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diff --git a/75431-0.txt b/75431-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cac0bc4 --- /dev/null +++ b/75431-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7007 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75431 *** + + + + + +ABRACADABRA & OTHER SATIRES + + + + +_The Works of John Galsworthy_ + +Cloth, 5_s._ net; Leather, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + +_NOVELS_ + + VILLA RUBEIN + THE ISLAND PHARISEES + THE MAN OF PROPERTY + THE COUNTRY HOUSE + FRATERNITY + THE PATRICIAN + THE DARK FLOWER + THE FREELANDS + BEYOND + FIVE TALES + SAINT’S PROGRESS + IN CHANCERY + TO LET + + +_STORIES AND STUDIES_ + + A COMMENTARY + A MOTLEY + THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY + TATTERDEMALION + ABRACADABRA & OTHER SATIRES + + +LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD. + + + + + _THE WORKS OF JOHN GALSWORTHY_ + + ABRACADABRA + & + OTHER SATIRES + + [Illustration: 1924] + + LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD. + + + + +_Printed in Great Britain._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + ABRACADABRA 1 + + THE VOICE OF ----! 11 + + A SIMPLE TALE 18 + + ULTIMA THULE 29 + + STUDIES OF EXTRAVAGANCE 47 + + FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 121 + + REVERIE OF A SPORTSMAN 144 + + GROTESQUES 156 + + + + +ABRACADABRA + + +Our families occupied neighbouring houses in the country, and Minna +used to hide in the bathroom whenever our governess took us round. +She was to us but a symbol of shyness for months before she became a +body--a very thin body, with dark, straggly hair, and dark eyes, and +very long legs and arms for an eight-year-old. Looking back on her +hardihoods from eight to fifteen, I find difficulty in assigning to the +bathroom period its full significance, to realise that she actually +used to make herself invisible because she could not face strange +people even of her own age. She faced us so beautifully afterward, +would steal up behind and pull our hairs, and bag our caps and throw +them up on to the tops of wardrobes, and then, as likely as not, climb +up, throw them down, and follow with a jump. Few were the tops of +our trees that did not know her in her blue jersey and red cap, and +stockings green at the knees and showing little white portions of her. +She had a neck long as a turkey’s and feet narrow as canoes. She was +certainly going to be tall. Though quite normal about sticking pins +into a body, making the lives of calves and dogs burdensome, giving +fizzy magnesia to cats, fetching stray souls down with a booby-trap, +and other salutary pastimes, she would dissolve into tears and rush +away if anybody played Chopin, or caught and killed a butterfly; and, +if one merely shot a little bird with a catapult, would dash up and +thump him. When she fought she was like a tiger-cat, but afterward +would sit and shake uncontrollably with most dreadful dry sobs. So +there was no relying on her. + +She could not have been called pretty in those days. + +She became fifteen and went to school. We saw little of her for three +years. At eighteen she came home, and out. Then we would meet her at +dances, and picnics, skating and playing tennis--always languid, pale, +dark-eyed; still not quite regular in her features, and with angles +not perfectly covered; but, on the whole, like a tall lily with a dark +centre. She was very earnest, too, and beginning to be æsthetic, given +to standing against walls, with her dark-brown eyes immovably fixed on +persons playing violins; given to Russian linen and embroidering book +covers; to poetry and the sermons of preachers just unorthodox enough; +dreamy, too, but puffing and starting at things that came too near. She +was very attractive. + +Going to college, one saw little more of Minna till she was twenty-two. +She was working then at a “Settlement,” and looked unhappy and anæmic. +Two months later we were told she had broken down. The work was too +painful; her nerves had gone all wrong. She was taken abroad. + +We did not see her again till she was twenty-six. She was then marrying +a Quaker, a handsome, big fellow with reddish hair, ten years older +than herself. More like a swaying lily than ever she looked in her long +white veil. A tall, striking couple! The Quaker had warm eyes, and by +the way he looked at her, one wondered. + +Another four years had passed before I, at all events, saw much of +Minna again. She was now thirty, and had three children, two girls and +a boy, and was evidently soon to have another. There was a pathetic +look in her eyes. They said that the Quaker should have been a Turk, +for his physique was powerful and his principles extremely strict. +His wife had grown to have a shrinking, fagged-out air, and worried +terribly over her infants. She was visibly unhappy; had gone off, too, +in looks; grown sallow and thin-cheeked, and seemed not to care to hold +herself up. + +I recollect the Quaker coming in one day, full of health and happiness, +and putting his affectionate hand on her shoulder. To me--not to the +Quaker, from whom many things were hidden--it was apparent that she +flinched, and when his back was turned I saw in a mirror that she was +actually trembling all over, and on her face an expression as if she +saw before her suffering from which she could not possibly escape. +It was clear that the quivering, lilylike creature had been brought +almost to her last gasp by the physique and principles of that healthy, +happy Quaker. It was quite painful to see one for whom life seemed so +terribly too much. + +She was, I think, about thirty-two when one noticed how much better +she was looking. She had begun to fill out and hold herself up; her +eyes had light in them again. Though she was more attractive than ever, +and the Quaker had abated no jot of either principle or physique, +she had given up quivering and starting, and had a way of looking +tranquilly through or over him, as if he were not there, though her +amiability was obviously perfect, and from all accounts she fulfilled +every duty better than ever. She no longer worried over her children, +of whom there were now five. It was mysterious. I can only describe +the impression she made by saying that she seemed in a sort of trance, +seeing and listening to something far away. There was a curious +intentness in her eyes, and her voice had acquired a slight but not +unpleasing drawl, as though what she was talking of had little reality. +Every afternoon from three to four she was invisible. + +Having in those days a certain interest in psychology, one used to +concern oneself to account for the extraordinary change in her that +was becoming more marked every year. By the time she was thirty-five +it really seemed impossible that she could ever have been a sensitive, +high-strung creature, hiding in the bathroom, thumping us for killing +butterflies, sobbing afterward so uncontrollably; suffering such +tortures from the “Settlement,” and the Quaker, and her children, +whose ailments and troubles she now supported with an equanimity which +any one, seeing her for the first time, would surely have mistaken +for callousness. And all the time she was putting on flesh without, +however, losing her figure. Indeed, in those days she approached +corporeal perfection. + +And at last one afternoon I learned the reason. + +She no longer believed she had a body! + +She told me so, almost with tears of earnestness. And when I pointed +out to her humbly that she had never had more, she insisted that I saw +nothing really sitting there except the serene and healthy condition of +her spirit. Long she talked to me that afternoon, explaining again and +again, in her slightly drawling voice, that she could never have gone +on but for this faith; and how comforting and uplifting it was, so that +no one who lacked it could be really happy! Every afternoon--she told +me--from three to four she “held” that idea of “no body.” + +This was all so startling to me that I went away and thought it over. +Next day I came back and said that I did not see how it could be much +good to her to have no body, so long as other people still had theirs; +since it was their bodies, not hers, which had caused her pain and +grief. + +“But, of course,” she said, “they haven’t.” + +I had just met the Quaker coming in from golf, and could only murmur: + +“Is that really so?” + +“I couldn’t bear, now,” she said, “to think they had.” + +“Then, do you really mean, Minna, that when they are there they are not +there?” + +“Yes!” And her eyes shone. + +I thought of her eldest boy, who happened to be ill with mumps. + +“What, then, is Willy’s mumps,” I said, “if not an affection of the +fleshy tissue of his cheeks and neck? Why should he cry with pain, and +why should he look so horrid?” + +She frowned, as if reflecting hard. + +“When you came in,” she said, “I’d just been holding the thought that +he has no body, and I don’t--I really don’t feel any longer that he has +mumps. So I don’t worry. And that’s splendid both for him and me.” + +I saw that it was splendid for her; but how was it splendid for him? I +did not ask, however, because she looked so earnest and uplifted, and I +was afraid of seeming unkind. + +The next day I came back again, and said: + +“I’ve been thinking over your faith, Minna. Candidly, I’ve never seen +any one improve so amazingly in health and looks since you’ve had +it. But what I’ve been wondering is, whether it’s in the nature of +fresh air, hard work, and plain living, or in the nature of a drug or +anodyne. Whether it’s prevention, or cure. In fact, whether you could +hold it, or ever have held it, unless you had been sick _before_ you +held it?” + +She evidently did not grasp my meaning. I could, of course, have made +it plain enough by saying: “Suppose you had not been a self-conscious, +self-absorbed, high-strung, anæmic girl, like so many nowadays, +quivering at life and Quakers with strong physique and principles; +suppose you had been an Italian peasant woman or an English cottage +lass, obliged to work and think of others all her time; suppose, in a +word, you had not had the chance to be so desperately sensitive and +conscious of your body--do you think you would ever have felt the +necessity for becoming unconscious of it?” But she looked so serene and +puzzled, so corporeally charming on her sofa, that I hadn’t the heart +to put it thus brutally; and I merely said: + +“Do tell me how the idea first came to you?” + +“It was put there. It could never have come of its own accord.” + +“No doubt; but what exactly?” + +She grew rather pink. + +“It was one evening when Willy--he was only four then--had been very +naughty, and Tom” (this was the Quaker) “insisted on my whipping him. +I was obliged to, you see, for fear he would do it himself. Poor Willy +cried so that I was simply in despair. It hurt me awfully; I remember +thinking: ‘Ah! but it’s not really me; not me--not my arm.’ It seemed +to me that there was a dreadful unreality about myself; that I was not +really doing it, and so I surely could not be hurting him. It was such +a comfort--and I wanted comfort.” + +I felt the sacredness and the pathos of that; I felt, too, that her +despair, before that comfort came, had been her farewell to truth; but +I would not for the world have said that, nor asked what Willy’s tears +had really been, if not real tears. + +“Yes,” I murmured; “and after that?” + +“After that--I tried every day, and gradually the whole beauty of it +came to me--because, you know, there are so many things to fret one, +and it’s so splendid to feel uplifted above it all.” + +They tell me the morphia habit is wonderful! But I only said: + +“And so you really never suffer now?” + +“Oh!” she answered, “I often have the beginnings; but I just hold that +thought and--it goes. I do wish--I _do_ wish you would try!” + +“Yes, yes,” I murmured; “yes, yes!” She looked so pathetically earnest +and as if she would be so disappointed. “But just one thing: Don’t +you ever feel that the knowledge that people have no bodies and don’t +really suffer----” and there I stopped. I had meant to add--“blunts +sympathy and dries up the springs of fellow-feeling from which all +kindly action comes?” But I hadn’t the heart. + +“Oh! do put any questions to me!” she said. “You can’t shake my faith! +It’s religion with me, you know.” + +“You certainly seem fitter and stronger every day. I quite understand +that you’re being saved by it. And that’s the essence of religion, +isn’t it?” + +She drew herself up and smiled. “Tom says I’m getting fat!” + +I looked at her. I must say that, for one who had no body, she was +superb. + +After that I again left London and did not see her for two years. + +A few days after my return I asked after her at my sister’s. + +“Oh! haven’t you heard? The most dreadful tragedy happened there six +weeks ago. Kitty and Willy” (they were the two eldest children) “were +run over by a motor; poor little Kitty was killed on the spot, and +Willy will be lame for life, they say.” + +Thinking of Kitty blotted out like that--a little thing all shyness, +sensibility, and pranks, just as Minna had been at her age--I could +scarcely ask: “How does poor Minna take it?” + +My sister wrinkled her brows. + +“I was there,” she said, “when they brought the children in. It was +awful to see Tom--he broke down utterly. He’s been quite changed ever +since.” + +“But Minna?” + +“Minna--yes. I shall never forget the expression of her face that first +minute. It reminded me of--I don’t know what--like nerves moving under +the skin. Dreadful! And then, ten minutes later, it was quite calm; +you’d have thought nothing had happened. She’s very wonderful. I’ve +watched her since, and I don’t--I really don’t believe she feels it!” + +“How is she looking?” + +“Oh! just the same--very well and handsome. Rather too fat.” + +It was with very curious feelings that I went next day to see Minna. +Truly she looked magnificent in her black clothes. Her curves had +become ampler, her complexion deeper, perhaps a little coarse, and her +drawl was more pronounced. Her husband came in while I was there. The +poor man was indeed a changed Quaker. He seemed to have shrivelled. +When she put her hand on his shoulder, I noticed with surprise that he +jibbed away and seemed to avoid the gaze of her rather short-sighted, +beautiful brown eyes that had grown appreciably warmer. It was strange +indeed--his body had become so meagre and hers had so splendidly +increased! We made no mention of the tragedy while he was there, but +when he had left us I hazarded the question: + +“How is poor little Willy?” + +Her eyes shone, and she said, with a sort of beautiful earnestness: + +“You mustn’t call him that. He’s not a bit unhappy. We hold the thought +together. It’s coming wonderfully!” + +In a sudden outburst of sympathy I said: + +“I’m so sorry. It must be terrible for you all.” + +Her brow contracted just a little. + +“Yes! I can’t get Tom--if only he would see that it’s nothing, +really--that there’s no such thing as the body. He’s simply wearing +himself away; he’s grown quite thin; he’s----” She stopped. And there +rose up in me a kind of venom, as if I felt that she was about to say +‘--no longer fit to be my mate.’ And, trying to keep that feeling out +of my eyes, I looked at the magnificent creature. How marvellously she +had flourished under the spell of her creed! How beautifully preserved +and encased against the feelings of this life she had become! How +grandly she had cured her sensitive and neurasthenic girlhood! How +nobly, against the disease of self-consciousness and self-absorption, +she had put on the armour of a subtler and deeper self-absorption! + +And suddenly I pitied or I envied her--Ah! which? For, to achieve +immunity from her own suffering, I perceived that for the suffering of +others she had become incapable of caring two brass buttons. + + + + +THE VOICE OF----! + + +The proprietor of “The Paradise” had said freely that she would “knock +them.” Broad, full-coloured, and with the clear, swimming eye of an +imaginative man, he was trusted when he spoke thus of his new “turns.” +There was the feeling that he had once more discovered a good thing. + +And on the afternoon of the new star’s dress rehearsal it was noticed +that he came down to watch her, smoking his cigar calmly in the front +row of the stalls. When she had finished and withdrawn, the _chef +d’orchestre_, while folding up his score, felt something tickling his +ear. + +“Bensoni, this is hot goods!” + +Turning that dim, lined face of his, whose moustache was always coming +out of wax, Signor Bensoni answered: “A bit of all right, boss!” + +“If they hug her real big to-night, send round to my room.” + +“I will.” + +Evening came, and under the gilt-starred dome the house was packed. +Rows and rows of serious seekers for amusement; and all the customary +crowd of those who “drop in”--old clients with hair and without hair, +in evening clothes, or straight from their offices or race-course; +bare-necked ladies sitting; ladies who never sat, but under large +hats stood looking into the distance, or moved with alacrity in no +particular direction, and halted swiftly with a gentle humming; +lounging and high-collared youths, furtively or boldly staring, and +unconsciously tightening their lips; distinguished goatee-bearded +foreigners wandering without rest. And always round the doorways the +huge attendants, in their long, closely buttoned coats. + +The little Peruvian bears had danced. The Volpo troupe in +claret-coloured tights had gone once more without mishap through +their hairbreadth tumbles. The Mulligatawny quartet had contributed +their “unparalleled plate spray.” “Donks, the human ass,” had brayed. +Signor Bensoni had conducted to its close his “Pot-pourriture” which +afforded so many men an opportunity to stretch their legs. Arsenico +had swallowed many things with conspicuous impunity. “Great and Small +Scratch” had scratched. “Fraulein Tizi, the charming female vocalist,” +had suddenly removed his stays. There had been no minute dull; yet over +the whole performance had hung that advent of the new star, that sense +of waiting for a greater moment. + +She came at last--in black and her own whiteness, “La Bellissima,” +straight from Brazil; tall, with raven-dark hair, and her beautiful +face as pale as ivory. Tranquilly smiling with eyes only, she seemed +to draw the gaze of all into those dark wells of dancing life; and, +holding out her arms, that seemed fairer and rounder than the arms of +women, she said: “Ladies and gentlemen, I will dance for you de latest +Gollywog Brazilian caterpillar crawl.” + +Then, in lime-light streaming down on her from the centre of the +gallery, she moved back to the corner of the stage. Those who were +wandering stood still; every face craned forward. For, sidelong, with +a mouth widened till it nearly reached her ears, her legs straddling, +and her stomach writhing, she was moving incomparably across the stage. +Her face, twisted on her neck, at an alarming angle, was distorted to +a strange, inimitable hideousness. She reached the wings, and turned. +A voice cried out: “_Épatant!_” Her arms, those round white arms, +seemed yellow and skinny now, her obviously slender hips had achieved +miraculous importance; each movement of her whole frame was attuned +to a perfect harmony of ugliness. Twice she went thus marvellously +up and down, in the ever-deepening hush. Then the music stopped, +the lime-light ceased to flow, and she stood once more tranquil and +upright, beautiful, with her smiling eyes. A roar of enthusiasm broke, +salvo after salvo--clapping and “Bravos,” and comments flying from +mouth to mouth. + +“Rippin’!” “Bizarre--I say--how bizarre!” “Of the most chic!” +“_Wunderschön!_” “Bully!” + +Raising her arms again for silence, she said quite simply: “Good! I +will now, ladies and gentlemen, sing you the latest Patagonian Squaw +Squall. I sing you first, however, few bars of ‘Che farò’ old-fashion, +to show you my natural tones--so you will see.” And in a deep, sweet +voice began at once: “Che farò senz’ Euridice”; while through the +whole house ran a shuffle of preparation for the future. Then all was +suddenly still; for from her lips, remarkably enlarged, was issuing +a superb cacophony. Like the screeching of parrots, and miauling of +tiger-cats fighting in a forest, it forced attention from even the +least musical. + +Before the first verse was ended, the uncontrollable applause had +drowned her; and she stood, not bowing, smiling with her lips now--her +pretty lips. Then raising a slender forefinger, she began the second +verse. Even more strangely harsh and dissonant, from lips more +monstrously disfigured, the great sound came. And, as though in tune +with that crescendo, the lime-light brightened till she seemed all +wrapped in flame. Before the storm of acclamation could burst from the +enraptured house, a voice coming from the gallery was heard suddenly to +cry: + +“Woman! Blasphemous creature! You have profaned Beauty!” + +For a single second there was utter silence, then a huge, angry “Hush!” +was hurled up at the speaker; and all eyes turned toward the stage. + +There stood the beautiful creature, motionless, staring up into the +lime-light. And the voice from the gallery was heard again. + +“The blind applaud you; it is natural. But you--unnatural! Go!” The +beautiful creature threw up her head, as though struck below the jaw, +and with hands flung out, rushed from the stage. Then, amidst the babel +of a thousand cries--“Chuck the brute out!” “Throw him over!” “Where’s +the manager?” “Encore, encore!”--the manager himself came out from the +wings. He stood gazing up into the stream of lime-light, and there was +instant silence. + +“Hullo! up there! Have you got him?” + +A voice, far and small, travelled back in answer: “It’s no one up here, +sir!” + +“What? Limes! It was in front of you!” A second faint, small voice came +quavering down: “There’s been no one hollerin’ near me, sir.” + +“Cut off your light!” + +Down came the quavering voice: “I ’ave cut off, sir.” + +“What?” + +“I ’ave cut off--I’m disconnected.” + +“Look at it!” And, pointing toward the brilliant ray still showering +down onto the stage, whence a faint smoke seemed rising, the manager +stepped back into the wings. + +Then, throughout the house, arose a hustling and a scuffling, as of +a thousand furtively consulting; and through it, of it, continually +louder, the whisper--“Fire!” + +And from every row some one stole out; the women in the large hats +clustered, and trooped toward the doors. In five minutes “The Paradise” +was empty, save of its officials. But of fire there was none. + +Down in the orchestra, standing well away from the centre, so that he +could see the stream of lime-light, the manager said: + +“Electrics!” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Cut off every light.” + +“Right, sir.” + +With a clicking sound the lights went out; and all was black--but for +that golden pathway still flowing down the darkness. For a moment the +manager blinked silently at the strange effulgence. Then his scared +voice rose: “Send for the Boss--look alive! Where’s Limes?” + +Close to his elbow a dark little quick-eyed man, with his air of +professional stupidity, answered in doubt: “Here, sir.” + +“It’s up to you, Limes!” + +The little man, wiping his forehead, gazed at the stream of golden +light, powdering out to silver at its edges. + +“I’ve took out me limes, and I’m disconnected, and this blanky ray goes +on. What am I to do? There’s nothing up there to cause it. Go an’ see +for yourself, sir!” Then, passing his hand across his mouth, he blurted +out: “It’s got to do with that there voice--I shouldn’t be surprised. +Unnat’ral-like; the voice o’----” + +The manager interrupted sharply: “Don’t be a d--d ass, Limes!” + +And, suddenly, all saw the proprietor passing from the prompt side +behind that faint mist where the ray fell. + +“What’s the theatre dark like this for? Why is it empty? What’s +happened?” + +The manager answered. + +“We’re trying to find out, sir; a madman in the gallery, whom we +couldn’t locate, made a disturbance, called the new turn ‘A natural’; +and now there’s some hanky with this lime. It’s been taken out, and yet +it goes on like that!” + +“What cleared the house?” + +The manager pointed at the stage. + +“It looked like smoke,” he said. “That light’s loose; we can’t get hold +of its end anywhere.” + +From behind him Signor Bensoni suddenly pushed up his dim, scared face. + +“Boss!” he stammered: “it’s the most bizarre--the most bizarre--thing I +ever struck--Limes thinks----” + +“Yes?” The Boss turned and spoke very quickly: “What does he +think--yes?” + +“He thinks--the voice wasn’t from the gallery--but higher; he +thinks--he thinks--it was the voice of--voice of----” + +A sudden sparkle lit up the Boss’s eyes. “Yes?” he hissed out; “yes?” + +“He thinks it was the voice of---- Hullo!” + +The stream of light had vanished. All was darkness. + +Some one called: “Up with your lights!” + +As the lights leaped forth, all about the house, the Boss was seen to +rush to the centre of the stage, where the ray had been. + +“Bizarre! By gum!... Hullo! Up there!” + +No sound, no ray of light, answered that passionately eager shout. + +The Boss spun round: “Electrics! You blazing ass! Ten to one but you’ve +cut my connection, turning up the lights like that. The voice of----! +Great snakes! What a turn! What a turn! I’d have given it a thou’ a +week!... _Hullo! up there! Hullo!_” + +But there came no answer from under the gilt-starred dome. + + + + +A SIMPLE TALE + + +Talking of anti-Semitism one of those mornings, Ferrand said: “Yes, +_monsieur_, plenty of those gentlemen in these days esteem themselves +Christian, but I have only once met a Christian who esteemed himself a +Jew. _C’était très drôle--je vais vous conter cela._ + +“It was one autumn in London, and, the season being over, I was +naturally in poverty, inhabiting a palace in Westminster at fourpence +the night. In the next bed to me that time there was an old gentleman, +so thin that one might truly say he was made of air. English, Scotch, +Irish, Welsh--I shall never learn to distinguish those little +differences in your race--but I well think he was English. Very feeble, +very frail, white as paper, with a long grey beard, and caves in the +cheeks, and speaking always softly, as if to a woman.... For me it was +an experience to see an individual so gentle in a palace like that. +His bed and bowl of broth he gained in sweeping out the kennels of all +those sorts of types who come to sleep there every night. There he +spent all his day long, going out only at ten hours and a half every +night, and returning at midnight less one quarter. Since I had not much +to do, it was always a pleasure for me to talk with him; for, though +he was certainly a little _toqué_,” and Ferrand tapped his temple, “he +had great charm, of an old man, never thinking of himself, no more than +a fly that turns in dancing all day beneath a ceiling. If there was +something he could do for one of those specimens--to sew on a button, +clean a pipe, catch beasts in their clothes, or sit to see they were +not stolen, even to give up his place by the fire--he would always do +it with his smile so white and gentle; and in his leisure he would +read the Holy Book! He inspired in me a sort of affection--there are +not too many old men so kind and gentle as that, even when they are +‘crackey,’ as you call it. Several times I have caught him in washing +the feet of one of those sots, or bathing some black eye or other, such +as they often catch--a man of a spiritual refinement really remarkable; +in clothes also so refined that one sometimes saw his skin. Though he +had never great thing to say, he heard you like an angel, and spoke +evil of no one; but, seeing that he had no more vigour than a swallow, +it piqued me much how he would go out like that every night in all the +weather at the same hour for so long a promenade of the streets. And +when I interrogated him on this, he would only smile his smile of one +not there, and did not seem to know very much of what I was talking. I +said to myself: ‘There is something here to see, if I am not mistaken. +One of these good days I shall be your guardian angel while you fly the +night.’ For I am a connoisseur of strange things, _monsieur_, as you +know; though, you may well imagine, being in the streets all day long +between two boards of a sacred sandwich does not give you too strong a +desire to _flâner_ in the evenings. _Eh, bien!_ It was a night in late +October that I at last pursued him. He was not difficult to follow, +seeing he had no more guile than an egg; passing first at his walk of +an old shadow into your St. James’s Park along where your military +types puff out their chests for the nursemaids to admire. Very slowly +he went, leaning on a staff--_une canne de promenade_ such as I have +never seen, nearly six feet high, with an end like a shepherd’s +crook or the handle of a sword, a thing truly to make the _gamins_ +laugh--even me it made to smile though I am too well accustomed to +mock at age and poverty, to watch him march in leaning on that cane. I +remember that night--very beautiful, the sky of a clear dark, the stars +as bright as they can ever be in these towns of our high civilisation, +and the leaf-shadows of the plane-trees, colour of grapes on the +pavement, so that one had not the heart to put foot on them. One of +those evenings when the spirit is light, and policemen a little dreamy +and well-wishing. Well, as I tell you, my Old marched, never looking +behind him, like a man who walks in sleep. By that big church--which, +like all those places, had its air of coldness, far and ungrateful +among us others, little human creatures who have built it--he passed, +into the great Eaton Square, whose houses ought well to be inhabited by +people very rich. There he crossed to lean him against the railings of +the garden in the centre, very tranquil, his long white beard falling +over hands joined on his staff, in awaiting what--I could not figure to +myself at all. It was the hour when your high _bourgeoisie_ return from +the theatre in their carriages, whose manikins sit, the arms crossed, +above horses fat as snails. And one would see through the window some +lady _bercée doucement_, with the face of one who has eaten too much +and loved too little. And gentlemen passed me, marching for a mouthful +of fresh air, _très comme il faut_, their concertina hats pushed up, +and nothing at all in their eyes. I remarked my Old, who, making no +movement watched them all as they went by, till presently a carriage +stopped at a house nearly opposite. At once, then he began to cross +the road quickly, carrying his great stick. I observed the lackey +pulling the bell and opening the carriage door, and three people coming +forth--a man, a woman, a young man. Very high _bourgeoisie_, some +judge, knight, mayor--what do I know?--with his wife and son, mounting +under the porch. My Old had come to the bottom of the steps, and spoke, +in bending himself forward, as if supplicating. At once those three +turned their faces, very astonished. Although I was very intrigued, +I could not hear what he was saying, for, if I came nearer, I feared +he would see me spying on him. Only the sound of his voice I heard, +gentle as always; and his hand I saw wiping his forehead, as though +he had carried something heavy from very far. Then the lady spoke to +her husband, and went into the house, and the young son followed in +lighting a cigarette. There rested only that good father of the family, +with his grey whiskers and nose a little bent, carrying an expression +as if my Old were making him ridiculous. He made a quick gesture, as +though he said, ‘Go!’ then he too fled softly. The door was shut. +At once the lackey mounted, the carriage drove away, and all was as +if it had never been, except that my Old was, standing there, quite +still. But soon he came returning carrying his staff as if it burdened +him. And recoiling in a porch to see him pass, I saw his visage full +of dolour, of one overwhelmed with fatigue and grief; so that I felt +my heart squeeze me. I must well confess, _monsieur_, I was a little +shocked to see this old sainted father asking as it seemed for alms. +That is a thing I myself have never done, not even in the greatest +poverty--one is not like your ‘gentlemen’--one does always some little +thing for the money he receives, if it is only to show a drunken man +where he lives. And I returned in meditating deeply over this problem, +which well seemed to me fit for the angels to examine; and knowing what +time my Old was always re-entering, I took care to be in my bed before +him. He came in as ever, treading softly so as not to wake us others, +and his face had again its serenity, a little ‘crackey.’ As you may +well have remarked, _monsieur_, I am not one of those individuals who +let everything grow under the nose without pulling them up to see how +they are made. For me the greatest pleasure is to lift the skirts of +life, to unveil what there is under the surface of things which are not +always what they seem, as says your good little poet. For that one must +have philosophy, and a certain industry, lacking to all those gentlemen +who think they alone are industrious because they sit in chairs and +blow into the telephone all day, in filling their pockets with money. +Myself, I coin knowledge of the heart--it is the only gold they cannot +take from you. So that night I lay awake. I was not content with what +I had seen; for I could not imagine why this old man, so unselfish, so +like a saint in thinking ever of others, should go thus every night to +beg, when he had always in this palace his bed, and that with which +to keep his soul within his rags. Certainly we all have our vices, +and gentlemen the most revered do, in secret, things they would cough +to see others doing; but that business of begging seemed scarcely in +his character of an old altruist--for in my experience, _monsieur_, +beggars are not less egoist than millionaires. As I say, it piqued me +much, and I resolved to follow him again. The second night was of the +most different. There was a great wind, and white clouds flying in +the moonlight. He commenced his pilgrimage in passing by your House +of Commons, as if toward the river. I like much that great river of +yours. There is in its career something of very grand; it ought to know +many things, although it is so silent, and gives to no one the secrets +which are confided to it. He had for objective, it seemed, that long +row of houses very respectable, which gives on the embankment, before +you arrive at Chelsea. It was painful to see the poor Old, bending +almost double against that great wind coming from the west. Not too +many carriages down here, and few people--a true wilderness, lighted +by tall lamps which threw no shadows, so clear was the moon. He took +his part soon, as of the other night, standing on the far side of the +road, watching for the return of some lion to his den. And presently +I saw one coming, accompanied by three lionesses, all taller than +himself. This one was bearded, and carried spectacles--a real head of +learning; walking, too, with the step of a man who knows his world. +Some professor--I said to myself--with his harem. They gained their +house at fifty paces from my Old; and, while this learned one was +opening the door, the three ladies lifted their noses in looking at the +moon. A little of æsthetic, a little of science--as always with that +type there! At once I had perceived my Old coming across, blown by the +wind like a grey stalk of thistle; and his face, with its expression +of infinite pain as if carrying the sufferings of the world. At the +moment they see him those three ladies drop their noses, and fly within +the house as if he were the pestilence, in crying, ‘Henry!’ And out +comes my _monsieur_ again, in his beard and spectacles. For me, I would +freely have given my ears to hear, but I saw that this good Henry had +his eye on me, and I did not budge, for fear to seem in conspiracy. I +heard him only say: ‘Impossible! Impossible! Go to the proper place!’ +and he shut the door. My Old remained, with his long staff resting +on a shoulder bent as if that stick were of lead. And presently he +commenced to march again whence he had come, curved and trembling, the +very shadow of a man, passing me, too, as if I were the air. That time +also I regained my bed before him, in meditating very deeply, still +more uncertain of the psychology of this affair, and resolved once +again to follow him, saying to myself: ‘This time I shall run all risks +to hear.’ There are two kinds of men in this world, _monsieur_, one +who will not rest content till he has become master of all the toys +that make a fat existence--in never looking to see of what they are +made; and the other, for whom life is tobacco and a crust of bread, +and liberty to take all to pieces, so that his spirit may feel good +within him. Frankly I am of that kind. I rest never till I have found +out why this is that; for me mystery is the salt of life, and I must +well eat of it. I put myself again, then, to following him the next +night. This time he traversed those little dirty streets of your great +Westminster, where all is mixed in a true pudding of lords and poor +wretches at two sous the dozen; of cats and policemen; kerosene flames, +abbeys, and the odour of fried fish. Ah! truly it is frightful to see +your low streets in London; that gives me a conviction of hopelessness +such as I have never caught elsewhere; piquant, too, to find them so +near to that great House which sets example of good government to all +the world. There is an irony so ferocious there, _monsieur_, that one +can well hear the good God of your _bourgeois_ laugh in every wheel +that rolls, and the cry of each cabbage that is sold; and see him +smile in the smoky light of every flare, and in the candles of your +cathedral, in saying to himself: ‘I have well made this world. Is there +not variety here?--_en voilà une bonne soupe!_’ This time, however, I +attended my Old like his very shadow, and could hear him sighing as +he marched, as if he also found the atmosphere of those streets too +strong. But all of a sudden he turned a corner, and we were in the most +quiet, most beautiful little street I have seen in all your London. It +was of small, old houses, very regular, which made as if they inclined +themselves in their two rows before a great church at the end, grey in +the moonlight, like a mother. There was no one in that street, and no +more cover than hair on the head of a pope. But I had some confidence +now that my Old would not remark me standing there so close, since in +these pilgrimages he seemed to remark nothing. Leaning on his staff, +I tell you he had the air of an old bird in a desert, reposing on +one leg by a dry pool, his soul looking for water. It gave me that +notion one has sometimes in watching the rare spectacles of life--that +sentiment which, according to me, pricks artists to their work. We had +not stayed there too long before I saw a couple marching from the end +of the street, and thought: ‘Here they come to their nest.’ Vigorous +and gay they were, young married ones, eager to get home; one could see +the white neck of the young wife, the white shirt of the young man, +gleaming under their cloaks. I know them well, those young couples +in great cities, without a care, taking all things, the world before +them, _très amoureux_, without, as yet, children; jolly and pathetic, +having life still to learn--which, believe me, _monsieur_, is a sad +enough affair for nine rabbits out of ten. They stopped at the house +next to where I stood; and, since my Old was coming fast as always to +the feast, I put myself at once to the appearance of ringing the bell +of the house before me. This time I had well the chance of hearing. +I could see, too, the faces of all three, because I have by now the +habit of seeing out of the back hair. The pigeons were so anxious to +get to their nest that my Old had only the time to speak, as they were +in train to vanish. ‘Sir, let me rest in your doorway!’ _Monsieur_, I +have never seen a face so hopeless, so crippled with fatigue, yet so +full of a gentle dignity as that of my Old while he spoke those words. +It was as if something looked from his visage surpassing what belongs +to us others, so mortal and so cynic as human life must well render all +who dwell in this earthly paradise. He held his long staff upon one +shoulder, and I had the idea, sinister enough, that it was crushing his +body of a spectre down into the pavement. I know not how the impression +came, but it seemed to me that this devil of a stick had the nature of +a heavy cross reposing on his shoulder; I had pain to prevent myself +turning, to find if in truth ‘I had them’ as your drunkards say. Then +the young man called out: ‘Here’s a shilling for you, my friend!’ But +my old did not budge, answering always: ‘Sir, let me rest in your +doorway!’ As you may well imagine, _monsieur_, we were all in the +silence of astonishment, I pulling away at my bell next door, which was +not ringing, seeing I took care it did not; and those two young people +regarding my Old with eyes round as moons, out of their pigeon-house, +which I could well see was prettily feathered. Their hearts were making +seesaw, I could tell; for at that age one is still impressionable. +Then the girl put herself to whispering, and her husband said those two +words of your young ‘gentlemen,’ ‘Awfully sorry!’ and put out his hand, +which held now a coin large as a saucer. But again my Old only said: +‘Sir, let me rest in your doorway!’ And the young man drew back his +hand quickly as if he were ashamed, and saying again, ‘Sorry!’ he shut +the door. I have heard many sighs in my time--they are the good little +accompaniments to the song we sing, we others who are in poverty; but +the sigh my Old pushed then--how can I tell you--had an accent as if it +came from Her, the faithful companion, who marches holding the hands +of men and women so that they may never make the grand mistake to +imagine themselves for a moment the good God. Yes, _monsieur_, it was +as if pursued by Suffering herself, that bird of the night, never tired +of flying in this world where they talk always of cutting her wings. +Then I took my resolution, and, coming gently from behind, said: ‘My +Old--what is it? Can I do anything for you?’ Without looking at me, +he spoke as to himself: ‘I shall never find one who will let me rest +in his doorway. For my sin I shall wander forever!’ At this moment, +_monsieur_, there came to me an inspiration so clear that I marvelled +I had not already had it a long time before. He thought himself the +Wandering Jew! I had well found it. This was certainly his fixed idea, +of a cracked old man! And I said: ‘My Jew, do you know this? In doing +what you do, you have become as Christ, in a world of wandering Jews!’ +But he did not seem to hear me, and only just as we arrived at our +palace became again that old gentle being, thinking never of himself.” + +Behind the smoke of his cigarette, a smile curled Ferrand’s red lips +under his long nose a little on one side. + +“And, if you think of it, _monsieur_, it is well like that. Provided +there exists always that good man of a Wandering Jew, he will certainly +have become as Christ, in all these centuries of being refused from +door to door. Yes, yes, he must well have acquired charity the most +profound that this world has ever seen, in watching the crushing virtue +of others. All those gentry, of whom he asks night by night to let him +rest in their doorways, they tell him where to go, how to _ménager_ +his life, even offer him money, as I had seen; but, to let him rest, +to trust him in their houses--this strange old man--as a fellow, a +brother voyager--that they will not; it is hardly in the character +of good citizens in a Christian country. And, as I have indicated to +you, this Old of mine, cracked as he was, thinking himself that Jew +who refused rest to the good Christ, had become, in being refused for +ever, the most Christ-like man I have ever encountered on this earth, +which, according to me, is composed almost entirely of those who have +themselves the character of the Wandering Jew.” + +Puffing out a sigh of smoke, Ferrand added: “I do not know whether he +continued to pursue his idea, for I myself took the road next morning, +and I have never seen him since.” + + + + +ULTIMA THULE + + +Ultima Thule! The words come into my head this winter night. That is +why I write down the story, as I know it, of a little old friend. + +I used to see him first in Kensington Gardens, where he came in the +afternoons, accompanied by a very small girl. One would see them silent +before a shrub or flower, or with their heads inclined to heaven before +a tree, or leaning above water and the ducks, or stretched on their +stomachs watching a beetle, or on their backs watching the sky. Often +they would stand holding crumbs out to the birds, who would perch about +them, and even drop on their arms little white marks of affection and +esteem. They were admittedly a noticeable couple. The child, who was +fair-haired and elfinlike, with dark eyes and a pointed chin, wore +clothes that seemed somewhat hard put to it. And, if the two were not +standing still, she went along pulling at his hand, eager to get there; +and, since he was a very little light old man, he seemed always in +advance of his own feet. He was garbed, if I remember, in a daverdy +brown overcoat and broad-brimmed soft grey hat, and his trousers, +what was visible of them, were tucked into half-length black gaiters +which tried to join with very old brown shoes. Indeed, his costume +did not indicate any great share of prosperity. But it was his face +that riveted attention. Thin, cherry-red, and wind-dried as old wood, +it had a special sort of brightness, with its spikes and waves of +silvery hair, and blue eyes that seemed to shine. Rather mad, I used to +think. Standing by the rails of an enclosure, with his withered lips +pursed and his cheeks drawn in till you would think the wind might +blow through them, he would emit the most enticing trills and pipings, +exactly imitating various birds. + +Those who rouse our interest are generally the last people we speak +to, for interest seems to set up a kind of special shyness; so it was +long before I made his acquaintance. But one day by the Serpentine, +I saw him coming along alone, looking sad, but still with that queer +brightness about him. He sat down on my bench with his little dried +hands on his thin little knees, and began talking to himself in a sort +of whisper. Presently I caught the words: “God cannot be like us.” And +for fear that he might go on uttering such precious remarks that were +obviously not intended to be heard, I had either to go away or else +address him. So, on an impulse, I said: + +“Why?” + +He turned without surprise. + +“I’ve lost my landlady’s little girl,” he said. “Dead! And only seven +years old.” + +“That little thing! I used to watch you.” + +“Did you? Did you? I’m glad you saw her.” + +“I used to see you looking at flowers, and trees, and those ducks.” + +His face brightened wistfully. “Yes; she was a great companion to +an old man like me.” And he relapsed into his contemplation of the +water. He had a curious, precise way of speaking, that matched his +pipchinesque little old face. At last he again turned to me those blue +youthful eyes that seemed to shine out of a perfect little nest of +crow’s-feet. + +“We were great friends! But I couldn’t expect it. Things don’t last, do +they?” I was glad to notice that his voice was getting cheerful. “When +I was in the orchestra at the Harmony Theatre, it never used to occur +to me that some day I shouldn’t play there any more. One felt like a +bird. That’s the beauty of music, sir. You lose yourself; like that +blackbird there.” He imitated the note of a blackbird so perfectly that +I could have sworn the bird started. + +“Birds and flowers! Wonderful things; wonderful! Why, even a +buttercup----!” He pointed at one of those little golden flowers with +his toe. “Did you ever see such a marvellous thing?” And he turned his +face up at me. “And yet, somebody told me once that they don’t agree +with cows. Now can that be? I’m not a countryman--though I was born at +Kingston.” + +“The cows do well enough on them,” I said, “in my part of the world. In +fact, the farmers say they like to see buttercups.” + +“I’m glad to hear you say that. I was always sorry to think they +disagreed.” + +When I got up to go, he rose, too. + +“I take it as very kind of you,” he said, “to have spoken to me.” + +“The pleasure was mine. I am generally to be found hereabouts in the +afternoons any time you like a talk.” + +“Delighted,” he said; “delighted. I make friends of the creatures and +flowers as much as possible, but they can’t always make us understand.” +And after we had taken off our respective hats, he reseated himself, +with his hands on his knees. + +Next time I came across him standing by the rails of an enclosure, and, +in his arms, an old and really wretched-looking cat. + +“I don’t like boys,” he said, without preliminary of any sort. “What +do you think they were doing to this poor old cat? Dragging it along +by a string to drown it; see where it’s cut into the fur! I think boys +despise the old and weak!” He held it out to me. At the ends of those +little sticks of arms the beast looked more dead than alive; I had +never seen a more miserable creature. + +“I think a cat,” he said, “is one of the most marvellous things in the +world. Such a depth of life in it.” + +And, as he spoke, the cat opened its mouth as if protesting at that +assertion. It _was_ the sorriest-looking beast. + +“What are you going to do with it?” + +“Take it home: it looks to me as if it might die.” + +“You don’t think that might be more merciful?” + +“It depends; it depends. I shall see. I fancy a little kindness might +do a great deal for it. It’s got plenty of spirit. I can see from its +eye.” + +“May I come along with you a bit?” + +“Oh!” he said; “delighted.” + +We walked on side by side, exciting the derision of nearly every one we +passed--his face looked so like a mother’s when she is feeding her baby! + +“You’ll find this’ll be quite a different cat to-morrow,” he said. +“I shall have to get in, though, without my landlady seeing; a funny +woman! I have two or three strays already.” + +“Can I help in any way?” + +“Thank you,” he said. “I shall ring the area bell, and as she comes +out below I shall go in above. She’ll think it’s boys. They _are_ like +that.” + +“But doesn’t she do your rooms, or anything?” + +A smile puckered his face. “I’ve only one; I do it myself. Oh, it’d +never do to have her about, even if I could afford it. But,” he added, +“if you’re so kind as to come with me to the door, you might engage her +by asking where Mr. Thompson lives. That’s me. In the musical world my +name was Moronelli; not that I have Italian blood in me, of course.” + +“And shall I come up?” + +“Honoured; but I live very quietly.” + +We passed out of the gardens at Lancaster Gate, where all the +house-fronts seem so successful, and out of it into a little street +that was extremely like a grubby child trying to hide under its +mother’s skirts. Here he took a newspaper from his pocket and wrapped +it round the cat. + +“She’s a funny woman,” he repeated; “Scotch descent, you know.” +Suddenly he pulled an area bell and scuttled up the steps. + +When he had opened the door, however, I saw before him in the hall a +short, thin woman dressed in black, with a sharp and bumpy face. Her +voice sounded brisk and resolute. + +“What have you got there, Mr. Thompson?” + +“Newspaper, Mrs. March.” + +“Oh, indeed! Now, you’re not going to take that cat upstairs!” + +The little old fellow’s voice acquired a sudden shrill determination. +“Stand aside, please. If you stop me, I’ll give you notice. The cat is +going up. It’s ill, and it is going up.” + +It was then I said: + +“Does Mr. Thompson live here?” + +In that second he shot past her, and ascended. + +“That’s him,” she said; “and I wish it wasn’t, with his dirty cats. Do +you want him?” + +“I do.” + +“He lives at the top.” Then, with a grudging apology: “I can’t help it; +he tries me--he’s very trying.” + +“I am sure he is.” + +She looked at me. The longing to talk that comes over those who answer +bells all day, and the peculiar Scottish desire to justify oneself, +rose together in that face which seemed all promontories dried by an +east wind. + +“Ah!” she said; “he is. I don’t deny his heart; but he’s got no sense +of anything. Goodness knows what he hasn’t got up there. I wonder I +keep him. An old man like that ought to know better; half-starving +himself to feed them.” She paused, and her eyes, that had a cold and +honest glitter, searched me closely. + +“If you’re going up,” she said, “I hope you’ll give him good advice. He +never lets me in. I wonder I keep him.” + +There were three flights of stairs, narrow, clean, and smelling of +oilcloth. Selecting one of two doors at random, I knocked. His silvery +head and bright, pinched face were cautiously poked out. + +“Ah!” he said; “I thought it might be her!” + +The room, which was fairly large, had a bare floor with little on +it save a camp-bed and chest of drawers with jug and basin. A large +bird-cage on the wall hung wide open. The place smelt of soap and a +little of beasts and birds. Into the walls, whitewashed over a green +wall-paper which stared through in places, were driven nails with their +heads knocked off, onto which bits of wood had been spiked, so that +they stood out as bird-perches high above the ground. Over the open +window a piece of wire netting had been fixed. A little spirit-stove +and an old dressing-gown hanging on a peg completed the accoutrements +of a room which one entered with a certain diffidence. He had not +exaggerated. Besides the new cat, there were three other cats and four +birds, all--save one, a bullfinch--invalids. The cats kept close to +the walls, avoiding me, but wherever my little old friend went, they +followed him with their eyes. The birds were in the cage, except the +bullfinch, which had perched on his shoulder. + +“How on earth,” I said, “do you manage to keep cats and birds in one +room?” + +“There is danger,” he answered, “but I have not had a disaster yet. +Till their legs or wings are mended, they hardly come out of the cage; +and after that they keep up on my perches. But they don’t stay long, +you know, when they’re once well. That wire is only put over the window +while they’re mending; it’ll be off to-morrow, for this lot.” + +“And then they’ll go?” + +“Yes. The sparrow first, and then the two thrushes.” + +“And this fellow?” + +“Ask him,” he said. “Would _you_ go, bully?” But the bullfinch did not +deign to answer. + +“And were all those cats, too, in trouble?” + +“Yes,” he said. “They wouldn’t want me if they weren’t.” + +Thereupon he began to warm some blue-looking milk, contemplating the +new cat, which he had placed in a round basket close to the little +stove, while the bullfinch sat on his head. It seemed time to go. + +“Delighted to see you, sir,” he said, “any day.” And, pointing up at +the bullfinch on his head, he added: “Did you ever see anything so +wonderful as that bird? The size of its heart! Really marvellous!” + +To the rapt sound of that word marvellous, and full of the memory of +his mysterious brightness while he stood pointing upward to the bird +perched on his thick, silvery hair, I went. + +The landlady was still at the bottom of the stairs, and began at once: +“So you found him! I don’t know why I keep him. Of course, he was kind +to my little girl.” I saw tears gather in her eyes. + +“With his cats and his birds, I wonder I keep him! But where would +he go? He’s no relations, and no friends--not a friend in the world, +I think! He’s a character. Lives on air--feeding them cats! I’ve no +patience with them, eating him up. He never lets me in. Cats and birds! +I wonder I keep him. Losing himself for those rubbishy things! It’s my +belief he was always like that; and that’s why he never got on. He’s no +sense of anything.” + +And she gave me a shrewd look, wondering, no doubt, what the deuce I +had come about. + +I did not come across him again in the gardens for some time, and went +at last to pay him a call. At the entrance to a mews just round the +corner of his grubby little street, I found a knot of people collected +round one of those bears that are sometimes led through the less +conspicuous streets of our huge towns. The yellowish beast was sitting +up in deference to its master’s nod, uttering little grunts, and moving +its uplifted snout from side to side, in the way bears have. But it +seemed to be extracting more amusement than money from its audience. + +“Let your bear down off its hind legs and I’ll give you a penny.” +And suddenly I saw my little old friend under his flopping grey hat, +amongst the spectators, all taller than himself. But the bear’s master +only grinned and prodded the animal in the chest. He evidently knew a +good thing when he saw it. + +“I’ll give you twopence to let him down.” + +Again the bear-man grinned. “More!” he said, and again prodded the +bear’s chest. The spectators were laughing now. + +“Threepence! And if you don’t let him down for that, I’ll hit you in +the eye.” + +The bear-man held out his hand. “All a-right,” he said, “threepence; I +let him down.” + +I saw the coins pass and the beast dropping on his forefeet; but just +then a policeman coming in sight, the man led his bear off, and I was +left alone with my little old friend. + +“I wish I had that poor bear,” he said; “I could teach him to be happy. +But, even if I could buy him, what could I do with him up there? She’s +such a funny woman.” + +He looked quite dim, but brightened as we went along. + +“A bear,” he said, “is really an extraordinary animal. What wise little +eyes he has! I do think he’s a marvellous creation! My cats will have +to go without their dinner, though. I was going to buy it with that +threepence.” + +I begged to be allowed the privilege. + +“Willingly!” he said. “Shall we go in here? They like cod’s head best.” + +While we stood waiting to be served I saw the usual derisive smile +pass over the fishmonger’s face. But my little old friend by no +means noticed it; he was too busy looking at the fish. “A fish is a +marvellous thing, when you come to think of it,” he murmured. “Look at +its scales. Did you ever see such mechanism?” + +We bought five cod’s heads, and I left him carrying them in a bag, +evidently lost in the anticipation of five cats eating them. + +After that I saw him often, going with him sometimes to buy food for +his cats, which seemed ever to increase in numbers. His talk was always +of his strays, and the marvels of creation, and that time of his life +when he played the flute at the Harmony Theatre. He had been out of a +job, it seemed, for more than ten years; and, when questioned, only +sighed and answered: “Don’t talk about it, please!” + +His bumpy landlady never failed to favour me with a little +conversation. She was one of those women who have terrific consciences, +and terrible grudges against them. + +“I never get out,” she would say. + +“Why not?” + +“Couldn’t leave the house.” + +“It won’t run away!” + +But she would look at me as if she thought it might, and repeat: + +“Oh! I never get out.” + +An extremely Scottish temperament. + +Considering her descent, however, she was curiously devoid of success, +struggling on apparently from week to week, cleaning, and answering +the bell, and never getting out, and wondering why she kept my little +old friend; just as he struggled on from week to week, getting out and +collecting strays, and discovering the marvels of creation, and finding +her a funny woman. Their hands were joined, one must suppose, by that +dead child. + +One July afternoon, however, I found her very much upset. He had been +taken dangerously ill three days before. + +“There he is,” she said; “can’t touch a thing. It’s my belief he’s done +for himself, giving his food away all these years to those cats of his. +I shooed ’em out to-day, the nasty creatures; they won’t get in again.” + +“Oh!” I said, “you shouldn’t have done that. It’ll only make him +miserable.” + +She flounced her head up. “Hoh!” she said; “I wonder I’ve kept him all +this time, with his birds and his cats dirtying my house. And there he +lies, talking gibberish about them. He made me write to a Mr. Jackson, +of some theatre or other--I’ve no patience with him. And that little +bullfinch all the time perching on his pillow, the dirty little thing! +I’d have turned it out, too, only it wouldn’t let me catch it.” + +“What does the doctor say?” + +“Double pneumonia--caught it getting his feet wet, after some stray, +I’ll be bound. I’m nursing him. There has to be some one with him all +the time.” + +He was lying very still when I went up, with the sunlight falling +across the foot of his bed, and, sure enough, the bullfinch perching on +his pillow. In that high fever he looked brighter than ever. He was not +exactly delirious, yet not exactly master of his thoughts. + +“Mr. Jackson! He’ll be here soon. Mr. Jackson! He’ll do it for me. I +can ask him, if I die. A funny woman. I don’t want to eat; I’m not a +great eater--I want my breath, that’s all.” + +At sound of his voice the bullfinch fluttered off the pillow and flew +round and round the room, as if alarmed at something new in the tones +that were coming from its master. + +Then he seemed to recognise me. “I think I’m going to die,” he said; +“I’m very weak. It’s lucky, there’s nobody to mind. If only he’d come +soon. I wish”--and he raised himself with feeble excitement--“I wish +you’d take that wire off the window; I want my cats. She turned them +out. I want him to promise me to take them, and bully-boy, and feed +them with my money, when I’m dead.” + +Seeing that excitement was certainly worse for him than cats, I took +the wire off. He fell back, quiet at once; and presently, first one and +then another cat came stealing in, till there were four or five seated +against the walls. The moment he ceased to speak the bullfinch, too, +came back to his pillow. His eyes looked most supernaturally bright, +staring out of his little, withered-up old face at the sunlight playing +on his bed; he said just audibly: “Did you ever see anything more +wonderful than that sunlight? It’s really marvellous!” After that he +fell into a sort of doze or stupor. And I continued to sit there in the +window, relieved, but rather humiliated, that he had not asked me to +take care of his cats and bullfinch. + +Presently there came the sound of a motor-car in the little street +below. And almost at once the landlady appeared. For such an abrupt +woman, she entered very softly. + +“Here he is,” she whispered. + +I went out and found a gentleman, perhaps sixty years of age, in +a black coat, buff waistcoat, gold watch-chain, light trousers, +patent-leather boots, and a wonderfully shining hat. His face was +plump and red, with a glossy grey moustache; indeed, he seemed to +shine everywhere, save in the eyes, which were of a dull and somewhat +liverish hue. + +“Mr. Jackson?” + +“The same. How is the little old chap?” + +Opening the door of the next room, which I knew was always empty, I +beckoned Mr. Jackson in. + +“He’s really very ill; I’d better tell you what he wants to see you +about.” + +He looked at me with that air of “You can’t get at me--whoever you may +be,” which belongs to the very successful. + +“Right-o!” he said. “Well?” + +I described the situation. “He seems to think,” I ended, “that you’ll +be kind enough to charge yourself with his strays, in case he should +die.” + +Mr. Jackson prodded the unpainted wash-stand with his gold-headed cane. + +“Is he really going to kick it?” + +“I’m afraid so; he’s nothing but skin, bone, and spirit, as it is.” + +“H’m! Stray cats, you say, and a bird! Well, there’s no accounting. He +was always a cracky little chap. So that’s it! When I got the letter +I wondered what the deuce! We pay him his five quid a quarter regular +to this day. To tell truth, he deserved it. Thirty years he was at our +shop; never missed a night. First-rate flute he was. He ought never to +have given it up, though I always thought it showed a bit of heart in +him. If a man don’t look after number one, he’s as good as gone; that’s +what I’ve always found. Why, I was no more than he was when I started. +Shouldn’t have been worth a plum if I’d gone on his plan, that’s +certain.” And he gave that profound chuckle which comes from the very +stomach of success. “We were having a rocky time at the Harmony; had +to cut down everything we could--music, well, that came about first. +Little old Moronelli, as we used to call him--old Italian days before +English names came in, you know--he was far the best of the flutes; so +I went to him and said: ‘Look here, Moronelli, which of these other +boys had better go?’ ‘Oh!’ he said--I remember his funny little old +mug now--‘has one of them to go, Mr. Jackson? Timminsa’--that was the +elder--‘he’s a wife and family; and Smetoni’--Smith, you know--‘he’s +only a boy. Times are bad for flutes.’ ‘I know it’s a bit hard,’ I +said, ‘but this theatre’s goin’ to be run much cheaper; one of ’em’s +got to get.’ ‘Oh!’ he said, ‘dear me!’ he said. What a funny little old +chap it was! Well--what do you think? Next day I had his resignation. +Give you my word I did my best to turn him. Why, he was sixty then if +he was a day--at sixty a man don’t get jobs in a hurry. But, not a bit +of it! All he’d say was: ‘I shall get a place all right!’ But that’s +it, you know--he never did. Too long in one shop. I heard by accident +he was on the rocks; that’s how I make him that allowance. But that’s +the sort of hopeless little old chap he is--no idea of himself. Cats! +Why not? I’ll take his old cats on; don’t you let him worry about that. +I’ll see to his bird, too. If I can’t give ’em a better time than ever +they have here, it’ll be funny!” And, looking round the little empty +room, he again uttered that profound chuckle: “Why, he was with us at +the Harmony thirty years--that’s time, you know; _I_ made my fortune in +it.” + +“I’m sure,” I said, “it’ll be a great relief to him.” + +“Oh! Ah! That’s all right. You come down to my place”--he handed me a +card: “Mr. Cyril Porteus Jackson, Ultima Thule, Wimbledon”--“and see +how I fix ’em up. But if he’s really going to kick it, I’d like to have +a look at the little old chap, just for old times’ sake.” + +We went, as quietly as Mr. Jackson’s bright boots would permit, into +his room, where the landlady was sitting gazing angrily at the cats. +She went out without noise, flouncing her head as much as to say: +“Well, now you can see what I have to go through, sitting up here. I +never get out.” + +Our little old friend was still in that curious stupor. He seemed +unconscious, but his blue eyes were not closed, staring brightly out +before them at things we did not see. With his silvery hair and his +flushed frailty, he had an unearthly look. After standing perhaps three +minutes at the foot of the bed, Mr. Jackson whispered: + +“Well, he does look queer. Poor little old chap! You tell him from me +I’ll look after his cats and birds; he needn’t worry. And now, I think +I won’t keep the car. Makes me feel a bit throaty, you know. Don’t +move; he might come to.” + +And, leaning all the weight of his substantial form on those bright +and creaking toes, he made his way to the door, flashed at me a +diamond ring, whispered hoarsely: “So long! That’ll be all right!” and +vanished. And soon I heard the whirring of his car and just saw the top +of his shiny hat travelling down the little street. + +Some time I sat on there, wanting to deliver that message. An uncanny +vigil in the failing light, with those five cats--yes, five at +least--lying or sitting against the walls, staring like sphinxes at +their motionless protector. I could not make out whether it was he in +his stupor with his bright eyes that fascinated them, or the bullfinch +perched on his pillow, whom they knew perhaps might soon be in their +power. I was glad when the landlady came up and I could leave the +message with her. + +When she opened the door to me next day at six o’clock I knew that he +was gone. There was about her that sorrowful, unmistakable importance, +that peculiar mournful excitement, which hovers over houses where death +has entered. + +“Yes,” she said, “he went this morning. Never came round after you +left. Would you like to see him?” + +We went up. + +He lay, covered with a sheet, in the darkened room. The landlady pulled +the window-curtains apart. His face, as white now almost as his silvery +head, had in the sunlight a radiance like that of a small, bright angel +gone to sleep. No growth of hair, such as comes on most dead faces, +showed on those frail cheeks that were now smooth and lineless as +porcelain. And on the sheet above his chest the bullfinch sat, looking +into his face. + +The landlady let the curtains fall, and we went out. + +“I’ve got the cats in here”--she pointed to the room where Mr. Jackson +and I had talked--“all ready for that gentleman when he sends. But that +little bird, I don’t know what to do; he won’t let me catch him, and +there he sits. It makes me feel all funny.” + +It had made me feel all funny, too. + +“He hasn’t left the money for his funeral. Dreadful, the way he never +thought about himself. I’m glad I kept him, though.” And, not to my +astonishment, she suddenly began to cry. + +A wire was sent to Mr. Jackson, and on the day of the funeral I went +down to ‘Ultima Thule,’ Wimbledon, to see if he had carried out his +promise. + +He had. In the grounds, past the vinery, an outhouse had been cleaned +and sanded, with cushions placed at intervals against the wall, and +a little trough of milk. Nothing could have been more suitable or +luxurious. + +“How’s that?” he said. “I’ve done it thoroughly.” But I noticed that he +looked a little glum. + +“The only thing,” he said, “is the cats. First night they seemed all +right; and the second, there were three of ’em left. But to-day the +gardener tells me there’s not the ghost of one anywhere. It’s not for +want of feeding. They’ve had tripe, and liver, and milk--as much as +ever they liked. And cod’s heads, you know--they’re very fond of them. +I must say it’s a bit of a disappointment to me.” + +As he spoke, a sandy cat which I perfectly remembered, for it had only +half its left ear, appeared in the doorway, and stood, crouching, +with its green eyes turned on us; then, hearing Mr. Jackson murmur, +“Puss, puss!” it ran for its life, slinking almost into the ground, and +vanished among some shrubs. + +Mr. Jackson sighed. “Perversity of the brutes!” he said. He led me +back to the house through a conservatory full of choice orchids. A +gilt bird-cage was hanging there, one of the largest I had ever seen, +replete with every luxury the heart of bird could want. + +“Is that for the bullfinch?” I asked him. + +“Oh!” he said; “didn’t you know? The little beggar wouldn’t let +himself be caught, and the second morning, when they went up, there he +lay on the old chap’s body, dead. I thought it was very touchin’. But +I kept the cage hung up for you to see that I should have given him a +good time here. Oh, yes, ‘Ultima Thule’ would have done him well!” + +And from a bright leather case Mr. Jackson offered me a cigar. + +The question I had long been wishing to ask him slipped out of me then: + +“Do you mind telling me why you called your house ‘Ultima Thule’?” + +“Why?” he said. “Found it on the gate. Think it’s rather distingué, +don’t you?” and he uttered his profound chuckle. + +“First-rate. The whole place is the last word in comfort.” + +“Very good of you to say so,” he said. “I’ve laid out a goodish bit on +it. A man must have a warm corner to end his days in. ‘Ultima Thule,’ +as you say--it isn’t bad. There’s success about it, somehow.” + +And with that word in my ears, and in my eyes a vision of the little +old fellow in _his_ ‘Ultima Thule,’ with the bullfinch lying dead on a +heart that had never known success, I travelled back to town. + + + + +STUDIES OF EXTRAVAGANCE + + +I.--THE WRITER + +Every morning when he awoke his first thought was: How am I? For it +was extremely important that he should be well, seeing that when he +was not well he could neither produce what he knew he ought, nor +contemplate that lack of production with equanimity. Having discovered +that he did not ache anywhere, he would say to his wife: “Are you all +right?” and, while she was answering, he would think: “Yes--if I make +that last chapter pass subjectively through Blank’s personality, then +I had better----” and so on. Not having heard whether his wife were +all right, he would get out of bed and do that which he facetiously +called “abdominable cult,” for it was necessary that he should digest +his food and preserve his figure, and while he was doing it he would +partly think: “I am doing this well,” and partly he would think: “That +fellow in _The Parnassus_ is quite wrong--he simply doesn’t see----” +And pausing for a moment with nothing on, and his toes level with the +top of a chest of drawers, he would say to his wife: “What I think +about that _Parnassus_ fellow is that he doesn’t grasp the fact that +my books----” And he would not fail to hear her answer warmly: “Of +course he doesn’t; he’s a perfect idiot.” He would then shave. This was +his most creative moment, and he would soon cut himself and utter a +little groan, for it would be needful now to find to find his special +cotton wool and stop the bleeding, which was a paltry business and not +favourable to the flight of genius. And if his wife, taking advantage +of the incident, said something which she had long been waiting to +say, he would answer, wondering a little what it was she had said, and +thinking: “There it is, I get no time for steady thought.” + +Having finished shaving he would bathe, and a philosophical conclusion +would almost invariably come to him just before he douched himself with +cold--so that he would pause, and call out through the door: “You know, +I think the supreme principle----” And while his wife was answering, he +would resume the drowning of her words, having fortunately remembered +just in time that his circulation would suffer if he did not douse +himself with cold while he was still warm. He would dry himself, +dreamily developing that theory of the universe and imparting it to his +wife in sentences that seldom had an end, so that it was not necessary +for her to answer them. While dressing he would stray a little, +thinking: “Why can’t I concentrate myself on my work; it’s awful!” +And if he had by any chance a button off, he would present himself +rather unwillingly, feeling that it was a waste of his time. Watching +her frown from sheer self-effacement over her button-sewing, he would +think: “She is wonderful! How can she put up with doing things for me +all day long?” And he would fidget a little, feeling in his bones that +the postman had already come. + +He went down always thinking: “Oh, hang it! this infernal post taking +up all my time!” And as he neared the breakfast-room, he would quicken +his pace; seeing a large pile of letters on the table, he would say +automatically: “Curse!” and his eyes would brighten. If--as seldom +happened--there were not a green-coloured wrapper enclosing mentions of +him in the press, he would murmur: “Thank God!” and his face would fall. + +It was his custom to eat feverishly, walking a good deal and reading +about himself, and when his wife tried to bring him to a sense of his +disorder he would tighten his lips without a word and think: “I have a +good deal of self-control.” + +He seldom commenced work before eleven, for, though he always intended +to, he found it practically impossible not to dictate to his wife +things about himself, such as how he could not lecture here; or where +he had been born; or how much he would take for this; and why he would +not consider that; together with those letters which began: + + “MY DEAR ----, + + “Thanks tremendously for your letter about my book, and its valuable + criticism. Of course, I think you are quite wrong.... You don’t seem + to have grasped.... In fact, I don’t think you ever quite do me + justice.... + “Yours affectionately, + “----.” + +When his wife had copied those that might be valuable after he was +dead, he would stamp the envelopes and, exclaiming: “Nearly eleven--my +God!” would go somewhere where they think. + +It was during those hours when he sat in a certain chair with a pen +in his hand that he was able to rest from thought about himself; +save, indeed, in those moments, not too frequent, when he could not +help reflecting: “That’s a fine page--I have seldom written anything +better”; or in those moments, too frequent, when he sighed deeply and +thought: “I am not the man I was.” About half-past one, he would get +up, with the pages in his hand, and, seeking out his wife, would give +them to her to read, remarking: “Here’s the wretched stuff, no good +at all”; and, taking a position where he thought she could not see +him, would do such things as did not prevent his knowing what effect +the pages made on her. If the effect were good he would often feel +how wonderful she was; if it were not good he had at once a chilly +sensation in the pit of his stomach, and ate very little lunch. + +When, in the afternoons, he took his walks abroad, he passed great +quantities of things and people without noticing, because he was +thinking deeply on such questions as whether he were more of an +observer or more of an imaginative artist; whether he were properly +appreciated in Germany; and particularly whether one were not in danger +of thinking too much about oneself. But every now and then he would +stop and say to himself: “I really must see more of life, I really must +take in more fuel”; and he would passionately fix his eyes on a cloud, +or a flower, or a man walking, and there would instantly come into his +mind the thought: “I have written twenty books--ten more will make +thirty--that cloud is grey”; or: “That fellow X---- is jealous of me! +This flower is blue”; or: “This man is walking very--very---- D--n _The +Morning Muff_, it always runs me down!” And he would have a sort of +sore, beaten feeling, knowing that he had not observed those things as +accurately as he would have wished to. + +During these excursions, too, he would often reflect impersonally upon +matters of the day, large questions of art, public policy, and the +human soul; and would almost instantly find that he had always thought +this or that; and at once see the necessity for putting his conclusion +forward in his book or in the press, phrasing it, of course, in a way +that no one else could; and there would start up before him little bits +of newspaper with these words on them: “No one, perhaps, save Mr. ----, +could have so ably set forth the case for Baluchistan”; or, “In _The +Daily Miracle_ there is a noble letter from that eminent writer, Mr. +----, pleading against the hyperspiritualism of our age.” + +Very often he would say to himself, as he walked with eyes fixed on +things that he did not see: “This existence is not healthy. I really +must get away and take a complete holiday, and not think at all about +my work; I am getting too self-centred.” And he would go home and +say to his wife: “Let’s go to Sicily, or Spain, or somewhere. Let’s +get away from all this, and just live.” And when she answered: “How +jolly!” he would repeat, a little absently: “How jolly!” considering +what would be the best arrangement for forwarding his letters. And +if, as sometimes happened, they _did_ go, he would spend almost +a whole morning living, and thinking how jolly it was to be away +from everything; but toward the afternoon he would feel a sensation +as though he were a sofa that had been sat on too much, a sort of +subsidence very deep within him. This would be followed in the evening +by a disinclination to live; and that feeling would grow until on the +third day he received his letters, together with a green-coloured +wrapper enclosing some mentions of himself, and he would say: “Those +fellows--no getting away from them!” and feel irresistibly impelled +to sit down. Having done so he would take up his pen, not writing +anything, indeed--because of the determination to “live,” as yet not +quite extinct--but comparatively easy in his mind. On the following +day he would say to his wife: “I believe I can work here.” And she +would answer, smiling: “That’s splendid”; and he would think: “She’s +wonderful!” and begin to write. + +On other occasions, while walking the streets or about the countryside, +he would suddenly be appalled at his own ignorance, and would say to +himself: “I know simply nothing--I must read.” And going home he would +dictate to his wife the names of a number of books to be procured from +the library. When they arrived he would look at them a little gravely +and think: “By Jove! Have I got to read those?” and the same evening +he would take one up. He would not, however, get beyond the fourth +page, if it were a novel, before he would say: “Muck! He can’t write!” +and would feel absolutely stimulated to take up his own pen and write +something that was worth reading. Sometimes, on the other hand, he +would put the novel down after the third page, exclaiming: “By Jove! He +can write!” And there would rise within him such a sense of dejection +at his own inferiority that he would feel simply compelled to try to +see whether he really was inferior. + +But if the book were not a novel he sometimes finished the first +chapter before one or two feelings came over him: Either that what he +had just read was what he had himself long thought--that, of course, +would be when the book was a good one; or that what he had just read +was not true, or at all events debatable. In each of these events he +found it impossible to go on reading, but would remark to his wife: +“This fellow says what I’ve always said”; or, “This fellow says so and +so, now I say----” and he would argue the matter with her, taking both +sides of the question, so as to save her all unnecessary speech. + +There were times when he felt that he absolutely must hear music, +and he would enter the concert-hall with his wife in the pleasurable +certainty that he was going to lose himself. Toward the middle of the +second number, especially if it happened to be music that he liked, he +would begin to nod; and presently, on waking up, would get a feeling +that he really was an artist. From that moment on he was conscious +of certain noises being made somewhere in his neighbourhood causing +a titillation of his nerves favourable to deep and earnest thoughts +about his work. On going out his wife would ask him: “Wasn’t the Mozart +lovely?” or, “How did you like the Strauss?” and he would answer: +“Rather!” wondering a little which was which; or he would look at her +out of the corner of his eye and glance secretly at the programme to +see whether he had really heard them, and which Strauss it might be. + +He was extremely averse to being interviewed, or photographed, and all +that sort of publicity, and only made exceptions in most cases because +his wife would say to him: “Oh! I think you ought”; or because he could +not bear to refuse anybody anything; together, perhaps, with a sort of +latent dislike of waste, deep down in his soul. When he saw the results +he never failed to ejaculate: “Never again! No, really--never again! +The whole thing is wrong and stupid!” And he would order a few copies. + +For he dreaded nothing so much as the thought that he might become an +egoist, and, knowing the dangers of his profession, fought continually +against it. Often he would complain to his wife: “I don’t think of you +enough.” And she would smile and say: “Don’t you?” And he would feel +better, having confessed his soul. Sometimes for an hour at a time he +would make really heroic efforts not to answer her before having really +grasped what she had said; and to check a tendency, that he sometimes +feared was growing on him, to say: “What?” whether he had heard or no. +In truth, he was not (as he often said) constitutionally given to small +talk. Conversation that did not promise a chance of dialectic victory +was hardly to his liking; so that he felt bound in sincerity to eschew +it, which sometimes caused him to sit silent for “quite a while,” as +the Americans have phrased it. But once committed to an argument he +found it difficult to leave off, having a natural, if somewhat sacred, +belief in his own convictions. + +His attitude to his creations was, perhaps, peculiar. He either did not +mention them, or touched on them, if absolutely obliged, with a light +and somewhat disparaging tongue; this did not, indeed, come from any +real distrust of them, but rather from a superstitious feeling that one +must not tempt Providence in the solemn things of life. If other people +touched on them in the same way, he had, not unnaturally, a feeling of +real pain, such as comes to a man when he sees an instance of cruelty +or injustice. And, though something always told him that it was neither +wise nor dignified to notice outrages of this order, he would mutter +to his wife: “Well, I suppose it _is_ true--I can’t write”; feeling, +perhaps, that--if _he_ could not with decency notice such injuries, +she might. And, indeed, she did, using warmer words than even he felt +justified, which was soothing. + +After tea it was his habit to sit down a second time, pen in hand; not +infrequently he would spend those hours divided between the feeling +that it was his duty to write something and the feeling that it was his +duty not to write anything if he had nothing to say; and he generally +wrote a good deal; for deep down he was convinced that if he did not +write he would gradually fade away till there would be nothing left +for him to read and think about, and, though he was often tempted to +believe and even to tell his wife that fame was an unworthy thing, he +always deferred that pleasure, afraid, perhaps, of too much happiness. + +In regard to the society of his fellows he liked almost anybody, though +a little impatient with those, especially authors, who took themselves +too seriously; and there were just one or two that he really could not +stand, they were so obviously full of jealousy, a passion of which he +was naturally intolerant and had, of course, no need to indulge in. And +he would speak of them with extreme dryness--nothing more, disdaining +to disparage. It was, perhaps, a weakness in him that he found it +difficult to accept adverse criticism as anything but an expression of +that same yellow sickness; and yet there were moments when no words +would adequately convey his low opinion of his own powers. At such +times he would seek out his wife and confide to her his conviction +that he was a poor thing, no good at all, without a thought in his +head; and while she was replying: “Rubbish! You know there’s nobody to +hold a candle to you,” or words to that effect, he would look at her +tragically, and murmur: “Ah! you’re prejudiced!” Only at such supreme +moments of dejection, indeed, did he feel it a pity that he had married +her, seeing how much more convincing her words would have been if he +had not. + +He never read the papers till the evening, partly because he had not +time, and partly because he so seldom found anything in them. This was +not remarkable, for he turned their leaves quickly, pausing, indeed, +naturally, if there were any mention of his name; and if his wife asked +him whether he had read this or that he would answer: “No,” surprised +at the funny things that seemed to interest her. + +Before going up to bed he would sit and smoke. And sometimes fancies +would come to him, and sometimes none. Once in a way he would look up +at the stars, and think: “What a worm I am! This wonderful Infinity! I +must get more of it--more of it into my work; more of the feeling that +the whole is marvellous and great, and man a little clutch of breath +and dust, an atom, a straw, a nothing!” + +And a sort of exaltation would seize on him, so that he knew that if +only he did get that into his work, as he wished to, as he felt at +that moment that he could, he would be the greatest writer the world +had ever seen, the greatest man, almost greater than he wished to be, +almost too great to be mentioned in the press, greater than Infinity +itself--for would he not be Infinity’s creator? And suddenly he would +check himself with the thought: “I must be careful--I must be careful. +If I let my brain go at this time of night, I sha’n’t write a decent +word to-morrow!” + +And he would drink some milk and go to bed. + + +II.--THE CRITIC + +He often thought: “This is a dog’s life! I must give it up, and strike +out for myself. If I can’t write better than most of these fellows, +it’ll be very queer.” But he had not yet done so. He had in his extreme +youth published fiction, but it had never been the best work of which +he was capable--it was not likely that it could be, seeing that even +then he was constantly diverted from the ham-bone of his inspiration by +the duty of perusing and passing judgment on the work of other men. + +If pressed to say exactly why he did not strike out for himself, he +found it difficult to answer, and what he answered was hardly as true +as he could have wished; for, though truthful, he was not devoid of the +instinct of self-preservation. He could hardly, for example, admit that +he preferred to think what much better books he could have written if +only he had not been handicapped, to actually striking out and writing +them. To believe this was an inward comfort not readily to be put to +the rude test of actual experience. Nor would it have been human of him +to acknowledge a satisfaction in feeling that he could put in their +proper places those who had to an extent, as one might say, retarded +his creative genius by compelling him to read their books. But these, +after all, were but minor factors in his long hesitation, for he was +not a conceited or malicious person. Fundamentally, no doubt, he lived +what he called “a dog’s life” with pleasure, partly because he was +used to it--and what a man is used to he is loath to part with; partly +because he really had a liking for books; and partly because to be a +judge is better than to be judged. And no one could deny that he had a +distinctly high conception of his functions. He had long laid down for +himself certain leading principles of professional conduct, from which +he never departed, such as that a critic must not have any personal +feelings, or be influenced by any private considerations whatever. +This, no doubt, was why he often went a little out of his way to be +more severe than usual with writers whom he suspected of a secret hope +that personal acquaintanceship might incline him to favour them. He +would, indeed, carry that principle further, and, where he had, out of +an impersonal enthusiasm at some time or another, written in terms of +striking praise, he would make an opportunity later on of deliberately +taking that writer down a peg or two lower than he deserved, lest +his praise might be suspected of having been the outcome of personal +motives, or of gush--for which he had a great abhorrence. In this way +he preserved a remarkably pure sense of independence; a feeling that +he was master in his own house, to be dictated to only by a proper +conviction of his own importance. It is true that there were certain +writers whom, for one reason or another, he could not very well stand; +some having written to him to point out inaccuracies, or counter one of +his critical conclusions, or, still worse, thanked him for having seen +exactly what they had meant--a very unwise and even undignified thing +to do, as he could not help thinking; others, again, having excited +in him a natural dislike by their appearance, conduct, or manner of +thought, or by having, perhaps, acquired too rapid or too swollen a +reputation to be, in his opinion, good for them. In such cases, of +course, he was not so unhuman as to disguise his convictions. For he +was, before all things, an Englishman with a very strong belief in the +freest play for individual taste. But of almost any first book by an +unknown author he wrote with an impersonality which it would have been +difficult to surpass. + +Then there was his principle that one must never be influenced in +judging a book by anything one has said of a previous book by the same +writer--each work standing entirely on its own basis. He found this +important and made a point of never rereading his own criticisms; so +that the rhythm of his judgment, which, if it had risen to a work in +1920, would fall over the author’s next in 1921, was entirely unbiassed +by recollection, and followed merely those immutable laws of change and +the moon so potent in regard to tides and human affairs. + +For sameness and consistency he had a natural contempt. It was the +unexpected both in art and criticism that he particularly looked for; +anything being, as he said, preferable to dulness--a sentiment in +which he was supported by the public; not that, to do him justice, +this weighed with him, for he had a genuine distrust of the public, as +was proper for one sitting in a seat of judgment. He knew that there +were so-called critics who had a kind of formula for each writer, as +divines have sermons suitable to certain occasions. For example: “We +have in ‘The Mazy Swim’ another of Mr. Hyphen Dash’s virile stories.... +We can thoroughly recommend this pulsating tale, with its true and +beautiful character study of Little Katie, to every healthy reader +as one of the best that Mr. Hyphen Dash has yet given us.” Or: “We +cannot say that ‘The Mazy Swim’ is likely to increase Mr. Hyphen Dash’s +reputation. It is sheer melodrama, such as we are beginning to expect +from this writer.... The whole is artificial to a degree.... No sane +reader will, for a moment, believe in Little Katie.” Toward this sort +of thing he showed small patience, having noticed with some acumen a +relationship between the name of the writer, the politics of the paper, +and the temper of the criticism. No! For him, if criticism did not +embody the individual mood and temper of the critic, it was not worthy +of the name. + +But the canon which of all he regarded as most sacred was this: A +critic must surrender himself to the mood and temper of the work he is +criticising, take the thing as it is with his own special method and +technique, its own point of view, and, only when all that is admitted, +let his critical faculty off the chain. He was never tired of insisting +on this, both to himself and others, and never sat down to a book +without having it firmly in his mind. Not infrequently, however, he +found that the author was, as it were, wilfully employing a technique +or writing in a mood with which he had no sympathy, or had chosen a +subject obviously distasteful, or a set of premises that did not lead +to the conclusion which he would have preferred. In such cases his +scrupulous honesty warned him not to compromise with his conscience, +but to say outright that it would have been better if the technique of +the story had been objective instead of subjective; that the morbidity +of the work prevented serious consideration of a subject which should +never have been chosen; or that he would ever maintain that the hero +was too weak a character to be a hero, and the book, therefore, of +little interest. If any one pointed out to him that had the hero been +a strong character there would have been no book, it being, in point +of fact, the study of a weak character, he would answer: “That may be +so, but it does not affect what I say--the book would have been better +and more important if it had been the study of a strong character.” +And he would take the earliest opportunity of enforcing his recorded +criticism that the hero was no hero, and the book no book to speak of. +For, though not obstinate, he was a man who stood to his guns. He took +his duty to the public very seriously, and felt it, as it were, a point +of honour never to admit himself in the wrong. It was so easy to do +that and so fatal; and the fact of being anonymous, as on the whole he +preferred to be, made it all the harder to abstain (on principle and +for the dignity of criticism) from noticing printed contradictions to +his conclusions. + +In spite of all the heart he put into his work, there were times when, +like other men, he suffered from dejection, feeling that the moment had +really come when he must either strike out for himself into creative +work, or compile a volume of synthetic criticism. And he would say: +“None of us fellows are doing any constructive critical work; no one +nowadays seems to have any conception of the first principles of +criticism.” Having talked that theory out thoroughly he would feel +better, and next day would take an opportunity of writing: “We are not +like the academic French, to whom the principles of criticism are so +terribly important; our genius lies rather in individual judgments, +pliant and changing as the works they judge.” + +There was that in him which, like the land from which he sprang, could +ill brook control. He approved of discipline, but knew exactly where +it was deleterious to apply it to himself; and no one, perhaps, had +a finer and larger conception of individual liberty. In this way he +maintained the best traditions of a calling whose very essence was +superiority. In course of conversation he would frequently admit, being +a man of generous calibre, that the artist, by reason of long years of +devoted craftsmanship, had possibly the most intimate knowledge of his +art, but he would not fail to point out, and very wisely, that there +was no such unreliable testimony as that of experts, who had an axe to +grind, each of his own way of doing things; for comprehensive views of +literature seen in due perspective there was nothing--he thought--like +the trained critic, rising superior, as it were professionally, to +myopia and individual prejudice. + +Of the new school who maintained that true criticism was but +reproduction in terms of sympathy, and just as creative as the creative +work it reproduced, he was a little impatient, not so much on the +ground that to make a model of a mountain was not quite the same thing +as to make the mountain; but because he felt in his bones that the +true creativeness of criticism (in which he had a high belief) was +its destructive and satiric quality; its power of reducing things to +rubbish and clearing them away, ready for the next lot. Instinct, +fortified by his own experience, had guided him to that conclusion. +Possibly, too, the conviction, always lurking deep within him, that the +time was coming when he would strike out for himself and show the world +how a work of art really should be built, was in some sort responsible +for the necessity he felt to keep the ground well cleared. + +He was nearly fifty when his clock chimed, and he began seriously to +work at the creation of that masterpiece which was to free him from +“a dog’s life,” and, perhaps, fill its little niche in the gallery of +immortality. He worked at it happily enough till one day, at the end +of the fifth month, he had the misfortune to read through what he had +written. With his critical faculty he was able to perceive that which +gave him no little pain--every chapter, most pages, and many sentences +destroyed the one immediately preceding. He searched with intense care +for that coherent thread which he had suspected of running through the +whole. Here and there he seemed to come on its track, then it would +vanish. This gave him great anxiety. + +Abandoning thought for the moment, he wrote on. He paused again +toward the end of the seventh month, and once more patiently reviewed +the whole. This time he found four distinct threads that did not +seem to meet; but still more puzzling was the apparent absence of +any individual flavour. He was staggered. Before all he prized that +quality, and throughout his career had fostered it in himself. To be +unsapped in whim or fancy, to be independent, had been the very salt +of his existence as a critic. And now, and now--when his hour had +struck, and he was in the very throes of that long-deferred creation, +to find----! He put thought away again, and doggedly wrote on. + +At the end of the ninth month, in a certain exaltation, he finished; +and slowly, with intense concentration, looked at what he had produced +from beginning to end. And as he looked something clutched at him +within and he felt frozen. The thing did not move, it had no pulse, no +breath, no colour--it was dead. + +And sitting there before that shapeless masterpiece, still-born, +without a spirit or the impress of a personality, a horrid thought +crept and rattled in his brain. Had he, in his independence, in his +love of being a law unto himself, _become so individual that he had no +individuality left_? Was it possible that he had judged, and judged, +and--not been judged, too long? It was not true--not true! Locking the +soft and flavourless thing away, he took up the latest novel sent him, +and sat down to read it. But, as he read, the pages of his own work +would implant themselves above those that he turned and turned. At last +he put the book down, and took up pen to review it. “This novel,” he +wrote, “is that most pathetic thing, the work of a man who has burned +the lamp till the lamp has burned him; who has nourished and cultured +his savour, and fed his idiosyncrasies, till he has dried and withered, +without savour left.” And, having written that damnation of the book +that was not his own, the blood began once more flowing in his veins, +and he felt warm. + + +III.--THE PLAIN MAN + +He was plain. It was his great quality. Others might have graces, +subtleties, originality, fire, and charm; they had not his plainness. +It was that which made him so important, not only in his country’s +estimation, but in his own. For he felt that nothing was more valuable +to the world than for a man to have no doubts, and no fancies, but to +be quite plain about everything. And the knowledge that he was looked +up to by the press, and pulpit, and the politician sustained him in the +daily perfecting of that unique personality which he shared with all +other plain men. In an age which bred so much that was freakish and +peculiar, to know that there was always himself with his sane and plain +outlook to fall back on, was an extraordinary comfort to him. He knew +that he could rely on his own judgment, and never scrupled to give it +to a public which never tired of asking for it. + +In literary matters especially was it sought for, as invaluable. +Whether he had read an author or not, he knew what to think of him. For +he had in his time unwittingly lighted on books before he knew what he +was doing. They had served him as fixed stars forever after; so that if +he heard any writer spoken of as “advanced,” “erotic,” “socialistic,” +“morbid,” “pessimistic,” “tragic,” or what not unpleasant, he knew +exactly what he was like, and thereafter only read him by accident. He +liked a healthy tale, preferably of love or of adventure (of detective +stories he was, perhaps, fondest), and insisted upon a happy ending, +for, as he very justly said, there was plenty of unhappiness in life +without gratuitously adding to it, and as to “ideas,” he could get all +he wanted and to spare from the papers. He deplored altogether the bad +habit that literature seemed to have of seeking out situations which +explored the recesses of the human spirit or of the human institution. +As a plain man he felt this to be unnecessary. He himself was not +conscious of having these recesses, or perhaps too conscious, knowing +that if he once began to look, there would be no end to it; nor would +he admit the use of staring through the plain surface of society’s +arrangements. To do so, he thought, greatly endangered, if it did not +altogether destroy, those simple faculties which men required for the +fulfilment of the plain duties of everyday life, such as: Item, the +acquisition and investment of money; item, the attendance at church and +maintenance of religious faith; item, the control of wife and children; +item, the serenity of nerves and digestion; item, contentment with +things as they were. + +For there was just that difference between him and all those of whom +he strongly disapproved, that whereas _they_ wanted to _see_ things as +they were, _he_ wanted to _keep_ things as they were. But he would not +for a moment have admitted this little difference to be sound, since +his instinct told him that he himself saw things as they were better +than ever did such cranky people. If a human being had got to get into +spiritual fixes, as those fellows seemed to want one to believe, then +certainly the whole unpleasant matter should be put into poetry, and +properly removed from comprehension. “And, anyway,” he would say: “In +real life, I shall know it fast enough when I get there, and I’m not +going to waste my time nosin’ it over beforehand.” His view of literary +and, indeed, all art, was that it should help him to be cheerful. +And he would make a really extraordinary outcry if amongst a hundred +cheerful plays and novels he inadvertently came across one that was +tragic. At once he would write to the papers to complain of the gloomy +tone of modern literature; and the papers, with few exceptions, would +echo his cry, because he was the plain man, and took them in. “What on +earth,” he would remark, “is the good of showin’ me a lot of sordid +sufferin’? It doesn’t make me any happier. Besides”--he would add--“it +isn’t art. The function of art is beauty.” Some one had told him this, +and he was very emphatic on the point, going religiously to any show +where there was a great deal of light and colour. The shapes of women +pleased him, too, up to a point. But he knew where to stop; for he felt +himself, as it were, the real censor of the morals of his country. When +the plain man was shocked it was time to suppress the entertainment, +whether play, dance, or novel. Something told him that he, beyond +all other men, knew what was good for his wife and children. He often +meditated on that question coming in to the City from his house in +Surrey; for in the train he used to see men reading novels, and this +stimulated his imagination. Essentially a believer in liberty, like +every Englishman, he was only for putting down a thing when it offended +his own taste. In speaking with his friends on this subject, he would +express himself thus: “These fellows talk awful skittles. Any plain +man knows what’s too hot and what isn’t. All this ‘flim-flam’ about +art, and all that, is beside the point. The question simply is: Would +you take your wife and daughters? If not, there’s an end of it, and +it ought to be suppressed.” And he would think of his own daughters, +very nice, and would feel sure. Not that he did not himself like a +“full-blooded” book, as he called it, provided it had the right moral +and religious tone. Indeed, a certain kind of fiction which abounded +in descriptions “of her lovely bosom” often struck him pink, as he +hesitated to express it; but there was never in such masterpieces +of emotion any nasty subversiveness, or wrong-headed idealism, but +frequently the opposite. + +Though it was in relation to literature and drama, perhaps, that his +quality of plainness was most valuable, he felt the importance of it, +too, in regard to politics. When they had all done “messing about,” he +knew that they would come to him, because, after all, there he was, +a plain man wanting nothing but his plain rights, not in the least +concerned with the future, and Utopia, and all that, but putting things +to the plain touchstone: “How will it affect me?” and forming his plain +conclusions one way or the other. He felt, above all things, each +new penny of the income tax before they put it on, and saw to it if +possible that they did not. He was extraordinarily plain about that, +and about national defence, which instinct told him should be kept up +to the mark at all costs. But there must be ways, he felt, of doing the +latter without having recourse to the income tax, and he was prepared +to turn out any government that went on lines unjust to the plainest +principles of property. In matters of national honour he was even +plainer, for he never went into the merits of the question, knowing, +as a simple patriot, that his country must be right; or that, if not +right, it would never do to say she wasn’t. So aware were statesmen and +the press of this sound attitude of his mind, that, without waiting to +ascertain it, they acted on it in perfect confidence. + +In regard to social reform, while recognising, of course, the need +for it, he felt that, in practice, one should do just as much as was +absolutely necessary and no more; a plain man did not go out of his way +to make quixotic efforts, but neither did he sit upon a boiler till he +was blown up. + +In the matter of religion he regarded his position as the only sound +one, for however little in these days one could believe and all that, +yet, as a plain man, he did not for a moment refuse to go to church and +say he was a Christian; on the contrary, he was rather more particular +about it than formerly, since when a spirit has departed, one must +be very careful of the body, lest it fall to pieces. He continued, +therefore, to be a churchman--living in Hertfordshire. + +He often spoke of science, medical or not, and it was his plain +opinion that these fellows all had an axe to grind; for _his_ part +he only believed in them just in so far as they benefited a plain +man. The latest sanitary system, the best forms of locomotion and +communication, the newest antiseptics, and time-saving machines--of +all these, of course, he made full use; but as to the researches, +speculations, and theories of scientists--to speak plainly, they were, +he thought, “pretty good rot.” + +He abominated the word “humanitarian.” No plain man wanted to inflict +suffering, especially on himself. He would be the last person to do +any such thing, but the plain facts of life must be considered, and +convenience and property duly safeguarded. He wrote to the papers +perhaps more often on this subject than on any other, and was gratified +to read in their leading articles continual allusion to himself: +“The plain man is not prepared to run the risks which a sentimental +treatment of this subject would undoubtedly involve”; “After all, it +is to the plain man that we must go for the sanity and common sense of +this matter.” For he had no dread in life like that of being called a +sentimentalist. If an instance of cruelty came under his own eyes he +was as much moved as any man, and took immediate steps to manifest his +disapproval. To act thus on his feelings was not at all his idea of +being sentimental. But what he could not stand was making a fuss about +cruelties, as people called them, which had not actually come under his +own plain vision; to be indignant in regard to such _was_ sentimental, +he was sure, involving as it did an exercise of imagination, than which +there was nothing he distrusted more. Some deep instinct no doubt +informed him perpetually that if he felt anything, other than what +disturbed him personally at first hand, he would suffer unnecessarily, +and perhaps be encouraging such public action as might diminish his +comfort. But he was no alarmist, and, on the whole, felt pretty sure +that while he was there, living in Kent, with his plain views, there +was no chance of anything being done that would cause him any serious +inconvenience. + +On the woman’s question generally he had long made his position plain. +He would move when the majority moved, and not before. And he expected +all plain men (and women--if there were any, which he sometimes +doubted) to act in the same way. In this policy he felt instinctively, +rather than consciously, that there was no risk. No one--at least, no +one that mattered, no plain, solid person--would move until he did, and +he would not, of course, move until they did; in this way there was a +perfectly plain position. And it was an extraordinary gratification to +him to feel, from the tone of politicians, the pulpit, and the press, +that he had the country with him. He often said to his wife: “One +thing’s plain to me; we shall never have the suffrage till the country +wants it.” But he rarely discussed the question with other women, +having observed that many of them could not keep their tempers when he +gave them his plain view of the matter. + +He was sometimes at a loss to think what on earth they would do without +him on juries, of which he was usually elected foreman. And he never +failed to listen with pleasure to the words that never failed to be +spoken to him: “As plain men, gentlemen, you will at once see how +improbable in every particular is the argument of my friend.” That he +was valued in precisely the same way by both sides and ultimately by +the judge filled him sometimes with a modest feeling that only a plain +man was of any value whatever, certainly that he was the only kind of +man who had any sort of judgment. + +He often wondered what the country would do without him; into what +abysmal trouble she would get in her politics, her art, her law, and +her religion. It seemed to him that he alone stood between her and +manifold destructions. How many times had he not seen her reeling in +her cups and sophistries, and beckoning to him to save her! And had he +ever failed her, with his simple philosophy of a plain man: “Follow me, +and the rest will follow itself”? Never! As witness the veneration in +which he saw that he was held every time he opened a paper, attended +the performance of a play, heard a sermon, or listened to a speech. +Some day he meant to sit for his portrait, believing that this was due +from him to posterity; and now and then he would look into the glass +to fortify his resolution. What he saw there always gave him secret +pleasure. Here was a face that he knew he could trust, and even in +a way admire. Nothing brilliant, showy, eccentric, soulful; nothing +rugged, devotional, profound, or fiery; not even anything proud, or +stubborn; no surplus of kindliness, sympathy, or aspiration; but just +simple, solid lines, a fresh colour, and sensible, rather prominent +eyes--just the face that he would have expected and desired, the face +of a plain man. + + +IV.--THE SUPERLATIVE + +Though he had not yet arrived, he had personally no doubt about the +matter. It was merely a question of time. Not that for one moment +he approved of “arriving” as a general principle. Indeed, there was +no one whom he held in greater contempt than a man who had arrived. +It was to him the high-water mark of imbecility, commercialism, and +complacency. For what did it mean save that this individual had pleased +a sufficient number of other imbeciles, hucksterers, and fat-heads, to +have secured for himself a reputation? These pundits, these mandarins, +these so-called “masters”--they were an offence to his common sense. He +had passed them by, with all their musty and sham-Abraham achievements. +That fine flair of his had found them out. Their mere existence was a +scandal. Now and again one died; and his just anger would wane a little +before the touch of the Great Remover. No longer did that pundit seem +quite so objectionable now that he no longer cumbered the ground. It +might even, perhaps, be admitted that there had been something coming +out of that one; and, as the years rolled on, this something would roll +on too, till it became quite a big thing; and he would compare those +miserable pundits who still lived with the one who had so fortunately +died, to their great disadvantage. There were, in truth, very few +living beings that he could stand. Somehow they were not--no, they +really _were not_. The great--as they were called forsooth--artists, +writers, politicians--what were they? He would smile down one side of +his long nose. It was enough. Forthwith those reputations ceased to +breathe--for him. Their theories, too, of art, reform, what-not--how +puerile! How utterly and hopelessly old-fashioned, how worthy of all +the destruction that his pen and tongue could lavish on them! + +For, to save his country’s art, his country’s literature and +politics--that was, he well knew, his mission. And he periodically +founded, or joined, the staff of papers that were going to do this +trick. They always lasted several months, some several years, before +breathing the last impatient sigh of genius. And while they lived, with +what wonderful clean brooms they swept! Perched above all that miasma +known as human nature, they beat the air, sweeping it and sweeping it, +till suddenly there was no air left. And that theory, that real vision +of art and existence, which they were going to put in place of all this +muck, how near--how unimaginably near--they brought it to reality! Just +another month, another year, another good sweeping, would have done it! +And on that final ride of the broomstick, he--he would have arrived! +At last some one would have been there with a real philosophy, a truly +creative mind; some one whose poems and paintings, music, novels, +plays, and measures of reform would at last have borne inspection! +And he would go out from the office of that great paper so untimely +wrecked, and, conspiring with himself, would found another. + +This one should follow principles that could not fail. For, first, it +should tolerate nothing--nothing at all. That was the mistake they +had made last time. They had tolerated some reputations. No more of +that; no--more! The imbeciles, the shallow frauds, let them be carted +once for all. And with them let there be cremated the whole structure +of society, all its worn-out formulas of art, religion, sociology. In +place of them he would not this time be content to put nothing. No; it +was the moment to elucidate and develop that secret rhyme and pulsation +in the heart of the future hitherto undisclosed to any but himself. And +all the time there should be flames going up out of that paper--the +pale-red, the lovely flames of genius. Yes, the emanation should be +wonderful. And, collecting his tattered mantle round his middle so +small, he would start his race again. + +For three numbers he would lay about him and outline religiously +what was going to come. In the fourth number he would be compelled +to concentrate himself on a final destruction of all those defences +and spiteful counter-attacks which wounded vanity had wrung from the +pundits, those apostles of the past; this final destruction absorbed +his energies during the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth numbers. In +the ninth he would say positively that he was now ready to justify the +constructive prophecies of his first issues. In the tenth he would +explain that, unless a blighted public supported an heroic effort +better, genius would be withheld from them. In the eleventh number he +would lay about him as he had never done, and in the twelfth give up +the ghost. + +In connection with him one had always to remember that he was not one +of those complacent folk whose complacency stops short somewhere; his +was a nobler kind, ever trying to climb into that heaven which he alone +was going to reach some day. He had a touch of the divine discontent +even with himself; and it was only in comparison with the rest of the +world that he felt he was superlative. + +It was a consolation to him that Nietzsche was dead, so that out of a +full heart and empty conscience he could bang upon the abandoned drum +of a man whom he scarcely hesitated to term great. And yet, what--as he +often said--could be more dismally asinine than to see some of these +live stucco moderns pretending to be supermen? Save this Nietzsche he +admitted perhaps no philosopher into his own class, and was most down +on Aristotle, and that one who had founded the religion of his country. + +Of statesmen he held a low opinion--what were they, after all, but +politicians? There was not one in the whole range of history who could +take a view like an angel of the dawn surveying creation; not one who +could soar above a contemptible adaptation of human means to human ends. + +His poet was Blake. His playwright Strindberg, a man of distinct +promise--fortunately dead. Of novelists he accepted Dostoievsky. Who +else was there? Who else that had gone outside the range of normal, +stupid, rational humanity, and shown the marvellous qualities of the +human creature drunk or dreaming? Who else who had so arranged his +scenery that from beginning to end one need never witness the dull +shapes and colours of human life quite unracked by nightmare? It was in +nightmare only that the human spirit revealed its possibilities. + +In truth, he had a great respect for nightmare, even in its milder +forms, the respect of one who felt that it was the only thing which an +ordinary sane man could not achieve in his waking moments. He so hated +the ordinary sane man, with his extraordinary lack of appreciative +faculty. + +In his artistic tastes he was paulo-post-futurist, and the painter he +had elected to admire was one that no one had yet heard of. He meant, +however, that they should hear of him when the moment came. With the +arrival of that one would begin a new era of art, for which in the +past there would be no parallel, save possibly one Chinese period long +before that of which the pundits--poor devils--so blatantly bleated. + +He was a connoisseur of music, and nothing gave him greater pain than +a tune. Of all the ancients he recognised Bach alone, and only in +his fugues. Wagner was considerable in places. Strauss and Debussy, +well--yes, but now _vieux jeu_. There was an Esquimaux. His name? No, +let them wait! That fellow was something. Let them mark his words, and +wait! + +It was for this kind of enlightenment of the world that he most +ardently desired his own arrival, without which he sometimes thought he +could no longer bear things as they were, no longer go on watching his +chariot unhitched to a star, trailing the mud of this musty, muddled +world, whose ethics even, those paltry wrappings of the human soul, +were uncongenial to him. + +Talking of ethics, there was one thing especially that he absolutely +could not bear--that second-hand creature, a gentleman; the notion +that his own superlative self should be compelled by some mouldy and +incomprehensible tradition to respect the feelings or see the point +of view of others--this was indeed the limit. No, no! To bound upon +the heads and limbs the prejudices and convictions of those he came in +contact with, especially in print, that was a holy duty. And, though +conscientious to a degree, there was certainly no one of all his duties +that he performed so conscientiously as this. No amenities defiled his +tongue or pen, nor did he ever shrink from personalities--his spiritual +honesty was terrific. But he never thrust or cut where it was not +deserved; practically the whole world was open to his scorn, as he well +knew, and he never needed to go out of his way to find victims for it. +Indeed, he made no cult at all of eccentricity--that was for smaller +creatures. His dress, for instance, was of the soberest, save that now +and then he would wear a purple shirt, grey boots, or a yellow-ochre +tie. His life and habits, lost in the future, were, on the whole, +abstemious. He had no children, but set great store by them, and fully +meant when he had time to have quite a number, for this was, he knew, +his duty to a world breeding from mortal men. Whether they would +arrive before he did was a question, since, until then, his creative +attention could hardly be sufficiently disengaged. + +At times he scarcely knew himself, so absorbed was he; but you knew him +because he breathed rather hard, as became a man lost in creation. In +the higher flights of his genius he paused for nothing, not even for +pen and paper; he touched the clouds, indeed--and, like the clouds, +height piled on vaporous height, his images and conceptions hung +wreathed, immortal, evanescent as the very air. It was an annoyance +to him afterward to find that he had neglected to pin them to earth. +Still, with his intolerance of all except divinity, and his complete +faith that he must in time achieve it, he was perhaps the most +interesting person to be found in the purlieus of--wherever it might be. + + +V.--THE PRECEPTOR + +He had a philosophy as yet untouched. His stars were the old stars, his +faith the old faith; nor would he recognise that there was any other, +for not to recognise any point of view except his own was no doubt +the very essence of his faith. Wisdom! There was surely none save the +flinging of the door to, standing with your back against the door, +and telling people what was behind it. For, though he also could not +know what was behind, he thought it low to say so. An “atheist,” as he +termed certain persons, was to him beneath contempt, an “agnostic,” +as he termed certain others, a poor and foolish creature. As for a +rationalist, positivist, pragmatist or any other “ist”--well, that was +just what they were. He made no secret of the fact that he simply +could not understand people like that. It was true. “What can they +do--save deny?” he would say. “What do they contribute to the morals +and the elevation of the world? What do they put in the place of what +they take away? What have they got, to make up for what is behind +that door? Where are their symbols? How shall they move and lead the +people? No,” he said, “a little child shall lead the people, and I am +the little child! For I can spin them a tale such as children love, +of what is behind the door.” Such was the temper of his mind that +he never flinched from believing true what he thought would benefit +himself and others. For example, he held a crown of ultimate advantage +to be necessary to induce pure and stable living. If one could not +say: “Listen, children! there it is, behind the door! Look at it, +shining, golden--yours! Not now, but when you die, if you are good. +Be good, therefore! For if you are not good--no crown!” If one could +not say that--what could one say? What inducement hold out? And warmly +he would describe the crown! There was nothing he detested more than +commercialism. And to any one who ventured to suggest that there was +something rather commercial about the idea of that crown, he would +retort with asperity. A mere creed that good must be done, so to speak, +just out of a present love of dignity and beauty--as a man, seeing +something he admired, might work to reproduce it, knowing that he +would never achieve it perfectly, but going on until he dropped, out +of sheer love of going on--he thought vague, futile, devoid of glamour +and contrary to human nature, for he always judged people by himself, +and felt that no one could like to go on unless they knew that they +would get something if they did. To promise victory, therefore, was +most important. Forlorn hopes, setting your teeth, back to the wall, +and such like, was bleak and wintry doctrine, without inspiration in +it, because it led to nothing--so far as he could see. Those others, +who, not presuming to believe in anything, went on, because--as they +said--to give up would be to lose their honour, seemed to him poor lost +creatures who had denied faith; and faith was, as has been said, the +mainspring of his philosophy. + +Once, indeed, in the unguarded moment of a heated argument, he had +confessed that some day men might not require to use the symbols +of religion which they used now. It was at once pointed out to him +that, if he thought that, he could not believe these symbols to be +true for all time; and if they were not true for all time, why did he +say they were? He was dreadfully upset. Deferring answer, however, +for the moment, he was soon able to retort that the symbols were +true--er--mystically. If a man--and this was the point--did not stand +by _these_ symbols, by which could he stand? Tell him that! Symbols +were necessary. But what symbols were there in a mere good will; a mere +vague following of one’s own dignity and honour, out of a formless +love of life? How put up a religion of such amorphous and unrewarded +chivalry and devotion, how put up a blind love of mystery, in place of +a religion of definite crowns and punishments, how substitute a worship +of mere abstract goodness, or beauty, for worship of what could be +called by Christian names? Human nature being what it was--it would +not do, it absolutely would not do. Though he was fond of the words +“mystery,” “mystical,” he had emphatically no use for them when they +were vaguely used by people to express their perpetual (and quite +unmoral) reverence for the feeling that they would never find out +the secret of their own existence, never even understand the nature +of the universe or God. Fancy! Mystery of that kind seemed to him +pagan, almost nature-worship, having no finality. And if confronted +by some one who said that a Mystery, _if_ it could be understood, +would naturally not be a mystery, he would raise his eyebrows. It was +that kind of loose, specious, sentimental talk that did so much harm, +and drew people away from right understanding of that Great Mystery +which, if it was _not_ understood and properly explained, was, for +all practical purposes, not a great mystery at all. No, it had all +been gone into long ago, and he stood by the explanations and intended +that every one else should, for in that way alone men were saved; +and, though he well knew (for he was no Jesuit) that the end did not +justify the means, yet in a matter of such all-importance one stopped +to consider neither means nor ends--one just saved people. And as +for truth--the question of that did not arise, if one believed. What +one believed, what one was told to believe, _was_ the truth; and it +was no good telling him that the whole range of a man’s feeling and +reasoning powers must be exercised to ascertain truth, and that, when +ascertained, it would only be relative truth, and the best available to +that particular man. Nothing short of the absolute truth would _he_ put +up with, and that guaranteed fixed and immovable, or it was no good for +his purpose. To any one who threw out doubts here and doubts there, and +even worse than doubts, he had long formed the habit of saying simply, +with a smile that he tried hard to make indulgent: “Of course, if you +believe _that_!” + +But he very seldom had to argue on these matters, because people, +looking at his face with its upright bone-formation, rather bushy +eyebrows, and eyes with a good deal of light in them, felt that it +would be simpler not. He seemed to them to know his own mind almost +too well. Joined to this potent faculty of implanting in men a +childlike trustfulness in what he told them was behind the door, he +had a still more potent faculty of knowing exactly what was good for +them in everyday life. The secret of this power was simple. He did not +recognise the existence of what moderns and so-called “artists” dubbed +“temperament.” All talk of that sort was bosh, and generally immoral +bosh; for all moral purposes people really had but one temperament, +and that was, of course, just like his own. And no one knew better +than he what was good for it. He was perfectly willing to recognise +the principle of individual treatment for individual cases; but it +did not do, in practice, he was convinced, to vary. This instinctive +wisdom made him invaluable in all those departments of life where +discipline and the dispensation of an even justice were important. To +adapt men to the moral law was--he thought--perhaps the first duty of a +preceptor, especially in days when there was perceptible a distinct but +regrettable tendency to try and adapt the moral law to the needs--as +they were glibly called--of men. There was, perhaps, in him something +of the pedagogue, and when he met a person who disagreed with him his +eyes would shift a bit to the right and a bit to the left, then become +firmly fixed upon that person from under brows rather drawn down; and +his hand, large and strong, would move fingers, as if more and more +tightly grasping a cane, birch, or other wholesome instrument. He loved +his fellow-creatures so that he could not bear to see them going to +destruction for want of a timely flogging to salvation. + +He was one of those who seldom felt the need for personal experience +of a phase of life, or line of conduct, before giving judgment on it; +indeed, he gravely distrusted personal experience. He had opposed, for +instance all relief for the unhappily married long before he left the +single state; and, when he did leave it, would not admit for a moment +that his own happiness was at all responsible for the petrifaction of +his view that no relief was necessary. Hard cases made bad law! But he +did not require to base his opinion upon that. He said simply that he +had been told there was to be no relief--it was enough. + +The saying “To understand all is to forgive all!” left him cold. It +was, as he well knew, quite impossible to identify himself with such +conditions as produced poverty, disease and crime, even if he wished +to do so (which he sometimes doubted). He knew better, therefore, than +to waste his time attempting the impossible; and he pinned his faith +to an instinctive knowledge of how to deal with all such social ills: +A contented spirit for poverty; for disease isolation; and for crime +such punishment as would at once deter others, reform the criminal, and +convince every one that law must be avenged and the social conscience +appeased. On this point of revenge he was emphatic. No vulgar personal +feeling of vindictiveness, of course, but a strong state feeling +of “an eye for an eye.” It was the only taint of socialism that he +permitted himself. Loose thinkers, he knew, dared to say that a desire +for retribution or revenge was a purely human or individual feeling +like hate, love, and jealousy; and that to talk of satisfying such +a feeling in the collected bosom of the state was either to talk +nonsense--how could a state have a bosom?--or to cause the bosoms of +the human individuals who administered the justice of the state to feel +that each of them was itself that stately bosom, and entitled to be +revengeful. “Oh, no!” he would answer to such loose-thinking persons; +“judges, of course, give expression not to what they feel themselves +but to what they imagine the state feels.” He himself, for example, was +perfectly able to imagine which crimes were those that inspired in the +bosom of the state a particular abhorrence, a particular desire to be +avenged; now it was blackmail, now assaults upon children, or living on +the earnings of immoral women; he was certain that the state regarded +all these with peculiar detestation, for he had, and quite rightly, +a particular detestation of them himself; and if he were a judge, he +would never for a moment hesitate to visit on the perpetrators of such +vile crimes the utmost vengeance of the law. He was no loose thinker. +In these times, bedridden with loose thinking and sickly sentiment, he +often felt terribly the value of his own philosophy, and was afraid +that it was in danger. But not many other people held that view, +discerning his finger still very large in every pie--so much so that +there often seemed less pie than finger. + +It would have shocked him much to realise that he could be considered +a fit subject for a study of extravagance; fortunately, he had not the +power of seeing himself as others saw him, nor was there any danger +that he ever would. + + +VI.--THE ARTIST + +He had long known, of course, that to say the word “bourgeois” with +contempt was a little bit old-fashioned, and he did his utmost not +to; yet was there a still small voice within him that would whisper: +“Those people--I want to and I do treat them as my equals. I have +even gone so far of late years as to dress like them, to play their +games, to eat regularly, to drink little, to love decorously, with many +other bourgeois virtues, but in spite of all I remain where I was, an +inhabitant of another--” and, just as he thought the whispering voice +was going to die away, it would add hurriedly--“and a better world.” + +It worried him; and he would diligently examine the premises of that +small secret conclusion, hoping to find a flaw in the justness of his +conviction that he was superior. But he never did; and for a long time +he could not discover why. + +Often the conduct of the “bourgeois” would strike him as almost +superfluously good. They were brave, much braver than he was conscious +of being; clean-thinking, oh, far more clean-thinking than a man +like himself, necessarily given to visions of all kinds; they were +straightforward, almost ridiculously so, as it seemed to one who saw +the inside-out of everything almost before he saw the outside-out; +they were simple, as touchingly simple as those little children, to +whom Scriptures and post-impressionism had combined to award the crown +of wisdom; they were kind and self-denying in a way that often made +him feel quite desperately his own selfishness--and yet--they were +inferior. It was simply maddening that he could never rid himself of +that impression. + +It was one November afternoon, while talking with another artist, that +the simple reason struck him with extraordinary force and clarity: _He +could make them, and they could not make him!_ + +It was clearly this which caused him to feel so much like God when +they were about. Glad enough, as any man might be, of that discovery, +it did not set his mind at rest. He felt that he ought rather to be +humbled than elated. And he went to work at once to be so, saying to +himself: “I am just, perhaps, a little nearer to the Creative Purpose +than the rest of the world--a mere accident, nothing to be proud of; I +can’t help it, nothing to make a fuss about, though people will!” For +it did seem to him sometimes that the whole world was in conspiracy +to make him feel superior--as if there were any need! He would have +felt much more comfortable if that world had despised him, as it used +to in the old days, for then the fire of his conviction could with +so much better grace have flared to heaven; there would have been +something fine about a superiority leading its own forlorn hope. But +this trailing behind the drums and trumpets of a press and public so +easily taken in he felt to be both flat and a little degrading. True, +he had his moments, as when his eyes would light on sentences like +this (penned generally by clergymen): “All this talk of art is idle; +what really matters is morals.” Then, indeed, his spirit would flame, +and after gazing at “is morals” with flashing eye and curling lip, and +wondering whether it ought to have been “are morals,” he would say to +whomsoever might happen to be there: “These bourgeois! What do they +know? What can they see?” and, without waiting for an answer, would +reply: “Nothing! Nothing! Less than nothing!” and mean it. It was +at moments such as these that he realised how he not only despised, +but almost hated, those dense and cocky Philistines who could not +see his obvious superiority. He felt that he did not lightly call +them by such names, because they really _were_ dense and cocky, and +no more able to see things from his point of view than they were to +jump over the moon. These fellows could see nothing except from their +own confounded view-point! They were so stodgy too; and he gravely +distrusted anything static. Flux, flux, and once more flux! He knew +by intuition that an artist alone had the capacity for concreting +the tides of life in forms that were not deleterious to anybody. For +rules and canons he recognised the necessity with his head (including +his tongue), but never with his heart; except, of course, the rules +and canons of art. He worshipped these; and when anybody like Tolstoi +came along and said, “Blow art!” or words to that effect, he hummed +like bees caught on a gust of wind. What did it matter whether you +had anything to express, so long as you expressed it? That only was +“pure æsthetics,” as he often said. To place before the public eye +something so exquisitely purged of thick and muddy actuality that it +might be as perfectly without direct appeal to-day as it would be two +thousand years hence--this was an ambition to which in truth he nearly +always attained; this only was great art. He would assert with his last +breath--which was rather short, for he suffered from indigestion--that +one must never concrete anything in terms of ordinary nature. No! one +must devise pictures of life that would be equally unfamiliar to men +in A.D. 2520 as they had been in A.D. 1920; and when an inconsiderate +person drew his attention to the fact that to the spectator in 2520 +the most naturalistic pictures of the life of 1920 would seem quite +convincingly fantastic, so that there was no need for him to go out of +his way to devise fantasy--he would stare. For he was emphatically not +one of those who did not care a button what the form was so long as +the spirit of the artist shone clear and potent through the pictures +he drew. No, no; he either demanded the poetical, the thing that got +off the ground, with the wind in its hair (and he himself would make +the wind, rather perfumed); or--if not the poetical--something observed +with extreme fidelity and without the smallest touch of that true +danger to art, the temperamental point of view. “No!” he would say; +“it’s our business to put it down just as it is, to see it, not to feel +it. In feeling damnation lies.” And nothing gave him greater uneasiness +than to find the emotions of anger, scorn, love, reverence, or pity +surging within him as he worked, for he knew that they would, if he +did not at once master them, spoil a certain splendid vacuity that he +demanded of all art. In painting, Raphael, Tintoretto, and Holbein +pleased him greatly; in fiction, “Salammbô” was his model, for, as he +very justly said, you could supply to it what soul you liked--there +being no inconvenient soul already in possession. + +As can be well imagined, his conviction of being, in a small way, +God, permeated an outlook that was passionless, and impartial to a +degree--except perhaps toward the bourgeoisie, with their tiring morals +and peculiar habits. If he had a weakness, it was his paramount desire +to suppress in himself any symptoms of temperament, except just that +temperament of having no temperament, which seemed to him the only one +permissible to an artist, who, as he said, was nothing if not simply +either a recorder or a weaver of beautiful lines in the air. + +Record and design, statement and decoration--these, in combination, +constituted creation! It was to him a certain source of pleasure that +he had discovered this. Not that he was, of course, neglectful of +sensations, but he was perfectly careful not to _feel_ them--in order +that he might be able to record them, or use them for his weaving in +a purely æsthetic manner. The moment they impinged on his spirit, and +sent the blood to his head, he reined in, and began tracing lines in +the air, a practice that never failed him. + +It was his deliberate opinion that a work of art quite as great as +the “Bacchus and Ariadne” could be made out of a kettle singing on +a hob. You had merely to record it with beautiful lines and colour; +and what--in parenthesis--could lend itself more readily to beautiful +treatment of lines woven in the air than steam rising from a spout? +It was a subject, too, which in its very essence almost precluded +temperamental treatment, so that this abiding temptation was removed +from the creator. It could be transferred to canvas with a sort of +immortal blandness--black, singing, beautiful. All that cant, such +as, “The greater the artist’s spirit, the greater the subject he will +treat, and the greater achievement attain, technique being equal,” +was to him beneath contempt. The spirit did not matter, because one +must not intrude it; and, since one must not intrude it, the more +unpretentious the subject, the less temptation one had to diverge from +impersonality, that first principle of art. Oranges on a dish afforded +probably the finest subject one could meet with; unless one chanced to +dislike oranges. As for what people called “criticism of life,” he +maintained that such was only permissible when the criticism was so +sunk into the very fibre of a work as to be imperceptible to the most +searching eye. When this was achieved he thought it extremely valuable. +Anything else was simply the work of the moralist, of the man who took +sides and used his powers of expression to embody a temperamental and +therefore an obviously one-sided view of his subject; and, however +high those powers of expression might be, he could not admit that this +was in any sense real art. He could never forgive Leonardo da Vinci, +because, he said, “the fellow was always trying to put the scientific +side of himself into his confounded paintings, and not just content to +render faithfully in terms of decoration”; nor could he ever condone +Euripides for letting his philosophy tincture his plays. And, if it +were advanced that the former was the greatest painter and the latter +the greatest dramatist the world had ever seen, he would say: “That may +be, but they weren’t artists, of course.” + +He was fond of the words “of course”; they gave the impression that +he could not be startled, as was right and proper for a man occupying +his post, a little nearer to the Creative Purpose than those others. +As mark of that position, he always permitted himself just one +eccentricity, changing it every year, his mind being subtle--not like +those of certain politicians or millionaires, content to wear orchids +or drive zebras all their lives. Anon it would be a little pointed +beard and no hair to speak of; next year, no beard, and wings; the year +after, a pair of pince-nez with alabaster rims, very cunning; once more +anon, a little pointed beard. In these ways he singled himself out just +enough, no more; for he was no _poseur_, believing in his own place in +the scheme of things too deeply. + +His views on matters of the day varied, of course, with the views of +those he talked to, since it was his privilege always to see either the +other side or something so much more subtle on the same side as made +that side the other. + +But all topical thought and emotion was beside the point for one who +lived in his work; who lived to receive impressions and render them +again so faithfully that you could not tell he had ever received them. +His was--as he sometimes felt--a rare and precious personality. + + +VII.--THE HOUSEWIFE + +Though frugal by temperament, and instinctively aware that her sterling +nature was the bank in which the national wealth was surely deposited, +she was of benevolent disposition; and when, as occasionally happened, +a man in the street sold her one of those jumping toys for her +children, she would look at him and say: + +“How much? You don’t look well!” and he would answer: “Tuppence, lidy. +Truth is, lidy, I’ve gone ’ungry this lawst week.” Searching his face +shrewdly, she would reply: “That’s bad--a sin against the body. Here’s +threepence. Give me a ha’penny. You don’t look well.” And, taking the +ha’penny, she would leave the man inarticulate. + +Food appealed to her, not only in relation to herself, but to others. +Often to some friend she would speak a little bitterly, a little +mournfully, about her husband. “Yes, I quite like my ‘hubby’ to go +out sometimes where he can talk about art, and war, and things that +women can’t. He takes no interest in his food.” And she would add, +brooding: “What he’d do if I didn’t study him, I really don’t know.” +She often felt with pain that he was very thin. She studied him +incessantly--that is, in due proportion to their children, their +position in society, their Christianity, and herself. If he was her +“hubby,” she was his “hub”--the housewife, that central pivot of +society, that national pivot, which never could or would be out of +gear. Devoid of conceit, it seldom occurred to her to examine her own +supremacy, quietly content to be “integer vitæ, scelerisque pura”--just +the one person against whom nobody could say anything. Subconsciously, +no doubt, she _must_ have valued her worth and reputation, or she would +never have felt such salutary gusts of irritation and contempt toward +persons who had none. Like cows when a dog comes into a field, she +would herd together whenever she saw a woman with what she suspected +was a past, then advance upon her, horns down. If the offending +creature did not speedily vacate the field, she would, if possible, +trample her to death. When, by any chance, the female dog proved too +swift and lively, she would remain sullenly turning and turning her +horns in the direction of its vagaries. Well she knew that, if she +once raised those horns and let the beast pass, her whole herd would +suffer. There was something almost magnificent about her virtue, +based, as it was, entirely on self-preservation, and her remarkable +power of rejecting all premises except those familiar to herself. This +gave it a fibre and substance hard as concrete. Here, indeed, was +something one could build on; here, indeed, was the strait thing. Her +husband would sometimes say to her: “My dear, we don’t know what the +poor woman’s circumstances were, we really don’t, you know. I think +we should try to put ourselves in her place.” And she would fix his +eye, and say: “James, it’s no good. I can’t imagine myself in that +woman’s place, and I won’t. Do you think that _I_ would ever leave +_you_?” And, watching till he shook his head, she would go on: “Of +course not. No. Nor let you leave me.” And, pausing a second, to see +if he blinked, because men were rather like that (even those who had +the best of wives), she would go on: “She deserves all she gets. I have +no personal feeling, but, if once decent women begin to get soft about +this sort of thing, then good-bye to family life and Christianity, and +everything. I’m not hard, but there are things I feel strongly about, +and this is one of them.” And secretly she would think: “That’s why +he keeps so thin--always letting himself doubt, and sympathise, where +one has no right to. Men!” Next time she passed the woman, she would +cut her deader than the last time, and, seeing her smile, would feel +a sort of divine fury. More than once this had led her into courts of +law on charges of libel and slander. But, knowing how impregnable was +her position, she almost welcomed that opportunity. For it was ever +transparent to judge and jury from the first that she was that crown of +pearls, a virtuous woman, and so she was never cast in damages. + +On one such occasion her husband had been so ill-advised as to remark: +“My dear, I have my doubts whether our duty does not stop at seeing to +ourselves, without throwing stones at others.” + +“Robert,” she had answered, “if you think that, just because there’s a +chance that you may have to pay damages, I’m going to hold my tongue +when vice flaunts itself, you make a mistake. I always put your +judgment above mine, but this is not a matter of judgment--it is a +matter of Christian and womanly conduct. I can’t admit even your right +to dictate.” + +She hated that expression, “The grey mare is the better horse”; it was +vulgar, and she would never recognise its truth in her own case--for a +wife’s duty was to submit herself to her husband, as she had already +said. After this little incident she took the trouble to go and open +her New Testament and look up the story of a certain woman. There was +not a word in it about women not throwing stones; the discouragement +referred entirely to men. Exactly! No one knew better than she the +difference between men and women in the matter of moral conduct. +Probably there _were_ no men without that kind of sin, but there were +plenty of women, and, without either false or true pride, she felt that +she was one of them. And there the matter rested. + +Her views on political and social questions--on the whole, very +simple--were to be summed up in the words, “That _man_--!” and, so +far as it lay in her power, she saw to it that her daughters should +not have any views at all. She found this, however, an increasingly +hard task, and on one occasion was almost terrified to find her first +and second girls abusing “that man--,” not for going too fast, but +for not going fast enough. She spoke to William about it, but found +him hopeless, as usual, where his daughters were concerned. It was +her principle to rule them with good, motherly sense, as became a +woman in whose hands the family life of her country centred; and it +was satisfactory on the whole to find that they obeyed her whenever +they wished to. On this occasion, however, she spoke to them severely: +“The place of woman,” she said, “is in the home.” “The whole home--and +nothing but the home.” “Ella! The place of women is by the side of +man; counselling, supporting, ruling, but never competing with him. +The place of woman is in the shop, the kitchen, and--” “The--bed!” +“_Ella!_” “In the soup!” “Beatrice! I wish--I do wish you girls would +be more respectful. The place of woman is in the home. Yes, I’ve said +that before, but I shall say it again, and don’t you forget it! The +place of woman is--the most important thing in national life. If you +want to realise that, just think of your own mother; and--” “Our own +father.” “Ella! The place of woman is in the--!” She left the room, +feeling that, for the moment, she had said enough. + +In disposition sociable, and no niggard of her company, there was one +thing she liked to work at alone--her shopping, an art which she had +long reduced to a science. The principles she laid down are worth +remembering: Never grudge your time to save a ha’penny. Never buy +anything until you have turned it well over, recollecting that the +rest of you will have turned it over too. Never let your feelings of +pity interfere with your sense of justice, but bear in mind that the +girls who sell to you are paid for doing it; if you can afford the +time to keep them on their legs, they can afford the time to let you. +Never read pamphlets, for you don’t know what may be in them about +furs, feathers, and forms of food. Never buy more than your husband can +afford to pay for; but, on the whole, buy as much. Never let any seller +see that you think you have bought a bargain, but buy one if you can; +you will find it pleasant afterward to talk of your prowess. Shove, +shove, and shove again! + +In the perfect application of these principles, she had found, after +long experience, that there was absolutely no one to touch her. + +In regard to meat, she had sometimes thought she would like to give +it up, because she had read in her paper that being killed hurt the +poor animals; but she had never gone beyond thought, because it was +very difficult to do that. Henry was thin, and distinctly pale; the +girls were growing girls; Sunday would hardly seem Sunday without; +besides, it did not do to believe what one read in the paper, and it +would hurt her butcher’s feelings--she was sure of that. Christmas, +too, stood in the way. It was one’s duty to be cheerful at that season, +and Christmas would seem so strange without the cheery butchers’ shops +and their appropriate holocaust. She had once read some pages of a +disgraceful book that seemed going out of its way all the time to +prove that _she_ was just an animal--a dreadful book, not at all nice! +And if she would eat those creatures if they were really her brother +animals, and not just sent by God to feed her. No; at Christmas she +felt especially grateful to the good God for his abundance, for all the +good things he gave her to eat. For all these reasons she swallowed +her scruples religiously. But it was very different in regard to dairy +produce; for here there was, she knew, a real danger--not, indeed, to +the animals, but to her family and herself. She was for once really +proud of the thoroughness with which she dealt with that important +nourishment--milk. None came into her house except in sealed bottles, +with the name of the cow, spiritually speaking, on the outside. Some +wag had suggested, in her hearing, that hens should be compelled to +initial their eggs when they were delivered, as well as to put the +dates on them. This she had thought ribald; one could go too far. + +She was, before all things, an altruist; and in nothing more so than +in her relations with her servants. If they did not do their duty, +they went. It was the only way, she had found, to really benefit +them. Country girls and town girls, they passed from her in a stream, +having learned, once for all, the standard that was expected from +them. She christened and educated more servants, perhaps, than any +one in the kingdom. The Marthas went first, being invariably dirty; +the Marys and Susans lasted, on an average, perhaps four months, and +then left for many reasons. Cook seldom hurried off before her year +was over, because it was so difficult to get her before she came, and +to replace her after she was gone; but when she did go it was in a +gale of wind. The “day out” was, perhaps, the most fruitful source +of disillusionment--girls of that class, no matter how much they +protested their innocence, seemed utterly unable to keep away from +man’s society. It was only once a fortnight that she required them to +exercise their self-control and self-respect in that regard, for on the +other thirteen days she took care that they had no chance, suffering +no male footstep in her basement. And yet--would you believe it?--on +those fourteenth days, she was never able to be easy in her mind. +But, however kindly and considerate she might be in her dealings with +those of lowly station, she found ever the same ingratitude, the same +incapacity, or, as she had reluctantly been forced to believe, the +same deliberate unwillingness to grasp her point of view. It was as if +they were always rudely saying to themselves: “What do you know of us? +We wish you’d leave us alone!” The idea! As if she could, or would! +As if it were not an almost sacred charge on her in her station, with +the responsibilities that attached to it, to look after her poorer +neighbours and see that they acted properly in their own interests. +The drink, the immorality, the waste amongst the poor was notorious, +and anything she could do to lessen it she always did, dismissing +servants for the least slip, and never failing to point a moral. All +that new-fangled talk about the rich getting off the backs of the poor, +about the law not being the same for both, about how easy it was to +be moral and clean on two thousand a year, she put aside as silly. It +was just the sort of thing that discontented people would say. In this +view she was supported daily by her newspaper and herself, wherever she +might be. No, no! If the well-to-do did not look after and control the +poor, no one would, which was just what they would like. They were, in +her estimation, incurable; but, so far as lay in her power, she would +cure them, however painful it might be. + +A religious woman, she rarely missed the morning, and seldom went +to evening, service, feeling that in daylight she could best set an +example to her neighbours. + +God knew her views on art, for she was not prodigal of them--her +most remarkable pronouncement being delivered on hearing of the +disappearance of the “Monna Lisa”: “Oh, that dreadful woman! I remember +her picture perfectly. Well, I’m glad she’s gone. I thought she would +some day.” When asked why, she would only answer: “She gave me the +creeps.” + +She read such novels as the library sent, to save her daughters from +reading a second time those which did not seem to her suitable, and +promptly sent them back. In this way she preserved purity in her home. +As to purity outside the home, she made a point of never drawing +Frederick’s attention to female beauty; not that she felt she had any +real reason to be alarmed, for she was a fine woman; but because men +were so funny. + +There were no things in life of which she would have so entirely +disapproved, if she had known about them, as Greek ideals, for she +profoundly distrusted any display of the bare limb, and fully realised +that, whatever beauty may have meant to the Greeks, to her and George +it meant something very different. To her, indeed, Nature was a +“hussy,” to be tied to the wheels of that chariot which she was going +to keep as soon as motor-cars were just a little cheaper and really +reliable. + +It was often said that she was a vanishing type, but she knew better. +Pedantic fools murmured that Ibsen had destroyed her, but she had not +yet heard of him. Literary folk and artists, socialists and society +people, might talk of types, and liberty, of brotherhood, and new +ideas, and sneer at Mrs. Grundy. With what unmoved solidity she dwelt +among them! They were but as gadflies, buzzing and darting on the +fringes of her central bulk. To those flights, to that stinging she +paid less attention than if she had been cased in leather. In the +words of her favourite Tennyson: “They may come, and they may go, +but--whatever you may think--I go on forever!” + + +VIII.--THE LATEST THING + +There was in her blood that which bade her hasten, lest there should be +something still new to her when she died. Death! She was continually +haunted by the fear lest that itself might be new. And she would say: +“Do you know what it feels like to be dead? I do.” If she had not +known this, she felt that she would not have lived her life to the +full. And one must live one’s life to the full. Indeed, yes! One must +experience everything. In her relations with men, for instance, there +was nothing, so far as she could see, to prevent her from being a +good wife, good mother, good mistress, and good friend--to different +men all at the same time, and even to more than one man of each kind, +if necessary. One had merely to be oneself, a full nature, giving +and taking generously. Greed was a low and contemptible attribute, +especially in woman; a woman wanted nothing more than--everything, and +the best of that. And it was intolerable if one could not have that +little. Woman had always been kept down. Not to be kept down was still, +on the whole, new. Yet sometimes, after she had not been kept down +rather violently, she would feel: Oh, the weariness! I shall throw it +all up, and live on a shilling a day, like a sweated worker--that, at +all events, will be new! She even sometimes dreamed of retirement to +convent life--the freshness of its old-world novelty appealed to her. + +To such an idealist, the very colours of the rainbow did not suffice, +nor all the breeds of birds there were; her life was piled high with +cages. Here she had had them one by one, borrowed their songs, relieved +them of their plumes; then, finding that they no longer had any, let +them go; for to look at things without possessing them was intolerable, +but to keep them when she had got them even more so. + +She often wondered how people could get along at all whose natures +were not so full as hers. Life, she thought, must be so dull for the +poor creatures, only doing one thing at a time, and that time so long. +What with her painting, and her music, her dancing, her flying, her +motoring, her writing of novels and poems, her love-making, maternal +cares, entertaining, friendships, housekeeping, wifely duties, +political and social interests, her gardening, talking, acting, +her interest in Russian linen and the woman’s movement; what with +travelling in new countries, listening to new preachers, lunching new +novelists, discovering new dancers, taking lessons in Spanish; what +with new dishes for dinner, new religions, new dogs, new dresses, new +duties to new neighbours, and newer charities--life was so full that +the moment it stood still and was simply old “life,” it seemed to be no +life at all. + +She could not bear the amateur; feeling within herself some sacred fire +that made her “an artist” whatever she took up--or dropped. She had a +particular dislike, too, of machine-made articles; for her, personality +must be deep-woven into everything--look at flowers, how wonderful they +were in that way, growing quietly to perfection, each in its corner, +and inviting butterflies to sip their dew! She knew, for she had been +told it so often, that she was the crown of creation--the latest thing +in women, who were, of course, the latest thing in creatures. There +had never, till quite recently, been a woman like her, so awfully +interested in so many things, so likely to be interested in so many +more. She had flung open all the doors of life, and was so continually +going out and coming in, that life had some considerable difficulty in +catching a glimpse of her at all. Just as the cinematograph was the +future of the theatre, so was she the future of women, and in the words +of the poet “prou’ title.” To sip at every flower before her wings +closed; if necessary, to make new flowers to sip at. To smoke the whole +box of cigarettes straight off, and in the last puff of smoke expire! +And withal, no feverishness, only a certain reposeful and womanly +febrility; a mere perpetual glancing from quick-sliding eyes, to see +the next move, to catch the new movement--God bless it! And, mind +you, a high sense of duty--perhaps a higher sense of duty than that +of any woman who had gone before; a deep and intimate conviction that +women had an immensity of leeway to make up, that their old, starved, +stunted lives must be avenged, and that right soon. To enlarge the +horizon--this was the sacred duty! No mere Boccaccian or Louis Quinze +cult of pleasurable sensations; no crude, lolling, plutocratic dollery +of a spoiled dame. No! the full, deep river of sensations nibbling each +other’s tails. Life was real, life was earnest, and time the essence of +its contract. + +To say that she had favourite books, plays, men, dogs, colours, was +to do her but momentary justice. A deeper equity assigned her only +one favourite--the next; and, for the sake of that one favourite, no +Catharine, no Semiramis or Messalina, could more swiftly dispose of +all the others. With what avidity she sprang into its arms, drained +its lips of kisses, looking hurriedly the while for its successor; for +Heaven alone--she felt--knew what would happen to her if she finished +drinking before she caught sight of that next necessary one. + +And yet, now and again, time played her false, and she got through too +soon. It was then that she realised the sensation of death. After the +first terrible inanition, those moments lived without “living” would +begin to assume a sort of preciousness, to acquire holy sensations of +their own. “I am dead,” she would say to herself: “I really am dead; I +lie motionless, hearing, feeling, smelling, seeing, thinking nothing. +I lie impalpable--yes, that is the word--completely impalpable; above +me I can see the vast blue blue, and all around me the vast brown +brown--it is something like what I remember of Egypt. And there is +a kind of singing in my ears, that are really not ears now, a grey, +thin sound, like--ah!--Maeterlinck, and a very faint honey smell, +like--er--Omar Khayyám. And I just move as a blade of grass moves +in the wind. Yes, I am dead. It feels exactly like it.” And a new +exhilaration would seize her, for she felt that, in that sensation of +death, she was living! At lunch, or it might be dinner, she would tell +her newest man, already past the prime of her interest, exactly what it +felt like to be dead. “It’s not really disagreeable,” she would say; +“it has its own flavour. You know, like Turkish coffee, just a touch of +india-rubber in it--I mean the coffee.” And the poor man would sneeze, +and answer: “Yes, I know a little what you mean; asphodels, too; you +get it in Greece. My only difficulty is that, if you _are_ dead, you +know--you--er--are.” She would not admit that; it sounded true, but +the man was getting stupid--to be dead like that would be the end of +novelty, which was, to her, unthinkable. + +Once, in a new book, she came across a little tale of a man who “lived” +in Persia, of all heavenly places, frantically pursuing sensation. +Entering one day the courtyard of his house, he heard a sigh behind +him, and, looking round, saw his own spirit, apparently in the act +of breathing its last. The little thing, dry and pearly-white as a +seed-pod of “honesty,” was opening and shutting its mouth, for all the +world like an oyster trying to breathe. “What is it?” he said; “you +don’t seem well.” And his spirit answered: “All right, all right! Don’t +distress yourself--it’s nothing! I’ve just been crowded out. That’s +all. Good-bye!” And, with a wheeze, the little thing went flat, fell +onto the special blue tiles he had caused to be put down there, and +lay still. He bent to pick it up, but it came off on his thumb in a +smudge of grey-white powder. + +This fancy was so new that it pleased her greatly, and she recommended +the book to all her friends. The moral, of course, was purely Eastern, +and had no applicability whatever to Western life, where, the more one +did and expressed, the bigger and more healthy one’s spirit grew--as +witness what she always felt to be going on within herself. But next +spring she changed the blue tiles of her Persian smoking-room, put in +a birch-wood floor, and made it all Russian. This she did, however, +merely because one new room a year was absolutely essential to her +spirit. + +In her perpetual journey toward an ever-widening horizon of woman’s +life, she was not so foolish as to prize danger for its own sake--that +was by no means her idea of adventure. That she ran some risks it +would be idle to deny, but only when she had discerned the substantial +advantage of a new sensation to be had out of adventures, not at all +because they were necessary to keep her soul alive. She was, she felt, +a Greek in spirit, only more so perhaps, having in her also something +of America and the West End. + +How she came to be at all was only known to that age--whose daughter +she undoubtedly was--an age which ran all the time, without any foolish +notion where it was running to. There was no novelty in a destination, +and no sensation to be had from sitting cross-legged in a tub of +sunlight--not, at least, after you had done it once. _She_ had been +born to dance the moon down, to ragtime. The moon, the moon! Ah, yes! +It was the one thing that had as yet eluded her avidity. That, and her +own soul. + + +IX.--THE PERFECT ONE + +When you had seen him you knew that there was really nothing to be +said. Idealism, humanity, culture, philosophy, the religious and +æsthetic senses--after all, where did all that lead? Not to him! +What led to him was beef, and whisky, exercise, wine, strong cigars, +and open air. What led to him was anything that ministered to the +coatings of the stomach and the thickness of the skin. In seeing him, +you also saw how progress, civilisation, and refinement simply meant +attrition of those cuticles which made him what he was. And what was +he? Well--perfect! Perfect for that high, that supreme purpose--the +enjoyment of life as it was. And, aware of his perfection--oh, well +aware!--with a certain blind astuteness that refused reflection on +the subject--not caring what anybody said or thought, just enjoying +himself, taking all that came his way, and making no bones about it; +unconscious, indeed, that there were any to be made. He must have +known by instinct that thought, feeling, sympathy only made a man +chickeny, for he avoided them in an almost sacred way. To be “hard” +was his ambition, and he moved through life hitting things, especially +balls--whether they reposed on little inverted tubs of sand, or moved +swiftly toward him, he almost always hit them, and told people how he +did it afterward. He hit things, too, at a distance, through a tube, +with a certain noise, and a pleasant swelling sensation under his fifth +rib every time he saw them tumble, feeling that they had swollen still +more under their fifth ribs and would not require to be hit again. He +tried to hit things in the middle distance with little hooks which he +flung out in front of him, and when they caught on, and he pulled out +the result, he felt better. He was a sportsman, and not only in the +field. He hit any one who disagreed with him, and was very angry if +they hit him back. He hit the money-market with his judgment when he +could, and when he couldn’t, he hit it with his tongue. And all the +time he hit the Government. It was a perpetual comfort to him in those +shaky times to have that Government to hit. Whatever turned out wrong, +whatever turned out right--there it was! To give it one--two--three, +and watch it crawl away, was wonderfully soothing. Of a summer evening, +sitting in the window of his club, having hit balls or bookies hard +all day, how pleasant still to have that fellow Dash, and that fellow +Blank, and all the ----y crew to hit still harder. He hit women, not, +of course, with his fists, but with his philosophy. Women were made +for the perfection of men; they had produced, nourished, and nursed +him, and he now felt the necessity for them to comfort and satisfy him. +When they had done that he felt no further responsibility in regard to +them; to feel further responsibility was to be effeminate. The idea, +for instance, that a spiritual feeling must underlie the physical +was extravagant; and when a woman took another view, he took--if not +actually, then metaphorically--a stick. He was almost Teutonic in +that way. But the Government, the Government! Right and left, he hit +it all the time. He had a rooted conviction that some day it would +hit him back, and this naturally exasperated him. In the midst of +danger to the game laws, of socialism, and the woman’s movement, the +only hope, almost the only comfort, lay in hitting the Government. +For socialists were getting so near that he could only hit them now +in clubs, music-halls, and other quite safe places; and the woman’s +movement might be trusted implicitly to hit itself. Thus, in the world +arena there was nothing left but that godsend. Always a fair man, and +of thoroughly good heart, he, of course, gave it credit for the same +amount of generosity and good will that he felt present in his own +composition. There was no extravagance in that; and any man who gave it +more he deemed an ass. + +He had heard of “the people,” and, indeed, at times had seen and smelt +them; it had sufficed. Some persons, he knew, were concerned about +their condition and all that; but what good it would do him to share +that concern he could not see. Fellows spoke of them as “poor devils,” +and so forth; to his mind they were “pretty good rotters,” most of +them--especially the working-man, who wanted something for nothing +all the time, and grumbled when he got it. The more you gave him the +more he wanted, and, if he were this ---- Government, instead of +coddling the blighters up he would hit them one, and have done with it. +Insurance, indeed; pensions; land reform; minimum wage--it was a bit +too thick! They would soon be putting the beggars into glass cases, and +labelling them “This side up.” + +Sometimes he dreamed of the time when he would have to ride for God +and the king. But he strongly repelled, of course, any suggestion +that he had been brought up to a belief in “caste.” At his school he +had once kicked a small scion of the royal family; this heroic action +had dispersed in his mind once for all any notion that he was a snob. +“Caste,” indeed! There was no such thing in England nowadays. Had he +not sung “The Leather Bottel” to an audience of dirty people in his +school mission-hall, and--rather enjoyed it. It was not his fault that +Labor was not satisfied. It was all those professional agitators, +confound them! He himself was opposed to setting class against class. +It was, however, ridiculous to imagine that he was going to hobnob with +or take interest in people who weren’t clean, who wore clothes with a +disagreeable smell--people, moreover, who, in the most blatant way, +showed him continually that they wanted what he had got. No, no! there +were limits. Clean, at all events, any one could be--it was the _sine +quâ non_. What with clothes, a man to look after them, baths, and so +on, he himself spent at least two hundred a year on being clean, and +even took risks with the thickness of his skin, from the way he rubbed +and scrubbed it. A man could not be hard and healthy if he wasn’t +clean, and if the blighters were only hard and healthy they would not +be bleating about their wants. + +One could see him perhaps to the best advantage in lands like India, +or Egypt, striding in the early morn over the purlieus of the desert, +with his loping, strenuous step, scurried after by what looked like +little dark and anxious women, carrying his golf-clubs; his eyes, with +their look of out-facing Death, fixed on the ball that he had just hit +so hard, intent on overtaking it and hitting it even harder next time. +Did he at these times of worship ever pause to contemplate that vast +and ancient plain where, in the distance, pyramids, those creatures +of eternity, seemed to tremble in the sun haze? Did he ever feel an +ecstatic wonder at the strange cry of immemorial peoples far-travelling +the desert air; or look and marvel at those dark and anxious little +children of old civilisations who pattered after him? Did he ever feel +the majesty of those vast lonely sands and that vast lonely sky? Not +he! He d----d well hit the ball, until his skin began to act; then, +going in, took a bath, and rubbed himself. At such moments he felt +perhaps more truly religious than at any other, for one naturally could +not feel so fit and good on Sundays, with the necessity it imposed +for extra eating, smoking, kneeling, and other sedentary occupations. +Indeed, he had become perhaps a little distracted in religious matters. +There seemed to be things in the Bible about turning the other cheek, +and lilies of the field, about rich men and camels, and the poor in +spirit, which did not go altogether with his religion. Still, of +course, one remained in the English church, hit things, and hoped for +the best. + +Once his convictions nearly took a toss. It was on a ship, not as +classy as it might have been, so that he was compelled to talk to +people that he would not otherwise perhaps have noticed. Amongst such +was a fellow with a short beard, coming from Morocco. This person was +lean and brown, his eyes were extremely clear; he held himself very +straight, and looked fit to jump over the moon. It seemed obvious +that he hit a lot of things. One questioned him, therefore, with some +interest as to what he had been hitting. The fellow had been hitting +nothing, absolutely nothing. How on earth, then, did he keep himself so +fit? Walking, riding, fasting, swimming, climbing mountains, writing +books; hitting neither the Government nor golf balls! Never to hit +anything; write books, tolerate the Government, and look like that! +It was ‘not done.’ And the odd thing was, the fellow didn’t seem to +know or care whether he was fit or not. All the four days that the +voyage lasted, with this infernal fellow under his very nose, he +suffered. There was nothing to hit on board, and he himself did not +feel very fit. However, on reaching Southampton and losing sight of his +travelling acquaintance he soon regained his equanimity. + +He often wondered what he would do when he passed the age of fifty; and +felt more and more that he would either have to go into Parliament or +take up the duties of a county magistrate. After that age there were +certain kinds of balls and beasts that could no longer be hit with +impunity, and if one was at all of an active turn of mind one must have +substitutes. Marriage, no doubt, would do something for him, but not +enough; his was a strenuous nature, and he intended to remain “hard” +unto the end. To combine that with service to his country, especially +if, incidentally, he could hit socialism and poachers, radicals, +loafers, and the income tax--this seemed to him an ideal well worthy +of his philosophy and life, so far. And with this in mind he lived on, +his skin thickening, growing ever more and more perfect, more and more +impervious to thought and feeling, to æstheticism, sympathy, and all +the elements destructive of perfection. And thus--when his time has +come there is every hope that he may die. + + +X.--THE COMPETITOR + +He was given that way almost from his nursery days, for he could not +even dress without racing his little brother in the doing up of little +buttons, and being upset if he got one little button behind. At the age +of eight he climbed all the trees of his father’s garden and, arriving +at their tops, felt a pang because the creatures left off so abruptly +that he could not get any higher. He wrestled with anybody who did +not mind rolling on the floor; and stayed awake once all night because +he heard that one of his cousins was coming next day and was a year +older than himself. It was not that he desired to see this cousin, to +welcome, or give him a good time; he simply designed to race him in the +kitchen-garden, and to wrestle with him afterward. It would be grand, +he thought, to bump the head of some one a year older than himself. The +cousin, however, was “scratched” at the last moment. It was a blow. At +the age of ten he cut his head open against a swing, and so far forgot +himself as to cry when he saw the blood flowing. To have missed such +an opportunity of being superior to other small boys made an indelible +mark on his soul, for, though he had not cried from pain, he had from +fright, and felt he might have beaten both emotions, if only he had had +proper warning. + +His first term at school he came out top, after a terrific struggle; +there was one other boy in the class. And term after term he went on +coming out top, or very near it. He never knew what he was learning, +but he knew that he beat other boys. He ran all the races he could, and +played all the games; not because he enjoyed them, but because unless +you did you could not win. He was considered almost a prize specimen. + +He went to college in an exhausted condition, and for two years +devoted himself to dandyism, designing to be the coolest, slackest, +best-dressed man up. He almost was. But as that day approached when +one must either beat or be beaten in learning by one’s contemporaries, +a fearful feeling beset him, and he rushed off to a crammer. For a +whole year he poured the crammer’s notes into his memory. What they +were all about he had no notion, but his memory retained them just +over that hot week when he sat writing for his life, twice a day. He +would have received a First, had not an examiner who did not understand +that examinations are simply held to determine who can beat whom, +asked him in the living voice a question, to answer which required a +knowledge of why there was an answer. He came down exhausted, and ate +his dinners for the Bar. It was an occupation at which he could achieve +no distinction save that of eating them faster than any other student; +and for two whole years he merely devoted himself to trying to be the +best amateur actor and the best shot in the land. His method of acting +was based on nothing so flat as identification with the character he +personified, but on the amount of laughter and applause that he could +get in excess of that bestowed on any other member of the company. Nor +did he shoot birds because he loved them, like a true sportsman, but +because it was a pleasure to him to feel each day that he had shot or +was going to shoot more than any one else who was shooting with him. + +The time had now come for him to embrace his profession, and he did +so like a true Briton, with his eye ever on the future. He perceived +from the first that this particular race was longer than any race +he had ever started for, and he began slowly, with a pebble in his +mouth, husbanding his wind. The whole thing was extremely dry and +extremely boring, but of course one had to get there before all those +other fellows. And round and round he ran, increasing his speed almost +imperceptibly, soon beginning to have his eye on the half-dozen who +seemed dangerously likely to get there before him if he did not mind +that eye. It cannot be said that he enjoyed his work, or cared for +the money it brought him, for, what with getting through his day, +and thinking of those other fellows who might be forging ahead of +him, he had no time to spend money, or even to give it away. And so +it began rolling up. One day, however, perceiving that he had quite a +lot, the thought came to him that he ought to do something with it. +And happening soon after to go into a picture-gallery, he bought a +picture. He had not had it long before it seemed to him better than the +picture of a friend who rather went in for them; and he thought, “I +could easily beat him if I gave myself to it a little.” And he did. It +was fascinating to perceive, each time he bought, that his taste had +improved, and was getting steadily ahead of his friend’s taste; and, +indeed, not only of his friend’s, but of that of other people. He felt +that soon he would have better taste than anybody, and he bought and +bought. It was not that he cared for the pictures, for he really had +not time or mind to give to them--set as he was on reaching eminence; +but he dreamed of leaving them to the National Gallery as a monument +to his taste, and final proof of superiority to his friend, after they +were both gone. + +About this time he took silk, sacrificing nearly half of his income. +He would have preferred to wait longer, had he not perceived that if +he did wait, his friends ---- and ---- and ---- ---- would be taking +silk before him. And, since he meant to be a judge first, this must +naturally be guarded against. The prospective loss of so much income +made him for a moment restful and expansive, as if he felt that he had +been pushed almost too far by his competitive genius; and so he found +time to marry--it being the commencement of the long vacation. For six +weeks he hardly thought of his friends ---- and ---- and ---- ----, +but near the end of September he was shocked back into a more normal +frame of mind by the news that they also had been offered and had taken +silk. It behoved him, he felt, to put his wife behind him and go back +into harness. It would be just like those fellows to get ahead of him, +if they could; and he curtailed his honeymoon by quite three weeks. +Not two years, however, elapsed before it became clear to him that to +keep his place he must enter Parliament. And against his own natural +feelings, against even the inclinations of his country, he secured a +seat at the general election and began sitting. What, then, was his +chagrin to find that his friend ----, and his friend ----, and even +his friend ---- ----, had also secured seats, and were sitting when he +got there! What with the courts, and what with ‘the House,’ he became +lean and very yellow; and his wife complained. He determined to give +her a child every year to keep her quiet; for he felt that he must +have perfect peace in his home surroundings if he were to maintain +his position in the great life race for which he had started, knowing +that his friends ---- and ---- and ---- ---- would never hesitate to +avail themselves of his ill health, to beat him. None of those wretched +fellows were having so many children. He did not find his work in +Parliament congenial; it seemed to him unreal. For he could not get +his mind--firmly fixed on himself and the horizon--to believe that all +those little measures which he was continually passing would benefit +people with whose lives he really had not time or inclination to be +familiar. When one had got up, prepared two cases, had breakfasted, +walk down to the courts, sat there from half-past ten to four, walked +to ‘the House,’ sat there a little longer than his friend ---- ---- +(the worst of them), spoken if his friend ---- had spoken, or if he +thought his friend ---- were going to speak, had dinner, prepared two +cases, kissed his wife, mentally compared his last picture with that +last one of his friend’s, had a glass of barley-water, and gone to +bed--when one had done all this, there really was not time for living +his own life, much less any one else’s. He sometimes thought he would +have to give up doing so much; but that, of course, was out of the +question, seeing that his friends would at once shoot ahead. He took +“Vitogen” instead. They used his photograph, with the words, “It does +wonders with me,” coming out of his mouth, and on the opposite page +they used a photograph of his friend ---- ----, with the words, “I take +a glass a day, and revel in it,” coming out of his. On discovering this +he increased the amount at some risk to two glasses, determined not to +be outdone by that fellow. + +He sometimes wondered whether, in the army, the church, the stock +exchange, or in literature, he would not have had a more restful life; +for he would by no means have admitted that he carried within himself +the microbe of his own fate. + +His natural love of beauty, for instance, inspired him when he saw a +sunset, or a mountain, or even a sea, with the thought: How jolly it +would be to look at it! But he had gradually become so reconciled to +knowing he had not time for this that he never did. But if he had heard +by any chance that his friend ---- ---- did find time to contemplate +such natural beauties, he would certainly have contrived somehow to +contemplate them too. + +As the time approached for being made a judge he compared himself more +and more carefully with his friends ---- and ---- ----. If they were +appointed before him, it would be very serious for his prospects of +ultimate pre-eminence. And it was with a certain relief, tempered with +sorrow, that he heard one summer morning that his friend ---- had +fallen seriously ill, and was not expected to recover. He was assiduous +in the expression of an anxiety that was quite genuine. His friend ---- +died as the courts rose. And all through that long vacation he thought +continually of poor ----, and of his career cut so prematurely short. +It was then that the idea came to him of capping his efforts by writing +a book. He chose for subject, “The Evils of Competition in the Modern +State,” and devoted to it every minute he could spare during autumn +months, fortunately bereft of Parliamentary duties. It would just, +he felt make the difference between himself and his friends ---- and +---- ----, to a government essentially favourable to literary men. He +finished it at Christmas, and arranged for a prompt publication. It was +with a certain natural impatience that he read, two days later, of the +approaching issue of a book by his friend ---- ----, entitled, “Joy of +Life, or the Cult of the Moment.” What on earth the fellow was about to +rush into print and on such a subject he was at a loss to understand! +The book came out a week before his own. He read the reviews rather +feverishly, for they were favourable. What to do now to recover his +lead he hardly knew. If he had not been married it might have been +possible to arrange something in that line with the daughter of an +important personage; as it was, there was nothing for it but to part +with his pictures to the National Gallery by way of a loan. And this +he did, to the chagrin of his wife, about the middle of May. On the +1st of June he read in his Sunday paper that his friend ---- ---- had +given his library outright to the British Museum. Some relief to the +strain of his anxiety, however, was afforded in July by the unexpected +accession of his friend ---- to a peerage, through the death of a +cousin. The estate attached was considerable. He felt that this friend +at all events would not continue to struggle; he would surely recognise +that he was removed from active life. His premonition was correct; and +his friend ---- ---- and himself were left to fight it out alone. + +That judge who had so long been expected to quit his judgeship did so +for another world in the fourth week of the long vacation. + +He hastened back to town at once. This was one of the most crucial +moments of a crucial career. If appointed, he would be the youngest +judge. But his friend ---- ---- was of the same age, the same politics, +the same calibre in every way, and more robust. During those weeks of +waiting, therefore, he grew perceptibly greyer. His joy knew only the +bonds of a careful concealment, when, at the beginning of October, +he was appointed a judge of the High Court; for it was not till the +following morning that he learned that his friend ---- ---- had also +been appointed, the Government having decided to add one to the number +of His Majesty’s judges. Which of them had been made the extra judge +he neither dared nor cared to inquire; but, setting his teeth, entered +forthwith on his duties. + +It cannot be pretended that he liked them; to like them one would have +to take a profound, and, as it were, amateurish interest in equity and +the lives of one’s fellow-men. For this, of course, he had not time, +having to devote all his energies to not having his judgments reversed, +and watching the judgments of his friend ---- ----. In the first year +that fellow was upset in the Court of Appeal three times oftener than +himself, and it came as a blow when the House of Lords so restored +him that they came out equal. In other respects, of course, the life +was something of a rest after that which he had led hitherto, and he +watched himself carefully lest he might deteriorate, and be tempted +to enjoy himself, steadily resisting every effort on the part of his +friends and family to draw him into recreations other than those of +dining out, playing golf, and improving his acquaintanceship with that +Law of which he would require a perfect knowledge when he became Lord +Chancellor. He never could quite make up his mind whether to be glad +or sorry that his friend ---- ---- did not confine himself entirely to +this curriculum. + +At about this epoch he became so extremely moderate in his politics +that neither party knew to which of them he belonged. It was a period +of uncertainty when no man could say in whose hands power would be in, +say, five or ten years’ time, and instinctively he felt that he must +look ahead. A moderate man stood perhaps the greater chance of steady +and perpetual preferment, and he felt moderate, now that the spur of +a necessary political activity was removed. It was a constant source +of uneasiness to him that his friend ---- ---- had become so dark a +horse that one could find out nothing about his political convictions; +people, indeed, went so far as to say that the beggar had none. + +He had not been a judge four years when an epidemic of influenza +swept off three of His Majesty’s judges, and sent one mad; and almost +imperceptibly he found himself sitting with his friend ---- ---- in the +Court of Appeal. Having the fellow there under his eye day by day, he +was able to study him, and noted with satisfaction that, though more +robust, he was certainly of full and choleric temperament, and not +too careful of himself. At once he began taking extra care of his own +health, giving up wine, tobacco, and any other pleasure that he had +left. For three years they sat there side by side, almost mechanically +differing in their judgments; and then one morning the Prime Minister +went and made his friend ---- ---- Lord Chief Justice, and himself +only Master of the Rolls. The shock was very great. After a week’s +indisposition, he reset his teeth and decided to struggle on; his +friend ---- ---- was not Lord Chancellor yet! Two more years passed, +during which he unwillingly undermined his health by dining constantly +in the highest social and political circles, and delivering longer and +weightier judgments every day. His wife and children, who still had +access to him at times, watched him with anxiety. + +One morning they found him pacing up and down the dining-room with _The +Times_ newspaper in his hand, and every mark of cerebral excitement. +His friend ---- ---- had made a speech at a certain banquet, in which +he had hit the Government a nasty knock. It was now, of course, only a +question of whether they would retain office till the Lord Chancellor, +who was very shaky, dropped off. He dropped off in June, and they +buried him in Westminster Abbey; his friend ---- ---- and himself +being chief mourners. In the same week the Government was defeated. +The state of his mind can now not well be imagined. In one week he +lost five pounds that could not be spared. He stopped losing weight +when the Government decided to hang on till the end of the session. On +the 15th of July the Prime Minister sent for him, and offered him the +Chancellorship. He accepted it, after first drawing attention to the +superior claims of his friend ---- ----. That evening, in the bosom of +his family, he sat silent. A little smile played three times on his +worn lips, and now and again his thin hand smoothed the parallel folds +in his cheeks. His youngest daughter, moving to the bell behind his +revered and beloved presence, heard him suddenly mutter, and bending +hastily caught the precious words: “Pipped him on the post, by gum!” + +He took up his final honours with the utmost ceremony. From that moment +it was almost too noticeable how his powers declined. It was as if he +had felt that, having won the race, he had nothing left to live for. +Indeed, he only waited till his friend ---- ---- had received a slight +stroke before, under doctor’s orders, he laid down office. He dragged +on for several years, writing his memoirs, but without interest in +life; till one day, being drawn in his Bath-chair down the esplanade at +Margate, he was brought to a standstill by another chair being drawn in +the opposite direction. Letting his eye rest wearily on the occupant, +he recognised his friend ---- ----. How the fellow had changed; but not +in nature, for he quavered out at once: “Hallo! It’s you! By George! +You look jolly bad!” Hearing those words, seeing that paralytic smile, +a fire seemed suddenly relit within him. Compressing his lips, he +answered nothing, and dug his Bath-chair man in the back. From that +moment he regained his interest in life. If he could not outlive his +friend ---- ---- it would be odd! And he set himself to do it, thinking +of nothing else by day or night, and sending daily to inquire how his +friend ---- ---- was. The fellow lived till New Year’s Day, and died +at two in the morning. They brought him the news at nine. A smile +lighted up his parched and withered face; his old hands, clenched on +the feeding-cup, relaxed; he fell back--dead. The shock of his old +friend’s death, they said, had been too much for him. + + + + +FOR LOVE OF BEASTS + + +§ 1. + +We had left my rooms, and were walking briskly down the street towards +the river, when my friend stopped before the window of a small shop and +said: + +“Gold-fish!” + +I[1] looked at him very doubtfully; one had known him so long that one +never looked at him in any other way. + +“Can you imagine,” he went on, “how any sane person can find pleasure +in the sight of those swift things swimming for ever and ever in a bowl +about twice the length of their own tails?” + +“No,” I said, “I cannot--though, of course, they’re very pretty.” + +“That is, no doubt, the reason why they are kept in misery.” + +Again I looked at him; there is nothing in the world I distrust so much +as irony. + +“People don’t think about these things,” I said. + +“You are right,” he answered, “they do not. Let me give you some +evidence of that.... I was travelling last spring in a far country, +and made an expedition to a certain woodland spot. Outside the little +forest inn I noticed a ring of people and dogs gathered round a grey +animal rather larger than a cat. It had a sharp-nosed head too small +for its body, and bright black eyes, and was moving restlessly round +and round a pole to which it was tethered by a chain. If a dog came +near, it hunched its bushy back and made a rush at him. Except for +that it seemed a shy-souled, timid little thing. In fact, by its eyes, +and the way it shrank into itself, you could tell it was scared of +everything around. Now, there was a small, thin-faced man in a white +jacket holding up a tub on end and explaining to the people that +this was the little creature’s habitat, and that it wanted to get +back underneath; and, sure enough, when he held the tub within its +reach, the little animal stood up at once on its hind legs and pawed, +evidently trying to get the tub to fall down and cover it. The people +all laughed at this; the man laughed too, and the little creature went +on pawing. At last the man said: ‘Mind your back-legs, Patsy!’ and let +the tub fall. The show was over. But presently another lot came up; the +white-coated man lifted the tub, and it began all over again. + +“‘What is that animal?’ I asked him. + +“‘A ’coon.’ + +“‘How old?’ + +“‘Three years--too old to tame.’ + +“‘Where did you catch it?’ + +“‘In the forest--lots of ’coons in the forest.’ + +“‘Do they live in the open, or in holes?’ + +“‘Up in the trees, sure; they only gits in the hollows when it rains.’ + +“‘Oh! they live in the open? Then isn’t it queer she should be so fond +of her tub?’ + +“‘Oh,’ he said, ‘she do that to git away from people!’ and he +laughed--a genial little man. ‘She not like people and dogs. She too +old to tame. She know _me_, though.’ + +“‘I see,’ I said. ‘You take the tub off her, and show her to the +people, and put it back again. Yes, she _would_ know you!’ + +“‘Yes,’ he repeated, rather proudly, ‘she know me--Patsy, Patsy! +Presently, you bet, we catch lot more, and make a cage, and put them +in.’ + +“He was gazing very kindly at the little creature, who on her grey hind +legs was anxiously begging for the tub to come down and hide her, and I +said: ‘But isn’t it rather a miserable life for this poor little devil?’ + +“He gave me a very queer look. ‘There’s lots of people,’ he said--and +his voice sounded as if I’d hurt him--‘never gits a chance to see a +’coon’--and he dropped the tub over the racoon.... + +“Well! Can you conceive anything more pitiful than that poor little +wild creature of the open, begging and begging for a tub to fall over +it and shut out all the _light and air_? Doesn’t it show what misery +caged things have to go through?” + +“But, surely,” I said, “those other people would feel the same as you. +The little white-coated man was only a servant.” + +He seemed to run them over in his memory. “Not one!” he answered +slowly. “Not a single one! I am sure it never even occurred to +them--why should it? They were there to enjoy themselves.” + +We walked in silence till I said: + +“I can’t help feeling that your little white-coated man was acting +good-heartedly according to his lights.” + +“Quite! And after all what are the sufferings of a racoon compared +with the enlargement of the human mind?” + +“Don’t be extravagant! You know he didn’t mean to be cruel.” + +“Does a man ever mean to be cruel? He merely makes or keeps his living; +but to make or keep his living he will do anything that does not +absolutely prick to his heart through the skin of his indolence or his +obtuseness.” + +“I think,” I said, “that you might have expressed that less cynically, +even if it’s true.” + +“Nothing that’s true is cynical, and nothing that is cynical is +true. Indifference to the suffering of beasts always comes from +over-absorption in our own comfort.” + +“Absorption, not over-absorption, perhaps.” + +“Ha! Let us see that! Very soon after seeing the racoon I was staying +at the most celebrated health resort of that country, and, walking in +its grounds, I came on an aviary. In the upper cages were canaries, +and in the lower cage a splendid hawk. It was as large as our buzzard +hawk, brown-backed and winged, light underneath, and with the finest +dark-brown eyes of any bird I ever saw. The cage was quite ten feet +each way--a noble allowance for the very soul of freedom! The bird +had every luxury. There was water, and a large piece of raw meat that +hadn’t been touched. Yet it was never still for a moment, flying from +perch to perch, and dropping to the ground again and again so lightly, +to run, literally run, up to the bars to see if perhaps--they were not +there. Its face was as intelligent as any dog’s----” + +My friend muttered something I couldn’t catch, and then went on: + +“That afternoon I took the drive for which one visits that hotel, and +it occurred to me to ask my chauffeur what kind of hawk it was. ‘Well,’ +he said, ‘I ain’t just too sure what it is they’ve got caged up now; +they changes ’em so often.’ + +“‘Do you mean,’ I said, ‘that they die in captivity?’ + +“‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘them big birds soon gits moulty and go off.’ +Well, when I paid my bill I went up to the semblance of proprietor--it +was one of these establishments where the only creature responsible is +‘Co.’--and I said: + +“‘I see you keep a hawk out there?’ + +“‘Yes. Fine bird. Quite an attraction!’ + +“‘People like to look at it?’ + +“‘Just so. They’re uncommon--that sort.’ + +“‘Well,’ I said ‘I call it cruel to keep a hawk shut up like that.’ + +“‘Cruel? Why? What’s a hawk, anyway--cruel devils enough!’ + +“‘My dear sir,’ I said, ‘they earn their living just like men, +without caring for other creatures’ sufferings. You are not shut up, +apparently, for doing that. Good-bye.’” + +As he said this, my friend looked at me, and added: + +“You think that was a lapse of taste. What would _you_ have said to a +man who cloaked the cruelty of his commercial instincts by blaming a +hawk for being what Nature had made him?” + +There was such feeling in his voice that I hesitated long before +answering. + +“Well,” I said, at last, “in England, anyway, we only keep such +creatures in captivity for scientific purposes. I doubt if you could +find a single instance nowadays of its being done just as a commercial +attraction.” + +He stared at me. + +“Yes,” he said, “we do it publicly and scientifically, to enlarge +the mind. But let me put to you this question. Which do you consider +has the larger mind--the man who has satisfied his idle curiosity by +staring at all the caged animals of the earth, or the man who has been +brought up to feel that to keep such indomitable creatures as hawks and +eagles, wolves and panthers, shut up, to gratify mere curiosity, is a +dreadful thing?” + +To that singular question I knew not what to answer. At last I said: + +“I think you underrate the pleasure they give. We English are so +awfully fond of animals!” + + +§ 2. + +We had entered Battersea Park by now, and since my remark about +our love of beasts we had not spoken. A wood-pigeon which had been +strutting before us just then flew up into a tree and began puffing out +its breast. Seeking to break the silence, I said: + +“Pigeons are so complacent.” + +My friend smiled in his dubious way, and answered: + +“Do you know the ‘blue rock?’” + +“No.” + +“Ah! there you have a pigeon who has less complacency than any living +thing. You see, it depends on circumstances. Suppose, for instance, +that we happened to keep Our Selves--perhaps the most complacent class +of human beings--in a large space enclosed by iron railings, feeding +them up carefully, until their natural instincts caused them to run up +and down at a considerable speed from side to side of the enclosure. +And suppose when we noticed that they had attained the full speed and +strength of their legs we took them out, holding them gingerly in order +that they might not become exhausted by struggling, and placed them in +little tin compartments so dark and stuffy that they would not care of +their own accord to stay there, and then stood back about thirty paces +with a shot gun and pressed a spring which let the tin compartment +collapse. And then, as each one of Our Selves ran out, we let fly with +the right barrel and peppered him in the tail, whereon, if he fell, we +sent a dog out to fetch him in by the slack of his breeches, and after +holding him idly for a minute by the neck we gave it a wring round; +or, if he did not fall, we prayed Heaven at once and let fly with the +left barrel. Do you think in these circumstances Our Selves would be +complacent?” + +“Don’t be absurd!” I said. + +“Very well,” he replied, “I will come to ‘blue rocks’--do you still +maintain that they are so complacent as to deserve their fate?” + +“I don’t know--I know nothing about their fate.” + +“What the eyes do not swallow, the heart does not throw up! There are +other places, but--have you been to Monte Carlo?” + +“No, and I should never think of going there.” + +“Oh, well,” he answered, “it’s a great place; but there’s just one +little thing about it, and that’s in the matter of those ‘blue rocks.’ +You’ll agree, I suppose, that one can’t complain of people amusing +themselves in any way they like so long as they hurt no one but +themselves----” + +I caught him up: “I don’t agree at all.” + +He smiled: “Yours is perhaps the English point of view. Still----” + +“It’s more important that they shouldn’t hurt themselves than that they +shouldn’t hurt pigeons, if that’s what you’re driving at,” I said. + +“There wouldn’t appear to you, I suppose, to be any connection in the +matter?” + +“I tell you,” I repeated, “I know nothing about pigeon-shooting!” + +He stared very straight before him. + +“Imagine,” he said, “a blue sea, and a half-circle of grass, with a low +wall. Imagine on that grass five traps, from which lead paths--like the +rays of a star--to the central point on the base of that half-circle. +And imagine on that central point a gentleman with a double-barrelled +gun, another man, and a retriever dog. And imagine one of those traps +opening, and a little dazed grey bird (not a bit like that fellow you +saw just now) emerge and fly perhaps six yards. And imagine the sound +of the gun and the little bird dipping in its flight, but struggling +on. And imagine the sound of the gun again and the little bird falling +to the ground and wriggling on along it. And imagine the retriever +dog run forward and pick it up and walk slowly back with it, still +quivering, in his mouth. Or imagine, once in a way, the little bird +drop dead as a stone at the first sound. Or imagine again that it +winces at the shots, yet carries on over the boundary, to fall into the +sea. Or--but this very seldom--imagine it wing up and out, unhurt, to +the first freedom it has ever known. My friend, the joke is this: To +the man who lets no little bird away to freedom comes much honour, and +a nice round sum of money! Do you still think there is no connection?” + +“Well,” I said, “it doesn’t sound too sportsmanlike. And yet, I +suppose, looking at it quite broadly, it does minister in a sort of way +to the law of the survival of the fittest.” + +“In which species--man or pigeon?” + +“The sportsman is necessary to the expansion of Empire. Besides, you +must remember that one does not expect high standards at Monte Carlo.” + +He looked at me. “Do you never read any sporting paper?” he asked. + +“No.” + +“Did you ever hunt the carted stag?” + +“No, I never did.” + +“Well, you’ve been coursing, anyway.” + +“Certainly; but there’s no comparing that with pigeon-shooting.” + +“In coursing I admit,” he said, “there’s pleasure to the dogs, and some +chance for the hare, who, besides, is not in captivity. Also that where +there is no coursing there are few hares, in these days. And yet----”; +he seemed to fall into a reverie. + +Then, looking at me in a queer, mournful sort of way, he said suddenly: + +“I don’t wish to attack that sport, when there are so many much worse, +but by way of showing you how liable all these things are to contribute +to the improvement of our species I will tell you a little experience +of my own. When I was at college I was in a rather sporting set; we +hunted, and played at racing, and loved to be ‘_au courant_’ with all +that sort of thing. One year it so happened that the uncle of one of us +won the Waterloo Cup with a greyhound whose name was--never mind. We +became at once ardent lovers of the sport of coursing, consumed by the +desire to hold a Waterloo Cup Meeting in miniature, with rabbits for +hares and our own terriers for greyhounds. Well, we held it; sixteen +of us nominating our dogs. Now kindly note that of those sixteen eight +at least were members of the aristocracy, and all had been at public +schools of standing and repute. For the purposes of our meeting, of +course, we required fifteen rabbits caught and kept in bags. These +we ordered of a local blackguard, with a due margin over to provide +against such of the rabbits as might die of fright before they were +let out, or be too terrified to run after being loosed. We made the +fellow whose uncle had won the Waterloo Cup judge, apportioned among +ourselves the other officers, and assembled--the judge on horseback, +in case a rabbit might happen to run, say, fifty yards. Assembled with +us were many local cads, two fourth-rate bookies, our excited, yapping +terriers, and twenty-four bagged rabbits. The course was cleared. Two +of us advanced, holding our terriers by the loins; the judge signed +that he was ready; the first rabbit was turned down. It crept out of +the bag, and squatted, close to the ground, with its ears laid back. +The local blackguard stirred it with his foot. It crept two yards, and +squatted closer. All the terriers began shrieking their little souls +out, all the cads began to yell, but the rabbit did not move--its +heart, you see, was broken. At last the local blackguard took it up and +wrung its neck. After that some rabbits ran, and some did not, till all +were killed! The terrier of one of us was judged victor by him whose +uncle had won the Waterloo Cup; and we went back to our colleges to +drink everybody’s health. Now, my friend, mark! We were sixteen decent +youths, converted by infection into sixteen rabbit-catching cads. +Two of us are dead; but the rest of us--what do we think of it now? +I tell you this little incident, to confirm you in your feeling that +pigeon-shooting, coursing, and the like, tend to improve our species, +even here in England.” + + +§ 3. + +Before I could comment on my friend’s narrative we were spattered with +mud by passing riders, and stopped to repair the damage to our coats. + +“Jolly for my new coat!” I said. “Do you notice, by the way, that they +are cutting men’s tails longer this spring? More becoming to a fellow, +I think.” + +He raised those quizzical eyebrows of his and murmured: + +“And horses’ tails shorter. Did you see those that passed just now?” + +“No.” + +“There were none!” + +“Nonsense!” I said. “My dear fellow, you really are obsessed about +beasts! They were just ordinary.” + +“Quite--a few scrubby hairs, and a wriggle.” + +“Now, please,” I said, “don’t begin to talk of the cruelty of docking +horses’ tails, and tell me a story of an old horse in a pond.” + +“No,” he answered, “for I should have to invent that. What I was going +to say was this: Which do you think the greater fools in the matter of +fashion--men or women?” + +“Oh! Women.” + +“Why?” + +“There’s always some sense at the bottom of men’s fashions.” + +“Even of docking tails?” + +“You can’t compare it, anyway,” I said, “with such a fashion as the +wearing of ‘aigrettes.’ That’s a cruel fashion if you like.” + +“Ah! But you see,” he said, “the women who wear them are ignorant +of its cruelty. If they were not, they would never wear them. No +gentlewoman wears them, now that the facts have come out.” + +“What is that you say?” I remarked. + +He looked at me gravely. + +“Do you mean to tell me,” he asked, “that any woman of gentle +instincts, who _knows_ that the ‘aigrette,’ as they call it, is a +nuptial plume sported by the white egret only during the nesting +season--and that, in order to obtain it, the mother-birds are shot, and +that, after their death, practically all their young die from hunger +and exposure--do you mean to tell me that any gentlewoman, knowing +that, wears them? Why! most women are mothers themselves! What would +they think of gods who shot women with babies in arms for the sake of +obtaining their white skins or their crop of hair to wear on their +heads, eh?” + +“But, my dear fellow,” I said, “you see these plumes about all over the +place!” + +“Only on people who don’t mind wearing imitation stuff.” + +I gaped at him. + +“You need not look at me like that,” he said. “A woman goes into a +shop. She knows that real ‘aigrettes’ mean, killing mother-birds and +starving all their nestlings. Therefore, if she’s a real gentlewoman +she doesn’t ask for a real ‘aigrette.’ But still less does she ask to +be supplied with an imitation article so good that people will take +her for the wearer of the real thing. I put it to you, would she want +to be known as an encourager of such a practice? You can never have +seen a _lady_ wearing an ‘aigrette.’” + +“What!” I said. “What?” + +“So much for the woman who knows about ‘aigrettes,’” he went on. +“Now for the woman who doesn’t. Either, when she is told these facts +about ‘aigrettes’ she sets them down as ‘hysterical stuff,’ or she +is simply too ‘out of it’ to know anything. Well, she goes in and +asks for an ‘aigrette.’ Do you think they sell her the real thing--I +mean, of course, in England--knowing that it involves the shooting of +mother-birds at breeding time? I put it to you: Would they?” + +His inability to grasp the real issues astonished me, and I said: + +“You and I happen to have read the evidence about ‘aigrettes’ and the +opinion of the House of Lords Committee that the feathers of egrets +imported into Great Britain are obtained by killing the birds during +the breeding season; but you don’t suppose, do you, that people whose +commercial interests are bound up with the selling of ‘aigrettes’ are +going to read it, or believe it if they do read it?” + +“That,” he answered, “is cynical, if you like. I feel sure that, in +England, people do not sell suspected articles about which there has +been so much talk and inquiry as there has been about ‘aigrettes’ +without examining in good faith into the facts of their origin. No, +believe me, none of the ‘aigrettes’ sold in England can have grown on +birds.” + +“This is fantastic,” I said. “Why! if what you’re saying is true, +then--then real ‘aigrettes’ are all artificial; but that--that would be +cheating!” + +“Oh, no!” he said. “You see, ‘aigrettes’ are in fashion. The word +‘real’ has therefore become parliamentary. People don’t want to be +cruel, but they must have ‘real’ aigrettes. So, all these ‘aigrettes’ +are ‘real,’ unless the customer has a qualm, and then they are ‘real +imitation aigrettes.’ We are a highly civilised people!” + +“That is very clever,” I said, “but how about the statistics of real +egret plumes imported into this country?” + +He answered like a flash: “Oh, those, of course, are only brought +here to be exported again at once to countries where they do not mind +confessing to cruelty; yes, all exported, except--well, _those that +aren’t_!” + +“Oh!” I said: “I see! You have been speaking ironically all this time.” + +“Have you grasped that?” he answered. “Capital!” After that we walked +in silence. + +“The fact is,” I said, presently, “ordinary people, shopmen and +customers alike, never bother their heads about such things at all.” + +“Yes,” he replied sadly, “they take the line of least resistance. It is +just that which gives Fashion its chance to make such fools of them.” + +“You have yet to prove that it does make fools of them.” + +“I thought I had; but no matter. Take horses’ tails--what’s left of +them--do you defend that fashion?” + +“Well,” I said, “I----” + +“Would you if you were a horse?” + +“If you mean that I am a donkey----?” + +“Oh, no! Not at all!” + +“It’s going too far,” I said, “to call docking cruel.” + +“Personally,” he answered, “I don’t think it is going too far. It’s +painful in itself, and Heaven alone knows what irritation horses have +to suffer from flies through being tailless. I admit that it saves a +little brushing, and that some people are under the delusion that it +averts carriage accidents. But put cruelty and utility aside, and look +at it from the point of view of fashion. Can anybody say it doesn’t +spoil a horse’s looks?” + +“You know perfectly well,” I said, “that many people think it smartens +him up tremendously. They regard a certain kind of horse as nothing +with a tail; just as some men are nothing with beards.” + +“The parallel with man does not hold, my friend. We are not +shaved--with or against our wills--by demi-gods!” + +“Exactly! And isn’t that in itself an admission that we are superior to +beasts, and have a right to some say in their appearance?” + +“I will not,” he answered, “for one moment allow that men are superior +to horses in point of looks. Take yourself, or any other personable +man, and stand him up against a thoroughbred and ask your friends to +come and look. How much of their admiration do you think you will get?” + +It was not the sort of question I could answer. + +“I am not speaking at random,” he went on; “I have seen the average +lord walking beside the average winner of the Derby.” He cackled +disagreeably. + +“But it’s just on this point of looks that people defend docking,” I +said. “They breed the horses, and have a right to their own taste. +Many people dislike long swishy appendages.” + +“And bull-terriers, or Yorkshires, or Great Danes, with natural ears; +and fox-terriers and spaniels with uncut tails; and women with merely +the middles so small as Nature gave them?” + +“If you’re simply going to joke----” + +“I never was more serious. The whole thing is of a piece, and summed up +in the word ‘smart,’ which you used just now. That word, sir, is the +guardian angel of all fashions, and if you don’t mind my saying so, +fashions are the guardian angels of vulgarity. Now, a horse is not a +vulgar animal, and I can never get away from the thought that to dock +his tail must hurt his feelings of refinement.” + +“Well, if that’s all, I dare say he’ll get over it.” + +“But will the man who does it?” + +“You must come with me to the Horse Show,” I said, “and look at the men +who have to do with horses; then you’ll know if such a thing as docking +the tails of these creatures can do them harm or not. And, by the way, +you talk of refinement and vulgarity. What is your test? Where is the +standard? It’s all a matter of taste.” + +“You want me to define these things?” he asked. + +“Yes.” + +“Very well! Do you believe in what we call the instincts of a +gentleman?” + +“Of course.” + +“Such as--the instinct to be self-controlled; not to be rude or +intolerant; not to ‘slop-over’; not to fuss, nor to cry out; to hold +your head up, so that people refrain from taking liberties; to be ready +to do things for others, to be chary of asking others to do things for +you, and grateful when they do them?” + +“Yes,” I said, “all these I believe in.” + +“What central truth do you imagine that these instincts come from?” + +“Well, they’re all such a matter of course--I don’t think I ever +considered.” + +“If by any chance,” he replied, “you ever do, you will find they +come from an innate worship of balance, of the just mean; an inborn +reverence for due proportion, a natural sense of harmony and rhythm, +and a consequent mistrust of extravagance. What is a bounder? Just a +man without sufficient sense of proportion to know that he is not so +important in the scheme of things as he thinks he is!” + +“You are right there!” + +“Very well. Refinement is a quality of the individual who has--and +conforms to--a true (not a conventional) sense of proportion; and +vulgarity is either the natural conduct of people without that sense +of proportion, or of people who imitate and reproduce the tricks of +refinement wholesale, without any real feeling for proportion; or +again, it is mere conscious departure from the sense of proportion for +the sake of cutting a dash.” + +“Ah!” I said; “and to which of these kinds of vulgarity is the fashion +of docking horses’ tails a guardian angel?” + +“Imagine,” he answered gravely, “that you dock your horse’s tail. You +are either horribly deficient in feeling for a perfectly proportioned +horse, or you imitate what you believe--goodness knows why--to be +the refined custom of docking horses’ tails, without considering the +question of proportion at all.” + +“Yes,” I said; “but what makes so many people do it, if there isn’t +something in it, either useful or ornamental?” + +“Because people as a rule do not love proportion; they love the +grotesque. You have only to look at their faces, which are very good +indications of their souls.” + +“You have begged the question,” I said. “Who are you to say that the +perfect horse is not the horse----?” + +“With the imperfect tail?” + +“Imperfect? Again, you’re begging.” + +“As Nature made it, then. Oh!” he went on with vehemence, “think of the +luxury of having your own tail. Think of the cool swish of it. Think +of the real beauty of it! Think of the sheer hideousness of all that +great front balanced behind by a few scrub hairs and a wriggle! It +became ‘smart’ to dock horses’ tails; and smart to wear ‘aigrettes.’ +‘Smart’--‘neat’--‘efficient’--for all except the horse and the poor +egrets.” + +“Your argument,” I said, “is practically nothing but æsthetics.” + +He fixed his eyes upon my hat. + +“Well,” he said slowly. “I admit that neither on horse nor on man +would long tails go at all well with that bowler hat of yours. Odd how +all of a piece taste is! From a man’s hat, or a horse’s tail, we can +reconstruct the age we live in, like that scientist, you remember, who +reconstructed a mastodon from its funny-bone.” + +The thought went sharply through my head: Is his next tirade to be on +mastodons? Till I remembered with relief that the animal was extinct, +at all events in England. + + +§ 4. + +With but little further talk we had nearly reached my rooms, when he +said abruptly: + +“A lark! Can’t you hear it? Over there, in that wretched little +goldfish shop again.” + +But I could only hear the sounds of traffic. + +“It’s your imagination,” I said. “It really is too lively on the +subject of birds and beasts.” + +“I tell you,” he persisted, “there’s a caged lark there. Very likely +half-a-dozen.” + +“My dear fellow,” I said, “suppose there are! We could go and buy them +and set them free, but it would only encourage the demand. Or we could +assault the shopmen. Do you recommend that?” + +“I don’t joke on this subject,” he answered shortly. + +“But surely,” I said, “if we can’t do anything to help the poor things +we had better keep our ears from hearing.” + +“And our eyes shut? Suppose we all did that, what sort of world should +we be living in?” + +“Very much the same as now, I expect.” + +“Blasphemy! Rank, hopeless blasphemy!” + +“Please don’t exaggerate!” + +“I am not. There is only one possible defence of that attitude, and +it’s this: The world is--and was deliberately meant to be--divided into +two halves: the half that suffers and the half that benefits by that +suffering.” + +“Well?” + +“Is it so?” + +“Perhaps.” + +“You acquiesce in that definition of the world’s nature? Very well, +if you belong to the first half you are a poor-spirited creature, +consciously acquiescing in your own misery. If to the second, you are a +brute, consciously acquiescing in your own happiness, at the expense of +others. Well, which are you?” + +“I have not said that I belong to either.” + +“There are only two halves to a whole. No, my friend, disabuse yourself +once for all of that cheap and comfortable philosophy of shutting your +eyes to what you think you can’t remedy, unless you are willing to be +labelled ‘brute.’ ‘He who is not with me is against me,’ you know.” + +“Well,” I said, “after that, perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell me +what I can do by making myself miserable over things I can’t help?” + +“I will,” he answered. “In the first place, kindly consider that you +are not living in a private world of your own. Everything you say and +do and think has its effect on everybody around you. For example, if +you feel, and say loudly enough, that it is an infernal shame to keep +larks and other wild song-birds in cages, you will infallibly infect +a number of other people with that sentiment, and in course of time +those people who feel as you do will become so numerous that larks, +thrushes, blackbirds, and linnets will no longer be caught and kept +in cages. Whereas, if you merely think: ‘Oh! this is dreadful, quite +too dreadful, but, you see, I can do nothing; therefore consideration +for myself and others demands that I shall stop my ears and hold +my tongue,’ then, indeed, nothing will ever be done, and larks, +blackbirds, etc., will continue to be caught and prisoned. How do you +imagine it ever came about that bears and bulls and badgers are no +longer baited; cocks no longer openly encouraged to tear each other in +pieces; donkeys no longer beaten to a pulp? Only by people going about +and shouting out that these things made them uncomfortable. How did it +come about that more than half the population of this country are not +still classed as ‘serfs’ under the law? Simply because a few of our +ancestors were made unhappy by seeing their fellow-creatures owned and +treated like dogs, and roundly said so--in fact, were not ashamed to be +sentimental humanitarians like me.” + +“That is all obvious. But my point is that there is moderation in all +things, and a time for everything.” + +“By your leave,” he said, “there is little moderation desirable when we +are face to face with real suffering, and, as a general rule, no time +like the present.” + +“But there is, as you were saying just now, such a thing as a sense of +proportion. I cannot see that it’s my business to excite myself about +the caging of larks when there are so many much greater evils.” + +“Forgive my saying so,” he answered, “but if, when a caged lark comes +under your nose, excitement does not take hold of you, with or against +your will, there is mighty little chance of your getting excited about +anything. For, consider what it means to be a caged lark--what pining +and misery for that little creature, which only lives for its life up +in the blue. Consider what blasphemy against Nature, and what an insult +to all that is high and poetic in man, it is to cage such an exquisite +thing of freedom!” + +“You forget that it is done out of love for the song--to bring it into +towns where people can’t otherwise hear it.” + +“It is done for a living--and that people without imagination may +squeeze out of unhappy creatures a little gratification!” + +“It is not a crime to have no imagination.” + +“No, sir; but neither is the lack of it a thing to pride oneself on, or +pass by in silence, when it inflicts suffering.” + +“I am not defending the custom of caging larks.” + +“No; but you are responsible for its continuance.” + +“I?” + +“You and all those other people who believe in minding their own +business.” + +“Really,” I said; “you must not attack people on that ground. We cannot +all be busybodies!” + +“The saints forbid!” he answered. “But when a thing exists which you +really abhor--as you do this--I do wish you would consider a little +whether, in letting it strictly alone, you are minding your own +business on principle, or because it is so jolly comfortable to do so.” + +“Speaking for myself----” + +“Yes,” he broke in; “quite! But let me ask you one thing: Have +you, as a member of the human race, any feeling that you share +in the advancement of its gentleness, of its sense of beauty and +justice--that, in proportion as the human race becomes more lovable and +lovely, you too become more lovable and lovely?” + +“Naturally.” + +“Then is it not your business to support all that you feel makes for +that advancing perfection?” + +“I don’t say that it isn’t.” + +“In that case it is _not_ your business to stop your ears, and shut +your eyes, and hold your tongue, when you come across wild song-birds +caged.” + +But we had reached my rooms. + +“Before I go in,” I said, “there is just one little thing I’ve got +to say to you: Don’t you think that, for a man with your ‘sense +of proportion,’ you exaggerate the importance of beasts and their +happiness?” + +He looked at me for a long time without speaking, and when he did speak +it was in a queer, abstracted voice: + +“I have often thought over that,” he said, “and honestly I don’t +believe I do. For I have observed that before men can be gentle and +broad-minded with each other, they are always gentle and broad-minded +about beasts. These dumb things, so beautiful--even the plain ones--in +their different ways, and so touching in their dumbness, do draw us +to magnanimity, and help the wings of our hearts to grow. No; I don’t +think I exaggerate, my friend. Most surely I don’t want to; for there +is no disservice one can do to all these helpless things so great as +to ride past the hounds, to fly so far in front of public feeling +as to cause nausea and reaction. But I feel that most of us, deep +down, really love these furred and feathered creatures that cannot +save themselves from us--that are like our own children, because they +are helpless; that are in a way sacred, because in them we watch, +and through them we understand, those greatest blessings of the +earth--Beauty and Freedom. They give us so much, they ask nothing from +us. What can we do in return but spare them all the suffering we can? +No, my friend; I do not think--whether for their sakes or our own--that +I exaggerate.” + +When we had said those words he turned away and left me standing there. + + + + +REVERIE OF A SPORTSMAN + + +I set out one morning in late August, with some potted grouse +sandwiches in one pocket and a magazine in the other, for a +tramp toward Causdon. I had not been in that particular part of +the moor since I used to go snipe-shooting there as a boy--my +first introduction, by the way, to sport. It was a very lovely +day, almost too hot; and I never saw the carpet of the moor more +exquisite--heather, fern, the silvery white cotton grass, dark peat +turves, and green bog-moss, all more than customarily clear in hue +under a very blue sky. I walked till two o’clock, then sat down in a +little scoop of valley by a thread of stream, which took its rise from +an awkward looking bog at the top. It was wonderfully quiet. A heron +rose below me and flapped away; and while I was eating my potted grouse +I heard the harsh cheep of a snipe, and caught sight of the twisting +bird vanishing against the line of sky above the bog. “That must have +been one of the bogs we used to shoot,” I thought; and having finished +my snack of lunch, I rolled myself a cigarette, opened the magazine, +and idly turned its pages. I had no serious intention of reading--the +calm and silence were too seductive, but my attention became riveted by +an exciting story of some man-eating lions, and I read on till I had +followed the adventure to the death of the two ferocious brutes, and +found my cigarette actually burning my fingers. Crushing it out against +the dampish roots of the heather, I lay back with my eyes fixed on the +sky, thinking of nothing. + +Suddenly I became conscious that between me and that sky a leash of +snipe high up were flighting and twisting and gradually coming lower; +I appeared, indeed, to have a sort of attraction for them. They would +dash toward each other, seem to exchange ideas, and rush away again, +like flies that waltz together for hours in the centre of a room. As +they came lower and lower over me I could almost swear I heard them +whisper to each other with their long bills, and presently I absolutely +caught what they were saying: “Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, +look at him!” + +Amazed at such an extraordinary violation of all the laws of Nature, I +began to rub my ears, when I distinctly heard the “Go-back, go-back” of +an old cock grouse, and, turning my head cautiously, saw him perched on +a heathery knob within twenty yards of where I lay. Now, I knew very +well that all efforts to introduce grouse on Dartmoor have been quite +unsuccessful, since for some reason connected with the quality of the +heather, the nature of the soil, or the over-mild dampness of the air, +this king of game birds most unfortunately refuses to become domiciled +there; so that I could hardly credit my senses. But suddenly I heard +him also: “Look at him! Go back! The ferocious brute! Go back!” He +seemed to be speaking to something just below; and there, sure enough, +was the first hare I had ever seen out on the full of the moor. I have +always thought a hare a jolly beast, and not infrequently felt sorry +when I rolled one over; it has a way of crying like a child if not +killed outright. I confess, then, that in hearing it, too, whisper: +“Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!” I experienced +the sensation that comes over one when one has not been quite fairly +treated. Just at that moment, with a warm stirring of the air, there +pitched within six yards of me a magnificent old black-cock--the very +spit of that splendid fellow I shot last season at Balnagie, whose tail +my wife now wears in her hat. He was accompanied by four grey hens, +who, settling in a semi-circle, began at once: “Look at him! Look at +him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!” At that moment I say with +candour that I regretted the many times I have spared grey hens with +the sportsmanlike desire to encourage their breed. + +For several bewildered minutes after that I could not turn my eyes +without seeing some bird or other alight close by me: more and +more grouse, and black game, pheasants, partridges--not only the +excellent English bird, but the very sporting Hungarian variety--and +that unsatisfactory red-legged Frenchman which runs any distance +rather than get up and give you a decent shot at him. There were +woodcock too, those twisting delights of the sportsman’s heart, +whose tiny wing-feather trophies have always given me a distinct +sensation of achievement when pinned in the side of my shooting-cap; +wood-pigeons too, very shy and difficult, owing to the thickness of +their breast-feathers--and, after all, only coming under the heading +“sundry”; wild duck, with their snaky dark heads, that I have shot +chiefly in Canada, lurking among rushes in twilight at flighting +time--a delightful sport, exciting, as the darkness grows; excellent +eating too, with red pepper and sliced oranges in oil! Certain other +sundries kept coming also; landrails, a plump, delicious little bird; +green and golden plover; even one of those queer little creatures, +moorhens, that always amuse one by their quick, quiet movements, +plaintive note, and quaint curiosity, though not really, of course, +fit to shoot, with their niggling flight and fishy flavour! Ptarmigan, +too, a bird I admire very much, but have only once or twice succeeded +in bringing down, shy and scarce as it is in Scotland. And, side by +side, the alpha and omega of the birds to be shot in these islands, +a capercailzie and a quail. I well remember shooting the latter in a +turnip-field in Lincolnshire--a scrap of a bird, the only one I ever +saw in England. Apart from the pleasurable sensation at its rarity, I +recollect feeling that it was almost a mercy to put the little thing +out of its loneliness. It ate very well. There, too, was that loon or +northern diver that I shot with a rifle off Denman Island as it swam +about fifty yards from the shore. Handsome plumage; I still have the +mat it made. One bird only seemed to refuse to alight, remaining up +there in the sky, and uttering continually that trilling cry which +makes it perhaps the most spiritual of all birds that can be eaten--I +mean, of course, the curlew. I certainly never shot one. They fly, as +a rule, very high and seem to have a more than natural distrust of the +human being. This curlew--ah! and a blue rock (I have always despised +pigeon-shooting)--were the only two winged creatures that one can shoot +for sport in this country that did not come and sit round me. + +There must have been, I should say, as many hundred altogether as +I have killed in my time--a tremendous number. They sat in a sort +of ring, moving their beaks from side to side, just as I have seen +penguins doing on the films that explorers bring back from the +Antarctic; and all the time repeating to each other those amazing +words: “Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!” + +Then, to my increased astonishment, I saw behind the circles of the +birds a number of other animals besides the hare. At least five kinds +of deer--the red, the fallow, the roe, the common deer, whose name I’ve +forgotten, which one finds in Vancouver Island, and the South African +springbok, that swarm in from the Karoo at certain seasons, among which +I had that happy week once in Namaqualand, shooting them from horseback +after a gallop to cut them off--very good eating as camp fare goes, +and making nice rugs if you sew their skins together. There, too, was +the hyena I missed, probably not altogether; but he got off, to my +chagrin--queer-looking brute! Rabbits of course had come--hundreds and +hundreds of them. If--like everybody else--I’ve done such a lot of +it, I can’t honestly say I’ve ever cared much for shooting rabbits, +though the effect is neat enough when you get them just right and they +turn head over heels--and anyway, the prolific little brutes have to +be kept down. There, too, actually was my wild ostrich--the one I +galloped so hard after, letting off my Winchester at half a mile, only +to see him vanish over the horizon. Next him was the bear whose lair +I came across at the Nanaimo Lakes. How I did lurk about to get that +fellow! And, by Jove! close to him, two cougars. I never got a shot +at them, never even saw one of the brutes all the time I was camping +in Vancouver Island, where they lie flat along the branches over your +head, waiting to get a chance at deer, sheep, dog, pig, or anything +handy. But they had come now sure enough, glaring at me with their +greenish cats’-eyes--powerful-looking creatures! And next them sat a +little meerkat--not much larger than a weasel--without its head! Ah +yes!--that trial shot, as we trekked out from Rous’s farm, and I wanted +to try the little new rifle I had borrowed. It was sitting over its +hole fully seventy yards from the wagon, quite unconscious of danger. +I just took aim and pulled; and there it was, without its head, fallen +across its hole. I remember well how pleased our “boys” were. And I +too! Not a bad little rifle, that! + +Outside the ring of beasts I could see foxes moving, not mixing with +the stationary creatures, as if afraid of suggesting that I had shot +them, instead of being present at their deaths in the proper fashion. +One, quite a cub, kept limping round on three legs--the one, no doubt, +whose pad was given me, out cubbing, as a boy. I put that wretched +pad in my hat-box, and forgot it, so that I was compelled to throw +the whole stinking show away. There were quite a lot of grown foxes; +it certainly showed delicacy on their part, not sitting down with the +others. There was really a tremendous crowd of creatures altogether by +this time! I should think every beast and bird I ever shot, or even had +a chance of killing, must have been there, and all whispering: “Look at +him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!” + +Animal lover, as every true sportsman is, those words hurt me. If there +is one thing on which we sportsmen pride ourselves, and legitimately, +it is a humane feeling toward all furred and feathered creatures--and, +as every one knows, we are foremost in all efforts to diminish their +unnecessary sufferings. + +The corroboree about me which they were obviously holding became, as I +grew used to their manner of talking, increasingly audible. But it was +the quail’s words that I first distinguished. + +“He certainly ate me,” he said; “said I was good, too!” + +“I do not believe”--this was the first hare speaking--“that he shot me +for that reason; he did shoot me, and I was jugged, but he wouldn’t +touch me. And the same day he shot eleven brace of partridges, didn’t +he?” Twenty-two partridges assented. “And he only ate two of you all +told--that proves he didn’t want us for food.” + +The hare’s words had given me relief, for I somehow disliked intensely +the gluttonous notion conveyed by the quail that I shot merely in +order to devour the result. Any one with the faintest instincts of a +sportsman will bear me out in this. + +When the hare had spoken there was a murmur all round. I could not at +first make out its significance, till I heard one of the cougars say: +“We kill only when we want to eat”; and the bear, who, I noticed, was +a lady, added: “No bear kills anything she cannot devour”; and, quite +clear, I caught the quacking words of a wild duck. “We eat every worm +we catch, and we’d eat more if we could get them.” + +Then again from the whole throng came that shivering whisper: “Look at +him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!” + +In spite of their numbers, they seemed afraid of me, seemed actually to +hold me in a kind of horror--me, an animal lover, and without a gun! I +felt it bitterly. “How is it,” I thought, “that not one of them seems +to have an inkling of what it means to be a sportsman, not one, of them +seems to comprehend the instinct which makes one love sport just for +the--er--danger of it?” The hare spoke again. + +“Foxes,” it murmured, “kill for the love of killing. Man is a kind +of fox.” A violent dissent at once rose from the foxes, till of one +them, who seemed the eldest, said: “We certainly kill as much as we +can, but we should always carry it all off and eat it if man gave us +time--the ferocious brutes!” You cannot expect much of foxes, but it +struck me as especially foxy that he should put the wanton character +of his destructiveness off on man, especially when he must have known +how carefully we preserve the fox, in the best interests of sport. A +pheasant ejaculated shrilly: “He killed sixty of us one day to his own +gun, and went off that same evening without eating even a wing!” And +again came that shivering whisper: “Look at him! The ferocious brute! +Oh, look at him!” It was too absurd! As if they could not realise that +a sportsman shoots almost entirely for the mouths of others! But I +checked myself, remembering that altruism is a purely human attribute. +“They get a big price for us!” said a woodcock, “especially if they +shoot us early. _I_ fetched several shillings.” Really, the ignorance +of these birds! As if modern sportsmen knew anything of what happens +after a day’s shooting! All that is left to the butler and the keeper. +Beaters, of course, and cartridges must be paid for, to say nothing of +the sin of waste. “I would not think them so much worse than foxes,” +said a rabbit, “if they didn’t often hurt you, so that you take hours +dying. I was seven hours dying in great agony, and one of my brothers +was twelve. Weren’t you, brother?” A second rabbit nodded. “But perhaps +that’s better than trapping,” he said. “Remember mother!” “Ah!” a +partridge muttered, “foxes at all events do bite your head off clean. +But men often break your wing, or your leg, and leave you!” And again +that shivering whisper rose: “Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, +look at him!” + +By this time the whole thing was so getting on my nerves that if I +could have risen I should have rushed at them, but a weight as of lead +seemed to bind me to the ground, and all I could do was to thank God +that they did not seem to know of my condition, for, though there were +no man-eaters among them, I could not tell what they might do if they +realised that I was helpless--the sentiments of chivalry and generosity +being confined to man, as we all know. + +“Yes,” said the capercailzie slowly, “I am a shy bird, and was often +shot at before this one got me; and though I’m strong, my size is so +against me that I always took a pellet or two away with me; and what +can you do then? Those ferocious brutes take the shot out of their +faces and hands when they shoot each other by mistake--I’ve seen them; +but we have no chance to do that.” A snipe said shrilly: “What I object +to is that he doesn’t eat us till he’s had too much already. I come in +on toast at the fifth course; it hurts one’s feelings.” + +“Ferocious brute, killing everything he sees.” + +I felt my blood fairly boil, and longed to cry out: “You beasts! You +know that we don’t kill everything we see! We leave that to cockneys, +and foreigners.” But just as I had no power of movement, so I seemed +to have no power of speech. And suddenly a little voice, high up over +me, piped down: “They never shoot us larks.” I have always loved the +lark; how grateful I felt to that little creature--till it added: “They +do worse; they take and shut us up in little traps of wire till we +pine away! Ferocious brutes!” In all my life I think I never was more +disappointed! The second cougar spoke: “He once passed within spring +of me. What do you say, friends; shall we go for him?” The shivering +answer came from all: “Go for him! Ferocious brute! Oh, go for him!” +And I heard the sound of hundreds of soft wings and pads ruffling and +shuffling. And, knowing that I had no power to move an inch, I shut +my eyes. Lying there motionless, as a beetle that shams dead, I felt +them creeping, creeping, till all round me and over me was the sound +of nostrils sniffing; and every second I expected to feel the nip of +teeth and beaks in the fleshy parts of me. But nothing came, and with +an effort I reopened my eyes. There they were, hideously close, with an +expression on their faces that I could not read; a sort of wry look, +every nose and beak turned a little to one side. And suddenly I heard +the old fox saying: “It’s impossible, with a smell like that; we could +never eat him!” From every one of them came a sort of sniff or sneeze +as of disgust, and as they began to back away I distinctly heard the +hyena mutter: “He’s not wholesome--not wholesome--the ferocious brute!” + +The relief of that moment was swamped by my natural indignation that +these impudent birds and beasts should presume to think that I, a +British sportsman, would not be good to eat. Then that beastly hyena +added: “If we killed him, you know, and buried him for a few days, he +might be tolerable.” + +An old cock grouse called out at once: “Go back! Let us hang him! _We_ +are always well hung. They like us a little decayed--ferocious brutes! +Go back!” And once more I felt, from the stir and shuffle, that my +fate hung in the balance; and I shut my eyes again, lest they might +be tempted to begin on them. Then, to my infinite relief, I heard the +cougar--have we not always been told that they were the friends of +man?--mutter: “Pah! It’s clear we could never eat him fresh, and what +we do not eat at once we do not touch!” + +All the birds cried out in chorus: “No! That would be crow’s work.” And +again I felt that I was saved. Then, to my horror, that infernal loon +shrieked: “Kill him and have him stuffed--specimen of Ferocious Brute! +Or fix his skin on a tree, and look at it--as he did with me!” + +For a full minute I could feel the currents of opinion swaying over me, +at this infamous proposal; then the old black-cock, the one whose tail +is in my wife’s hat, said sharply: “Specimen! He’s not good enough!” +And once more, for all my indignation at that gratuitous insult, I +breathed freely. + +“Come!” said the lady bear quietly: “Let us dribble on him a little, +and go. The ferocious brute is not worth more!” And, during what +seemed to me an eternity, one by one they came up, deposited on me a +little saliva, looking into my eyes the while with a sort of horror +and contempt, then vanished on the moor. The last to come up was the +little meerkat without its head. It stood there; it could neither look +at me nor drop saliva, but somehow it contrived to say: “I forgive you, +ferocious brute; but I was very happy!” Then it, too, withdrew. And +from all around, out of invisible presences in the air and the heather, +came once more the shivering whisper: “Look at him! The ferocious +brute! Oh, look at him!” + +I sat up. There was a trilling sound in my ears. Above me in the blue +a curlew was passing, uttering its cry. Ah! Thank Heaven!--I had +been asleep! My day-dream had been caused by the potted grouse, and +the pressure of the _Review_, which had lain, face downwards, on my +chest, open at the page where I had been reading about the man-eating +lions, and the death of those ferocious brutes. It shows what tricks +of disproportion little things will play with the mind when it is not +under reasonable control. + +And, to get the unwholesome taste of it all out of my mouth, I at once +jumped up and started for home at a round pace. + + + + +GROTESQUES + +Κυνηδόν + + +I + +The Angel Æthereal, on his official visit to the Earth in 1947, paused +between the Bank and the Stock Exchange to smoke a cigarette and +scrutinise the passers-by. + +“How they swarm,” he said, “and with what seeming energy--in such an +atmosphere! Of what can they be made?” + +“Of money, sir,” replied his dragoman; “in the past, the present, or +the future. Stocks are booming. The barometer of joy stands very high. +Nothing like it has been known for thirty years; not, indeed, since the +days of the Great Skirmish.” + +“There is, then, a connection between joy and money?” remarked the +Angel, letting smoke dribble through his chiselled nostrils. + +“Such is the common belief; though to prove it might take time. I will, +however, endeavour to do this if you desire it, sir.” + +“I certainly do,” said the Angel; “for a less joyous-looking crowd I +have seldom seen. Between every pair of brows there is a furrow, and no +one whistles.” + +“You do not understand,” returned his dragoman; “nor indeed is it +surprising, for it is not so much the money as the thought that some +day you need no longer make it which causes joy.” + +“If that day is coming to all,” asked the Angel, “why do they not look +joyful?” + +“It is not so simple as that, sir. To the majority of these persons +that day will never come, and many of them know it--these are called +clerks; to some amongst the others, even, it will not come--these will +be called bankrupts; to the rest it will come, and they will live at +Wimblehurst and other islands of the blessed, when they have become so +accustomed to making money that to cease making it will be equivalent +to boredom, if not torture, or when they are so old that they can but +spend it in trying to modify the disabilities of age.” + +“What price joy, then?” said the Angel, raising his eyebrows. “For +that, I fancy, is the expression you use?” + +“I perceive, sir,” answered his dragoman, “that you have not yet +regained your understanding of the human being, and especially of the +breed which inhabits this country. Illusion is what we are after. +Without our illusions we might just as well be angels or Frenchmen, who +pursue at all events to some extent the sordid reality known as ‘_le +plaisir_,’ or enjoyment of life. In pursuit of illusion we go on making +money and furrows in our brows, for the process is wearing. I speak, of +course, of the bourgeoisie or Patriotic classes; for the practice of +the Laborious is different, though their illusions are the same.” + +“How?” asked the Angel briefly. + +“Why, sir, both hold the illusion that they will one day be joyful +through the possession of money; but whereas the Patriotic expect to +make it through the labour of the Laborious, the Laborious expect to +make it through the labour of the Patriotic.” + +“Ha, ha!” said the Angel. + +“Angels may laugh,” replied his dragoman, “but it is a matter to make +men weep.” + +“You know your own business best,” said the Angel, “I suppose.” + +“Ah! sir, if we did, how pleasant it would be. It is frequently my fate +to study the countenances and figures of the population, and I find +the joy which the pursuit of illusion brings them is insufficient to +counteract the confined, monotonous, and worried character of their +lives.” + +“They are certainly very plain,” said the Angel. + +“They are,” sighed his dragoman, “and getting plainer every day. Take +for instance that one,” and he pointed to a gentleman going up the +steps. “Mark how he is built. The top of his grizzled head is narrow, +the bottom of it broad. His body is short and thick and square; +his legs even thicker, and his feet turn out too much; the general +effect is almost pyramidal. Again, take this one,” and he indicated +a gentleman coming down the steps, “you could thread his legs and +body through a needle’s eye, but his head would defy you. Mark his +boiled eyes, his flashing spectacles, and the absence of all hair. +Disproportion, sir, has become endemic.” + +“Can this not be corrected?” asked the Angel. + +“To correct a thing,” answered his dragoman, “you must first be +aware of it, and these are not; no more than they are aware that +it is disproportionate to spend six days out of every seven in a +counting-house or factory. Man, sir, is the creature of habit, and when +his habits are bad, man is worse.” + +“I have a headache,” said the Angel; “the noise is more deafening than +it was when I was here in 1910.” + +“Yes, sir; since then we have had the Great Skirmish, an event which +furiously intensified money-making. We, like every other people, have +ever since been obliged to cultivate the art of getting five out +of two-and-two. The progress of civilisation has been considerably +speeded-up thereby, and everything but man has benefited; even horses, +for they are no longer overloaded and overdriven up Tower Hill or any +other.” + +“How is that,” asked the Angel, “if the pressure of work is greater?” + +“Because they are extinct,” said his dragoman; “entirely superseded by +electric and air traction, as you see.” + +“You appear to be inimical to money,” the Angel interjected, with a +penetrating look. “Tell me, would you really rather own one shilling +than five and sixpence?” + +“Sir,” replied his dragoman, “you are putting the candidate before +the caucus, as the saying is. For money is nothing but the power to +purchase what one wants. You should rather be inquiring what I want.” + +“Well, what do you?” said the Angel. + +“To my thinking,” answered his dragoman, “instead of endeavouring to +increase money when we found ourselves so very bankrupt, we should have +endeavoured to decrease our wants. The path of real progress, sir, +is the simplification of life and desire till we have dispensed even +with trousers and wear a single clean garment reaching to the knees; +till we are content with exercising our own limbs on the solid earth; +the eating of simple food we have grown ourselves; the hearing of our +own voices, and tunes on oaten straws; the feel on our faces of the +sun and rain and wind; the scent of the fields and woods; the homely +roof, and the comely wife unspoiled by heels, pearls, and powder; the +domestic animals at play, wild birds singing, and children brought up +to colder water than their fathers. It should have been our business to +pursue health till we no longer needed the interior of the chemist’s +shop, the optician’s store, the hairdresser’s, the corset-maker’s, +the thousand-and-one emporiums which patch and prink us, promoting +our fancies and disguising the ravages which modern life makes in our +figures. Our ambition should have been to need so little that, with our +present scientific knowledge, we should have been able to produce it +very easily and quickly, and have had abundant leisure and sound nerves +and bodies wherewith to enjoy nature, art, and the domestic affections. +The tragedy of man, sir, is his senseless and insatiate curiosity and +greed, together with his incurable habit of neglecting the present for +the sake of a future which will never come.” + +“You speak like a book,” said the Angel. + +“I wish I did,” retorted his dragoman, “for no book I am able to +procure enjoins us to stop this riot, and betake ourselves to the +pleasurable simplicity which alone can save us.” + +“You would be bored stiff in a week,” said the Angel. + +“We should, sir,” replied his dragoman, “because from our schooldays we +are brought up to be acquisitive, competitive, and restless. Consider +the baby in the perambulator, absorbed in contemplating the heavens and +sucking its own thumb. Existence, sir, should be like that.” + +“A beautiful metaphor,” said the Angel. + +“As it is, we do but skip upon the hearse of life.” + +“You would appear to be of those whose motto is: ‘Try never to leave +things as you find them,’” observed the Angel. + +“Ah, sir!” responded his dragoman, with a sad smile, “the part of a +dragoman is rather ever to try and find things where he leaves them.” + +“Talking of that,” said the Angel dreamily, “when I was here in 1910, I +bought some Marconis for the rise. What are they at now?” + +“I cannot tell you,” replied his dragoman in a deprecating voice, “but +this I will say: Inventors are not only the benefactors but the curses +of mankind, and will be so long as we do not find a way of adapting +their discoveries to our very limited digestive powers. The chronic +dyspepsia of our civilisation, due to the attempt to swallow every +pabulum which ingenuity puts before it, is so violent that I sometimes +wonder whether we shall survive until your visit in 1984.” + +“Ah!” said the Angel, pricking his ears; “you really think there is a +chance?” + +“I do indeed,” his dragoman answered gloomily. “Life is now one long +telephone call--and what’s it all about? A tour in darkness! A rattling +of wheels under a sky of smoke! A never-ending game of poker!” + +“Confess,” said the Angel, “that you have eaten something which has not +agreed with you?” + +“It is so,” answered his dragoman; “I have eaten of modernity, the +damnedest dish that was ever set to lips. Look at those fellows,” he +went on, “busy as ants from nine o’clock in the morning to seven in the +evening. And look at their wives!” + +“Ah! yes,” said the Angel cheerily; “let us look at their wives,” and +with three strokes of his wings he passed to Oxford Street. + +“Look at them!” repeated his dragoman, “busy as ants from ten o’clock +in the morning to five in the evening.” + +“Plain is not the word for _them_,” said the Angel sadly. “What are +they after, running in and out of these shop-holes?” + +“Illusion, sir. The romance of business there, the romance of commerce +here. They have got into these habits and, as you know, it is so much +easier to get in than to get out. Would you like to see one of their +homes?” + +“No, no,” said the Angel, starting back and coming into contact with a +lady’s hat. “Why do they have them so large?” he asked, with a certain +irritation. + +“In order that they may have them small next season,” replied his +dragoman. “The future, sir; the future! The cycle of beauty and eternal +hope, and, incidentally, _the good of trade_. Grasp that phrase and you +will have no need for further inquiry, and probably no inclination.” + +“One could get American sweets in here, I guess,” said the Angel, +entering. + + +II + +“And where would you wish to go to-day, sir?” asked his dragoman of the +Angel, who was moving his head from side to side like a dromedary, in +the Haymarket. + +“I should like,” the Angel answered, “to go into the country.” + +“The country!” returned his dragoman, doubtfully. “You will find very +little to see there.” + +“Natheless,” said the Angel, spreading his wings. + +“These,” gasped his dragoman, after a few breathless minutes, “are the +Chilterns--they will serve; any part of the country is now the same. +Shall we descend?” + +Alighting on what seemed to be a common, he removed the cloud moisture +from his brow, and shading his eyes with his hand, stood peering into +the distance on every side. “As I thought,” he said; “there has been +no movement since I brought the Prime here in 1944; we shall have some +difficulty in getting lunch.” + +“A wonderfully peaceful spot,” said the Angel. + +“True,” said his dragoman. “We might fly sixty miles in any direction +and not see a house in repair.” + +“Let us!” said the Angel. They flew a hundred and alighted again. + +“Same here!” said his dragoman. “This is Leicestershire. Note the +rolling landscape of wild pastures.” + +“I am getting hungry,” said the Angel. “Let us fly again.” + +“I have told you, sir,” remarked his dragoman, while they were flying, +“that we shall have the greatest difficulty in finding any inhabited +dwelling in the country. Had we not better alight at Blackton or +Bradleeds?” + +“No,” said the Angel. “I have come for a day in the fresh air.” + +“Would bilberries serve?” asked his dragoman; “for I see a man +gathering them.” + +The Angel closed his wings, and they dropped on to a moor close to an +aged man. + +“My worthy wight,” said the Angel, “we are hungry. Would you give us +some of your bilberries?” + +“Wot oh!” ejaculated the ancient party; “never ’eard yer comin’. Been +flyin’ by wireless, ’ave yer? Got an observer, I see,” he added, +jerking his grizzled chin at the dragoman. “Strike me, it’s the good +old dyes o’ the Gryte Skirmish over agyne.” + +“Is this,” asked the Angel, whose mouth was already black with +bilberries, “the dialect of rural England?” + +“I will interrogate him, sir,” said his dragoman, “for in truth I am at +a loss to account for the presence of a man in the country.” He took +the old person by his last button and led him a little apart. Returning +to the Angel, who had finished the bilberries, he whispered: + +“It is as I thought. This is the sole survivor of the soldiers settled +on the land at the conclusion of the Great Skirmish. He lives on +berries and birds who have died a natural death.” + +“I fail to understand,” answered the Angel. “Where is all the rural +population, where the mansions of the great, the thriving farmer, the +contented peasant, the labourer about to have his minimum wage, the +Old, the Merrie England of 1910?” + +“That,” responded his dragoman somewhat dramatically, extending his +hand towards the old man, “_that_ is the rural population, and he a +cockney hardened in the Great Skirmish, or he could never have stayed +the course.” + +“What!” said the Angel; “is no food grown in all this land?” + +“Not a cabbage,” replied his dragoman; “not a mustard and +cress--outside the towns, that is.” + +“I perceive,” said the Angel, “that I have lost touch with much that +is of interest. Give me, I pray, a brief sketch of the agricultural +movement.” + +“Why, sir,” replied his dragoman, “the agricultural movement in this +country since the days of the Great Skirmish, when all were talking of +resettling the land, may be summed up in two words: ‘Town expansion.’ +In order to make this clear to you, however, I must remind you of the +political currents of the past thirty years. You will not recollect +that during the Great Skirmish, beneath the seeming absence of +politics, there were germinating the Parties of the future. A secret +but resolute intention was forming in all minds to immolate those +who had played any part in politics before and during the important +world-tragedy which was then being enacted, especially such as +continued to hold portfolios, or persisted in asking questions in the +House of Commons, as it was then called. It was not that people held +them to be responsible, but nerves required soothing, and there is no +anodyne, as you know, sir, equal to human sacrifice. The politician +was, as one may say--‘off.’ No sooner, of course, was peace declared +than the first real General Election was held, and it was with a +certain chagrin that the old Parties found themselves in the soup. The +Parties which had been forming beneath the surface swept the country: +one called itself the Patriotic, and was called by its opponents +the Prussian Party; the other called itself the Laborious, and was +called by its opponents the Loafing Party. Their representatives were +nearly all new men. In the first flush of peace, with which the human +mind ever associates plenty, they came out on such an even keel that +no Government could pass anything at all. Since, however, it was +imperative to find the interest on a National Debt of £8,000,000,000, a +further election was needed. This time, though the word Peace remained, +the word Plenty had already vanished; and the Laborious Party, which, +having much less to tax, felt that it could tax more freely, found +itself in an overwhelming majority. You will be curious to hear, +sir, of what elements this Party was composed. Its solid bulk were +the returned soldiers, and the other manual workers of the country; +but to this main body there was added a rump, of pundits, men of +excellent intentions, brains, and principles, such as in old days had +been known as Radicals and advanced Liberals. These had joined out of +despair, feeling that otherwise their very existence was jeopardised. +To this collocation--and to one or two other circumstances, as you +will presently see, sir--the doom of the land must be traced. Now, the +Laborious Party, apart from its rump, on which it would or could not +sit--we shall never know now--had views about the resettlement of the +land not far divergent from those held by the Patriotic Party, and +they proceeded to put a scheme into operation, which, for perhaps a +year, seemed to have a prospect of success. Many returned soldiers were +established in favourable localities, and there was even a disposition +to place the country on a self-sufficing basis in regard to food. But +they had not been in power eighteen months when their rump--which, as +I have told you, contained nearly all their principles--had a severe +attack of these. ‘Free Trade,’--which, say what you will, follows the +line of least resistance and is based on the ‘good of trade’--was, +they perceived, endangered, and they began to agitate against bonuses +on corn and preferential treatment of a pampered industry. The bonus +on corn was in consequence rescinded in 1924, and in lieu thereof +the system of small holdings was extended--on paper. At the same +time the somewhat stunning taxation which had been placed upon the +wealthy began to cause the break-up of landed estates. As the general +bankruptcy and exhaustion of Europe became more and more apparent the +notion of danger from future war began to seem increasingly remote, and +the ‘good of trade’ became again the one object before every British +eye. Food from overseas was cheapening once more. The inevitable +occurred. Country mansions became a drug in the market, farmers farmed +at a loss; small holders went bust daily, and emigrated; agricultural +labourers sought the towns. In 1926 the Laborious Party, who had +carried the taxation of their opponents to a pitch beyond the power +of human endurance, got what the racy call ‘the knock,’ and the four +years which followed witnessed the bitterest internecine struggle +within the memory of every journalist. In the course of this strife +emigration increased and the land emptied rapidly. The final victory +of the Laborious Party, in 1930, saw them, still propelled by their +rump, committed, among other things, to a pure town policy. They have +never been out of power since; the result you see. Food is now entirely +brought from overseas, largely by submarine and air service, in tabloid +form, and expanded to its original proportions on arrival by an +ingenious process discovered by a German. The country is now used only +as a subject for sentimental poets, and to fly over, or by lovers on +bicycles at week-ends.” + +“_Mon Dieu!_” said the Angel thoughtfully: “To me, indeed, it seems +that this must have been a case of: ‘Oh! What a surprise!’” + +“You are not mistaken, sir,” replied his dragoman; “people still open +their mouths over this consummation. It is pre-eminently an instance +of what will happen sometimes when you are not looking, even to the +English, who have been most fortunate in this respect. For you must +remember that all Parties, even the Pundits, have always declared that +rural life and all that, don’t you know? is most necessary, and have +ever asserted that they were fostering it to the utmost. But they +forgot to remember that our circumstances, traditions, education, and +vested interests so favoured town life and the ‘good of trade’ that it +required a real and unparliamentary effort not to take that line of +least resistance. In fact, we have here a very good example of what +I told you the other day was our most striking characteristic--never +knowing where we are till after the event. But what with fog and +principles, how can you expect we should? Better be a little town +blighter with no constitution and high political principles, than your +mere healthy country product of a pampered industry. But you have not +yet seen the other side of the moon.” + +“To what do you refer?” asked the Angel. + +“Why, sir, to the glorious expansion of the towns. To this I shall +introduce you to-morrow, if such be your pleasure.” + +“Is London, then, not a town?” asked the Angel playfully. + +“London?” cried his dragoman; “a mere pleasure village. To which real +town shall I take you? Liverchester?” + +“Anywhere,” said the Angel, “where I can get a good dinner.” So saying, +he paid the rural population with a smile and spread his wings. + + +III + +“The night is yet young,” said the Angel Æthereal on leaving the White +Heart Hostel at Liverchester, “and I have had perhaps too much to eat. +Let us walk and see the town.” + +“As you will, sir,” replied his dragoman; “there is no difference +between night and day, now that they are using the tides for the +provision of electric power.” + +The Angel took a note of the fact. “What do they manufacture here?” he +asked. + +“The entire town,” returned his dragoman, “which now extends from the +old Liverpool to the old Manchester (as indeed its name implies), is +occupied with expanding the tabloids of food which are landed in its +port from the new worlds. This and the town of Brister, reaching from +the old Bristol to the old Gloucester, have had the monopoly of food +expansion for the United Kingdom since 1940.” + +“By what means precisely?” asked the Angel. + +“Congenial environment and bacteriology,” responded his dragoman. They +walked for some time in silence, flying a little now and then in the +dirtier streets, before the Angel spoke again: + +“It is curious,” he said, “but I perceive no difference between this +town and those I remember on my visit in 1910, save that the streets +are better lighted, which is not an unmixed joy, for they are dirty and +full of people whose faces do not please me.” + +“Ah! sir,” replied his dragoman, “it is too much to expect that the +wonderful darkness which prevailed at the time of the Great Skirmish +could endure; then, indeed, one could indulge the hope that the houses +were all built by Wren, and the people all clean and beautiful. There +is no poetry now.” + +“No!” said the Angel, sniffing, “but there is atmosphere, and it is not +agreeable.” + +“Mankind, when herded together, _will_ smell,” answered his dragoman. +“You cannot avoid it. What with old clothes, patchouli, petrol, fried +fish and the fag, those five essentials of human life, the atmosphere +of Turner and Corot are as nothing.” + +“But do you not run your towns to please yourselves?” said the Angel. + +“Oh, no, sir! The resistance would be dreadful. They run us. You see, +they are so very big, and have such prestige. Besides,” he added, +“even if we dared, we should not know how. For, though some great and +good man once brought us plane-trees, we English are above getting the +best out of life and its conditions, and despise light Frenchified +taste. Notice the principle which governs this twenty-mile residential +stretch. It was intended to be light, but how earnest it has all turned +out! You can tell at a glance that these dwellings belong to the +species ‘house’ and yet are individual houses, just as a man belongs to +the species ‘man,’ and yet, as they say, has a soul of his own. This +principle was introduced off the Avenue Road a few years before the +Great Skirmish, and is now universal. Any person who lives in a house +identical with another house is not known. Has anything heavier and +more conscientious ever been seen?” + +“Does this principle also apply to the houses of the working-man?” +inquired the Angel. + +“Hush, sir!” returned his dragoman looking round him nervously; “a +dangerous word. The LABORIOUS dwell in palaces built after the design +of an architect called Jerry, with communal kitchens and baths.” + +“Do they use them?” asked the Angel with some interest. + +“Not as yet, indeed,” replied his dragoman; “but I believe they are +thinking of it. As you know, sir, it takes time to introduce a custom. +Thirty years is but as yesterday.” + +“The Japanese wash daily,” mused the Angel. + +“Not a Christian nation,” replied his dragoman; “nor have they the +dirt to contend with which is conspicuous here. Let us do justice to +the discouragement which dogs the ablutions of such as know they will +soon be dirty again. It was confidently supposed, at the time of the +Great Skirmish, which introduced military discipline and so entirely +abolished caste, that the habit of washing would at last become endemic +throughout the whole population. Judge how surprised were we of that +day when the facts turned out otherwise. Instead of the Laborious +washing more, the Patriotic washed less. It may have been the higher +price of soap, or merely that human life was not very highly regarded +at the time. We cannot tell. But not until military discipline +disappeared, and caste was restored, which happened the moment peace +returned, did the survivors of the Patriotic begin to wash immoderately +again, leaving the Laborious to preserve a level more suited to +democracy.” + +“Talking of levels,” said the Angel; “is the populace increasing in +stature?” + +“Oh, no, indeed!” responded his dragoman; “the latest statistics give a +diminution of one inch and a half during the past generation.” + +“And in longevity?” asked the Angel. + +“As to that, babies and old people are now communally treated, and all +those diseases which are curable by lymph are well in hand.” + +“Do people, then, not die?” + +“Oh, yes, sir! About as often as before. There are new complaints which +redress the balance.” + +“And what are those?” + +“A group of diseases called for convenience Scienticitis. Some think +they come from the present food system; others from the accumulation +of lymphs in the body; others, again, regard them as the result of +dwelling on the subject--a kind of hypnotisation by death; a fourth +school hold them traceable to town air; while a fifth consider them +a mere manifestation of jealousy on the part of Nature. They date, +one may say with confidence, from the time of the Great Skirmish, +when men’s minds were turned with some anxiety to the question of +statistics, and babies were at a premium.” + +“Is the population, then, much larger?” + +“You mean smaller, sir, do you not? Not perhaps so much smaller as +you might expect; but it is still nicely down. You see, the Patriotic +Party, including even those Pontificals whose private practice most +discouraged all that sort of thing, began at once to urge propagation. +But their propaganda was, as one may say, brain-spun; and at once +bumped-up--pardon the colloquialism--against the economic situation. +The existing babies, it is true, were saved; the trouble was rather +that the babies began not to exist. The same, of course, obtained in +every European country, with the exception of what was still, in a +manner of speaking, Russia; and if that country had but retained its +homogeneity, it would soon by sheer numbers have swamped the rest +of Europe. Fortunately, perhaps, it did not remain homogeneous. An +incurable reluctance to make food for cannon and impose further burdens +on selves already weighted to the ground by taxes, developed in the +peoples of each Central and Western land; and in the years from 1920 to +1930 the downward curve was so alarming in Great Britain that if the +Patriotic Party could only have kept office long enough at a time they +would, no doubt, have enforced conception at the point of the bayonet. +Luckily or unluckily, according to taste, they did not; and it was left +for more natural causes to produce the inevitable reaction which began +to set in after 1930, when the population of the United Kingdom had +been reduced to some twenty-five millions. About that time commerce +revived. The question of the land had been settled by its unconscious +abandonment, and people began to see before them again the possibility +of supporting families. The ingrained disposition of men and women to +own pets, together with ‘the good of trade,’ began once more to have +its way; and the population rose rapidly. A renewed joy in life, and +the assurance of not having to pay the piper, caused the slums, as they +used to be called, to swarm once more, and filled the communal crèches. +And had it not been for the fact that any one with physical strength, +or love of fresh air, promptly emigrated to the Sister Nations on +attaining the age of eighteen we might now, sir, be witnessing an +overcrowding equal to that of the times before the Great Skirmish. The +movement is receiving an added impetus with the approach of the Greater +Skirmish between the Teutons and Mongolians, for it is expected that +trade will boom and much wealth accrue to those countries which are +privileged to look on with equanimity at this great new drama, as the +editors are already calling it.” + +“In all this,” said the Angel Æthereal, “I perceive something rather +sordid.” + +“Sir,” replied his dragoman earnestly, “your remark is characteristic +of the sky, where people are not made of flesh and blood; pay, +I believe, no taxes; and have no experience of the devastating +consequences of war. I recollect so well when I was a young man, before +the Great Skirmish began, and even when it had been going on several +years, how glibly the leaders of opinion talked of human progress, +and how blind they were to the fact that it has a certain connection +with environment. You must remember that ever since that large and, as +some still think rather tragic, occurrence environment has been very +dicky and Utopia not unrelated to thin air. It has been perceived time +and again that the leaders of public opinion are not always confirmed +by events. The new world, which was so sapiently prophesied by +rhetoricians, is now nigh thirty years old, and, for my part, I confess +to surprise that it is not worse than it actually is. I am moralising, +I fear, however, for these suburban buildings grievously encourage the +philosophic habit. Rather let us barge along and see the Laborious at +their labours, which are never interrupted now by the mere accident of +night.” + +The Angel increased his speed till they alighted amid a forest of tall +chimneys, whose sirens were singing like a watch of nightingales. + +“There is a shift on,” said the dragoman. “Stand here, sir; we shall +see them passing in and out.” + +The Laborious were not hurrying, and went by uttering the words: +“Cheer oh!” “So long!” and “Wot abaht it!” + +The Angel contemplated them for a time before he said: “It comes back +to me now how they used to talk when they were doing up my flat on my +visit in 1910.” + +“Give me, I pray, an imitation,” said his dragoman. + +The Angel struck the attitude of one painting a door. “William,” +he said, rendering those voices of the past, “what money are you +obtaining?” + +“Not half, Alfred.” + +“If that is so, indeed, William, should you not rather leave your tools +and obtain better money? I myself am doing this.” + +“Not half, Alfred.” + +“Round the corner I can obtain more money by working for fewer hours. +In my opinion there is no use in working for less money when you can +obtain more. How much does Henry obtain?” + +“Not half, Alfred.” + +“What I am now obtaining is, in my opinion, no use at all.” + +“Not half, Alfred.” + +Here the Angel paused, and let his hand move for one second in a +masterly exhibition of activity. + +“It is doubtful, sir,” said his dragoman, “whether you would be +permitted to dilute your conversation with so much labour in these +days; the rules are very strict.” + +“Are there, then, still Trades Unions?” asked the Angel. + +“No, indeed,” replied his dragoman; “but there are Committees. That +habit which grew up at the time of the Great Skirmish has flourished +ever since. Statistics reveal the fact that there are practically +no adults in the country between the ages of nineteen and fifty who +are not sitting on Committees. At the time of the Great Skirmish +all Committees were nominally active; they are now both active and +passive. In every industry, enterprise, or walk of life a small active +Committee directs; and a large passive Committee, formed of everybody +else, resists that direction. And it is safe to say that the Passive +Committees are active and the Active Committees passive; in this way +no inordinate amount of work is done. Indeed, if the tongue and the +electric button had not usurped practically all the functions of the +human hand, the State would have some difficulty in getting its boots +blacked. But a ha’poth of visualisation is worth three lectures at ten +shillings the stall, so enter, sir, and see for yourself.” + +Saying this, he pushed open the door. + +In a shed, which extended beyond the illimitable range of the Angel’s +eye, machinery and tongues were engaged in a contest which filled the +ozone with an incomparable hum. Men and women in profusion were leaning +against walls or the pillars on which the great roof was supported, +assiduously pressing buttons. The scent of expanding food revived the +Angel’s appetite. + +“I shall require supper,” he said dreamily. + +“By all means, sir,” replied his dragoman; “after work--play. It will +afford you an opportunity to witness modern pleasures in our great +industrial centres. But what a blessing is electric power!” he added. +“Consider these lilies of the town, they toil not, neither do they +spin----” + +“Yet Solomon in all his glory,” chipped in the Angel eagerly, “had not +their appearance, you bet.” + +“Indeed they are an insouciant crowd,” mused his dragoman; “How +tinkling is their laughter! The habit dates from the days of the Great +Skirmish, when nothing but laughter would meet the case.” + +“Tell me,” said the Angel, “are the English satisfied at last with +their industrial conditions, and generally with their mode of life in +these expanded towns?” + +“Satisfied? Oh dear, no, sir! But you know what it is: They are obliged +to wait for each fresh development before they can see what they have +to counteract; and, since that great creative force, ‘the good of +trade,’ is always a little stronger than the forces of criticism and +reform, each development carries them a little further on the road +to----” + +“Hell! How hungry I am again!” exclaimed the Angel. “Let us sup!” + + +IV + +“Laughter,” said the Angel Æthereal, applying his wineglass to his +nose, “has ever distinguished mankind from all other animals with +the exception of the dog. And the power of laughing at nothing +distinguishes man even from that quadruped.” + +“I would go further, sir,” returned his dragoman, “and say that the +power of laughing at that which should make him sick distinguishes the +Englishman from all other varieties of man except the negro. Kindly +observe!” He rose, and taking the Angel by the waist, fox-trotted him +among the little tables. + +“See!” he said, indicating the other supper-takers with a circular +movement of his beard, “they are consumed with laughter. The habit of +fox-trotting in the intervals of eating has been known ever since it +was introduced by Americans a generation ago, at the beginning of the +Great Skirmish, when that important people had as yet nothing else +to do; but it still causes laughter in this country. A distressing +custom,” he wheezed, as they resumed their seats, “for not only does it +disturb the oyster, but it compels one to think lightly of the human +species. Not that one requires much compulsion,” he added, “now that +music-hall, cinema, and restaurant are conjoined. What a happy idea it +was of Berlin’s, and how excellent for business! Kindly glance for a +moment--but not more--at the left-hand stage.” + +The Angel turned his eyes towards a cinematograph film which was being +displayed. He contemplated it for the moment without speaking. + +“I do not comprehend,” he said at last, “why the person with the +arrested moustaches is hitting so many people with that sack of flour.” + +“To cause amusement, sir,” replied his dragoman. “Look at the laughing +faces around you.” + +“But it is not funny,” said the Angel. + +“No, indeed,” returned his dragoman. “Be so good as to carry your eyes +now to the stage on the right, but not for long. What do you see?” + +“I see a very red-nosed man beating a very white-nosed man about the +body.” + +“It is a real scream, is it not?” + +“No,” said the Angel drily. “Does nothing else ever happen on these +stages?” + +“Nothing. Stay! _Revues_ happen!” + +“What are _revues_?” asked the Angel. + +“Criticisms of life, sir, as it would be seen by persons inebriated on +various intoxicants.” + +“They should be joyous.” + +“They are accounted so,” his dragoman replied; “but for my part, I +prefer to criticise life for myself, especially when I am drunk.” + +“Are there no plays, no operas?” asked the Angel from behind his glass. + +“Not in the old and proper sense of these words. They disappeared +towards the end of the Great Skirmish.” + +“What food for the mind is there, then?” asked the Angel, adding an +oyster to his collection. + +“None in public, sir, for it is well recognised, and has been +ever since those days, that laughter alone promotes business and +removes the thought of death. You cannot recall, as I can, sir, the +continual stream which used to issue from theatres, music-halls, and +picture-palaces in the days of the Great Skirmish, nor the joviality of +the Strand and the more expensive restaurants. I have often thought,” +he added with a touch of philosophy, “what a height of civilisation we +must have reached to go jesting, as we did, to the Great Unknown.” + +“Is that really what the English did at the time of the Great +Skirmish?” asked the Angel. + +“It is,” replied his dragoman solemnly. + +“Then they are a very fine people, and I can put up with much about +them which seems to me distressing.” + +“Ah! sir, though, being an Englishman, I am sometimes inclined to +disparage the English, I am yet convinced that you could not fly a +week’s journey and come across another race with such a peculiar +nobility, or such an unconquerable soul, if you will forgive my using +a word whose meaning is much disputed. May I tempt you with a clam?” +he added more lightly. “We now have them from America--in fair +preservation, and very nasty they are, in my opinion.” + +The Angel took a clam. + +“My Lord!” he said, after a moment of deglutition. + +“Quite so!” replied his dragoman. “But kindly glance at the right-hand +stage again. There is a _revue_ on now. What do you see?” + +The Angel made two holes with his forefingers and thumbs and, putting +them to his eyes, bent a little forward. + +“Tut, tut!” he said; “I see some attractive young females with very few +clothes on, walking up and down in front of what seem to me, indeed, +to be two grown-up men in collars and jackets as of little boys. What +precise criticism of life is this conveying?” + +His dragoman answered in reproachful accents: + +“Do you not feel, sir, from your own sensations, how marvellously this +informs one of the secret passions of mankind? Is there not in it a +striking revelation of the natural tendencies of the male population? +Remark how the whole audience, including your august self, is leaning +forward and looking through their thumb-holes?” + +The Angel sat back hurriedly. + +“True,” he said, “I was carried away. But that is not the criticism of +life which art demands. If it had been, the audience, myself included, +would have been sitting back with their lips curled dry, instead of +watering.” + +“For all that,” replied his dragoman, “it is the best we can give you; +anything which induces the detached mood of which you spoke, has been +banned from the stage since the days of the Great Skirmish; it is so +very bad for business.” + +“Pity!” said the Angel, imperceptibly edging forward; “the mission of +art is to elevate.” + +“It is plain, sir,” said his dragoman, “that you have lost touch with +the world as it is. The mission of art--now truly democratic--is to +level--in principle up, in practice down. Do not forget, sir, that +the English have ever regarded æstheticism as unmanly, and grace as +immoral; when to that basic principle you add the principle of serving +the taste of the majority, you have perfect conditions for a sure and +gradual decrescendo.” + +“Does taste, then, no longer exist?” asked the Angel. + +“It is not wholly, as yet, extinct, but lingers in the communal +kitchens and canteens, as introduced by the Young Men’s Christian +Association in the days of the Great Skirmish. While there is +appetite there is hope, nor is it wholly discouraging that taste +should now centre in the stomach; for is not that the real centre of +man’s activity? Who dare affirm that from so universal a foundation +the fair structure of æstheticism shall not be rebuilt? The eye, +accustomed to the look of dainty dishes and pleasant cookery, may +once more demand the architecture of Wren, the sculpture of Rodin, +the paintings of--dear me--whom? Why, sir, even before the days of +the Great Skirmish, when you were last on earth, we had already begun +to put the future of æstheticism on a more real basis, and were +converting the concert-halls of London into hotels. Few at the time +saw the far-reaching significance of that movement, or realised that +æstheticism was to be levelled down to the stomach, in order that it +might be levelled up again to the head, on true democratic principles.” + +“But what,” said the Angel, with one of his preternatural flashes of +acumen, “what if, on the other hand, taste should continue to sink and +lose even its present hold on the stomach? If all else has gone, why +should not the beauty of the kitchen go?” + +“That indeed,” sighed his dragoman, placing his hand on his heart, +“is a thought which often gives me a sinking sensation. Two liqueur +brandies,” he murmured to the waiter. “But the stout heart refuses +to despair. Besides, advertisements show decided traces of æsthetic +advance. All the great painters, poets, and fiction writers are working +on them; the movement had its origin in the propaganda demanded by +the Great Skirmish. You will not recollect the war poetry of that +period, the patriotic films, the death cartoons, and other remarkable +achievements. We have just as great talents now, though their object +has not perhaps the religious singleness of those stirring times. +Not a food, corset, or collar which has not its artist working for +it! Toothbrushes, nut-crackers, babies’ baths--the whole caboodle +of manufacture--are now set to music. Such themes are considered +subliminal if not sublime. No, sir, I will not despair; it is only +at moments when I have dined poorly that the horizon seems dark. +Listen--they have turned on the ‘Kalophone,’ for you must know that all +music now is beautifully made by machine--so much easier for every one.” + +The Angel raised his head, and into his eyes came the glow associated +with celestial strains. + +“The tune,” he said, “is familiar to me.” + +“Yes, sir,” answered his dragoman, “for it is _The Messiah_ in +ragtime. No time is wasted, you notice; all, even pleasure, is +intensively cultivated, on the lines of least resistance, thanks to +the feverishness engendered in us by the Great Skirmish, when no one +knew if he would have another chance, and to the subsequent need for +fostering industry. But whether we really enjoy ourselves is perhaps a +question to answer which you must examine the English character.” + +“That I refuse to do,” said the Angel. + +“And you are wise, sir, for it is a puzzler, and many have cracked +their heads over it. But have we not been here long enough? We can +pursue our researches into the higher realms of art to-morrow.” + +A beam from the Angel’s lustrous eyes fell on a lady at the next table. +“Yes, perhaps we had better go,” he sighed. + + +V + +“And so it is through the fields of true art that we shall walk this +morning?” said the Angel Æthereal. + +“Such as they are in this year of Peace 1947,” responded his dragoman, +arresting him before a statue; “for the development of this hobby has +been peculiar since you were here in 1910, when the childlike and +contortionist movement was just beginning to take hold of the British.” + +“Whom does this represent?” asked the Angel. + +“A celebrated publicist, recently deceased at a great age. You see him +unfolded by this work of multiform genius, in every aspect known to +art, religion, nature, and the population. From his knees downwards +he is clearly devoted to nature, and is portrayed as about to enter +his bath. From his waist to his knees he is devoted to religion--mark +the complete disappearance of the human aspect. From his neck to his +waist he is devoted to public affairs; observe the tweed coat, the +watch-chain, and other signs of practical sobriety. But the head +is, after all, the crown of the human being, and is devoted to art. +This is why you cannot make out that it is a head. Note its pyramidal +severity, its cunning little ears, its box-built, water-tightal +structure. The hair you note to be in flames. Here we have the touch +of beauty--the burning shrub. In the whole you will observe that +aversion from natural form and the single point of view, characteristic +of all twentieth-century æsthetics. The whole thing is a very great +masterpiece of childlike contortionism. To do things as irresponsibly +as children and contortionists--what a happy discovery of the line of +least resistance in art that was! Mark, by the way, this exquisite +touch about the left hand.” + +“It appears to be deformed,” said the Angel, going a step nearer. + +“Look closer still,” returned his dragoman, “and you will see that +it is holding a novel of the great Russian, upside down. Ever since +that simple master who so happily blended the childlike with the +contortionist became known in this country they have been trying to go +him one better, in letters, in painting, in sculpture, and in music, +refusing to admit that he was the last cry; and until they have beaten +him this movement simply cannot cease; it may therefore go on for ever, +for he was the limit. That hand symbolises the whole movement.” + +“How?” said the Angel. + +“Why, sir, somersault is its mainspring. Did you never observe the +great Russian’s method? Prepare your characters to do one thing, and +make them very swiftly do the opposite. Thus did that terrific novelist +demonstrate his overmastering range of vision and knowledge of the +depths of human nature. Since his characters never varied this routine +in the course of some eight thousand pages, people have lightly said +that he repeated himself. But what of that? Consider what perfect +dissociation he thereby attained between character and action; what +nebulosity of fact; what a truly childlike and mystic mix-up of all +human values hitherto known! And here, sir, at the risk of tickling +you, I must whisper.” The dragoman made a trumpet of his hand: “Fiction +can only be written by those who have exceptionally little knowledge of +ordinary human nature, and great fiction only by such as have none at +all.” + +“How is that?” said the Angel, somewhat disconcerted. + +“Surprise, sir, is the very kernel of all effects in art, and in real +life people _will_ act as their characters and temperaments determine +that they shall. This dreadful and unmalleable trait would have upset +all the great mystic masters from generation to generation if they +had only noticed it. But did they? Fortunately not. These greater +men naturally put into their books the greater confusion and flux in +which their extraordinary selves exist! The nature they portray is not +human, but super- or subter-human, which you will. Who would have it +otherwise?” + +“Not I,” said the Angel. “For I confess to a liking for what is called +the ‘tuppence coloured.’ But Russians are not as other men, are they?” + +“They are not,” said his dragoman, “but the trouble is, sir, that since +the British discovered him, every character in our greater fiction has +a Russian soul, though living in Cornwall or the Midlands, in a British +body under a Scottish or English name.” + +“Very piquant,” said the Angel, turning from the masterpiece before +him. “Are there no undraped statues to be seen?” + +“In no recognisable form. For, not being educated to the detached +contemplation which still prevailed to a limited extent even as late as +the days of the Great Skirmish, the populace can no longer be trusted +with such works of art; they are liable to rush at them, for embrace, +or demolition, as their temperaments may dictate.” + +“The Greeks are dead, then,” said the Angel. + +“As door-nails, sir. They regarded life as a thing to be enjoyed--a +vice you will not have noticed in the British. The Greeks were an +outdoor people, who lived in the sun and the fresh air, and had none of +the niceness bred by the life of our towns. We have long been renowned +for our delicacy about the body; nor has the tendency been decreased by +constituting Watch Committees of young persons in every borough. These +are now the arbiters of art, and nothing unsuitable to the child of +seven passes their censorship.” + +“How careful!” said the Angel. + +“The result has been wonderful,” remarked his dragoman. “Wonderful!” he +repeated, dreamily. “I suppose there is more smouldering sexual desire +and disease in this country than in any other.” + +“Was that the intention?” asked the Angel. + +“Oh! no, sir! That is but the natural effect of so remarkably pure +a surface. All is within instead of without. Nature has now wholly +disappeared. The process was sped-up by the Great Skirmish. For, +since then, we have had little leisure and income to spare on the +gratification of anything but laughter; this and the ‘unco guid’ +have made our art-surface glare in the eyes of the nations, thin and +spotless as if made of tin.” + +The Angel raised his eyebrows. “I had hoped for better things,” he said. + +“You must not suppose, sir,” pursued his dragoman, “that there is not +plenty of the undraped, so long as it is vulgar, as you saw just now +upon the stage, for that is good business; the line is only drawn at +the danger-point of art, which is always very bad business in this +country. Yet even in real life the undraped has to be grotesque to be +admitted; the one fatal quality is natural beauty. The laugh, sir, the +laugh--even the most hideous and vulgar laugh--is such a disinfectant. +I should, however, say in justice to our literary men, that they have +not altogether succumbed to the demand for cachinnations. A school, +which first drew breath before the Great Skirmish began, has perfected +itself, till now we have whole tomes where hardly a sentence would +be intelligible to any save the initiate; this enables them to defy +the Watch Committees, with other Philistines. We have writers who +mysteriously preach the realisation of self by never considering +anybody else; of purity through experience of exotic vice; of courage +through habitual cowardice; and of kindness through Prussian behaviour. +They are generally young. We have others whose fiction consists of +autobiography interspersed with philosophic and political fluencies. +These may be of any age from eighty odd to the bitter thirties. We have +also the copious and chatty novelist; and transcribers of the life of +the Laborious, whom the Laborious never read. Above all, we have the +great Patriotic school, who put the national motto first, and write +purely what is good for trade. In fact, we have every sort, as in the +old days.” + +“It would appear,” said the Angel, “that the arts have stood somewhat +still.” + +“Except for a more external purity, and a higher internal corruption,” +replied his dragoman. + +“Are artists still noted for their jealousies?” asked the Angel. + +“They are, sir; for that is inherent in the artistic temperament, which +is extremely touchy about fame.” + +“And do they still get angry when those gentlemen--the----” + +“Critics,” his dragoman suggested. “They get angry, sir; but critics +are usually anonymous, and from excellent reasons; for not only are the +passions of an angry artist very high, but the knowledge of an angry +critic is not infrequently very low, especially of art. It is kinder to +save life, where possible.” + +“For my part,” said the Angel, “I have little regard for human life, +and consider that many persons would be better buried.” + +“That may be,” his dragoman retorted with some irritation; “‘_errare +est humanum_.’ But I, for one, would rather be a dead human being any +day than a live angel, for I think they are more charitable.” + +“Well,” said the Angel genially, “you have the prejudice of your kind. +Have you an artist about the place, to show me? I do not recollect any +at Madame Tussaud’s.” + +“They have taken to declining that honour. We could see one in real +life if we went to Cornwall.” + +“Why Cornwall?” + +“I cannot tell you, sir. There is something in the air which affects +their passions.” + +“I am hungry, and would rather go to the Savoy,” said the Angel, +walking on. + +“You are in luck,” whispered his dragoman, when they had seated +themselves at a table covered with prawns; “for at the next on your +left is our most famous exponent of the mosaic school of novelism.” + +“Then here goes!” replied the Angel. And, turning to his neighbour, he +asked pleasantly: “How do you do, sir? What is your income?” + +The gentleman addressed looked up from his prawn, and replied wearily: +“Ask my agent. He may conceivably possess the knowledge you require.” + +“Answer me this, at all events,” said the Angel, with more dignity, if +possible: “How do you write your books? For it must be wonderful to +summon around you every day the creatures of your imagination. Do you +wait for afflatus?” + +“No,” said the author; “er--no! I--er----” he added weightily, “sit +down every morning.” + +The Angel rolled his eyes and, turning to his dragoman, said in a +well-bred whisper: “He sits down every morning! My Lord, how good for +trade!” + + +VI + +“A glass of sherry, dry, and ham sandwich, stale, can be obtained here, +sir,” said the dragoman; “and for dessert, the scent of parchment and +bananas. We will then attend Court 45, where I shall show you how +fundamentally our legal procedure has changed in the generation that +has elapsed since the days of the Great Skirmish.” + +“Can it really be that the Law has changed? I had thought it +immutable,” said the Angel, causing his teeth to meet with difficulty: +“What will be the nature of the suit to which we shall listen?” + +“I have thought it best, sir, to select a divorce case, lest you should +sleep, overcome by the ozone and eloquence in these places.” + +“Ah!” said the Angel: “I am ready.” + +The Court was crowded, and they took their seats with difficulty, and a +lady sitting on the Angel’s left wing. + +“The public _will_ frequent this class of case,” whispered his +dragoman. “How different when you were here in 1910!” + +The Angel collected himself: “Tell me,” he murmured, “which of the +grey-haired ones is the judge?” + +“He in the bag-wig, sir,” returned his dragoman; “and that little lot +is the jury,” he added, indicating twelve gentlemen seated in two rows. + +“What is their private life?” asked the Angel. + +“No better than it should be, perhaps,” responded his dragoman +facetiously; “but no one can tell that from their words and manner, +as you will presently see. These are special ones,” he added, “and +pay income tax, so that their judgment in matters of morality is of +considerable value.” + +“They have wise faces,” said the Angel. “Which is the prosecutor?” + +“No, no!” his dragoman answered, vividly: “This is a civil case. That +is the plaintiff with a little mourning about her eyes and a touch of +red about her lips, in the black hat with the aigrette, the pearls, +and the fashionably sober clothes.” + +“I see her,” said the Angel: “an attractive woman. Will she win?” + +“We do not call it winning, sir; for this, as you must know, is a +sad matter, and implies the breaking-up of a home. She will most +unwillingly receive a decree, at least, I think so,” he added; “though +whether it will stand the scrutiny of the King’s Proctor we may wonder +a little, from her appearance.” + +“King’s Proctor?” said the Angel. “What is that?” + +“A celestial Die-hard, sir, paid to join together again those whom man +have put asunder.” + +“I do not follow,” said the Angel fretfully. + +“I perceive,” whispered his dragoman, “that I must make clear to you +the spirit which animates our justice in these matters. You know, +of course, that the intention of our law is ever to penalise the +wrongdoer. It therefore requires the innocent party, like that lady +there, to be exceptionally innocent, not only before she secures her +divorce, but for six months afterwards.” + +“Oh!” said the Angel. “And where is the guilty party?” + +“Probably in the south of France,” returned his dragoman, “with the new +partner of his affections. They have a place in the sun; this one a +place in the Law Courts.” + +“Dear me!” said the Angel. “Does she prefer that?” + +“There are ladies,” his dragoman replied, “who find it a pleasure to +appear, no matter where, so long as people can see them in a pretty +hat. But the great majority would rather sink into the earth than do +this thing.” + +“The face of this one is most agreeable to me; I should not wish her to +sink,” said the Angel warmly. + +“Agreeable or not,” resumed his dragoman, “they have to bring their +hearts for inspection by the public if they wish to become free +from the party who has done them wrong. This is necessary, for the +penalisation of the wrongdoer.” + +“And how will he be penalised?” asked the Angel naïvely. + +“By receiving his freedom,” returned his dragoman, “together with the +power to enjoy himself with his new partner, in the sun, until in due +course, he is able to marry her.” + +“This is mysterious to me,” murmured the Angel. “Is not the boot on the +wrong leg?” + +“Oh! sir, the law would not make a mistake like that. You are bringing +a single mind to the consideration of this matter, but that will never +do. This lady is a true and much-wronged wife; that is--let us hope +so!--to whom our law has given its protection and remedy; but she is +also, in its eyes, somewhat reprehensible for desiring to avail herself +of that protection and remedy. For, though the law is now purely the +affair of the State and has nothing to do with the Appointed, it +still secretly believes in the religious maxim: ‘Once married, always +married,’ and feels that however much a married person is neglected or +ill-treated, she should not desire to be free.” + +“She?” said the Angel. “Does a man never desire to be free?” + +“Oh, yes! sir, and not infrequently.” + +“Does the law, then, not consider him reprehensible in that desire?” + +“In theory, perhaps; but there is a subtle distinction. For, sir, as +you observe from the countenances before you, the law is administered +entirely by males, and males cannot but believe in the divine right +of males to have a better time than females; and, though they do not +say so, they naturally feel that a husband wronged by a wife is more +injured than a wife wronged by a husband.” + +“There is much in that,” said the Angel. “But tell me how the oracle is +worked--for it may come in handy!” + +“You allude, sir, to the necessary procedure? I will make this clear. +There are two kinds of cases: what I may call the ‘O.K.’ and what I +may call the ‘rig.’ Now in the ‘O.K.’ it is only necessary for the +plaintiff, if it be a woman, to receive a black eye from her husband +and to pay detectives to find out that he has been too closely in the +company of another; if it be a man, he need not receive a black eye +from his wife, and has merely to pay the detectives to obtain the same +necessary information.” + +“Why this difference between the sexes?” asked the Angel. + +“Because,” answered his dragoman, “woman is the weaker sex, things are +therefore harder for her.” + +“But,” said the Angel, “the English have a reputation for chivalry.” + +“They have, sir.” + +“Well----” began the Angel. + +“When these conditions are complied with,” interrupted his dragoman, +“a suit for divorce may be brought, which may or may not be defended. +Now, the ‘rig,’ which is always brought by the wife, is not so simple, +for it must be subdivided into two sections: ‘Ye straight rig’ and +‘Ye crooked rig.’ ‘Ye straight rig’ is where the wife cannot induce +her husband to remain with her, and discovering from him that he has +been in the close company of another, wishes to be free of him. She +therefore tells the Court that she wishes him to come back to her, and +the Court will tell him to go back. Whereupon, if he obey, the fat is +sometimes in the fire. If, however, he obeys not, which is the more +probable, she may, after a short delay, bring a suit, adducing the +evidence she has obtained, and receive a decree. This may be the case +before you, or, on the other hand, it may not, and will then be what +is called ‘Ye crooked rig.’ If that is so, these two persons, having +found that they cannot live in conjugal friendliness, have laid their +heads together for the last time, and arranged to part; the procedure +will now be the same as in ‘Ye straight rig.’ But the wife must take +the greatest care to lead the Court to suppose that she really wishes +her husband to come back; for, if she does not, it is collusion. The +more ardent her desire to part from him, the more care she must take +to pretend the opposite! But this sort of case is, after all, the +simplest, for both parties are in complete accord in desiring to be +free of each other, so neither does anything to retard that end, which +is soon obtained.” + +“About that evidence?” said the Angel. “What must the man do?” + +“He will require to go to an hotel with a lady friend,” replied his +dragoman; “once will be enough. And, provided they are called in the +morning, there is no real necessity for anything else.” + +“H’m!” said the Angel. “This, indeed, seems to me to be all around +about the bush. Could there not be some simple method which would not +necessitate the perversion of the truth?” + +“Ah, no!” responded his dragoman. “You forget what I told you, +sir. However unhappy people may be together, our law grudges their +separation; it requires them therefore to be immoral, or to lie, or +both, before they can part.” + +“Curious!” said the Angel. + +“You must understand, sir, that when a man says he will take a woman, +and a woman says she will take a man, for the rest of their natural +existence, they are assumed to know all about each other, though +not permitted, of course, by the laws of morality to know anything +of real importance. Since it is almost impossible from a modest +acquaintanceship to make sure whether they will continue to desire +each other’s company after a completed knowledge, they are naturally +disposed to go it ‘blind,’ if I may be pardoned the expression, and +will take each other for ever on the smallest provocations. For the +human being, sir, makes nothing of the words ‘for ever,’ when it sees +immediate happiness before it. You can well understand, therefore, how +necessary it is to make it very hard for them to get untied again.” + +“I should dislike living with a wife if I were tired of her,” said the +Angel. + +“Sir,” returned his dragoman confidentially, “in that sentiment you +would have with you the whole male population. And, I believe, the +whole of the female population would feel the same if they were tired +of you, as the husband.” + +“That!” said the Angel, with a quiet smile. + +“Ah! yes, sir; but does not this convince you of the necessity to force +people who are tired of each other to go on living together?” + +“No,” said the Angel, with appalling frankness. + +“Well,” his dragoman replied soberly, “I must admit that some have +thought our marriage laws should be in a museum, for they are unique; +and, though a source of amusement to the public, and emolument to the +profession, they pass the comprehension of men and angels who have not +the key of the mystery.” + +“What key?” asked the Angel. + +“I will give it you, sir,” said his dragoman: “The English have a +genius for taking the shadow of a thing for its substance. ‘So long,’ +they say, ‘as our marriages, our virtue, our honesty, and happiness +_seem_ to be, they _are_.’ So long, therefore, as we do not dissolve a +marriage it remains virtuous, honest and happy, though the parties to +it may be unfaithful, untruthful, and in misery. It would be regarded +as awful, sir, for marriage to depend on mutual liking. We English +cannot bear the thought of defeat. To dissolve an unhappy marriage is +to recognise defeat by life, and we would rather that other people +lived in wretchedness all their days than admit that members of our +race had come up against something too hard to overcome. The English do +not care about making the best out of this life in reality so long as +they can do it in appearance.” + +“Then they believe in a future life?” + +“They did to some considerable extent up to the ’eighties of the last +century, and their laws and customs were no doubt settled in accordance +therewith, and have not yet had time to adapt themselves. We are a +somewhat slow-moving people, always a generation or two behind our +real beliefs.” + +“They have lost their belief, then?” + +“It is difficult to arrive at figures, sir, on such a question. But +it has been estimated that perhaps one in ten adults now has some +semblance of what may be called active belief in a future existence.” + +“And the rest are prepared to let their lives be arranged in accordance +with the belief of that tenth?” asked the Angel, surprised. “Tell me, +do they think their matrimonial differences will be adjusted over +there, or what?” + +“As to that, all is cloudy; and certain matters would be difficult +to adjust without bigamy; for general opinion and the law permit the +remarriage of persons whose first has gone before.” + +“How about children?” said the Angel; “for that is no inconsiderable +item, I imagine.” + +“Yes, sir, they are a difficulty. But here, again, my key will fit. So +long as the marriage _seems_ real, it does not matter that the children +know it isn’t and suffer from the disharmony of their parents.” + +“I think,” said the Angel acutely, “there must be some more earthly +reason for the condition of your marriage laws than those you give me. +It’s all a matter of property at bottom, I suspect.” + +“Sir,” said his dragoman, seemingly much struck, “I should not be +surprised if you were right. There is little interest in divorce where +no money is involved, and our poor are considered able to do without +it. But I will never admit that this is the reason for the state of our +divorce laws. No, no; I am an Englishman.” + +“Well,” said the Angel, “we are wandering. Does this judge believe what +they are now saying to him?” + +“It is impossible to inform you, for judges are very deep and know all +that is to be known on these matters. But of this you may be certain: +if anything is fishy to the average apprehension, he will not suffer it +to pass his nose.” + +“Where is the average apprehension?” asked the Angel. + +“There, sir,” said his dragoman, pointing to the jury with his chin, +“noted for their common sense.” + +“And these others with grey heads who are calling each other friend, +though they appear to be inimical?” + +“Little can be hid from them,” returned his dragoman; “but this case, +though defended as to certain matters of money, is not disputed in +regard to the divorce itself. Moreover, they are bound by professional +etiquette to serve their clients through thin and thick.” + +“Cease!” said the Angel; “I wish to hear this evidence, and so does the +lady on my left wing.” + +His dragoman smiled in his beard, and made no answer. + +“Tell me,” remarked the Angel, when he had listened, “does this woman +get anything for saying she called them in the morning?” + +“Fie, sir!” responded his dragoman; “only her expenses to the Court and +back. Though indeed, it is possible that after she had called them, she +got half a sovereign from the defendant to impress the matter on her +mind, seeing that she calls many people every day.” + +“The whole matter,” said the Angel, with a frown, “appears to be in the +nature of a game; nor are the details as savoury as I expected.” + +“It would be otherwise if the case were defended, sir,” returned +his dragoman; “then, too, you would have had an opportunity of +understanding the capacity of the human mind for seeing the same +incident to be both black and white; but it would take much of your +valuable time, and the Court would be so crowded that you would have a +lady sitting on your right wing also, and possibly on your knee. For, +as you observe, ladies are particularly attached to these dramas of +real life.” + +“If my wife were a wrong one,” said the Angel, “I suppose that, +according to your law, I could not sew her up in a sack and place it in +the water?” + +“We are not now in the days of the Great Skirmish,” replied his +dragoman somewhat coldly. “At that time any soldier who found his wife +unfaithful, as we call it, could shoot her with impunity and receive +the plaudits and possibly a presentation from the populace, though he +himself may not have been impeccable while away--a masterly method +of securing a divorce. But, as I told you, our procedure has changed +since then; and even soldiers now have to go to work in this roundabout +fashion.” + +“Can he not shoot the paramour?” asked the Angel. + +“Not even that,” answered his dragoman. “So soft and degenerate are +the days. Though, if he can invent for the paramour a German name, he +will still receive but a nominal sentence. Our law is renowned for +never being swayed by sentimental reasons. I well recollect a case +in the days of the Great Skirmish, when a jury found contrary to the +plainest facts sooner than allow that reputation for impartiality to be +tarnished.” + +“Ah!” said the Angel absently; “what is happening now?” + +“The jury are considering their verdict. The conclusion is, however, +foregone, for they are not retiring. The plaintiff is now using her +smelling salts.” + +“She is a fine woman,” said the Angel emphatically. + +“Hush, sir! The judge might hear you.” + +“What if he does?” asked the Angel in surprise. + +“He would then eject you for contempt of Court.” + +“Does he not think her a fine woman, too?” + +“For the love of justice, sir, be silent,” entreated his dragoman. +“This concerns the happiness of three, if not of five, lives. Look! She +is lifting her veil; she is going to use her handkerchief.” + +“I cannot bear to see a woman cry,” said the Angel, trying to rise; +“please take this lady off my left wing.” + +“Kindly sit tight!” murmured his dragoman to the lady, leaning across +behind the Angel’s back. “Listen, sir!” he added to the Angel: “The +jury are satisfied that what is necessary has taken place. All is well; +she will get her decree.” + +“Hurrah!” said the Angel in a loud voice. + +“If that noise is repeated, I will have the Court cleared.” + +“I am going to repeat it,” said the Angel firmly; “she is beautiful!” + +His dragoman placed a hand respectfully over the Angel’s mouth. “Oh, +sir!” he said soothingly, “do not spoil this charming moment. Hark! He +is giving her a decree _nisi_, with costs. To-morrow it will be in all +the papers, for it helps to sell them. See! She is withdrawing; we can +now go.” And he disengaged the Angel’s wing. + +The Angel rose quickly and made his way towards the door. “I am going +to walk out with her,” he announced joyously. + +“I beseech you,” said his dragoman, hurrying beside him, “remember the +King’s Proctor! Where is your chivalry? For _he_ has none, sir--not a +little bit!” + +“Bring him to me; I will give it him!” said the Angel, kissing the tips +of his fingers to the plaintiff, who was vanishing in the gloom of the +fresh air. + + +VII + +In the Strangers’ room of the Strangers’ Club the usual solitude was +reigning when the Angel Æthereal entered. + +“You will be quiet here,” said his dragoman, drawing up two leather +chairs to the hearth, “and comfortable,” he added, as the Angel crossed +his legs. “After our recent experience, I thought it better to bring +you where your mind would be composed, since we have to consider so +important a subject as morality. There is no place, indeed, where we +could be so completely sheltered from life, or so free to evolve from +our inner consciousness the momentous conclusions of the armchair +moralist. When you have had your sneeze,” he added, glancing at the +Angel, who was taking snuff, “I shall make known to you the conclusions +I have formed in the course of a chequered career.” + +“Before you do that,” said the Angel, “it would perhaps be as well to +limit the sphere of our inquiry.” + +“As to that,” remarked his dragoman, “I shall confine my information to +the morals of the English since the opening of the Great Skirmish, in +1914, just a short generation of three and thirty years ago; and you +will find my theme readily falls, sir, into the two main compartments +of public and private morality. When I have finished you can ask me any +questions.” + +“Proceed!” said the Angel, letting his eyelids droop. + +“Public morality,” his dragoman began, “is either superlative, +comparative, positive, or negative. And superlative morality is found, +of course, only in the newspapers. It is the special prerogative of +leader writers. Its note, remote and unchallengeable, was well struck +by almost every organ at the commencement of the Great Skirmish, and +may be summed up in a single solemn phrase: ‘We will sacrifice on the +altar of duty the last life and the last dollar--except the last life +and dollar of the last leader-writer.’ For, as all must see, that +one had to be preserved, to ensure and comment on the consummation +of the sacrifice. What loftier morality can be conceived? And it has +ever been a grief to the multitude that the lives of those patriots +and benefactors of their species should, through modesty, have been +unrevealed to such as pant to copy them. Here and there the lineaments +of a tip-topper were discernible beneath the disguise of custom; but +what fair existences were screened! I may tell you at once, sir, that +the State was so much struck at the time of the Great Skirmish by this +doctrine of the utter sacrifice of others that it almost immediately +adopted the idea, and has struggled to retain it ever since. Indeed, +only the unaccountable reluctance of ‘others’ to be utterly sacrificed +has ensured their perpetuity.” + +“In 1910,” said the Angel, “I happened to notice that the Prussians had +already perfected that system. Yet it was against the Prussians that +this country fought?” + +“That is so,” returned his dragoman; “there were many who drew +attention to the fact. And at the conclusion of the Great Skirmish +the reaction was such that for a long moment even the leader-writers +wavered in their selfless doctrines; nor could continuity be secured +till the Laborious Party came solidly to the saddle in 1930. Since +then the principle has been firm but the practice has been firmer, and +public morality has never been altogether superlative. Let us pass to +comparative public morality. In the days of the Great Skirmish this +was practised by those with names, who told others what to do. This +large and capable body included all the preachers, publicists, and +politicians of the day, and in many cases there is even evidence that +they would have been willing to practise what they preached if their +age had not been so venerable or their directive power so invaluable.” + +“_In_-valuable,” murmured the Angel; “has that word a negative +signification?” + +“Not in all cases,” said his dragoman with a smile; “there were men +whom it would have been difficult to replace, though not many, and +those perhaps the least comparatively moral. In this category, too, +were undoubtedly the persons known as conchies.” + +“From conch, a shell?” asked the Angel. + +“Not precisely,” returned his dragoman; “and yet you have hit it, +sir, for into their shells they certainly withdrew, refusing to have +anything to do with this wicked world. Sufficient unto them was the +voice within. They were not well treated by an unfeeling populace.” + +“This is interesting to me,” said the Angel. “To what did they object?” + +“To war,” replied his dragoman. “‘What is it to us,’ they said, +‘that there should be barbarians like these Prussians, who override +the laws of justice and humanity?’--words, sir, very much in vogue in +those days. ‘How can it effect our principles if these rude foreigners +have not our views, and are prepared, by cutting off the food +supplies of this island, to starve us into submission to their rule? +Rather than turn a deaf ear to the voice within we are prepared for +general starvation; whether we are prepared for the starvation of our +individual selves we cannot, of course, say until we experience it. But +we hope for the best, and believe that we shall go through with it to +death, in the undesired company of all who do not agree with us.’ And +it is certain, sir, that some of them were capable of this; for there +is, as you know, a type of man who will die rather than admit that his +views are too extreme to keep himself and his fellow-men alive.” + +“How entertaining!” said the Angel. “Do such persons still exist?” + +“Oh! yes,” replied the dragoman; “and always will. Nor is it, in my +opinion, altogether to the disadvantage of mankind, for they afford a +salutary warning to the human species not to isolate itself in fancy +from the realities of existence and extinguish human life before its +time has come. We shall now consider the positively moral. At the +time of the Great Skirmish these were such as took no sugar in their +tea and invested all they had in War Stock at five per cent. without +waiting for what were called Premium Bonds to be issued. They were a +large and healthy group, more immediately concerned with commerce than +the war. But the largest body of all were the negatively moral. These +were they who did what they crudely called ‘their bit,’ which I may +tell you, sir, was often very bitter. I myself was a ship’s steward +at the time, and frequently swallowed much salt water, owing to the +submarines. But I was not to be deterred, and would sign on again when +it had been pumped out of me. Our morality was purely negative, if not +actually low. We acted, as it were, from instinct, and often wondered +at the sublime sacrifices which were being made by our betters. Most +of us were killed or injured in one way or another; but a blind and +obstinate mania for not giving in possessed us. We were a simple lot.” +The dragoman paused and fixed his eyes on the empty hearth. “I will not +disguise from you,” he added “that we were fed-up nearly all the time; +and yet--we couldn’t stop. Odd, was it not?” + +“I wish I had been with you,” said the Angel, “for--to use that word +without which you English seem unable to express anything--you were +heroes.” + +“Sir,” said his dragoman, “you flatter us by such encomium. We were, +I fear, dismally lacking in commercial spirit, just men and women in +the street having neither time nor inclination to examine our conduct +and motives, nor to question or direct the conduct of others. Purely +negative beings, with perhaps a touch of human courage and human +kindliness in us. All this, however, is a tale of long ago. You can now +ask me any questions, sir, before I pass to private morality.” + +“You allude to courage and kindliness,” said the Angel: “How do these +qualities now stand?” + +“The quality of courage,” responded his dragoman, “received a set-back +in men’s estimation at the time of the Great Skirmish, from which it +has never properly recovered. For physical courage was then, for the +first time, perceived to be most excessively common; it is, indeed, +probably a mere attribute of the bony chin, especially prevalent in the +English-speaking races. As to moral courage, it was so hunted down that +it is still somewhat in hiding. Of kindliness there are, as you know, +two sorts: that which people manifest towards their own belongings; and +that which they do not as a rule manifest towards every one else.” + +“Since we attended the Divorce Court,” remarked the Angel with +deliberation, “I have been thinking. And I fancy no one can be really +kind unless they have had matrimonial trouble, preferably in conflict +with the law.” + +“A new thought to me,” observed his dragoman attentively; “and yet +you may be right, for there is nothing like being morally outcast to +make you feel the intolerance of others. But that brings us to private +morality.” + +“Quite!” said the Angel, with relief. “I forgot to ask you this morning +how the ancient custom of marriage was now regarded in the large?” + +“Not indeed as a sacrament,” replied his dragoman; “such a view was +becoming rare already at the time of the Great Skirmish. Yet the notion +might have been preserved but for the opposition of the Pontifical of +those days to the reform of the Divorce Laws. When principle opposes +common sense too long, a landslide follows.” + +“Of what nature, then, is marriage now?” + +“Purely a civil, or uncivil, contract, as the case may be. The holy +state of judicial separation, too, has long been unknown.” + +“Ah!” said the Angel, “that was the custom by which the man became a +monk and the lady a nun, was it not?” + +“In theory, sir,” replied his dragoman, “but in practice not a little +bit, as you may well suppose. The Pontifical, however, and the women, +old and otherwise, who supported them, had but small experience of +life to go on, and honestly believed that they were punishing those +still-married but erring persons who were thus separated. These, on the +contrary, almost invariably assumed that they were justified in free +companionships, nor were they particular to avoid promiscuity! So it +ever is, sir, when the great laws of Nature are violated in deference +to the Higher Doctrine.” + +“Are children still-born out of wedlock?” asked the Angel. + +“Yes,” said his dragoman, “but no longer considered responsible for the +past conduct of their parents.” + +“Society, then, is more humane?” + +“Well, sir, we shall not see the Millennium in that respect for some +years to come. Zoos are still permitted, and I read only yesterday a +letter from a Scottish gentleman pouring scorn on the humane proposal +that prisoners should be allowed to see their wives once a month +without bars or the presence of a third party; precisely as if we still +lived in the days of the Great Skirmish. Can you tell me why it is that +such letters are always written by Scotsmen?” + +“Is it a riddle?” asked the Angel. + +“It is indeed, sir.” + +“Then it bores me. Speaking generally, are you satisfied with current +virtue now that it is a State matter, as you informed me yesterday?” + +“To tell you the truth, sir, I do not judge my neighbours; sufficient +unto myself is the vice thereof. But one thing I observe, the less +virtuous people assume themselves to be, the more virtuous they +commonly are. Where the lime-light is not, the flower blooms. Have +you not frequently noticed that they who day by day cheerfully endure +most unpleasant things, while helping their neighbours at the expense +of their own time and goods, are often rendered lyrical by receiving +a sovereign from some one who would never miss it, and are ready to +enthrone him in their hearts as a king of men? The truest virtue, sir, +must be sought among the lowly. Sugar and snow may be seen on the top, +but for the salt of the earth one must look to the bottom.” + +“I believe you,” said the Angel. “It is probably harder for a man in +the lime-light to enter virtue than for the virtuous to enter the +lime-light. Ha, ha! Is the good old custom of buying honour still +preserved?” + +“No, sir; honour is now only given to such as make themselves too noisy +to be endured, and saddles the recipient with an obligation to preserve +public silence for a period not exceeding three years. That maximum +sentence is given for a dukedom. It is reckoned that few can survive so +fearful a term.” + +“Concerning the morality of this new custom,” said the Angel, “I feel +doubtful. It savours of surrender to the bully and the braggart, does +it not?” + +“Rather to the bore, sir; not necessarily the same thing. But whether +men be decorated for making themselves useful, or troublesome, the +result in either case is to secure a comparative inertia, which has +ever been the desideratum; for you must surely be aware, sir, how a +man’s dignity weighs him down.” + +“Are women also rewarded in this way?” + +“Yes, and very often; for although their dignity is already ample, +their tongues are long, and they have little shame and no nerves in +the matter of public speaking.” + +“And what price their virtue?” asked the Angel. + +“There is some change since the days of the Great Skirmish,” responded +his dragoman. “They do not now so readily sell it, except for a +wedding-ring; and many marry for love. Women, indeed, are often +deplorably lacking in commercial spirit; and though they now mix in +commerce, have not yet been able to adapt themselves. Some men even go +so far as to think that their participation in active life is not good +for trade and keeps the country back.” + +“They are a curious sex,” said the Angel; “I like them, but they make +too much fuss about babies.” + +“Ah! sir; there is the great flaw. The mother instinct--so heedless and +uncommercial! They seem to love the things just for their own sakes.” + +“Yes,” said the Angel, “there’s no future in it. Give me a cigar.” + + +VIII + +“What, then, is the present position of ‘the good’?” asked the Angel +Æthereal, taking wing from Watchester Cathedrome towards the City +Tabernacle. + +“There are a number of discordant views, sir,” his dragoman whiffled +through his nose in the rushing air; “which is no more novel in +this year of Peace 1947 than it was when you were here in 1910. On +the far right are certain extremists, who believe it to be what it +was--omnipotent, but suffering the presence of ‘the bad’ for no reason +which has yet been ascertained; omnipresent, though presumably absent +where ‘the bad’ is present; mysterious, though perfectly revealed; +terrible, though loving; eternal, though limited by a beginning and +an end. They are not numerous, but all stall-holders, and chiefly +characterised by an almost perfect intolerance of those whose views +do not coincide with their own; nor will they suffer for a moment +any examination into the nature of ‘the good,’ which they hold to be +established for all time, in the form I have stated, by persons who +have long been dead. They are, as you may imagine, somewhat out of +touch with science, such as it is, and are regarded by the community at +large rather with curiosity than anything else.” + +“The type is well known in the sky,” said the Angel. “Tell me: Do they +torture those who do not agree with them?” + +“Not materially,” responded his dragoman. “Such a custom was extinct +even before the days of the Great Skirmish, though what would have +happened if the Patriotic or Prussian Party had been able to keep power +for any length of time we cannot tell. As it is, the torture they +apply is purely spiritual, and consists in looking down their noses at +all who have not their belief and calling them erratics. But it would +be a mistake to underrate their power, for human nature loves the +Pontifical, and there are those who will follow to the death any one +who looks down his nose, and says: ‘I know!’ Moreover, sir, consider +how unsettling a question ‘the good’ is, when you come to think about +it and how unfatiguing the faith which precludes all such speculation.” + +“That is so,” said the Angel thoughtfully. + +“The right centre,” continued his dragoman, “is occupied by the +small yet noisy Fifth Party. These are they who play the cornet and +tambourine, big drum and concertina, descendants of the Old Prophet, +and survivors of those who, following a younger prophet, joined +them at the time of the Great Skirmish. In a form ever modifying +with scientific discovery they hold that ‘the good’ is a superman, +bodiless yet bodily, with a beginning but without an end. It is an +attractive faith, enabling them to say to Nature: ‘_Je m’en fiche +de tout cela_. My big brother will look after me. Pom!’ One may +call it anthropomorphia, for it seems especially soothing to strong +personalities. Every man to his creed, as they say; and I would never +wish to throw cold water on such as seek to find ‘the good’ by closing +one eye instead of two, as is done by the extremists on the right.” + +“You are tolerant,” said the Angel. + +“Sir,” said his dragoman, “as one gets older, one perceives more +and more how impossible it is for man not to regard himself as the +cause of the universe, and for certain individual men not to believe +themselves the centre of the cause. For such to start a new belief is +a biological necessity, and should by no means be discouraged. It is a +safety-valve--the form of passion which the fires of youth take in men +after the age of fifty, as one may judge by the case of the prophet +Tolstoy and other great ones. But to resume: In the centre, of course, +are situated the enormous majority of the community, whose view is that +they have no view of what ‘the good’ is.” + +“None?” repeated the Angel Æthereal, somewhat struck. + +“Not the faintest,” answered his dragoman. “These are the only true +mystics; for what is a mystic if not one with an impenetrable belief in +the mystery of his own existence? This group embraces the great bulk +of the Laborious. It is true that many of them will repeat what is told +them of ‘the good’ as if it were their own view, without compunction, +but this is no more than the majority of persons have done from the +beginning of time.” + +“Quite,” admitted the Angel; “I have observed that phenomenon in the +course of my travels. We will not waste words on them.” + +“Ah, sir!” retorted his dragoman, “there is more wisdom in these +persons than you imagine. For, consider what would be the fate of their +brains if they attempted to think for themselves. Moreover, as you +know, all definite views about ‘the good’ are very wearing, and it is +better, so this great majority thinks, to let sleeping dogs lie than +to have them barking in its head. But I will tell you something,” the +dragoman added: “These innumerable persons have a secret belief of +their own, old as the Greeks, that good fellowship is all that matters. +And, in my opinion, taking ‘the good’ in its limited sense, it is an +admirable creed.” + +“Oh! cut on!” said the Angel. + +“My mistake, sir!” said his dragoman. “On the left centre are grouped +that increasing section whose view is that since everything is very +bad, ‘the good’ is ultimate extinction--‘Peace, perfect peace,’ as the +poet says. You will recollect the old tag: ‘To be or not to be.’ These +are they who have answered that question in the negative; pessimists +masquerading to an unsuspecting public as optimists. They are no doubt +descendants of such as used to be called ‘Theosophians,’ a sect which +presupposed everything and then desired to be annihilated; or, again, +of the Christian Scientites, who simply could not bear things as they +were, so set themselves to think they were not, with some limited +amount of success, if I remember rightly. I recall to mind the case of +a lady who lost her virtue, and recovered it by dint of remembering +that she had no body.” + +“Curious!” said the Angel. “I should like to question her; let me have +her address after the lecture. Does the theory of reincarnation still +obtain?” + +“I do not wonder, sir, that you are interested in the point, for +believers in that doctrine are compelled, by the old and awkward +rule that ‘Two and two make four,’ to draw on other spheres for the +reincarnation of their spirits.” + +“I do not follow,” said the Angel. + +“It is simple, however,” answered his dragoman, “for at one time on +earth, as is admitted, there was no life. The first incarnation, +therefore--an amœba, we used to be told--enclosed a spirit, possibly +from above. It may, indeed, have been yours, sir. Again, at some time +on this earth, as is admitted, there will again be no life; the last +spirit will therefore flit to an incarnation, possibly below; and +again, sir, who knows, it may be yours.” + +“I cannot jest on such a subject,” said the Angel, with a sneeze. + +“No offence,” murmured his dragoman. “The last group, on the far left, +to which indeed I myself am not altogether unaffiliated, is composed +of a small number of extremists, who hold that ‘the good’ is things +as they are--pardon the inevitable flaw in grammar. They consider +that what is now has always been, and will always be; that things do +but swell and contract and swell again, and so on for ever and ever; +and that, since they could not swell if they did not contract, since +without the black there could not be the white, nor pleasure without +pain, nor virtue without vice, nor criminals without judges; even +contraction, or the black, or pain, or vice, or judges, are not ‘the +bad,’ but only negatives; and that all is for the best in the best of +all possible worlds. They are Voltairean optimists masquerading to an +unsuspecting population as pessimists. ‘Eternal Variation’ is their +motto.” + +“I gather,” said the Angel, “that these think there is no purpose in +existence?” + +“Rather, sir, that existence _is_ the purpose. For, if you consider, +any other conception of purpose implies fulfilment, or an _end_, which +they do not admit, just as they do not admit a beginning.” + +“How logical!” said the Angel. “It makes me dizzy! You have renounced +the idea of climbing, then?” + +“Not so,” responded his dragoman. “We climb to the top of the pole, +slide imperceptibly down, and begin over again; but since we never +really know whether we are climbing or sliding, this does not depress +us.” + +“To believe that this goes on for ever is futile,” said the Angel. + +“So we are told,” replied his dragoman, without emotion. “_We_ think, +however, that the truth is with us, in spite of jesting Pilate.” + +“It is not for me,” said the Angel with dignity, “to argue with my +dragoman.” + +“No, sir, for it is always necessary to beware of the open mind. I +myself find it very difficult to believe the same thing every day. +And the fact that is whatever you believe will probably not alter the +truth, which may be said to have a certain mysterious immutability, +considering the number of efforts men have made to change it from +time to time. We are now, however, just above the City Tabernacle, +and if you will close your wings we shall penetrate it through the +claptrap-door which enables its preachers now and then to ascend to +higher spheres.” + +“Stay!” said the Angel; “let me float a minute while I suck a +peppermint, for the audiences in these places often have colds.” And +with that delicious aroma clinging to them they made their entry +through a strait gate in the roof and took their seats in the front +row, below a tall prophet in eyeglasses, who was discoursing on the +stars. The Angel slept heavily. + +“You have lost a good thing, sir,” said his dragoman reproachfully, +when they left the Tabernacle. + +“In my opinion,” the Angel playfully responded, “I won a better, for I +went nap. What can a mortal know about the stars?” + +“Believe me,” answered his dragoman, “the subject is not more abstruse +than is generally chosen.” + +“If he had taken religion I should have listened with pleasure,” said +the Angel. + +“Oh! sir, but in these days such a subject is unknown in a place of +worship. Religion is now exclusively a State affair. The change began +with discipline and the Education Bill in 1918, and has gradually +crystallised ever since. It is true that individual extremists on the +right make continual endeavours to encroach on the functions of the +State, but they preach to empty houses.” + +“And the Deity?” said the Angel: “You have not once mentioned Him. It +has struck me as curious.” + +“Belief in the Deity,” responded his dragoman, “perished shortly after +the Great Skirmish, during which there was too active and varied an +effort to revive it. Action, as you know, sir, always brings reaction, +and it must be said that the spiritual propaganda of those days was +so grossly tinged with the commercial spirit that it came under the +head of profiteering and earned for itself a certain abhorrence. For +no sooner had the fears and griefs brought by the Great Skirmish faded +from men’s spirits than they perceived that their new impetus towards +the Deity had been directed purely by the longing for protection, +solace, comfort, and reward, and not by any real desire for ‘the good’ +in itself. It was this truth, together with the appropriation of the +word by Emperors, and the expansion of our towns, a process ever +destructive of traditions, which brought about extinction of belief in +His existence.” + +“It was a large order,” said the Angel. + +“It was more a change of nomenclature,” replied his dragoman. “The +ruling motive for belief in ‘the good’ is still the hope of getting +something out of it--the commercial spirit is innate.” + +“Ah!” said the Angel, absently. “Can we have another lunch now? I could +do with a slice of beef.” + +“An admirable idea, sir,” replied his dragoman, “we will have it in the +White City.” + + +IX + +“What in your opinion is the nature of happiness?” asked the Angel +Æthereal, as he finished his second bottle of Bass, in the grounds of +the White City. The dragoman regarded his angel with one eye. + +“The question is not simple, sir, though often made the subject of +symposiums in the more intellectual journals. Even now, in the middle +of the twentieth century, some still hold that it is a by-product of +fresh air and liquor. The Old and Merrie England indubitably procured +it from those elements. Some, again, imagine it to follow from high +thinking and low living, while no mean number believe that it depends +on women.” + +“Their absence or their presence?” asked the Angel, with interest. + +“Some this and others that. But for my part, it is not altogether the +outcome of these causes.” + +“Is this now a happy land?” + +“Sir,” returned his dragoman, “all things earthly are comparative.” + +“Get on with it,” said the Angel. + +“I will comply,” responded his dragoman reproachfully, “if you will +permit me first to draw your third cork. And let me say in passing that +even your present happiness is comparative, or possibly superlative, as +you will know when you have finished this last bottle. It may or may +not be greater; we shall see.” + +“We shall,” said the Angel, resolutely. + +“You ask me whether this land is happy; but must we not first decide +what happiness is? And how difficult this will be you shall soon +discover. For example, in the early days of the Great Skirmish, +happiness was reputed non-existent; every family was plunged into +anxiety or mourning; and, though this to my own knowledge was not the +case, such as were not pretended to be. Yet, strange as it may appear, +the shrewd observer of those days was unable to remark any indication +of added gloom. Certain creature comforts, no doubt, were scarce, but +there was no lack of spiritual comfort, which high minds have ever +associated with happiness; nor do I here allude to liquor. What, then, +was the nature of this spiritual comfort, you will certainly be asking. +I will tell you, and in seven words: People forgot themselves and +remembered other people. Until those days it had never been realised +what a lot of medical men could be spared from the civil population; +what a number of clergymen, lawyers, stockbrokers, artists, writers, +politicians, and other persons, whose work in life is to cause people +to think about themselves, never would be missed. Invalids knitted +socks and forgot to be unwell; old gentlemen read the papers and forgot +to talk about their food; people travelled in trains and forgot not +to fall into conversation with each other; merchants became special +constables and forgot to differ about property; the House of Lords +remembered its dignity and forgot its impudence; the House of Commons +almost forgot to chatter. The case of the working-man was the most +striking of all--he forgot he was the working man. The very dogs forgot +themselves, though that, to be sure, was no novelty, as the Irish +writer demonstrated in his terrific outburst: ‘On my doorstep.’ But +time went on, and hens in their turn forgot to lay, ships to return to +port, cows to give enough milk, and Governments to look ahead, till the +first flush of self-forgetfulness which had dyed peoples’ cheeks----” + +“Died on them,” put in the Angel, with a quiet smile. + +“You take my meaning, sir,” said his dragoman, “though I should not +have worded it so happily. But certainly the return to self began, and +people used to think: ‘The war is not so bloody as I thought, for I am +getting better money than I ever did; and the longer it lasts the more +I shall get, and for the sake of this I am prepared to endure much.’ +The saying ‘Beef and beer, for soon you must put up the shutters,’ +became the motto of all classes. ‘If I am to be shot, drowned, bombed, +ruined, or starved to-morrow,’ they said, ‘I had better eat, drink, +marry, and buy jewellery to-day.’ And so they did, in spite of the +dreadful efforts of one bishop and two gentlemen who presided over +the important question of food. They did not, it is true, relax their +manual efforts to accomplish the defeat of their enemies or ‘win the +war,’ as it was somewhat loosely called; but they no longer worked with +their spirits, which, with a few exceptions, went to sleep. For, sir, +the spirit, like the body, demands regular repose, and in my opinion is +usually the first of the two to snore. Before the Great Skirmish came +at last to its appointed end the snoring from spirits in this country +might have been heard in the moon. People thought of little but money, +revenge, and what they could get to eat, though the word ‘sacrifice’ +was so accustomed to their lips that they could no more get it off them +than the other forms of lip-salve, increasingly in vogue. They became +very merry. And the question I would raise is this: By which of these +two standards shall we assess the word ‘happiness’? Were these people +happy when they mourned and thought not of self; or when they married +and thought of self all the time?” + +“By the first standard,” replied the Angel, with kindling eyes. +“Happiness is undoubtedly nobility.” + +“Not so fast, sir,” replied his dragoman; “for I have frequently met +with nobility in distress; and, indeed, the more exalted and refined +the mind, the unhappier is frequently the owner thereof, for to him are +visible a thousand cruelties and mean injustices which lower natures do +not perceive.” + +“Hold!” exclaimed the Angel: “This is blasphemy against Olympus, ‘The +Spectator,’ and other High-Brows.” + +“Sir,” replied his dragoman gravely, “I am not one of those who accept +gilded doctrines without examination; I read in the Book of Life rather +than in the million tomes written by men to get away from their own +unhappiness.” + +“I perceive,” said the Angel, with a shrewd glance, “that you have +something up your sleeve. Shake it out!” + +“My conclusion is this, sir,” returned his dragoman, well pleased: +“Man is only happy when he is living at a certain pressure of life +to the square inch; in other words, when he is so absorbed in what +he is doing, making, saying, thinking, or dreaming, that he has lost +self-consciousness. If there be upon him any ill--such as toothache or +moody meditation--so poignant as to prevent him losing himself in the +interest of the moment, then he is not happy. Nor must he merely think +himself absorbed, but actually be so, as are two lovers sitting under +one umbrella, or he who is just making a couplet rhyme.” + +“Would you say then,” insinuated the Angel, “that a man is happy when +he meets a mad bull in a narrow lane? For there will surely be much +pressure of life to the square inch.” + +“It does not follow,” responded his dragoman; “for at such moments +one is prone to stand apart, pitying himself and reflecting on the +unevenness of fortune. But if he collects himself and meets the +occasion with spirit he will enjoy it until, while sailing over +the hedge, he has leisure to reflect once more. It is clear to +me,” he proceeded, “that the fruit of the tree of knowledge in the +old fable was not, as has hitherto been supposed by a puritanical +people, the mere knowledge of sex, but symbolised rather general +self-consciousness; for I have little doubt that Adam and Eve sat +together under one umbrella long before they discovered they had no +clothes on. Not until they became self-conscious about things at large +did they become unhappy.” + +“Love is commonly reputed by some, and power by others, to be the keys +of happiness,” said the Angel, regardless of his grammar. + +“Duds,” broke in his dragoman. “For love and power are only two of +the various paths to absorption, or unconsciousness of self; mere +methods by which men of differing natures succeed in losing their +self-consciousness, for he who, like Saint Francis, loves all creation, +has no time to be conscious of loving himself, and he who rattles the +sword and rules like Bill Kaser, has no time to be conscious that he is +not ruling himself. I do not deny that such men may be happy, but not +because of the love or the power. No, it is because they are loving or +ruling with such intensity that they forget themselves in doing it.” + +“There is much in what you say,” said the Angel thoughtfully. “How do +you apply it to the times and land in which you live?” + +“Sir,” his dragoman responded, “the Englishman never has been, and is +not now, by any means so unhappy as he looks, for, where you see a +furrow in the brow, or a mouth a little open, it portends absorption +rather than thoughtfulness--unless, indeed, it means adenoids--and is +the mark of a naturally self-forgetful nature; nor should you suppose +that poverty and dirt which abound, as you see, even under the sway of +the Laborious, is necessarily deterrent to the power of living in the +moment; it may even be a symptom of that habit. The unhappy are more +frequently the clean and leisured, especially in times of peace, when +they have little to do save sit under mulberry trees, invest money, pay +their taxes, wash, fly, and think about themselves. Nevertheless, many +of the Laborious also live at half-cock, and cannot be said to have +lost consciousness of self.” + +“Then democracy is not synonymous with happiness?” asked the Angel. + +“Dear sir,” replied his dragoman, “I know they said so at the time of +the Great Skirmish. But they said so much that one little one like that +hardly counted. I will let you into a secret. We have not yet achieved +democracy, either here or anywhere else. The old American saying about +it is all very well, but since not one man in ten has any real opinion +of his own on any subject on which he votes, he cannot, with the best +will in the world, put it on record. Not until he learns to have and +record his own real opinion will he truly govern himself for himself, +which is, as you know, the test of true democracy?” + +“I am getting fuddled,” said the Angel. “What is it you want to make +you happy?” + +His dragoman sat up: “If I am right,” he purred, “in my view that +happiness is absorption, our problem is to direct men’s minds to +absorption in right and pleasant things. An American making a corner in +wheat is absorbed and no doubt happy, yet he is an enemy of mankind, +for his activity is destructive. We should seek to give our minds to +creation, to activities good for others as well as for ourselves, to +simplicity, pride in work, and forgetfulness of self in every walk of +life. We should do things for the sheer pleasure of doing them, and not +for what they may or may not be going to bring us in, and be taught +always to give our whole minds to it; in this way only will the edge of +our appetite for existence remain as keen as a razor which is stropped +every morning by one who knows how. On the negative side we should be +brought up to be kind, to be clean, to be moderate, and to love good +music, exercise, and fresh air.” + +“That sounds a bit of all right,” said the Angel. “What measures are +being taken in these directions?” + +“It has been my habit, sir, to study the Education Acts of my country +ever since that which was passed at the time of the Great Skirmish; +but, with the exception of exercise, I have not as yet been able to +find any direct allusion to these matters. Nor is this surprising when +you consider that education is popularly supposed to be, not for the +acquisition of happiness, but for the good of trade or the promotion +of acute self-consciousness through what we know as culture. If by any +chance there should arise a President of Education so enlightened as to +share my views, it would be impossible for him to mention the fact for +fear of being sent to Colney Hatch.” + +“In that case,” asked the Angel, “you do not believe in the progress of +your country?” + +“Sir,” his dragoman replied earnestly, “you have seen this land for +yourself and have heard from me some account of its growth from the +days when you were last on earth, shortly before the Great Skirmish; +it will not have escaped your eagle eye that this considerable +event has had some influence in accelerating the course of its +progression; and you will have noticed how, notwithstanding the most +strenuous intentions at the close of that tragedy, we have yielded +to circumstance and in every direction followed the line of least +resistance.” + +“I have a certain sympathy with that,” said the Angel, with a yawn; “it +is so much easier.” + +“So we have found; and our country has got along, perhaps, as well as +one could have expected, considering what it has had to contend with: +pressure of debt; primrose paths; pelf; party; patrio-Prussianism; +the people; pundits; Puritans; proctors; property; philosophers; the +Pontifical; and progress. I will not disguise from you, however, that +we are far from perfection; and it may be that on your next visit, +thirty-seven years hence, we shall be further. For, however it may be +with angels, sir, with men things do not stand still; and, as I have +tried to make clear to you, in order to advance in body and spirit, it +is necessary to be masters of your environment and discoveries instead +of letting them be masters of you. Wealthy again we may be, healthy and +happy we are not, as yet.” + +“I have finished my beer,” said the Angel Æthereal with finality, +“and am ready to rise. You have nothing to drink! Let me give you a +testimonial instead!” Pulling a quill from his wing, he dipped it in +the mustard and wrote: “A Dry Dog--No Good For Trade” on his dragoman’s +white hat. “I shall now leave the earth,” he added. + +“I am pleased to hear it,” said his dragoman, “for I fancy that the +longer you stay the more vulgar you will become. I have noticed it +growing on you, sir, just as it does on us.” + +The Angel smiled. “Meet me by sunlight alone,” he said, “under the +left-hand lion in Trafalgar Square at this hour of this day, in 1984. +Remember me to the waiter, will you? So long!” And, without pausing for +a reply, he spread his wings, and soared away. + +“_L’homme moyen sensuel! Sic itur ad astra!_” murmured his dragoman +enigmatically, and, lifting his eyes, he followed the Angel’s flight +into the empyrean. + + + MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN. RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LTD., + PRINTERS, BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. + + + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [1] For “I” read “almost any one.”----J. G. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: + + + Italicized or underlined text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. + + Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. + + Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. + + New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the + public domain. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75431 *** |