compared to the young dramatic +author who gives his piece at a _matinee_, and who, once in a hundred +times, finds a manager to approve it. May not publishing _en amateur_ be +the only way of reaching the public? To this question the answer is, No! +The risk of publishing a novel by a new author is nothing like so great +as the risk of producing a play with an unknown name to it. Publishers +exist for the purpose of bringing out books that will pay, and they +generally pounce on a good manuscript in fiction, whether the writer be +known or unknown. It is much more easy to predict whether a novel will +pay or not than to prophecy about a drama. Thus the most obscure author +(in spite of the difficulties faced by "Jane Eyre" and "Vanity Fair") may +rely on it, that if his MS. is not accepted, it is not worth accepting. +He should not, if he has decently sound reasons for self-confidence, be +disheartened by two or three refusals. One man's taste might be averse +to "John Inglesant," another's might turn against Ouida, a third might +fail to see the merit of "Vice Versa." But if half a dozen experts taste +and reject a manuscript, it is almost certain to be hopeless. Then the +author should take the advice once offered by Mr. Walter Besant. "_Never_ +publish at your own expense." If you do, you stamp yourself as an +amateur; you add to the crowd of futilities that choke the market; and, +if you have it in you to write a novel which shall be a good piece, you +are handicapping yourself by placing a bad novel on your record. People +sin out of thoughtlessness, as well as depravity, and we would not say +that every amateur novelist is, _ex officio_, infamous, nefarious, and +felonious. He or she may be only rather vain, conceited, and +unreflecting. + +Where, then, is the remedy if homilies fail to convert the sinner, as, +indeed, it is the misfortune of homilies to fail? The remedy will be +found in a Novelists' League, with tickets, and boycotting, and strikes, +and rattening, and all the other devices for getting our own way in an +oppressive world. There will be a secret society of professionals. Lady +novelists (amateurs) will be rattened; their blotting-paper and French +dictionaries will be stolen or destroyed; their publishers will be +boycotted by all members of the League, who will decline to publish with +any man known to deal with amateurs. Nay, so powerful is this dread and +even criminal confederacy, that amateurs will not even be reviewed. +Neither the slashing, nor the puffing, nor the faintly praising notice +will be meted out to them. There will be a conspiracy of silence. The +very circulating libraries will be threatened, and coffins (stolen from +undertakers who dabble in romance) will be laid at Mr. Mudie's door, +unless he casts off the amateur in fiction. The professionals will march +through rapine to emancipation. They will strike off the last gyves that +fetter the noble art of romance, and in five or six years we shall have +only about a tenth of the present number of romances, but that tenth will +pass through as many editions as "The Pilgrim's Progress," which, by the +way, was probably, like Ronsard's poems, the work of an amateur. But +these were other times, when an author did not expect to make money, and +thought himself lucky if, after a slashing personal review by the +Inquisition, his fragments were not burned at the stake in a bonfire of +his volumes. + + + +SOME RARE THINGS FOR SALE. + + +An American writer has been complaining lately that his countrymen have +lost the habit of reading. This is partly the result of that free trade +in English books which is the only form of free trade that suits the +American Constitution. People do not buy American books any longer, +because they can get English works, mere printed rags, but paying nothing +to English authors, for a few cents. The rags, of course, fall to +pieces, and are tossed into the waste-paper basket, and thus a habit of +desultoriness and of abstention from books worth styling books grows and +grows, like a noxious and paralysing parasite, over the American +intellect. In this way our pleasant vices are made instruments to plague +us, and the condition of the law, which leaves the British authors at the +mercy of the Aldens and Monros of the States, is beginning to react on +the buyers of goods indelicately obtained. Even newspaper articles are +becoming, it is said, a heavy and a weary weight on the demoralised +attention, and people are ceasing to read anything but brief and probably +personal paragraphs, such as "Joaquin Miller has had his hair cut." + +This is a deplorable condition of things, and perhaps not quite without +example at home, where, however, many people still intend to read books, +and order them at the libraries, though they never really carry out +intentions which, like those of Wilkins Micawber the younger, are +excellent. To persons conscious of mental debility and incapable of +grappling even with a short shilling novel, a brief and easy form of +reading may be recommended. They may study catalogues; they may peruse +the lists of their wares which secondhand booksellers and dealers in all +kinds of curiosities circulate gratis. This is the only kind of circular +which should not go straight to its long home in the waste-paper basket. +A catalogue is full of information. It is so exceedingly inconsecutive +that even the most successful barrister, or doctor, or stockbroker (they +are the people that read least) need not be fatigued by its contents. The +catalogue skips from gay to grave, from Tupper to Aretino, from Dickens +to "Drelincourt on Death." You can pick it up where you like, and lay it +down when your poor fagged attention is distracted by a cab in the +street, or a bird in the branches. Then there is the pleasure of marking +with a pencil the articles which you would buy if you could--the Nankin +double bottle, the old novel bound in the arms of the Comtesse de Verrue, +the picture ascribed to the school of Potto Pottoboileri. Of course, in +these bad times, such purchases are out of the question, but the taste +and judgment are gratified by "marking them down," like partridges in +September. + +These contemplative reveries on catalogues have been inspired by a +catalogue, not without its merits--a list of relics of Mexican history +now to be sold. The curious may find it for themselves, the wealthy may +speculate in the treasures which it advertises. Here is a piece of the +Emperor Maximilian's waistcoat, "same in which they shot him," to employ +an idiom of Captain Rawdon Crawley's. There are many relics of the same +recent and troublous times; but the amateur is more strongly attracted by +a very singular series of objects of the times of the Spanish Conquest, +nearly four hundred years ago. It is not so much the obsidian idols, +made of that curious bottle-glass-like mineral so fashionable among the +Aztecs, as the authentic remains of Fernando Cortes that the collector +will covet. What man had ever such fortune as Cortes--he who discovered +a new world as strange as a new planet? He conquered a great civilized +race, he overthrew a dynasty, not only of mortals, but of gods. +Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl fled from him, and their hideous +priests, draped and masked in skins fresh flayed from beasts or men, +vanished at his coming, as Isis, Osiris, and the dog Anubis fled from the +folding star of Bethlehem. He fought battles like the visions of +romance, and he took great and stately cities, with all their temples and +towers, which a month before were as unknown to Europeans as the capitals +of Mars and Sirius. The wonderful catalogue of which we speak is rich in +relics of this hero. We are offered a chance to buy his "trunk," a +carved wooden trunk in which Cortes carried his personal property. His +army chest, which held the sacred gold of Montesuma and the treasure of +the Temple of the Sun, is to be sold for a consideration. His pistols +are also on sale, and his "field-glass," which must be an exceedingly +early example of that useful invention. Whether the field-glass is +binocular or not, the catalogue does not pause to inform us. Corslets +worn by his brave Castilians are also to be vended, perhaps the very +leather and steel that guarded the honest heart of good Bernal Diaz. But +all these treasures, and even the very "scissors" of Fernando Cortes, are +less enticingly romantic than the iron head of Alvarado's spear. Surely +no spear since that of Peleus' son, not to be wielded by meaner men, has +ever been so well worth acquiring as the spear of Alvarado, Tonatrish the +sun-god, as he was called by the Mexicans, by reason of his long, bright, +golden hair. This may have been, probably was, the spear that Alvarado +bore when he charged up the steps of the great Teocalli or God's house, +rained upon by Aztec darts, driving before him the hordes of heathendom. +With this very spear, when the summit was gained, he may have fought in +that strange fight, high in air, beheld by all the people of the city and +all the allies of Spain. Here stood the Christian cross; there was +planted the war-god, Huitzilopochtli; there the two faiths fought out +their battle, and the vanquished were tossed dying down the sides of the +Teocalli. Then the Spaniard was victorious; fire was set to the +Teocalli, and the cannibal Aztec religion rolled away in the clouds of +smoke and vapour of flame. With the self-same spear (no doubt) did +Alvarado make his famous leap, using it as a leaping pole to clear the +canal during the retreat of the Night of Dread. Assuredly Alvarado's +spear, or even the iron head of it alone, is an object worthy of an +archaeologist's regard, and scarce less curious than that + + "Broomstick o' the Witch of Endor, + Weel shod wi' brass," + +which Burns describes in the collection of Captain Grove. But +extraordinary as is the charm of these relics of Anahuac and of Castille, +perhaps even more engrossing is the last article in this romantic +catalogue, namely, "a green portfolio" giving an account of the various +articles, and how they came into the hands of their proprietor. Their +pedigree, if authentic, must be most important. + +Probably the most inattentive mind, even in the holidays, could "tackle" +a catalogue like this, or another in which the snuff-box of Xerxes and +the boot-jack of Themistocles should be offered for sale. These +antiquities seem scarcely less desirable, or less likely to come into the +market, than the scissors, pistols, and field-glass of Fernando Cortes. +An original portion of the Tables of the Law (broken on a familiar +occasion by the prophet), Hannibal's cigarette case, a landing net (at +one time in the possession of Alcibiades), a piece of chalk used by +Archimedes in his mathematical demonstrations, the bronze shoe of +Empedocles, the arrow on which Abaris flew, and the walking-stick, a +considerable piece of timber, which Dr. Johnson lost in Mull, may all be +reposing in some private collection. Collectors do get very odd things +together. Poor M. Soleirol had quite a gallery of portraits and +autographs of Moliere, and a French mathematician, about a dozen years +ago, possessed an assortment of apocryphal letters from almost every one +mentioned in history, sacred or profane. The collection of Mr. Samuel +Ireland was like this, and an English student possessed autographs of +most of the great reformers, carefully written by an ingenious swindler +in contemporary books. The lovers of relics are apt to be thus deluded, +and perhaps we should not regret this, as long as they are happy. But +they should be very careful indeed when they are asked to buy Alvarado's +spear, though probably it is extant somewhere, as it certainly is in the +catalogue. It is a question of caution in the purchaser. + + + +CURIOSITY HUNTING. + + +What will people not collect in this curious age, and what prices will +they not pay for things apparently valueless? Few objects can seem less +desirable than an old postage-stamp, yet our Paris correspondent informs +us that postage-stamps are at a premium in the capital of taste and of +pleasure. A well-known dealer offers 4 pounds 15_s_. for every Tuscan +stamp earlier than 1860, and 16 pounds for particularly fine examples. +Mauritius stamps of 1847 are estimated--by the purchaser, mind--at two +thousand francs, and post-marks of British Guiana of 1836, from five +hundred to a thousand francs. Eighty pounds for a soiled bit of paper, +that has no beauty to recommend it! Probably no drawing of equal size +from the very hand of Raffaelle or Leonardo would be priced nearly so +high as these grubby old stamps. Yet the drawing would be not only a +thing of art, beautiful in itself, but also a personal relic of the +famous artist whose pencil touched it, while a stamp is a relic of +nothing but some forgotten postal arrangement with a colony. We do not +know, moreover, how much the dealer will ask for these stamps when once +he gets hold of them and has rich collectors at his mercy. In no trade +do the buyer's price and the seller's price differ with such wide margins +as in the commerce of curiosities, especially, perhaps, in the +book-trade. People find that they possess books highly priced in +dealers' catalogues, and, if they want money, they carry their treasures +to the dealers. But "advantage seldom comes of it." The dealer has a +different price, very often, when he is a purchaser. This is +intelligible, but, to many persons who are not amateurs, the mania for +rare postage-stamps passes all understanding. Yet it is capable of being +explained. Like many other oddities and puzzling features in the ways of +collectors, the high price of certain stamps is the consequence of the +passion for perfection. Any one can collect stamps--little boys and +schoolgirls often do. But there comes a point at which foreign stamps +and old stamps grow rare, and more rare, and, finally, next to impossible +to procure. Here it is that the heart of the mature collector begins to +beat. He is determined to have a perfect collection. Nothing shall +escape him in the way of printed franks on letters. Now, +nineteen-twentieths of his assortment he can buy in the gross, without +trouble or great expense; but the last twentieth demands personal care +and attention, and the hunting up of old family letters, and the haunting +of great dealers' shops, and peeping through dirty windows in shady lanes +and alleys. As he gets nearer and nearer a complete collection the spoil +grows more and more shy, the excitement faster and more furious, till, +finally, the amateur would sell an estate for a square inch of paper, and +turn large England to a little stamp, if he had the opportunity. The +fury of the pastime is caused by the presence of definite limits. There +is only a certain known number of stamps in the world. This limit makes +perfection possible. + +It is not as if you were collecting really beautiful things like Tanagra +terra-cottas, or really rare and quaint and mysterious things like aggery +beads. Though Tanagra terra-cottas, and aggery beads, and fine examples +of Moorish lustre, or of ancient Nankin, or of gold coins of the Roman +Empire, are all rare, yet there is no definite limit to their number. +More may turn up any day when the pickaxe breaks into a new Tanagra +cemetery, when a fallen palm in Ashanti brings up aggery beads clinging +to its earthy roots, when a pot of coins is found by some old Roman way, +and so forth. To be sure, perfection may be attained in coin collecting, +when a man has specimens of all known sorts, but even then he will pine +for better specimens, for the best specimens. In the other branches of +the sport we have mentioned the collector may be eager, of course, for +good things, but he can never know the passion of the stampomaniac who +has all sorts but three, and finds these within his reach. Perfection is +within a step of such a man, and that step we fear he will take, even if +it involves ever so many breaches of the Decalogue. In one of this +month's magazines, in a story called "Mr. Pierrepoint's Repentance," Mr. +Grant Allen tells the tale of a coin collector's infamy, and that coin +collector a clergyman and fellow of his college. A pope is said to have +stolen a rare book from a painter, and it is certain that enthusiastic +collectors are apt to have "their moral tone lowered some," as the +American gentleman said about the lady whom he had wooed with intentions +less than honourable. + +A good example of the toils of the collector in pursuit of perfection is +given by M. Henri Beraldi in his very amusing catalogue of M. Paillet's +library. This book, by the way, is itself scarce, and the bibliomaniac +will be rather lucky if he meets with it. M. Beraldi describes M. +Paillet's copy of Dorat's "Fables," published in 1773, with illustrations +by Marillier. Nobody perhaps ever reads Dorat now, but his book came out +in the very palmiest days of the art of illustration in France. There +were no _photogravures_ then, nor hideous, scratchy, and seamy +"processes," such as almost make one despair of progress and of the +future of humanity. The people that takes to "processes" is lost! The +illustrations of the "Fables" were duly engraved on copper. There were +ninety-nine vignettes, and as many tail-pieces. The bibliographical +history of the book is instructive, either to young collectors or to the +common herd, not to speak impolitely--the persons who do not understand +what collectors want. The "Fables" were originally published on three +different sorts of paper, Dutch paper at seventy-two francs, French paper +at twenty-nine francs, and on "small paper" at twenty-four francs. In +1853 the original drawings were bought by one of the Rothschilds for +about 60 pounds; they would now, probably, be worth at least 1,000 +pounds. The ordinary copies of the book itself bring about 6 pounds, the +large paper copies about 30 pounds, and a copy in old morocco can hardly +be estimated--you may pay anything for it, as a copy in old calf has sold +for 240 pounds. + +Such is the natural history of a book pretty valueless as literature, the +"Fables" of Dorat. In the early edition of "Brunet's Manual," published +in 1821, the large paper copies of the work, with the engravings in the +earliest state, are priced at from fifteen to eighteen francs. These +vignettes had gone out of fashion; they have come in again with a +vengeance. The high prices, eighty or a hundred pounds, are merely the +beginning of what the great collectors are ready to pay, and to do, and +to suffer in the cause of Dorat. In M. Cohen's catalogue of all these +old illustrated books special mention is made of M. Paillet's copy of the +"Fables." It is "a superb example, with all the engravings printed +separately." But M. Paillet describes this specimen far more lovingly. +All the designs are separately printed, and, oh joy! all have all their +margins uncut. The book is "all that man can dream of" in the way of +perfection. Cuzin did the binding, in yellow morocco, tooled with roses +and butterflies. "Reader," cries M. Beraldi, "if you are not a collector +you cannot imagine the difficulty of getting such a copy. It is the +thirteenth labour of Hercules." First you buy your text, then you must +have the separately printed _fleurons_. These can only be picked up here +and there, in sales and stalls. Perhaps you purchase half of them in one +lucky investment. With no great difficulty you secure another lot. Then +begins the hunt--you buy assortments at the price of bank notes, merely +for the sake of two or three out of the mass. You offer to barter twenty- +five for one you have not got. Then you have all but three, which you +demand from the universe at large: then all but two; then all but one. +What you pay for that one you keep a profound secret, lest your family +should have you put under control. Even then you are not safe, for some +of your engravings have false margins, and must be changed for entire +examples. Such are the joys of the collector, for shadows we are and +engravings _a toutes marges_ we pursue. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{6} Except with worm in a summer flood. + +{8} Perhaps an Editor put this moral in? + +{16} The author once caught a salmon. It did not behave in any way like +the ferocious fish in this article. + +{23} Mr. Wordsworth, in his poem of "The Recluse," expresses a horror of +this diversion. + +{37} It is a melancholy fact that the Author has quite forgotten what +_did_ happen! Thus a narrative, probably diverting, is for ever lost, +thanks to the modesty of our free Press. + +{135} These remarks were made before the great discovery of some modern +authors, that the best novels are those in which there is never a +petticoat. + +{152} What _was_ this anecdote? + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOST LEADERS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Lost Leaders</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Andrew Lang</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Editor: W. Pett Ridge</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 14, 2005 [eBook #16529]<br /> +[Most recently updated: May 5, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOST LEADERS ***</div> + +<h1>Lost Leaders<br /> +by<br /> +Andrew Lang</h1> +<p>LONDON</p> +<p>KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE<br /> +1889</p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> +<p>These articles are reprinted, by the permission of the Editor, from +the <i>Daily News</i>. They were selected and arranged by Mr. +Pett Ridge, who, with the Publishers, will perhaps kindly take a share +in the responsibility of republishing them. <!-- page 1--><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span></p> +<h2>LOST LEADERS.</h2> +<h3>SCOTCH RIVERS.</h3> +<p>September is the season of the second and lovelier youth of the river-scenery +of Scotland. Spring comes but slowly up that way; it is June before +the woods have quite clothed themselves. In April the angler or +the sketcher is chilled by the east wind, whirling showers of hail, +and even when the riverbanks are sweet with primroses, the bluff tops +of the border hills are often bleak with late snow. This state +of things is less unpropitious to angling than might be expected. +A hardy race of trout will sometimes rise freely to the artificial fly +when the natural fly is destroyed, and the angler is almost blinded +with dusty snowflakes. All through midsummer the Scotch rivers +lose their chief <!-- page 2--><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>attractions. +The bracken has not yet changed its green for the fairy gold, the hue +of its decay; the woods wear a uniform and sombre green; the waters +are low and shrunken, and angling is almost impossible. But with +September the pleasant season returns for people who love “to +be quiet, and go a-fishing,” or a-sketching. The hills put +on a wonderful harmony of colours, the woods rival the October splendours +of English forests. The bends of the Tweed below Melrose and round +Mertoun—a scene that, as Scott says, the river seems loth to leave—may +challenge comparison with anything the Thames can show at Nuneham or +Cliefden. The angler, too, is as fortunate as the lover of the +picturesque. The trout that have hidden themselves all summer, +or at best have cautiously nibbled at the worm-bait, now rise freely +to the fly. Wherever a yellow leaf drops from birch tree or elm +the great trout are splashing, and they are too eager to distinguish +very subtly between flies of nature’s making and flies of fur +and feather. It is a time when every one who can manage it should +be by the water-side, and should take with him, if possible, the posthumous +<!-- page 3--><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>work of Sir Thomas Dick +Lauder on the “Rivers of Scotland.”</p> +<p>This book, as the author of “Rab and his Friends” tells +us in the preface, is a re-publication of articles written in 1848, +on the death-bed of the author, a man of many accomplishments and of +a most lovable nature. He would lie and dictate or write in pencil +these happy and wistful memories of days passed by the banks of Tweed +and Tyne. He did not care to speak of the northern waters: of +Tay, which the Roman invaders compared to Tiber; of Laxford, the river +of salmon; or of the “thundering Spey.” Nor has he +anything to say of the west, and of Galloway, the country out of which +young Lochinvar came, with its soft and broken hills, like the lower +spurs of the Pyrenees, and its streams, now rushing down defiles of +rock, now stealing with slow foot through the plains. He confines +himself to the limits of the Scottish Arcadia; to the hills near Edinburgh, +where Ramsay’s Gentle Shepherd loved and sang in a rather affected +way; and to the main stream and the tributaries of the Tweed. +He tells, with a humour like that of Charles Lamb in his account of +his youthful <!-- page 4--><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>search for +the mysterious fountain-head of the New River, how he sought among the +Pentland Hills for the source of the brook that flowed past his own +garden. The wandering stream led him through many a scene renowned +in Border history, up to the heights whence Marmion surveyed the Scottish +forces encamped on Borough Moor before the fatal day of Flodden. +These scenes are described with spirit and loving interest; but it is +by Tweedside that the tourist will find his most pleasant guide in Lauder’s +book. Just as Cicero said of Athens, that in every stone you tread +on a history, so on Tweedside by every nook and valley you find the +place of a ballad, a story, or a legend. From Tweed’s source, +near the grave of the Wizard Merlin, down to Berwick and the sea, the +Border “keeps” and towers are as frequent as castles on +the Rhine. Each has its tradition, its memory of lawless times, +which have become beautiful in the magic of poetry and the mist of the +past. First comes Neidpath Castle, with its vaulted “hanging +chamber” in the roof, and the rafter, with the iron ring to which +prisoners were hanged, still remaining to testify to the lawless power +of Border lords. <!-- page 5--><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span> Neidpath +has a softer legend of the death of the lady of the house, when her +lover failed to recognize the features that had wasted with sorrow for +his absence. Lower down the river comes Clovenfords, with its +memories of Christopher North, and Peebles, where King James sings that +there was “dancing and derray” in his time; and still lower +Ashiesteel, where Scott was young and happy, and Abbotsford, where his +fame and his misfortunes found him out. It was on a bright afternoon +in late September that he died there, and the mourners by his bed heard +through the silence the murmuring of Tweed How many other associations +there are by the tributary rivers! what a breath of “pastoral +melancholy”! There is Ettrick, where the cautious lover +in the old song of Ettrick banks found “a canny place of meeting.” +Oakwood Tower, where Michael Scott, the wizard, wove his spells, is +a farm building—the haunted magician’s room is a granary, +Earlstone, where Thomas the Rhymer dwelt, and whence the two white deer +recalled him to Elfland and to the arms of the fairy queen, is noted +“for its shawl manufactory.” Only Yarrow still keeps +its ancient quiet, and <!-- page 6--><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>the +burn that was tinged by the blood of Douglas is unstained by more commonplace +dyes.</p> +<p>All these changes make the “Rivers of Scotland” rather +melancholy reading. Thirty years have not passed since Lauder +died, and how much he would miss if he could revisit his beloved water! +Spearing salmon by torchlight is a forbidden thing. The rocks +are no longer lit up with the red glow; they resound no longer with +the shouts and splashing of the yeomen. You might almost as readily +find a hart on Harthope, or a wild cat at Catslack, or a wolf at Wolf-Cleugh, +as catch three stone-weight of trout in Meggat-water. <a name="citation6"></a><a href="#footnote6">{6}</a> +The days of guileless fish and fabulous draughts of trout are over. +No sportsman need take three large baskets to the Gala now, as Lauder +did, and actually filled them with thirty-six dozen of trout. +The modern angler must not allow his expectations to be raised too highly +by these stories. Sport has become much more difficult in these +times of rapidly growing population. It is a pleasant sight to +see the weavers spending their afternoons beside the Tweed; <!-- page 7--><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>it +is such a sight as could not be witnessed by the closely preserved rivers +of England. But the weavers have taught the trout caution, and +the dyes and various pollutions of trade have thinned their numbers. +Mr. Ruskin sees no hope in this state of things; he preaches, in the +spirit of old Hesiod, that there is no piety in a race which defiles +the “holy waters.” But surely civilization, even if +it spoil sport and degrade scenery, is better than a state of things +in which the laird would hang up his foes to an iron ring in the roof. +The hill of Cowden Knowes may be a less eligible place for lovers’ +meetings than it was of old. But in those times the lord of Cowden +Knowes is said by tradition to have had a way of putting his prisoners +in barrels studded with iron nails, and rolling them down a brae. +This is the side of the good old times which should not be overlooked. +It may not be pleasant to find blue dye and wool yarn in Teviot, but +it is more endurable than to have to encounter the bandit Barnskill, +who hewed his bed of flint, Scott says, in Minto Crags. Still, +the reading of the “Rivers of Scotland” leaves rather a +sad impression on the reader, <!-- page 8--><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>and +makes him ask once more if there is no way of reconciling the beauty +of rude ages with the comforts and culture of civilization. This +is a question that really demands an answer, though it is often put +in a mistaken way. The teachings of Mr. Ruskin and of his followers +would bring us back to a time when printing was not, and an engineer +would have been burned for a wizard. <a name="citation8"></a><a href="#footnote8">{8}</a> +But there is a point at which civilization and production must begin +to respect the limits of the beautiful, on which they so constantly +encroach. Who is to settle the limit, and escape the charge of +being either a <i>dilettante</i> and a sentimentalist on the one hand, +or a Philistine on the other? <!-- page 9--><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span></p> +<h3>SALMON-FISHING.</h3> +<p>Salmon-fishing for this season is over, and, in spite of the fresh +and open weather, most anglers will feel that the time has come to close +the fly-book, to wind up the reel, and to consign the rod to its winter +quarters. Salmon-fishing ceases to be very enjoyable when the +<i>snaw broo</i>, or melted snow from the hilltops, begins to mix with +the brown waters of Tweed or Tay; when the fallen leaves hamper the +hook; and when the fish are becoming sluggish, black, and the reverse +of comely. Now the season of retrospect commences, the time of +the pleasures of memory, and the delights of talking shop dear to anglers +Most sporting talk is dull to every one but the votaries of the particular +amusement. Few things can be drearier to the outsider than the +conversation of cricketers, unless it be the recondite lore which whist-players +<!-- page 10--><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>bring forth from the +depths of their extraordinary memories. But angling talk has a +variety, recounts an amount of incident and adventure, and wakens a +feeling of free air in a way with which the records of no other sport, +except perhaps deer-stalking, can compete. The salmon is, beyond +all rivalry, the strongest and most beautiful, and most cautious and +artful, of fresh-water fishes. To capture him is not a task for +slack muscles or an uncertain eye. There is even a slight amount +of personal risk in the sport. The fisher must often wade till +the water reaches above the waist in cold and rushing streams, where +his feet are apt to slip on the smooth stones or trip on the rough rocks +beneath him. When the salmon takes the fly, there is no time for +picking steps. The line rushes out so swiftly as to cut the fingers +if it touches them, and then is the moment when the angler must follow +the fish at the top of his speed. To stand still, or to go cautiously +in pursuit, is to allow the salmon to run out with an enormous length +of line; the line is submerged—technically speaking, <i>drowned</i>—in +the water, the strain of the supple rod is removed from the fish, who +finds the hook <!-- page 11--><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>loose +in his mouth, and rubs it off against the bottom of the river. +Thus speed of foot, in water or over rocks, is a necessary quality in +the angler; at least in the northern angler. By the banks of the +Usk a contemplative man who likes to take things easily may find pretty +sure footing on grassy slopes, or on a gravelly bottom. But it +is a different thing to hook a large salmon where the Tweed foams under +the bridge of Yair down to the narrows and linns below. If the +angler hesitates there, he is lost. Does he stand still and give +the fish line? The astute creature cuts it against the sharp rocks +below the bridge, and the rod, relieved of the weight, leaps straight +in the fisher’s hand, and in his heart there is a sense of emptiness +and sudden desolation. Does he try to follow, the chances are +that his feet slip; after one or two wild struggles he is on his back +in the water, and nearly strangled with his fishing-basket. In +either case the fish goes on his way rejoicing, and, after the manner +of his kind, leaps out of the water once or twice—a maddening +sight.</p> +<p>Adventures like this are among the bitter memories of the angler. +The fish that break <!-- page 12--><span class="pagenum">p. 12</span>away +are monstrous animals; imagination increases their bulk, and fond desire +paints them clean-run and bright as silver. There are other chances +of the angler’s life scarcely less sad than this. When a +hook breaks just as the salmon was losing strength, was ceasing to struggle, +and beginning to sway with the mere force of the stream, and to show +his shining sides—when a hook breaks at such a moment, it is very +hard to bear. The oath of Ernulphus seems all too weak to express +the feelings of the sportsman and his wrath against the wretched tackle-maker. +Again, when the fish is actually conquered; when he is being towed gently +into some little harbour among the tall slim water-grasses, or into +a pebbly cove, or up to a green bank; when the bitterness of struggle +is past, and he seems resigned and almost happy; when at this crisis +the clumsy gilly with the gaff scratches him, rouses him to a last exertion, +and entangles the line, so that the salmon breaks free—that is +an experience to which language cannot do justice. The ancient +painter drew his veil over the face of Agamemnon present at his daughter’s +sacrifice. Silence and sympathy are all one can <!-- page 13--><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>offer +to the angler who has toiled all day, and in this wise caught nothing. +There is yet another very bitter sorrow. It is a hard thing for +a man to leave town and hurry to a river in the west, a river that perhaps +he has known since he fished for minnows with a bent pin in happy childhood. +The west is not a dry land; effeminate tourists complain that the rain +it raineth every day. But the heavy soft rain is the very life +of an angler. It keeps the stream of that clear brown hue, between +porter and amber, which he loves; and it encourages the salmon to keep +rushing from the estuary and the sea right up to the mountain loch, +where they rest. But suppose there is a dry summer—and such +things have been even in Argyleshire. The heart of the tourist +is glad within him, but as the river shrinks and shrinks, a silver thread +among slimy green mosses in the streams, a sheet of clear water in the +pools, the angler repines. Day after sultry day goes by, and there +is no hope. There is a cloud on the distant hill; it is only the +smoke from some moor that has caught fire. The river grows so +transparent that it is easy to watch the lazy fish sulking at the bottom. +Then comes <!-- page 14--><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>a terrible +temptation. Men, men calling themselves sportsmen, have been known +to fish in the innocent dewy morning, with worm, with black lob worm. +Worse remains behind. Persons of ungoverned passions, maddened +by the sight of the fish, are believed to have poached with rake-hooks, +a cruel apparatus made of three hooks fastened back to back and loaded +with lead. These are thrown over the fish, and then struck into +him with a jerk. But the mind willingly turns away from the contemplation +of such actions.</p> +<p>It is pleasanter to think of not unsuccessful days by lowland or +highland streams, when the sun was veiled, the sky pearly grey, the +water, as the people say, in grand order. There is the artistic +excitement of choosing the hook, gaudy for a heavy water, neat and modest +for a clearer stream. There is the feverish moment of adjusting +rod and line, while you mark a fish “rising to himself.” +You begin to cast well above him, and come gradually down, till the +fly lights on the place where he is lying. Then there is a slow +pull, a break in the water, a sudden strain at the line, which flies +through the rings of the <!-- page 15--><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>rod. +It is not well to give too much line; best to follow his course, as +he makes off as if for Berwick and the sea. Once or twice he leaps +clean into the air, a flying bar of silver. Then he sulks at the +bottom, a mere dead weight, attempting devices only to be conjectured. +A common plan now is to tighten the line, and tap the butt end of the +rod. This humane expedient produces effects not unlike neuralgia, +it may be supposed, for the fish is off in a new fury. But rush +after rush grows tamer, till he is drawn within reach of the gaff, and +so on to the grassy bed, where a tap on the head ends his sorrows, and +the colours on his shining side undulate in delicate and beautiful radiance. +It may be dreadfully cruel, as cruel as nature and human life; but those +who eat salmon or butcher’s meat cannot justly protest, for they, +desiring the end, have willed the means. As the angler walks home, +and watches the purple Eildon grow grey in the twilight, or sees the +hills of Mull delicately outlined between the faint gold of sky and +sea, it is not probable that his conscience reproaches him very fiercely. +He has spent a day among the most shy and hidden beauties of nature, +surprising her here and there <!-- page 16--><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>in +places where, unless he had gone a-fishing, he might never have penetrated. +He has set his skill against the strength and skill of the monarch of +rivers, and has mastered him among the haunts of fairies and beneath +the ruined towers of feudalism. These are some of the delights +that to-day end for a season. <a name="citation16"></a><a href="#footnote16">{16}</a> +<!-- page 17--><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span></p> +<h3>WINTER SPORTS.</h3> +<p>People to whom cold means misery, who hate to be braced, and shudder +at the word “seasonable,” can have little difficulty in +accounting for the origin of the sports of winter. They need only +adapt to the circumstances that old Lydian tradition which says that +games of chance were invented during a great famine. Men permitted +themselves to eat only every second day, and tried to forget their hunger +in playing at draughts and dice. That is clearly the invention +of a southern people, which never had occasion to wish it could become +oblivious of the weather, as too many of us would like to be in England. +Such shivering and indolent folks may be inclined to say that skating +and curling and wildfowl-shooting, and the other diversions which seduce +the able-bodied from the warm precincts of the cheerful fire, were only +contrived to enable us to forget the <!-- page 18--><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>state +of the thermometer. Whether or not that was the purpose of the +first northerner who fixed sheep-bones beneath his feet, to course more +smoothly over the frozen sound, there can be no doubt that winter sports +answer their presumed purpose. They keep up that glow which only +exercise in the open air can give, and promote the health which shows +itself in the complexion. It is the young lady who interprets +literally the Scotch invitation “come into the fire,” and +who spoils the backs of library novels by holding them too near the +comfortable hearth, she it is who suffers from the ignoble and unbecoming +liberties that winter takes with the human countenance. Happier +and wiser is she who studies the always living and popular Dutch roll +rather than the Grecian bend, and who blooms with continual health and +good temper. Our changeful climate affords so few opportunities +of learning to skate, that it is really extraordinary to find so much +skill, and to see feats so difficult and graceful. In Canada, +where frost is a certainty, and where the covered “rinks” +make skating an indoor sport, it is not odd that great perfection should +be attained. But as fast as Canadians bring <!-- page 19--><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>over +a new figure or a new trick it is picked up, and critics may dispute +as to whether the bold and dashing style of the English school of skaters +is not preferable to the careful and smooth, but somewhat pretty and +niggling manner of the colonists. Our skating stands to the Canadian +fashion somewhat as French does to English etching. We have the +dash and the <i>chic</i> with skates which Frenchmen show with the etching-needle, +and the Canadian, on the other hand, is apt to decline into the mere +prettiness which is the fault of English etchers.</p> +<p>Skating has been, within the last few years, a very progressive art. +There was a time when mere speed, and the grace of speed, satisfied +most amateurs. The ideal spot for skating in those days must have +been the lakes where Wordsworth used to listen to the echoes replying +from the cold and moonlit hills, or such a frozen river as that on which +the American skater was pursued by wolves. No doubt such scenes +have still their rare charm, and few expeditions are more attractive +than a moonlight exploration of a winding river. But it is seldom +that our frosts make such tours practicable, whereas <!-- page 20--><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>almost +every winter it is possible to skate with safety, at least on shallow +ponds, or on places like the ice-bound floods at Oxford. Thus +figure-skating, which needs but a surface of a few yards to each performer, +has come into fashion, and it is hard to imagine any exercise more elegant, +or one that requires more nerve. The novice is theoretically aware +that if he throws his body into certain unfamiliar postures, which are +explained to him, the laws of gravitation and of the higher curves will +cause him to complete a certain figure. But how much courage and +faith it requires to yield to these laws and let the frame swing round +subject to the immutable rules of matter! The temptation to stop +half-way is almost irresistible, and then there occurs a complicated +fall, which makes the petrified spectator ask where may be the skater’s +body—“which are legs, and which are arms?” Of +all sports, skating has the best claim to adopt Danton’s motto, +<i>Toujours de l’audace</i>—the audacity meant being that +of giving one’s self up to the laws of motion, and not the vulgar +quality which carries its owner on to dangerous ice. Something +may now be learned of figure-skating on dry land, and <!-- page 21--><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>the +adventure may be renewed of the mythical children who went sliding all +on a summer day. In this respect, skating has a great advantage +over its rival, the “roaring game” of curling. It +would be poor fun to curl on asphalte, with stones fixed on wheels, +though the amusement is possible, and we recommend the idea, which is +not copyright, to enthusiastic curlers; and curlers are almost always +enthusiastic. It is pleasant to think how the hills must be ringing +with their shouts, round many a lonely tarn, where the men of one parish +meet those of the next in friendly conflict north of the Tweed. +The exhilarating yell of “soop her up,” whereby the curler +who wields a broom is abjured to sweep away the snow in front of the +advancing stone, will many a time be heard this winter. There +is something peculiarly healthy about this sport—in the ring with +which the heavy stones clash against each other; in the voices of the +burly plaided men, shepherd, and farmer, and laird; in the rough banquet +of beef and greens and the copious toddy which close the day’s +exertions.</p> +<p>Frost brings with it an enforced close-season for most of furred +and feathered kind. The <!-- page 22--><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>fox +is safe enough, and, if sportsmen are right, must be rather wearying +for open weather, and for the return of his favourite exercise with +hounds. But even when the snow hangs out her white flag of truce +and goodwill between man and beast, the British sportsman is still the +British sportsman, and is not averse to going out and killing something. +To such a one, wild-fowl shooting is a possibility, though, as good +Colonel Hawker says, some people complain forsooth that it interferes +with ease and comfort. We should rather incline to think it does. +A black frost with no moon is not precisely the kind of weather that +a degenerate sportsman would choose for lying in the frozen mud behind +a bush, or pushing a small punt set on large skates across the ice to +get at birds. Few attitudes can be more cramping than that of +the gunner who skulks on one knee behind his canoe, pushing it with +one hand, and dragging himself along by the aid of the other. +Then, it is disagreeable to have to use a gun so heavy that the stock +is fitted with a horsehair pillow, or even with a small bolster. +The whistle of widgeon and the shrill-sounding pinions of wild geese +may be attractive noises, and no doubt all shooting <!-- page 23--><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>is +exciting; and a form of shooting which stakes all on one shot must offer +some thrilling moments of expectation. The quarry has to be measured +by number, not by size, and fifty widgeon at one discharge, or a brace +of wild swans may almost serve to set against a stag of ten. <a name="citation23"></a><a href="#footnote23">{23}</a> +The lover of nature has glimpses in wild-fowl shooting such as she gives +no other man—the glittering expanse of waters, the birds “all +in a charm,” all uttering their cry together, the musical moan +of the tide, and the “long glories of the winter moon.” +But success is too difficult, equipment too costly, and rheumatism too +certain for wild-fowl shooting to be reckoned among popular winter sports. +<!-- page 24--><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span></p> +<h3>HUMAN LEVITATION.</h3> +<p>Why is it that living fish add nothing to the “weight of the +bucket of water in which they swim?” Charles II. is said to have +asked the Royal Society. A still more extraordinary question has +been propounded in the grave pages of the <i>Quarterly Journal of Science</i>, +edited by Mr. Crookes, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the discoverer +of the useful metal thallium. The problem set in this learned +review does not, like that of the Merry Monarch, beg the question of +facts. “What is the scientific inference from the various +accounts, modern and traditional, of human levitation?” is the +difficulty before the world at this present moment. Now, there +may be people who never heard of levitation, nor even of “thaums,” +a term that frequently occurs in the article we refer to. A slight +acquaintance with the dead languages, <!-- page 25--><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>whose +shadows reappear in this queer fashion, enables the inquirer to decide +that “levitation” means the power of becoming lighter than +the surrounding atmosphere, and setting at nought the laws of gravitation.</p> +<p>Thaums, again, are wonders, and there is no very obvious reason why +they should not be called wonders. But to return to levitation. +Most of us have heard how Mr. Home and other gifted people possess the +faculty of being raised from the ground, and of floating about the room, +or even out of the window. There are clouds of witnesses who have +observed these phenomena, which generally occur in the dark. In +fact, they are part of that vague subject called spiritualism, about +which opinion is so much divided, and views are so vague. It has +been said that the human race, in regard to this high argument, is divided +into five classes. There are people who believe; people who investigate; +people who think the matter really ought to be looked into; people who +dislike the topic, but who would believe in the phenomena if they were +proved; and people of common sense, who would not believe in them if +they were proved. Now, the article in the <i>Journal of Science</i> +<!-- page 26--><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>only deals with one +of the phenomena we hear so much of—that of the sudden suspension +of the laws of gravitation, in the case of individual men. The +author has collected a vast variety of traditions bearing on this subject, +and his conclusion apparently is, that events of this kind, though rather +rare, are natural, are peculiar to people of certain temperament and +organization, and, above all, bring no proof as to the truth of the +doctrines asserted by the persons who exhibit the phenomena. Now, +men of science, as a rule, and the world at large, look on stories of +this sort as myths, romances, false interpretations of subjective feelings, +pious frauds, and absurd nonsense. Before expressing an opinion, +it may be well to look over the facts, as they are called, which are +brought under our notice.</p> +<p>What accounts, then, are there of levitation among the civilized +people of the Old World? First, there is Abaris, the Scythian, +“in the time of Pythagoras,” says our author. Well, +as a matter of evidence, Abaris may have been levitated in the eighth +century before Christ, or it may have been two hundred and fifty years +later. Perhaps he was a Druid of <!-- page 27--><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>the +Hebrides. Toland thought so, and Toland had as good a chance of +knowing as any one else. Our earliest authority, Herodotus, says +he took no earthly food, and “went with his arrow all round the +world without once eating.” It seems that he rode on this +arrow, which, Mr. Rawlinson thinks, may possibly have been an early +tradition of the magnet. All our detailed information about him +is of later date than the Christian era. The fact remains that +tradition says he was able to fly in the air. Pythagoras is said +to have had the same power, or rather the same faculty came upon him. +He was lifted up, with no will or conscious exertion of his own. +Now, our evidence as to the power of Pythagoras to be “like a +bird, in two places at once,” is exactly as valuable as that about +Abaris. It rests on the tradition repeated by superstitious philosophers +who lived eight hundred years after his death. “To Pythagoras, +therefore,” as Herodotus has it, “we now say farewell,” +with no further knowledge than that vague tradition says he was “levitated.” +The writer now leaves classical antiquity behind him—he does not +repeat a saying of Plotinus, the mystic of Alexandria, who lived in +the <!-- page 28--><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>third century of +our era. The best known anecdote of him is that his disciples +asked him if he were not sometimes levitated, and he laughed, and said, +“No; but he was no fool who persuaded you of this.” +Instead of Plotinus, we are referred to a mass of Jewish and anti-Christian +apocryphal traditions, which have the same common point—the assertion +of the existence of the phenomenon of levitation. Apollonius of +Tyana is also said to have been a highly accomplished medium. +We are next presented with a list of forty “levitated” persons, +canonized or beatified by the Church of Rome. Their dates range +from the ninth to the seventeenth century, and their histories go to +prove that levitation runs in families. Perhaps the best known +of the collection is St. Theresa (1515-1582), and it is only fair to +say that the stories about St. Theresa are very like those repeated +about our lady mediums. One of these, Mrs. Guppy, as every one +knows, can scatter flowers all over a room, “flowers of Paradise,” +unknown to botanists. Fauna, rather than flora, was St. Theresa’s +province, and she kept a charming pet, a little white animal of no recognized +species. Still, about her, and about her friend St John of <!-- page 29--><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>the +Cross, the legend runs that they used to be raised off the ground, chairs +and all, and float about in the most soothing way. Poor Peter +of Alcantara was levitated in a less pleasant manner; “he uttered +a frightful cry, and shot through the air as if he had been fired from +a gun.” Peter had a new form of epilepsy—the rising, +not the falling, sickness. Joseph Copertino, again, floated about +to such good effect, that in 1650 Prince John of Brunswick foreswore +the Protestant faith. The logical process which converted this +prince is not a very obvious one.</p> +<p>Why do we quote all these old monkish and neoplatonic legends? +For some the evidence is obviously nil; to other anecdotes many witnesses +bear testimony; but then, we know that an infectious <i>schwärmerei</i> +can persuade people that the lion now removed from Northumberland House +wagged his tail. The fact is that there is really matter for science +in all these anecdotes, and the question to be asked is this—How +does it happen that in ages and societies so distant and so various +identical stories are current? What is the pressure that makes +neoplatonic gossips of the fourth century circulate the same marvels +as spiritualist gossips of the nineteenth? <!-- page 30--><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span> +How does it happen that the mediæval saint, the Indian medicine-man, +the Siberian shaman (a suggestive term), have nearly identical wonders +attributed to them? If people wanted merely to tell “a good +square lie,” as the American slang has it, invention does not +seem to have such pitifully narrow boundaries. It appears to follow +that there are contagious nervous illusions, about which science has +not said the last word. We believe that the life of children, +with its innocent mixture of dreams and waking, facts and fancies, could +supply odd parallels to the stories we have been treated to. And +as we are on the subject, we should like, as the late President Lincoln +said, to tell a little story. It occurred to a learned divine +to meet a pupil, who ought by rights to have been in the University +of Oxford, walking in Regent Street. The youth glided past like +a ghost, and was lost in the crowd; next day his puzzled preceptor received +a note, dated on the previous day from Oxford, telling how the pupil +had met the teacher by the Isis, and on inquiry had heard he was in +London. Here is a case of levitation—of double levitation, +and we leave it to be explained by the followers of Abaris and of Mr. +Home. <!-- page 31--><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span></p> +<h3>A CHINAMAN’S MARRIAGE.</h3> +<p>The Court of Assizes at Paris has lately been occupied with the case +of a Chinese gentleman, whose personal charms and literary powers make +him worthy to be the compatriot of Ah-Sin, that astute Celestial. +Tin-tun-ling is the name—we wish we could say, with Thackeray’s +F. B., “the highly respectable name”—of the Chinese +who has just been acquitted on a charge of bigamy. In China, it +is said that the more distinguished a man is the shorter is his title, +and the name of a very victorious general is a mere click or gasp. +On this principle, the trisyllabic Tin-tun-ling must have been without +much honour in his own country. In Paris, however, he has learned +Parisian aplomb, and when confronted with his judges and his accusers, +his air, we learn, “was very calm.” “His smile +it was pensive and bland,” like the Heathen <!-- page 32--><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>Chinee’s, +and his calm confidence was justified by events. It remains to +tell the short, though not very simple, tale of Tin-tun-ling. +Mr. Ling was born in 1831, in the province of Chan-li. At the +interesting age of eighteen, an age at which the intellect awakens and +old prejudices lose their grasp, he ceased to burn gilt paper on the +tombs of his ancestors; he ceased to revere their august spirits; he +gave up the use of the planchette, rejected the teachings of Confucius, +and, in short, became a convert to Christianity. This might be +considered either as a gratifying testimony to the persuasive powers +of Catholic missionaries, or as an example of the wiles of Jesuitism, +if we did not know the inner history of Mr. Ling’s soul, the abysmal +depths of his personality. He has not, like many other modern +converts, written a little book, such as “How I ceased to chinchin +Joss; or, from Confucius to Christianity,” but he has told Madame +Judith Mendès all about it. Madame Mendès has made +a name in literature, and English readers may have wondered how the +daughter of the poet Théophile Gautier came to acquire the knowledge +of Chinese which she has shown in her translations from that <!-- page 33--><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>language. +It now appears that she was the pupil of Tin-tun-ling, who, in a moment +of expansion, confided to her that he adopted the Catholic faith that +he might eat a morsel of bread. He was starving, it seems; he +had eaten nothing for eight days, when he threw himself on the charity +of the missionaries, and received baptism. Since Winckelmann turned +renegade, and became a Roman Catholic merely that the expenses of his +tour to Rome and his maintenance there might be paid, there have surely +been few more mercenary converts. Tin-tun-ling was not satisfied +with being christened into the Church, he was also married in Catholic +rites, and here his misfortunes fairly began, and he entered on the +path which has led him into difficulty and discredit.</p> +<p>The French, as a nation, are not remarkable for their accuracy in +the use of foreign proper names, and we have a difficulty in believing +that the name of Mr. Ling’s first wife was really Quzia-Tom-Alacer. +There is a touch of M. Hugo’s famous Tom Jim Jack, the British +tar, about this designation. Nevertheless, the facts are that +Tin-tun-ling was wedded to Quzia, and had four children by <!-- page 34--><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>her. +After years of domestic life, on which he is said to look back but rarely +and with reluctance, he got a position as secretary and shoeblack and +tutor in Chinese to a M. Callery, and left the province of Chin-li for +Paris. For three months this devoted man sent Quzia-Tom-Alacer +small sums of money, and after that his kindness became, as Douglas +Jerrold said, unremitting. Quzia heard of her lord no more till +she learned that he had forgotten his marriage vow, and was, in fact, +Another’s. As to how Tin-tun-ling contracted a matrimonial +alliance in France, the evidence is a little confusing. It seems +certain that after the death of his first employer, Callery, he was +in destitution; that M. Théophile Gautier, with his well-known +kindness and love of curiosities, took him up, and got him lessons in +Chinese, and it seems equally certain that in February, 1872, he married +a certain Caroline Julie Liégeois. In the act of marriage, +Tin-tun-ling described himself as a baron, which we know that he was +not, for in his country he did not rejoice in buttons and other insignia +of Chinese nobility. As Caroline Julie Ling (<i>née</i> +Liégeois) denounced her lord for bigamy in 1873, and <!-- page 35--><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>succeeded, +as has been seen, in proving that he was husband of Quzia-Tom-Alacer, +it may seem likely that she found out the spurious honours of the pretended +title. But whatever may be thought of the deceitful conduct of +Ling, there is little doubt apparently that Caroline is really his. +He stated in court that by Chinese law a husband who has not heard of +his wife for three years may consider that his marriage has legally +ceased to be binding. Madame Mendès proved from the volume +Ta-Tsilg-Leu-Lee, the penal code of China, that Ling’s law was +correct. It also came out in court that Quzia-Tom-Alacer had large +feet. The jury, on hearing this evidence, very naturally acquitted +Tin-tun-ling, whom Madame Mendès embraced, it is said, with the +natural fervour of a preserver of innocence. Whether Tin-tun-ling +is now a bachelor, or whether he is irrevocably bound to Caroline Julie, +is a question that seems to have occurred to no one.</p> +<p>The most mysterious point in this dark business is the question, +How did Tin-tun-ling, who always spoke of his first marriage with terror, +happen to involve himself in the difficulties of a second? Something +more <!-- page 36--><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>than the common +weakness of human nature must have been at work here. Madame Mendès +says, like a traitor to her sex, that Tin espoused Caroline Julie from +feelings of compassion. He yielded, according to Madame Mendès, +“to the entreaties of this woman.” The story of M. +Gustave Lafargue confirms this ungallant tale. According to M. +Lafargue, Tin’s bride was a governess, and an English governess, +or at least one who taught English. She proposed to marry Tin, +who first resisted, and then hesitated. In a matter of this kind, +the man who hesitates is lost. The English governess flattered +Tin’s literary as well as his personal vanity. She proposed +to translate the novels which Tin composes in his native tongue, and +which he might expect to prove as popular in France as some other fictions +of his fatherland have done in times past. So they were married. +Tim, though on pleasure bent, had a frugal mind, and after a wedding-breakfast, +which lasted all day, he went to a theatre to ask for two free passes. +When he came back his bride was gone. He sought her with all the +ardour of the bridegroom in the ballad of “The Mistletoe Bough,” +and with more <!-- page 37--><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>success. +Madame Ling was reading a novel at home. Mr. Carlyle has quoted +Tobias Smollett as to the undesirability of giving the historical muse +that latitude which is not uncommon in France, and we prefer to leave +the tale of Ling’s where Mr. Carlyle left that of Brynhild’s +wedding. <a name="citation37"></a><a href="#footnote37">{37}</a> <!-- page 38--><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span></p> +<h3>SIEUR DE MONTAIGNE.</h3> +<p>The French National Library has recently, as it is said, made an +acquisition of great value and interest. The books, and better +still the notes, of Montaigne, the essayist, have been bought up at +the not very exorbitant price of thirty-six thousand francs. The +volumes are the beautiful editions of the sixteenth century—the +age of great scholars and of printers, like the Estiennes, who were +at once men of learning and of taste. It is almost certain that +they must be enriched with marginal notes of Montaigne’s, and +the marginal notes of a great man add even more to the value of a book +than the scribblings of circulating library readers detract from its +beauty. There is always something characteristic in a man’s +treatment of his books. Coleridge’s marginalia on borrowed +works, according to Lamb, were an ornament <!-- page 39--><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>of +value to his friends, if they were lucky enough to get the books back +again. Poe’s marginalia were of exquisite neatness, though +in their printed form they were not very interesting. Thackeray’s +seem mostly to have taken the shape of slight sketches in illustration +of the matter. Scaliger’s notes converted a classic into +a new and precious edition of one example. Casaubon’s, on +the other hand, were mere scratches and mnemonic lines and blurs, with +which he marked his passage through a book, as roughly as the American +woodsman “blazes” his way through a forest. “None +could read the comment save himself,” and the text was disfigured. +We may be sure that Montaigne’s marginalia are of a very different +value. As he walked up and down in his orchard, or in his library, +beneath the rafters engraved with epicurean maxims, he jotted his thoughts +hastily on the volume in his hand—on the Pliny, or Suetonius, +or Livy. His library was probably not a large one, for he had +but a few favourite authors, the Latin historians, moralists, and anecdotists, +and for mere amusement Terence and Catullus, Boccaccio and Rabelais. +His thoughts <!-- page 40--><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>fell asleep, +he says, if he was not walking about, and his utter want of memory made +notes and note-books necessary to him. He who could not remember +the names of the most ordinary tools used in agriculture, nor the difference +between oats and barley, could never keep in his head his enormous stock +of classical anecdotes and modern instances. His thoughts got +innocently confused with his recollections, and his note-books will +probably show whence he drew many of his stories, and the quotations +that remain untraced. They will add also to our knowledge of the +man and of his character, though it might seem difficult to give additional +traits in the portrait of himself which he has painted with so many +minute touches.</p> +<p>With the exception of Dr. Johnson, there is scarcely any great man +of letters whom we are enabled to know so intimately as the Sieur de +Montaigne. He has told us all about himself; all about his age, +as far as it came under his eager and observant eyes; all about the +whole world, as far as it made part of his experience. Rousseau +is not more frank, and not half so worthy of credit, for Rousseau, like +Topsy in the novel, had <!-- page 41--><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>a +taste for “’fessing” offences that he had never committed +rather than not “’fess” at all. Montaigne strikes +no such attitudes; he does not pose, he does not so much confess as +blab. His life stands before the reader “as in a picture.” +We learn that his childhood was a happier one than usually fell to the +lot of children in that age when there was but little honey smeared +on the cup of learning. We know that his father taught him Greek +in a kind of sport or game, that the same parent’s relations with +the fair sex were remarkable, and that he had extraordinary strength +in his thumb. For his own part, Montaigne was so fresh and full +of life that Simon Thomas, a great physician, said it would make a decrepit +old man healthy again to live in his company. One thinks of him +as a youth like the irrepressible Swiss who amused the <i>ennui</i> +of Gray.</p> +<p>Even in his old age, Montaigne was a gay, cheerful, untiring traveller, +always eager to be going on, delighted with every place he visited, +and yet anxious for constant change of scene and for new experience. +To be amusingly and simply selfish is ever part of the charm of Montaigne. +He adds to his <!-- page 42--><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>reader’s +pleasure in life by the keenness with which he relished his own existence, +and savoured every little incident as a man relishes the bouquet of +wine. Without selfishness, how can this be managed? and without +perfect simplicity and the good faith on which he prided himself, how +could Montaigne, how could Pepys, have enriched the world as they have +done? His essays are among the few works that really and literally +make life more opulent with accumulated experience, criticism, reflection, +humour. He gives of his rich nature, his lavish exuberance of +character, out of that fresh and puissant century to this rather weary +one, just as his society in youth might have been given to the sick +old man.</p> +<p>Besides what he has to give in this manner, Montaigne seems to express +French character, to explain the French genius and the French way of +looking at life, more clearly and completely than any other writer. +He has at bottom the intense melancholy, the looking forward to the +end of all, which is the ground-note of the poetry of Villon, and of +Ronsard, as of the prose of Chateaubriand. The panelled library +in Montaigne’s chateau was carven with mottoes, which were to +be charms <!-- page 43--><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>against too +great fear of death. “For my part,” he says, “if +a man could by any means avoid death, were it by hanging a calf-skin +on his limbs, I am one that would not be ashamed of the shift.” +Happy it is, he thinks, that we do not, as a rule, meet death on a sudden, +any more than we encounter the death of youth in one day. But +this is only the dark background of the enjoyment of life, to which +Montaigne clings, as he says, “even too eagerly.” +Merely to live, merely to muse over this spectacle of the world, simply +to feel, even if the thing felt be agony, and to reflect on the pain, +and on how it may best be borne—this is enough for Montaigne. +This is his philosophy, reconciling in a way the maxims of the schools +that divided the older worlds, the theories of the Stoic and wiser Epicurean. +To make each moment yield all that it has of experience, and of reflection +on that experience, is his system of existence. Acting on this +idea, all contrasts of great and petty, mean and divine, in human nature +do not sadden, but delight him. It was part of the play to see +the division between the King of Navarre (Henri IV.) and the Duke of +Guise. He told Thuanus that he knew the <!-- page 44--><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>most +secret thoughts of both these princes, and that he was persuaded that +neither of them was of the religion he professed. This scandal +gave him no concern, compared with his fear that his own castle would +suffer in wars of the League. As to the Reformation, he held it +for a hasty, conceited movement on the part of persons who did not know +what they were meddling with, and, being a perfect sceptic, he was a +perfectly good Churchman. Full of tolerance, good-humour, and +content, cheerful in every circumstance, simple and charming, yet melancholy +in his hour, Montaigne is a thorough representative of the French spirit +in literature. His English translator in 1776 declares that “he +meets with a much more favourable entertainment in England than in his +native country, a servile nation that has lost all sense of liberty.” +Like many other notions current in 1776, this theory of Montaigne’s +popularity at home and abroad has lost its truth. Perhaps it would +be more true to say that Montaigne is one of the last authors whom modern +taste learns to appreciate. He is a man’s author, not a +woman’s; a tired man’s, not a fresh man’s. We +all come to him, late indeed, but at last, and rest in his panelled +library. <!-- page 45--><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span></p> +<h3>THACKERAY’S DRAWINGS.</h3> +<p>The advertisements of publishers make a very pleasant sort of reading. +They offer, as it were, a distant prospect of the great works of the +future, looming in a golden haze of expectation. A gentleman or +lady may acquire a reputation for wide research by merely making a careful +study of the short paragraphs in the literary papers.</p> +<p>There are three classes of people who take an interest in letters. +There are the persons who read books; the much larger class which reads +reviews; and, again, they who merely skim over the advertisements of +new works. The last set live in a constant enjoyment of the pleasure +of expectation; they pretend to themselves that some day they will find +time to peruse the volumes in the birth of which they are interested, +but, in fact, they live in the future. They are a month ahead +<!-- page 46--><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>of their friends who +read reviews, and six months of the students who actually devour books +themselves. Not only these eager lovers of literary “shop,” +but all friends of English humour, must be glad to see that a collection +of Mr. Thackeray’s sketches and drawings has been prepared for +publication.</p> +<p>When the news spread over England of Mr. Thackeray’s sudden +death, it was felt that a personal loss had been sustained by every +one who cared for books and for style. Other men might write themselves +out, their invention might become weary; and, indeed, Mr. Thackeray +himself felt this fatigue. He wished he could get some one to +do “the business” of his stories he told the world in a +“Roundabout Paper.” The love-making parts of “the +business” annoyed him, and made him blush, in the privacy of his +study, “as if he were going into an apoplexy.” Some +signs of this distaste for the work of the novelist were obvious, perhaps, +in “Philip,” though they did not mar the exquisite tenderness +and charm of “Denis Duval.” However that might be, +his inimitable style was as fresh as ever, with its passages of melancholy, +its ease, its flexible strength, and unlooked-for <!-- page 47--><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>cadences. +It was the talk about life, and the tone of that talk, which fell silent +when Thackeray died, that we all felt as an irremediable loss. +There is an old story that Pindar had never in his lifetime written +an ode in praise of Persephone, the goddess of death and the dead, and +that after he had departed from among living men, his shade communicated +to the priests a new hymn on the Queen of Hades. The works of +great writers published after their decease have somewhat of the charm +of this fabled hymn; they are voices, familiar and unlooked for, out +of the silence. They are even stranger, when they have such a +slight and homelike interest as the trifles that fell unheeded from +the pen or pencil of one who has done great things in poetry or art. +Mr. Thackeray’s sketches in the “Orphan of Pimlico” +are of this quality—caricatures thrown off to amuse children who +are now grown men and women. They have the mark of the old unmistakable +style, humorous and sad, and, as last remains, they are to be welcomed +and treasured.</p> +<p>Mr. Thackeray’s skill with the pencil bore very curious relations +to his mastery of the other art, in which lay his strength, but to <!-- page 48--><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>which +perhaps he never gave his love. Everyone has heard how, when a +young man, he was anxious to illustrate “Pickwick,” which +found more fitting artists in Seymour and H. K. Browne. Mr. Thackeray +seems to have been well aware of the limitations of his own power as +a draughtsman. In one of his “Roundabout Papers” he +described the method—the secret so to say—of Rubens; and +then goes on to lament the impotence of his own hand, the “pitiful +niggling,” that cannot reproduce the bold sweep of Ruben’s +brush.</p> +<p>Thackeray was like Théophile Gautier, who began life as a +painter, and who has left to posterity a wonderful etching of his own +portrait, pale, romantic, with long sweeping moustache, and hair falling +over his shoulders. Both writers found their knowledge of the +technique of painting useful in making their appreciation of art and +nature more keen and versatile. But Mr. Thackeray’s powers +had another field—he really did succeed in illustrating some of +his own writings. Accomplished his style never was. There +was a trace of the old school of caricature in the large noses and thin +legs which he gave his <!-- page 49--><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span>figures. +Nor was his drawing very correct; the thin legs of the heroes of “The +Virginians” are often strangely contorted. He has even placed +a thumb on the wrong side of a hand! For all that, he gave to +many of his own characters a visible embodiment, which another artist +would have missed. Mr. Frederick Walker, for instance, drew Philip +Firmin admirably—a large, rough man, with a serious and rather +worn face, and a huge blonde beard. Mr. Walker’s Philip +has probably become the Philip of many readers, but he was not Mr. Thackeray’s. +It is delightful to be sure, on the other hand, that we have the author’s +own Captain Costigan before us, in his habit as he lived—the unshaven +chin, the battered hat, the high stock, the blue cloak, the whiskeyfied +stare, and the swagger. Mr. Thackeray did not do his young men +well. Arthur Pendennis is only himself as he sits with Warrington +over a morning paper; in his white hat and black band at the Derby, +he has not the air of a gentleman. Harry Foker is either a coarse +exaggeration, or the modern types of Fokers have improved in demeanour +on the great prototype. But Costigan is always perfect; and the +nose and wig of <!-- page 50--><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>Major +Pendennis are ideally correct. In his drawings of women, Mr. Thackeray +very much confined himself to two types. There was the dark-eyed, +brown-haired, bright-complexioned girl who was his favourite—Laura, +Betsinda, Amelia; and the blonde, ringletted, clever, and false girl—Becky, +Blanche, Angelica, who was the favourite of the reader. He did +not always succeed in making them pretty, though there is a beautiful +head of Amelia, in a court dance at Pumpernickel; but he always made +the dark young lady look honest, and the fair young minx look a thing +all soul and enthusiasm.</p> +<p>It was a note of Mr. Thackeray’s art, and probably one among +other proofs that the higher fields of art were closed to him, that +his success by no means corresponded to the amount of pains he took +with his work. His drawings which appeared as steel engravings, +were not unfrequently weak, while his sketches on the wood and his lithographs +were much more free and masterly. There is, indeed, a sketch on +the steel of poor Pen tossing feverishly in his mother’s comforting +arms, which is full of passion and life and sentiment. But <!-- page 51--><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>it +was rare that success attended his ambition, and, indeed, another drawing +of Pen and his mother admiring a sunset might have come out of a book +of fashions of that remote period. It was in his initial letters +and slight designs that Thackeray showed his best powers. There +is much wistful tenderness in the little Marquise’s face as she +trips down a rope-ladder in an initial letter of <i>Vanity Fair</i>. +The bewigged shepherds and powdered shepherdesses of his favourite period +are always reproduced with grace, and the children of his drawings are +almost invariably charming. In the darker moods, when “man +delighted him not, nor woman either,” children did not fail to +please him, and he sketched them in a hundred pathetic attitudes. +There are the little brother and sister of the doomed House of Gaunt, +sitting under the ancestral sword that seems ready to fall. There +is little Rawdon Crawley, manly and stout, in his great coat, watching +the thin little cousin Pitt, whom he was “too big a dog to play +with.” There is the printer’s devil, asleep at Pen’s +door; and the small boy in “Dr. Birch,” singing in his nightgown +to the big boy in bed. There is Betsinda dancing with <!-- page 52--><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>her +plum-bun in “The Rose and the Ring.” The burlesque +drawings of that delightful child’s book are not its least attraction. +Not arriving at the prettiness of Mr. Tenniel, and the elegance of Mr. +Du Maurier, and falling far short of their ingenious fantasy, they are +yet manly delineations of great adventures. The count kicking +the two black men into space is a powerful design, full of action; and +it would be hard to beat the picture of the fate of Gruffanuf’s +husband. These and the rest are old friends, and there are hosts +of quaint scribblings, signed with the mark of a pair of spectacles, +scattered through the pages of <i>Punch</i>. <!-- page 53--><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span></p> +<h3>GOLF.</h3> +<p>While pheasant-shooters are enjoying the first day of the season, +the votaries of a sport not less noble, though less noisy, are holding +the great festival of their year. The autumn meeting of the Royal +and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews is in full swing, and the words +will suggest pleasant memories to many a golfer. Golf is not one +of the more brilliant and famous pastimes of the day, though it yields +to none in antiquity and in unassuming merit. The names of the +winners of the gold medal and of the silver cross are not telegraphed +all over the world as widely as Mr. Tennyson’s hero wished the +news that Maud had accepted him to be. The red man may possibly +“dance beneath his red cedar tree” at the tidings of the +event of one of our great horse-races, or great university matches. +At all events, even if the red man preserves his <!-- page 54--><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>usual +stoicism of demeanour, his neighbours, the pale-faces, like to know +all about the result of many English sports the moment they are decided. +Golf, as we have said, excites less general enthusiasm; but in people +who love it at all, the love is burning, consuming; they will talk golf-shop +in season and out of season. Few persons, perhaps, will call golf +the very first and queen of games. Cricket exercises more faculties +of body, and even of mind, for does not the artful bowler “bowl +with his head?” Football demands an extraordinary personal +courage, and implies the existence of a fierce delight in battle with +one’s peers. Tennis, with all its merits, is a game for +the few, so rare are tennis-courts and so expensive the pastime. +But cricketers, football-players, tennis-players, would all give golf +the second place after their favourite exercise; and just as Themistocles +was held to be the best Greek general, because each of his fellows placed +him second, so golf may assert a right to be thought the first of games. +One great advantage it certainly has—it is a game for “men” +of all ages, from eight, or even younger, to eighty. The links +of St. Andrews are probably cleared just now of the <!-- page 55--><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>little +lads and the veterans, they make room for the heroes, the medalists, +the great players—Mr. Mackay, Mr. Lamb, Mr. Leslie Balfour, and +the rest. But at ordinary times there are always dozens of tiny +boys in knickerbockers and scarlet stockings, who “drive out” +the first hole in some twenty strokes of their little clubs, and who +pass much of their time in fishing for their lost balls in the muddy +burn. As for the veterans “on the threshold of old age,” +it is pleasant to watch their boyish eagerness, the swaying of their +bodies as they watch the short flight of their longest hits; their delight +when they do manage to hit further than the sand-pit, or “bunker,” +which is named after the nose of a long-dead principal of the university; +their caution, nay, their almost tedious delay in the process of putting, +that is, of hitting the ball over the “green” into the neighbouring +hole. They can still do their round, or their two rounds, five +or ten miles’ walking a day, and who can speak otherwise than +well of a game which is not too strenuous for healthy age or tender +childhood, and yet allows an athlete of twenty-three to put out all +his strength?</p> +<p>Golf is a thoroughly national game; it is as <!-- page 56--><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>Scotch +as haggis, cockie-leekie, high cheekbones, or rowanberry jam. +A spurious imitation, or an arrested development of the sport, exists +in the south of France, where a ball is knocked along the roads to a +fixed goal. But this is naturally very poor fun compared to the +genuine game as played on the short turf beside the grey northern sea +on the coast of Fife. Golf has been introduced of late years into +England, and is played at Westward Ho, at Wimbledon, at Blackheath (the +oldest club), at Liverpool, over Cowley Marsh, near Oxford, and in many +other places. It is, therefore, no longer necessary to say that +golf is not a highly developed and scientific sort of hockey, or bandy-ball. +Still, there be some to whom the processes of the sport are a mystery, +and who would be at a loss to discriminate a niblick from a bunker-iron. +The thoroughly equipped golf-player needs an immense variety of weapons, +or implements, which are carried for him by his caddie—a youth +or old man, who is, as it were, his esquire, who sympathizes with him +in defeat, rejoices in his success, and aids him with such advice as +his superior knowledge of the ground suggests. The class of human +<!-- page 57--><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>beings known as caddies +are the offspring of golf, and have peculiar traits which distinguish +them from the professional cricketer, the waterman, the keeper, the +gillie, and all other professionals. It is not very easy to account +for their little peculiarities. One thing is certain—that +when golf was introduced by Scotchmen into France, and found a home +at Pau, in the shadow of the Pyrenees, the French caddie sprang, so +to speak, from the ground, the perfect likeness of his Scottish brother. +He was just as sly, just as importunate in his demands to be employed, +just as fond of “putting at short holes,” more profane, +and every bit as contemptuous of all non-golf-playing humanity as the +boyish Scotch caddie, in whom contempt has reversed the usual process, +and bred familiarity with all beginners.</p> +<p>The professional cricketer can instruct an unskilled amateur, can +take his ill-guarded wicket, and make him “give chances” +all over the field, without bursting into yells of unseemly laughter. +But the little caddie cannot restrain his joy when the tyro at golf, +after missing his ball some six times, ultimately dashes off the head +of his club against <!-- page 58--><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>the +ground. Nor is he less exuberant when his patron’s ball +is deep in a “bunker,” or sand-pit, where the wretch stands +digging at it with an iron, hot, helpless, and wrathful. And yet +golf is a sport not learned in a day, and caddies might be more considerate. +The object of the game is to strike a small gutta-percha ball into a +hole about five inches wide, distant from the striker about three hundred +yards, and separated from him by rough grass and smooth sand-pits, furze +bushes, and perhaps a road or a brook. He who, of two players, +gets his ball into the hole in the smallest number of strokes is the +winner of that hole, and the party then play towards the next hole. +All sorts of skill are needed—strength and adroitness, and a certain +supple “swing” of the body, are wanted to send the ball +“sure and far” in the “driving” part of the +game. Nothing is so pleasant as a clean “drive.” +The sensation is like that of hitting a ball to square-leg, fair and +full, at cricket. Then the golfer must have the knack to lift +his ball out of deep sand with the “iron,” and to strike +it deftly “a half-shot” up to the hole with the “cleek;” +and, lastly, coolness and a good eye when he <!-- page 59--><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>“putts” +or hits his ball actually up to the very hole.</p> +<p>Any degree of skill in these varied feats makes golf a delightful +game, if the opponents are well matched. Nor are the charms of +scenery wanting at St. Andrews, the headquarters of the sport. +There is no more picturesque town in Scotland than the little university +city. From the plain of the estuary of the river Eden, across +the long leagues of marsh land and the stretches of golden sand and +brown, the towers of St. Andrews—for it is a town of many towers—are +seen breaking the sky-line. Built on a windy headland, running +out to the grey northern sea, it reaches the water with an ancient pier +of rugged stone. Immediately above is the site of a chapel of +immemorial age, and above that again are the ruins of the cathedral—gaunt +spires with broken tracery, standing where once the burnished roof of +copper flashed far across the deep. The high street winds from +the cathedral precinct past an old house of Queen Mary Stuart, past +ruined chapels of St. Leonard’s, and the university chapel with +its lovely spire, down to the shores of the bay; and along the <!-- page 60--><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>bay +run the famous “links,” where the royal and ancient game +has its cradle and home. Other links, as Prestwick, or North Berwick, +may vie with those of St. Andrews in extent, or in the smoothness of +the putting greens, or in the number and hardness of the “hazards,” +or difficult places; but none offer so wide and varied an extent of +scenery, from the melancholy stretch of the parallel sands to the hills +in the west, the golden glitter of the beach, beneath the faint aërial +blue of the still more distant hills across the firth, while behind +is the city set on its cliffs, and proud with its crown of spires. +The reflected sunset lingers on the walls and crags and towers, that +shine imaged in the wet sands, the after-glow hangs over the eastern +sky, and these have their charm; but their charm yields to that of golf. +It is a sign that a man has lost heart and hope when he dilates on the +beauty of the scenery, and abstracts his attention from what alone would +interest him were he winning—the “lie” of his ball. +Who can stop to think of the beauties of nature, when he and his antagonist +are equal, and there are only two more holes left to play in the match +for the medal? It <!-- page 61--><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>is +a serious moment; not one of the little crowd of observers, the gallery +that accompany the players, dares to speak, or even cough. The +caddie who sneezes is lost, for he will be accused of distracting his +master’s attention. The ladies begin to appear in the background, +ready to greet the players, and to tell the truth, are not very welcome +to the nervous golfer. Everything turns on half an inch of leather +in a “drive,” or a stiff blade of grass in a putt, and the +interest is wound up to a really breathless pitch. Happy he is +who does not in his excitement “top” his ball into the neighbouring +brook, or “heel” it and send it devious down to the depths +of ocean. Happy is he who can “hole out the last hole in +four” beneath the eyes of the ladies. Striding victorious +into the hospitable club, where beer awaits him, he need not envy the +pheasant-slayer who has slain his hundreds. <!-- page 62--><span class="pagenum">p. 62</span></p> +<h3>ART OF DINING.</h3> +<p>There is such a thing as nationality in dining, just as Mr. Browning +has proved, in a brilliant poem, that there is nationality in drinks. +Surveying mankind with extensive view, the essayist recognizes that +the science is not absolutely ignored in Turkey, where we cannot but +think that an archaic school retains too much wool with the mutton, +and that dining (like Egyptian Art) is rather a matter of sacred and +immemorial rules than in any worthy sense of the word a science. +The Chinese and Japanese have long been famous for their birds’-nest +soup, and for making the best, after his lamented decease, of the friend +of man—the dog. About the Australians and New Zealanders, +perhaps the less said the better. Many students will feel that +our own colonists have neglected to set a proper example to these poor +heathen races, who, <!-- page 63--><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>save +kangaroos, have no larger game than rats. The Englishman in Australia +revels in boundless mutton, in damper, in tea, and in the vintages of +his adopted soil, which he playfully, and patriotically, compares to +those of the Rhine. It is impossible, on the other hand, not to +recognize the merits of the Russian <i>cuisine</i>, where the imported +civilization of France has found various good traditional ideas still +retained by the Sclavonic people; and where the <i>caviare</i>, “with +that pale green hue which denotes the absence of salt,” is not +to be overlooked. In melancholy contrast to the native genius +of the Sclavs is the absolute dearth of taste and sense in gastronomic +Germany. If a map of the world could be made—and why not?—in +which lands of utter darkness in culinary matters should be coloured +black (like heathen countries in the missionary atlas, and coalfields +in the map of physical geography), the German Empire would be one vast +blot on Central Europe. Science might track Teutonic blood by +the absence of respectable cookery; and in England too obvious tokens +would be found of that incapacity of the art of dining which we brought +from the marshes <!-- page 64--><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>of +Holstein. In America, nature herself has put the colonists on +many schemes for the improvement of dinner, and terrapin soup is gratefully +associated with memoirs of Virginia—in the minds of those who +like terrapin soup. The canvas-backed duck has been praised as +highly as the “swopping, swopping mallard” of a comfortable +college in Oxford. As to the wild turkey, the poet has not yet +risen in America who can do justice to the charms of that admirable +bird. Mr. Whitman, who has much to say about “bob-a-links” +and “whip-poor-wills,” and some other fowl which sing “when +lilacs bloom in the garden yard,” has neglected, we fear, the +wild turkey, simply because the Muse has not given this bird melody, +and made it, like the robin-redbreast, which goes so well with bread-crumbs, +“an amiable songster.” American genius neglects the +turkey, and positively takes more interest in the migrations of the +transatlantic sparrow. If the nobler fowl can cross the water +as safely as the beef and mutton of everyday life, he will receive the +honour he deserves in this country. Some students with the deathless +thirst of scientific men for acclimatization, speak well of the <!-- page 65--><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>Bohemian +pheasant, which, unlike some other denizens of Bohemia, is fat. +But there are probably less familiar birds in America that rival the +duck and the wild turkey, and excel the Bohemian pheasant. The +existence of maize, however, on the Western Continent has been a snare +to American cooks, who have yielded to an absorbing passion for hot +corn-cakes.</p> +<p>France is, of course, the land in which the Muse of cooking is native. +“If we turn north towards Belgium,” says a modern author, +“we shall find much that is good in cooking and eating known, +if not universally practised.” He has also made the discovery +that the Belgian air and climate are admirably suited to develop the +best qualities of Burgundy. It is from these favoured and ingenious +people that England ought to learn a lesson, or rather a good many lessons. +To begin at the beginning, with soup, does not every one know that all +domestic soups in England, which bear French names, are really the same +soup, just as almost all puddings are, or may be, called cabinet pudding? +The one word “Julienne” covers all the watery, chill and +tasteless, or terribly salt, decoctions, in which <!-- page 66--><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>a +few shreds of vegetables appear drifting through the illimitable inane. +Other names are given at will by the help of a cookery-book and a French +dictionary; but all these soups, at bottom, are attempts to be Julienne +soup. The idea of looking on soup “as a vehicle for applying +to the palate certain herbal flavours,” is remote indeed from +the Plain Cook’s mind. There is a deeply rooted conviction +in her inmost soul that all vegetables, which are not potatoes or cabbages, +partake of the nature of evil. As to eating vegetables apart from +meat, it was once as hard to get English domestics to let you do that, +as to get a Cretan cook to serve woodcock with the trail. “<i>Kopros</i> +is not a thing to be eaten,” says the Cretan, according to a traveller; +and the natural heart of the English race regards vegetables, when eaten +as a <i>plat</i> apart, with equal disfavour. Probably the market +gardener’s ignorance and conservatism are partly in fault. +Cabbage he knows, and potatoes he knows, but what are pennyroyal and +chervil? He has cauliflower for you, but never says, “Here +is rue for you, and rosemary for you.” Cooks do not give +him botany lessons, and a Scottish cook, deprived of bay-leaf, has been +known to make <!-- page 67--><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>an experiment +in the use of what she called “Roderick Randoms,” members +of the vegetable kingdom which proved to be rhododendron. As for +pennyroyal, most people have only heard of it through Mr. Bonn’s +crib to Aristophanes.</p> +<p>When it comes to fish, it is allowed that we are not an insular people +for nothing. There are other forms of good living that Paris knows +not of, so to speak, at first hand, native to England. Turtle +soup, turbot and lobster sauce, a haunch of venison, and a grouse, are, +we may say without chauvinism, a “truly royal repast.” +But we incur the contempt of foreigners once more in the matter of wines. +To like sherry, the coarse and fiery, is a matter of habit, which would +teach us to love betel-root, and rejoice in the very peculiar drink +of the South Sea islanders. Some purists include champagne in +the same condemnation—the champagne, that is, of this degenerate +day. When the Russians drank up the contents of the widow Clicquot’s +cellars, they found a sweet natural wine, to which they have constantly +adhered. But Western Europe, all the Europe which, as M. Comte +puts it, “synergizes” after <!-- page 68--><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>light +and positivism, has tended towards champagnes more or less dry. +The English serve this “grog mousseux” as a necessity for +social liveliness, and have not come back to the sweet wine which was +only meant to be drunk with sweets. A <i>Quarterly</i> reviewer +is very severe in his condemnation of a practice which will only yield +to the stress of some European convulsion in politics and society. +These matters are like certain large reforms, they either come to pass +without observation in the slow changes of things, or great movements +in the world are accompanied by small ones in everyday life. Dry +champagne came in after the Revolution; it may go out after a European +war, which will make wine either expensive, or, if cheap, a palpably +spurious article. “Monotony and base servile imitation” +may be the bane of eating and drinking in England; but the existence +of monotony shows that the English really do not care very much about +dining considered as a fine art. When they do care, they cover +their interest in the matter decently, with the veil of humorous affectation. +They cannot spontaneously and sincerely make a business of it, as the +French do in all good faith. Even if <!-- page 69--><span class="pagenum">p. 69</span>they +had a genius for dining, we doubt if a critic is right in thinking they +should dine at six o’clock or seven at latest. Whether in +the country or in town, the business or amusement of the day claims +more time. Sportsmen, for example, in early autumn could not possibly +return home by six very frequently, and in summer six o’clock +may be so sultry an hour that the thought of food is intolerable. +Still, it must be admitted that the unawakened state of the market-gardener +and the condition of English soups are matters deserving serious consideration. +<!-- page 70--><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span></p> +<h3>AMERICAN HUMOUR.</h3> +<p>One of the most popular of American humorists has elicited from a +member of an English audience, who did not quite hear him lecture, a +remark of an amusing sort. The aggrieved listener proclaimed that +he “had a right to hear.” This was one of the turbulent +people who should read Mazzini, and learn that man has no rights worth +mentioning—only duties, one of which is to hold his tongue in +season. If Mr. Bret Harte’s words did not reach all his +audience, his writings at least have come home to most English readers. +They suggest a consideration of the many points of difference which +distinguish American from English humour. The Americans are of +our own stock, yet in their treatment of the ludicrous how unlike us +they are! As far as fun goes, the race has certainly become “differentiated,” +as the philosophers say, on the other side of <!-- page 71--><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>the +Atlantic. It does not seem probable that the infusion of alien +blood has caused the difference. The native redskin can claim +few descendants among the civilized Americans, and the native redskin +had no sense of humour. We all remember Cooper’s Hawk-eye +or Leather Stocking, with his “peculiar silent laugh.” +He was obliged to laugh silently for fear of attracting the unfavourable +notice of the Mingo, who might be hiding in the nearest bush. +The red men found it simpler and safer not to laugh at all. No, +it is not from the natives that the people of the States get their peculiar +fun. As to the German emigrants—But why pursue the subject? +The Abbé Bouhours told the bitter truth about German wit, though, +in new conditions and on a fresh soil, the Teuton has helped to produce +Hans Breitmann. We laugh at Hans, however, and with his creator. +Hans does not make us laugh by conscious efforts of humour. Whence, +then, come Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, and Mr. Bret Harte, who are probably +the American humorists whose popularity is widest? Mr. Bret Harte’s +own fun is much more English and less thoroughly Yankee than that of +his contemporaries. He <!-- page 72--><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>is +a disciple of Thackeray and Dickens. Of all the pupils of Dickens +he is perhaps the only one who has continued to be himself, who has +not fallen into a trick of aping his master’s mannerisms. +His mixture of the serious, the earnest, the pathetic, makes his humour +not unlike the melancholy mirth of Thackeray and Sterne. He is +almost the only American humorist with sentiment. It is only the +air, not the spirit, that is changed—<i>cœlum non animus</i>.</p> +<p>The changed atmosphere, the new conditions, do, however, make an +immense superficial difference between the humour even of Mr. Bret Harte +and that of English writers. His fun is derived from the vagaries +of huge, rough people, with the comic cruelty of the old Danes, and +with the unexpected tenderness of a sentimental time. The characters +of the great Texan and Californian drama are like our hackneyed friends, +the Vikings, with a touch, if we may use the term, of spooniness. +Their humour is often nothing more than a disdainful trifling with death; +they seize the comic side of manslaughter very promptly, and enjoy all +the mirth that can be got out of revolvers and grizzly bears. <!-- page 73--><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span> +In Mr. Bret Harte’s poems of “The Spelling Bee” and +of “The Break-up of the Society upon the Stanislaw,” the +fun is of this practical sort. The innate mirthfulness of a chunk +of old red sandstone is illustrated, and you are introduced to people +who not only take delight of battle with their peers, but think the +said battle the most killing joke in the world. The incongruities +of these revels of wild men in a new world; their confusion when civilization +meets them in the shape of a respectable woman or of a baby; their grotesque +way of clinging to religion, as they understand it, make up the transatlantic +element in this American humour. The rest of it is “European +quite,” though none the worse for that. It is more humane, +on the whole, than the laughable and amazing paradoxes of Mark Twain, +or the <i>naïvetés</i> of Artemus Ward.</p> +<p>Two remarkable features in American humour, as it is shown in the +great body of comic writers who are represented by Mark Twain and the +“Genial Showman,” are its rusticity and its puritanism. +The fun is the fun of rough villagers, who use quaint, straightforward +words, and have developed, or carried <!-- page 74--><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>over +in the <i>Mayflower</i>, a slang of their own. They do not want +anything too refined; they are not in the least like the farm-lad to +whose shirt a serpent clung as he was dressing after bathing. +Many people have read how he fled into the farm-yard, where the maidens +were busy; how he did not dare to stop, and sought escape, not from +woman’s help—he was too modest—but in running so fast +that, obedient to the laws of centrifugal motion, the snake waved out +behind him like a flag. The village wits are not so shy. +The young ladies, like Betsy Ward, say, “If you mean getting hitched, +I’m on.” The public is not above the most practical +jokes, and a good deal of the amusement is derived from the extreme +dryness, the countrified slowness of the narrative. The humorists +are Puritans at bottom, as well as rustics. They have an amazing +familiarity with certain religious ideas and certain Biblical terms. +There is a kind of audacity in their use of the Scriptures, which reminds +one of the freedom of mediæval mystery-plays. Probably this +boldness began, not in scepticism or in irreverence, but in honest familiar +faith. It certainly seems very odd to us in England, and probably +expressions <!-- page 75--><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>often get +a laugh which would pass unnoticed in America. An astounding coolness +and freedom of manners probably go for something in the effect produced +by American humour. There is nothing of the social flunkeyism +in it which too often marks our own satirists. Artemus Ward’s +reports of his own conversations with the mighty of the earth were made +highly ludicrous by the homely want of self-consciousness, displayed +by the owner of the Kangaroo, that “amoosin’ little cuss,” +and of the “two moral B’ars.” But it is vain +to attempt to analyze the fun of Artemus Ward. Why did he make +some people laugh till they cried, while others were all untouched? +His secret probably was almost entirely one of manner, a trick of almost +idiotic <i>naïveté</i>, like that of Lord Dundreary, covering +real shrewdness. He had his rustic chaff, his Puritan profanity; +his manner was the essence of his mirth. It was one of the ultimate +constituents of the ludicrous, beyond which it is useless to inquire.</p> +<p>With Mark Twain we are on smoother ground. An almost Mephistophilean +coolness, an unwearying search after the comic sides of serious subjects, +after the mean possibilities <!-- page 76--><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>of +the sublime,—these, with a native sense of incongruities and a +glorious vein of exaggeration, make up his stock-in-trade. The +colossal exaggeration is, of course, natural to a land of ocean-like +rivers and almighty tall pumpkins. No one has made such charming +use of the trick as Mark Twain. The dryness of the story of a +greenhorn’s sufferings who had purchased “a genuine Mexican +plug,” is one of the funniest things in literature. The +intense gravity and self-pity of the sufferer, the enormous and Gargantuan +feats of his steed, the extreme distress of body thence resulting, make +up a passage more moving than anything in Rabelais. The same contrast, +between an innocent style of narrative and the huge palpable nonsense +of the story told, marks the tale of the agricultural newspaper which +Mr. Twain edited. To a joker of jokes of this sort, a tour through +Palestine presented irresistible attractions. It is when we read +of the “Innocents Abroad” that we discern the weak point +of American humour when carried to its extreme. Here, indeed, +is the place where the most peculiarly American fun has always failed. +It has lacked reverence and sympathy, and so, when it was <!-- page 77--><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>most +itself, never approached the masterpieces of Thackeray and Dickens. +To balance its defect by its merit, American humour has always dared +to speak out, and Mark Twain especially has hit hard the errors of public +opinion and the dishonest compromises of custom. <!-- page 78--><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span></p> +<h3>SUSPENDED ANIMATION.</h3> +<p>It used to be thought that a man who said he liked dry champagne +would say anything. In the same way, some persons may hold that +a person who could believe in the recurrent Australian story of “suspended +animation”—artificially produced in animals, and prolonged +for months—could believe in anything. It does not do, however, +to be too dogmatic about matters of opinion in this world. Perhaps +the Australian tale of an invention by which sheep and oxen are first +made lifeless, then rendered “stiff ones” by freezing, and +then restored to life, and reproduced with gravy, may be like the genius +of Beethoven. Very few persons (and these artists) believed in +Beethoven at first, but now he is often considered to be the greatest +of composers. Perhaps great discoveries, like the works of men +of original genius, are certain to be received at <!-- page 79--><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>first +with incredulity and mockery. We will not, therefore, take up +a dogmatic position, either about the painting or the preserved meats +of the future; but will hope for the best. The ideally best, of +course, is that the tale from Australia may prove true. In that +case the poorest will be able to earn “three square meals a day,” +like the Australians themselves; and while English butchers suffer (for +some one must suffer in all great revolutions), smiling Plenty will +walk through our land studying a cookery-book. There are optimistic +thinkers, who gravely argue that the serious desires of humanity are +the pledges of their own future fulfilment. If that be correct, +the Australian myth may be founded on fact. There is no desire +more deep-rooted in our perishable nature than that which asks for plenty +of beef and mutton at low prices. Again, humanity has so often +turned over the idea of conveniently suspended animation before, that +there must be something in that conception. If we examine the +history of ideas we shall find that they at first exist “in the +air.” They float about, beautiful alluring visions, ready +to be caught and made to serve mortal needs by the right man at <!-- page 80--><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>the +right moment. Thus Empedocles, Lucretius, and the author of “Vestiges +of Creation,” all found out Darwinism before Mr. Darwin. +They spied the idea, but they left it floating; they did not trap it, +and break it into scientific harness. Solomon De Caus, as all +the world has heard, was put into a lunatic asylum for inventing the +steam-engine, though no one would have doubted his sanity if he had +offered to raise the devil, or to produce the philosopher’s stone, +or the <i>elixir vitæ</i>. Now, these precious possessions +have not been more in men’s minds than a system of conveniently +suspended animation. There is scarcely a peasantry in Europe that +does not sing the ballad of the dead bride. This lady, in the +legends, always loves the cavalier not selected by her parents, the +detrimental cavalier. To avoid the wedding which is thrust on +her, she gets an old witch to do what the Australian romancer professes +to do—to suspend her animation, and so she is carried on an open +bier to a chapel on the border of her lover’s lands. There +he rides, the right lover, with his men-at-arms, the bride revives just +in time, is lifted on to his saddle-bow, and “they need swift +steeds that follow” the <!-- page 81--><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>fugitive +pair. The sleeping beauty, who is thrown into so long a swoon +by the prick of the fairy thorn, is another very old example, while +“Snow-white,” in her glass coffin, in the German nursery +tale, is a third instance.</p> +<p>It is not only the early fancy of the ballad-mongers and fairy tale-tellers +that has dwelt longingly on the idea of suspended animation. All +the mystics, who all follow the same dim track that leads to nothing, +have believed in various forms of the imaginary Australian experiment. +The seers of most tribes, from Kamschatka to Zululand, and thence to +Australia, are feigned to be able to send their souls away, while their +bodies lie passive in the magical tent. The soul wanders over +the earthly world, and even to the home of the dead, and returns, in +the shape of a butterfly or of a serpent, to the body which has been +lying motionless, but uncorruptible, in apparent death. The Indian +Yogis can attain that third state of being, all three being unknown +to Brahma, which is neither sleeping nor waking, but trance. To +produce this ecstasy, to do for themselves what some people at the Antipodes +pretend to do to sheep and cattle, is the ideal aim of the existence +<!-- page 82--><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>of the Yogi. +The Neoplatonists were no wiser, and Greek legend tells a well-known +story of a married mystic whose suspended animation began at last to +bore his wife. “Dear Hermotimus”—that was his +name, if we have not forgotten it—“is quite the most absent +of men,” his spouse would say, when her husband’s soul left +his body and took its walks abroad. On one occasion the philosopher’s +spiritual part remained abroad so long that his lady ceased to expect +its return. She therefore went through the usual mourning, cut +her hair, cried, and finally burned the body on the funeral-pyre. +“We can do no more for miserable mortals, when once the spirit +has left their bones,” says Homer.</p> +<p>At that very moment the spirit returned, and found its uninsured +tenement of clay reduced to ashes. The sequel may be found in +a poem of the late Professor Aytoun’s, and in the same volume +occurs the wondrous tale of Colonel Townsend, who could suspend his +animation at pleasure.</p> +<p>There is certainly a good deal of risk, as well as of convenience, +in suspended animation. People do not always welcome Rip Van Winkle +when he returns to life, as we would <!-- page 83--><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>all +welcome Mr. Jefferson if he revisited the glimpses of the footlights,</p> +<blockquote><p>“The hard heir strides about the lands,<br /> +And will not yield them for a day.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There is the horrible chance of being buried alive, which was always +present to the mind of Edgar Poe. It occurs in one of his half-humorous +stories, where a cataleptic man, suddenly waking in a narrow bed, in +the smell of earthy mould, believes he has been interred, but finds +himself mistaken. In the “Fall of The House of Usher” +the wretched brother, with his nervous intensity of sensation, hears +his sister for four days stirring in her vault before she makes her +escape. In the “Strange Effects of Mesmerism on a Dying +Man,” the animation is mesmerically suspended at the very instant +when it was about naturally to cease. The results, when the passes +were reversed, and the half fled life was half restored, are described +in a passage not to be recommended to sensitive readers. M. About, +uses the same general idea in the fantastic plot of his “L’Homme +à l’Oreille Cassée,” and the risk of breakage +was insisted on by M. About as well as by the inventive Australian reporter. +Mr. Clarke Russell has also frozen <!-- page 84--><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>a +Pirate. Thus the idea of suspended animation is “in the +air,” is floating among the visions of men of genius. It +is, perhaps, for the great continent beneath the Southern Cross to realize +the dreams of savages, of seers, of novelists, of poets, of Yogis, of +Plotinus, of M. About, and of Swedenborg. Swedenborg, too, was +a suspended animationist, if we may use the term. What else than +suspension of outer life was his “internal breathing,” by +which his body existed while his soul was in heaven, hell, or the ends +of the earth? When the Australian discovery is universally believed +in (and acted on), then, and perhaps not till then, will be the time +for the great unappreciated. They will go quietly to sleep, to +waken a hundred years hence, and learn how posterity likes their pictures +and poems. They may not always be satisfied with the results, +but no artist will disbelieve in the favourable verdict of posterity +till the supposed Australian method is applied to men as well as to +sheep and kangaroos. <!-- page 85--><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span></p> +<h3>BREAKING UP.</h3> +<p>The schools have by this time all “broken up,” if that +is still the term which expresses the beginning of their vacation. +“Breaking up” is no longer the festival that it was in the +good old coaching days—nothing is what it was in the good old +coaching days. Boys can no longer pass a whole happy day driving +through the country and firing peas at the wayfaring man. They +have to travel by railway, and other voyagers may well pray that their +flight be not on breaking-up day. The untrammelled spirits of +boyhood are very much what they have always been. Boys fill the +carriages to overflowing. They sing, they shout, they devour extraordinary +quantities of refreshment, they buy whole libraries of railway novels, +and, generally speaking, behave as if the earth and the fulness of it +were their own. This is trying to the mature traveller, <!-- page 86--><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>who +has plenty of luggage on his mind, and who wishes to sleep or to read +the newspaper. Boys have an extraordinary knack of losing their +own luggage, and of appearing at home, like the companions of Ulysses, +“bearing with them only empty hands.” This is usually +their first exploit in the holidays. Their arrival causes great +excitement among their little sisters, and in the breasts of their fathers +wakens a presentiment of woe. When a little boy comes home his +first idea is to indulge in harmless swagger. When Tom Tulliver +went to school, he took some percussion caps with him that the other +lads might suppose him to be familiar with the use of guns. The +schoolboy has other devices for keeping up the manly character in the +family circle. The younger ones gather round him while he narrates +the adventures of himself, and Smith minor, and Walker (of Briggs’s +house), in a truly epic spirit. He has made unheard-of expeditions +up the river, has chaffed a farmer almost into apoplexy, has come in +fifth in the house paper-chase, has put the French master to open shame, +and has got his twenty-two colours. These are the things that +make a boy respected by his younger <!-- page 87--><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>brothers, +and admired by his still younger sisters. They of course have +a good deal to tell him. The setter puppies must be inspected. +A match is being got up with the village eleven, who are boastful and +confident in the possession of a bowling curate. To this the family +hero rejoins that “he will crump the parson,” a threat not +so awful as it sounds. There is a wasps’ nest which has +been carefully preserved for this eventful hour, and which is to be +besieged with boiling water, gunpowder, and other engines of warfare. +Thus the schoolboy’s first days at home are a glorious hour of +crowded sport.</p> +<p>It cannot be denied that, as the holidays go on, a biggish boy sometimes +finds time hang heavy on his hands, while his father and mother find +him hang heavy on theirs. The first excitement rubs off. +The fun of getting up handicap races among children under twelve years +of age wears away. One cannot always be taking wasps’ nests. +Of course there are many happy boys who live in the country, and pursue +the pleasures of manhood with the zest of extreme youth. Before +they are fourteen, they have a rod on a salmon river, a gun on a moor, +horses and <!-- page 88--><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>yachts, +and boats at their will, with keepers and gillies to do their bidding. +Others, not so much indulged by fortune and fond parents, live at least +among hills and streams, or by the sea. They are never “in +the way,” for they are always in the open air. Their summer +holidays may be things to look back upon all through life. Natural +history, and the beauty of solitary nature; the joys of the swimmer +in deep river pools shut in with cool grey walls of rock, and fringed +with fern; the loveliness of the high table lands, and the intense hush +that follows sunset by the trout stream—these things are theirs, +and become a part of their consciousness. In later and wearier +years these spectacles will flash before their eyes unbidden, they will +see the water dimpled by rising trout, and watch the cattle stealing +through the ford, and disappearing, grey shapes, in the grey of the +hills.</p> +<p>In boyhood, the legends that cling to ancient castles where only +a shell of stone is standing, and to the ash-trees that grow by the +feudal gateway, and supplied the wood for spear shafts—these and +all the stories of red men that haunt the moors, and of kelpies that +make their dwelling in the waters, become <!-- page 89--><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>very +real to us when standing in the dusk by a moorland loch. If some +otter or great fish breaks the water and the stillness with a sudden +splash, a boy feels a romantic thrill, a pause of expectation, that +later he will never experience. “The thoughts of a boy are +long, long thoughts,” says the poet; he thinks them out by himself +on the downs, or the hills, and tells them to nobody.</p> +<p>If we all lived in the country, the advent of boys would not be a +thing to contemplate with secret dread. It is rather a terrible +thing, a houseful of boys in a town, or in a pretty thickly populated +district. Boys, it is true, are always a source of pleasure to +the humorist and the scientific observer of mankind. They are +scarcely our fellow-creatures, so to speak; they live in a world of +their own, ruled by eccentric traditional laws. They have their +own heroes, and are much more interested in Mr. Alan Steel or Lohmann +than in persons like Mr. Arthur Balfour, whose cricket is only middling. +They have rules of conduct which cannot be called immoral, but which +are certainly relics of a very ancient state of tribal morality. +The humour of it is that the modern boy is so grave, so <!-- page 90--><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>self-assured, +and has such abundance of aplomb. He has acquired an air of mysterious +sagacity, and occasionally seems to smile at the petty interests with +which men divert themselves. In a suburban or city home, he can +find very little that he thinks worth doing, and then he becomes discontented +and disagreeable. It is better that he should do that, perhaps, +than that he should aim at being a dandy. The boy-dandy is an +odd, and at bottom a slovenly, creature. He is fond of varnished +boots, of pink neckties, of lavender-coloured gloves, and, above all, +of scent. The quantity of scent that a lad of sixteen will pour +on his handkerchief is something perfectly astounding. In this +stage of his development he is addicted to falling into love, or rather +into flirtation. He keeps up a correspondence with a young lady +in Miss Pinkerton’s establishment. They see each other in +church, when he looks unutterable things from the gallery. This +kind of boy is not unlikely to interest himself, speculatively, in horse-races. +He has communications with a bookmaker who finds Boulogne a salubrious +residence. He would like to know the officers, if his home is +in a garrison town, and he humbly <!-- page 91--><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>imitates +these warriors at an immense distance. He passes much time in +trying to colour a pipe. This is not a nice sort of boy to have +at home for the holidays, nor is it likely that he does much good when +he is at school. It is pleasanter to think of the countless jolly +little fellows of twelve, who are happily busy all day with lawn-tennis, +cricket, and general diversion in the open air. Their appearance, +their manly frankness, their modesty and good temper, make their homes +happier in the holidays than in the quieter nine months of the year. +Let us hope that they will not put off their holiday tasks to be learned +in the train on their way back to school. This, alas, is the manner +of boyhood. <!-- page 92--><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span></p> +<h3>ON SHAVING.</h3> +<p>A philanthropist has published a little book which interests persons +who in civilized society form a respectable minority, and in the savage +world an overpowering majority. But, savage or polite, almost +all men must shave, or must be shaved, and the author of “A Few +Useful Hints on Shaving,” is, in his degree, a benefactor to his +fellow-creatures. The mere existence of the beard may be accounted +for in various ways; but, however we explain it, the beard is apt to +prove a nuisance to its proprietor. Speculators of the old school +may explain the beard as part of the punishment entailed on man with +the curse of labour. The toilsome day begins with the task of +scraping the chin and contemplating, as the process goes on, a face +that day by day grows older and more weary. No race that shaves +can shirk the sense of <!-- page 93--><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>passing +time, or be unaware of the approach of wrinkles, of “crow’s-feet,” +of greyness. Shaving is the most melancholy, and to many people +the most laborious of labours. It seems, therefore, more plausible +(if less scientific) to look on the beard as a penalty for some ancient +offence of our race, than to say with Mr. Grant Allen, and perhaps other +disciples of Mr. Darwin, that the beard is the survival of a very primitive +decoration. According to this view man was originally very hairy. +His hair wore off in patches as he acquired the habits of sleeping on +his sides and of sitting with his back against a tree, or against the +wall of his hut. The hair of dogs is not worn off thus, but what +of that? After some hundreds of thousands of years had passed, +our ancestors (according to this system) awoke to the consciousness +that they were patchy and spotty, and they determined to eradicate all +hair that was not ornamental. The eyebrows, moustache, and, unfortunately, +the beard seemed to most races worth preserving. There are, indeed, +some happy peoples who have no beards, or none worth notice. Very +early in their history they must have taken the great resolve to “live +down” and root out the <!-- page 94--><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>martial +growth that fringes our lips. But among European peoples the absence +of a beard has usually been a reproach, and the enemies of Njal, in +ancient Iceland, could find nothing worse to say of him than that he +was beardless. Mehemet Ali bought sham beards for his Egyptian +grenadiers, that they might more closely resemble the European model. +The soldiers of Harold thought that the Normans were all priests, because +they were “shavelings;” and it is only natural that soldiers +should in all countries be bearded. It is almost impossible to +shave during a campaign. Stendhal, the French novelist and critic, +was remarkable as the best, perhaps the only, clean-shaved man in the +French army during the dreadful retreat from Moscow. In his time, +as in that of our fathers, ideas of beauty had changed, and the smooth +chin was as much the mark of a gentleman as the bearded chin had been +the token of a man.</p> +<p>The idea that shaving is a duty—ceremonial, as among the Egyptian +priests, or social merely, as among ourselves—is older than the +invention of steel or even of bronze razors. Nothing is more remarkable +in savage life than the resolution of the braves <!-- page 95--><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>who +shave with a shell or with a broken piece of glass, left by European +mariners. A warrior will throw himself upon the ground, and while +one friend sits on his head, and another holds his arms and prevents +him from struggling, a third will scrape his chin with the shell or +the broken bottle-glass till he rises, bleeding, but beardless. +Macaulay, it seems, must have shaved almost as badly with the razor +of modern life. When he went to a barber, and, after an easy shave, +asked what he owed, the fellow replied, “Just what you generally +give the man who shaves you, sir.” “I generally give +him two cuts on each cheek,” said the historian of England. +Shaving requires a combination of qualities which rarely meet in one +amateur. You should have plenty of razors, unlike a Prussian ambassador +of the stingy Frederick. This ambassador, according to Voltaire, +cut his throat with the only razor he possessed. The chin of that +diplomatist must have been unworthy alike of the Court to which he was +accredited, and of that from which he came. The exquisite shaver +who would face the world with a smooth chin requires many razors, many +strops, many brushes, odd soaps, <!-- page 96--><span class="pagenum">p. 96</span>a +light steady hand, and, perhaps, a certain gaiety of temper which prevents +edged weapons from offering unholy temptations. Possibly the shaver +is born, not made, like the poet; it is sure that many men are born +with an inability to shave. Hence comes the need for the kindly +race of barbers, a race dear to literature. Their shops were the +earliest clubs, their conversation was all the ancient world knew in +the way of society journals. Horace, George Eliot, Beaumarchais, +Cervantes, and Scott have appreciated the barber, and celebrated his +characteristics. If the wearing of the beard ever became universal, +the world, and especially the Spanish and Italian world, would sadly +miss the barber and the barber’s shop. The energy of the +British character, our zeal for individual enterprise, makes us a self-shaving +race; the Latin peoples are economical, but they do not grudge paying +for an easy shave. Americans in this matter are more Continental +than English in their taste. Was it not in Marseilles that his +friends induced Mark Twain to be shaved by a barber worthy of the bottle-glass +or sea-shell stage of his profession? They pretended that his +performances were equal to <!-- page 97--><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>those +of the barber on board the ship that brought them from America.</p> +<p>Englishmen, as a rule, shave themselves when they do not wear beards. +The author of the little pamphlet before us gives a dozen curious hints +which prove the difficulty of the art. Almost all razors, he seems +to think, were “made to sell.” He suggests that razors +of tried and trusty character, razors whose public form can be depended +upon, should be purchased of barbers. But it is not every barber +who will part with such possessions. Razors are like Scotch sheep +dogs; no one would keep a bad one, or sell, or give away a good one. +Cœlebs did not find the quest of a wife more arduous than all +men find that of a really responsible razor. You may be unlucky +in the important matter of lather. For soap our author gives a +recipe which reminds one of Walton’s quaint prescriptions and +queer preparations. Shaving soap should be made at home, it seems, +and the mystery of its manufacture is here disclosed. The only +way to keep razors “set” is to persevere in sending them +to various barbers till the genius who can “set” them to +your hand is discovered. Perhaps he lives at Aleppo; <!-- page 98--><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>perhaps, +like the father of a heroine of comic song, at Jerusalem. Till +he is discovered the shaver wins no secure happiness, and in the search +for the barber who has an elective affinity for the shaver may be found +material for an operetta or an epic. The shaver figures as a sort +of Alastor, seeking the ideal setter of razors, as Shelley’s Alastor +sought ideal beauty in the neighbourhood of Afghanistan, and in the +very home of the Central Asian Question. No razor should be condemned +till it has been “stropped” well and carefully. And +this brings us to the great topic of strops. Some say that soldiers’ +old buff belts make the best strops. The Scotch peasantry use +a peculiar hard smooth fungus which grows in decaying elm trees. +Our author has heard that “Government now demands the return of” +the old buff belts. Government cannot want them all for its own +use, and perhaps will see to it that old buff strops once more find +an open market. In the lack of old buff belts, you may mix up +tallow and the ashes of burnt newspaper, and smear this unctuous compound +on the strop. People who neglect these “tips,” and +who are clumsy, like most of us, may waste <!-- page 99--><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>a +forty-eighth part of their adult years in shaving. This time is +worth economizing, and with a little forethought, an ideal razor-setter, +tallow, buff belts, burnt newspapers, and the rest, we may shave in +five minutes daily. <!-- page 100--><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span></p> +<h3>STREET NOISES.</h3> +<p>“If any calm, a calm despair,” is the portion of people +who would like to reform, that is to abolish, the street noises of London. +These noises are constantly commented upon with much freedom in the +columns of various contemporaries. Nor is this remarkable, for +persons who are occupied with what is called “brainwork,” +are peculiarly sensitive to the disturbances of the streets. Sometimes +they cannot sleep till morning, sometimes they can only sleep in the +earlier watches of the night, and, as a rule, they cannot write novels, +or articles, or treatises; they cannot compose comic operas, or paint, +in the midst of a row. Now, the streets of London are the scenes +of rows at every hour of night and day-light. It is not the roll +of carriages and carts that provokes irritation, and drives the sensitive +man or woman half mad. Even the whistling <!-- page 101--><span class="pagenum">p. 101</span>of +the metropolitan trains may, perhaps, be borne with if the drivers are +not too ambitious artists, and do not attempt fantasias and variations +on their powerful instrument. The noises that ruin health, temper, +and power of work; the noises that cause an incalculable waste of time, +money, and power, are all voluntary, and perhaps preventable. +Let us examine the working hours of the nervous or irritable musician, +mathematician, man of letters, or member of Parliament. On second +thoughts, the last may be omitted, as if he cannot sleep in a tedious +debate, his case is beyond cure.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Not bromide of potassium<br /> +Nor all the drowsy speeches in the world”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>can medicine him to forgetfulness of street noises. For the +others, the day may be said to begin about five, when the voice of the +chimney-sweep is heard in the land. Here we may observe that servants +are the real causes of half the most provoking noises in London. +People ask why the sweep cannot ring the bell, like other people. +But the same people remark that even the howl of the sweep does not +waken the neighbours’<!-- page 102--><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span> +servants. Of what avail, then, could his use of the bell prove? +It generally takes the sweep twenty-five minutes exactly to bring the +servants to open the door. Meanwhile, the eminent men of letters +in the street open their windows, and show a very fair command of language +understanded by the people. But the sweep only laughs, and every +three minutes utters a howl which resembles no other noise with which +men are acquainted. Where do young sweeps learn to make this cry +which can only be acquired by long practice? Perhaps it is inherited, +like the music of “the damned nightingales,” as the sleepless +political economist called the Daulian birds.</p> +<p>When the sweep is silent, when slumber is stealing over the weary +eyelids, then traction engines, or steam-rollers, or some other scientific +improvement on wheels begin to traverse the streets and shake the houses. +This does not last more than a quarter of an hour, and then a big bell +rings, and the working men and women tramp gaily by, chatting noisily +and in excellent spirits. Now comes the milkman’s turn. +He, like the chimney-sweep, has his own howl, softer, more flute-like +in <!-- page 103--><span class="pagenum">p. 103</span>quality than that +of the sweep, but still capable of waking any one who is not a domestic +servant in hard training. The milkman also cries “woa” +to his horse at every house, and accompanies himself on his great tin +cans, making a noise most tolerable, and not to be endured. Is +it necessary, absolutely necessary, that the milkman should howl? +In some parts of town milkwomen distribute their wares without howling. +They do, certainly, wear very short petticoats, but that is matter, +as Aristotle says, for a separate disquisition. On the other hand, +milkwomen exist who howl as loudly as milkmen. We cannot but fear +that without these noises it would be difficult to attract the notice +of servants. If this pessimistic view be correct, sweeps and milkmen +will howl while London is a city inhabited. And even if we could +secure the services of milkwomen of the silent species that ring the +bell, could we hope to have female chimney-sweeps as well behaved? +Here, at all events, is a new opening for female labour. When +the milkman has done his worst, the watercress people come and mournfully +ejaculate. Now it is time for the sleepless and nervous to get +up and do their <!-- page 104--><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>work. +Now, too, the barrel-organ comes round. There are persons who, +fortunately for themselves, are so indifferent to music that they do +not mind the barrel-organ. It is neither better nor worse to them +than the notes of Patti, and from the voice of that siren, as from all +music, they withdraw their attention without difficulty. But other +persons cannot work while the dirty grinder and the women that drag +his instrument are within hearing. The barrel-organ, again, is +strong in the support of servants, especially nurses, who find that +the music diverts babies. The rest of the day is made hideous +by the awful notes of every species of unintelligible and uncalled for +costermonger, from him who (apparently) bellows “Annie Erskine,” +to her who cries, “All a-blowing and a-growing.” There +are miscreants who want to buy bones, to sell ferns, to sell images, +wicker-chairs, and other inutilities, while last come the two men who +howl in a discordant chorus, and attempt to dispose of the second edition +of the evening paper, at ten o’clock at night. At eleven +all the neighbours turn out their dogs to bark, and the dogs waken the +cats, which scream like demoniacs. Then the public houses close, +<!-- page 105--><span class="pagenum">p. 105</span>and the people who +have been inebriated, if not cheered, stagger howling by. Stragglers +yell and swear, and use foul language till about four in the morning, +without attracting the unfavourable notice of the police. Two +or three half drunken men and women bellow and blaspheme opposite the +sufferer’s house for an hour at a time. And then the chimneysweep +renews his rounds, and the milkman follows him.</p> +<p>The screams of costermongers and of rowdies might surely be suppressed +by the police. A system of “local option” might be +introduced. In all decent quarters householders would vote against +the licensed bellowings of cads and costermongers. In districts +which think a noise pleasant and lively the voting would go the other +way. People would know where they could be quiet, and where noise +would reign. Except Bologna, perhaps no town is so noisy as London; +but then, compared with Bologna, London is tranquillity itself. +It is fair to say that really nervous and irritable people find the +country worse than town. The noise of the nightingales is deplorable. +The lamentations of a cow deprived of her calf, or of a passion-stricken +cow, “wailing <!-- page 106--><span class="pagenum">p. 106</span>for +her demon lover” on the next farm, excel anything that the milkman +can perpetrate, and almost vie with the performances of the sweep. +When “the cocks are crowing a merry midnight,” as in the +ballad, the sleepless patient wishes he could make off as quietly and +quickly as the ghostly sons of the “Wife of Usher’s Well.” +Dogs delight to bark in the country more than in town. Leech’s +picture of the unfortunate victim who left London to avoid noise, and +found that the country was haunted by Cochin-China cocks, illustrates +the still repose of the rural life. Nervous people, on the whole, +are in a minute minority. No one else seems to mind how loud and +horrible the noises of London are, and therefore we have faint hope +of seeing nocturnal ’Arry gagged, the drunken drab “moved +on,” and the sweep compelled to ring the bell till some one comes +and opens the door of the house in whose chimneys he is professionally +interested. <!-- page 107--><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span></p> +<h3>LENDING OF BOOKS.</h3> +<p>A popular clergyman has found it necessary to appeal to his friends +in a very touching way. The friends of the divine are requested +to return “Colenso on the Pentateuch,” and another volume +which they have borrowed. The advertisement has none of that irony +which finds play in the notice, “The Gentleman who took a brown +silk umbrella, with gold crutch handle, and left a blue cotton article, +is asked to restore the former.” The advertiser seems to +speak more in sorrow and in hope than in anger, and we sincerely trust +that he may get his second volume of “Colenso on the Pentateuch.” +But if he does, he will be more fortunate than most owners of books. +Pitiful are their thoughts as they look round their shelves. The +silent friends of their youth, the acquisitions of their mature age, +have departed. Even popular preachers cannot <!-- page 108--><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>work +miracles, like Thomas à Kempis, and pray back their borrowed +volumes. As the Rev. Robert Elsmere says, “Miracles do not +happen”—at least, to book-collectors.</p> +<p>“Murray sighs o’er Pope and Swift, and many a treasure +more,” said Cowper, when Lord Mansfield’s house was burned, +and we have all had experience of the sorrows of Murray. Even +people who are not bibliophiles, nay, who class bibliophiles with “blue-and-white +young men,” know that a book in several volumes loses an unfair +proportion of its usefulness, and almost all its value, when one or +more of the volumes are gone. Grote’s works, or Mill’s, +Carlyle’s, or Milman’s, seem nothing when they are incomplete. +It always happens, somehow, that the very tome you want to consult is +that which has fallen among borrowers. Even Panurge, who praised +the race of borrowers so eloquently, could scarcely have found an excuse +for the borrowers of books.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Tel est le triste sort de tout livre prêté,<br /> +Souvent il est perdu, toujours il est gâté.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Often lost, always spoiled,” said Charles Nodier, “such +is the fate of every book one lends.” The Parisian collector, +Guibert de <!-- page 109--><span class="pagenum">p. 109</span>Pixérécourt, +would lend no books at all to his dearest friends. His motto, +inscribed above the lintel of his library-door, was, “Go to them +that sell, and buy for yourselves.” As Pixérécourt +was the owner of many volumes which “they that sell” cannot +procure, or which could only be bought at enormous rates, his caution +(we will not say churlishness) was rather inconvenient for men of letters. +But if hard pressed and in a strait, he would make his friend a gift +of the book which was necessary to his studies. This course had +the effect of preventing people from wishing to borrow. But many +of the great collectors have been more generous than Pixérécourt. +We forget the name (not an illustrious one) of the too good-natured +man who labelled his books, “Not my own, but my friends’.” +“Sibi et amicis” (“His own and his friends’ +property”) has been the motto of several illustrious amateurs +since Grolier and Maioli stamped it on the beautifully decorated morocco +of their bindings. Other people have invented book-plates, containing +fell curses in doggrel Latin or the vernacular on the careless or dishonest +borrower:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Aspice Pierrot pendut<br /> +Parceque librum non a rendu” <!-- page 110--><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span></p> +</blockquote> +<p>is the kind of macaronic French and Latin which schoolboys are accustomed +to write under a sketch of the borrower expiating his offences on the +gallows.</p> +<p>The mischief of borrowing, the persistent ill-luck which cleaves +to property thus obtained, have been proverbial since the young prophet +dropped the axe-head in the deep water, and cried, “Alas, for +it is borrowed.” The old prophet, readily altering the specific +gravity of the article, enabled his disciple to regain it. But +there are no prophets now, none, at least, who can repair our follies, +and remove their baneful effects by a friendly miracle. What miracle +can restore the books we borrow and lose, or the books we borrow and +spoil with ink, or with candle-wax, or which children scrawl or paint +over, or which “the dog ate,” like the famous poll-book +at an Irish election, that fell into the broth, and ultimately into +the jaws of an illiterate animal? Books are such delicate things! +Yet men—and still more frequently women—read them so close +to the fire that the bindings warp, and start, and gape like the shells +of a moribund oyster. Other people never have a paper-knife, and +cut the leaves <!-- page 111--><span class="pagenum">p. 111</span>of +books with cards, railway tickets, scissors, their own fingers, or any +other weapon that chances to seem convenient. Then books are easily +dirtied. A little dust falls into the leaves, and is smudged by +the fingers. No fuller on earth can cleanse it. The art +of man can remove certain sorts of stains, but only by stripping the +book of its binding, and washing leaf by leaf in certain acids, an expensive +and dangerous process. There are books for use, stout, everyday +articles, and books for pious contemplation, original editions, or tomes +that have belonged to great collectors. The borrower, who only +wants to extract a passage of which he is in momentary need, is a person +heedless of these distinctions. He enters a friend’s house, +or (for this sort of borrower thrives at college) a friend’s rooms, +seizes a first edition of Keats, or Shelley, or an Aldine Homer, or +Elzevir Cæsar of the good date, and hurries away with it, leaving +a hasty scrawl, “I have taken your Shelley,” signed with +initials. Perhaps the owner of the book never sees the note. +Perhaps he does not recognize the hand. The borrower is just the +man to forget the whole transaction. So there is a blank in the +shelves, a gap <!-- page 112--><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>among +the orderly volumes, a blank never to be filled up, unless our amateur +advertises his woes in the newspapers.</p> +<p>All borrowers are bad; but in this, as in other crimes, there are +degrees. The man who acts as Ménage advises, in the aphorism +which Garrick used as a motto on his bookplate, the man who reads a +book instantly and promptly returns it, is the most pardonable borrower. +But how few people do this! As a rule, the last thing the borrower +thinks of is to read the book which he has secured. Or rather, +that is the last thing but one; the very last idea that enters his mind +is the project of returning the volume. It simply “lies +about,” and gets dusty in his rooms. A very bad borrower +is he who makes pencil marks on books. Perhaps he is a little +more excusable than the borrower who does not read at all.</p> +<p>A clean margin is worth all the marginalia of Poe, though he, to +do him justice, seems chiefly to have written on volumes that were his +own property. De Quincey, according to Mr. Hill Burton, appears +to have lacked the faculty of mind which recognizes the duty of returning +books. Mr. Hill Burton draws a <!-- page 113--><span class="pagenum">p. 113</span>picture +of “Papaverius” living in a sort of cave or den, the walls +of which were books, while books lay around in tubs. Who was to +find a loved and lost tome in this vast accumulation? But De Quincey +at least made good use of what he borrowed. The common borrower +does nothing of the kind. Even Professor Mommsen, when he had +borrowed manuscripts of great value in his possession, allowed his house +to get itself set on fire. Europe lamented with him, but deepest +was the wail of a certain college at Cambridge which had lent its treasures. +Even Paul Louis Courier blotted horribly a Laurentian MS. of “Daphnis +and Chloe.” When Chénier lent his annotated “Malherbe,” +the borrower spilt a bottle of ink over it. Thinking of these +things, of these terrible, irreparable calamities, the wonder is, not +that men still lend, but that any one has the courage to borrow. +It is more dreadful far to spoil or lose a friend’s book than +to have our own lost or spoiled. Stoicism easily submits to the +latter sorrow, but there is no remedy for a conscience sensible of its +own unlucky guilt. <!-- page 114--><span class="pagenum">p. 114</span></p> +<h3>CLUB BORES.</h3> +<p>The London Club has been sitting in a judicial way on one of its +members. This member of the Club seems to have been what Thackeray’s +waiter called “a harbitrary gent.” The servants of +the club had to complain that he did not make “their lives so +sweet to them that they (the servants) greatly cared to live,” +if we may parody Arthur’s address to his erring queen. The +Club has not made a vacancy in its ranks by requesting the arbitrary +member to withdraw. But his conduct was deemed, on the report +of the Committee, worthy of being considered by the Club. And +that is always something. In an age when clubs are really almost +universal, most men have had occasion to wish that their society would +sit occasionally on some of the members. The member who bullies +the servants is a not uncommon specimen of the <!-- page 115--><span class="pagenum">p. 115</span>club-bore. +He may be called the bore truculent. He has been excellently caricatured +by Thackeray in the “Book of Snobs.”</p> +<p>There we have the club-bore who makes such a fuss about his chop, +and scolds the waiter so terribly. “Look at it, sir; is +it a chop for a gentleman? Smell it, sir; is it fit to put on +a club table?” These, or such as these, are the words of +the gallant terror of waiters. Now it is clearly unjust to make +a waiter responsible for the errors, however grave, of a very different +character, the cook. But this mistake the arbitrary gent is continually +making. The cook is safe in his inaccessible stronghold, down +below. He cannot be paraded for punishment on the quarter-deck, +where Captain Bragg, of the Gunboat and Torpedo Club, exercises justice. +Therefore the miserable waiter is rebuked in tones of thunder because +the Captain’s steak is underdone, or because Nature (or the market +gardener) has not made the stalks of asparagus so green and succulent +as their charming tops. People who do not know the scolding club-bore +at home are apt to be thankful that they are not favoured with his intimate +acquaintance, and are doubly grateful <!-- page 116--><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>that +they are not members of his family. For if, in a large and quiet +room full of strangers, a man can give loose to his temper without provocation, +and outroar the thunder, what must this noisy person do at home? +“In an English family,” says a social critic, “the +father is the man who shouts.” How the club-bore must shout +when he is in his own castle, surrounded only by his trembling kindred +and anxious retainers! In his castle there is no one to resist +or criticise him—unless indeed his wife happen to be a lady, like +Clytemnestra, of masculine resolution. In that case the arbitrary +gent may be a father of a family who is not allowed to shout at home, +but is obliged to give nature free play by shouting abroad.</p> +<p>There are plenty of other club-bores besides the man who rates these +generally affable and well-behaved persons, the club servants. +One of the worst is the man whom you never see anywhere except at the +club, and whom you never fail to see there. It is bad enough when +you have no acquaintance with him. Murders have probably been +committed by sensitive persons for no better reason (often for worse +reasons) than that they are tired <!-- page 117--><span class="pagenum">p. 117</span>of +seeing some one else going about. His voice, his manner, his cough, +especially his cough, become unendurable. People who cough in +clubs are generally amateurs of the art. They are huskier, more +wheezing, more pertinacious in working away at a cough till they have +made it a masterpiece than any other mortals. We believe that +club Asthmats (it is quite as good a word as “Æsthetes”) +practise in the Reading Room of the British Museum, where they acquire +their extraordinary compass and mastery of various notes. Be this +as it may, the cough which drives every one but its owner out of the +room (though doubtless an affliction to the proprietor) gives him rank +as a club-bore of the finest water. The bore who always enters +into conversation, though he has nothing to say, merely because you +used to dislike him at school, or college, or elsewhere, is another +common annoyance. The man who is engaged, apparently, on a large +work, and who rushes about the library hunting for Proclus and Jamblichus +when other occupants of the room wish to be quiet, is naturally detested.</p> +<p>Most men are the bores of some other person. People of watchful +mind and intelligent habit, <!-- page 118--><span class="pagenum">p. 118</span>who +talk in the drawing-room, are regarded as bores by fat old gentlemen +who wish to sleep there. And as these gentlemen turn the drawing-room +into a dormitory, which resounds with their snoring, they in turn are +bores to people who wish to read the papers. But if these students +drop the poker with a clang, or dash down small tables in order to waken +the sleepers, they, in their turn, give a good deal of annoyance. +The man who talks about politics at great length, is only one of the +common bores of the world transported into a club. But the man +with a voice which in ordinary conversation pierces through all the +hum of voices, like a clarion note in battle, would be a bore anywhere. +If he were in the wilderness of Sinai, he would annoy the monks in the +convent near the top. His voice is one of those terrible, inscrutable +scourges of nature, like the earthquake and the mosquito, which tax +our poor human wisdom to reconcile with any monistic theory of the benevolent +government of the universe. Once admit an evil principle, however, +and the thing is clear. The club-bore with the trumpet tones, +which he cannot moderate, is possessed, on this theory, by a fiend. +As men <!-- page 119--><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>are talking +quietly of turnips in one corner of the room, of rent in another, and +of racing in a third, his awful notes blend in from the fourth corner +with strident remarks on Bulgarian philology.</p> +<p>The ancient Greeks were well accustomed to club life, for each of +their little cities was only a large club. They had, therefore, +to deal with the problem of bores. Some of them, consequently, +had the institution of annually devoting to the infernal gods the most +unpopular citizens. These persons were called <i>catharmata</i>, +which may be freely translated “scapegoats.” Could +not clubs annually devote one or more scapebores to the infernal gods? +They might ballot for them, of course, on some merciful and lenient +principle. One white ball in ten or twenty-black ones might enable +the bore to keep his membership for the next year. The warning, +if he only escaped this species of ostracism very narrowly, might do +him a great deal of moral good. Of course the process would be +unpleasant, but it is seldom agreeable to be done good to. Occasionally +even the most good-natured members would stand apart, not voting, or +even would place the black ball <!-- page 120--><span class="pagenum">p. 120</span>in +the mystic urn. Then the scapebore would have his subscription +returned to him, and would be obliged to seek in other haunts servants +to swear at, and sofas to snore on. Another suggestion, that members +should be balloted for anew every five years, would simply cause clubs +to be depopulated. Pall-Mall and St. James’s would be desolate, +mourning their children, and refusing comfort. The system would +act like a proscription. People would give up their friends that +they might purchase aid against their enemies. Clubs are more +endurable as they are, though members do suffer grievously from the +garrulity, the coughs, the slumbrous tendencies, and the temper of their +fellow-men. <!-- page 121--><span class="pagenum">p. 121</span></p> +<h3>PHIZ.</h3> +<p>Mr. Hablot K. Browne, better known as Phiz, was an artist of a departed +school to whom we all owe a great deal of amusement. He was not +so versatile nor so original as Cruickshank; he had not the genius, +nor the geniality, still less the sense of beauty, of John Leech. +In his later years his work became more and more unequal, till he was +sometimes almost as apt to scribble hasty scrawls as Constantin Guys. +M. Guys was an artist selected by M. Baudelaire as the fine flower of +modern art, and the true, though hurried, designer of the fugitive modern +beauty. It is recorded that M. Guys was once sent to draw a scene +of triumph and certain illuminations in London, probably about the end +of the Crimean War. His sketch did not reach the office of the +paper for which he worked in time, and some one <!-- page 122--><span class="pagenum">p. 122</span>went +to see what the man of genius was doing. He was found in bed, +but he was equal to the occasion. Snatching a sheet of paper and +a pencil he drew a curve. “There,” said he, “is +the triumphal arch, and here”—scribbling a number of scratches +like eccentric comets—“here are the fireworks.” +Mr. Browne’s drawings occasionally showed a tendency to approach +the rudimentary sort of “pictograph” rather than give what +a dramatic critic calls “a solid and studied rendering” +of events. But many of Mr. Browne’s illustrations of Dickens +are immortal. They are closely bound up with our earliest and +latest recollections of the work of the “incomparable Boz.” +Mr. Pickwick, we believe, was not wholly due to the fancy of Mr. Browne, +but of the unfortunate Seymour, whom death prevented from continuing +the series. Every one has heard how Mr. Thackeray, then an unknown +man, wished to illustrate one of Mr. Dickens’s early stories, +and brought Mr. Dickens examples of his skill. Fortunately, his +offer was not accepted. Mr. Thackeray’s pencil was the proper +ally of his pen. He saw and drew Costigan, Becky, Emmy, Lord Steyne, +as no one else could have drawn <!-- page 123--><span class="pagenum">p. 123</span>them. +But he had not beheld the creations of Boz in the same light of imaginative +vision. Sometimes, too, it must be allowed that Mr. Thackeray +drew very badly. His “Peg of Limavaddy,” in the “Irish +Sketch Book,” is a most formless lady, and by no means justifies +the enthusiasm of her poet. Thus the task of illustrating “Pickwick” +fell to Mr. Browne, and he carried on the conceptions of his predecessor +with extraordinary vigour. The old vein of exaggerated caricature +he inherited from the taste of an elder generation. But making +allowance for the exaggeration, what can be better than Mr. Pickwick +sliding, or the awful punishment of Stiggins at the hands of the long-suffering +Weller? We might wish that the young lady in fur-topped boots +was prettier, and indeed more of a lady. But Mr. Browne never +had much success, we think, in drawing pretty faces. He tried +to improve in this respect, but either his girls had little character, +or the standard of female beauty has altered. As to this latter +change, there can be no doubt at all. Leech’s girls are +not like Thackeray’s early pictures of women; and Mr. Du Maurier’s +are sometimes sicklied o’er with the pale cast of an æsthetic +period. <!-- page 124--><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span></p> +<p>It is probable that the influence of Mr. Browne’s art reacted +in some degree on Dickens. In the old times every one whom the +author invented the artist was pretty certain to caricature. Thus +the author may have felt the temptation to keep pace with the frolic +humour of the artist. Mr. Browne cannot be blamed for a tendency +to exaggerate noses and other features, which was almost universal in +his time. None of us can say what conception would now be entertained +of Dickens’s characters if Mr. Browne had not drawn them. +In the later works of Dickens (when they were illustrated) other artists +were employed, as Mr. Stone and Mr. Fildes. These are accomplished +painters of established reputation, and they of course avoided the old +system of caricature, the old forced humour. But we doubt whether +their designs are so intimately associated with the persons in the stories +as are the designs of Mr. Browne. The later artists had this disadvantage, +that the later novels (except “Great Expectations,” which +was not illustrated) were neither so good nor so popular as “Pickwick,” +“Nicholas Nickleby,” “Martin Chuzzlewit,” “David +Copperfield,” or even “Bleak House.” We never +can <!-- page 125--><span class="pagenum">p. 125</span>have any Mr. +Micawber but Phiz’s indescribably jaunty Micawber. His Mr. +Pecksniff is not very like a human being, but his collars and his eye-glass +redeem him, and after all Pecksniff is a transcendental and incredible +Tartuffe. Tom Pinch is even less sympathetic in the drawings than +in the novel. Jonas Chuzzlewit is also “too steep,” +as a modern critic has said in modern slang. But in the novel, +too, Mr. Jonas is somewhat precipitous. Nicholas Nickleby is a +colourless sort of young man in the illustrations, but then he is not +very vividly presented in the text. Ralph Nickleby and Arthur +Gride may pair off with Jonas Chuzzlewit, but who can disparage the +immortal Mr. Squeers? From the first moment when we see him at +his inn, with the starveling little boys, through all the story, Mr. +Squeers is consistently exquisite. In spite of his cruelty, coarseness, +hypocrisy, there is a kind of humour in Mr. Squeers which makes him +not quite detestable. In “David Copperfield” Mr. Micawber +is perhaps the only artistic creation of much permanent merit, unless +it be the waiter who consumed David’s dinner, and the landlady +who gave him a pint of the Regular Stunning. <!-- page 126--><span class="pagenum">p. 126</span> +In “Bleak House” Mr. Browne made some credible attempts +to be tragic and pathetic. Jo is remembered, and the gateway of +the churchyard where the rats were, and the Ghost’s Walk in the +gloomy domain of Lady Dedlock.</p> +<p>It is a singular and gloomy feature in the character of young ladies +and gentlemen of a particular type that they have ceased to care for +Dickens, as they have ceased to care for Scott. They say they +cannot read Dickens. When Mr. Pickwick’s adventures are +presented to the modern maid, she behaves like the Cambridge freshman. +“Euclide viso, cohorruit et evasit.” When he was shown +Euclid he evinced dismay, and sneaked off. Even so do most young +people act when they are expected to read “Nicholas Nickleby” +and “Martin Chuzzlewit.” They call these masterpieces +“too gutterly gutter;” they cannot sympathize with this +honest humour and conscious pathos. Consequently the innumerable +references to Sam Weller, and Mrs. Gamp, and Mr. Pecksniff, and Mr. +Winkle which fill our ephemeral literature are written for these persons +in an unknown tongue. The number of people who could take a <!-- page 127--><span class="pagenum">p. 127</span>good +pass in Mr. Calverley’s Pickwick Examination Paper is said to +be diminishing. Pathetic questions are sometimes put. Are +we not too much cultivated? Can this fastidiousness be anything +but a casual passing phase of taste? Are all people over thirty +who cling to their Dickens and their Scott old fogies? Are we +wrong in preferring them to “Bootle’s Baby,” and “The +Quick or the Dead,” and the novels of M. Paul Bourget? <!-- page 128--><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span></p> +<h3>THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PROPOSALS.</h3> +<p>There is no subject in the whole range of human affairs so interesting +to a working majority of the race as the theory and practice of proposals +of marriage. Men perhaps cease to be very much concerned about +the ordeal when they have been through it. But the topic never +loses its charm for the fair, though they are presumed only to wait +and to listen, and never to speak for themselves. That this theory +has its exceptions appears to be the conviction of many novelists. +They not only make their young ladies “lead up to it,” but +heroines occasionally go much further than that, and do more than prompt +an inexperienced wooer. But all these things are only known to +the world through the confessions of novelists, who, perhaps, themselves +receive confessions. M. Goncourt not long ago requested all his +fair <!-- page 129--><span class="pagenum">p. 129</span>readers to send +him notes of their own private experience. How did you feel when +you were confirmed? How did Alphonse whisper his passion? +These and other questions, quite as intimate, were set by M. Goncourt. +He meant to use the answers, with all discreet reserve, in his next +novel. Do English novelists receive any private information, and +if they do not, how are we to reconcile their knowledge—they are +all love-adepts—with the morality of their lives? “We +live like other people, only more purely,” says the author of +“Some Private Views,” which is all very well. No man +is bound to incriminate himself. But as in the course of his career +a successful novelist describes many hundreds of proposals, all different, +are we to believe that he is so prompted merely by imagination? +Are there no “documents,” as M. Zola says, for all this +prodigious deal of love-making? These are questions which await +a reply in the interests of ethics and of art. Meanwhile an editor +of enterprise has selected five-and-thirty separate examples of “popping +the question,” as he calls it, from the tomes of British fiction. +To begin with an early case—when <!-- page 130--><span class="pagenum">p. 130</span>Tom +Jones returned to his tolerant Sophia, he called her “Madam,” +and she called him “Mr. Jones,” not Tom. She asked +Thomas how she could rely on his constancy, when the lover of Miss Segrim +drew a mirror from his pocket (like Strephon in “Iolanthe”), +and cried, “Behold that lovely figure, that shape, those eyes,” +with other compliments; “can the man who shall be in possession +of these be inconstant?” Sophia was charmed by the “man +in possession,” but forced her features into a frown. Presently +Thomas “caught her in his arms,” and the rest was in accordance +with what Mr. Trollope and the best authorities recommend. How +differently did Arthur Pendennis carry himself when he proposed to Laura, +and did not want to be accepted! Lord Farintosh—his affecting +adventure is published here—proposed nicely enough, but did not +behave at all well when he was rejected. By the way, when young +men in novels are not accepted, they invariably ask the lady whether +she loves another. Only young ladies, and young men whom they +have rejected, know whether this is common in real life. It does +not seem quite right.</p> +<p>Kneeling has probably gone out, though <!-- page 131--><span class="pagenum">p. 131</span>Mr. +Jingle knelt before the maiden aunt, and remained in that attitude for +no less than five minutes. In Mr. Howell’s “Modern +Instance,” kneeling was not necessary, and the heroine kept thrusting +her face into her lover’s necktie; so the author tells us. +M. Théophile Gautier says that ladies invariably lay their heads +on the shoulder of the man who proposes (if he is the right man), and +for this piece of “business” (as we regret to say he considers +it) he assigns various motives. But he was a Frenchman, and the +cynicism of that nation (to parody a speech of Tom Jones’s) cannot +understand the delicacy of ours. Mr. Blackmore (in “Lorna +Doone”) lets his lover make quite a neat and appropriate speech, +but that was in the seventeenth century. When Artemus Ward began +a harangue of this sort, Betsy Jane knocked him off the fence on which +he was sitting, and first criticising his eloquence in a trenchant style, +added, “If you mean being hitched, I’m in it.” +In other respects the lover of Lorna Doone behaved as the best authorities +recommend.</p> +<p>Mr. Whyte Melville ventured to describe Chastelard’s proposal +to Mary Stuart, but it <!-- page 132--><span class="pagenum">p. 132</span>was +not exactly in Mr. Swinburne’s manner, and, where historical opinions +disagree, no reliance can be placed on speeches which were not taken +down by the intelligent reporters. Mr. Slope had his ears boxed +when he proposed to Mrs. Bold, but such Amazonian conduct is probably +rare, and neither party is apt to boast of it. He also, being +accepted, behaved in the manner to which the highest authorities have +lent their sanction, or, at least, he meant to do so, when the lady +“fled like a roe to her chamber.” For all widows are +not like widow Malone (ochone!) renowned in song. When Arbaces, +the magician, proposed to Ione, he did so in the most necromantic and +hierophantic manner in which it could be done; his “properties” +including a statue of Isis, an altar, “and a quick, blue, darting, +irregular flame.” But his flame, quick, blue, darting, and +irregular as it was, lighted no answering blaze in the ice-cold breast +of the lovely lone. When rejected (in spite of a splendid arrangement +of magic lanterns, then a novelty, got up regardless of expense) Arbaces +swore like an intoxicated mariner, rather than a necromaunt accustomed +to move in the highest <!-- page 133--><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>circles +and pentacles. Nancy, Miss Broughton’s heroine, tells her +middle-aged wooer, among other things, that she accepts him, because +“I did think it would be nice for the boys; but I like you myself, +besides.” After this ardent confession, he “kissed +her with a sort of diffidence.” Many men would have preferred +to go out and kick “the boys.”</p> +<p>Mr. Rochester’s proposal to Jane Eyre should be read in the +works both of Bret Harte and of Miss Brontë. We own that +we prefer Bret Harte’s Mr. Rawjester, who wearily ran the poker +through his hair, and wiped his boots on the dress of his beloved. +Even in the original authority, Mr. Rochester conducted himself rather +like a wild beast. He “ground his teeth,” “he +seemed to devour” Miss Eyre “with his flaming glance.” +Miss Eyre behaved with sense. “I retired to the door.” +Proposals of this desperate and homicidal character are probably rare +in real life, or, at least, out of lunatic asylums. To be sure, +Mr. Rochester’s house <i>was</i> a kind of lunatic asylum.</p> +<p>Adam Bede’s proposal to Dinah was a very thoughtful, earnest +proposal. John Inglesant himself could not have been less like +that <!-- page 134--><span class="pagenum">p. 134</span>victorious rascal, +Tom Jones. Colonel Jack, on the other hand, “used no great +ceremony.” But Colonel Jack, like the woman of Samaria in +the Scotch minister’s sermon, “had enjoyed a large and rich +matrimonial experience,” and went straight to the point, being +married the very day of his successful wooing. Some one in a story +of Mr. Wilkie Collins’s asks the fatal question at a croquet party. +At lawn-tennis, as Nimrod said long ago, “the pace is too good +to inquire” into matters of the affections. In Sir Walter’s +golden prime, or rather in the Forty-five as Sir Walter understood it, +ladies were in no hurry, and could select elegant expressions. +Thus did Flora reply to Waverley, “I can but explain to you with +candour the feelings which I now entertain; how they might be altered +by a train of circumstances too favourable, perhaps, to be hoped for, +it were in vain even to conjecture; only be assured, Mr. Waverley, that +after my brother’s honour and happiness, there is none which I +shall more sincerely pray for than yours.” This love is +indeed what Sidney Smith heard the Scotch lady call “love in the +abstract.” Mr. Kingsley’s Tom Thurnall somehow proposed, +<!-- page 135--><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>was accepted, and +was “converted” all at once—a more complex erototheological +performance was never heard of before.</p> +<p>Many of Mr. Abell’s thirty-five cases are selected from novelists +of no great mark; it would have been more instructive to examine only +the treatment of the great masters of romance. But, after all, +this is of little consequence. All day long and every day novelists +are teaching the “Art of Love,” and playing Ovid to the +time. But what are novels without love? Mere waste paper, +only fit to be reduced to pulp, and restored to a whiteness and firmness +on which more love lessons may be written. <a name="citation135"></a><a href="#footnote135">{135}</a> +<!-- page 136--><span class="pagenum">p. 136</span></p> +<h3>MASTER SAMUEL PEPYS.</h3> +<p>No man is a hero to his valet, and unluckily Samuel Pepys, by way +of a valet, chose posterity. All the trifles of temper, habit, +vice, and social ways which a keen-eyed valet may observe in his master +Samuel Pepys carefully recorded about himself, and bequeathed to the +diversion of future generations. The world knows Pepys as the +only man who ever wrote honest confessions, for Rousseau could not possibly +be candid for five minutes together, and St. Augustine was heavily handicapped +by being a saint. Samuel Pepys was no saint. We might best +define him, perhaps, by saying that if ever any man was his own Boswell, +that man was Samuel Pepys. He had Bozzy’s delightful appreciation +of life; writing in cypher, he had Bozzy’s shamelessness and more, +and he was his own hero. <!-- page 137--><span class="pagenum">p. 137</span></p> +<p>It is for these qualities and achievements that he received a monument +honoured in St. Olave’s, his favourite church. In St. Olave’s, +on December 23, 1660, Samuel went to pray, and had his pew all covered +with rosemary and baize. Thence he went home, and “with +much ado made haste to spit a turkey.” Here, in St. Olave’s, +he listened to “a dull sermon from a stranger.” Here, +when “a Scot” preached, Pepys “slept all the sermon,” +as a man who could “never be reconciled to the voice of the Scot.” +What an unworthy prejudice! Often he writes, “After a dull +sermon of the Scotchman, home;” or to church again, “and +there a simple coxcombe preached worse than the Scot.” Frequently +have the sacred walls of St. Olave’s, where his effigy may be +seen, echoed to the honest snoring of the Clerk of the Navy. There +Pepys lies now, his body having been brought “in a very honourable +and solemn manner,” from Clapham, where, according to that respected +sheet, the <i>Post-boy</i>, he expired on May 26, 1703. No stone +marked the spot, when Mr. Mynors Bright’s delightful edition of +Pepys was published in 1875. <!-- page 138--><span class="pagenum">p. 138</span></p> +<p>Now Pepys is honoured in that church where he sleeps even sounder +than in days when the Scot preached worse than usual. But he is +rewarded in death—not, it may be feared, for his real services +to England, but because he has amused us all so much. A dead humorist +may be better than a living official, however honest, industrious, and +careful.</p> +<p>In all these higher things Pepys was not found wanting. The +son of a tailor in the City, he yet had connections of good family, +who were of service to him when he entered public life. Samuel +Pepys was born in 1632. He was educated at Magdalene, Cambridge, +where he was once common-roomed for being “scandalously overserved +with liquor.” Through life he retained a friendly admiration +of Magdalene strong ale. He married a girl of fifteen when he +was but twenty-two; he entered the service of the State shortly afterwards. +He was the Chief Secretary for Naval Affairs during many years; he defended +his department at the Bar of the House of Commons after De Ruyter’s +attack in 1668, and he remained true to the Stuart dynasty in heart +after James was <!-- page 139--><span class="pagenum">p. 139</span>driven +abroad. Yet, though his contemporary biographer calls Pepys the +greatest and most useful public servant that ever filled the same situations +in England, Pepys would not now be honoured if he had not kept the most +amusing diary in the world. Samuel was a highly conscientious, +truly pious man, constant in all religious exercises, though he did +slumber when the Scot wagged his pow in a pulpit. At the same +time, Samuel lived in a very fast age, an age when pleasure was a business, +and “old Rowley, the king,” led the brawls. He was +young when society was most scandalously diverting. He had a pretty +wife, “poor wretch,” of whom he stood in some awe; and yet +this inconsistent naval secretary liked to flit from flower to flower. +He was vain, greedy, wanton, fond of the delight of the eye and the +pride of life; he was loving and loose in his manners; he was pious, +repentant, profligate; and he deliberately told the whole tale of all +his many changes of mood and mistress, of piety and pleasure. +One cannot open Pepys at random without finding him at his delightful +old games. On the Lord’s day he goes to church with Mr. +Creed, and hears a good <!-- page 140--><span class="pagenum">p. 140</span>sermon +from the red-faced parson. He came home, read divinity, dined, +and, he says, “played the fool,” and won a quart of sack +from Mr. Creed. Then to supper at the Banquet House, and there +Mr. Pepys and his wife fell to quarrelling over the beauty of Mrs. Pierce; +“she against, and I for,” says superfluous Pepys. +No one is in the least likely to suspect that Mrs. Pepys was angry with +her lord because he did not think Mrs. Pierce a beauty.</p> +<p>How living the whole story is! One can smell the flowers of +that Sunday in May, and the roast beef. The sack seems but newly +drawn, the red cheeks of Mrs. Pierce as fresh as ever. The flowers +grow over them now, or the church floor covers them; the sack is drunk, +the roast beef is eaten, the quarrel is over; the beauty and the red-faced +parson, the husband and wife, they are all with Tullus and Ancus. +<i>Pulvis et umbra</i>—that is the moral of “Pepys’s +Diary.” Life yet lives so strong in the cyphered pages; +all the colour, all the mirth, all the little troubles and sins, and +vows, they are so real they might be of yesterday or to-day, but the +end of them came nigh <!-- page 141--><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>two +hundred years ago. Therefore, to read Pepys is to enjoy our own +brief innings better, as men who know that our March is passing where +Pepys’ May has flown before, and that we shall soon be with him +and his wife, and the Scot, and the red-faced parson. So fleeting +is life, whose record outlives it for ever; so brief, so swift, so faint +the joys and sorrows, and all that we make marvel of in our own fortunes +and those of other men.</p> +<p>Reading Pepys is thus like reading Montaigne, whose cheery scepticism +his revelations recall. But Pepys has all the advantage of the +man living in the busiest world over the recluse in that famed library, +with the mottoes on the wall. Montaigne wrote in a retired and +contemplative home, viewing life, as Osman Digna has viewed strife, +“from afar,” almost safe from the shots of fortune. +But Pepys writes day by day, like a war correspondent, in the thick +of the battle; his head “full of business,” as he declares; +his heart full of many desires, many covetings, much pride in matters +that look small enough. He notes how, by chewing tobacco, Mr. +Chetwynde, who was consumptive, became very fat. He remarks how +a board <!-- page 142--><span class="pagenum">p. 142</span>fell, and +the dust powdered the ladies’ heads at the play, “which +made good sport.” He records every venison-pasty, every +flagon of wine, every pretty wench whom he encountered in his march +through his youth towards the vault in St. Olave’s. He is +vexed with Mrs. Pepys and troubled by “my aunt’s base ugly +humours.” He is “full of repentance,” like the +Bad Man in the Ethics, and thinks how much he is addicted to expense +and pleasure, “so that now I can hardly reclaim myself.” +He interests himself in Dr. Williams’s remarkable dog, which not +only killed cats, but buried them with punctilious obsequies, never +leaving the tip of puss’s tail out of the ground. Then he +goes to the play, “after swearing to my wife that I would never +go to the play without her.” He remembers one night that +he passed “with the greatest epicurism of sleep,” because +he was often disturbed, and so got out of sleeping more conscious enjoyment. +Now he sleeps what Socrates calls the sweetest slumber of all, if it +be but dreamless, or, somewhere, he enjoys all new experience, with +the lusty appetite of old. <!-- page 143--><span class="pagenum">p. 143</span></p> +<h3>INVOLUNTARY BAILEES.</h3> +<p>Lord Tennyson is probably the most extensive Involuntary Bailee at +present living. The term “Involuntary Bailee” may +or may not be a correct piece of legal terminology; at all events, it +sounds very imposing, and can be easily explained.</p> +<p>An Involuntary Bailee is a person to whom people (generally unknown +to him) send things which he does not wish to receive, but which they +are anxious to have returned. Most of us in our humble way are +or have been Involuntary Bailees. When some one you meet at dinner +recommends to your notice a book (generally of verse), and kindly insists +on sending it to you next day by post as a loan, you are an Involuntary +Bailee. You have the wretched book in your possession; no inducement +would make you read it, and to pack it up and send it back again <!-- page 144--><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>requires +a piece of string, energy, brown paper, and stamps enough to defray +the postage. Now, surely no casual acquaintance or neighbour for +an hour at a dinner-party has any right thus to make demands on a man’s +energy, money, time, brown paper, string, and other capital and commodities.</p> +<p>If the book be sent as a present, the crime is less black, though +still very culpable. You need take no notice of the present, whereby +you probably offend the author for life, and thus get rid of him anyhow. +Commonly, he is a minor poet, and sends you his tragedy on John Huss; +or he is a writer on mythological subjects, and is anxious to weary +you with a theory that Jack the Giant Killer was Julius Cæsar. +At the worst, you can toss his gift into the waste-paper basket, or +sell it for fourpence three-farthings, or set it on your bookshelf so +as to keep the damp away from books of which you are not the Involuntary +Bailee, but the unhappy purchaser. The case becomes truly black, +as we have said, when the uncalled-for tribute has to be returned. +Then it is sure to be lost, when the lender writes to say he wishes +to recover it. In future he will go about telling people that +<!-- page 145--><span class="pagenum">p. 145</span>the recipient stole +his best ideas from the manuscript (if it was a manuscript) which he +pretends to have lost.</p> +<p>Lord Tennyson has suffered from all these troubles to an extent which +the average Bailee can only fancy by looking with his mind’s eye +through “patent double million magnifiers.” A man +so eminent as the Laureate is the butt of all the miserable minor poets, +all the enthusiastic school-girls, all the autograph-hunters, all the +begging-letter writers, all the ambitious young tragedians, and all +the utterly unheard-of and imaginary relations in Kamschatka or Vancouver’s +Island with whom the wide world teems. Lord Tennyson has endured +these people for some fifty years, and now he takes a decided line. +He will not answer their letters, nor return their manuscripts.</p> +<p>Lord Tennyson is perfectly right to assume this attitude, only it +makes life even more hideous than of old to Mr. Browning and Mr. Swinburne. +Probably these distinguished writers are already sufficiently pestered +by the Mr. Tootses of this world, whose chief amusement is to address +epistles to persons of distinction. Mr. Toots was believed to +<!-- page 146--><span class="pagenum">p. 146</span>answer his own letters +himself, but the beings who fill Lord Tennyson’s, and Mr. Gladstone’s, +and probably Mr. Browning’s letterbox expect to receive answers. +Frightened away from Lord Tennyson’s baronial portals, they will +now crowd thicker than ever round the gates of other poets who have +not yet announced that they will prove irresponsive. Cannot the +Company of Authors (if that be the correct style and title) take this +matter up and succour the profession? Next, of course, to the +baneful publisher and the hopelessly indifferent public, most authors +suffer more from no one than from the unknown correspondent. The +unknown correspondent is very frequently of the fair sex, and her bright +home is not unusually in the setting sun. “Dear Mr. Brown,” +she writes to some poor author who never heard of her, nor of Idaho, +in the States, where she lives, “I cannot tell you how much I +admire your monograph on Phonetic Decay in its influence on Logic. +Please send me two copies with autograph inscriptions. I hope +to see you at home when I visit Europe in the Fall.”</p> +<p>Every man of letters, however humble, is accustomed to these salutations, +and probably <!-- page 147--><span class="pagenum">p. 147</span>Lord +Tennyson receives scores every morning at breakfast. Like all +distinguished poets, like Scott certainly, we presume that he is annoyed +with huge parcels of MSS. These (unless Lord Tennyson is more +fortunate than other singers) he is asked to read, correct, and return +with a carefully considered opinion as to the sender’s chance +of having “Assur ban-i-pal,” a tragedy, accepted at the +Gaiety Theatre. Rival but unheard-of bards will entreat him to +use his influence to get their verses published. Others (all the +world knows) will send him “spiteful letters,” assuring +him that “his fame in song has done them much wrong.” +How interesting it would be to ascertain the name of the author of that +immortal “spiteful letter”! Probably many persons +have felt that they could make a good guess; no less probably they have +been mistaken.</p> +<p>In no way can the recipient avoid making enemies of the authors of +all these communications if he is at all an honest, irascible man. +Mr. Dickens used to reply to total strangers, and to poets like Miss +Ada Menken, with a dignified and sympathetic politeness which disarmed +wrath. But he probably <!-- page 148--><span class="pagenum">p. 148</span>thereby +did but invite fresh trouble of the same kind. Mr. Thackeray (if +a recently-published answer was a fair specimen) used to answer more +briefly and brusquely. One thing is certain. No criticism +not entirety laudatory, which the Involuntary Bailee may make of his +correspondent’s MS., will be accepted without remonstrance. +Doubtless Lord Tennyson has at last chosen the only path of safety by +declining to answer his unknown correspondents, or to return their rubbish, +any more.</p> +<p>Of course, it is a wholly different affair when the anonymous correspondent +sends several brace of grouse, or a salmon of noble proportions, or +rare old books bound by Derome, or a service of Worcester china with +the square mark, or other tribute of that kind. Probably some +dozen of rhymers sent Lord Tennyson amateur congratulatory odes when +he was raised to the peerage. If he is at all like other poets, +he would have preferred a few dozen of extremely curious old port, or +a Villon published by Galiot du Pré, or a gold nugget, or some +of the produce of the diamond mines, to any number of signed congratulations +from total strangers. Actors <!-- page 149--><span class="pagenum">p. 149</span>seem +to receive nicer tributes than poets. Two brace of grouse were +thrown on the stage when Mr. Irving was acting in a northern town. +This is as picturesque as, and a great deal more permanently enjoyable +than, a shower of flowers and wreaths. Another day a lady threw +a gold cross on the stage, and yet another enthusiast contributed rare +books appropriately bound. These gifts will not, of course, be +returned by a celebrity who respects himself; but they bless him who +gives and him who takes, much more than tons of manuscript poetry, and +thousands of entreaties for an autograph, and millions of announcements +that the writer will be “proud to drink your honour’s noble +health.” <!-- page 150--><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span></p> +<h3>SUMMER NIGHTS.</h3> +<p>If the best of all ways of lengthening our days be to take a few +hours from the night, many of us are involuntarily prolonging existence +at the present hour. Macbeth did not murder sleep more effectually +than the hot weather does. At best, in the sultry nights, most +people sleep what is called “a dog’s sleep,” and by +no means the sleep of a lucky dog. As the old English writers +say, taking a distinction which our language appears to have lost, we +“rather slumber than sleep,” waking often, and full of the +foolishest of dreams. This condition of things probably affects +politics and society more than the thoughtless suppose. If literature +produced in the warm, airless fog of July be dull, who can marvel thereat?</p> +<p>“Of all gods,” says Pausanias, “Sleep is dearest +to the Muses;” and when the child <!-- page 151--><span class="pagenum">p. 151</span>of +the Muses does not get his regular nine hours’ rest (which he +fails to do in warm weather), then his verse and prose are certain to +bear traces of his languor. It is true that all children of the +Muses do not require about double the allowance of the saints. +Five hours was all St. Jerome took, and probably Byron did not sleep +much more during the season when he wrote “Childe Harold.” +The moderns who agree with the Locrians in erecting altars to Sleep, +can only reply that probably “Childe Harold” would have +been a better poem if Byron had kept more regular hours when he was +composing it. So far they will, perhaps, have Mr. Swinburne with +them, though that author also has Sung before Sunrise, when he would +(if the wisdom of the ancients be correct) have been better employed +in plucking the flower of sleep.</p> +<p>Leaving literature, and looking at society, it is certain that the +human temper is more lively, and more unkind things are said, in a sultry +than in a temperate season. In the restless night-watches people +have time to brood over small wrongs, and wax indignant over tiny slights +and unoffered invitations. Perhaps politics, too, are apt to be +more <!-- page 152--><span class="pagenum">p. 152</span>rancorous in +a “heated term.” Man is very much what his liver makes +him.</p> +<p>Hot weather vexes the unrested soul in nothing more than this, that +(like a revolution in Paris) it tempts the people to “go down +into the streets.” The streets are cooler, at least, than +stuffy gas-lit rooms; and if the public would only roam them in a contemplative +spirit, with eyes turned up to the peaceful constellations, the public +might fall down an area now and then, but would not much disturb the +neighbourhood. But the ’Arry that walketh by night thinks +of nothing less than admiring, with Kant, the starry heavens and the +moral nature of man. He seeks his peers, and together in great +bands they loiter or run, stopping to chaff each other, and to jeer +at the passer-by. Their satire is monotonous in character, chiefly +consisting of the words for using which the famous Mr. Budd beat the +baker. <a name="citation152"></a><a href="#footnote152">{152}</a> +Now, the sultry weather makes it absolutely necessary to leave bedroom +windows wide open, so that he who is courting sleep has all the advantage +of studying the dialogue of the slums. These disturbances last +till two in the morning <!-- page 153--><span class="pagenum">p. 153</span>in +some otherwise quiet districts near the river. When Battersea +’Arry has been “on the fly” in Chelsea, while Chelsea +’Arry has been pursuing pleasure in Battersea, the homeward-faring +bands meet, about one in the morning, on the Embankment. Then +does Cheyne Walk hear the amœbean dialogues of strayed revellers, +and knows not whether Battersea or Chelsea best deserves the pipe, the +short black pipe, for which the rival swains compete in profanity and +slang. In music, too, does this modern Dionysiac procession rejoice, +and Kensington echoes like Cithæron when Pan was keeping his orgies +there—Pan and the Theban nymphs. The music and the song +of the London street roamer is excessively harsh, crabbed, and tuneless. +Almost as provoking it is, in a quiet way, when three or four quite +harmless people meet under a bedroom window and converse in their usual +tone of voice about their private affairs.</p> +<p>These little gatherings sometimes seem as if they would never break +up, and though the persons in the piece mean no harm, they are nearly +as noxious to sleep as the loud musical water-side rough or public-house +<!-- page 154--><span class="pagenum">p. 154</span>loafer. Dogs, +too, like men, seem to feel it incumbent on them to howl more than usual +in hot weather, and to bay the moon with particular earnestness in July. +No enemy of sleep is deadlier than a dear, good, affectionate dog, whose +owners next door have accidentally shut him out. The whole night +long he bewails his loneliness, in accents charged with profound melancholy. +The author of the “Amusement Philosophique” would have us +believe that animals can speak. Nothing makes more for his opinion +than the exquisite variety of lyrical howl in which a shut-out dog expresses +every phrase of blighted affection, incommunicable longing, and supreme +despair. Somehow he never, literally never, wakens his owners. +He only keeps all the other people in a four-mile radius wide awake. +Yet how few have the energy and public spirit to get up and go for that +dog with sticks, umbrellas, and pieces of road-metal! The most +enterprising do little more than shout at him out of the window, or +take long futile shots at him with bits of coal from the fireplace. +When we have a Municipal Government of London, then, perhaps, measures +will be taken with dogs, and justice <!-- page 155--><span class="pagenum">p. 155</span>will +be meted out to the owners of fowls. At present these fiends in +human shape can keep their detestable pets, and defy the menaces, as +they have rejected the prayers, of their neighbours. The amount +of profanity, insanity, ill-health, and general misery which one rooster +can cause is far beyond calculation.</p> +<p>When London nights are intolerable, people think with longing of +the cool, fragrant country, of the jasmine-muffled lattices, and the +groups beneath the dreaming evening star. One dreams of coffee +after dinner in the open air, as described in “In Memoriam;” +one longs for the cool, the hush, the quiet. But try the country +on a July night. First you have trouble with all the great, big, +hairy, leathery moths and bats which fly in at the jasmine-muffled lattice, +and endeavour to put out your candle. You blow the candle out, +and then a bluebottle fly in good voice comes out too, and is accompanied +by very fair imitations of mosquitoes. Probably they are only +gnats, but in blowing their terrible little trumpets they are of the +mosquito kind. Next the fact dawns on you that the church clock +in the neighbouring spire strikes the <!-- page 156--><span class="pagenum">p. 156</span>quarters, +and you know that you cannot fall asleep before the chime wakes you +up again, with its warning, “Another quarter gone.” +The cocks come forth and crow about four; the hens proclaim to a drowsy +world that they have fulfilled the duties of maternity. All through +the ambrosial night three cows, in the meadow under your windows, have +been lamenting the loss of their calves. Of all terrible notes, +the “routing” of a bereaved, or amorous, or homesick cow +is the most disturbing. It carries for miles, and keeps all who +hear it—all town-bred folk, at least—far from the land of +Nod. At dawn the song-birds begin, and hold you awake, as they +disturbed Rufinus long ago; but the odds are that they do not inspire +you, like Rufinus, with the desire to write poetry. The short +and simple language of profanity is more likely to come unbidden to +the wakeful lips. Thus, as John Leech found out, the country in +July is almost as dreadful at night as the town. Nay, thanks to +the cow, we think the country may bear away the prize for all that is +uncomfortable, all that is hostile to sleep and the Muses. Yet +rustics always sleep very well, and no more <!-- page 157--><span class="pagenum">p. 157</span>mind +the noise of cocks, sparrows, cows, dogs, and ducks than the owner of +a town-bred dog minds when his faithful hound drives a whole street +beyond their patience. It is a matter of sound health and untaxed +brains. If we always gave our minds a rest, none of us would dread +the noises of the nights of summer. <!-- page 158--><span class="pagenum">p. 158</span></p> +<h3>ON HYPOCHONDRIACS.</h3> +<p>A nice state we are in, according to the <i>Medical Times</i>. +If the secrets of our “casebooks”—that is, we suppose, +our medical <i>dossiers</i>, doctors’ records of the condition +of their patients—could be revealed, it would be shown that many +clever people have a fancy skeleton in their cupboards. By a fancy +skeleton we mean, not some dismal secret of crime or shame, but a melancholy +and apprehensiveness without any ground in outward facts. With +the real skeleton doctors have nothing to do. He rather belongs +to the province of Scotland Yard. If a man has compromised himself +in some way, if he has been found out by some scoundrel, if he is compelled +to “sing,” as the French say, or to pay “blackmail,” +then the doctor is not concerned in the business. A detective, +a revolver, or a well-planned <!-- page 159--><span class="pagenum">p. 159</span>secret +flight may be prescribed to the victim. Other real skeletons men +possess which do not come of their own misdeeds. One of their +friends or one of their family may be the skeleton, or the consciousness +of coming and veritable misfortune, pecuniary or what-not. But +the <i>Medical Times</i>, which no doubt ought to know, refers purely +to cases of vague melancholy and hypochondriac foreboding. Apparently +“The Spleen,” the “English Disease,” is as bad +now as when Green wrote in verse and Dr. Cheyne in prose. Prosperous +business men, literary gents in active employment, artists, students, +tradesmen, “are all visited by melancholy, revealed only to their +doctors, and sometimes to their domestic circle.”</p> +<p>Unhappy domestic circle, brooded over by a gloomy parent, who thinks +that life is too short, or faith too much a matter of speculation, or +that the country is going to the dogs! Then the doctor, it seems, +hears his patient, and recommends him only to drink a very little whisky +and potash water, or to take two bottles of port every day, or to take +to angling, or to give up smoking, or to work less or to work more, +or to go to bed early <!-- page 160--><span class="pagenum">p. 160</span>or +to get up late, or to ride, or to fence, or to play golf, or to go to +Upper Egypt or the Engadine, or anything that fancy may dictate and +opportunity suggest. So the kind physician advises his mournful +self-tormentor, and then he himself flies round the corner and consults +some brother-healer about his own subjective gloom.</p> +<p>Old ladies, in speaking of the misdeeds of youth, are apt to recommend +“a good shaking” as a panacea. Really those victims +of whom our contemporary speaks, appear to be persons on whom “a +good shaking,” mental or physical, would produce a salutary effect. +Cowardice, vanity, overweening self-consciousness, are the causes of +most melancholy. No doubt it has physical causes too. Dr. +Johnson suffered,—one of the best and bravest of men. But +most of us suffer—if suffer we do—because we over-estimate +ourselves and our own importance. Mr. Matthew Arnold has tried +to enforce this lesson. After a horrible murder in a railway carriage, +Mr. Arnold observed, with pain, the “almost bloodthirsty clinging +to life” of his fellow-passengers. In vain he pointed out +to them that even if they were to depart, “the great mundane movement” +<!-- page 161--><span class="pagenum">p. 161</span>would go on as usual. +But they refused to be comforted. Every man was afraid of meeting +his own Müller; and as to the great mundane movement, no one cared +a pin. This selfishness is among the chief causes of melancholy. +A man persuades himself that he will not live long, or that his prospects +in this world or the next are gloomy; or he takes views as absurdly +far-reaching as those of the spinsters in the old tale, who wept over +the hypothetical fate of the child one of them might have had if she +had been married. Now, there is a certain melancholy not unbecoming +a man; indeed, to be without it is hardly to be human. Here we +do find ourselves, indeed, like the shipwrecked mariner on the isle +of Pascal’s apologue; all around us are the unknown seas, all +about us are the indomitable and eternal processes of generation and +corruption. “We come like water, and like wind we go.” +Life is, indeed, as the great Persian says—</p> +<blockquote><p>“A moment’s halt, a momentary taste<br /> +Of being from the well beside the waste.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>These just causes of melancholy and of awe have presented themselves +to all reflective <!-- page 162--><span class="pagenum">p. 162</span>men +at all times. They deeply affect the thought, so wholesome and +so human, of Homer. They express themselves in that old English +pagan’s allegory of the bird that flies from the dark into the +warm and lighted hall, and from the hall into the dark again. +Not to be capable of these reflections is to be incapable of tasting +the noblest poetry. Such thoughts actually give zest to our days, +and sharpen our enjoyment of that which we have only a brief moment +to enjoy. Such thoughts add their own sweetness and sadness to +the song of the nightingale, to the fall of the leaves, to the coming +of the spring. Were we “exempt from eld and age,” +this noble melancholy could never be ours, and we, like the ancient +classical gods, would be incapable of tears. What Prometheus says +in Mr. Bridge’s poem is true—</p> +<blockquote> +<p> + “Not in heaven,<br /> +Among our easy gods, hath facile time<br /> +A touch so keen to wake such love of life<br /> +As stirs the frail and careful being of Man.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Such are the benefits of Melancholy, when she is only an occasional +guest, and is not pampered or made the object of devotion. But +Melancholy, though an excellent companion <!-- page 163--><span class="pagenum">p. 163</span>for +an hour, is the most exacting and depressing of mistresses. The +man who gives himself up to her, who always takes too long views, who +broods on the future of this planet when the sun has burned out, is +on the high-way to madness. The odds are that he does not travel +all the way. He remains a self-tormented wretch, highly profitable +to his medical man, and a frightful nuisance to his family. Now, +there are, of course, cases in which this melancholy has physical causes. +It may come of indigestion, and then the remedy is known. Less +dining out (indeed, no one will ask the abjectly melancholy man out) +and more exercise may be recommended. The melancholy man had better +take to angling; it is a contemplative pastime, but he will find it +far from a gloomy one. The sounds and sights of nature will revive +and relieve him, and, if he is only successful, the weight of a few +pounds of fish on his back will make him toss off that burden which +poor Christian carried out of the City of Destruction. No man +can be melancholy when the south wind blows in spring, when the soft, +feathery March-browns flit from the alders and fall in the water, while +<!-- page 164--><span class="pagenum">p. 164</span>the surface boils +with the heads and tails of trout.</p> +<p>Perhaps, on the other hand, the melancholy one lives too much in +the country. Then let him go to Paris or Vienna; let him try the +Palais Royal, and spend a good deal of money in the shops. A course +of this might have cured even Obermann, whom there was nothing to check +or divert while he kept philandering on the mountains with the snows +and his woes. There are plenty of such cures for a melancholy +not yet incurable; change of air, scene, food, amusement, and occupation +being the best. True, the Romans tried this, as Seneca and Lucretius +tells us, and found themselves as much bored as ever. “No +easier nor no quicker passed th’ impracticable hours.” +But the Romans were very extreme cases.</p> +<p>When the cause of melancholy is religious or moral, there is little +to be done with the victim. In “Sartor Resartus” he +will read how Mr. Carlyle cured himself, if ever he was cured. +To be brief, he said, “What then, who cares?” and indeed, +in more reverent form of expression, it is all that can be said. +When Nicias addressed the doomed and wasted <!-- page 165--><span class="pagenum">p. 165</span>remnant +of the Athenian expedition to Syracuse, he told them that “others, +too, being men, had borne things which had to be endured.” +That is the whole philosophy of the matter. <!-- page 166--><span class="pagenum">p. 166</span></p> +<h3>THACKERAY’S LONDON.</h3> +<p>A house in a highly respectable square, where Jeames Yellowplush +was in service, had recently the fame of being haunted. No one +knew exactly what haunted this desirable mansion, or how, though a novelist +was understood to have supplied a satisfactory legend. The young +man who “investigated” the ghost rang the bell thrice violently, +and then fell down dead, nor could he in any wise satisfy the curiosity +of his friends. That fable is exploded. It was what is called +an “ætiological myth;” by the learned it was merely +a story devised to account for the fact that the house was not occupied. +The imagination of man, confronted by so strange a problem as money +running to waste, took refuge in the supernatural. Much more truly +haunted than the house in “Buckley Square” are the streets +of <!-- page 167--><span class="pagenum">p. 167</span>London which are +tenanted by the ghosts that genius created. These, having never +been born, can never die, and still we may meet them in the roads and +squares where they lived and took their pastime. Mr. Rideing, +an American author, has published (with Messrs. Jarvis and Son) a little +volume called “Thackeray’s London,” an account of +the places which that great novelist made household words, and filled +with genial spectres that time can never lay. Mr. Rideing’s +little book does not strike us as being quite complete. Surely +Thackeray, especially in the “Ballads,” mentions many places +not alluded to by the new topographer. Besides, Mr. Rideing says +that Thackeray’s readers forget the localities in which his characters +appear. Surely this is a calumny on human memory. Who but +thinks of Becky Sharp as he trudges down Curzon Street? Has Bryanston +Square properly any reason for existence, except that the Hobson Newcomes +dwelt there? Are the chambers of Captain Costigan forgotten by +the memory of any man, or those of Pen and George Warrington? +But Pen took better rooms, not so lofty, when he scored that success +with “Walter Lorraine.” <!-- page 168--><span class="pagenum">p. 168</span> +Where did Mr. Bowes, the hopeless admirer of the Fotheringay, dwell? +Every one should know, but that question might puzzle some. Or +where was the lair of the Mulligan? Like the grave of Arthur, +or of Molière, it is unknown; the whole of the postal district +known as W. is haunted by that tremendous shade. “I live +there,” says he, pointing down towards Uxbridge with the big stick +he carries; so his abode is in that direction, at any rate. No +more has been given to man to know.</p> +<p>Many minor reminiscences occur to the mind. In Pump Court we +encounter the brisk little spectre of Mr. Frederick Minchin, and who +can forget that his club was The Oxford and Cambridge, than which what +better could he desire? Mr. Thackeray himself was a member of +The Garrick, The Athenæum, and The Reform, but the clubs of many +of his characters, like the “buth” of Jeames Yellowplush, +are “wrapped up in a mistry.” They are alluded to +by fancy names, but the scholiast on Thackeray will probably be able +to identify them. Is it not time, by the way, for that scholiast +to give his labours to the public? Thackeray’s world is +passing; the children he knew, the boys he tipped and took to the <!-- page 169--><span class="pagenum">p. 169</span>play, +are middle-aged men—fogies, in fact. <i>Tempus edax rerum</i>, +Time has an appetite as good as that of a boy at his first club dinner. +The meaning of the great writer’s contemporary allusions may be +lost, like those of Villon and Aristophanes. Such is the fate +of comedy. Who knows, if we turn to Dickens, what the “common +profeel machine” was, or what were the steps of the dance known +as the Fanteag (the spelling is dubious); or what the author meant by +a “red-faced Nixon.” Was it a nixie? Does the +new Professor of the English Language and Literature at Oxford hope +to cast the light of Teutonic research on these and similar inquiries? +Sam Weller found that oysters always went hand-in-hand with poverty. +How this must astonish a generation which finds the oyster nearly as +extinct as the ichthyosaurus! The “Book of Snobs” +calls aloud for a commentator. Who is the nobleman holding his +boots out of the hotel window—an act which the Snob very properly +declined to classify as snobbish? Who are the originals of Henry +Foker (this, indeed, is known), and of Wagg and Wenham? Or did +Wenham’s real name <i>rhyme</i> to Foker, as, according to the +Mulligan, <!-- page 170--><span class="pagenum">p. 170</span>“Perkins +rhymes to Jerkins, my man of firkins”? Posterity will insist +on an answer, which will be nothing if not authentic. Posterity, +<i>pace</i> Mr. Rideing, will remember very well that George Osborne’s +father lived in Russell Square, and will hunt in vain for 96. +There is no such number, any more than there ever was such a Pope as +he to whom the unfortunate old woman in “Candid” attributed +her birth. Here once more, as Voltaire justly remarks in a footnote, +we observe the discretion of our author.</p> +<p>Colonel Newcome lived, as is well known, in Fitzroy Square, and died +in the Charter House. To these shrines the pious go in pilgrimage; +the rather dingy quarters are brightened by the memory of his presence, +as we think of Scott in Castle Street, Edinburgh, or of Dr. John Brown +in Princes Street—Dr. John Brown who was a Colonel Newcome that +had gone into medicine instead of the army. Smithfield is hardly +more memorable for her martyrs than for the battles fought on neighbouring +ground between Biggs and Berry, between Cuff and old Figs. Kentish +Town, but little sought for sentimental reasons, is glorified by the +memory <!-- page 171--><span class="pagenum">p. 171</span>of Adolphus +Larkins; “Islington, Pentonville, Somers Town, were the scenes +of many of his exploits.” Brompton, again, passionate Brompton, +lent her shelter—or rather, sold it, for the poetess lived in +a boarding-house—to Miss Bunnion. Cursitor Street might +be unknown as the great men before Agamemnon (many of whom, by the way, +as Meleager and Pirithous, are known well enough) had not Cursitor Street +contained the sponging-house where Rawdon Crawley was incarcerated.</p> +<p>In addition to these scholia on Thackeray so sadly needed, and so +little likely to be published, we need novelists’ maps and topographies +of London and Paris. These will probably be constructed by some +American of leisure; they order these things better in America. +When we go to Paris we want to know where Balzac’s men and women +lived, Z. Marcas and César Birotteau, and Le Cousin Pons, and +Le Père Goriot, and all the duchesses, financiers, scoundrels, +journalists, and persons of both sexes and no character “Comédie +Humaine.” London also might be thus spaced out—the +London of Richardson, and Fielding, and Miss Burney, as well as the +<!-- page 172--><span class="pagenum">p. 172</span>London of Thackeray +or Dickens. Already, to speak of to-day, Rupert Street is more +interesting, because there, fallen in fortune, but resolute of heart +and courtly as ever, Prince Florizel of Bohemia held his cigar divan. +<!-- page 173--><span class="pagenum">p. 173</span></p> +<h3>TORRID SUMMER.</h3> +<p>“Is it very cold?” asks the Prince of Denmark, according +to a familiar reading. No one has any occasion to consult the +thermometer before answering the question, “Is it very hot?” +All things combine to prove that it is very hot. Even the man +of metal who used, according to legend, to patrol the coast of Crete, +the man with only one vein from head to heel, would admit (could he +appear in the Machineries at present) that it is very hot indeed. +He might not feel any subjective sensation of heat (for he seems to +have been a mythical anticipation of the Conquering Machine which is +to dominate the world), but he would have inferred the height of the +temperature from a number of phenomena. He would have seen the +ticket-clerks in the railway stations with their coats off. He +would have observed imitation Japanese <!-- page 174--><span class="pagenum">p. 174</span>parasols +at a penny among the ware of enterprising capitalists in the streets. +He would have marked the very street-boys in wide, inexpensive straw +hats of various and astonishing colours. Woman he would have found +in beautiful shades of blue, in such light garments “woven wind” +as Theocritus speaks of when he presents the wife of his doctor with +a new ivory distaff.</p> +<p>As to men, they in their attire do show their wit or their want of +courage, as the case may be. It is not easy for modern man, when +he “repairs to the metropolis,” to dress up to the heat +of the weather. An ingenious though too hasty philosopher once +observed that all men who wear velvet coats are atheists. He probably +overstated the amount of intellectual and spiritual audacity to be expected +from him who, setting the picturesque before the conventional, dons +a coat of velvet. But it really does require some originality +even to wear a white hat and a white waistcoat in a London July. +The heat is never so great but that the majority of males endure black +coats and black shiny hats. The others are in a minority. +The voice of public opinion is not on their side. “Who stole +<!-- page 175--><span class="pagenum">p. 175</span>the moke, Anna?” +asked suspicion; and the answer came, “The man in the <i>chapeau +blanc</i>.” There is something daring, something distinctive +in a white hat; and it may be doubted whether the amount of comfort +obtained by the revolutionary wearer is in a due ratio to the conspicuousness +which his action entails on him. Members of Parliament are singularly +emancipated from these fears of the brave; but members of Parliament +cannot supply the whole contingent of white-hatted men now to be seen +in the streets of the metropolis. Their presence proves that it +is very hot indeed. One swallow does not make a summer, but half +a dozen pairs of “ducks” beheld in public places would mark +a summer of unusually high temperature.</p> +<p>There are, of course, alleviations. Nature compensates all +who can afford to purchase the compensations. Strawberries, long +waited for, shy, retiring fruit, have now nearly approached the popular +price of sixpence a basket. A divine of a past generation declared +that in his opinion the joys of Paradise would consist of eating strawberries +to the sound of a trumpet. For a poor sixpence half <!-- page 176--><span class="pagenum">p. 176</span>of +this transcendental pastime may be partaken of, and probably the brass +band which is usually round the corner could supply the sound of the +trumpet at a small extra charge.</p> +<p>Unluckily, doctors have decided that many of us must not eat strawberries, +nor drink champagne cup, nor iced coffee. That is the way with +doctors. Æsculapius was originally worshipped in the form +of a serpent; in the guise of a serpent he came to Rome. Medical +men still hold of their heroic father, and physicians are the serpents +in the Paradise of a warm summer. Mortals, in their hands, are +like Sancho Panza with his medical adviser. Here is summer, provoking +a gentle interest in every method of assuaging thirst, and almost every +method is condemned by one member of the faculty or another. Champagne +cannot be so royally sound, nor is shandy-gaff so humble, that it ’scapes +whipping. How melancholy a thing is human life at best! +In boyhood we can eat more ices than our pocket-money enables us to +purchase; in maturity we have the pocket-money without the powers of +digestion. The French lady said that if strawberry ices were only +sinful, no pleasure could exceed that which <!-- page 177--><span class="pagenum">p. 177</span>is +to be enjoyed in the consumption of the congealed fruit. Strawberry +ices are sinful now, and under the medical ban. The French lady, +were she living still, might be at ease on that score. But her +audacity is not given to all, and many fall back on that poor creature, +lemon-squash, when they are conscious of a thirst worthy of being quenched +by the most imperial beverages in imperial quarts.</p> +<p>Men, being reasonable, must hurry about town when the thermometer +is at something fabulous, wearing black clothes, going to parties, and +larding the lean earth. Beasts are not so foolish. To the +pious Brahmin Vishnu accords the power of becoming what animal he pleases, +with a break in the lease, so to speak, when circumstances alter. +Had a sage this power at this moment he would become a cow, standing +up to her middle in the clear, cool water of the Kennet, under the shade +of a hanging willow tree. What bliss can equal that of a cow thus +engaged? Her life must, indeed, be burning with a hard gem-like +flame. She must be plucking the flower of a series of exquisite +moments. The rich, deep grass, with the buttercups and forget-me-nots, +<!-- page 178--><span class="pagenum">p. 178</span>is behind her, but +she has had enough of that, and is open to more spiritual pleasures. +The kingfishers and water-wagtails flit about her. The water-rat +jumps into the stream with a soft plash, and his black body scuttles +along to the opposite bank. The green dragon-flies float hither +and thither; the beautiful frail-winged water-flies float over trout +too lazy to snatch at them. The cow, in her sensuous nirvana, +may see and marvel at the warm boating-man as he tows two stout young +ladies in a heavy boat, or labours with the oar. Her pleasure +is far more enduring than that of the bathers in the lasher up stream, +and she has an enormous advantage over the contemplative man trying +to lie on the grass and enjoy nature, for he really is not enjoying +nature. The pleasures of lying on the grass are chiefly those +of imagination. You cannot get into a truly comfortable position. +Your back has a lump of grass under it here, or your arm tingles and +“falls asleep,” as children say. No attitude will +enable you to read, and the black flies hover around and alight on such +of your features as are tempting—to a fly. Then you begin +to be quite sure it is damp, and, as you <!-- page 179--><span class="pagenum">p. 179</span>have +nothing else to sit on, you sit down on your book, which no one can +call comfortable.</p> +<p>The notion of reclining on cushions in a punt is equally fallacious, +and, while promising much, ends in a headache. Besides, the river +does not always smell very nicely now that it has so long been unrelieved +by rain. All through the hot day, in fact, civilized northern +man finds loafing very difficult, especially as his Aryan impetuosity +is always urging him to do something active. Cows in this climate +are the only true lotus-eaters. Next to them in enjoyment comes +the angler who approaches the river about eight o’clock, at the +time of the “evening rise.” He, like the cow, is knee-deep +in water, wading; he listens to the plash of big, hungry trout, sucking +down gnats under the alders; he casts over them, and if he catches them, +who more content than he, as the sky turns from amber to purple and +silvery grey, and the light fades till one cannot thread the gut through +the eye-hole of one of the new-fashioned hooks? Certainly this +man is more blessed than he who is just coming to the ices at a big, +hot London dinner, and knows that his physician has forbidden him <!-- page 180--><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>this +form of enjoyment. What a struggle in that person’s mind! +and how almost predestined is his fall! how sure his repentance next +morning! <!-- page 181--><span class="pagenum">p. 181</span></p> +<h3>WESTERN DROLLS.</h3> +<p>The death of Mr. “Josh Billings” may have diminished +the stock of harmless pleasures, but can hardly be said to have eclipsed +the gaiety of nations. In this country, at least, however it may +have been in the States, Josh Billings was by no means the favourite +or leading American humorist. If phonetic spelling were universal, +much of his fun would disappear. His place was nearer that of +Orpheus C. Kerr than of Artemus Ward, or of Mark Twain. It has +long been the English habit to look for most of our broad fun across +the Atlantic. Americans say we are not a funny people. A +chivalrous and mediæval French writer, not unfrequently quoted, +once made a kindred remark. We are not at present a boisterously +comic lot of geniuses, and if you see the tears running down the eyes +of a fellow-countryman reading in a <!-- page 182--><span class="pagenum">p. 182</span>railway +carriage, if he be writhing with mirth too powerful for expression, +the odds are that he has got hold of a Yankee book.</p> +<p>In American country newspapers there is usually one column entirely +devoted to facetiæ, which appear to have been clipped out of the +columns of other country papers. They live on each other, just +as the natives of the Scilly Islands are feigned to eke out a precarious +livelihood by taking in each other’s washing. It is averred +that one American journal, the <i>Danbury Newsman</i>, contains nothing +but merriment—a fearful idea! We have nothing like this +at home, and as for writers who make a reader giggle almost indelicately +often, where are they to be found? “Happy Thoughts” +affect some of us in this way; others are convulsed by “Vice Versâ;” +but, as George Eliot says, nothing is such a strain on the affections +as a difference of taste in jokes. It is unsafe to recommend any +writer as very funny. No man can ever tell how his neighbour will +take a joke. But it may safely be said that authors who really +tickle their students are extremely rare in England, except as writers +for the stage, and surely “The Great Pink Pearl” might have +<!-- page 183--><span class="pagenum">p. 183</span>made Timon of Athens +shake his sides, or might convert a Veddah to the belief that “there +is something to laugh at.” In literature, when we want to +be even hysterically diverted, we must, as a rule, buy our fun from +the American humorists. If we cannot make laughter ourselves, +at least we can, and do, laugh with them.</p> +<p>A vast amount of American humour may be called local and middle-class. +In the youth of Dickens, there was a regular set of home-made middle-class +jokes about babies, about washing-day, about mothers-in-law, about dinner-parties +that were not successes, about curtain lectures, about feminine extravagance +in bonnet-buying, about drunken men, about beer, all of them jokes worn +threadbare. A similar kind of fun, with local differences, prevails +in the States, but is wonderfully mixed up with scriptural and religious +jokes. To us sober Britons, whatever our opinions, these latter +japes appear more or less ribald, though they are quite innocently made.</p> +<p>Aristophanes, a pious conservative, was always laughing consumedly +at the Greek gods, and the Greek gods were supposed to <!-- page 184--><span class="pagenum">p. 184</span>be +in the joke. The theatrical season was sacred to the deity of +wine and fun, and he, with the other Olympians, was not scandalized +by the merriment. In the ages of faith it is also notorious that +saints, and even more sacred persons, were habitually buffooned in the +Mystery Plays, and the Church saw no harm. The old leaven of American +Puritanism has the same kind of familiarity with ideas and words which +we approach more delicately, conscious that the place where we tread +is holy ground. This consciousness appears to be less present +in the States, which are peopled by descendants of the Puritans, and +scores of good things are told in “family” American journals +and magazines which are received without a grin in this country. +“We are not amused,” a great person is reported to have +once observed when some wit had ventured on a hazardous anecdote. +And we, meaning the people of England, are often not amused, but rather +vexed, by gaieties which appear absolutely harmless on the other side +of the ocean. These two kinds of humour, the middle-class jokes +about courting between lovers seated on a snake fence, or about Sunday +schools <!-- page 185--><span class="pagenum">p. 185</span>and quaint +answers there given to Biblical questions, leave us cold.</p> +<p>But surely we appreciate as well as the Americans themselves the +extraordinarily intellectual high spirits of Mark Twain, a writer whose +genius goes on mellowing, ripening, widening, and improving at an age +when another man would have written himself out. His gravity in +narrating the most preposterous tale, his sympathy with every one of +his absurdest characters, his microscopic imagination, his vein of seriousness, +his contrasts of pathos, his bursts of indignant plain speaking about +certain national errors, make Mark Twain an author of the highest merit, +and far remote from the mere buffoon. Say the “Jumping Frog” +is buffoonery; perhaps it is, but Louis Quinze could not have classed +the author among the people he did not love, <i>les buffons qui ne me +font rire</i>. The man is not to be envied who does not laugh +over the ride on “The Genuine Mexican Plug” till he is almost +as sore as the equestrian after that adventure. Again, while studying +the narrative of how Mark edited an agricultural paper in a country +district, a person with any sense of humour is scarcely a responsible +being. <!-- page 186--><span class="pagenum">p. 186</span> He is quite +unfit (so doth he revel in laughter uncontrollable) for the society +of staid people, and he ought to be ejected from club libraries, where +his shouts waken the bald-headed sleepers of these retreats. It +is one example of what we have tried to urge, that “Mark’s +way” is not nearly so acceptable in “The Innocents Abroad,” +especially when the Innocents get to the Holy Land. We think it +in bad taste, for example, to snigger over the Siege of Samaria, and +the discomfiture of “shoddy speculators” in curious articles +of food during that great leaguer. Recently Mark Twain has shown +in his Mississippi sketches, in “Tom Sawyer,” and in “Hucklebury +Finn,” that he can paint a landscape, that he can describe life, +that he can tell a story as well as the very best, and all without losing +the gift of laughter. His travel-books are his least excellent; +he is happiest at home, in the country of his own Blue Jay.</p> +<p>The contrasts, the energy, the mixture of races in America, the overflowing +young life of the continent, doubtless give its humorists the richness +of its vein. All over the land men are eternally “swopping +stories” at bars, and in the long, endless journeys by railway +<!-- page 187--><span class="pagenum">p. 187</span>and steamer. +How little, comparatively, the English “swop stories”! +The Scotch are almost as much addicted as the Americans to this form +of barter, so are the Irish. The Englishman has usually a dignified +dread of dropping into his “anecdotage.”</p> +<p>The stories thus collected in America are the subsoil of American +literary humour, a rich soil in which the plant cultivated by Mark Twain +and Mr. Frank Stockton grows with vigour and puts forth fruit and flowers. +Mr. Stockton is very unlike Mark Twain: he is quiet, domesticated, the +jester of the family circle. Yet he has shown in “Rudder +Grange,” and in “The Transferred Ghost,” very great +powers, and a pleasant, dry kind of Amontillado flavour in his fun, +which somewhat reminds one of Thackeray—the Thackeray of the “Bedford-row +Conspiracy” and of “A Little Dinner at Timmins.” +Mr. Stockton’s vein is a little too connubial—a little too +rich in the humours and experiences of young married people. But +his fun is rarely strained or artificial, except in the later chapters +of “Rudder Grange,” and he has a certain kindliness and +tenderness not to be always met with in the jester. His angling +<!-- page 188--><span class="pagenum">p. 188</span>and hunting pieces +are excellent, and so are those of Mr. Charles Dudley Warner. +This humorist (like Alceste) was once “funnier than he had supposed,” +when he sat down with a certain classical author, to study the topography +of Epipolæ. But his talent is his own, and very agreeable, +though he once so forgot himself as to jest on the Deceased Wife’s +Sister. When we think of those writers to whom we all owe so much, +it would be sheer ingratitude to omit the name of the master of them +all, Oliver Wendell Holmes. Here is a wit who is a scholar, and +almost a poet, and whose humour is none the less precious for being +accompanied by good humour, learning, a wide experience of the world. +With Mr. Lowell, he belongs to an older generation, yet reigns among +the present. May the reign be long! <!-- page 189--><span class="pagenum">p. 189</span></p> +<h3>SHOW SUNDAY.</h3> +<p>The years bring round very quickly the old familiar events. +Yesterday was Show Sunday. It scarcely seems a year since last +the painters received their friends, and perhaps a few of their enemies. +These visits to studios are very exciting to ladies who have read about +studios in novels, and believe that they will find everywhere tawny +tiger-skins, Venetian girls, chrysanthemum and hawthorn patterned porcelain, +suits of armour, old plate, swords, and guns, and bows, and all the +other “properties” of the painter of romance. Some +of these delightful things, no doubt, the visitors of yesterday saw, +and probably some painters still wear velvet coats and red neckties, +and long hair and pointed beards. But the typical artist is not +what he was. He has become domesticated. Sometimes he is +nearly as rich and “apolaustic” as a successful stock-broker, +<!-- page 190--><span class="pagenum">p. 190</span>and much more fashionable. +Then he dwells in marble halls, with pleasing fountains, by whose falls +all sorts of birds sing madrigals. He has an entirely new house, +in short, fitted up in the early Basque style, or after the fashion +of an Inca’s palace, or like the Royal dwelling of a Rajah, including, +of course, all modern improvements. This is a very desirable kind +of artist to know at home; but, after all, it is not easy to distinguish +him from a highly-cultivated and successful merchant prince, with a +taste for <i>bric-à-brac</i>. He is not in the least like +the painter of romance; perhaps he is better—he is certainly more +fortunate; but he is not the real old thing, the Bohemian of Ouida and +Miss Braddon. One might as well expect a banker to be a Bohemian.</p> +<p>Another class of modern painter is even more disappointing. +He is extremely neat and smooth in his appearance, and dresses in the +height of the most quiet fashion. His voice is low and soft, and +he never (like the artist of fiction) employs that English word whereby +the Royalist sailor was recognized when, attired as a Portuguee, he +tried to blow up one of the ships of Admiral <!-- page 191--><span class="pagenum">p. 191</span>Blake. +This new kind of artist avoids studio slang as much as he does long +hair and red waistcoats. He might be a young barrister, only he +is more polished; or a young doctor, only he is more urbane. No +doubt there exist men of the ancient species—rough-and-ready men +as strong as bargees, given to much tobacco, amateurs of porter or shandygaff, +great hunters of the picturesque, such wild folk as Thackeray knew and +Mr. Charles Keene occasionally caricatures. These are the artists +whom young ladies want to see, but they are not in great force on Show +Sunday. They rather look on that festival as a day of national +mourning and humiliation and woe. They do not care to have all +Belgravia or South Kensington let loose in their places. They +do not wish the public to gaze and simper at pieces which will probably +be enskied or rejected, or hung at a dangerous corner next a popular +picture.</p> +<p>No painter who is not of the most secure eminence can, perhaps, quite +enjoy Show Sunday. Many of his visitors know as much about Art +as the Fuegians do of white neckties. They come and gaze, and +say, “How soft, how sweet!” like Rosey Mackenzie, and <!-- page 192--><span class="pagenum">p. 192</span>have +tea, and go away. Other people offer amazing suggestions, and +no one who thinks the pictures failures quite manages to conceal his +opinion. Poets are said to be fond of reading their own poems +aloud, which seems amazing; but then as they read they cannot see their +audience, nor guess how they are boring those sufferers. The poet, +like the domestic fowl which did not scream when plucked, is “too +much absorbed.” But while his friends look at his pictures, +the painter looks at their faces, and must make many sad discoveries. +Like other artists, he does not care nearly so much for the praise as +he is dashed and discomfited by the slightest hint of blame. It +is a wonder that irascible painters do not run amuck among their own +canvases and their visitors on Show Sunday. That, at least, in +Mr. Browning’s phrase, is “how it strikes a contemporary.” +Were the artists to yield to the promptings of their lower nature, were +they to hearken to the Old Man within them, fearful massacres would +occur in St. John’s Wood, and Campden Hill, and round Holland +House. An alarmed public and a powerless police would behold vast +ladies of wealth, and maidens fair, and <!-- page 193--><span class="pagenum">p. 193</span>wild +critics with eye-glasses speeding, at a furious pace, along certain +roads, pursued by painters armed to the teeth with palette knives and +mahlsticks.</p> +<p>This is what would occur if academicians and others gave way to the +natural passions provoked by criticism and general demeanour on Show +Sunday. But it is a proof of the triumph of civilization that +nothing of this kind occurs. Peace prevails in the street and +studio, and at the end of the day the artist must feel much as the critic +does after the private view at the Royal Academy. The artist has +been having a private view of the public on its good behaviour, and +that wild contempt of the bourgeois which burns in every artist’s +breast must reach its highest temperature. However, the holidays +are beginning, the working season is over, and that reflection, doubtless, +helps the weary painter through his ordeal. But his friends also +have to bear a good deal if they happen not to like his performances. +They must feign admiration as well as they may, and the sun of Show +Sunday goes down on a world rather glad that it is well over.</p> +<p>Lord Beaconsfield once said at an Academy <!-- page 194--><span class="pagenum">p. 194</span>dinner +that originality was the great characteristic of English art. +So little was he supposed to have spoken seriously that another, of +whose ceasing to perorate there is no prospect, characterized his criticism +in language so strong that it cannot well be repeated. Let us +admit that Lord Beaconsfield was either mistaken, or that, like the +Consul Aulus, “he spake a bitter jest.” Our artists, +when they have found their vein, go on working it. They do not +wander off in search of new veins, as a general rule. It would +be unkind to draw attention to personal proofs of this truism. +He who has done well with babies in fancy dresses will go on doing well +with infants in masquerade. There are moments when the arrival +of Cronus to swallow the whole family of painted babes, as he did his +own, would be not unwelcome; when an artistic Herod would be applauded +for a general massacre of the Burlington House innocents. But +this may be only the jaundiced theory of a jaded critic. The mothers +of England are a much more important set of judges, and they like the +babies. Then the bishops, though a little monotonous, must be +agreeable to their flocks; <!-- page 195--><span class="pagenum">p. 195</span>while +the hunting dogs, and pugs, and kittens, and monks, and Venetian girls—<i>la +blonde et la brune</i>—and the Highland rivers of the colour of +porter “with a head on it,” and the mackerel-hued sea, and +the marble, and the martyrs, and the Mediterranean—they are all +dear to various classes of our teeming population. The critic +may say he has seen them all before, he knows them off by heart; but +then so does he know Raphael’s infants, and Botticelli’s +madonnas, and Fra Angelico’s angel trumpeters, and Vecelli’s +blue hills, and Robusti’s doges, and Lionardo’s smiling, +enigmatic ladies. He does not say he is tired of these, but that +is only his eternal affectation. He is afraid, perhaps, to say +that the old masters bore him—that is a compliment reserved for +contemporaries. Let it be admitted that in all ages artists have +had their grooves, like other men, and have reproduced themselves and +their own best effects. But, as this is inevitably true, how careful +they should be that the effects are really of permanent value and beauty! +Realistic hansom cabs, and babies in strange raiment, and schoolgirls +of the last century, and Masters of Hounds, are scarcely of so much +permanent <!-- page 196--><span class="pagenum">p. 196</span>value as +the favourite types and characters which Lionardo and Carpaccio repeat +again and again. We no more think Claude monotonous than we think +“the quiet coloured end of evening” flat and stale. +But we may, and must, tire of certain modern combinations too often +rehearsed, after the trick has become a habit, and the method an open +mystery. <!-- page 197--><span class="pagenum">p. 197</span></p> +<h3>THE DRY FLY.</h3> +<p>As the Easter vacation approaches, the cockney angler, the “inveterate +cockney,” as Lord Salisbury did or did not say, begins to look +to his fishing tackle. Now comes in the sweet of the year, and +we may regret, with Mr. Swinburne, that “such sweet things should +be fleet, such fleet things sweet.” There are not many days +that the London trout-fisher gets by the waterside. The streams +worth his attention, and also within his reach, are few, and either +preserved so that he cannot approach them, or harried by poachers as +well as anglers. How much happier were men in Walton’s day +who stretched their legs up Tottenham Hill and soon found, in the Lea, +trout which would take a worm when the rod was left to fish for itself! +In those old days Hackney might be called a fishing village. There +was in Walton’s later years a writer on <!-- page 198--><span class="pagenum">p. 198</span>fishing +named W. Gilbert, “Gent.” This gent produced a small +work called the “Angler’s Delight,” and if the angler +was delighted, he must have been very easily pleased. The book +now sells for large sums, apparently because it is scarce, for it is +eminently worthless. The gentle writer, instead of giving directions +about fly-dressing, calmly tells his readers to go and buy his flies +at a little shop “near Powle’s.” To the “Angler’s +Delight” this same W. Gilbert added a tract on “The Hackney +River, and the best stands there.” Now there are no stands +there, except cabstands, which of course are uninteresting to the angler. +Two hundred years have put his fishing far away from him.</p> +<p>However, the ancient longing lives in him, and the Sunday morning +trains from Paddington are full of early fishing-men. But it cannot +be that most of them are after trout, the Thames trout being so artful +that it needs a week’s work and private information to come to +terms with him. Hitherto he has been spun for chiefly, or coaxed +with live bait; but now people think that a good big loch fly may win +his affections. It is to be hoped that this view is correct, for +the attempts by spinning <!-- page 199--><span class="pagenum">p. 199</span>and +with live bait are calculated to stretch and crack even the proverbial +patience of anglers. Persons conscious of less enduring mettle +in their mind will soon be off to the moorland waters of Devonshire, +or the Border, where trout are small, fairly plentiful, and come early +into season. About the upper waters of Severn, where Sabrina is +still unvexed by pollution, and where the stream is not greater than +Tweed at Peebles, sport is fair in spring.</p> +<p>Though the Devonshire, and Border, and probably the Welsh waters, +are just in their prime, the season is not yet for the Itchen and the +Kennet, with their vast over-educated and over-fed monsters of the deep. +Though there may be respectable angling for accomplished artists thereabouts +in late April and May, the true sport does not begin till the May-fly +comes in, which he generally does in June. Then the Kennet is +a lovely and seductive spectacle to the angler. Between the turns +of sun and shower the most beautiful delicate insects, frail as gossamer +and fair as a fairy, are born, and flit for their hour, and float down +the water, soon to be swallowed by the big four-pound trout. He +who has no <!-- page 200--><span class="pagenum">p. 200</span>experience +of this angling, and who comes to it from practice in the North, at +first thinks he cannot go wrong. There is the smooth clear water, +broken every moment by a trout’s nose, just gently pushed up, +but indicating, by the size of the ripple, that a monster is feeding +below. You think, if you are accustomed to less experienced fish, +that all is well. You throw your flies, two or three, a yard above +the ripple, and wait to strike. But the ripples instantly cease, +and on the surface of the water you see the long thin track of a broad +back and huge dorsal fin. The trout has been, not frightened—he +is in no hurry—but disgusted by your clumsy cast, which would +readily have taken in a sea-trout or a loch-trout. They of Kennet +and Test know a good deal better than to approach your wet flies. +A few minutes of this failure reduce the novice to the despair of Tantalus. +<i>He</i> never was set to such a torture as casting over big feeding +trout and never getting a rise. You feel inclined to throw your +fly-book bodily at the heads of the trout and bid them take their choice +of its contents. That method of angling would be quite as successful +as angling for large southern trout <!-- page 201--><span class="pagenum">p. 201</span>in +the northern manner. So the novice either loses his temper and +walks away to take his ease and some shandy-gaff at the Bear, or he +sits down to smoke, or he potters botanically among the flowering water-weeds. +Then a southern angler comes near, and is presently playing a trout +which the northern man has not “put down,” or frightened +into total abstinence for the day. Then the true method of fishing +for trout in a clear stream is illustrated in practice, and a beautiful +and most delicate art it proves to be.</p> +<p>First, the angler notices a rising fish. Then he retires to +a safe distance from the bank, outflanks the trout, and comes round +in his rear. As fish always feed with their heads up stream, it +is necessary in such clear water to fish for them from below, from as +far below as possible. Every advantage is taken of cover, and +the angler soon acquires the habits of a skirmisher. A tuft of +rushes, an inequality in the ground, or an alder bush conceals him; +behind this he kneels, and gets his tackle in order. He uses only +one fly, not two or three, as people do on the Border. He carefully +measures his ground, flicking his cast through the air, so that the +fly shall be perfectly dry. Then the <!-- page 202--><span class="pagenum">p. 202</span>trout +rises, and in a moment the dry fly descends as lightly as a living insect, +half a foot above the ripple. Down it floats, the fisher watching +with a beating heart: then there is a ripple, then a splash; the rod +bends nearly double, the line flies out to the further bank, and the +struggle begins. The fight is by no means over, for the fish instinctively +makes for a bed of weeds, where he can entangle and break the line, +while the angler holds him as hard as he dares, and, if tackle be sound +and luck goes not contrary, the big trout is landed at last.</p> +<p>This is no trifling victory. Nay, a Kennet trout is far harder +to catch and kill than the capricious salmon, which will often take +a fly, however clumsy be the man who casts it. There is a profane +theory that several members of the Hungerford Club never catch the trout +they pay so much to have the privilege of trying to capture. A +very sure eye and clever hand are needed to make the fly light dry and +neat so close above the fish that he has not time to be alarmed by the +gut. “Gut-shy” he is, and the less he sees of it the +better. Moreover, a wonderful temper is required, for in the backward +cast of the long <!-- page 203--><span class="pagenum">p. 203</span>line +the hook will, ten to one, catch in a tree, or a flower, or a straw, +or a bit of hay, and then it has to be disengaged by the angler crawling +on hands and knees. Perhaps a northern angler will never quite +master the delicacy of this sport, nor acquire the entomological knowledge +which seems to be necessary, nor make up his mind between the partisans +of the light one-handed rod and the double-handed rod. <!-- page 204--><span class="pagenum">p. 204</span></p> +<h3>AMATEUR AUTHORS.</h3> +<p>Literature knows no Trades Unions, but if things go on as they are +at present, perhaps we shall hear of literary rattening and picketing. +The <i>Kölnische Zeitung</i>, in Germany, has been protesting against +the mob of noble ladies who write with ease, though their works, even +to persons acquainted with the German tongue, are by no means easy reading. +The Teutonic paper requests these ambitious dames to conduct themselves +as amateurs, to write, if write they must, but to print only a few copies +of their books, and give these few copies only to their friends. +This is advice as morally excellent as it will be practically futile, +nor does it apply only to ladies of rank, but to amateur novelists in +general. The old quarrel between artists and amateurs is fiercely +waged in dramatic society, perhaps because actors and actresses feel +the <!-- page 205--><span class="pagenum">p. 205</span>stress of competing +with cheap amateur labour. Now, though the professional novelist +has only of late begun to think seriously of the subject, it is plain +that he too is competing with labour unnaturally cheap, and is losing +in the competition. To define an amateur is difficult, as all +athletic clubs and rowing clubs are aware. But in this particular +field of human industry, the amateur may be defined with ease. +The amateur novelist is not merely the person who, having another profession, +writes a romance by way of “by-work,” as the Greeks called +it. Lord Beaconsfield was no amateur in romance, and perhaps no +novel was ever sold at so high a ransom as “Endymion.” +Yet Lord Beaconsfield only scribbled in his idle hours, and was not +half so much an amateur novelist as Mr. Gladstone is an amateur student +of Homer. No; the true amateur is he or she who publishes at his +or her own expense. The labour of such persons is not only cheap; +its rewards may be estimated by a frightful minus quantity—the +publisher’s bill. Every one must have observed that when +his box of books comes from the circulating library, it by no means +contains the books he has asked the librarian to send. <!-- page 206--><span class="pagenum">p. 206</span> +The batch does not exclusively consist of the plums and prizes of the +publishing season, of Sir Henry Gordon’s book on his illustrious +brother, of the most famous novel of the month, of Mr. Romilly’s +“New Guinea and the Western Pacific”—as diverting +a book of travel as ever was written, of Mr. Stockton’s “Mrs. +Null,” and generally of all that is freshest and most notable +in biography, fiction, and history. A few of the peaches of the +best quality there are, but the rest are fruit less valued, are, in +fact, amateur novels. There are two sets of three gaudy novels +by unheard-of ladies; and perhaps three shilling novels, with such titles +as “Who Did It?” “Chopped in Cover,” or +“Under a Cloud,” none of which names we trust are copyright. +A similar phenomenon presents itself at the bookstalls, which are choked +with cheap and unenticing brief tales of the deadly sins. And +whose fault is it that we do not get the good books and are flooded +with the bad books? Why, it is the fault of the ambitious amateur, +of the ladies and gentlemen who publish at their own risk, and at the +cost of the world of readers and professional writers.</p> +<p>This is, with a few remarkable limitations, <!-- page 207--><span class="pagenum">p. 207</span>a +free country. No law exists which says to publishers, “Thou +shalt not publish on commission.” No law confines the vagaries +of amateur romance. Hence the market is choked, and the circulating +libraries are overwhelmed with rubbish, and good books, as the Americans +of the West say, “get no show.” The debauched novel +reader, to whom every story is a story, and one no better nor worse +than another, may not heed it, but the judicious grieve, and the artist +in fiction returns a smaller income tax. Then the very revenue +suffers with the general decline of letters. It may, of course, +be urged that all artists are amateurs before they secure a paying public. +The amateur novelist may be compared to the young dramatic author who +gives his piece at a <i>matinée</i>, and who, once in a hundred +times, finds a manager to approve it. May not publishing <i>en +amateur</i> be the only way of reaching the public? To this question +the answer is, No! The risk of publishing a novel by a new author +is nothing like so great as the risk of producing a play with an unknown +name to it. Publishers exist for the purpose of bringing out books +that will pay, and they generally pounce on a <!-- page 208--><span class="pagenum">p. 208</span>good +manuscript in fiction, whether the writer be known or unknown. +It is much more easy to predict whether a novel will pay or not than +to prophecy about a drama. Thus the most obscure author (in spite +of the difficulties faced by “Jane Eyre” and “Vanity +Fair”) may rely on it, that if his MS. is not accepted, it is +not worth accepting. He should not, if he has decently sound reasons +for self-confidence, be disheartened by two or three refusals. +One man’s taste might be averse to “John Inglesant,” +another’s might turn against Ouida, a third might fail to see +the merit of “Vice Versâ.” But if half a dozen +experts taste and reject a manuscript, it is almost certain to be hopeless. +Then the author should take the advice once offered by Mr. Walter Besant. +“<i>Never</i> publish at your own expense.” If you +do, you stamp yourself as an amateur; you add to the crowd of futilities +that choke the market; and, if you have it in you to write a novel which +shall be a good piece, you are handicapping yourself by placing a bad +novel on your record. People sin out of thoughtlessness, as well +as depravity, and we would not say that every amateur novelist is, <i>ex +officio</i>, infamous, nefarious, and felonious. <!-- page 209--><span class="pagenum">p. 209</span> +He or she may be only rather vain, conceited, and unreflecting.</p> +<p>Where, then, is the remedy if homilies fail to convert the sinner, +as, indeed, it is the misfortune of homilies to fail? The remedy +will be found in a Novelists’ League, with tickets, and boycotting, +and strikes, and rattening, and all the other devices for getting our +own way in an oppressive world. There will be a secret society +of professionals. Lady novelists (amateurs) will be rattened; +their blotting-paper and French dictionaries will be stolen or destroyed; +their publishers will be boycotted by all members of the League, who +will decline to publish with any man known to deal with amateurs. +Nay, so powerful is this dread and even criminal confederacy, that amateurs +will not even be reviewed. Neither the slashing, nor the puffing, +nor the faintly praising notice will be meted out to them. There +will be a conspiracy of silence. The very circulating libraries +will be threatened, and coffins (stolen from undertakers who dabble +in romance) will be laid at Mr. Mudie’s door, unless he casts +off the amateur in fiction. The professionals will march through +rapine to emancipation. They will strike off the <!-- page 210--><span class="pagenum">p. 210</span>last +gyves that fetter the noble art of romance, and in five or six years +we shall have only about a tenth of the present number of romances, +but that tenth will pass through as many editions as “The Pilgrim’s +Progress,” which, by the way, was probably, like Ronsard’s +poems, the work of an amateur. But these were other times, when +an author did not expect to make money, and thought himself lucky if, +after a slashing personal review by the Inquisition, his fragments were +not burned at the stake in a bonfire of his volumes. <!-- page 211--><span class="pagenum">p. 211</span></p> +<h3>SOME RARE THINGS FOR SALE.</h3> +<p>An American writer has been complaining lately that his countrymen +have lost the habit of reading. This is partly the result of that +free trade in English books which is the only form of free trade that +suits the American Constitution. People do not buy American books +any longer, because they can get English works, mere printed rags, but +paying nothing to English authors, for a few cents. The rags, +of course, fall to pieces, and are tossed into the waste-paper basket, +and thus a habit of desultoriness and of abstention from books worth +styling books grows and grows, like a noxious and paralysing parasite, +over the American intellect. In this way our pleasant vices are +made instruments to plague us, and the condition of the law, which leaves +the British authors at the mercy of the Aldens <!-- page 212--><span class="pagenum">p. 212</span>and +Monros of the States, is beginning to react on the buyers of goods indelicately +obtained. Even newspaper articles are becoming, it is said, a +heavy and a weary weight on the demoralised attention, and people are +ceasing to read anything but brief and probably personal paragraphs, +such as “Joaquin Miller has had his hair cut.”</p> +<p>This is a deplorable condition of things, and perhaps not quite without +example at home, where, however, many people still intend to read books, +and order them at the libraries, though they never really carry out +intentions which, like those of Wilkins Micawber the younger, are excellent. +To persons conscious of mental debility and incapable of grappling even +with a short shilling novel, a brief and easy form of reading may be +recommended. They may study catalogues; they may peruse the lists +of their wares which secondhand booksellers and dealers in all kinds +of curiosities circulate gratis. This is the only kind of circular +which should not go straight to its long home in the waste-paper basket. +A catalogue is full of information. It is so exceedingly inconsecutive +that even the most successful barrister, or doctor, or <!-- page 213--><span class="pagenum">p. 213</span>stockbroker +(they are the people that read least) need not be fatigued by its contents. +The catalogue skips from gay to grave, from Tupper to Aretino, from +Dickens to “Drelincourt on Death.” You can pick it +up where you like, and lay it down when your poor fagged attention is +distracted by a cab in the street, or a bird in the branches. +Then there is the pleasure of marking with a pencil the articles which +you would buy if you could—the Nankin double bottle, the old novel +bound in the arms of the Comtesse de Verrue, the picture ascribed to +the school of Potto Pottoboileri. Of course, in these bad times, +such purchases are out of the question, but the taste and judgment are +gratified by “marking them down,” like partridges in September.</p> +<p>These contemplative reveries on catalogues have been inspired by +a catalogue, not without its merits—a list of relics of Mexican +history now to be sold. The curious may find it for themselves, +the wealthy may speculate in the treasures which it advertises. +Here is a piece of the Emperor Maximilian’s waistcoat, “same +in which they shot him,” to employ an idiom of Captain Rawdon +Crawley’s. There are many relics of the <!-- page 214--><span class="pagenum">p. 214</span>same +recent and troublous times; but the amateur is more strongly attracted +by a very singular series of objects of the times of the Spanish Conquest, +nearly four hundred years ago. It is not so much the obsidian +idols, made of that curious bottle-glass-like mineral so fashionable +among the Aztecs, as the authentic remains of Fernando Cortes that the +collector will covet. What man had ever such fortune as Cortes—he +who discovered a new world as strange as a new planet? He conquered +a great civilized race, he overthrew a dynasty, not only of mortals, +but of gods. Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl fled from him, and +their hideous priests, draped and masked in skins fresh flayed from +beasts or men, vanished at his coming, as Isis, Osiris, and the dog +Anubis fled from the folding star of Bethlehem. He fought battles +like the visions of romance, and he took great and stately cities, with +all their temples and towers, which a month before were as unknown to +Europeans as the capitals of Mars and Sirius. The wonderful catalogue +of which we speak is rich in relics of this hero. We are offered +a chance to buy his “trunk,” a carved wooden trunk in which +Cortes carried <!-- page 215--><span class="pagenum">p. 215</span>his +personal property. His army chest, which held the sacred gold +of Montesuma and the treasure of the Temple of the Sun, is to be sold +for a consideration. His pistols are also on sale, and his “field-glass,” +which must be an exceedingly early example of that useful invention. +Whether the field-glass is binocular or not, the catalogue does not +pause to inform us. Corslets worn by his brave Castilians are +also to be vended, perhaps the very leather and steel that guarded the +honest heart of good Bernal Diaz. But all these treasures, and +even the very “scissors” of Fernando Cortes, are less enticingly +romantic than the iron head of Alvarado’s spear. Surely +no spear since that of Peleus’ son, not to be wielded by meaner +men, has ever been so well worth acquiring as the spear of Alvarado, +Tonatrish the sun-god, as he was called by the Mexicans, by reason of +his long, bright, golden hair. This may have been, probably was, +the spear that Alvarado bore when he charged up the steps of the great +Teocalli or God’s house, rained upon by Aztec darts, driving before +him the hordes of heathendom. With this very spear, when the summit +was gained, he may have fought in that strange <!-- page 216--><span class="pagenum">p. 216</span>fight, +high in air, beheld by all the people of the city and all the allies +of Spain. Here stood the Christian cross; there was planted the +war-god, Huitzilopochtli; there the two faiths fought out their battle, +and the vanquished were tossed dying down the sides of the Teocalli. +Then the Spaniard was victorious; fire was set to the Teocalli, and +the cannibal Aztec religion rolled away in the clouds of smoke and vapour +of flame. With the self-same spear (no doubt) did Alvarado make +his famous leap, using it as a leaping pole to clear the canal during +the retreat of the Night of Dread. Assuredly Alvarado’s +spear, or even the iron head of it alone, is an object worthy of an +archæologist’s regard, and scarce less curious than that</p> +<blockquote><p>“Broomstick o’ the Witch of Endor,<br /> +Weel shod wi’ brass,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>which Burns describes in the collection of Captain Grove. But +extraordinary as is the charm of these relics of Anahuac and of Castille, +perhaps even more engrossing is the last article in this romantic catalogue, +namely, “a green portfolio” giving an account of the various +articles, and how they came into the <!-- page 217--><span class="pagenum">p. 217</span>hands +of their proprietor. Their pedigree, if authentic, must be most +important.</p> +<p>Probably the most inattentive mind, even in the holidays, could “tackle” +a catalogue like this, or another in which the snuff-box of Xerxes and +the boot-jack of Themistocles should be offered for sale. These +antiquities seem scarcely less desirable, or less likely to come into +the market, than the scissors, pistols, and field-glass of Fernando +Cortes. An original portion of the Tables of the Law (broken on +a familiar occasion by the prophet), Hannibal’s cigarette case, +a landing net (at one time in the possession of Alcibiades), a piece +of chalk used by Archimedes in his mathematical demonstrations, the +bronze shoe of Empedocles, the arrow on which Abaris flew, and the walking-stick, +a considerable piece of timber, which Dr. Johnson lost in Mull, may +all be reposing in some private collection. Collectors do get +very odd things together. Poor M. Soleirol had quite a gallery +of portraits and autographs of Molière, and a French mathematician, +about a dozen years ago, possessed an assortment of apocryphal letters +from almost every one mentioned in history, sacred <!-- page 218--><span class="pagenum">p. 218</span>or +profane. The collection of Mr. Samuel Ireland was like this, and +an English student possessed autographs of most of the great reformers, +carefully written by an ingenious swindler in contemporary books. +The lovers of relics are apt to be thus deluded, and perhaps we should +not regret this, as long as they are happy. But they should be +very careful indeed when they are asked to buy Alvarado’s spear, +though probably it is extant somewhere, as it certainly is in the catalogue. +It is a question of caution in the purchaser. <!-- page 219--><span class="pagenum">p. 219</span></p> +<h3>CURIOSITY HUNTING.</h3> +<p>What will people not collect in this curious age, and what prices +will they not pay for things apparently valueless? Few objects +can seem less desirable than an old postage-stamp, yet our Paris correspondent +informs us that postage-stamps are at a premium in the capital of taste +and of pleasure. A well-known dealer offers £4 15<i>s</i>. +for every Tuscan stamp earlier than 1860, and £16 for particularly +fine examples. Mauritius stamps of 1847 are estimated—by +the purchaser, mind—at two thousand francs, and post-marks of +British Guiana of 1836, from five hundred to a thousand francs. +Eighty pounds for a soiled bit of paper, that has no beauty to recommend +it! Probably no drawing of equal size from the very hand of Raffaelle +or Leonardo would be priced nearly so high as these grubby old stamps. +Yet the drawing <!-- page 220--><span class="pagenum">p. 220</span>would +be not only a thing of art, beautiful in itself, but also a personal +relic of the famous artist whose pencil touched it, while a stamp is +a relic of nothing but some forgotten postal arrangement with a colony. +We do not know, moreover, how much the dealer will ask for these stamps +when once he gets hold of them and has rich collectors at his mercy. +In no trade do the buyer’s price and the seller’s price +differ with such wide margins as in the commerce of curiosities, especially, +perhaps, in the book-trade. People find that they possess books +highly priced in dealers’ catalogues, and, if they want money, +they carry their treasures to the dealers. But “advantage +seldom comes of it.” The dealer has a different price, very +often, when he is a purchaser. This is intelligible, but, to many +persons who are not amateurs, the mania for rare postage-stamps passes +all understanding. Yet it is capable of being explained. +Like many other oddities and puzzling features in the ways of collectors, +the high price of certain stamps is the consequence of the passion for +perfection. Any one can collect stamps—little boys and schoolgirls +often do. But there comes a point at which foreign <!-- page 221--><span class="pagenum">p. 221</span>stamps +and old stamps grow rare, and more rare, and, finally, next to impossible +to procure. Here it is that the heart of the mature collector +begins to beat. He is determined to have a perfect collection. +Nothing shall escape him in the way of printed franks on letters. +Now, nineteen-twentieths of his assortment he can buy in the gross, +without trouble or great expense; but the last twentieth demands personal +care and attention, and the hunting up of old family letters, and the +haunting of great dealers’ shops, and peeping through dirty windows +in shady lanes and alleys. As he gets nearer and nearer a complete +collection the spoil grows more and more shy, the excitement faster +and more furious, till, finally, the amateur would sell an estate for +a square inch of paper, and turn large England to a little stamp, if +he had the opportunity. The fury of the pastime is caused by the +presence of definite limits. There is only a certain known number +of stamps in the world. This limit makes perfection possible.</p> +<p>It is not as if you were collecting really beautiful things like +Tanagra terra-cottas, or really rare and quaint and mysterious things +<!-- page 222--><span class="pagenum">p. 222</span>like aggery beads. +Though Tanagra terra-cottas, and aggery beads, and fine examples of +Moorish lustre, or of ancient Nankin, or of gold coins of the Roman +Empire, are all rare, yet there is no definite limit to their number. +More may turn up any day when the pickaxe breaks into a new Tanagra +cemetery, when a fallen palm in Ashanti brings up aggery beads clinging +to its earthy roots, when a pot of coins is found by some old Roman +way, and so forth. To be sure, perfection may be attained in coin +collecting, when a man has specimens of all known sorts, but even then +he will pine for better specimens, for the best specimens. In +the other branches of the sport we have mentioned the collector may +be eager, of course, for good things, but he can never know the passion +of the stampomaniac who has all sorts but three, and finds these within +his reach. Perfection is within a step of such a man, and that +step we fear he will take, even if it involves ever so many breaches +of the Decalogue. In one of this month’s magazines, in a +story called “Mr. Pierrepoint’s Repentance,” Mr. Grant +Allen tells the tale of a coin collector’s infamy, and that coin +collector a clergyman and fellow of his college. <!-- page 223--><span class="pagenum">p. 223</span> +A pope is said to have stolen a rare book from a painter, and it is +certain that enthusiastic collectors are apt to have “their moral +tone lowered some,” as the American gentleman said about the lady +whom he had wooed with intentions less than honourable.</p> +<p>A good example of the toils of the collector in pursuit of perfection +is given by M. Henri Beraldi in his very amusing catalogue of M. Paillet’s +library. This book, by the way, is itself scarce, and the bibliomaniac +will be rather lucky if he meets with it. M. Beraldi describes +M. Paillet’s copy of Dorat’s “Fables,” published +in 1773, with illustrations by Marillier. Nobody perhaps ever +reads Dorat now, but his book came out in the very palmiest days of +the art of illustration in France. There were no <i>photogravures</i> +then, nor hideous, scratchy, and seamy “processes,” such +as almost make one despair of progress and of the future of humanity. +The people that takes to “processes” is lost! The +illustrations of the “Fables” were duly engraved on copper. +There were ninety-nine vignettes, and as many tail-pieces. The +bibliographical history of the book is instructive, either to young +collectors or to the <!-- page 224--><span class="pagenum">p. 224</span>common +herd, not to speak impolitely—the persons who do not understand +what collectors want. The “Fables” were originally +published on three different sorts of paper, Dutch paper at seventy-two +francs, French paper at twenty-nine francs, and on “small paper” +at twenty-four francs. In 1853 the original drawings were bought +by one of the Rothschilds for about £60; they would now, probably, +be worth at least £1,000. The ordinary copies of the book +itself bring about £6, the large paper copies about £30, +and a copy in old morocco can hardly be estimated—you may pay +anything for it, as a copy in old calf has sold for £240.</p> +<p>Such is the natural history of a book pretty valueless as literature, +the “Fables” of Dorat. In the early edition of “Brunet’s +Manual,” published in 1821, the large paper copies of the work, +with the engravings in the earliest state, are priced at from fifteen +to eighteen francs. These vignettes had gone out of fashion; they +have come in again with a vengeance. The high prices, eighty or +a hundred pounds, are merely the beginning of what the great collectors +are ready to pay, and to do, and to suffer in the cause of Dorat. +In M. <!-- page 225--><span class="pagenum">p. 225</span>Cohen’s +catalogue of all these old illustrated books special mention is made +of M. Paillet’s copy of the “Fables.” It is +“a superb example, with all the engravings printed separately.” +But M. Paillet describes this specimen far more lovingly. All +the designs are separately printed, and, oh joy! all have all their +margins uncut. The book is “all that man can dream of” +in the way of perfection. Cuzin did the binding, in yellow morocco, +tooled with roses and butterflies. “Reader,” cries +M. Beraldi, “if you are not a collector you cannot imagine the +difficulty of getting such a copy. It is the thirteenth labour +of Hercules.” First you buy your text, then you must have +the separately printed <i>fleurons</i>. These can only be picked +up here and there, in sales and stalls. Perhaps you purchase half +of them in one lucky investment. With no great difficulty you +secure another lot. Then begins the hunt—you buy assortments +at the price of bank notes, merely for the sake of two or three out +of the mass. You offer to barter twenty-five for one you have +not got. Then you have all but three, which you demand from the +universe at large: then all but two; then all but one. What you +pay for <!-- page 226--><span class="pagenum">p. 226</span>that one +you keep a profound secret, lest your family should have you put under +control. Even then you are not safe, for some of your engravings +have false margins, and must be changed for entire examples. Such +are the joys of the collector, for shadows we are and engravings <i>à +toutes marges</i> we pursue.</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote6"></a><a href="#citation6">{6}</a> Except +with worm in a summer flood.</p> +<p><a name="footnote8"></a><a href="#citation8">{8}</a> Perhaps +an Editor put this moral in?</p> +<p><a name="footnote16"></a><a href="#citation16">{16}</a> The +author once caught a salmon. It did not behave in any way like +the ferocious fish in this article.</p> +<p><a name="footnote23"></a><a href="#citation23">{23}</a> Mr. +Wordsworth, in his poem of “The Recluse,” expresses a horror +of this diversion.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37"></a><a href="#citation37">{37}</a> It +is a melancholy fact that the Author has quite forgotten what <i>did</i> +happen! Thus a narrative, probably diverting, is for ever lost, +thanks to the modesty of our free Press.</p> +<p><a name="footnote135"></a><a href="#citation135">{135}</a> +These remarks were made before the great discovery of some modern authors, +that the best novels are those in which there is never a petticoat.</p> +<p><a name="footnote152"></a><a href="#citation152">{152}</a> +What <i>was</i> this anecdote?</p> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOST LEADERS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..961924c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #16529 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16529) diff --git a/old/16529.txt b/old/16529.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e927d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16529.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4156 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Lost Leaders, by Andrew Lang, Edited by W. +Pett Ridge + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + + + + +Title: Lost Leaders + + +Author: Andrew Lang + +Editor: W. Pett Ridge + +Release Date: August 14, 2005 [eBook #16529] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOST LEADERS*** + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1889 Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +LOST LEADERS +by +ANDREW LANG + + +LONDON + +KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE +1889 + + + + +PREFACE. + + +These articles are reprinted, by the permission of the Editor, from the +_Daily News_. They were selected and arranged by Mr. Pett Ridge, who, +with the Publishers, will perhaps kindly take a share in the +responsibility of republishing them. + + + + +LOST LEADERS. + + +SCOTCH RIVERS. + + +September is the season of the second and lovelier youth of the river- +scenery of Scotland. Spring comes but slowly up that way; it is June +before the woods have quite clothed themselves. In April the angler or +the sketcher is chilled by the east wind, whirling showers of hail, and +even when the riverbanks are sweet with primroses, the bluff tops of the +border hills are often bleak with late snow. This state of things is +less unpropitious to angling than might be expected. A hardy race of +trout will sometimes rise freely to the artificial fly when the natural +fly is destroyed, and the angler is almost blinded with dusty snowflakes. +All through midsummer the Scotch rivers lose their chief attractions. The +bracken has not yet changed its green for the fairy gold, the hue of its +decay; the woods wear a uniform and sombre green; the waters are low and +shrunken, and angling is almost impossible. But with September the +pleasant season returns for people who love "to be quiet, and go +a-fishing," or a-sketching. The hills put on a wonderful harmony of +colours, the woods rival the October splendours of English forests. The +bends of the Tweed below Melrose and round Mertoun--a scene that, as +Scott says, the river seems loth to leave--may challenge comparison with +anything the Thames can show at Nuneham or Cliefden. The angler, too, is +as fortunate as the lover of the picturesque. The trout that have hidden +themselves all summer, or at best have cautiously nibbled at the worm- +bait, now rise freely to the fly. Wherever a yellow leaf drops from +birch tree or elm the great trout are splashing, and they are too eager +to distinguish very subtly between flies of nature's making and flies of +fur and feather. It is a time when every one who can manage it should be +by the water-side, and should take with him, if possible, the posthumous +work of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder on the "Rivers of Scotland." + +This book, as the author of "Rab and his Friends" tells us in the +preface, is a re-publication of articles written in 1848, on the death- +bed of the author, a man of many accomplishments and of a most lovable +nature. He would lie and dictate or write in pencil these happy and +wistful memories of days passed by the banks of Tweed and Tyne. He did +not care to speak of the northern waters: of Tay, which the Roman +invaders compared to Tiber; of Laxford, the river of salmon; or of the +"thundering Spey." Nor has he anything to say of the west, and of +Galloway, the country out of which young Lochinvar came, with its soft +and broken hills, like the lower spurs of the Pyrenees, and its streams, +now rushing down defiles of rock, now stealing with slow foot through the +plains. He confines himself to the limits of the Scottish Arcadia; to +the hills near Edinburgh, where Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd loved and sang +in a rather affected way; and to the main stream and the tributaries of +the Tweed. He tells, with a humour like that of Charles Lamb in his +account of his youthful search for the mysterious fountain-head of the +New River, how he sought among the Pentland Hills for the source of the +brook that flowed past his own garden. The wandering stream led him +through many a scene renowned in Border history, up to the heights whence +Marmion surveyed the Scottish forces encamped on Borough Moor before the +fatal day of Flodden. These scenes are described with spirit and loving +interest; but it is by Tweedside that the tourist will find his most +pleasant guide in Lauder's book. Just as Cicero said of Athens, that in +every stone you tread on a history, so on Tweedside by every nook and +valley you find the place of a ballad, a story, or a legend. From +Tweed's source, near the grave of the Wizard Merlin, down to Berwick and +the sea, the Border "keeps" and towers are as frequent as castles on the +Rhine. Each has its tradition, its memory of lawless times, which have +become beautiful in the magic of poetry and the mist of the past. First +comes Neidpath Castle, with its vaulted "hanging chamber" in the roof, +and the rafter, with the iron ring to which prisoners were hanged, still +remaining to testify to the lawless power of Border lords. Neidpath has +a softer legend of the death of the lady of the house, when her lover +failed to recognize the features that had wasted with sorrow for his +absence. Lower down the river comes Clovenfords, with its memories of +Christopher North, and Peebles, where King James sings that there was +"dancing and derray" in his time; and still lower Ashiesteel, where Scott +was young and happy, and Abbotsford, where his fame and his misfortunes +found him out. It was on a bright afternoon in late September that he +died there, and the mourners by his bed heard through the silence the +murmuring of Tweed How many other associations there are by the tributary +rivers! what a breath of "pastoral melancholy"! There is Ettrick, where +the cautious lover in the old song of Ettrick banks found "a canny place +of meeting." Oakwood Tower, where Michael Scott, the wizard, wove his +spells, is a farm building--the haunted magician's room is a granary, +Earlstone, where Thomas the Rhymer dwelt, and whence the two white deer +recalled him to Elfland and to the arms of the fairy queen, is noted "for +its shawl manufactory." Only Yarrow still keeps its ancient quiet, and +the burn that was tinged by the blood of Douglas is unstained by more +commonplace dyes. + +All these changes make the "Rivers of Scotland" rather melancholy +reading. Thirty years have not passed since Lauder died, and how much he +would miss if he could revisit his beloved water! Spearing salmon by +torchlight is a forbidden thing. The rocks are no longer lit up with the +red glow; they resound no longer with the shouts and splashing of the +yeomen. You might almost as readily find a hart on Harthope, or a wild +cat at Catslack, or a wolf at Wolf-Cleugh, as catch three stone-weight of +trout in Meggat-water. {6} The days of guileless fish and fabulous +draughts of trout are over. No sportsman need take three large baskets +to the Gala now, as Lauder did, and actually filled them with thirty-six +dozen of trout. The modern angler must not allow his expectations to be +raised too highly by these stories. Sport has become much more difficult +in these times of rapidly growing population. It is a pleasant sight to +see the weavers spending their afternoons beside the Tweed; it is such a +sight as could not be witnessed by the closely preserved rivers of +England. But the weavers have taught the trout caution, and the dyes and +various pollutions of trade have thinned their numbers. Mr. Ruskin sees +no hope in this state of things; he preaches, in the spirit of old +Hesiod, that there is no piety in a race which defiles the "holy waters." +But surely civilization, even if it spoil sport and degrade scenery, is +better than a state of things in which the laird would hang up his foes +to an iron ring in the roof. The hill of Cowden Knowes may be a less +eligible place for lovers' meetings than it was of old. But in those +times the lord of Cowden Knowes is said by tradition to have had a way of +putting his prisoners in barrels studded with iron nails, and rolling +them down a brae. This is the side of the good old times which should +not be overlooked. It may not be pleasant to find blue dye and wool yarn +in Teviot, but it is more endurable than to have to encounter the bandit +Barnskill, who hewed his bed of flint, Scott says, in Minto Crags. Still, +the reading of the "Rivers of Scotland" leaves rather a sad impression on +the reader, and makes him ask once more if there is no way of reconciling +the beauty of rude ages with the comforts and culture of civilization. +This is a question that really demands an answer, though it is often put +in a mistaken way. The teachings of Mr. Ruskin and of his followers +would bring us back to a time when printing was not, and an engineer +would have been burned for a wizard. {8} But there is a point at which +civilization and production must begin to respect the limits of the +beautiful, on which they so constantly encroach. Who is to settle the +limit, and escape the charge of being either a _dilettante_ and a +sentimentalist on the one hand, or a Philistine on the other? + + + +SALMON-FISHING. + + +Salmon-fishing for this season is over, and, in spite of the fresh and +open weather, most anglers will feel that the time has come to close the +fly-book, to wind up the reel, and to consign the rod to its winter +quarters. Salmon-fishing ceases to be very enjoyable when the _snaw +broo_, or melted snow from the hilltops, begins to mix with the brown +waters of Tweed or Tay; when the fallen leaves hamper the hook; and when +the fish are becoming sluggish, black, and the reverse of comely. Now +the season of retrospect commences, the time of the pleasures of memory, +and the delights of talking shop dear to anglers Most sporting talk is +dull to every one but the votaries of the particular amusement. Few +things can be drearier to the outsider than the conversation of +cricketers, unless it be the recondite lore which whist-players bring +forth from the depths of their extraordinary memories. But angling talk +has a variety, recounts an amount of incident and adventure, and wakens a +feeling of free air in a way with which the records of no other sport, +except perhaps deer-stalking, can compete. The salmon is, beyond all +rivalry, the strongest and most beautiful, and most cautious and artful, +of fresh-water fishes. To capture him is not a task for slack muscles or +an uncertain eye. There is even a slight amount of personal risk in the +sport. The fisher must often wade till the water reaches above the waist +in cold and rushing streams, where his feet are apt to slip on the smooth +stones or trip on the rough rocks beneath him. When the salmon takes the +fly, there is no time for picking steps. The line rushes out so swiftly +as to cut the fingers if it touches them, and then is the moment when the +angler must follow the fish at the top of his speed. To stand still, or +to go cautiously in pursuit, is to allow the salmon to run out with an +enormous length of line; the line is submerged--technically speaking, +_drowned_--in the water, the strain of the supple rod is removed from the +fish, who finds the hook loose in his mouth, and rubs it off against the +bottom of the river. Thus speed of foot, in water or over rocks, is a +necessary quality in the angler; at least in the northern angler. By the +banks of the Usk a contemplative man who likes to take things easily may +find pretty sure footing on grassy slopes, or on a gravelly bottom. But +it is a different thing to hook a large salmon where the Tweed foams +under the bridge of Yair down to the narrows and linns below. If the +angler hesitates there, he is lost. Does he stand still and give the +fish line? The astute creature cuts it against the sharp rocks below the +bridge, and the rod, relieved of the weight, leaps straight in the +fisher's hand, and in his heart there is a sense of emptiness and sudden +desolation. Does he try to follow, the chances are that his feet slip; +after one or two wild struggles he is on his back in the water, and +nearly strangled with his fishing-basket. In either case the fish goes +on his way rejoicing, and, after the manner of his kind, leaps out of the +water once or twice--a maddening sight. + +Adventures like this are among the bitter memories of the angler. The +fish that break away are monstrous animals; imagination increases their +bulk, and fond desire paints them clean-run and bright as silver. There +are other chances of the angler's life scarcely less sad than this. When +a hook breaks just as the salmon was losing strength, was ceasing to +struggle, and beginning to sway with the mere force of the stream, and to +show his shining sides--when a hook breaks at such a moment, it is very +hard to bear. The oath of Ernulphus seems all too weak to express the +feelings of the sportsman and his wrath against the wretched +tackle-maker. Again, when the fish is actually conquered; when he is +being towed gently into some little harbour among the tall slim water- +grasses, or into a pebbly cove, or up to a green bank; when the +bitterness of struggle is past, and he seems resigned and almost happy; +when at this crisis the clumsy gilly with the gaff scratches him, rouses +him to a last exertion, and entangles the line, so that the salmon breaks +free--that is an experience to which language cannot do justice. The +ancient painter drew his veil over the face of Agamemnon present at his +daughter's sacrifice. Silence and sympathy are all one can offer to the +angler who has toiled all day, and in this wise caught nothing. There is +yet another very bitter sorrow. It is a hard thing for a man to leave +town and hurry to a river in the west, a river that perhaps he has known +since he fished for minnows with a bent pin in happy childhood. The west +is not a dry land; effeminate tourists complain that the rain it raineth +every day. But the heavy soft rain is the very life of an angler. It +keeps the stream of that clear brown hue, between porter and amber, which +he loves; and it encourages the salmon to keep rushing from the estuary +and the sea right up to the mountain loch, where they rest. But suppose +there is a dry summer--and such things have been even in Argyleshire. The +heart of the tourist is glad within him, but as the river shrinks and +shrinks, a silver thread among slimy green mosses in the streams, a sheet +of clear water in the pools, the angler repines. Day after sultry day +goes by, and there is no hope. There is a cloud on the distant hill; it +is only the smoke from some moor that has caught fire. The river grows +so transparent that it is easy to watch the lazy fish sulking at the +bottom. Then comes a terrible temptation. Men, men calling themselves +sportsmen, have been known to fish in the innocent dewy morning, with +worm, with black lob worm. Worse remains behind. Persons of ungoverned +passions, maddened by the sight of the fish, are believed to have poached +with rake-hooks, a cruel apparatus made of three hooks fastened back to +back and loaded with lead. These are thrown over the fish, and then +struck into him with a jerk. But the mind willingly turns away from the +contemplation of such actions. + +It is pleasanter to think of not unsuccessful days by lowland or highland +streams, when the sun was veiled, the sky pearly grey, the water, as the +people say, in grand order. There is the artistic excitement of choosing +the hook, gaudy for a heavy water, neat and modest for a clearer stream. +There is the feverish moment of adjusting rod and line, while you mark a +fish "rising to himself." You begin to cast well above him, and come +gradually down, till the fly lights on the place where he is lying. Then +there is a slow pull, a break in the water, a sudden strain at the line, +which flies through the rings of the rod. It is not well to give too +much line; best to follow his course, as he makes off as if for Berwick +and the sea. Once or twice he leaps clean into the air, a flying bar of +silver. Then he sulks at the bottom, a mere dead weight, attempting +devices only to be conjectured. A common plan now is to tighten the +line, and tap the butt end of the rod. This humane expedient produces +effects not unlike neuralgia, it may be supposed, for the fish is off in +a new fury. But rush after rush grows tamer, till he is drawn within +reach of the gaff, and so on to the grassy bed, where a tap on the head +ends his sorrows, and the colours on his shining side undulate in +delicate and beautiful radiance. It may be dreadfully cruel, as cruel as +nature and human life; but those who eat salmon or butcher's meat cannot +justly protest, for they, desiring the end, have willed the means. As +the angler walks home, and watches the purple Eildon grow grey in the +twilight, or sees the hills of Mull delicately outlined between the faint +gold of sky and sea, it is not probable that his conscience reproaches +him very fiercely. He has spent a day among the most shy and hidden +beauties of nature, surprising her here and there in places where, unless +he had gone a-fishing, he might never have penetrated. He has set his +skill against the strength and skill of the monarch of rivers, and has +mastered him among the haunts of fairies and beneath the ruined towers of +feudalism. These are some of the delights that to-day end for a season. +{16} + + + +WINTER SPORTS. + + +People to whom cold means misery, who hate to be braced, and shudder at +the word "seasonable," can have little difficulty in accounting for the +origin of the sports of winter. They need only adapt to the +circumstances that old Lydian tradition which says that games of chance +were invented during a great famine. Men permitted themselves to eat +only every second day, and tried to forget their hunger in playing at +draughts and dice. That is clearly the invention of a southern people, +which never had occasion to wish it could become oblivious of the +weather, as too many of us would like to be in England. Such shivering +and indolent folks may be inclined to say that skating and curling and +wildfowl-shooting, and the other diversions which seduce the able-bodied +from the warm precincts of the cheerful fire, were only contrived to +enable us to forget the state of the thermometer. Whether or not that +was the purpose of the first northerner who fixed sheep-bones beneath his +feet, to course more smoothly over the frozen sound, there can be no +doubt that winter sports answer their presumed purpose. They keep up +that glow which only exercise in the open air can give, and promote the +health which shows itself in the complexion. It is the young lady who +interprets literally the Scotch invitation "come into the fire," and who +spoils the backs of library novels by holding them too near the +comfortable hearth, she it is who suffers from the ignoble and unbecoming +liberties that winter takes with the human countenance. Happier and +wiser is she who studies the always living and popular Dutch roll rather +than the Grecian bend, and who blooms with continual health and good +temper. Our changeful climate affords so few opportunities of learning +to skate, that it is really extraordinary to find so much skill, and to +see feats so difficult and graceful. In Canada, where frost is a +certainty, and where the covered "rinks" make skating an indoor sport, it +is not odd that great perfection should be attained. But as fast as +Canadians bring over a new figure or a new trick it is picked up, and +critics may dispute as to whether the bold and dashing style of the +English school of skaters is not preferable to the careful and smooth, +but somewhat pretty and niggling manner of the colonists. Our skating +stands to the Canadian fashion somewhat as French does to English +etching. We have the dash and the _chic_ with skates which Frenchmen +show with the etching-needle, and the Canadian, on the other hand, is apt +to decline into the mere prettiness which is the fault of English +etchers. + +Skating has been, within the last few years, a very progressive art. +There was a time when mere speed, and the grace of speed, satisfied most +amateurs. The ideal spot for skating in those days must have been the +lakes where Wordsworth used to listen to the echoes replying from the +cold and moonlit hills, or such a frozen river as that on which the +American skater was pursued by wolves. No doubt such scenes have still +their rare charm, and few expeditions are more attractive than a +moonlight exploration of a winding river. But it is seldom that our +frosts make such tours practicable, whereas almost every winter it is +possible to skate with safety, at least on shallow ponds, or on places +like the ice-bound floods at Oxford. Thus figure-skating, which needs +but a surface of a few yards to each performer, has come into fashion, +and it is hard to imagine any exercise more elegant, or one that requires +more nerve. The novice is theoretically aware that if he throws his body +into certain unfamiliar postures, which are explained to him, the laws of +gravitation and of the higher curves will cause him to complete a certain +figure. But how much courage and faith it requires to yield to these +laws and let the frame swing round subject to the immutable rules of +matter! The temptation to stop half-way is almost irresistible, and then +there occurs a complicated fall, which makes the petrified spectator ask +where may be the skater's body--"which are legs, and which are arms?" Of +all sports, skating has the best claim to adopt Danton's motto, _Toujours +de l'audace_--the audacity meant being that of giving one's self up to +the laws of motion, and not the vulgar quality which carries its owner on +to dangerous ice. Something may now be learned of figure-skating on dry +land, and the adventure may be renewed of the mythical children who went +sliding all on a summer day. In this respect, skating has a great +advantage over its rival, the "roaring game" of curling. It would be +poor fun to curl on asphalte, with stones fixed on wheels, though the +amusement is possible, and we recommend the idea, which is not copyright, +to enthusiastic curlers; and curlers are almost always enthusiastic. It +is pleasant to think how the hills must be ringing with their shouts, +round many a lonely tarn, where the men of one parish meet those of the +next in friendly conflict north of the Tweed. The exhilarating yell of +"soop her up," whereby the curler who wields a broom is abjured to sweep +away the snow in front of the advancing stone, will many a time be heard +this winter. There is something peculiarly healthy about this sport--in +the ring with which the heavy stones clash against each other; in the +voices of the burly plaided men, shepherd, and farmer, and laird; in the +rough banquet of beef and greens and the copious toddy which close the +day's exertions. + +Frost brings with it an enforced close-season for most of furred and +feathered kind. The fox is safe enough, and, if sportsmen are right, +must be rather wearying for open weather, and for the return of his +favourite exercise with hounds. But even when the snow hangs out her +white flag of truce and goodwill between man and beast, the British +sportsman is still the British sportsman, and is not averse to going out +and killing something. To such a one, wild-fowl shooting is a +possibility, though, as good Colonel Hawker says, some people complain +forsooth that it interferes with ease and comfort. We should rather +incline to think it does. A black frost with no moon is not precisely +the kind of weather that a degenerate sportsman would choose for lying in +the frozen mud behind a bush, or pushing a small punt set on large skates +across the ice to get at birds. Few attitudes can be more cramping than +that of the gunner who skulks on one knee behind his canoe, pushing it +with one hand, and dragging himself along by the aid of the other. Then, +it is disagreeable to have to use a gun so heavy that the stock is fitted +with a horsehair pillow, or even with a small bolster. The whistle of +widgeon and the shrill-sounding pinions of wild geese may be attractive +noises, and no doubt all shooting is exciting; and a form of shooting +which stakes all on one shot must offer some thrilling moments of +expectation. The quarry has to be measured by number, not by size, and +fifty widgeon at one discharge, or a brace of wild swans may almost serve +to set against a stag of ten. {23} The lover of nature has glimpses in +wild-fowl shooting such as she gives no other man--the glittering expanse +of waters, the birds "all in a charm," all uttering their cry together, +the musical moan of the tide, and the "long glories of the winter moon." +But success is too difficult, equipment too costly, and rheumatism too +certain for wild-fowl shooting to be reckoned among popular winter +sports. + + + +HUMAN LEVITATION. + + +Why is it that living fish add nothing to the "weight of the bucket of +water in which they swim?" Charles II. is said to have asked the Royal +Society. A still more extraordinary question has been propounded in the +grave pages of the _Quarterly Journal of Science_, edited by Mr. Crookes, +a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the discoverer of the useful metal +thallium. The problem set in this learned review does not, like that of +the Merry Monarch, beg the question of facts. "What is the scientific +inference from the various accounts, modern and traditional, of human +levitation?" is the difficulty before the world at this present moment. +Now, there may be people who never heard of levitation, nor even of +"thaums," a term that frequently occurs in the article we refer to. A +slight acquaintance with the dead languages, whose shadows reappear in +this queer fashion, enables the inquirer to decide that "levitation" +means the power of becoming lighter than the surrounding atmosphere, and +setting at nought the laws of gravitation. + +Thaums, again, are wonders, and there is no very obvious reason why they +should not be called wonders. But to return to levitation. Most of us +have heard how Mr. Home and other gifted people possess the faculty of +being raised from the ground, and of floating about the room, or even out +of the window. There are clouds of witnesses who have observed these +phenomena, which generally occur in the dark. In fact, they are part of +that vague subject called spiritualism, about which opinion is so much +divided, and views are so vague. It has been said that the human race, +in regard to this high argument, is divided into five classes. There are +people who believe; people who investigate; people who think the matter +really ought to be looked into; people who dislike the topic, but who +would believe in the phenomena if they were proved; and people of common +sense, who would not believe in them if they were proved. Now, the +article in the _Journal of Science_ only deals with one of the phenomena +we hear so much of--that of the sudden suspension of the laws of +gravitation, in the case of individual men. The author has collected a +vast variety of traditions bearing on this subject, and his conclusion +apparently is, that events of this kind, though rather rare, are natural, +are peculiar to people of certain temperament and organization, and, +above all, bring no proof as to the truth of the doctrines asserted by +the persons who exhibit the phenomena. Now, men of science, as a rule, +and the world at large, look on stories of this sort as myths, romances, +false interpretations of subjective feelings, pious frauds, and absurd +nonsense. Before expressing an opinion, it may be well to look over the +facts, as they are called, which are brought under our notice. + +What accounts, then, are there of levitation among the civilized people +of the Old World? First, there is Abaris, the Scythian, "in the time of +Pythagoras," says our author. Well, as a matter of evidence, Abaris may +have been levitated in the eighth century before Christ, or it may have +been two hundred and fifty years later. Perhaps he was a Druid of the +Hebrides. Toland thought so, and Toland had as good a chance of knowing +as any one else. Our earliest authority, Herodotus, says he took no +earthly food, and "went with his arrow all round the world without once +eating." It seems that he rode on this arrow, which, Mr. Rawlinson +thinks, may possibly have been an early tradition of the magnet. All our +detailed information about him is of later date than the Christian era. +The fact remains that tradition says he was able to fly in the air. +Pythagoras is said to have had the same power, or rather the same faculty +came upon him. He was lifted up, with no will or conscious exertion of +his own. Now, our evidence as to the power of Pythagoras to be "like a +bird, in two places at once," is exactly as valuable as that about +Abaris. It rests on the tradition repeated by superstitious philosophers +who lived eight hundred years after his death. "To Pythagoras, +therefore," as Herodotus has it, "we now say farewell," with no further +knowledge than that vague tradition says he was "levitated." The writer +now leaves classical antiquity behind him--he does not repeat a saying of +Plotinus, the mystic of Alexandria, who lived in the third century of our +era. The best known anecdote of him is that his disciples asked him if +he were not sometimes levitated, and he laughed, and said, "No; but he +was no fool who persuaded you of this." Instead of Plotinus, we are +referred to a mass of Jewish and anti-Christian apocryphal traditions, +which have the same common point--the assertion of the existence of the +phenomenon of levitation. Apollonius of Tyana is also said to have been +a highly accomplished medium. We are next presented with a list of forty +"levitated" persons, canonized or beatified by the Church of Rome. Their +dates range from the ninth to the seventeenth century, and their +histories go to prove that levitation runs in families. Perhaps the best +known of the collection is St. Theresa (1515-1582), and it is only fair +to say that the stories about St. Theresa are very like those repeated +about our lady mediums. One of these, Mrs. Guppy, as every one knows, +can scatter flowers all over a room, "flowers of Paradise," unknown to +botanists. Fauna, rather than flora, was St. Theresa's province, and she +kept a charming pet, a little white animal of no recognized species. +Still, about her, and about her friend St John of the Cross, the legend +runs that they used to be raised off the ground, chairs and all, and +float about in the most soothing way. Poor Peter of Alcantara was +levitated in a less pleasant manner; "he uttered a frightful cry, and +shot through the air as if he had been fired from a gun." Peter had a +new form of epilepsy--the rising, not the falling, sickness. Joseph +Copertino, again, floated about to such good effect, that in 1650 Prince +John of Brunswick foreswore the Protestant faith. The logical process +which converted this prince is not a very obvious one. + +Why do we quote all these old monkish and neoplatonic legends? For some +the evidence is obviously nil; to other anecdotes many witnesses bear +testimony; but then, we know that an infectious _schwarmerei_ can +persuade people that the lion now removed from Northumberland House +wagged his tail. The fact is that there is really matter for science in +all these anecdotes, and the question to be asked is this--How does it +happen that in ages and societies so distant and so various identical +stories are current? What is the pressure that makes neoplatonic gossips +of the fourth century circulate the same marvels as spiritualist gossips +of the nineteenth? How does it happen that the mediaeval saint, the +Indian medicine-man, the Siberian shaman (a suggestive term), have nearly +identical wonders attributed to them? If people wanted merely to tell "a +good square lie," as the American slang has it, invention does not seem +to have such pitifully narrow boundaries. It appears to follow that +there are contagious nervous illusions, about which science has not said +the last word. We believe that the life of children, with its innocent +mixture of dreams and waking, facts and fancies, could supply odd +parallels to the stories we have been treated to. And as we are on the +subject, we should like, as the late President Lincoln said, to tell a +little story. It occurred to a learned divine to meet a pupil, who ought +by rights to have been in the University of Oxford, walking in Regent +Street. The youth glided past like a ghost, and was lost in the crowd; +next day his puzzled preceptor received a note, dated on the previous day +from Oxford, telling how the pupil had met the teacher by the Isis, and +on inquiry had heard he was in London. Here is a case of levitation--of +double levitation, and we leave it to be explained by the followers of +Abaris and of Mr. Home. + + + +A CHINAMAN'S MARRIAGE. + + +The Court of Assizes at Paris has lately been occupied with the case of a +Chinese gentleman, whose personal charms and literary powers make him +worthy to be the compatriot of Ah-Sin, that astute Celestial. Tin-tun- +ling is the name--we wish we could say, with Thackeray's F. B., "the +highly respectable name"--of the Chinese who has just been acquitted on a +charge of bigamy. In China, it is said that the more distinguished a man +is the shorter is his title, and the name of a very victorious general is +a mere click or gasp. On this principle, the trisyllabic Tin-tun-ling +must have been without much honour in his own country. In Paris, +however, he has learned Parisian aplomb, and when confronted with his +judges and his accusers, his air, we learn, "was very calm." "His smile +it was pensive and bland," like the Heathen Chinee's, and his calm +confidence was justified by events. It remains to tell the short, though +not very simple, tale of Tin-tun-ling. Mr. Ling was born in 1831, in the +province of Chan-li. At the interesting age of eighteen, an age at which +the intellect awakens and old prejudices lose their grasp, he ceased to +burn gilt paper on the tombs of his ancestors; he ceased to revere their +august spirits; he gave up the use of the planchette, rejected the +teachings of Confucius, and, in short, became a convert to Christianity. +This might be considered either as a gratifying testimony to the +persuasive powers of Catholic missionaries, or as an example of the wiles +of Jesuitism, if we did not know the inner history of Mr. Ling's soul, +the abysmal depths of his personality. He has not, like many other +modern converts, written a little book, such as "How I ceased to chinchin +Joss; or, from Confucius to Christianity," but he has told Madame Judith +Mendes all about it. Madame Mendes has made a name in literature, and +English readers may have wondered how the daughter of the poet Theophile +Gautier came to acquire the knowledge of Chinese which she has shown in +her translations from that language. It now appears that she was the +pupil of Tin-tun-ling, who, in a moment of expansion, confided to her +that he adopted the Catholic faith that he might eat a morsel of bread. +He was starving, it seems; he had eaten nothing for eight days, when he +threw himself on the charity of the missionaries, and received baptism. +Since Winckelmann turned renegade, and became a Roman Catholic merely +that the expenses of his tour to Rome and his maintenance there might be +paid, there have surely been few more mercenary converts. Tin-tun-ling +was not satisfied with being christened into the Church, he was also +married in Catholic rites, and here his misfortunes fairly began, and he +entered on the path which has led him into difficulty and discredit. + +The French, as a nation, are not remarkable for their accuracy in the use +of foreign proper names, and we have a difficulty in believing that the +name of Mr. Ling's first wife was really Quzia-Tom-Alacer. There is a +touch of M. Hugo's famous Tom Jim Jack, the British tar, about this +designation. Nevertheless, the facts are that Tin-tun-ling was wedded to +Quzia, and had four children by her. After years of domestic life, on +which he is said to look back but rarely and with reluctance, he got a +position as secretary and shoeblack and tutor in Chinese to a M. Callery, +and left the province of Chin-li for Paris. For three months this +devoted man sent Quzia-Tom-Alacer small sums of money, and after that his +kindness became, as Douglas Jerrold said, unremitting. Quzia heard of +her lord no more till she learned that he had forgotten his marriage vow, +and was, in fact, Another's. As to how Tin-tun-ling contracted a +matrimonial alliance in France, the evidence is a little confusing. It +seems certain that after the death of his first employer, Callery, he was +in destitution; that M. Theophile Gautier, with his well-known kindness +and love of curiosities, took him up, and got him lessons in Chinese, and +it seems equally certain that in February, 1872, he married a certain +Caroline Julie Liegeois. In the act of marriage, Tin-tun-ling described +himself as a baron, which we know that he was not, for in his country he +did not rejoice in buttons and other insignia of Chinese nobility. As +Caroline Julie Ling (_nee_ Liegeois) denounced her lord for bigamy in +1873, and succeeded, as has been seen, in proving that he was husband of +Quzia-Tom-Alacer, it may seem likely that she found out the spurious +honours of the pretended title. But whatever may be thought of the +deceitful conduct of Ling, there is little doubt apparently that Caroline +is really his. He stated in court that by Chinese law a husband who has +not heard of his wife for three years may consider that his marriage has +legally ceased to be binding. Madame Mendes proved from the volume Ta- +Tsilg-Leu-Lee, the penal code of China, that Ling's law was correct. It +also came out in court that Quzia-Tom-Alacer had large feet. The jury, +on hearing this evidence, very naturally acquitted Tin-tun-ling, whom +Madame Mendes embraced, it is said, with the natural fervour of a +preserver of innocence. Whether Tin-tun-ling is now a bachelor, or +whether he is irrevocably bound to Caroline Julie, is a question that +seems to have occurred to no one. + +The most mysterious point in this dark business is the question, How did +Tin-tun-ling, who always spoke of his first marriage with terror, happen +to involve himself in the difficulties of a second? Something more than +the common weakness of human nature must have been at work here. Madame +Mendes says, like a traitor to her sex, that Tin espoused Caroline Julie +from feelings of compassion. He yielded, according to Madame Mendes, "to +the entreaties of this woman." The story of M. Gustave Lafargue confirms +this ungallant tale. According to M. Lafargue, Tin's bride was a +governess, and an English governess, or at least one who taught English. +She proposed to marry Tin, who first resisted, and then hesitated. In a +matter of this kind, the man who hesitates is lost. The English +governess flattered Tin's literary as well as his personal vanity. She +proposed to translate the novels which Tin composes in his native tongue, +and which he might expect to prove as popular in France as some other +fictions of his fatherland have done in times past. So they were +married. Tim, though on pleasure bent, had a frugal mind, and after a +wedding-breakfast, which lasted all day, he went to a theatre to ask for +two free passes. When he came back his bride was gone. He sought her +with all the ardour of the bridegroom in the ballad of "The Mistletoe +Bough," and with more success. Madame Ling was reading a novel at home. +Mr. Carlyle has quoted Tobias Smollett as to the undesirability of giving +the historical muse that latitude which is not uncommon in France, and we +prefer to leave the tale of Ling's where Mr. Carlyle left that of +Brynhild's wedding. {37} + + + +SIEUR DE MONTAIGNE. + + +The French National Library has recently, as it is said, made an +acquisition of great value and interest. The books, and better still the +notes, of Montaigne, the essayist, have been bought up at the not very +exorbitant price of thirty-six thousand francs. The volumes are the +beautiful editions of the sixteenth century--the age of great scholars +and of printers, like the Estiennes, who were at once men of learning and +of taste. It is almost certain that they must be enriched with marginal +notes of Montaigne's, and the marginal notes of a great man add even more +to the value of a book than the scribblings of circulating library +readers detract from its beauty. There is always something +characteristic in a man's treatment of his books. Coleridge's marginalia +on borrowed works, according to Lamb, were an ornament of value to his +friends, if they were lucky enough to get the books back again. Poe's +marginalia were of exquisite neatness, though in their printed form they +were not very interesting. Thackeray's seem mostly to have taken the +shape of slight sketches in illustration of the matter. Scaliger's notes +converted a classic into a new and precious edition of one example. +Casaubon's, on the other hand, were mere scratches and mnemonic lines and +blurs, with which he marked his passage through a book, as roughly as the +American woodsman "blazes" his way through a forest. "None could read +the comment save himself," and the text was disfigured. We may be sure +that Montaigne's marginalia are of a very different value. As he walked +up and down in his orchard, or in his library, beneath the rafters +engraved with epicurean maxims, he jotted his thoughts hastily on the +volume in his hand--on the Pliny, or Suetonius, or Livy. His library was +probably not a large one, for he had but a few favourite authors, the +Latin historians, moralists, and anecdotists, and for mere amusement +Terence and Catullus, Boccaccio and Rabelais. His thoughts fell asleep, +he says, if he was not walking about, and his utter want of memory made +notes and note-books necessary to him. He who could not remember the +names of the most ordinary tools used in agriculture, nor the difference +between oats and barley, could never keep in his head his enormous stock +of classical anecdotes and modern instances. His thoughts got innocently +confused with his recollections, and his note-books will probably show +whence he drew many of his stories, and the quotations that remain +untraced. They will add also to our knowledge of the man and of his +character, though it might seem difficult to give additional traits in +the portrait of himself which he has painted with so many minute touches. + +With the exception of Dr. Johnson, there is scarcely any great man of +letters whom we are enabled to know so intimately as the Sieur de +Montaigne. He has told us all about himself; all about his age, as far +as it came under his eager and observant eyes; all about the whole world, +as far as it made part of his experience. Rousseau is not more frank, +and not half so worthy of credit, for Rousseau, like Topsy in the novel, +had a taste for "'fessing" offences that he had never committed rather +than not "'fess" at all. Montaigne strikes no such attitudes; he does +not pose, he does not so much confess as blab. His life stands before +the reader "as in a picture." We learn that his childhood was a happier +one than usually fell to the lot of children in that age when there was +but little honey smeared on the cup of learning. We know that his father +taught him Greek in a kind of sport or game, that the same parent's +relations with the fair sex were remarkable, and that he had +extraordinary strength in his thumb. For his own part, Montaigne was so +fresh and full of life that Simon Thomas, a great physician, said it +would make a decrepit old man healthy again to live in his company. One +thinks of him as a youth like the irrepressible Swiss who amused the +_ennui_ of Gray. + +Even in his old age, Montaigne was a gay, cheerful, untiring traveller, +always eager to be going on, delighted with every place he visited, and +yet anxious for constant change of scene and for new experience. To be +amusingly and simply selfish is ever part of the charm of Montaigne. He +adds to his reader's pleasure in life by the keenness with which he +relished his own existence, and savoured every little incident as a man +relishes the bouquet of wine. Without selfishness, how can this be +managed? and without perfect simplicity and the good faith on which he +prided himself, how could Montaigne, how could Pepys, have enriched the +world as they have done? His essays are among the few works that really +and literally make life more opulent with accumulated experience, +criticism, reflection, humour. He gives of his rich nature, his lavish +exuberance of character, out of that fresh and puissant century to this +rather weary one, just as his society in youth might have been given to +the sick old man. + +Besides what he has to give in this manner, Montaigne seems to express +French character, to explain the French genius and the French way of +looking at life, more clearly and completely than any other writer. He +has at bottom the intense melancholy, the looking forward to the end of +all, which is the ground-note of the poetry of Villon, and of Ronsard, as +of the prose of Chateaubriand. The panelled library in Montaigne's +chateau was carven with mottoes, which were to be charms against too +great fear of death. "For my part," he says, "if a man could by any +means avoid death, were it by hanging a calf-skin on his limbs, I am one +that would not be ashamed of the shift." Happy it is, he thinks, that we +do not, as a rule, meet death on a sudden, any more than we encounter the +death of youth in one day. But this is only the dark background of the +enjoyment of life, to which Montaigne clings, as he says, "even too +eagerly." Merely to live, merely to muse over this spectacle of the +world, simply to feel, even if the thing felt be agony, and to reflect on +the pain, and on how it may best be borne--this is enough for Montaigne. +This is his philosophy, reconciling in a way the maxims of the schools +that divided the older worlds, the theories of the Stoic and wiser +Epicurean. To make each moment yield all that it has of experience, and +of reflection on that experience, is his system of existence. Acting on +this idea, all contrasts of great and petty, mean and divine, in human +nature do not sadden, but delight him. It was part of the play to see +the division between the King of Navarre (Henri IV.) and the Duke of +Guise. He told Thuanus that he knew the most secret thoughts of both +these princes, and that he was persuaded that neither of them was of the +religion he professed. This scandal gave him no concern, compared with +his fear that his own castle would suffer in wars of the League. As to +the Reformation, he held it for a hasty, conceited movement on the part +of persons who did not know what they were meddling with, and, being a +perfect sceptic, he was a perfectly good Churchman. Full of tolerance, +good-humour, and content, cheerful in every circumstance, simple and +charming, yet melancholy in his hour, Montaigne is a thorough +representative of the French spirit in literature. His English +translator in 1776 declares that "he meets with a much more favourable +entertainment in England than in his native country, a servile nation +that has lost all sense of liberty." Like many other notions current in +1776, this theory of Montaigne's popularity at home and abroad has lost +its truth. Perhaps it would be more true to say that Montaigne is one of +the last authors whom modern taste learns to appreciate. He is a man's +author, not a woman's; a tired man's, not a fresh man's. We all come to +him, late indeed, but at last, and rest in his panelled library. + + + +THACKERAY'S DRAWINGS. + + +The advertisements of publishers make a very pleasant sort of reading. +They offer, as it were, a distant prospect of the great works of the +future, looming in a golden haze of expectation. A gentleman or lady may +acquire a reputation for wide research by merely making a careful study +of the short paragraphs in the literary papers. + +There are three classes of people who take an interest in letters. There +are the persons who read books; the much larger class which reads +reviews; and, again, they who merely skim over the advertisements of new +works. The last set live in a constant enjoyment of the pleasure of +expectation; they pretend to themselves that some day they will find time +to peruse the volumes in the birth of which they are interested, but, in +fact, they live in the future. They are a month ahead of their friends +who read reviews, and six months of the students who actually devour +books themselves. Not only these eager lovers of literary "shop," but +all friends of English humour, must be glad to see that a collection of +Mr. Thackeray's sketches and drawings has been prepared for publication. + +When the news spread over England of Mr. Thackeray's sudden death, it was +felt that a personal loss had been sustained by every one who cared for +books and for style. Other men might write themselves out, their +invention might become weary; and, indeed, Mr. Thackeray himself felt +this fatigue. He wished he could get some one to do "the business" of +his stories he told the world in a "Roundabout Paper." The love-making +parts of "the business" annoyed him, and made him blush, in the privacy +of his study, "as if he were going into an apoplexy." Some signs of this +distaste for the work of the novelist were obvious, perhaps, in "Philip," +though they did not mar the exquisite tenderness and charm of "Denis +Duval." However that might be, his inimitable style was as fresh as +ever, with its passages of melancholy, its ease, its flexible strength, +and unlooked-for cadences. It was the talk about life, and the tone of +that talk, which fell silent when Thackeray died, that we all felt as an +irremediable loss. There is an old story that Pindar had never in his +lifetime written an ode in praise of Persephone, the goddess of death and +the dead, and that after he had departed from among living men, his shade +communicated to the priests a new hymn on the Queen of Hades. The works +of great writers published after their decease have somewhat of the charm +of this fabled hymn; they are voices, familiar and unlocked for, out of +the silence. They are even stranger, when they have such a slight and +homelike interest as the trifles that fell unheeded from the pen or +pencil of one who has done great things in poetry or art. Mr. +Thackeray's sketches in the "Orphan of Pimlico" are of this +quality--caricatures thrown off to amuse children who are now grown men +and women. They have the mark of the old unmistakable style, humorous +and sad, and, as last remains, they are to be welcomed and treasured. + +Mr. Thackeray's skill with the pencil bore very curious relations to his +mastery of the other art, in which lay his strength, but to which perhaps +he never gave his love. Everyone has heard how, when a young man, he was +anxious to illustrate "Pickwick," which found more fitting artists in +Seymour and H. K. Browne. Mr. Thackeray seems to have been well aware of +the limitations of his own power as a draughtsman. In one of his +"Roundabout Papers" he described the method--the secret so to say--of +Rubens; and then goes on to lament the impotence of his own hand, the +"pitiful niggling," that cannot reproduce the bold sweep of Ruben's +brush. + +Thackeray was like Theophile Gautier, who began life as a painter, and +who has left to posterity a wonderful etching of his own portrait, pale, +romantic, with long sweeping moustache, and hair falling over his +shoulders. Both writers found their knowledge of the technique of +painting useful in making their appreciation of art and nature more keen +and versatile. But Mr. Thackeray's powers had another field--he really +did succeed in illustrating some of his own writings. Accomplished his +style never was. There was a trace of the old school of caricature in +the large noses and thin legs which he gave his figures. Nor was his +drawing very correct; the thin legs of the heroes of "The Virginians" are +often strangely contorted. He has even placed a thumb on the wrong side +of a hand! For all that, he gave to many of his own characters a visible +embodiment, which another artist would have missed. Mr. Frederick +Walker, for instance, drew Philip Firmin admirably--a large, rough man, +with a serious and rather worn face, and a huge blonde beard. Mr. +Walker's Philip has probably become the Philip of many readers, but he +was not Mr. Thackeray's. It is delightful to be sure, on the other hand, +that we have the author's own Captain Costigan before us, in his habit as +he lived--the unshaven chin, the battered hat, the high stock, the blue +cloak, the whiskeyfied stare, and the swagger. Mr. Thackeray did not do +his young men well. Arthur Pendennis is only himself as he sits with +Warrington over a morning paper; in his white hat and black band at the +Derby, he has not the air of a gentleman. Harry Foker is either a coarse +exaggeration, or the modern types of Fokers have improved in demeanour on +the great prototype. But Costigan is always perfect; and the nose and +wig of Major Pendennis are ideally correct. In his drawings of women, +Mr. Thackeray very much confined himself to two types. There was the +dark-eyed, brown-haired, bright-complexioned girl who was his +favourite--Laura, Betsinda, Amelia; and the blonde, ringletted, clever, +and false girl--Becky, Blanche, Angelica, who was the favourite of the +reader. He did not always succeed in making them pretty, though there is +a beautiful head of Amelia, in a court dance at Pumpernickel; but he +always made the dark young lady look honest, and the fair young minx look +a thing all soul and enthusiasm. + +It was a note of Mr. Thackeray's art, and probably one among other proofs +that the higher fields of art were closed to him, that his success by no +means corresponded to the amount of pains he took with his work. His +drawings which appeared as steel engravings, were not unfrequently weak, +while his sketches on the wood and his lithographs were much more free +and masterly. There is, indeed, a sketch on the steel of poor Pen +tossing feverishly in his mother's comforting arms, which is full of +passion and life and sentiment. But it was rare that success attended +his ambition, and, indeed, another drawing of Pen and his mother admiring +a sunset might have come out of a book of fashions of that remote period. +It was in his initial letters and slight designs that Thackeray showed +his best powers. There is much wistful tenderness in the little +Marquise's face as she trips down a rope-ladder in an initial letter of +_Vanity Fair_. The bewigged shepherds and powdered shepherdesses of his +favourite period are always reproduced with grace, and the children of +his drawings are almost invariably charming. In the darker moods, when +"man delighted him not, nor woman either," children did not fail to +please him, and he sketched them in a hundred pathetic attitudes. There +are the little brother and sister of the doomed House of Gaunt, sitting +under the ancestral sword that seems ready to fall. There is little +Rawdon Crawley, manly and stout, in his great coat, watching the thin +little cousin Pitt, whom he was "too big a dog to play with." There is +the printer's devil, asleep at Pen's door; and the small boy in "Dr. +Birch," singing in his nightgown to the big boy in bed. There is +Betsinda dancing with her plum-bun in "The Rose and the Ring." The +burlesque drawings of that delightful child's book are not its least +attraction. Not arriving at the prettiness of Mr. Tenniel, and the +elegance of Mr. Du Maurier, and falling far short of their ingenious +fantasy, they are yet manly delineations of great adventures. The count +kicking the two black men into space is a powerful design, full of +action; and it would be hard to beat the picture of the fate of +Gruffanuf's husband. These and the rest are old friends, and there are +hosts of quaint scribblings, signed with the mark of a pair of +spectacles, scattered through the pages of _Punch_. + + + +GOLF. + + +While pheasant-shooters are enjoying the first day of the season, the +votaries of a sport not less noble, though less noisy, are holding the +great festival of their year. The autumn meeting of the Royal and +Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews is in full swing, and the words will +suggest pleasant memories to many a golfer. Golf is not one of the more +brilliant and famous pastimes of the day, though it yields to none in +antiquity and in unassuming merit. The names of the winners of the gold +medal and of the silver cross are not telegraphed all over the world as +widely as Mr. Tennyson's hero wished the news that Maud had accepted him +to be. The red man may possibly "dance beneath his red cedar tree" at +the tidings of the event of one of our great horse-races, or great +university matches. At all events, even if the red man preserves his +usual stoicism of demeanour, his neighbours, the pale-faces, like to know +all about the result of many English sports the moment they are decided. +Golf, as we have said, excites less general enthusiasm; but in people who +love it at all, the love is burning, consuming; they will talk golf-shop +in season and out of season. Few persons, perhaps, will call golf the +very first and queen of games. Cricket exercises more faculties of body, +and even of mind, for does not the artful bowler "bowl with his head?" +Football demands an extraordinary personal courage, and implies the +existence of a fierce delight in battle with one's peers. Tennis, with +all its merits, is a game for the few, so rare are tennis-courts and so +expensive the pastime. But cricketers, football-players, tennis-players, +would all give golf the second place after their favourite exercise; and +just as Themistocles was held to be the best Greek general, because each +of his fellows placed him second, so golf may assert a right to be +thought the first of games. One great advantage it certainly has--it is +a game for "men" of all ages, from eight, or even younger, to eighty. The +links of St. Andrews are probably cleared just now of the little lads and +the veterans, they make room for the heroes, the medalists, the great +players--Mr. Mackay, Mr. Lamb, Mr. Leslie Balfour, and the rest. But at +ordinary times there are always dozens of tiny boys in knickerbockers and +scarlet stockings, who "drive out" the first hole in some twenty strokes +of their little clubs, and who pass much of their time in fishing for +their lost balls in the muddy burn. As for the veterans "on the +threshold of old age," it is pleasant to watch their boyish eagerness, +the swaying of their bodies as they watch the short flight of their +longest hits; their delight when they do manage to hit further than the +sand-pit, or "bunker," which is named after the nose of a long-dead +principal of the university; their caution, nay, their almost tedious +delay in the process of putting, that is, of hitting the ball over the +"green" into the neighbouring hole. They can still do their round, or +their two rounds, five or ten miles' walking a day, and who can speak +otherwise than well of a game which is not too strenuous for healthy age +or tender childhood, and yet allows an athlete of twenty-three to put out +all his strength? + +Golf is a thoroughly national game; it is as Scotch as haggis, cockie- +leekie, high cheekbones, or rowanberry jam. A spurious imitation, or an +arrested development of the sport, exists in the south of France, where a +ball is knocked along the roads to a fixed goal. But this is naturally +very poor fun compared to the genuine game as played on the short turf +beside the grey northern sea on the coast of Fife. Golf has been +introduced of late years into England, and is played at Westward Ho, at +Wimbledon, at Blackheath (the oldest club), at Liverpool, over Cowley +Marsh, near Oxford, and in many other places. It is, therefore, no +longer necessary to say that golf is not a highly developed and +scientific sort of hockey, or bandy-ball. Still, there be some to whom +the processes of the sport are a mystery, and who would be at a loss to +discriminate a niblick from a bunker-iron. The thoroughly equipped golf- +player needs an immense variety of weapons, or implements, which are +carried for him by his caddie--a youth or old man, who is, as it were, +his esquire, who sympathizes with him in defeat, rejoices in his success, +and aids him with such advice as his superior knowledge of the ground +suggests. The class of human beings known as caddies are the offspring +of golf, and have peculiar traits which distinguish them from the +professional cricketer, the waterman, the keeper, the gillie, and all +other professionals. It is not very easy to account for their little +peculiarities. One thing is certain--that when golf was introduced by +Scotchmen into France, and found a home at Pau, in the shadow of the +Pyrenees, the French caddie sprang, so to speak, from the ground, the +perfect likeness of his Scottish brother. He was just as sly, just as +importunate in his demands to be employed, just as fond of "putting at +short holes," more profane, and every bit as contemptuous of all non-golf- +playing humanity as the boyish Scotch caddie, in whom contempt has +reversed the usual process, and bred familiarity with all beginners. + +The professional cricketer can instruct an unskilled amateur, can take +his ill-guarded wicket, and make him "give chances" all over the field, +without bursting into yells of unseemly laughter. But the little caddie +cannot restrain his joy when the tyro at golf, after missing his ball +some six times, ultimately dashes off the head of his club against the +ground. Nor is he less exuberant when his patron's ball is deep in a +"bunker," or sand-pit, where the wretch stands digging at it with an +iron, hot, helpless, and wrathful. And yet golf is a sport not learned +in a day, and caddies might be more considerate. The object of the game +is to strike a small gutta-percha ball into a hole about five inches +wide, distant from the striker about three hundred yards, and separated +from him by rough grass and smooth sand-pits, furze bushes, and perhaps a +road or a brook. He who, of two players, gets his ball into the hole in +the smallest number of strokes is the winner of that hole, and the party +then play towards the next hole. All sorts of skill are needed--strength +and adroitness, and a certain supple "swing" of the body, are wanted to +send the ball "sure and far" in the "driving" part of the game. Nothing +is so pleasant as a clean "drive." The sensation is like that of hitting +a ball to square-leg, fair and full, at cricket. Then the golfer must +have the knack to lift his ball out of deep sand with the "iron," and to +strike it deftly "a half-shot" up to the hole with the "cleek;" and, +lastly, coolness and a good eye when he "putts" or hits his ball actually +up to the very hole. + +Any degree of skill in these varied feats makes golf a delightful game, +if the opponents are well matched. Nor are the charms of scenery wanting +at St. Andrews, the headquarters of the sport. There is no more +picturesque town in Scotland than the little university city. From the +plain of the estuary of the river Eden, across the long leagues of marsh +land and the stretches of golden sand and brown, the towers of St. +Andrews--for it is a town of many towers--are seen breaking the sky-line. +Built on a windy headland, running out to the grey northern sea, it +reaches the water with an ancient pier of rugged stone. Immediately +above is the site of a chapel of immemorial age, and above that again are +the ruins of the cathedral--gaunt spires with broken tracery, standing +where once the burnished roof of copper flashed far across the deep. The +high street winds from the cathedral precinct past an old house of Queen +Mary Stuart, past ruined chapels of St. Leonard's, and the university +chapel with its lovely spire, down to the shores of the bay; and along +the bay run the famous "links," where the royal and ancient game has its +cradle and home. Other links, as Prestwick, or North Berwick, may vie +with those of St. Andrews in extent, or in the smoothness of the putting +greens, or in the number and hardness of the "hazards," or difficult +places; but none offer so wide and varied an extent of scenery, from the +melancholy stretch of the parallel sands to the hills in the west, the +golden glitter of the beach, beneath the faint aerial blue of the still +more distant hills across the firth, while behind is the city set on its +cliffs, and proud with its crown of spires. The reflected sunset lingers +on the walls and crags and towers, that shine imaged in the wet sands, +the after-glow hangs over the eastern sky, and these have their charm; +but their charm yields to that of golf. It is a sign that a man has lost +heart and hope when he dilates on the beauty of the scenery, and +abstracts his attention from what alone would interest him were he +winning--the "lie" of his ball. Who can stop to think of the beauties of +nature, when he and his antagonist are equal, and there are only two more +holes left to play in the match for the medal? It is a serious moment; +not one of the little crowd of observers, the gallery that accompany the +players, dares to speak, or even cough. The caddie who sneezes is lost, +for he will be accused of distracting his master's attention. The ladies +begin to appear in the background, ready to greet the players, and to +tell the truth, are not very welcome to the nervous golfer. Everything +turns on half an inch of leather in a "drive," or a stiff blade of grass +in a putt, and the interest is wound up to a really breathless pitch. +Happy he is who does not in his excitement "top" his ball into the +neighbouring brook, or "heel" it and send it devious down to the depths +of ocean. Happy is he who can "hole out the last hole in four" beneath +the eyes of the ladies. Striding victorious into the hospitable club, +where beer awaits him, he need not envy the pheasant-slayer who has slain +his hundreds. + + + +ART OF DINING. + + +There is such a thing as nationality in dining, just as Mr. Browning has +proved, in a brilliant poem, that there is nationality in drinks. +Surveying mankind with extensive view, the essayist recognizes that the +science is not absolutely ignored in Turkey, where we cannot but think +that an archaic school retains too much wool with the mutton, and that +dining (like Egyptian Art) is rather a matter of sacred and immemorial +rules than in any worthy sense of the word a science. The Chinese and +Japanese have long been famous for their birds'-nest soup, and for making +the best, after his lamented decease, of the friend of man--the dog. +About the Australians and New Zealanders, perhaps the less said the +better. Many students will feel that our own colonists have neglected to +set a proper example to these poor heathen races, who, save kangaroos, +have no larger game than rats. The Englishman in Australia revels in +boundless mutton, in damper, in tea, and in the vintages of his adopted +soil, which he playfully, and patriotically, compares to those of the +Rhine. It is impossible, on the other hand, not to recognize the merits +of the Russian _cuisine_, where the imported civilization of France has +found various good traditional ideas still retained by the Sclavonic +people; and where the _caviare_, "with that pale green hue which denotes +the absence of salt," is not to be overlooked. In melancholy contrast to +the native genius of the Sclavs is the absolute dearth of taste and sense +in gastronomic Germany. If a map of the world could be made--and why +not?--in which lands of utter darkness in culinary matters should be +coloured black (like heathen countries in the missionary atlas, and +coalfields in the map of physical geography), the German Empire would be +one vast blot on Central Europe. Science might track Teutonic blood by +the absence of respectable cookery; and in England too obvious tokens +would be found of that incapacity of the art of dining which we brought +from the marshes of Holstein. In America, nature herself has put the +colonists on many schemes for the improvement of dinner, and terrapin +soup is gratefully associated with memoirs of Virginia--in the minds of +those who like terrapin soup. The canvas-backed duck has been praised as +highly as the "swopping, swopping mallard" of a comfortable college in +Oxford. As to the wild turkey, the poet has not yet risen in America who +can do justice to the charms of that admirable bird. Mr. Whitman, who +has much to say about "bob-a-links" and "whip-poor-wills," and some other +fowl which sing "when lilacs bloom in the garden yard," has neglected, we +fear, the wild turkey, simply because the Muse has not given this bird +melody, and made it, like the robin-redbreast, which goes so well with +bread-crumbs, "an amiable songster." American genius neglects the +turkey, and positively takes more interest in the migrations of the +transatlantic sparrow. If the nobler fowl can cross the water as safely +as the beef and mutton of everyday life, he will receive the honour he +deserves in this country. Some students with the deathless thirst of +scientific men for acclimatization, speak well of the Bohemian pheasant, +which, unlike some other denizens of Bohemia, is fat. But there are +probably less familiar birds in America that rival the duck and the wild +turkey, and excel the Bohemian pheasant. The existence of maize, +however, on the Western Continent has been a snare to American cooks, who +have yielded to an absorbing passion for hot corn-cakes. + +France is, of course, the land in which the Muse of cooking is native. +"If we turn north towards Belgium," says a modern author, "we shall find +much that is good in cooking and eating known, if not universally +practised." He has also made the discovery that the Belgian air and +climate are admirably suited to develop the best qualities of Burgundy. +It is from these favoured and ingenious people that England ought to +learn a lesson, or rather a good many lessons. To begin at the +beginning, with soup, does not every one know that all domestic soups in +England, which bear French names, are really the same soup, just as +almost all puddings are, or may be, called cabinet pudding? The one word +"Julienne" covers all the watery, chill and tasteless, or terribly salt, +decoctions, in which a few shreds of vegetables appear drifting through +the illimitable inane. Other names are given at will by the help of a +cookery-book and a French dictionary; but all these soups, at bottom, are +attempts to be Julienne soup. The idea of looking on soup "as a vehicle +for applying to the palate certain herbal flavours," is remote indeed +from the Plain Cook's mind. There is a deeply rooted conviction in her +inmost soul that all vegetables, which are not potatoes or cabbages, +partake of the nature of evil. As to eating vegetables apart from meat, +it was once as hard to get English domestics to let you do that, as to +get a Cretan cook to serve woodcock with the trail. "_Kopros_ is not a +thing to be eaten," says the Cretan, according to a traveller; and the +natural heart of the English race regards vegetables, when eaten as a +_plat_ apart, with equal disfavour. Probably the market gardener's +ignorance and conservatism are partly in fault. Cabbage he knows, and +potatoes he knows, but what are pennyroyal and chervil? He has +cauliflower for you, but never says, "Here is rue for you, and rosemary +for you." Cooks do not give him botany lessons, and a Scottish cook, +deprived of bay-leaf, has been known to make an experiment in the use of +what she called "Roderick Randoms," members of the vegetable kingdom +which proved to be rhododendron. As for pennyroyal, most people have +only heard of it through Mr. Bonn's crib to Aristophanes. + +When it comes to fish, it is allowed that we are not an insular people +for nothing. There are other forms of good living that Paris knows not +of, so to speak, at first hand, native to England. Turtle soup, turbot +and lobster sauce, a haunch of venison, and a grouse, are, we may say +without chauvinism, a "truly royal repast." But we incur the contempt of +foreigners once more in the matter of wines. To like sherry, the coarse +and fiery, is a matter of habit, which would teach us to love betel-root, +and rejoice in the very peculiar drink of the South Sea islanders. Some +purists include champagne in the same condemnation--the champagne, that +is, of this degenerate day. When the Russians drank up the contents of +the widow Clicquot's cellars, they found a sweet natural wine, to which +they have constantly adhered. But Western Europe, all the Europe which, +as M. Comte puts it, "synergizes" after light and positivism, has tended +towards champagnes more or less dry. The English serve this "grog +mousseux" as a necessity for social liveliness, and have not come back to +the sweet wine which was only meant to be drunk with sweets. A +_Quarterly_ reviewer is very severe in his condemnation of a practice +which will only yield to the stress of some European convulsion in +politics and society. These matters are like certain large reforms, they +either come to pass without observation in the slow changes of things, or +great movements in the world are accompanied by small ones in everyday +life. Dry champagne came in after the Revolution; it may go out after a +European war, which will make wine either expensive, or, if cheap, a +palpably spurious article. "Monotony and base servile imitation" may be +the bane of eating and drinking in England; but the existence of monotony +shows that the English really do not care very much about dining +considered as a fine art. When they do care, they cover their interest +in the matter decently, with the veil of humorous affectation. They +cannot spontaneously and sincerely make a business of it, as the French +do in all good faith. Even if they had a genius for dining, we doubt if +a critic is right in thinking they should dine at six o'clock or seven at +latest. Whether in the country or in town, the business or amusement of +the day claims more time. Sportsmen, for example, in early autumn could +not possibly return home by six very frequently, and in summer six +o'clock may be so sultry an hour that the thought of food is intolerable. +Still, it must be admitted that the unawakened state of the +market-gardener and the condition of English soups are matters deserving +serious consideration. + + + +AMERICAN HUMOUR. + + +One of the most popular of American humorists has elicited from a member +of an English audience, who did not quite hear him lecture, a remark of +an amusing sort. The aggrieved listener proclaimed that he "had a right +to hear." This was one of the turbulent people who should read Mazzini, +and learn that man has no rights worth mentioning--only duties, one of +which is to hold his tongue in season. If Mr. Bret Harte's words did not +reach all his audience, his writings at least have come home to most +English readers. They suggest a consideration of the many points of +difference which distinguish American from English humour. The Americans +are of our own stock, yet in their treatment of the ludicrous how unlike +us they are! As far as fun goes, the race has certainly become +"differentiated," as the philosophers say, on the other side of the +Atlantic. It does not seem probable that the infusion of alien blood has +caused the difference. The native redskin can claim few descendants +among the civilized Americans, and the native redskin had no sense of +humour. We all remember Cooper's Hawk-eye or Leather Stocking, with his +"peculiar silent laugh." He was obliged to laugh silently for fear of +attracting the unfavourable notice of the Mingo, who might be hiding in +the nearest bush. The red men found it simpler and safer not to laugh at +all. No, it is not from the natives that the people of the States get +their peculiar fun. As to the German emigrants--But why pursue the +subject? The Abbe Bouhours told the bitter truth about German wit, +though, in new conditions and on a fresh soil, the Teuton has helped to +produce Hans Breitmann. We laugh at Hans, however, and with his creator. +Hans does not make us laugh by conscious efforts of humour. Whence, +then, come Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, and Mr. Bret Harte, who are probably +the American humorists whose popularity is widest? Mr. Bret Harte's own +fun is much more English and less thoroughly Yankee than that of his +contemporaries. He is a disciple of Thackeray and Dickens. Of all the +pupils of Dickens he is perhaps the only one who has continued to be +himself, who has not fallen into a trick of aping his master's +mannerisms. His mixture of the serious, the earnest, the pathetic, makes +his humour not unlike the melancholy mirth of Thackeray and Sterne. He +is almost the only American humorist with sentiment. It is only the air, +not the spirit, that is changed--_coelum non animus_. + +The changed atmosphere, the new conditions, do, however, make an immense +superficial difference between the humour even of Mr. Bret Harte and that +of English writers. His fun is derived from the vagaries of huge, rough +people, with the comic cruelty of the old Danes, and with the unexpected +tenderness of a sentimental time. The characters of the great Texan and +Californian drama are like our hackneyed friends, the Vikings, with a +touch, if we may use the term, of spooniness. Their humour is often +nothing more than a disdainful trifling with death; they seize the comic +side of manslaughter very promptly, and enjoy all the mirth that can be +got out of revolvers and grizzly bears. In Mr. Bret Harte's poems of +"The Spelling Bee" and of "The Break-up of the Society upon the +Stanislaw," the fun is of this practical sort. The innate mirthfulness +of a chunk of old red sandstone is illustrated, and you are introduced to +people who not only take delight of battle with their peers, but think +the said battle the most killing joke in the world. The incongruities of +these revels of wild men in a new world; their confusion when +civilization meets them in the shape of a respectable woman or of a baby; +their grotesque way of clinging to religion, as they understand it, make +up the transatlantic element in this American humour. The rest of it is +"European quite," though none the worse for that. It is more humane, on +the whole, than the laughable and amazing paradoxes of Mark Twain, or the +_naivetes_ of Artemus Ward. + +Two remarkable features in American humour, as it is shown in the great +body of comic writers who are represented by Mark Twain and the "Genial +Showman," are its rusticity and its puritanism. The fun is the fun of +rough villagers, who use quaint, straightforward words, and have +developed, or carried over in the _Mayflower_, a slang of their own. They +do not want anything too refined; they are not in the least like the farm- +lad to whose shirt a serpent clung as he was dressing after bathing. Many +people have read how he fled into the farm-yard, where the maidens were +busy; how he did not dare to stop, and sought escape, not from woman's +help--he was too modest--but in running so fast that, obedient to the +laws of centrifugal motion, the snake waved out behind him like a flag. +The village wits are not so shy. The young ladies, like Betsy Ward, say, +"If you mean getting hitched, I'm on." The public is not above the most +practical jokes, and a good deal of the amusement is derived from the +extreme dryness, the countrified slowness of the narrative. The +humorists are Puritans at bottom, as well as rustics. They have an +amazing familiarity with certain religious ideas and certain Biblical +terms. There is a kind of audacity in their use of the Scriptures, which +reminds one of the freedom of mediaeval mystery-plays. Probably this +boldness began, not in scepticism or in irreverence, but in honest +familiar faith. It certainly seems very odd to us in England, and +probably expressions often get a laugh which would pass unnoticed in +America. An astounding coolness and freedom of manners probably go for +something in the effect produced by American humour. There is nothing of +the social flunkeyism in it which too often marks our own satirists. +Artemus Ward's reports of his own conversations with the mighty of the +earth were made highly ludicrous by the homely want of self-consciousness, +displayed by the owner of the Kangaroo, that "amoosin' little cuss," and +of the "two moral B'ars." But it is vain to attempt to analyze the fun +of Artemus Ward. Why did he make some people laugh till they cried, +while others were all untouched? His secret probably was almost entirely +one of manner, a trick of almost idiotic _naivete_, like that of Lord +Dundreary, covering real shrewdness. He had his rustic chaff, his +Puritan profanity; his manner was the essence of his mirth. It was one +of the ultimate constituents of the ludicrous, beyond which it is useless +to inquire. + +With Mark Twain we are on smoother ground. An almost Mephistophilean +coolness, an unwearying search after the comic sides of serious subjects, +after the mean possibilities of the sublime,--these, with a native sense +of incongruities and a glorious vein of exaggeration, make up his stock- +in-trade. The colossal exaggeration is, of course, natural to a land of +ocean-like rivers and almighty tall pumpkins. No one has made such +charming use of the trick as Mark Twain. The dryness of the story of a +greenhorn's sufferings who had purchased "a genuine Mexican plug," is one +of the funniest things in literature. The intense gravity and self-pity +of the sufferer, the enormous and Gargantuan feats of his steed, the +extreme distress of body thence resulting, make up a passage more moving +than anything in Rabelais. The same contrast, between an innocent style +of narrative and the huge palpable nonsense of the story told, marks the +tale of the agricultural newspaper which Mr. Twain edited. To a joker of +jokes of this sort, a tour through Palestine presented irresistible +attractions. It is when we read of the "Innocents Abroad" that we +discern the weak point of American humour when carried to its extreme. +Here, indeed, is the place where the most peculiarly American fun has +always failed. It has lacked reverence and sympathy, and so, when it was +most itself, never approached the masterpieces of Thackeray and Dickens. +To balance its defect by its merit, American humour has always dared to +speak out, and Mark Twain especially has hit hard the errors of public +opinion and the dishonest compromises of custom. + + + +SUSPENDED ANIMATION. + + +It used to be thought that a man who said he liked dry champagne would +say anything. In the same way, some persons may hold that a person who +could believe in the recurrent Australian story of "suspended +animation"--artificially produced in animals, and prolonged for +months--could believe in anything. It does not do, however, to be too +dogmatic about matters of opinion in this world. Perhaps the Australian +tale of an invention by which sheep and oxen are first made lifeless, +then rendered "stiff ones" by freezing, and then restored to life, and +reproduced with gravy, may be like the genius of Beethoven. Very few +persons (and these artists) believed in Beethoven at first, but now he is +often considered to be the greatest of composers. Perhaps great +discoveries, like the works of men of original genius, are certain to be +received at first with incredulity and mockery. We will not, therefore, +take up a dogmatic position, either about the painting or the preserved +meats of the future; but will hope for the best. The ideally best, of +course, is that the tale from Australia may prove true. In that case the +poorest will be able to earn "three square meals a day," like the +Australians themselves; and while English butchers suffer (for some one +must suffer in all great revolutions), smiling Plenty will walk through +our land studying a cookery-book. There are optimistic thinkers, who +gravely argue that the serious desires of humanity are the pledges of +their own future fulfilment. If that be correct, the Australian myth may +be founded on fact. There is no desire more deep-rooted in our +perishable nature than that which asks for plenty of beef and mutton at +low prices. Again, humanity has so often turned over the idea of +conveniently suspended animation before, that there must be something in +that conception. If we examine the history of ideas we shall find that +they at first exist "in the air." They float about, beautiful alluring +visions, ready to be caught and made to serve mortal needs by the right +man at the right moment. Thus Empedocles, Lucretius, and the author of +"Vestiges of Creation," all found out Darwinism before Mr. Darwin. They +spied the idea, but they left it floating; they did not trap it, and +break it into scientific harness. Solomon De Caus, as all the world has +heard, was put into a lunatic asylum for inventing the steam-engine, +though no one would have doubted his sanity if he had offered to raise +the devil, or to produce the philosopher's stone, or the _elixir vitae_. +Now, these precious possessions have not been more in men's minds than a +system of conveniently suspended animation. There is scarcely a +peasantry in Europe that does not sing the ballad of the dead bride. This +lady, in the legends, always loves the cavalier not selected by her +parents, the detrimental cavalier. To avoid the wedding which is thrust +on her, she gets an old witch to do what the Australian romancer +professes to do--to suspend her animation, and so she is carried on an +open bier to a chapel on the border of her lover's lands. There he +rides, the right lover, with his men-at-arms, the bride revives just in +time, is lifted on to his saddle-bow, and "they need swift steeds that +follow" the fugitive pair. The sleeping beauty, who is thrown into so +long a swoon by the prick of the fairy thorn, is another very old +example, while "Snow-white," in her glass coffin, in the German nursery +tale, is a third instance. + +It is not only the early fancy of the ballad-mongers and fairy +tale-tellers that has dwelt longingly on the idea of suspended animation. +All the mystics, who all follow the same dim track that leads to nothing, +have believed in various forms of the imaginary Australian experiment. +The seers of most tribes, from Kamschatka to Zululand, and thence to +Australia, are feigned to be able to send their souls away, while their +bodies lie passive in the magical tent. The soul wanders over the +earthly world, and even to the home of the dead, and returns, in the +shape of a butterfly or of a serpent, to the body which has been lying +motionless, but uncorruptible, in apparent death. The Indian Yogis can +attain that third state of being, all three being unknown to Brahma, +which is neither sleeping nor waking, but trance. To produce this +ecstasy, to do for themselves what some people at the Antipodes pretend +to do to sheep and cattle, is the ideal aim of the existence of the Yogi. +The Neoplatonists were no wiser, and Greek legend tells a well-known +story of a married mystic whose suspended animation began at last to bore +his wife. "Dear Hermotimus"--that was his name, if we have not forgotten +it--"is quite the most absent of men," his spouse would say, when her +husband's soul left his body and took its walks abroad. On one occasion +the philosopher's spiritual part remained abroad so long that his lady +ceased to expect its return. She therefore went through the usual +mourning, cut her hair, cried, and finally burned the body on the funeral- +pyre. "We can do no more for miserable mortals, when once the spirit has +left their bones," says Homer. + +At that very moment the spirit returned, and found its uninsured tenement +of clay reduced to ashes. The sequel may be found in a poem of the late +Professor Aytoun's, and in the same volume occurs the wondrous tale of +Colonel Townsend, who could suspend his animation at pleasure. + +There is certainly a good deal of risk, as well as of convenience, in +suspended animation. People do not always welcome Rip Van Winkle when he +returns to life, as we would all welcome Mr. Jefferson if he revisited +the glimpses of the footlights, + + "The hard heir strides about the lands, + And will not yield them for a day." + +There is the horrible chance of being buried alive, which was always +present to the mind of Edgar Poe. It occurs in one of his half-humorous +stories, where a cataleptic man, suddenly waking in a narrow bed, in the +smell of earthy mould, believes he has been interred, but finds himself +mistaken. In the "Fall of The House of Usher" the wretched brother, with +his nervous intensity of sensation, hears his sister for four days +stirring in her vault before she makes her escape. In the "Strange +Effects of Mesmerism on a Dying Man," the animation is mesmerically +suspended at the very instant when it was about naturally to cease. The +results, when the passes were reversed, and the half fled life was half +restored, are described in a passage not to be recommended to sensitive +readers. M. About, uses the same general idea in the fantastic plot of +his "L'Homme a l'Oreille Cassee," and the risk of breakage was insisted +on by M. About as well as by the inventive Australian reporter. Mr. +Clarke Russell has also frozen a Pirate. Thus the idea of suspended +animation is "in the air," is floating among the visions of men of +genius. It is, perhaps, for the great continent beneath the Southern +Cross to realize the dreams of savages, of seers, of novelists, of poets, +of Yogis, of Plotinus, of M. About, and of Swedenborg. Swedenborg, too, +was a suspended animationist, if we may use the term. What else than +suspension of outer life was his "internal breathing," by which his body +existed while his soul was in heaven, hell, or the ends of the earth? +When the Australian discovery is universally believed in (and acted on), +then, and perhaps not till then, will be the time for the great +unappreciated. They will go quietly to sleep, to waken a hundred years +hence, and learn how posterity likes their pictures and poems. They may +not always be satisfied with the results, but no artist will disbelieve +in the favourable verdict of posterity till the supposed Australian +method is applied to men as well as to sheep and kangaroos. + + + +BREAKING UP. + + +The schools have by this time all "broken up," if that is still the term +which expresses the beginning of their vacation. "Breaking up" is no +longer the festival that it was in the good old coaching days--nothing is +what it was in the good old coaching days. Boys can no longer pass a +whole happy day driving through the country and firing peas at the +wayfaring man. They have to travel by railway, and other voyagers may +well pray that their flight be not on breaking-up day. The untrammelled +spirits of boyhood are very much what they have always been. Boys fill +the carriages to overflowing. They sing, they shout, they devour +extraordinary quantities of refreshment, they buy whole libraries of +railway novels, and, generally speaking, behave as if the earth and the +fulness of it were their own. This is trying to the mature traveller, +who has plenty of luggage on his mind, and who wishes to sleep or to read +the newspaper. Boys have an extraordinary knack of losing their own +luggage, and of appearing at home, like the companions of Ulysses, +"bearing with them only empty hands." This is usually their first +exploit in the holidays. Their arrival causes great excitement among +their little sisters, and in the breasts of their fathers wakens a +presentiment of woe. When a little boy comes home his first idea is to +indulge in harmless swagger. When Tom Tulliver went to school, he took +some percussion caps with him that the other lads might suppose him to be +familiar with the use of guns. The schoolboy has other devices for +keeping up the manly character in the family circle. The younger ones +gather round him while he narrates the adventures of himself, and Smith +minor, and Walker (of Briggs's house), in a truly epic spirit. He has +made unheard-of expeditions up the river, has chaffed a farmer almost +into apoplexy, has come in fifth in the house paper-chase, has put the +French master to open shame, and has got his twenty-two colours. These +are the things that make a boy respected by his younger brothers, and +admired by his still younger sisters. They of course have a good deal to +tell him. The setter puppies must be inspected. A match is being got up +with the village eleven, who are boastful and confident in the possession +of a bowling curate. To this the family hero rejoins that "he will crump +the parson," a threat not so awful as it sounds. There is a wasps' nest +which has been carefully preserved for this eventful hour, and which is +to be besieged with boiling water, gunpowder, and other engines of +warfare. Thus the schoolboy's first days at home are a glorious hour of +crowded sport. + +It cannot be denied that, as the holidays go on, a biggish boy sometimes +finds time hang heavy on his hands, while his father and mother find him +hang heavy on theirs. The first excitement rubs off. The fun of getting +up handicap races among children under twelve years of age wears away. +One cannot always be taking wasps' nests. Of course there are many happy +boys who live in the country, and pursue the pleasures of manhood with +the zest of extreme youth. Before they are fourteen, they have a rod on +a salmon river, a gun on a moor, horses and yachts, and boats at their +will, with keepers and gillies to do their bidding. Others, not so much +indulged by fortune and fond parents, live at least among hills and +streams, or by the sea. They are never "in the way," for they are always +in the open air. Their summer holidays may be things to look back upon +all through life. Natural history, and the beauty of solitary nature; +the joys of the swimmer in deep river pools shut in with cool grey walls +of rock, and fringed with fern; the loveliness of the high table lands, +and the intense hush that follows sunset by the trout stream--these +things are theirs, and become a part of their consciousness. In later +and wearier years these spectacles will flash before their eyes unbidden, +they will see the water dimpled by rising trout, and watch the cattle +stealing through the ford, and disappearing, grey shapes, in the grey of +the hills. + +In boyhood, the legends that cling to ancient castles where only a shell +of stone is standing, and to the ash-trees that grow by the feudal +gateway, and supplied the wood for spear shafts--these and all the +stories of red men that haunt the moors, and of kelpies that make their +dwelling in the waters, become very real to us when standing in the dusk +by a moorland loch. If some otter or great fish breaks the water and the +stillness with a sudden splash, a boy feels a romantic thrill, a pause of +expectation, that later he will never experience. "The thoughts of a boy +are long, long thoughts," says the poet; he thinks them out by himself on +the downs, or the hills, and tells them to nobody. + +If we all lived in the country, the advent of boys would not be a thing +to contemplate with secret dread. It is rather a terrible thing, a +houseful of boys in a town, or in a pretty thickly populated district. +Boys, it is true, are always a source of pleasure to the humorist and the +scientific observer of mankind. They are scarcely our fellow-creatures, +so to speak; they live in a world of their own, ruled by eccentric +traditional laws. They have their own heroes, and are much more +interested in Mr. Alan Steel or Lohmann than in persons like Mr. Arthur +Balfour, whose cricket is only middling. They have rules of conduct +which cannot be called immoral, but which are certainly relics of a very +ancient state of tribal morality. The humour of it is that the modern +boy is so grave, so self-assured, and has such abundance of aplomb. He +has acquired an air of mysterious sagacity, and occasionally seems to +smile at the petty interests with which men divert themselves. In a +suburban or city home, he can find very little that he thinks worth +doing, and then he becomes discontented and disagreeable. It is better +that he should do that, perhaps, than that he should aim at being a +dandy. The boy-dandy is an odd, and at bottom a slovenly, creature. He +is fond of varnished boots, of pink neckties, of lavender-coloured +gloves, and, above all, of scent. The quantity of scent that a lad of +sixteen will pour on his handkerchief is something perfectly astounding. +In this stage of his development he is addicted to falling into love, or +rather into flirtation. He keeps up a correspondence with a young lady +in Miss Pinkerton's establishment. They see each other in church, when +he looks unutterable things from the gallery. This kind of boy is not +unlikely to interest himself, speculatively, in horse-races. He has +communications with a bookmaker who finds Boulogne a salubrious +residence. He would like to know the officers, if his home is in a +garrison town, and he humbly imitates these warriors at an immense +distance. He passes much time in trying to colour a pipe. This is not a +nice sort of boy to have at home for the holidays, nor is it likely that +he does much good when he is at school. It is pleasanter to think of the +countless jolly little fellows of twelve, who are happily busy all day +with lawn-tennis, cricket, and general diversion in the open air. Their +appearance, their manly frankness, their modesty and good temper, make +their homes happier in the holidays than in the quieter nine months of +the year. Let us hope that they will not put off their holiday tasks to +be learned in the train on their way back to school. This, alas, is the +manner of boyhood. + + + +ON SHAVING. + + +A philanthropist has published a little book which interests persons who +in civilized society form a respectable minority, and in the savage world +an overpowering majority. But, savage or polite, almost all men must +shave, or must be shaved, and the author of "A Few Useful Hints on +Shaving," is, in his degree, a benefactor to his fellow-creatures. The +mere existence of the beard may be accounted for in various ways; but, +however we explain it, the beard is apt to prove a nuisance to its +proprietor. Speculators of the old school may explain the beard as part +of the punishment entailed on man with the curse of labour. The toilsome +day begins with the task of scraping the chin and contemplating, as the +process goes on, a face that day by day grows older and more weary. No +race that shaves can shirk the sense of passing time, or be unaware of +the approach of wrinkles, of "crow's-feet," of greyness. Shaving is the +most melancholy, and to many people the most laborious of labours. It +seems, therefore, more plausible (if less scientific) to look on the +beard as a penalty for some ancient offence of our race, than to say with +Mr. Grant Allen, and perhaps other disciples of Mr. Darwin, that the +beard is the survival of a very primitive decoration. According to this +view man was originally very hairy. His hair wore off in patches as he +acquired the habits of sleeping on his sides and of sitting with his back +against a tree, or against the wall of his hut. The hair of dogs is not +worn off thus, but what of that? After some hundreds of thousands of +years had passed, our ancestors (according to this system) awoke to the +consciousness that they were patchy and spotty, and they determined to +eradicate all hair that was not ornamental. The eyebrows, moustache, +and, unfortunately, the beard seemed to most races worth preserving. +There are, indeed, some happy peoples who have no beards, or none worth +notice. Very early in their history they must have taken the great +resolve to "live down" and root out the martial growth that fringes our +lips. But among European peoples the absence of a beard has usually been +a reproach, and the enemies of Njal, in ancient Iceland, could find +nothing worse to say of him than that he was beardless. Mehemet Ali +bought sham beards for his Egyptian grenadiers, that they might more +closely resemble the European model. The soldiers of Harold thought that +the Normans were all priests, because they were "shavelings;" and it is +only natural that soldiers should in all countries be bearded. It is +almost impossible to shave during a campaign. Stendhal, the French +novelist and critic, was remarkable as the best, perhaps the only, clean- +shaved man in the French army during the dreadful retreat from Moscow. In +his time, as in that of our fathers, ideas of beauty had changed, and the +smooth chin was as much the mark of a gentleman as the bearded chin had +been the token of a man. + +The idea that shaving is a duty--ceremonial, as among the Egyptian +priests, or social merely, as among ourselves--is older than the +invention of steel or even of bronze razors. Nothing is more remarkable +in savage life than the resolution of the braves who shave with a shell +or with a broken piece of glass, left by European mariners. A warrior +will throw himself upon the ground, and while one friend sits on his +head, and another holds his arms and prevents him from struggling, a +third will scrape his chin with the shell or the broken bottle-glass till +he rises, bleeding, but beardless. Macaulay, it seems, must have shaved +almost as badly with the razor of modern life. When he went to a barber, +and, after an easy shave, asked what he owed, the fellow replied, "Just +what you generally give the man who shaves you, sir." "I generally give +him two cuts on each cheek," said the historian of England. Shaving +requires a combination of qualities which rarely meet in one amateur. You +should have plenty of razors, unlike a Prussian ambassador of the stingy +Frederick. This ambassador, according to Voltaire, cut his throat with +the only razor he possessed. The chin of that diplomatist must have been +unworthy alike of the Court to which he was accredited, and of that from +which he came. The exquisite shaver who would face the world with a +smooth chin requires many razors, many strops, many brushes, odd soaps, a +light steady hand, and, perhaps, a certain gaiety of temper which +prevents edged weapons from offering unholy temptations. Possibly the +shaver is born, not made, like the poet; it is sure that many men are +born with an inability to shave. Hence comes the need for the kindly +race of barbers, a race dear to literature. Their shops were the +earliest clubs, their conversation was all the ancient world knew in the +way of society journals. Horace, George Eliot, Beaumarchais, Cervantes, +and Scott have appreciated the barber, and celebrated his +characteristics. If the wearing of the beard ever became universal, the +world, and especially the Spanish and Italian world, would sadly miss the +barber and the barber's shop. The energy of the British character, our +zeal for individual enterprise, makes us a self-shaving race; the Latin +peoples are economical, but they do not grudge paying for an easy shave. +Americans in this matter are more Continental than English in their +taste. Was it not in Marseilles that his friends induced Mark Twain to +be shaved by a barber worthy of the bottle-glass or sea-shell stage of +his profession? They pretended that his performances were equal to those +of the barber on board the ship that brought them from America. + +Englishmen, as a rule, shave themselves when they do not wear beards. The +author of the little pamphlet before us gives a dozen curious hints which +prove the difficulty of the art. Almost all razors, he seems to think, +were "made to sell." He suggests that razors of tried and trusty +character, razors whose public form can be depended upon, should be +purchased of barbers. But it is not every barber who will part with such +possessions. Razors are like Scotch sheep dogs; no one would keep a bad +one, or sell, or give away a good one. Coelebs did not find the quest of +a wife more arduous than all men find that of a really responsible razor. +You may be unlucky in the important matter of lather. For soap our +author gives a recipe which reminds one of Walton's quaint prescriptions +and queer preparations. Shaving soap should be made at home, it seems, +and the mystery of its manufacture is here disclosed. The only way to +keep razors "set" is to persevere in sending them to various barbers till +the genius who can "set" them to your hand is discovered. Perhaps he +lives at Aleppo; perhaps, like the father of a heroine of comic song, at +Jerusalem. Till he is discovered the shaver wins no secure happiness, +and in the search for the barber who has an elective affinity for the +shaver may be found material for an operetta or an epic. The shaver +figures as a sort of Alastor, seeking the ideal setter of razors, as +Shelley's Alastor sought ideal beauty in the neighbourhood of +Afghanistan, and in the very home of the Central Asian Question. No +razor should be condemned till it has been "stropped" well and carefully. +And this brings us to the great topic of strops. Some say that soldiers' +old buff belts make the best strops. The Scotch peasantry use a peculiar +hard smooth fungus which grows in decaying elm trees. Our author has +heard that "Government now demands the return of" the old buff belts. +Government cannot want them all for its own use, and perhaps will see to +it that old buff strops once more find an open market. In the lack of +old buff belts, you may mix up tallow and the ashes of burnt newspaper, +and smear this unctuous compound on the strop. People who neglect these +"tips," and who are clumsy, like most of us, may waste a forty-eighth +part of their adult years in shaving. This time is worth economizing, +and with a little forethought, an ideal razor-setter, tallow, buff belts, +burnt newspapers, and the rest, we may shave in five minutes daily. + + + +STREET NOISES. + + +"If any calm, a calm despair," is the portion of people who would like to +reform, that is to abolish, the street noises of London. These noises +are constantly commented upon with much freedom in the columns of various +contemporaries. Nor is this remarkable, for persons who are occupied +with what is called "brainwork," are peculiarly sensitive to the +disturbances of the streets. Sometimes they cannot sleep till morning, +sometimes they can only sleep in the earlier watches of the night, and, +as a rule, they cannot write novels, or articles, or treatises; they +cannot compose comic operas, or paint, in the midst of a row. Now, the +streets of London are the scenes of rows at every hour of night and day- +light. It is not the roll of carriages and carts that provokes +irritation, and drives the sensitive man or woman half mad. Even the +whistling of the metropolitan trains may, perhaps, be borne with if the +drivers are not too ambitious artists, and do not attempt fantasias and +variations on their powerful instrument. The noises that ruin health, +temper, and power of work; the noises that cause an incalculable waste of +time, money, and power, are all voluntary, and perhaps preventable. Let +us examine the working hours of the nervous or irritable musician, +mathematician, man of letters, or member of Parliament. On second +thoughts, the last may be omitted, as if he cannot sleep in a tedious +debate, his case is beyond cure. + + "Not bromide of potassium + Nor all the drowsy speeches in the world" + +can medicine him to forgetfulness of street noises. For the others, the +day may be said to begin about five, when the voice of the chimney-sweep +is heard in the land. Here we may observe that servants are the real +causes of half the most provoking noises in London. People ask why the +sweep cannot ring the bell, like other people. But the same people +remark that even the howl of the sweep does not waken the neighbours' +servants. Of what avail, then, could his use of the bell prove? It +generally takes the sweep twenty-five minutes exactly to bring the +servants to open the door. Meanwhile, the eminent men of letters in the +street open their windows, and show a very fair command of language +understanded by the people. But the sweep only laughs, and every three +minutes utters a howl which resembles no other noise with which men are +acquainted. Where do young sweeps learn to make this cry which can only +be acquired by long practice? Perhaps it is inherited, like the music of +"the damned nightingales," as the sleepless political economist called +the Daulian birds. + +When the sweep is silent, when slumber is stealing over the weary +eyelids, then traction engines, or steam-rollers, or some other +scientific improvement on wheels begin to traverse the streets and shake +the houses. This does not last more than a quarter of an hour, and then +a big bell rings, and the working men and women tramp gaily by, chatting +noisily and in excellent spirits. Now comes the milkman's turn. He, +like the chimney-sweep, has his own howl, softer, more flute-like in +quality than that of the sweep, but still capable of waking any one who +is not a domestic servant in hard training. The milkman also cries "woa" +to his horse at every house, and accompanies himself on his great tin +cans, making a noise most tolerable, and not to be endured. Is it +necessary, absolutely necessary, that the milkman should howl? In some +parts of town milkwomen distribute their wares without howling. They do, +certainly, wear very short petticoats, but that is matter, as Aristotle +says, for a separate disquisition. On the other hand, milkwomen exist +who howl as loudly as milkmen. We cannot but fear that without these +noises it would be difficult to attract the notice of servants. If this +pessimistic view be correct, sweeps and milkmen will howl while London is +a city inhabited. And even if we could secure the services of milkwomen +of the silent species that ring the bell, could we hope to have female +chimney-sweeps as well behaved? Here, at all events, is a new opening +for female labour. When the milkman has done his worst, the watercress +people come and mournfully ejaculate. Now it is time for the sleepless +and nervous to get up and do their work. Now, too, the barrel-organ +comes round. There are persons who, fortunately for themselves, are so +indifferent to music that they do not mind the barrel-organ. It is +neither better nor worse to them than the notes of Patti, and from the +voice of that siren, as from all music, they withdraw their attention +without difficulty. But other persons cannot work while the dirty +grinder and the women that drag his instrument are within hearing. The +barrel-organ, again, is strong in the support of servants, especially +nurses, who find that the music diverts babies. The rest of the day is +made hideous by the awful notes of every species of unintelligible and +uncalled for costermonger, from him who (apparently) bellows "Annie +Erskine," to her who cries, "All a-blowing and a-growing." There are +miscreants who want to buy bones, to sell ferns, to sell images, wicker- +chairs, and other inutilities, while last come the two men who howl in a +discordant chorus, and attempt to dispose of the second edition of the +evening paper, at ten o'clock at night. At eleven all the neighbours +turn out their dogs to bark, and the dogs waken the cats, which scream +like demoniacs. Then the public houses close, and the people who have +been inebriated, if not cheered, stagger howling by. Stragglers yell and +swear, and use foul language till about four in the morning, without +attracting the unfavourable notice of the police. Two or three half +drunken men and women bellow and blaspheme opposite the sufferer's house +for an hour at a time. And then the chimneysweep renews his rounds, and +the milkman follows him. + +The screams of costermongers and of rowdies might surely be suppressed by +the police. A system of "local option" might be introduced. In all +decent quarters householders would vote against the licensed bellowings +of cads and costermongers. In districts which think a noise pleasant and +lively the voting would go the other way. People would know where they +could be quiet, and where noise would reign. Except Bologna, perhaps no +town is so noisy as London; but then, compared with Bologna, London is +tranquillity itself. It is fair to say that really nervous and irritable +people find the country worse than town. The noise of the nightingales +is deplorable. The lamentations of a cow deprived of her calf, or of a +passion-stricken cow, "wailing for her demon lover" on the next farm, +excel anything that the milkman can perpetrate, and almost vie with the +performances of the sweep. When "the cocks are crowing a merry +midnight," as in the ballad, the sleepless patient wishes he could make +off as quietly and quickly as the ghostly sons of the "Wife of Usher's +Well." Dogs delight to bark in the country more than in town. Leech's +picture of the unfortunate victim who left London to avoid noise, and +found that the country was haunted by Cochin-China cocks, illustrates the +still repose of the rural life. Nervous people, on the whole, are in a +minute minority. No one else seems to mind how loud and horrible the +noises of London are, and therefore we have faint hope of seeing +nocturnal 'Arry gagged, the drunken drab "moved on," and the sweep +compelled to ring the bell till some one comes and opens the door of the +house in whose chimneys he is professionally interested. + + + +LENDING OF BOOKS. + + +A popular clergyman has found it necessary to appeal to his friends in a +very touching way. The friends of the divine are requested to return +"Colenso on the Pentateuch," and another volume which they have borrowed. +The advertisement has none of that irony which finds play in the notice, +"The Gentleman who took a brown silk umbrella, with gold crutch handle, +and left a blue cotton article, is asked to restore the former." The +advertiser seems to speak more in sorrow and in hope than in anger, and +we sincerely trust that he may get his second volume of "Colenso on the +Pentateuch." But if he does, he will be more fortunate than most owners +of books. Pitiful are their thoughts as they look round their shelves. +The silent friends of their youth, the acquisitions of their mature age, +have departed. Even popular preachers cannot work miracles, like Thomas +a Kempis, and pray back their borrowed volumes. As the Rev. Robert +Elsmere says, "Miracles do not happen"--at least, to book-collectors. + +"Murray sighs o'er Pope and Swift, and many a treasure more," said +Cowper, when Lord Mansfield's house was burned, and we have all had +experience of the sorrows of Murray. Even people who are not +bibliophiles, nay, who class bibliophiles with "blue-and-white young +men," know that a book in several volumes loses an unfair proportion of +its usefulness, and almost all its value, when one or more of the volumes +are gone. Grote's works, or Mill's, Carlyle's, or Milman's, seem nothing +when they are incomplete. It always happens, somehow, that the very tome +you want to consult is that which has fallen among borrowers. Even +Panurge, who praised the race of borrowers so eloquently, could scarcely +have found an excuse for the borrowers of books. + + "Tel est le triste sort de tout livre prete, + Souvent il est perdu, toujours il est gate." + +"Often lost, always spoiled," said Charles Nodier, "such is the fate of +every book one lends." The Parisian collector, Guibert de Pixerecourt, +would lend no books at all to his dearest friends. His motto, inscribed +above the lintel of his library-door, was, "Go to them that sell, and buy +for yourselves." As Pixerecourt was the owner of many volumes which +"they that sell" cannot procure, or which could only be bought at +enormous rates, his caution (we will not say churlishness) was rather +inconvenient for men of letters. But if hard pressed and in a strait, he +would make his friend a gift of the book which was necessary to his +studies. This course had the effect of preventing people from wishing to +borrow. But many of the great collectors have been more generous than +Pixerecourt. We forget the name (not an illustrious one) of the too good- +natured man who labelled his books, "Not my own, but my friends'." "Sibi +et amicis" ("His own and his friends' property") has been the motto of +several illustrious amateurs since Grolier and Maioli stamped it on the +beautifully decorated morocco of their bindings. Other people have +invented book-plates, containing fell curses in doggrel Latin or the +vernacular on the careless or dishonest borrower: + + "Aspice Pierrot pendut + Parceque librum non a rendu" + +is the kind of macaronic French and Latin which schoolboys are accustomed +to write under a sketch of the borrower expiating his offences on the +gallows. + +The mischief of borrowing, the persistent ill-luck which cleaves to +property thus obtained, have been proverbial since the young prophet +dropped the axe-head in the deep water, and cried, "Alas, for it is +borrowed." The old prophet, readily altering the specific gravity of the +article, enabled his disciple to regain it. But there are no prophets +now, none, at least, who can repair our follies, and remove their baneful +effects by a friendly miracle. What miracle can restore the books we +borrow and lose, or the books we borrow and spoil with ink, or with +candle-wax, or which children scrawl or paint over, or which "the dog +ate," like the famous poll-book at an Irish election, that fell into the +broth, and ultimately into the jaws of an illiterate animal? Books are +such delicate things! Yet men--and still more frequently women--read +them so close to the fire that the bindings warp, and start, and gape +like the shells of a moribund oyster. Other people never have a paper- +knife, and cut the leaves of books with cards, railway tickets, scissors, +their own fingers, or any other weapon that chances to seem convenient. +Then books are easily dirtied. A little dust falls into the leaves, and +is smudged by the fingers. No fuller on earth can cleanse it. The art +of man can remove certain sorts of stains, but only by stripping the book +of its binding, and washing leaf by leaf in certain acids, an expensive +and dangerous process. There are books for use, stout, everyday +articles, and books for pious contemplation, original editions, or tomes +that have belonged to great collectors. The borrower, who only wants to +extract a passage of which he is in momentary need, is a person heedless +of these distinctions. He enters a friend's house, or (for this sort of +borrower thrives at college) a friend's rooms, seizes a first edition of +Keats, or Shelley, or an Aldine Homer, or Elzevir Caesar of the good +date, and hurries away with it, leaving a hasty scrawl, "I have taken +your Shelley," signed with initials. Perhaps the owner of the book never +sees the note. Perhaps he does not recognize the hand. The borrower is +just the man to forget the whole transaction. So there is a blank in the +shelves, a gap among the orderly volumes, a blank never to be filled up, +unless our amateur advertises his woes in the newspapers. + +All borrowers are bad; but in this, as in other crimes, there are +degrees. The man who acts as Menage advises, in the aphorism which +Garrick used as a motto on his bookplate, the man who reads a book +instantly and promptly returns it, is the most pardonable borrower. But +how few people do this! As a rule, the last thing the borrower thinks of +is to read the book which he has secured. Or rather, that is the last +thing but one; the very last idea that enters his mind is the project of +returning the volume. It simply "lies about," and gets dusty in his +rooms. A very bad borrower is he who makes pencil marks on books. +Perhaps he is a little more excusable than the borrower who does not read +at all. + +A clean margin is worth all the marginalia of Poe, though he, to do him +justice, seems chiefly to have written on volumes that were his own +property. De Quincey, according to Mr. Hill Burton, appears to have +lacked the faculty of mind which recognizes the duty of returning books. +Mr. Hill Burton draws a picture of "Papaverius" living in a sort of cave +or den, the walls of which were books, while books lay around in tubs. +Who was to find a loved and lost tome in this vast accumulation? But De +Quincey at least made good use of what he borrowed. The common borrower +does nothing of the kind. Even Professor Mommsen, when he had borrowed +manuscripts of great value in his possession, allowed his house to get +itself set on fire. Europe lamented with him, but deepest was the wail +of a certain college at Cambridge which had lent its treasures. Even +Paul Louis Courier blotted horribly a Laurentian MS. of "Daphnis and +Chloe." When Chenier lent his annotated "Malherbe," the borrower spilt a +bottle of ink over it. Thinking of these things, of these terrible, +irreparable calamities, the wonder is, not that men still lend, but that +any one has the courage to borrow. It is more dreadful far to spoil or +lose a friend's book than to have our own lost or spoiled. Stoicism +easily submits to the latter sorrow, but there is no remedy for a +conscience sensible of its own unlucky guilt. + + + +CLUB BORES. + + +The London Club has been sitting in a judicial way on one of its members. +This member of the Club seems to have been what Thackeray's waiter called +"a harbitrary gent." The servants of the club had to complain that he +did not make "their lives so sweet to them that they (the servants) +greatly cared to live," if we may parody Arthur's address to his erring +queen. The Club has not made a vacancy in its ranks by requesting the +arbitrary member to withdraw. But his conduct was deemed, on the report +of the Committee, worthy of being considered by the Club. And that is +always something. In an age when clubs are really almost universal, most +men have had occasion to wish that their society would sit occasionally +on some of the members. The member who bullies the servants is a not +uncommon specimen of the club-bore. He may be called the bore truculent. +He has been excellently caricatured by Thackeray in the "Book of Snobs." + +There we have the club-bore who makes such a fuss about his chop, and +scolds the waiter so terribly. "Look at it, sir; is it a chop for a +gentleman? Smell it, sir; is it fit to put on a club table?" These, or +such as these, are the words of the gallant terror of waiters. Now it is +clearly unjust to make a waiter responsible for the errors, however +grave, of a very different character, the cook. But this mistake the +arbitrary gent is continually making. The cook is safe in his +inaccessible stronghold, down below. He cannot be paraded for punishment +on the quarter-deck, where Captain Bragg, of the Gunboat and Torpedo +Club, exercises justice. Therefore the miserable waiter is rebuked in +tones of thunder because the Captain's steak is underdone, or because +Nature (or the market gardener) has not made the stalks of asparagus so +green and succulent as their charming tops. People who do not know the +scolding club-bore at home are apt to be thankful that they are not +favoured with his intimate acquaintance, and are doubly grateful that +they are not members of his family. For if, in a large and quiet room +full of strangers, a man can give loose to his temper without +provocation, and outroar the thunder, what must this noisy person do at +home? "In an English family," says a social critic, "the father is the +man who shouts." How the club-bore must shout when he is in his own +castle, surrounded only by his trembling kindred and anxious retainers! +In his castle there is no one to resist or criticise him--unless indeed +his wife happen to be a lady, like Clytemnestra, of masculine resolution. +In that case the arbitrary gent may be a father of a family who is not +allowed to shout at home, but is obliged to give nature free play by +shouting abroad. + +There are plenty of other club-bores besides the man who rates these +generally affable and well-behaved persons, the club servants. One of +the worst is the man whom you never see anywhere except at the club, and +whom you never fail to see there. It is bad enough when you have no +acquaintance with him. Murders have probably been committed by sensitive +persons for no better reason (often for worse reasons) than that they are +tired of seeing some one else going about. His voice, his manner, his +cough, especially his cough, become unendurable. People who cough in +clubs are generally amateurs of the art. They are huskier, more +wheezing, more pertinacious in working away at a cough till they have +made it a masterpiece than any other mortals. We believe that club +Asthmats (it is quite as good a word as "AEsthetes") practise in the +Reading Room of the British Museum, where they acquire their +extraordinary compass and mastery of various notes. Be this as it may, +the cough which drives every one but its owner out of the room (though +doubtless an affliction to the proprietor) gives him rank as a club-bore +of the finest water. The bore who always enters into conversation, +though he has nothing to say, merely because you used to dislike him at +school, or college, or elsewhere, is another common annoyance. The man +who is engaged, apparently, on a large work, and who rushes about the +library hunting for Proclus and Jamblichus when other occupants of the +room wish to be quiet, is naturally detested. + +Most men are the bores of some other person. People of watchful mind and +intelligent habit, who talk in the drawing-room, are regarded as bores by +fat old gentlemen who wish to sleep there. And as these gentlemen turn +the drawing-room into a dormitory, which resounds with their snoring, +they in turn are bores to people who wish to read the papers. But if +these students drop the poker with a clang, or dash down small tables in +order to waken the sleepers, they, in their turn, give a good deal of +annoyance. The man who talks about politics at great length, is only one +of the common bores of the world transported into a club. But the man +with a voice which in ordinary conversation pierces through all the hum +of voices, like a clarion note in battle, would be a bore anywhere. If +he were in the wilderness of Sinai, he would annoy the monks in the +convent near the top. His voice is one of those terrible, inscrutable +scourges of nature, like the earthquake and the mosquito, which tax our +poor human wisdom to reconcile with any monistic theory of the benevolent +government of the universe. Once admit an evil principle, however, and +the thing is clear. The club-bore with the trumpet tones, which he +cannot moderate, is possessed, on this theory, by a fiend. As men are +talking quietly of turnips in one corner of the room, of rent in another, +and of racing in a third, his awful notes blend in from the fourth corner +with strident remarks on Bulgarian philology. + +The ancient Greeks were well accustomed to club life, for each of their +little cities was only a large club. They had, therefore, to deal with +the problem of bores. Some of them, consequently, had the institution of +annually devoting to the infernal gods the most unpopular citizens. These +persons were called _catharmata_, which may be freely translated +"scapegoats." Could not clubs annually devote one or more scapebores to +the infernal gods? They might ballot for them, of course, on some +merciful and lenient principle. One white ball in ten or twenty-black +ones might enable the bore to keep his membership for the next year. The +warning, if he only escaped this species of ostracism very narrowly, +might do him a great deal of moral good. Of course the process would be +unpleasant, but it is seldom agreeable to be done good to. Occasionally +even the most good-natured members would stand apart, not voting, or even +would place the black ball in the mystic urn. Then the scapebore would +have his subscription returned to him, and would be obliged to seek in +other haunts servants to swear at, and sofas to snore on. Another +suggestion, that members should be balloted for anew every five years, +would simply cause clubs to be depopulated. Pall-Mall and St. James's +would be desolate, mourning their children, and refusing comfort. The +system would act like a proscription. People would give up their friends +that they might purchase aid against their enemies. Clubs are more +endurable as they are, though members do suffer grievously from the +garrulity, the coughs, the slumbrous tendencies, and the temper of their +fellow-men. + + + +PHIZ. + + +Mr. Hablot K. Browne, better known as Phiz, was an artist of a departed +school to whom we all owe a great deal of amusement. He was not so +versatile nor so original as Cruickshank; he had not the genius, nor the +geniality, still less the sense of beauty, of John Leech. In his later +years his work became more and more unequal, till he was sometimes almost +as apt to scribble hasty scrawls as Constantin Guys. M. Guys was an +artist selected by M. Baudelaire as the fine flower of modern art, and +the true, though hurried, designer of the fugitive modern beauty. It is +recorded that M. Guys was once sent to draw a scene of triumph and +certain illuminations in London, probably about the end of the Crimean +War. His sketch did not reach the office of the paper for which he +worked in time, and some one went to see what the man of genius was +doing. He was found in bed, but he was equal to the occasion. Snatching +a sheet of paper and a pencil he drew a curve. "There," said he, "is the +triumphal arch, and here"--scribbling a number of scratches like +eccentric comets--"here are the fireworks." Mr. Browne's drawings +occasionally showed a tendency to approach the rudimentary sort of +"pictograph" rather than give what a dramatic critic calls "a solid and +studied rendering" of events. But many of Mr. Browne's illustrations of +Dickens are immortal. They are closely bound up with our earliest and +latest recollections of the work of the "incomparable Boz." Mr. +Pickwick, we believe, was not wholly due to the fancy of Mr. Browne, but +of the unfortunate Seymour, whom death prevented from continuing the +series. Every one has heard how Mr. Thackeray, then an unknown man, +wished to illustrate one of Mr. Dickens's early stories, and brought Mr. +Dickens examples of his skill. Fortunately, his offer was not accepted. +Mr. Thackeray's pencil was the proper ally of his pen. He saw and drew +Costigan, Becky, Emmy, Lord Steyne, as no one else could have drawn them. +But he had not beheld the creations of Boz in the same light of +imaginative vision. Sometimes, too, it must be allowed that Mr. +Thackeray drew very badly. His "Peg of Limavaddy," in the "Irish Sketch +Book," is a most formless lady, and by no means justifies the enthusiasm +of her poet. Thus the task of illustrating "Pickwick" fell to Mr. +Browne, and he carried on the conceptions of his predecessor with +extraordinary vigour. The old vein of exaggerated caricature he +inherited from the taste of an elder generation. But making allowance +for the exaggeration, what can be better than Mr. Pickwick sliding, or +the awful punishment of Stiggins at the hands of the long-suffering +Weller? We might wish that the young lady in fur-topped boots was +prettier, and indeed more of a lady. But Mr. Browne never had much +success, we think, in drawing pretty faces. He tried to improve in this +respect, but either his girls had little character, or the standard of +female beauty has altered. As to this latter change, there can be no +doubt at all. Leech's girls are not like Thackeray's early pictures of +women; and Mr. Du Maurier's are sometimes sicklied o'er with the pale +cast of an aesthetic period. + +It is probable that the influence of Mr. Browne's art reacted in some +degree on Dickens. In the old times every one whom the author invented +the artist was pretty certain to caricature. Thus the author may have +felt the temptation to keep pace with the frolic humour of the artist. +Mr. Browne cannot be blamed for a tendency to exaggerate noses and other +features, which was almost universal in his time. None of us can say +what conception would now be entertained of Dickens's characters if Mr. +Browne had not drawn them. In the later works of Dickens (when they were +illustrated) other artists were employed, as Mr. Stone and Mr. Fildes. +These are accomplished painters of established reputation, and they of +course avoided the old system of caricature, the old forced humour. But +we doubt whether their designs are so intimately associated with the +persons in the stories as are the designs of Mr. Browne. The later +artists had this disadvantage, that the later novels (except "Great +Expectations," which was not illustrated) were neither so good nor so +popular as "Pickwick," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Martin Chuzzlewit," "David +Copperfield," or even "Bleak House." We never can have any Mr. Micawber +but Phiz's indescribably jaunty Micawber. His Mr. Pecksniff is not very +like a human being, but his collars and his eye-glass redeem him, and +after all Pecksniff is a transcendental and incredible Tartuffe. Tom +Pinch is even less sympathetic in the drawings than in the novel. Jonas +Chuzzlewit is also "too steep," as a modern critic has said in modern +slang. But in the novel, too, Mr. Jonas is somewhat precipitous. +Nicholas Nickleby is a colourless sort of young man in the illustrations, +but then he is not very vividly presented in the text. Ralph Nickleby +and Arthur Gride may pair off with Jonas Chuzzlewit, but who can +disparage the immortal Mr. Squeers? From the first moment when we see +him at his inn, with the starveling little boys, through all the story, +Mr. Squeers is consistently exquisite. In spite of his cruelty, +coarseness, hypocrisy, there is a kind of humour in Mr. Squeers which +makes him not quite detestable. In "David Copperfield" Mr. Micawber is +perhaps the only artistic creation of much permanent merit, unless it be +the waiter who consumed David's dinner, and the landlady who gave him a +pint of the Regular Stunning. In "Bleak House" Mr. Browne made some +credible attempts to be tragic and pathetic. Jo is remembered, and the +gateway of the churchyard where the rats were, and the Ghost's Walk in +the gloomy domain of Lady Dedlock. + +It is a singular and gloomy feature in the character of young ladies and +gentlemen of a particular type that they have ceased to care for Dickens, +as they have ceased to care for Scott. They say they cannot read +Dickens. When Mr. Pickwick's adventures are presented to the modern +maid, she behaves like the Cambridge freshman. "Euclide viso, cohorruit +et evasit." When he was shown Euclid he evinced dismay, and sneaked off. +Even so do most young people act when they are expected to read "Nicholas +Nickleby" and "Martin Chuzzlewit." They call these masterpieces "too +gutterly gutter;" they cannot sympathize with this honest humour and +conscious pathos. Consequently the innumerable references to Sam Weller, +and Mrs. Gamp, and Mr. Pecksniff, and Mr. Winkle which fill our ephemeral +literature are written for these persons in an unknown tongue. The +number of people who could take a good pass in Mr. Calverley's Pickwick +Examination Paper is said to be diminishing. Pathetic questions are +sometimes put. Are we not too much cultivated? Can this fastidiousness +be anything but a casual passing phase of taste? Are all people over +thirty who cling to their Dickens and their Scott old fogies? Are we +wrong in preferring them to "Bootle's Baby," and "The Quick or the Dead," +and the novels of M. Paul Bourget? + + + +THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PROPOSALS. + + +There is no subject in the whole range of human affairs so interesting to +a working majority of the race as the theory and practice of proposals of +marriage. Men perhaps cease to be very much concerned about the ordeal +when they have been through it. But the topic never loses its charm for +the fair, though they are presumed only to wait and to listen, and never +to speak for themselves. That this theory has its exceptions appears to +be the conviction of many novelists. They not only make their young +ladies "lead up to it," but heroines occasionally go much further than +that, and do more than prompt an inexperienced wooer. But all these +things are only known to the world through the confessions of novelists, +who, perhaps, themselves receive confessions. M. Goncourt not long ago +requested all his fair readers to send him notes of their own private +experience. How did you feel when you were confirmed? How did Alphonse +whisper his passion? These and other questions, quite as intimate, were +set by M. Goncourt. He meant to use the answers, with all discreet +reserve, in his next novel. Do English novelists receive any private +information, and if they do not, how are we to reconcile their +knowledge--they are all love-adepts--with the morality of their lives? +"We live like other people, only more purely," says the author of "Some +Private Views," which is all very well. No man is bound to incriminate +himself. But as in the course of his career a successful novelist +describes many hundreds of proposals, all different, are we to believe +that he is so prompted merely by imagination? Are there no "documents," +as M. Zola says, for all this prodigious deal of love-making? These are +questions which await a reply in the interests of ethics and of art. +Meanwhile an editor of enterprise has selected five-and-thirty separate +examples of "popping the question," as he calls it, from the tomes of +British fiction. To begin with an early case--when Tom Jones returned to +his tolerant Sophia, he called her "Madam," and she called him "Mr. +Jones," not Tom. She asked Thomas how she could rely on his constancy, +when the lover of Miss Segrim drew a mirror from his pocket (like +Strephon in "Iolanthe"), and cried, "Behold that lovely figure, that +shape, those eyes," with other compliments; "can the man who shall be in +possession of these be inconstant?" Sophia was charmed by the "man in +possession," but forced her features into a frown. Presently Thomas +"caught her in his arms," and the rest was in accordance with what Mr. +Trollope and the best authorities recommend. How differently did Arthur +Pendennis carry himself when he proposed to Laura, and did not want to be +accepted! Lord Farintosh--his affecting adventure is published +here--proposed nicely enough, but did not behave at all well when he was +rejected. By the way, when young men in novels are not accepted, they +invariably ask the lady whether she loves another. Only young ladies, +and young men whom they have rejected, know whether this is common in +real life. It does not seem quite right. + +Kneeling has probably gone out, though Mr. Jingle knelt before the maiden +aunt, and remained in that attitude for no less than five minutes. In +Mr. Howell's "Modern Instance," kneeling was not necessary, and the +heroine kept thrusting her face into her lover's necktie; so the author +tells us. M. Theophile Gautier says that ladies invariably lay their +heads on the shoulder of the man who proposes (if he is the right man), +and for this piece of "business" (as we regret to say he considers it) he +assigns various motives. But he was a Frenchman, and the cynicism of +that nation (to parody a speech of Tom Jones's) cannot understand the +delicacy of ours. Mr. Blackmore (in "Lorna Doone") lets his lover make +quite a neat and appropriate speech, but that was in the seventeenth +century. When Artemus Ward began a harangue of this sort, Betsy Jane +knocked him off the fence on which he was sitting, and first criticising +his eloquence in a trenchant style, added, "If you mean being hitched, +I'm in it." In other respects the lover of Lorna Doone behaved as the +best authorities recommend. + +Mr. Whyte Melville ventured to describe Chastelard's proposal to Mary +Stuart, but it was not exactly in Mr. Swinburne's manner, and, where +historical opinions disagree, no reliance can be placed on speeches which +were not taken down by the intelligent reporters. Mr. Slope had his ears +boxed when he proposed to Mrs. Bold, but such Amazonian conduct is +probably rare, and neither party is apt to boast of it. He also, being +accepted, behaved in the manner to which the highest authorities have +lent their sanction, or, at least, he meant to do so, when the lady "fled +like a roe to her chamber." For all widows are not like widow Malone +(ochone!) renowned in song. When Arbaces, the magician, proposed to +Ione, he did so in the most necromantic and hierophantic manner in which +it could be done; his "properties" including a statue of Isis, an altar, +"and a quick, blue, darting, irregular flame." But his flame, quick, +blue, darting, and irregular as it was, lighted no answering blaze in the +ice-cold breast of the lovely lone. When rejected (in spite of a +splendid arrangement of magic lanterns, then a novelty, got up regardless +of expense) Arbaces swore like an intoxicated mariner, rather than a +necromaunt accustomed to move in the highest circles and pentacles. +Nancy, Miss Broughton's heroine, tells her middle-aged wooer, among other +things, that she accepts him, because "I did think it would be nice for +the boys; but I like you myself, besides." After this ardent confession, +he "kissed her with a sort of diffidence." Many men would have preferred +to go out and kick "the boys." + +Mr. Rochester's proposal to Jane Eyre should be read in the works both of +Bret Harte and of Miss Bronte. We own that we prefer Bret Harte's Mr. +Rawjester, who wearily ran the poker through his hair, and wiped his +boots on the dress of his beloved. Even in the original authority, Mr. +Rochester conducted himself rather like a wild beast. He "ground his +teeth," "he seemed to devour" Miss Eyre "with his flaming glance." Miss +Eyre behaved with sense. "I retired to the door." Proposals of this +desperate and homicidal character are probably rare in real life, or, at +least, out of lunatic asylums. To be sure, Mr. Rochester's house _was_ a +kind of lunatic asylum. + +Adam Bede's proposal to Dinah was a very thoughtful, earnest proposal. +John Inglesant himself could not have been less like that victorious +rascal, Tom Jones. Colonel Jack, on the other hand, "used no great +ceremony." But Colonel Jack, like the woman of Samaria in the Scotch +minister's sermon, "had enjoyed a large and rich matrimonial experience," +and went straight to the point, being married the very day of his +successful wooing. Some one in a story of Mr. Wilkie Collins's asks the +fatal question at a croquet party. At lawn-tennis, as Nimrod said long +ago, "the pace is too good to inquire" into matters of the affections. In +Sir Walter's golden prime, or rather in the Forty-five as Sir Walter +understood it, ladies were in no hurry, and could select elegant +expressions. Thus did Flora reply to Waverley, "I can but explain to you +with candour the feelings which I now entertain; how they might be +altered by a train of circumstances too favourable, perhaps, to be hoped +for, it were in vain even to conjecture; only be assured, Mr. Waverley, +that after my brother's honour and happiness, there is none which I shall +more sincerely pray for than yours." This love is indeed what Sidney +Smith heard the Scotch lady call "love in the abstract." Mr. Kingsley's +Tom Thurnall somehow proposed, was accepted, and was "converted" all at +once--a more complex erototheological performance was never heard of +before. + +Many of Mr. Abell's thirty-five cases are selected from novelists of no +great mark; it would have been more instructive to examine only the +treatment of the great masters of romance. But, after all, this is of +little consequence. All day long and every day novelists are teaching +the "Art of Love," and playing Ovid to the time. But what are novels +without love? Mere waste paper, only fit to be reduced to pulp, and +restored to a whiteness and firmness on which more love lessons may be +written. {135} + + + +MASTER SAMUEL PEPYS. + + +No man is a hero to his valet, and unluckily Samuel Pepys, by way of a +valet, chose posterity. All the trifles of temper, habit, vice, and +social ways which a keen-eyed valet may observe in his master Samuel +Pepys carefully recorded about himself, and bequeathed to the diversion +of future generations. The world knows Pepys as the only man who ever +wrote honest confessions, for Rousseau could not possibly be candid for +five minutes together, and St. Augustine was heavily handicapped by being +a saint. Samuel Pepys was no saint. We might best define him, perhaps, +by saying that if ever any man was his own Boswell, that man was Samuel +Pepys. He had Bozzy's delightful appreciation of life; writing in +cypher, he had Bozzy's shamelessness and more, and he was his own hero. + +It is for these qualities and achievements that he received a monument +honoured in St. Olave's, his favourite church. In St. Olave's, on +December 23, 1660, Samuel went to pray, and had his pew all covered with +rosemary and baize. Thence he went home, and "with much ado made haste +to spit a turkey." Here, in St. Olave's, he listened to "a dull sermon +from a stranger." Here, when "a Scot" preached, Pepys "slept all the +sermon," as a man who could "never be reconciled to the voice of the +Scot." What an unworthy prejudice! Often he writes, "After a dull +sermon of the Scotchman, home;" or to church again, "and there a simple +coxcombe preached worse than the Scot." Frequently have the sacred walls +of St. Olave's, where his effigy may be seen, echoed to the honest +snoring of the Clerk of the Navy. There Pepys lies now, his body having +been brought "in a very honourable and solemn manner," from Clapham, +where, according to that respected sheet, the _Post-boy_, he expired on +May 26, 1703. No stone marked the spot, when Mr. Mynors Bright's +delightful edition of Pepys was published in 1875. + +Now Pepys is honoured in that church where he sleeps even sounder than in +days when the Scot preached worse than usual. But he is rewarded in +death--not, it may be feared, for his real services to England, but +because he has amused us all so much. A dead humorist may be better than +a living official, however honest, industrious, and careful. + +In all these higher things Pepys was not found wanting. The son of a +tailor in the City, he yet had connections of good family, who were of +service to him when he entered public life. Samuel Pepys was born in +1632. He was educated at Magdalene, Cambridge, where he was once common- +roomed for being "scandalously overserved with liquor." Through life he +retained a friendly admiration of Magdalene strong ale. He married a +girl of fifteen when he was but twenty-two; he entered the service of the +State shortly afterwards. He was the Chief Secretary for Naval Affairs +during many years; he defended his department at the Bar of the House of +Commons after De Ruyter's attack in 1668, and he remained true to the +Stuart dynasty in heart after James was driven abroad. Yet, though his +contemporary biographer calls Pepys the greatest and most useful public +servant that ever filled the same situations in England, Pepys would not +now be honoured if he had not kept the most amusing diary in the world. +Samuel was a highly conscientious, truly pious man, constant in all +religious exercises, though he did slumber when the Scot wagged his pow +in a pulpit. At the same time, Samuel lived in a very fast age, an age +when pleasure was a business, and "old Rowley, the king," led the brawls. +He was young when society was most scandalously diverting. He had a +pretty wife, "poor wretch," of whom he stood in some awe; and yet this +inconsistent naval secretary liked to flit from flower to flower. He was +vain, greedy, wanton, fond of the delight of the eye and the pride of +life; he was loving and loose in his manners; he was pious, repentant, +profligate; and he deliberately told the whole tale of all his many +changes of mood and mistress, of piety and pleasure. One cannot open +Pepys at random without finding him at his delightful old games. On the +Lord's day he goes to church with Mr. Creed, and hears a good sermon from +the red-faced parson. He came home, read divinity, dined, and, he says, +"played the fool," and won a quart of sack from Mr. Creed. Then to +supper at the Banquet House, and there Mr. Pepys and his wife fell to +quarrelling over the beauty of Mrs. Pierce; "she against, and I for," +says superfluous Pepys. No one is in the least likely to suspect that +Mrs. Pepys was angry with her lord because he did not think Mrs. Pierce a +beauty. + +How living the whole story is! One can smell the flowers of that Sunday +in May, and the roast beef. The sack seems but newly drawn, the red +cheeks of Mrs. Pierce as fresh as ever. The flowers grow over them now, +or the church floor covers them; the sack is drunk, the roast beef is +eaten, the quarrel is over; the beauty and the red-faced parson, the +husband and wife, they are all with Tullus and Ancus. _Pulvis et +umbra_--that is the moral of "Pepys's Diary." Life yet lives so strong +in the cyphered pages; all the colour, all the mirth, all the little +troubles and sins, and vows, they are so real they might be of yesterday +or to-day, but the end of them came nigh two hundred years ago. +Therefore, to read Pepys is to enjoy our own brief innings better, as men +who know that our March is passing where Pepys' May has flown before, and +that we shall soon be with him and his wife, and the Scot, and the red- +faced parson. So fleeting is life, whose record outlives it for ever; so +brief, so swift, so faint the joys and sorrows, and all that we make +marvel of in our own fortunes and those of other men. + +Reading Pepys is thus like reading Montaigne, whose cheery scepticism his +revelations recall. But Pepys has all the advantage of the man living in +the busiest world over the recluse in that famed library, with the +mottoes on the wall. Montaigne wrote in a retired and contemplative +home, viewing life, as Osman Digna has viewed strife, "from afar," almost +safe from the shots of fortune. But Pepys writes day by day, like a war +correspondent, in the thick of the battle; his head "full of business," +as he declares; his heart full of many desires, many covetings, much +pride in matters that look small enough. He notes how, by chewing +tobacco, Mr. Chetwynde, who was consumptive, became very fat. He remarks +how a board fell, and the dust powdered the ladies' heads at the play, +"which made good sport." He records every venison-pasty, every flagon of +wine, every pretty wench whom he encountered in his march through his +youth towards the vault in St. Olave's. He is vexed with Mrs. Pepys and +troubled by "my aunt's base ugly humours." He is "full of repentance," +like the Bad Man in the Ethics, and thinks how much he is addicted to +expense and pleasure, "so that now I can hardly reclaim myself." He +interests himself in Dr. Williams's remarkable dog, which not only killed +cats, but buried them with punctilious obsequies, never leaving the tip +of puss's tail out of the ground. Then he goes to the play, "after +swearing to my wife that I would never go to the play without her." He +remembers one night that he passed "with the greatest epicurism of +sleep," because he was often disturbed, and so got out of sleeping more +conscious enjoyment. Now he sleeps what Socrates calls the sweetest +slumber of all, if it be but dreamless, or, somewhere, he enjoys all new +experience, with the lusty appetite of old. + + + +INVOLUNTARY BAILEES. + + +Lord Tennyson is probably the most extensive Involuntary Bailee at +present living. The term "Involuntary Bailee" may or may not be a +correct piece of legal terminology; at all events, it sounds very +imposing, and can be easily explained. + +An Involuntary Bailee is a person to whom people (generally unknown to +him) send things which he does not wish to receive, but which they are +anxious to have returned. Most of us in our humble way are or have been +Involuntary Bailees. When some one you meet at dinner recommends to your +notice a book (generally of verse), and kindly insists on sending it to +you next day by post as a loan, you are an Involuntary Bailee. You have +the wretched book in your possession; no inducement would make you read +it, and to pack it up and send it back again requires a piece of string, +energy, brown paper, and stamps enough to defray the postage. Now, +surely no casual acquaintance or neighbour for an hour at a dinner-party +has any right thus to make demands on a man's energy, money, time, brown +paper, string, and other capital and commodities. + +If the book be sent as a present, the crime is less black, though still +very culpable. You need take no notice of the present, whereby you +probably offend the author for life, and thus get rid of him anyhow. +Commonly, he is a minor poet, and sends you his tragedy on John Huss; or +he is a writer on mythological subjects, and is anxious to weary you with +a theory that Jack the Giant Killer was Julius Caesar. At the worst, you +can toss his gift into the waste-paper basket, or sell it for fourpence +three-farthings, or set it on your bookshelf so as to keep the damp away +from books of which you are not the Involuntary Bailee, but the unhappy +purchaser. The case becomes truly black, as we have said, when the +uncalled-for tribute has to be returned. Then it is sure to be lost, +when the lender writes to say he wishes to recover it. In future he will +go about telling people that the recipient stole his best ideas from the +manuscript (if it was a manuscript) which he pretends to have lost. + +Lord Tennyson has suffered from all these troubles to an extent which the +average Bailee can only fancy by looking with his mind's eye through +"patent double million magnifiers." A man so eminent as the Laureate is +the butt of all the miserable minor poets, all the enthusiastic school- +girls, all the autograph-hunters, all the begging-letter writers, all the +ambitious young tragedians, and all the utterly unheard-of and imaginary +relations in Kamschatka or Vancouver's Island with whom the wide world +teems. Lord Tennyson has endured these people for some fifty years, and +now he takes a decided line. He will not answer their letters, nor +return their manuscripts. + +Lord Tennyson is perfectly right to assume this attitude, only it makes +life even more hideous than of old to Mr. Browning and Mr. Swinburne. +Probably these distinguished writers are already sufficiently pestered by +the Mr. Tootses of this world, whose chief amusement is to address +epistles to persons of distinction. Mr. Toots was believed to answer his +own letters himself, but the beings who fill Lord Tennyson's, and Mr. +Gladstone's, and probably Mr. Browning's letterbox expect to receive +answers. Frightened away from Lord Tennyson's baronial portals, they +will now crowd thicker than ever round the gates of other poets who have +not yet announced that they will prove irresponsive. Cannot the Company +of Authors (if that be the correct style and title) take this matter up +and succour the profession? Next, of course, to the baneful publisher +and the hopelessly indifferent public, most authors suffer more from no +one than from the unknown correspondent. The unknown correspondent is +very frequently of the fair sex, and her bright home is not unusually in +the setting sun. "Dear Mr. Brown," she writes to some poor author who +never heard of her, nor of Idaho, in the States, where she lives, "I +cannot tell you how much I admire your monograph on Phonetic Decay in its +influence on Logic. Please send me two copies with autograph +inscriptions. I hope to see you at home when I visit Europe in the +Fall." + +Every man of letters, however humble, is accustomed to these salutations, +and probably Lord Tennyson receives scores every morning at breakfast. +Like all distinguished poets, like Scott certainly, we presume that he is +annoyed with huge parcels of MSS. These (unless Lord Tennyson is more +fortunate than other singers) he is asked to read, correct, and return +with a carefully considered opinion as to the sender's chance of having +"Assur ban-i-pal," a tragedy, accepted at the Gaiety Theatre. Rival but +unheard-of bards will entreat him to use his influence to get their +verses published. Others (all the world knows) will send him "spiteful +letters," assuring him that "his fame in song has done them much wrong." +How interesting it would be to ascertain the name of the author of that +immortal "spiteful letter"! Probably many persons have felt that they +could make a good guess; no less probably they have been mistaken. + +In no way can the recipient avoid making enemies of the authors of all +these communications if he is at all an honest, irascible man. Mr. +Dickens used to reply to total strangers, and to poets like Miss Ada +Menken, with a dignified and sympathetic politeness which disarmed wrath. +But he probably thereby did but invite fresh trouble of the same kind. +Mr. Thackeray (if a recently-published answer was a fair specimen) used +to answer more briefly and brusquely. One thing is certain. No +criticism not entirety laudatory, which the Involuntary Bailee may make +of his correspondent's MS., will be accepted without remonstrance. +Doubtless Lord Tennyson has at last chosen the only path of safety by +declining to answer his unknown correspondents, or to return their +rubbish, any more. + +Of course, it is a wholly different affair when the anonymous +correspondent sends several brace of grouse, or a salmon of noble +proportions, or rare old books bound by Derome, or a service of Worcester +china with the square mark, or other tribute of that kind. Probably some +dozen of rhymers sent Lord Tennyson amateur congratulatory odes when he +was raised to the peerage. If he is at all like other poets, he would +have preferred a few dozen of extremely curious old port, or a Villon +published by Galiot du Pre, or a gold nugget, or some of the produce of +the diamond mines, to any number of signed congratulations from total +strangers. Actors seem to receive nicer tributes than poets. Two brace +of grouse were thrown on the stage when Mr. Irving was acting in a +northern town. This is as picturesque as, and a great deal more +permanently enjoyable than, a shower of flowers and wreaths. Another day +a lady threw a gold cross on the stage, and yet another enthusiast +contributed rare books appropriately bound. These gifts will not, of +course, be returned by a celebrity who respects himself; but they bless +him who gives and him who takes, much more than tons of manuscript +poetry, and thousands of entreaties for an autograph, and millions of +announcements that the writer will be "proud to drink your honour's noble +health." + + + +SUMMER NIGHTS. + + +If the best of all ways of lengthening our days be to take a few hours +from the night, many of us are involuntarily prolonging existence at the +present hour. Macbeth did not murder sleep more effectually than the hot +weather does. At best, in the sultry nights, most people sleep what is +called "a dog's sleep," and by no means the sleep of a lucky dog. As the +old English writers say, taking a distinction which our language appears +to have lost, we "rather slumber than sleep," waking often, and full of +the foolishest of dreams. This condition of things probably affects +politics and society more than the thoughtless suppose. If literature +produced in the warm, airless fog of July be dull, who can marvel +thereat? + +"Of all gods," says Pausanias, "Sleep is dearest to the Muses;" and when +the child of the Muses does not get his regular nine hours' rest (which +he fails to do in warm weather), then his verse and prose are certain to +bear traces of his languor. It is true that all children of the Muses do +not require about double the allowance of the saints. Five hours was all +St. Jerome took, and probably Byron did not sleep much more during the +season when he wrote "Childe Harold." The moderns who agree with the +Locrians in erecting altars to Sleep, can only reply that probably +"Childe Harold" would have been a better poem if Byron had kept more +regular hours when he was composing it. So far they will, perhaps, have +Mr. Swinburne with them, though that author also has Sung before Sunrise, +when he would (if the wisdom of the ancients be correct) have been better +employed in plucking the flower of sleep. + +Leaving literature, and looking at society, it is certain that the human +temper is more lively, and more unkind things are said, in a sultry than +in a temperate season. In the restless night-watches people have time to +brood over small wrongs, and wax indignant over tiny slights and +unoffered invitations. Perhaps politics, too, are apt to be more +rancorous in a "heated term." Man is very much what his liver makes him. + +Hot weather vexes the unrested soul in nothing more than this, that (like +a revolution in Paris) it tempts the people to "go down into the +streets." The streets are cooler, at least, than stuffy gas-lit rooms; +and if the public would only roam them in a contemplative spirit, with +eyes turned up to the peaceful constellations, the public might fall down +an area now and then, but would not much disturb the neighbourhood. But +the 'Arry that walketh by night thinks of nothing less than admiring, +with Kant, the starry heavens and the moral nature of man. He seeks his +peers, and together in great bands they loiter or run, stopping to chaff +each other, and to jeer at the passer-by. Their satire is monotonous in +character, chiefly consisting of the words for using which the famous Mr. +Budd beat the baker. {152} Now, the sultry weather makes it absolutely +necessary to leave bedroom windows wide open, so that he who is courting +sleep has all the advantage of studying the dialogue of the slums. These +disturbances last till two in the morning in some otherwise quiet +districts near the river. When Battersea 'Arry has been "on the fly" in +Chelsea, while Chelsea 'Arry has been pursuing pleasure in Battersea, the +homeward-faring bands meet, about one in the morning, on the Embankment. +Then does Cheyne Walk hear the amoebean dialogues of strayed revellers, +and knows not whether Battersea or Chelsea best deserves the pipe, the +short black pipe, for which the rival swains compete in profanity and +slang. In music, too, does this modern Dionysiac procession rejoice, and +Kensington echoes like Cithaeron when Pan was keeping his orgies +there--Pan and the Theban nymphs. The music and the song of the London +street roamer is excessively harsh, crabbed, and tuneless. Almost as +provoking it is, in a quiet way, when three or four quite harmless people +meet under a bedroom window and converse in their usual tone of voice +about their private affairs. + +These little gatherings sometimes seem as if they would never break up, +and though the persons in the piece mean no harm, they are nearly as +noxious to sleep as the loud musical water-side rough or public-house +loafer. Dogs, too, like men, seem to feel it incumbent on them to howl +more than usual in hot weather, and to bay the moon with particular +earnestness in July. No enemy of sleep is deadlier than a dear, good, +affectionate dog, whose owners next door have accidentally shut him out. +The whole night long he bewails his loneliness, in accents charged with +profound melancholy. The author of the "Amusement Philosophique" would +have us believe that animals can speak. Nothing makes more for his +opinion than the exquisite variety of lyrical howl in which a shut-out +dog expresses every phrase of blighted affection, incommunicable longing, +and supreme despair. Somehow he never, literally never, wakens his +owners. He only keeps all the other people in a four-mile radius wide +awake. Yet how few have the energy and public spirit to get up and go +for that dog with sticks, umbrellas, and pieces of road-metal! The most +enterprising do little more than shout at him out of the window, or take +long futile shots at him with bits of coal from the fireplace. When we +have a Municipal Government of London, then, perhaps, measures will be +taken with dogs, and justice will be meted out to the owners of fowls. At +present these fiends in human shape can keep their detestable pets, and +defy the menaces, as they have rejected the prayers, of their neighbours. +The amount of profanity, insanity, ill-health, and general misery which +one rooster can cause is far beyond calculation. + +When London nights are intolerable, people think with longing of the +cool, fragrant country, of the jasmine-muffled lattices, and the groups +beneath the dreaming evening star. One dreams of coffee after dinner in +the open air, as described in "In Memoriam;" one longs for the cool, the +hush, the quiet. But try the country on a July night. First you have +trouble with all the great, big, hairy, leathery moths and bats which fly +in at the jasmine-muffled lattice, and endeavour to put out your candle. +You blow the candle out, and then a bluebottle fly in good voice comes +out too, and is accompanied by very fair imitations of mosquitoes. +Probably they are only gnats, but in blowing their terrible little +trumpets they are of the mosquito kind. Next the fact dawns on you that +the church clock in the neighbouring spire strikes the quarters, and you +know that you cannot fall asleep before the chime wakes you up again, +with its warning, "Another quarter gone." The cocks come forth and crow +about four; the hens proclaim to a drowsy world that they have fulfilled +the duties of maternity. All through the ambrosial night three cows, in +the meadow under your windows, have been lamenting the loss of their +calves. Of all terrible notes, the "routing" of a bereaved, or amorous, +or homesick cow is the most disturbing. It carries for miles, and keeps +all who hear it--all town-bred folk, at least--far from the land of Nod. +At dawn the song-birds begin, and hold you awake, as they disturbed +Rufinus long ago; but the odds are that they do not inspire you, like +Rufinus, with the desire to write poetry. The short and simple language +of profanity is more likely to come unbidden to the wakeful lips. Thus, +as John Leech found out, the country in July is almost as dreadful at +night as the town. Nay, thanks to the cow, we think the country may bear +away the prize for all that is uncomfortable, all that is hostile to +sleep and the Muses. Yet rustics always sleep very well, and no more +mind the noise of cocks, sparrows, cows, dogs, and ducks than the owner +of a town-bred dog minds when his faithful hound drives a whole street +beyond their patience. It is a matter of sound health and untaxed +brains. If we always gave our minds a rest, none of us would dread the +noises of the nights of summer. + + + +ON HYPOCHONDRIACS. + + +A nice state we are in, according to the _Medical Times_. If the secrets +of our "casebooks"--that is, we suppose, our medical _dossiers_, doctors' +records of the condition of their patients--could be revealed, it would +be shown that many clever people have a fancy skeleton in their +cupboards. By a fancy skeleton we mean, not some dismal secret of crime +or shame, but a melancholy and apprehensiveness without any ground in +outward facts. With the real skeleton doctors have nothing to do. He +rather belongs to the province of Scotland Yard. If a man has +compromised himself in some way, if he has been found out by some +scoundrel, if he is compelled to "sing," as the French say, or to pay +"blackmail," then the doctor is not concerned in the business. A +detective, a revolver, or a well-planned secret flight may be prescribed +to the victim. Other real skeletons men possess which do not come of +their own misdeeds. One of their friends or one of their family may be +the skeleton, or the consciousness of coming and veritable misfortune, +pecuniary or what-not. But the _Medical Times_, which no doubt ought to +know, refers purely to cases of vague melancholy and hypochondriac +foreboding. Apparently "The Spleen," the "English Disease," is as bad +now as when Green wrote in verse and Dr. Cheyne in prose. Prosperous +business men, literary gents in active employment, artists, students, +tradesmen, "are all visited by melancholy, revealed only to their +doctors, and sometimes to their domestic circle." + +Unhappy domestic circle, brooded over by a gloomy parent, who thinks that +life is too short, or faith too much a matter of speculation, or that the +country is going to the dogs! Then the doctor, it seems, hears his +patient, and recommends him only to drink a very little whisky and potash +water, or to take two bottles of port every day, or to take to angling, +or to give up smoking, or to work less or to work more, or to go to bed +early or to get up late, or to ride, or to fence, or to play golf, or to +go to Upper Egypt or the Engadine, or anything that fancy may dictate and +opportunity suggest. So the kind physician advises his mournful self- +tormentor, and then he himself flies round the corner and consults some +brother-healer about his own subjective gloom. + +Old ladies, in speaking of the misdeeds of youth, are apt to recommend "a +good shaking" as a panacea. Really those victims of whom our +contemporary speaks, appear to be persons on whom "a good shaking," +mental or physical, would produce a salutary effect. Cowardice, vanity, +overweening self-consciousness, are the causes of most melancholy. No +doubt it has physical causes too. Dr. Johnson suffered,--one of the best +and bravest of men. But most of us suffer--if suffer we do--because we +over-estimate ourselves and our own importance. Mr. Matthew Arnold has +tried to enforce this lesson. After a horrible murder in a railway +carriage, Mr. Arnold observed, with pain, the "almost bloodthirsty +clinging to life" of his fellow-passengers. In vain he pointed out to +them that even if they were to depart, "the great mundane movement" would +go on as usual. But they refused to be comforted. Every man was afraid +of meeting his own Muller; and as to the great mundane movement, no one +cared a pin. This selfishness is among the chief causes of melancholy. A +man persuades himself that he will not live long, or that his prospects +in this world or the next are gloomy; or he takes views as absurdly far- +reaching as those of the spinsters in the old tale, who wept over the +hypothetical fate of the child one of them might have had if she had been +married. Now, there is a certain melancholy not unbecoming a man; +indeed, to be without it is hardly to be human. Here we do find +ourselves, indeed, like the shipwrecked mariner on the isle of Pascal's +apologue; all around us are the unknown seas, all about us are the +indomitable and eternal processes of generation and corruption. "We come +like water, and like wind we go." Life is, indeed, as the great Persian +says-- + + "A moment's halt, a momentary taste + Of being from the well beside the waste." + +These just causes of melancholy and of awe have presented themselves to +all reflective men at all times. They deeply affect the thought, so +wholesome and so human, of Homer. They express themselves in that old +English pagan's allegory of the bird that flies from the dark into the +warm and lighted hall, and from the hall into the dark again. Not to be +capable of these reflections is to be incapable of tasting the noblest +poetry. Such thoughts actually give zest to our days, and sharpen our +enjoyment of that which we have only a brief moment to enjoy. Such +thoughts add their own sweetness and sadness to the song of the +nightingale, to the fall of the leaves, to the coming of the spring. Were +we "exempt from eld and age," this noble melancholy could never be ours, +and we, like the ancient classical gods, would be incapable of tears. +What Prometheus says in Mr. Bridge's poem is true-- + + "Not in heaven, + Among our easy gods, hath facile time + A touch so keen to wake such love of life + As stirs the frail and careful being of Man." + +Such are the benefits of Melancholy, when she is only an occasional +guest, and is not pampered or made the object of devotion. But +Melancholy, though an excellent companion for an hour, is the most +exacting and depressing of mistresses. The man who gives himself up to +her, who always takes too long views, who broods on the future of this +planet when the sun has burned out, is on the high-way to madness. The +odds are that he does not travel all the way. He remains a +self-tormented wretch, highly profitable to his medical man, and a +frightful nuisance to his family. Now, there are, of course, cases in +which this melancholy has physical causes. It may come of indigestion, +and then the remedy is known. Less dining out (indeed, no one will ask +the abjectly melancholy man out) and more exercise may be recommended. +The melancholy man had better take to angling; it is a contemplative +pastime, but he will find it far from a gloomy one. The sounds and +sights of nature will revive and relieve him, and, if he is only +successful, the weight of a few pounds of fish on his back will make him +toss off that burden which poor Christian carried out of the City of +Destruction. No man can be melancholy when the south wind blows in +spring, when the soft, feathery March-browns flit from the alders and +fall in the water, while the surface boils with the heads and tails of +trout. + +Perhaps, on the other hand, the melancholy one lives too much in the +country. Then let him go to Paris or Vienna; let him try the Palais +Royal, and spend a good deal of money in the shops. A course of this +might have cured even Obermann, whom there was nothing to check or divert +while he kept philandering on the mountains with the snows and his woes. +There are plenty of such cures for a melancholy not yet incurable; change +of air, scene, food, amusement, and occupation being the best. True, the +Romans tried this, as Seneca and Lucretius tells us, and found themselves +as much bored as ever. "No easier nor no quicker passed th' +impracticable hours." But the Romans were very extreme cases. + +When the cause of melancholy is religious or moral, there is little to be +done with the victim. In "Sartor Resartus" he will read how Mr. Carlyle +cured himself, if ever he was cured. To be brief, he said, "What then, +who cares?" and indeed, in more reverent form of expression, it is all +that can be said. When Nicias addressed the doomed and wasted remnant of +the Athenian expedition to Syracuse, he told them that "others, too, +being men, had borne things which had to be endured." That is the whole +philosophy of the matter. + + + +THACKERAY'S LONDON. + + +A house in a highly respectable square, where Jeames Yellowplush was in +service, had recently the fame of being haunted. No one knew exactly +what haunted this desirable mansion, or how, though a novelist was +understood to have supplied a satisfactory legend. The young man who +"investigated" the ghost rang the bell thrice violently, and then fell +down dead, nor could he in any wise satisfy the curiosity of his friends. +That fable is exploded. It was what is called an "aetiological myth;" by +the learned it was merely a story devised to account for the fact that +the house was not occupied. The imagination of man, confronted by so +strange a problem as money running to waste, took refuge in the +supernatural. Much more truly haunted than the house in "Buckley Square" +are the streets of London which are tenanted by the ghosts that genius +created. These, having never been born, can never die, and still we may +meet them in the roads and squares where they lived and took their +pastime. Mr. Rideing, an American author, has published (with Messrs. +Jarvis and Son) a little volume called "Thackeray's London," an account +of the places which that great novelist made household words, and filled +with genial spectres that time can never lay. Mr. Rideing's little book +does not strike us as being quite complete. Surely Thackeray, especially +in the "Ballads," mentions many places not alluded to by the new +topographer. Besides, Mr. Rideing says that Thackeray's readers forget +the localities in which his characters appear. Surely this is a calumny +on human memory. Who but thinks of Becky Sharp as he trudges down Curzon +Street? Has Bryanston Square properly any reason for existence, except +that the Hobson Newcomes dwelt there? Are the chambers of Captain +Costigan forgotten by the memory of any man, or those of Pen and George +Warrington? But Pen took better rooms, not so lofty, when he scored that +success with "Walter Lorraine." Where did Mr. Bowes, the hopeless +admirer of the Fotheringay, dwell? Every one should know, but that +question might puzzle some. Or where was the lair of the Mulligan? Like +the grave of Arthur, or of Moliere, it is unknown; the whole of the +postal district known as W. is haunted by that tremendous shade. "I live +there," says he, pointing down towards Uxbridge with the big stick he +carries; so his abode is in that direction, at any rate. No more has +been given to man to know. + +Many minor reminiscences occur to the mind. In Pump Court we encounter +the brisk little spectre of Mr. Frederick Minchin, and who can forget +that his club was The Oxford and Cambridge, than which what better could +he desire? Mr. Thackeray himself was a member of The Garrick, The +Athenaeum, and The Reform, but the clubs of many of his characters, like +the "buth" of Jeames Yellowplush, are "wrapped up in a mistry." They are +alluded to by fancy names, but the scholiast on Thackeray will probably +be able to identify them. Is it not time, by the way, for that scholiast +to give his labours to the public? Thackeray's world is passing; the +children he knew, the boys he tipped and took to the play, are middle- +aged men--fogies, in fact. _Tempus edax rerum_, Time has an appetite as +good as that of a boy at his first club dinner. The meaning of the great +writer's contemporary allusions may be lost, like those of Villon and +Aristophanes. Such is the fate of comedy. Who knows, if we turn to +Dickens, what the "common profeel machine" was, or what were the steps of +the dance known as the Fanteag (the spelling is dubious); or what the +author meant by a "red-faced Nixon." Was it a nixie? Does the new +Professor of the English Language and Literature at Oxford hope to cast +the light of Teutonic research on these and similar inquiries? Sam +Weller found that oysters always went hand-in-hand with poverty. How +this must astonish a generation which finds the oyster nearly as extinct +as the ichthyosaurus! The "Book of Snobs" calls aloud for a commentator. +Who is the nobleman holding his boots out of the hotel window--an act +which the Snob very properly declined to classify as snobbish? Who are +the originals of Henry Foker (this, indeed, is known), and of Wagg and +Wenham? Or did Wenham's real name _rhyme_ to Foker, as, according to the +Mulligan, "Perkins rhymes to Jerkins, my man of firkins"? Posterity will +insist on an answer, which will be nothing if not authentic. Posterity, +_pace_ Mr. Rideing, will remember very well that George Osborne's father +lived in Russell Square, and will hunt in vain for 96. There is no such +number, any more than there ever was such a Pope as he to whom the +unfortunate old woman in "Candid" attributed her birth. Here once more, +as Voltaire justly remarks in a footnote, we observe the discretion of +our author. + +Colonel Newcome lived, as is well known, in Fitzroy Square, and died in +the Charter House. To these shrines the pious go in pilgrimage; the +rather dingy quarters are brightened by the memory of his presence, as we +think of Scott in Castle Street, Edinburgh, or of Dr. John Brown in +Princes Street--Dr. John Brown who was a Colonel Newcome that had gone +into medicine instead of the army. Smithfield is hardly more memorable +for her martyrs than for the battles fought on neighbouring ground +between Biggs and Berry, between Cuff and old Figs. Kentish Town, but +little sought for sentimental reasons, is glorified by the memory of +Adolphus Larkins; "Islington, Pentonville, Somers Town, were the scenes +of many of his exploits." Brompton, again, passionate Brompton, lent her +shelter--or rather, sold it, for the poetess lived in a boarding-house--to +Miss Bunnion. Cursitor Street might be unknown as the great men before +Agamemnon (many of whom, by the way, as Meleager and Pirithous, are known +well enough) had not Cursitor Street contained the sponging-house where +Rawdon Crawley was incarcerated. + +In addition to these scholia on Thackeray so sadly needed, and so little +likely to be published, we need novelists' maps and topographies of +London and Paris. These will probably be constructed by some American of +leisure; they order these things better in America. When we go to Paris +we want to know where Balzac's men and women lived, Z. Marcas and Cesar +Birotteau, and Le Cousin Pons, and Le Pere Goriot, and all the duchesses, +financiers, scoundrels, journalists, and persons of both sexes and no +character "Comedie Humaine." London also might be thus spaced out--the +London of Richardson, and Fielding, and Miss Burney, as well as the +London of Thackeray or Dickens. Already, to speak of to-day, Rupert +Street is more interesting, because there, fallen in fortune, but +resolute of heart and courtly as ever, Prince Florizel of Bohemia held +his cigar divan. + + + +TORRID SUMMER. + + +"Is it very cold?" asks the Prince of Denmark, according to a familiar +reading. No one has any occasion to consult the thermometer before +answering the question, "Is it very hot?" All things combine to prove +that it is very hot. Even the man of metal who used, according to +legend, to patrol the coast of Crete, the man with only one vein from +head to heel, would admit (could he appear in the Machineries at present) +that it is very hot indeed. He might not feel any subjective sensation +of heat (for he seems to have been a mythical anticipation of the +Conquering Machine which is to dominate the world), but he would have +inferred the height of the temperature from a number of phenomena. He +would have seen the ticket-clerks in the railway stations with their +coats off. He would have observed imitation Japanese parasols at a penny +among the ware of enterprising capitalists in the streets. He would have +marked the very street-boys in wide, inexpensive straw hats of various +and astonishing colours. Woman he would have found in beautiful shades +of blue, in such light garments "woven wind" as Theocritus speaks of when +he presents the wife of his doctor with a new ivory distaff. + +As to men, they in their attire do show their wit or their want of +courage, as the case may be. It is not easy for modern man, when he +"repairs to the metropolis," to dress up to the heat of the weather. An +ingenious though too hasty philosopher once observed that all men who +wear velvet coats are atheists. He probably overstated the amount of +intellectual and spiritual audacity to be expected from him who, setting +the picturesque before the conventional, dons a coat of velvet. But it +really does require some originality even to wear a white hat and a white +waistcoat in a London July. The heat is never so great but that the +majority of males endure black coats and black shiny hats. The others +are in a minority. The voice of public opinion is not on their side. +"Who stole the moke, Anna?" asked suspicion; and the answer came, "The +man in the _chapeau blanc_." There is something daring, something +distinctive in a white hat; and it may be doubted whether the amount of +comfort obtained by the revolutionary wearer is in a due ratio to the +conspicuousness which his action entails on him. Members of Parliament +are singularly emancipated from these fears of the brave; but members of +Parliament cannot supply the whole contingent of white-hatted men now to +be seen in the streets of the metropolis. Their presence proves that it +is very hot indeed. One swallow does not make a summer, but half a dozen +pairs of "ducks" beheld in public places would mark a summer of unusually +high temperature. + +There are, of course, alleviations. Nature compensates all who can +afford to purchase the compensations. Strawberries, long waited for, +shy, retiring fruit, have now nearly approached the popular price of +sixpence a basket. A divine of a past generation declared that in his +opinion the joys of Paradise would consist of eating strawberries to the +sound of a trumpet. For a poor sixpence half of this transcendental +pastime may be partaken of, and probably the brass band which is usually +round the corner could supply the sound of the trumpet at a small extra +charge. + +Unluckily, doctors have decided that many of us must not eat +strawberries, nor drink champagne cup, nor iced coffee. That is the way +with doctors. AEsculapius was originally worshipped in the form of a +serpent; in the guise of a serpent he came to Rome. Medical men still +hold of their heroic father, and physicians are the serpents in the +Paradise of a warm summer. Mortals, in their hands, are like Sancho +Panza with his medical adviser. Here is summer, provoking a gentle +interest in every method of assuaging thirst, and almost every method is +condemned by one member of the faculty or another. Champagne cannot be +so royally sound, nor is shandy-gaff so humble, that it 'scapes whipping. +How melancholy a thing is human life at best! In boyhood we can eat more +ices than our pocket-money enables us to purchase; in maturity we have +the pocket-money without the powers of digestion. The French lady said +that if strawberry ices were only sinful, no pleasure could exceed that +which is to be enjoyed in the consumption of the congealed fruit. +Strawberry ices are sinful now, and under the medical ban. The French +lady, were she living still, might be at ease on that score. But her +audacity is not given to all, and many fall back on that poor creature, +lemon-squash, when they are conscious of a thirst worthy of being +quenched by the most imperial beverages in imperial quarts. + +Men, being reasonable, must hurry about town when the thermometer is at +something fabulous, wearing black clothes, going to parties, and larding +the lean earth. Beasts are not so foolish. To the pious Brahmin Vishnu +accords the power of becoming what animal he pleases, with a break in the +lease, so to speak, when circumstances alter. Had a sage this power at +this moment he would become a cow, standing up to her middle in the +clear, cool water of the Kennet, under the shade of a hanging willow +tree. What bliss can equal that of a cow thus engaged? Her life must, +indeed, be burning with a hard gem-like flame. She must be plucking the +flower of a series of exquisite moments. The rich, deep grass, with the +buttercups and forget-me-nots, is behind her, but she has had enough of +that, and is open to more spiritual pleasures. The kingfishers and water- +wagtails flit about her. The water-rat jumps into the stream with a soft +plash, and his black body scuttles along to the opposite bank. The green +dragon-flies float hither and thither; the beautiful frail-winged water- +flies float over trout too lazy to snatch at them. The cow, in her +sensuous nirvana, may see and marvel at the warm boating-man as he tows +two stout young ladies in a heavy boat, or labours with the oar. Her +pleasure is far more enduring than that of the bathers in the lasher up +stream, and she has an enormous advantage over the contemplative man +trying to lie on the grass and enjoy nature, for he really is not +enjoying nature. The pleasures of lying on the grass are chiefly those +of imagination. You cannot get into a truly comfortable position. Your +back has a lump of grass under it here, or your arm tingles and "falls +asleep," as children say. No attitude will enable you to read, and the +black flies hover around and alight on such of your features as are +tempting--to a fly. Then you begin to be quite sure it is damp, and, as +you have nothing else to sit on, you sit down on your book, which no one +can call comfortable. + +The notion of reclining on cushions in a punt is equally fallacious, and, +while promising much, ends in a headache. Besides, the river does not +always smell very nicely now that it has so long been unrelieved by rain. +All through the hot day, in fact, civilized northern man finds loafing +very difficult, especially as his Aryan impetuosity is always urging him +to do something active. Cows in this climate are the only true lotus- +eaters. Next to them in enjoyment comes the angler who approaches the +river about eight o'clock, at the time of the "evening rise." He, like +the cow, is knee-deep in water, wading; he listens to the plash of big, +hungry trout, sucking down gnats under the alders; he casts over them, +and if he catches them, who more content than he, as the sky turns from +amber to purple and silvery grey, and the light fades till one cannot +thread the gut through the eye-hole of one of the new-fashioned hooks? +Certainly this man is more blessed than he who is just coming to the ices +at a big, hot London dinner, and knows that his physician has forbidden +him this form of enjoyment. What a struggle in that person's mind! and +how almost predestined is his fall! how sure his repentance next morning! + + + +WESTERN DROLLS. + + +The death of Mr. "Josh Billings" may have diminished the stock of +harmless pleasures, but can hardly be said to have eclipsed the gaiety of +nations. In this country, at least, however it may have been in the +States, Josh Billings was by no means the favourite or leading American +humorist. If phonetic spelling were universal, much of his fun would +disappear. His place was nearer that of Orpheus C. Kerr than of Artemus +Ward, or of Mark Twain. It has long been the English habit to look for +most of our broad fun across the Atlantic. Americans say we are not a +funny people. A chivalrous and mediaeval French writer, not unfrequently +quoted, once made a kindred remark. We are not at present a boisterously +comic lot of geniuses, and if you see the tears running down the eyes of +a fellow-countryman reading in a railway carriage, if he be writhing with +mirth too powerful for expression, the odds are that he has got hold of a +Yankee book. + +In American country newspapers there is usually one column entirely +devoted to facetiae, which appear to have been clipped out of the columns +of other country papers. They live on each other, just as the natives of +the Scilly Islands are feigned to eke out a precarious livelihood by +taking in each other's washing. It is averred that one American journal, +the _Danbury Newsman_, contains nothing but merriment--a fearful idea! We +have nothing like this at home, and as for writers who make a reader +giggle almost indelicately often, where are they to be found? "Happy +Thoughts" affect some of us in this way; others are convulsed by "Vice +Versa;" but, as George Eliot says, nothing is such a strain on the +affections as a difference of taste in jokes. It is unsafe to recommend +any writer as very funny. No man can ever tell how his neighbour will +take a joke. But it may safely be said that authors who really tickle +their students are extremely rare in England, except as writers for the +stage, and surely "The Great Pink Pearl" might have made Timon of Athens +shake his sides, or might convert a Veddah to the belief that "there is +something to laugh at." In literature, when we want to be even +hysterically diverted, we must, as a rule, buy our fun from the American +humorists. If we cannot make laughter ourselves, at least we can, and +do, laugh with them. + +A vast amount of American humour may be called local and middle-class. In +the youth of Dickens, there was a regular set of home-made middle-class +jokes about babies, about washing-day, about mothers-in-law, about dinner- +parties that were not successes, about curtain lectures, about feminine +extravagance in bonnet-buying, about drunken men, about beer, all of them +jokes worn threadbare. A similar kind of fun, with local differences, +prevails in the States, but is wonderfully mixed up with scriptural and +religious jokes. To us sober Britons, whatever our opinions, these +latter japes appear more or less ribald, though they are quite innocently +made. + +Aristophanes, a pious conservative, was always laughing consumedly at the +Greek gods, and the Greek gods were supposed to be in the joke. The +theatrical season was sacred to the deity of wine and fun, and he, with +the other Olympians, was not scandalized by the merriment. In the ages +of faith it is also notorious that saints, and even more sacred persons, +were habitually buffooned in the Mystery Plays, and the Church saw no +harm. The old leaven of American Puritanism has the same kind of +familiarity with ideas and words which we approach more delicately, +conscious that the place where we tread is holy ground. This +consciousness appears to be less present in the States, which are peopled +by descendants of the Puritans, and scores of good things are told in +"family" American journals and magazines which are received without a +grin in this country. "We are not amused," a great person is reported to +have once observed when some wit had ventured on a hazardous anecdote. +And we, meaning the people of England, are often not amused, but rather +vexed, by gaieties which appear absolutely harmless on the other side of +the ocean. These two kinds of humour, the middle-class jokes about +courting between lovers seated on a snake fence, or about Sunday schools +and quaint answers there given to Biblical questions, leave us cold. + +But surely we appreciate as well as the Americans themselves the +extraordinarily intellectual high spirits of Mark Twain, a writer whose +genius goes on mellowing, ripening, widening, and improving at an age +when another man would have written himself out. His gravity in +narrating the most preposterous tale, his sympathy with every one of his +absurdest characters, his microscopic imagination, his vein of +seriousness, his contrasts of pathos, his bursts of indignant plain +speaking about certain national errors, make Mark Twain an author of the +highest merit, and far remote from the mere buffoon. Say the "Jumping +Frog" is buffoonery; perhaps it is, but Louis Quinze could not have +classed the author among the people he did not love, _les buffons qui ne +me font rire_. The man is not to be envied who does not laugh over the +ride on "The Genuine Mexican Plug" till he is almost as sore as the +equestrian after that adventure. Again, while studying the narrative of +how Mark edited an agricultural paper in a country district, a person +with any sense of humour is scarcely a responsible being. He is quite +unfit (so doth he revel in laughter uncontrollable) for the society of +staid people, and he ought to be ejected from club libraries, where his +shouts waken the bald-headed sleepers of these retreats. It is one +example of what we have tried to urge, that "Mark's way" is not nearly so +acceptable in "The Innocents Abroad," especially when the Innocents get +to the Holy Land. We think it in bad taste, for example, to snigger over +the Siege of Samaria, and the discomfiture of "shoddy speculators" in +curious articles of food during that great leaguer. Recently Mark Twain +has shown in his Mississippi sketches, in "Tom Sawyer," and in +"Hucklebury Finn," that he can paint a landscape, that he can describe +life, that he can tell a story as well as the very best, and all without +losing the gift of laughter. His travel-books are his least excellent; +he is happiest at home, in the country of his own Blue Jay. + +The contrasts, the energy, the mixture of races in America, the +overflowing young life of the continent, doubtless give its humorists the +richness of its vein. All over the land men are eternally "swopping +stories" at bars, and in the long, endless journeys by railway and +steamer. How little, comparatively, the English "swop stories"! The +Scotch are almost as much addicted as the Americans to this form of +barter, so are the Irish. The Englishman has usually a dignified dread +of dropping into his "anecdotage." + +The stories thus collected in America are the subsoil of American +literary humour, a rich soil in which the plant cultivated by Mark Twain +and Mr. Frank Stockton grows with vigour and puts forth fruit and +flowers. Mr. Stockton is very unlike Mark Twain: he is quiet, +domesticated, the jester of the family circle. Yet he has shown in +"Rudder Grange," and in "The Transferred Ghost," very great powers, and a +pleasant, dry kind of Amontillado flavour in his fun, which somewhat +reminds one of Thackeray--the Thackeray of the "Bedford-row Conspiracy" +and of "A Little Dinner at Timmins." Mr. Stockton's vein is a little too +connubial--a little too rich in the humours and experiences of young +married people. But his fun is rarely strained or artificial, except in +the later chapters of "Rudder Grange," and he has a certain kindliness +and tenderness not to be always met with in the jester. His angling and +hunting pieces are excellent, and so are those of Mr. Charles Dudley +Warner. This humorist (like Alceste) was once "funnier than he had +supposed," when he sat down with a certain classical author, to study the +topography of Epipolae. But his talent is his own, and very agreeable, +though he once so forgot himself as to jest on the Deceased Wife's +Sister. When we think of those writers to whom we all owe so much, it +would be sheer ingratitude to omit the name of the master of them all, +Oliver Wendell Holmes. Here is a wit who is a scholar, and almost a +poet, and whose humour is none the less precious for being accompanied by +good humour, learning, a wide experience of the world. With Mr. Lowell, +he belongs to an older generation, yet reigns among the present. May the +reign be long! + + + +SHOW SUNDAY. + + +The years bring round very quickly the old familiar events. Yesterday +was Show Sunday. It scarcely seems a year since last the painters +received their friends, and perhaps a few of their enemies. These visits +to studios are very exciting to ladies who have read about studios in +novels, and believe that they will find everywhere tawny tiger-skins, +Venetian girls, chrysanthemum and hawthorn patterned porcelain, suits of +armour, old plate, swords, and guns, and bows, and all the other +"properties" of the painter of romance. Some of these delightful things, +no doubt, the visitors of yesterday saw, and probably some painters still +wear velvet coats and red neckties, and long hair and pointed beards. But +the typical artist is not what he was. He has become domesticated. +Sometimes he is nearly as rich and "apolaustic" as a successful stock- +broker, and much more fashionable. Then he dwells in marble halls, with +pleasing fountains, by whose falls all sorts of birds sing madrigals. He +has an entirely new house, in short, fitted up in the early Basque style, +or after the fashion of an Inca's palace, or like the Royal dwelling of a +Rajah, including, of course, all modern improvements. This is a very +desirable kind of artist to know at home; but, after all, it is not easy +to distinguish him from a highly-cultivated and successful merchant +prince, with a taste for _bric-a-brac_. He is not in the least like the +painter of romance; perhaps he is better--he is certainly more fortunate; +but he is not the real old thing, the Bohemian of Ouida and Miss Braddon. +One might as well expect a banker to be a Bohemian. + +Another class of modern painter is even more disappointing. He is +extremely neat and smooth in his appearance, and dresses in the height of +the most quiet fashion. His voice is low and soft, and he never (like +the artist of fiction) employs that English word whereby the Royalist +sailor was recognized when, attired as a Portuguee, he tried to blow up +one of the ships of Admiral Blake. This new kind of artist avoids studio +slang as much as he does long hair and red waistcoats. He might be a +young barrister, only he is more polished; or a young doctor, only he is +more urbane. No doubt there exist men of the ancient species--rough-and- +ready men as strong as bargees, given to much tobacco, amateurs of porter +or shandygaff, great hunters of the picturesque, such wild folk as +Thackeray knew and Mr. Charles Keene occasionally caricatures. These are +the artists whom young ladies want to see, but they are not in great +force on Show Sunday. They rather look on that festival as a day of +national mourning and humiliation and woe. They do not care to have all +Belgravia or South Kensington let loose in their places. They do not +wish the public to gaze and simper at pieces which will probably be +enskied or rejected, or hung at a dangerous corner next a popular +picture. + +No painter who is not of the most secure eminence can, perhaps, quite +enjoy Show Sunday. Many of his visitors know as much about Art as the +Fuegians do of white neckties. They come and gaze, and say, "How soft, +how sweet!" like Rosey Mackenzie, and have tea, and go away. Other +people offer amazing suggestions, and no one who thinks the pictures +failures quite manages to conceal his opinion. Poets are said to be fond +of reading their own poems aloud, which seems amazing; but then as they +read they cannot see their audience, nor guess how they are boring those +sufferers. The poet, like the domestic fowl which did not scream when +plucked, is "too much absorbed." But while his friends look at his +pictures, the painter looks at their faces, and must make many sad +discoveries. Like other artists, he does not care nearly so much for the +praise as he is dashed and discomfited by the slightest hint of blame. It +is a wonder that irascible painters do not run amuck among their own +canvases and their visitors on Show Sunday. That, at least, in Mr. +Browning's phrase, is "how it strikes a contemporary." Were the artists +to yield to the promptings of their lower nature, were they to hearken to +the Old Man within them, fearful massacres would occur in St. John's +Wood, and Campden Hill, and round Holland House. An alarmed public and a +powerless police would behold vast ladies of wealth, and maidens fair, +and wild critics with eye-glasses speeding, at a furious pace, along +certain roads, pursued by painters armed to the teeth with palette knives +and mahlsticks. + +This is what would occur if academicians and others gave way to the +natural passions provoked by criticism and general demeanour on Show +Sunday. But it is a proof of the triumph of civilization that nothing of +this kind occurs. Peace prevails in the street and studio, and at the +end of the day the artist must feel much as the critic does after the +private view at the Royal Academy. The artist has been having a private +view of the public on its good behaviour, and that wild contempt of the +bourgeois which burns in every artist's breast must reach its highest +temperature. However, the holidays are beginning, the working season is +over, and that reflection, doubtless, helps the weary painter through his +ordeal. But his friends also have to bear a good deal if they happen not +to like his performances. They must feign admiration as well as they +may, and the sun of Show Sunday goes down on a world rather glad that it +is well over. + +Lord Beaconsfield once said at an Academy dinner that originality was the +great characteristic of English art. So little was he supposed to have +spoken seriously that another, of whose ceasing to perorate there is no +prospect, characterized his criticism in language so strong that it +cannot well be repeated. Let us admit that Lord Beaconsfield was either +mistaken, or that, like the Consul Aulus, "he spake a bitter jest." Our +artists, when they have found their vein, go on working it. They do not +wander off in search of new veins, as a general rule. It would be unkind +to draw attention to personal proofs of this truism. He who has done +well with babies in fancy dresses will go on doing well with infants in +masquerade. There are moments when the arrival of Cronus to swallow the +whole family of painted babes, as he did his own, would be not unwelcome; +when an artistic Herod would be applauded for a general massacre of the +Burlington House innocents. But this may be only the jaundiced theory of +a jaded critic. The mothers of England are a much more important set of +judges, and they like the babies. Then the bishops, though a little +monotonous, must be agreeable to their flocks; while the hunting dogs, +and pugs, and kittens, and monks, and Venetian girls--_la blonde et la +brune_--and the Highland rivers of the colour of porter "with a head on +it," and the mackerel-hued sea, and the marble, and the martyrs, and the +Mediterranean--they are all dear to various classes of our teeming +population. The critic may say he has seen them all before, he knows +them off by heart; but then so does he know Raphael's infants, and +Botticelli's madonnas, and Fra Angelico's angel trumpeters, and Vecelli's +blue hills, and Robusti's doges, and Lionardo's smiling, enigmatic +ladies. He does not say he is tired of these, but that is only his +eternal affectation. He is afraid, perhaps, to say that the old masters +bore him--that is a compliment reserved for contemporaries. Let it be +admitted that in all ages artists have had their grooves, like other men, +and have reproduced themselves and their own best effects. But, as this +is inevitably true, how careful they should be that the effects are +really of permanent value and beauty! Realistic hansom cabs, and babies +in strange raiment, and schoolgirls of the last century, and Masters of +Hounds, are scarcely of so much permanent value as the favourite types +and characters which Lionardo and Carpaccio repeat again and again. We +no more think Claude monotonous than we think "the quiet coloured end of +evening" flat and stale. But we may, and must, tire of certain modern +combinations too often rehearsed, after the trick has become a habit, and +the method an open mystery. + + + +THE DRY FLY. + + +As the Easter vacation approaches, the cockney angler, the "inveterate +cockney," as Lord Salisbury did or did not say, begins to look to his +fishing tackle. Now comes in the sweet of the year, and we may regret, +with Mr. Swinburne, that "such sweet things should be fleet, such fleet +things sweet." There are not many days that the London trout-fisher gets +by the waterside. The streams worth his attention, and also within his +reach, are few, and either preserved so that he cannot approach them, or +harried by poachers as well as anglers. How much happier were men in +Walton's day who stretched their legs up Tottenham Hill and soon found, +in the Lea, trout which would take a worm when the rod was left to fish +for itself! In those old days Hackney might be called a fishing village. +There was in Walton's later years a writer on fishing named W. Gilbert, +"Gent." This gent produced a small work called the "Angler's Delight," +and if the angler was delighted, he must have been very easily pleased. +The book now sells for large sums, apparently because it is scarce, for +it is eminently worthless. The gentle writer, instead of giving +directions about fly-dressing, calmly tells his readers to go and buy his +flies at a little shop "near Powle's." To the "Angler's Delight" this +same W. Gilbert added a tract on "The Hackney River, and the best stands +there." Now there are no stands there, except cabstands, which of course +are uninteresting to the angler. Two hundred years have put his fishing +far away from him. + +However, the ancient longing lives in him, and the Sunday morning trains +from Paddington are full of early fishing-men. But it cannot be that +most of them are after trout, the Thames trout being so artful that it +needs a week's work and private information to come to terms with him. +Hitherto he has been spun for chiefly, or coaxed with live bait; but now +people think that a good big loch fly may win his affections. It is to +be hoped that this view is correct, for the attempts by spinning and with +live bait are calculated to stretch and crack even the proverbial +patience of anglers. Persons conscious of less enduring mettle in their +mind will soon be off to the moorland waters of Devonshire, or the +Border, where trout are small, fairly plentiful, and come early into +season. About the upper waters of Severn, where Sabrina is still unvexed +by pollution, and where the stream is not greater than Tweed at Peebles, +sport is fair in spring. + +Though the Devonshire, and Border, and probably the Welsh waters, are +just in their prime, the season is not yet for the Itchen and the Kennet, +with their vast over-educated and over-fed monsters of the deep. Though +there may be respectable angling for accomplished artists thereabouts in +late April and May, the true sport does not begin till the May-fly comes +in, which he generally does in June. Then the Kennet is a lovely and +seductive spectacle to the angler. Between the turns of sun and shower +the most beautiful delicate insects, frail as gossamer and fair as a +fairy, are born, and flit for their hour, and float down the water, soon +to be swallowed by the big four-pound trout. He who has no experience of +this angling, and who comes to it from practice in the North, at first +thinks he cannot go wrong. There is the smooth clear water, broken every +moment by a trout's nose, just gently pushed up, but indicating, by the +size of the ripple, that a monster is feeding below. You think, if you +are accustomed to less experienced fish, that all is well. You throw +your flies, two or three, a yard above the ripple, and wait to strike. +But the ripples instantly cease, and on the surface of the water you see +the long thin track of a broad back and huge dorsal fin. The trout has +been, not frightened--he is in no hurry--but disgusted by your clumsy +cast, which would readily have taken in a sea-trout or a loch-trout. They +of Kennet and Test know a good deal better than to approach your wet +flies. A few minutes of this failure reduce the novice to the despair of +Tantalus. _He_ never was set to such a torture as casting over big +feeding trout and never getting a rise. You feel inclined to throw your +fly-book bodily at the heads of the trout and bid them take their choice +of its contents. That method of angling would be quite as successful as +angling for large southern trout in the northern manner. So the novice +either loses his temper and walks away to take his ease and some shandy- +gaff at the Bear, or he sits down to smoke, or he potters botanically +among the flowering water-weeds. Then a southern angler comes near, and +is presently playing a trout which the northern man has not "put down," +or frightened into total abstinence for the day. Then the true method of +fishing for trout in a clear stream is illustrated in practice, and a +beautiful and most delicate art it proves to be. + +First, the angler notices a rising fish. Then he retires to a safe +distance from the bank, outflanks the trout, and comes round in his rear. +As fish always feed with their heads up stream, it is necessary in such +clear water to fish for them from below, from as far below as possible. +Every advantage is taken of cover, and the angler soon acquires the +habits of a skirmisher. A tuft of rushes, an inequality in the ground, +or an alder bush conceals him; behind this he kneels, and gets his tackle +in order. He uses only one fly, not two or three, as people do on the +Border. He carefully measures his ground, flicking his cast through the +air, so that the fly shall be perfectly dry. Then the trout rises, and +in a moment the dry fly descends as lightly as a living insect, half a +foot above the ripple. Down it floats, the fisher watching with a +beating heart: then there is a ripple, then a splash; the rod bends +nearly double, the line flies out to the further bank, and the struggle +begins. The fight is by no means over, for the fish instinctively makes +for a bed of weeds, where he can entangle and break the line, while the +angler holds him as hard as he dares, and, if tackle be sound and luck +goes not contrary, the big trout is landed at last. + +This is no trifling victory. Nay, a Kennet trout is far harder to catch +and kill than the capricious salmon, which will often take a fly, however +clumsy be the man who casts it. There is a profane theory that several +members of the Hungerford Club never catch the trout they pay so much to +have the privilege of trying to capture. A very sure eye and clever hand +are needed to make the fly light dry and neat so close above the fish +that he has not time to be alarmed by the gut. "Gut-shy" he is, and the +less he sees of it the better. Moreover, a wonderful temper is required, +for in the backward cast of the long line the hook will, ten to one, +catch in a tree, or a flower, or a straw, or a bit of hay, and then it +has to be disengaged by the angler crawling on hands and knees. Perhaps +a northern angler will never quite master the delicacy of this sport, nor +acquire the entomological knowledge which seems to be necessary, nor make +up his mind between the partisans of the light one-handed rod and the +double-handed rod. + + + +AMATEUR AUTHORS. + + +Literature knows no Trades Unions, but if things go on as they are at +present, perhaps we shall hear of literary rattening and picketing. The +_Kolnische Zeitung_, in Germany, has been protesting against the mob of +noble ladies who write with ease, though their works, even to persons +acquainted with the German tongue, are by no means easy reading. The +Teutonic paper requests these ambitious dames to conduct themselves as +amateurs, to write, if write they must, but to print only a few copies of +their books, and give these few copies only to their friends. This is +advice as morally excellent as it will be practically futile, nor does it +apply only to ladies of rank, but to amateur novelists in general. The +old quarrel between artists and amateurs is fiercely waged in dramatic +society, perhaps because actors and actresses feel the stress of +competing with cheap amateur labour. Now, though the professional +novelist has only of late begun to think seriously of the subject, it is +plain that he too is competing with labour unnaturally cheap, and is +losing in the competition. To define an amateur is difficult, as all +athletic clubs and rowing clubs are aware. But in this particular field +of human industry, the amateur may be defined with ease. The amateur +novelist is not merely the person who, having another profession, writes +a romance by way of "by-work," as the Greeks called it. Lord +Beaconsfield was no amateur in romance, and perhaps no novel was ever +sold at so high a ransom as "Endymion." Yet Lord Beaconsfield only +scribbled in his idle hours, and was not half so much an amateur novelist +as Mr. Gladstone is an amateur student of Homer. No; the true amateur is +he or she who publishes at his or her own expense. The labour of such +persons is not only cheap; its rewards may be estimated by a frightful +minus quantity--the publisher's bill. Every one must have observed that +when his box of books comes from the circulating library, it by no means +contains the books he has asked the librarian to send. The batch does +not exclusively consist of the plums and prizes of the publishing season, +of Sir Henry Gordon's book on his illustrious brother, of the most famous +novel of the month, of Mr. Romilly's "New Guinea and the Western +Pacific"--as diverting a book of travel as ever was written, of Mr. +Stockton's "Mrs. Null," and generally of all that is freshest and most +notable in biography, fiction, and history. A few of the peaches of the +best quality there are, but the rest are fruit less valued, are, in fact, +amateur novels. There are two sets of three gaudy novels by unheard-of +ladies; and perhaps three shilling novels, with such titles as "Who Did +It?" "Chopped in Cover," or "Under a Cloud," none of which names we +trust are copyright. A similar phenomenon presents itself at the +bookstalls, which are choked with cheap and unenticing brief tales of the +deadly sins. And whose fault is it that we do not get the good books and +are flooded with the bad books? Why, it is the fault of the ambitious +amateur, of the ladies and gentlemen who publish at their own risk, and +at the cost of the world of readers and professional writers. + +This is, with a few remarkable limitations, a free country. No law +exists which says to publishers, "Thou shalt not publish on commission." +No law confines the vagaries of amateur romance. Hence the market is +choked, and the circulating libraries are overwhelmed with rubbish, and +good books, as the Americans of the West say, "get no show." The +debauched novel reader, to whom every story is a story, and one no better +nor worse than another, may not heed it, but the judicious grieve, and +the artist in fiction returns a smaller income tax. Then the very +revenue suffers with the general decline of letters. It may, of course, +be urged that all artists are amateurs before they secure a paying +public. The amateur novelist may be compared to the young dramatic +author who gives his piece at a _matinee_, and who, once in a hundred +times, finds a manager to approve it. May not publishing _en amateur_ be +the only way of reaching the public? To this question the answer is, No! +The risk of publishing a novel by a new author is nothing like so great +as the risk of producing a play with an unknown name to it. Publishers +exist for the purpose of bringing out books that will pay, and they +generally pounce on a good manuscript in fiction, whether the writer be +known or unknown. It is much more easy to predict whether a novel will +pay or not than to prophecy about a drama. Thus the most obscure author +(in spite of the difficulties faced by "Jane Eyre" and "Vanity Fair") may +rely on it, that if his MS. is not accepted, it is not worth accepting. +He should not, if he has decently sound reasons for self-confidence, be +disheartened by two or three refusals. One man's taste might be averse +to "John Inglesant," another's might turn against Ouida, a third might +fail to see the merit of "Vice Versa." But if half a dozen experts taste +and reject a manuscript, it is almost certain to be hopeless. Then the +author should take the advice once offered by Mr. Walter Besant. "_Never_ +publish at your own expense." If you do, you stamp yourself as an +amateur; you add to the crowd of futilities that choke the market; and, +if you have it in you to write a novel which shall be a good piece, you +are handicapping yourself by placing a bad novel on your record. People +sin out of thoughtlessness, as well as depravity, and we would not say +that every amateur novelist is, _ex officio_, infamous, nefarious, and +felonious. He or she may be only rather vain, conceited, and +unreflecting. + +Where, then, is the remedy if homilies fail to convert the sinner, as, +indeed, it is the misfortune of homilies to fail? The remedy will be +found in a Novelists' League, with tickets, and boycotting, and strikes, +and rattening, and all the other devices for getting our own way in an +oppressive world. There will be a secret society of professionals. Lady +novelists (amateurs) will be rattened; their blotting-paper and French +dictionaries will be stolen or destroyed; their publishers will be +boycotted by all members of the League, who will decline to publish with +any man known to deal with amateurs. Nay, so powerful is this dread and +even criminal confederacy, that amateurs will not even be reviewed. +Neither the slashing, nor the puffing, nor the faintly praising notice +will be meted out to them. There will be a conspiracy of silence. The +very circulating libraries will be threatened, and coffins (stolen from +undertakers who dabble in romance) will be laid at Mr. Mudie's door, +unless he casts off the amateur in fiction. The professionals will march +through rapine to emancipation. They will strike off the last gyves that +fetter the noble art of romance, and in five or six years we shall have +only about a tenth of the present number of romances, but that tenth will +pass through as many editions as "The Pilgrim's Progress," which, by the +way, was probably, like Ronsard's poems, the work of an amateur. But +these were other times, when an author did not expect to make money, and +thought himself lucky if, after a slashing personal review by the +Inquisition, his fragments were not burned at the stake in a bonfire of +his volumes. + + + +SOME RARE THINGS FOR SALE. + + +An American writer has been complaining lately that his countrymen have +lost the habit of reading. This is partly the result of that free trade +in English books which is the only form of free trade that suits the +American Constitution. People do not buy American books any longer, +because they can get English works, mere printed rags, but paying nothing +to English authors, for a few cents. The rags, of course, fall to +pieces, and are tossed into the waste-paper basket, and thus a habit of +desultoriness and of abstention from books worth styling books grows and +grows, like a noxious and paralysing parasite, over the American +intellect. In this way our pleasant vices are made instruments to plague +us, and the condition of the law, which leaves the British authors at the +mercy of the Aldens and Monros of the States, is beginning to react on +the buyers of goods indelicately obtained. Even newspaper articles are +becoming, it is said, a heavy and a weary weight on the demoralised +attention, and people are ceasing to read anything but brief and probably +personal paragraphs, such as "Joaquin Miller has had his hair cut." + +This is a deplorable condition of things, and perhaps not quite without +example at home, where, however, many people still intend to read books, +and order them at the libraries, though they never really carry out +intentions which, like those of Wilkins Micawber the younger, are +excellent. To persons conscious of mental debility and incapable of +grappling even with a short shilling novel, a brief and easy form of +reading may be recommended. They may study catalogues; they may peruse +the lists of their wares which secondhand booksellers and dealers in all +kinds of curiosities circulate gratis. This is the only kind of circular +which should not go straight to its long home in the waste-paper basket. +A catalogue is full of information. It is so exceedingly inconsecutive +that even the most successful barrister, or doctor, or stockbroker (they +are the people that read least) need not be fatigued by its contents. The +catalogue skips from gay to grave, from Tupper to Aretino, from Dickens +to "Drelincourt on Death." You can pick it up where you like, and lay it +down when your poor fagged attention is distracted by a cab in the +street, or a bird in the branches. Then there is the pleasure of marking +with a pencil the articles which you would buy if you could--the Nankin +double bottle, the old novel bound in the arms of the Comtesse de Verrue, +the picture ascribed to the school of Potto Pottoboileri. Of course, in +these bad times, such purchases are out of the question, but the taste +and judgment are gratified by "marking them down," like partridges in +September. + +These contemplative reveries on catalogues have been inspired by a +catalogue, not without its merits--a list of relics of Mexican history +now to be sold. The curious may find it for themselves, the wealthy may +speculate in the treasures which it advertises. Here is a piece of the +Emperor Maximilian's waistcoat, "same in which they shot him," to employ +an idiom of Captain Rawdon Crawley's. There are many relics of the same +recent and troublous times; but the amateur is more strongly attracted by +a very singular series of objects of the times of the Spanish Conquest, +nearly four hundred years ago. It is not so much the obsidian idols, +made of that curious bottle-glass-like mineral so fashionable among the +Aztecs, as the authentic remains of Fernando Cortes that the collector +will covet. What man had ever such fortune as Cortes--he who discovered +a new world as strange as a new planet? He conquered a great civilized +race, he overthrew a dynasty, not only of mortals, but of gods. +Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl fled from him, and their hideous +priests, draped and masked in skins fresh flayed from beasts or men, +vanished at his coming, as Isis, Osiris, and the dog Anubis fled from the +folding star of Bethlehem. He fought battles like the visions of +romance, and he took great and stately cities, with all their temples and +towers, which a month before were as unknown to Europeans as the capitals +of Mars and Sirius. The wonderful catalogue of which we speak is rich in +relics of this hero. We are offered a chance to buy his "trunk," a +carved wooden trunk in which Cortes carried his personal property. His +army chest, which held the sacred gold of Montesuma and the treasure of +the Temple of the Sun, is to be sold for a consideration. His pistols +are also on sale, and his "field-glass," which must be an exceedingly +early example of that useful invention. Whether the field-glass is +binocular or not, the catalogue does not pause to inform us. Corslets +worn by his brave Castilians are also to be vended, perhaps the very +leather and steel that guarded the honest heart of good Bernal Diaz. But +all these treasures, and even the very "scissors" of Fernando Cortes, are +less enticingly romantic than the iron head of Alvarado's spear. Surely +no spear since that of Peleus' son, not to be wielded by meaner men, has +ever been so well worth acquiring as the spear of Alvarado, Tonatrish the +sun-god, as he was called by the Mexicans, by reason of his long, bright, +golden hair. This may have been, probably was, the spear that Alvarado +bore when he charged up the steps of the great Teocalli or God's house, +rained upon by Aztec darts, driving before him the hordes of heathendom. +With this very spear, when the summit was gained, he may have fought in +that strange fight, high in air, beheld by all the people of the city and +all the allies of Spain. Here stood the Christian cross; there was +planted the war-god, Huitzilopochtli; there the two faiths fought out +their battle, and the vanquished were tossed dying down the sides of the +Teocalli. Then the Spaniard was victorious; fire was set to the +Teocalli, and the cannibal Aztec religion rolled away in the clouds of +smoke and vapour of flame. With the self-same spear (no doubt) did +Alvarado make his famous leap, using it as a leaping pole to clear the +canal during the retreat of the Night of Dread. Assuredly Alvarado's +spear, or even the iron head of it alone, is an object worthy of an +archaeologist's regard, and scarce less curious than that + + "Broomstick o' the Witch of Endor, + Weel shod wi' brass," + +which Burns describes in the collection of Captain Grove. But +extraordinary as is the charm of these relics of Anahuac and of Castille, +perhaps even more engrossing is the last article in this romantic +catalogue, namely, "a green portfolio" giving an account of the various +articles, and how they came into the hands of their proprietor. Their +pedigree, if authentic, must be most important. + +Probably the most inattentive mind, even in the holidays, could "tackle" +a catalogue like this, or another in which the snuff-box of Xerxes and +the boot-jack of Themistocles should be offered for sale. These +antiquities seem scarcely less desirable, or less likely to come into the +market, than the scissors, pistols, and field-glass of Fernando Cortes. +An original portion of the Tables of the Law (broken on a familiar +occasion by the prophet), Hannibal's cigarette case, a landing net (at +one time in the possession of Alcibiades), a piece of chalk used by +Archimedes in his mathematical demonstrations, the bronze shoe of +Empedocles, the arrow on which Abaris flew, and the walking-stick, a +considerable piece of timber, which Dr. Johnson lost in Mull, may all be +reposing in some private collection. Collectors do get very odd things +together. Poor M. Soleirol had quite a gallery of portraits and +autographs of Moliere, and a French mathematician, about a dozen years +ago, possessed an assortment of apocryphal letters from almost every one +mentioned in history, sacred or profane. The collection of Mr. Samuel +Ireland was like this, and an English student possessed autographs of +most of the great reformers, carefully written by an ingenious swindler +in contemporary books. The lovers of relics are apt to be thus deluded, +and perhaps we should not regret this, as long as they are happy. But +they should be very careful indeed when they are asked to buy Alvarado's +spear, though probably it is extant somewhere, as it certainly is in the +catalogue. It is a question of caution in the purchaser. + + + +CURIOSITY HUNTING. + + +What will people not collect in this curious age, and what prices will +they not pay for things apparently valueless? Few objects can seem less +desirable than an old postage-stamp, yet our Paris correspondent informs +us that postage-stamps are at a premium in the capital of taste and of +pleasure. A well-known dealer offers 4 pounds 15_s_. for every Tuscan +stamp earlier than 1860, and 16 pounds for particularly fine examples. +Mauritius stamps of 1847 are estimated--by the purchaser, mind--at two +thousand francs, and post-marks of British Guiana of 1836, from five +hundred to a thousand francs. Eighty pounds for a soiled bit of paper, +that has no beauty to recommend it! Probably no drawing of equal size +from the very hand of Raffaelle or Leonardo would be priced nearly so +high as these grubby old stamps. Yet the drawing would be not only a +thing of art, beautiful in itself, but also a personal relic of the +famous artist whose pencil touched it, while a stamp is a relic of +nothing but some forgotten postal arrangement with a colony. We do not +know, moreover, how much the dealer will ask for these stamps when once +he gets hold of them and has rich collectors at his mercy. In no trade +do the buyer's price and the seller's price differ with such wide margins +as in the commerce of curiosities, especially, perhaps, in the +book-trade. People find that they possess books highly priced in +dealers' catalogues, and, if they want money, they carry their treasures +to the dealers. But "advantage seldom comes of it." The dealer has a +different price, very often, when he is a purchaser. This is +intelligible, but, to many persons who are not amateurs, the mania for +rare postage-stamps passes all understanding. Yet it is capable of being +explained. Like many other oddities and puzzling features in the ways of +collectors, the high price of certain stamps is the consequence of the +passion for perfection. Any one can collect stamps--little boys and +schoolgirls often do. But there comes a point at which foreign stamps +and old stamps grow rare, and more rare, and, finally, next to impossible +to procure. Here it is that the heart of the mature collector begins to +beat. He is determined to have a perfect collection. Nothing shall +escape him in the way of printed franks on letters. Now, +nineteen-twentieths of his assortment he can buy in the gross, without +trouble or great expense; but the last twentieth demands personal care +and attention, and the hunting up of old family letters, and the haunting +of great dealers' shops, and peeping through dirty windows in shady lanes +and alleys. As he gets nearer and nearer a complete collection the spoil +grows more and more shy, the excitement faster and more furious, till, +finally, the amateur would sell an estate for a square inch of paper, and +turn large England to a little stamp, if he had the opportunity. The +fury of the pastime is caused by the presence of definite limits. There +is only a certain known number of stamps in the world. This limit makes +perfection possible. + +It is not as if you were collecting really beautiful things like Tanagra +terra-cottas, or really rare and quaint and mysterious things like aggery +beads. Though Tanagra terra-cottas, and aggery beads, and fine examples +of Moorish lustre, or of ancient Nankin, or of gold coins of the Roman +Empire, are all rare, yet there is no definite limit to their number. +More may turn up any day when the pickaxe breaks into a new Tanagra +cemetery, when a fallen palm in Ashanti brings up aggery beads clinging +to its earthy roots, when a pot of coins is found by some old Roman way, +and so forth. To be sure, perfection may be attained in coin collecting, +when a man has specimens of all known sorts, but even then he will pine +for better specimens, for the best specimens. In the other branches of +the sport we have mentioned the collector may be eager, of course, for +good things, but he can never know the passion of the stampomaniac who +has all sorts but three, and finds these within his reach. Perfection is +within a step of such a man, and that step we fear he will take, even if +it involves ever so many breaches of the Decalogue. In one of this +month's magazines, in a story called "Mr. Pierrepoint's Repentance," Mr. +Grant Allen tells the tale of a coin collector's infamy, and that coin +collector a clergyman and fellow of his college. A pope is said to have +stolen a rare book from a painter, and it is certain that enthusiastic +collectors are apt to have "their moral tone lowered some," as the +American gentleman said about the lady whom he had wooed with intentions +less than honourable. + +A good example of the toils of the collector in pursuit of perfection is +given by M. Henri Beraldi in his very amusing catalogue of M. Paillet's +library. This book, by the way, is itself scarce, and the bibliomaniac +will be rather lucky if he meets with it. M. Beraldi describes M. +Paillet's copy of Dorat's "Fables," published in 1773, with illustrations +by Marillier. Nobody perhaps ever reads Dorat now, but his book came out +in the very palmiest days of the art of illustration in France. There +were no _photogravures_ then, nor hideous, scratchy, and seamy +"processes," such as almost make one despair of progress and of the +future of humanity. The people that takes to "processes" is lost! The +illustrations of the "Fables" were duly engraved on copper. There were +ninety-nine vignettes, and as many tail-pieces. The bibliographical +history of the book is instructive, either to young collectors or to the +common herd, not to speak impolitely--the persons who do not understand +what collectors want. The "Fables" were originally published on three +different sorts of paper, Dutch paper at seventy-two francs, French paper +at twenty-nine francs, and on "small paper" at twenty-four francs. In +1853 the original drawings were bought by one of the Rothschilds for +about 60 pounds; they would now, probably, be worth at least 1,000 +pounds. The ordinary copies of the book itself bring about 6 pounds, the +large paper copies about 30 pounds, and a copy in old morocco can hardly +be estimated--you may pay anything for it, as a copy in old calf has sold +for 240 pounds. + +Such is the natural history of a book pretty valueless as literature, the +"Fables" of Dorat. In the early edition of "Brunet's Manual," published +in 1821, the large paper copies of the work, with the engravings in the +earliest state, are priced at from fifteen to eighteen francs. These +vignettes had gone out of fashion; they have come in again with a +vengeance. The high prices, eighty or a hundred pounds, are merely the +beginning of what the great collectors are ready to pay, and to do, and +to suffer in the cause of Dorat. In M. Cohen's catalogue of all these +old illustrated books special mention is made of M. Paillet's copy of the +"Fables." It is "a superb example, with all the engravings printed +separately." But M. Paillet describes this specimen far more lovingly. +All the designs are separately printed, and, oh joy! all have all their +margins uncut. The book is "all that man can dream of" in the way of +perfection. Cuzin did the binding, in yellow morocco, tooled with roses +and butterflies. "Reader," cries M. Beraldi, "if you are not a collector +you cannot imagine the difficulty of getting such a copy. It is the +thirteenth labour of Hercules." First you buy your text, then you must +have the separately printed _fleurons_. These can only be picked up here +and there, in sales and stalls. Perhaps you purchase half of them in one +lucky investment. With no great difficulty you secure another lot. Then +begins the hunt--you buy assortments at the price of bank notes, merely +for the sake of two or three out of the mass. You offer to barter twenty- +five for one you have not got. Then you have all but three, which you +demand from the universe at large: then all but two; then all but one. +What you pay for that one you keep a profound secret, lest your family +should have you put under control. Even then you are not safe, for some +of your engravings have false margins, and must be changed for entire +examples. Such are the joys of the collector, for shadows we are and +engravings _a toutes marges_ we pursue. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{6} Except with worm in a summer flood. + +{8} Perhaps an Editor put this moral in? + +{16} The author once caught a salmon. It did not behave in any way like +the ferocious fish in this article. + +{23} Mr. Wordsworth, in his poem of "The Recluse," expresses a horror of +this diversion. + +{37} It is a melancholy fact that the Author has quite forgotten what +_did_ happen! Thus a narrative, probably diverting, is for ever lost, +thanks to the modesty of our free Press. + +{135} These remarks were made before the great discovery of some modern +authors, that the best novels are those in which there is never a +petticoat. + +{152} What _was_ this anecdote? + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOST LEADERS*** + + +******* This file should be named 16529.txt or 16529.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/5/2/16529 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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