{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6304/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6304","id":"gutenberg_6304","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6304","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Essays"],"text":"William Fishburne, Charles Aldarondo, and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team.\n\n\nWITHOUT PREJUDICE\n\nBY I. ZANGWILL\n\nAuthor Of \"The Master,\" \"Children Of The Ghetto\" Etc., Etc.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTO YOU\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_NOTE_\n\n_This book is a selection, slightly revised, from my miscellaneous work\nduring the last four or five years, and the title is that under which the\nbulk of it has appeared, month by month, in the \"Pall Mall Magazine.\" In\nselecting, I have omitted those pieces which hang upon other people's\nbooks, plays, or pictures--a process of exclusion which, while giving\nunity to a possible collection of my critical writings in another volume,\nleaves the first selection exclusively egoistic._\n\n_I.Z._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nI\n\nGOSSIPS AND FANTASIES\n\n\nI. A VISION OF THE BURDEN OF MAN: WHICH MAY SERVE TO INTRODUCE THE\n     INTRODUCTION\nII. TUNING UP\nIII. ART IN ENGLAND\nIV. BOHEMIA AND VERLAINE\nV. THE INDESTRUCTIBLES\nVI. CONCERNING GENERAL ELECTIONS\nVII. THE REALISTIC NOVEL\nVIII. IN DEFENCE OF GAMBLING\nIX. TRULY RURAL\nX. OPINIONS OF THE YOUNG FOGEY\nXI. CRITICS AND PEOPLE\nXII. TABLE-TALK\nXIII. THE ABOLITION OF MONEY\nXIV. MODERN MYTH-MAKING\nXV. THE PHILOSOPHY OF TOPSY-TURVYDOM\nXVI. GHOST-STORIES\nXVII. A THEORY OF TABLE-TURNING\nXVIII. SOCIETIES TO FOUND\nXIX. INDECENCY ON THE ENGLISH STAGE\nXX. LOVE IN LIFE AND LITERATURE\nXXI. DEATH AND MARRIAGE\nXXII. THE CHOICE OF PARENTS\nXXIII. PATER AND PROSE\nXXIV. THE INFLUENCE OF NAMES\nXXV. AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS\nXXVI. THE PENALTIES OF FAME\nXXVII. ON FINISHING A BOOK\n\n\n\nII\n\nHERE, THERE, AND SOMEWHERE ELSE: Philosophic Excursions\n\n\nI. ABERDEEN\nII. ANTWERP\nIII. BROADSTAIRS AND RAMSGATE\nIV. BUDAPEST\nV. CHICAGO\nVI. EDINBURGH\nVII. FIESOLE AND FLORENCE\nVIII. GLASGOW\nIX. HASLEMERE\nX. PARIS\nXL SLAPTON SANDS\nXII. VENICE\nXIII. VENTNOR\nXIV. SOMEWHERE ELSE\n\n\n\nIII\n\nAFTERTHOUGHTS: A Bundle of Brevities\n\n\nMOONSHINE\nCAPITAL\nCREDIT\nTHE SMALL BOY\nA DAY IN TOWN\nTHE PROFESSION OF CHARITY\nTHE PRIVILEGES OF POVERTY\nSALVATION FOR THE SERAPHIM\nTRUTH--LOCAL AND TEMPORAL\nTHE CREED OF DESPAIR\nSOCIAL BUGBEARS\nMARTYRS\nTHE LONDON SEASON\nTHE ACADEMY\nPORTRAITS OF GENTLEMEN\nPHOTOGRAPHY AND REALISM\nTHE GREAT UNHUNG\nTHE ABOLITION OF CATALOGUES\nTHE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT\nPROFESSIONAL ETHICS\nLAY CONFESSORS\nQ. E. D. NOVELS\nTHE MOUSE WHO DIED\nTHEOLOGIC NOVELS\nMUDIE MEASURE\nTHE PROP OF LETTERS\nTHE LATTER-DAY POET\nAN ATTACK OF ALLITERATION\nTHE HUMOROUS\nTHE DISCOUNT FARCE\nTHE FRANCHISE FARCE\nTHE MODERN WAR FARCE\nFIREWORKS\nTIME'S FORELOCK\nDIARIES\n\"LOOKING BACKWARD\"\nLONG LIVES\nVIVE LA MORT!\nMEN AND BOOKMEN\nJAMES I. ON TOBACCO\nA COUNTERBLAST TO JAMES I.\nVALEDICTORY\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPART I\n\nGOSSIPS AND FANTASIES\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nA VISION OF THE BURDEN OF MAN\n\nAnd it came to pass that my soul was vexed with the problems of life, so\nthat I could not sleep. So I opened a book by a lady novelist, and fell\nto reading therein. And of a sudden I looked up, and lo! a great host of\nwomen filled the chamber, which had become as the Albert Hall for\nmagnitude--women of all complexions, countries, times, ages, and sexes.\nSome were bewitching and beautiful, some wan and flat-breasted, some\nelegant and stately, some ugly and squat, some plain and whitewashed, and\nsome painted and decorated; women in silk gowns, and women in divided\nskirts, and women in widows' weeds, and women in knickerbockers, and\nwomen in ulsters, and women in furs, and women in crinolines, and women\nin tights, and women in rags; but every woman of them all in tears. The\ngreat chamber was full of a mighty babel; shouts and ululations, groans\nand moans, weeping and wailing and gnashing of false and genuine teeth,\nand tearing of hair both artificial and natural; and therewith the\nflutter of a myriad fans, and the rustle of a million powder-puffs. And\nthe air reeked with a thousand indescribable scents--patchouli and attar\nof roses and cherry blossom, and the heavy odours of hair-oil and dyes\nand cosmetics and patent medicines innumerable.\n\nNow when the women perceived me on my reading-chair in their midst, the\nshrill babel swelled to a savage thunder of menace, so that I deemed they\nwere wroth with me for intruding upon them in mine own house; but as mine\near grew accustomed to the babel of tongues, I became aware of the true\nimport of their ejaculations.\n\n\"O son of man!\" they cried, in various voices: \"thy cruel reign is over,\nthy long tyranny is done; thou hast glutted thyself with victims, thou\nhast got drunken on our hearts' blood, we have made sport for thee in our\nblindness. But the Light is come at last, the slow night has budded into\nthe rose of dawn, the masculine monster is in his death-throes, the\nkingdom of justice is at hand, the Doll's House has been condemned by the\nsanitary inspector.\"\n\nI strove to deprecate their wrath, but my voice was as the twitter of a\nsparrow in a hurricane. At length I ruffled my long hair to a leonine\nmane, and seated myself at the piano. And lo! straightway there fell a\ndeep silence--you could have heard a hairpin drop.\n\n\"What would you have me do, O daughters of Eve?\" I cried. \"What is my\nsin? what my iniquity?\" Then the clamour recommenced with tenfold\nviolence, disappointment at the loss of a free performance augmenting\ntheir anger.\n\n\"Give me a husband,\" shrieked one.\n\n\"Give me a profession,\" shrieked another.\n\n\"Give me a divorce,\" shrieked a third.\n\n\"Give me free union,\" shrieked a fourth.\n\n\"Give me an income,\" shrieked a fifth.\n\n\"Give me my deceased sister's husband,\" shrieked a sixth.\n\n\"Give me my divorced husband's children,\" shrieked a seventh.\n\n\"Give me the right to paint from the nude in the Academy schools,\"\nshrieked an eighth.\n\n\"Give me an Oxford degree,\" shrieked a ninth.\n\n\"Give me a cigar,\" shrieked a tenth.\n\n\"Give me a vote,\" shrieked an eleventh.\n\n\"Give me a pair of trousers,\" shrieked a twelfth.\n\n\"Give me a seat in the House,\" shrieked a thirteenth.\n\n\"Daughters of the horse-leech,\" I made answer, taking advantage of a\nmomentary lull, \"I am not in a position to give away any of these things.\nYou had better ask at the Stores.\" But the tempest out-thundered me.\n\n\"I want to ride bareback in the Row in tights and spangles at 1 p. m. on\nSundays,\" shrieked a soberly clad suburban lady, who sported a\nwedding-ring. \"I want to move the world with my pen or the point of my\ntoe; I want to write, dance, sing, act, paint, sculpt, fence, row, ride,\nswim, hunt, shoot, fish, love all men from young rustic farmers to old\ntown _rou\u00e9s_, lead the Commons, keep a salon, a restaurant, and a\nzoological garden, row a boat in boy's costume, with a tenor by moonlight\nalone, and deluge Europe and Asia with blood shed for my intoxicating\nbeauty. I am primeval, savage, unlicensed, unchartered, unfathomable,\nunpetticoated, tumultuous, inexpressible, irrepressible, overpowering,\ncrude, mordant, pugnacious, polyandrous, sensual, fiery, chaste, modest,\nmarried, and misunderstood.\"\n\n\"But, madam,\" I remarked--for in her excitement she approached within\nearshot of me--\"I understand thee quite well, and I really am not\nresponsible for thy emotions.\" Her literary style beguiled me into the\nresponsive archaicism of the second person singular.\n\n\"Coward!\" she snapped. \"Coward and satyr! For centuries thou hast\ntrampled upon my sisters, and desecrated womanhood.\"\n\n\"I beg thy pardon,\" I rejoined mildly.\n\n\"Thou dost not deserve it,\" she interrupted.\n\n\"Thou art substituting hysteria for history,\" I went on. \"I was not born\nyesterday, but I have only scored a few years more than a quarter of one\ncentury, and seeing that my own mother was a woman, I must refuse to be\nheld accountable for the position of the sex.\"\n\n\"Sophist!\" she shrieked. \"It is thy apathy and selfishness that\nperpetuate the evil.\"\n\nThen I bethought me of my long vigils of work and thought, the slow,\nbitter years in which I \"ate my bread with tears, and sat weeping on my\nbed,\" and I remembered that some of those tears were for the sorrows of\nthat very sex which was now accusing me of organised injustice. But I\nreplied gently: \"I am no tyrant; I am a simple, peaceful citizen, and it\nis as much as I can do to earn my bread and the bread of some of thy sex.\nLife is hard enough for both sexes, without setting one against the\nother. We are both the outcome of the same great forces, and both of us\nhave our special selfishnesses, advantages, and drawbacks. If there is\nany cruelty, it is Nature's handiwork, not man's. So far from trampling\non womanhood, we have let a woman reign over us for more than half a\ncentury. We worship womanhood, we have celebrated woman in song, picture,\nand poem, and half civilisation has adored the Madonna. Let us have\nwoman's point of view and the truth about her psychology, by all means.\nBut beware lest she provoke us too far. The _Ewigweibliche_ has become\ntoo literal a fact, and in our reaction against this everlasting woman\nquestion we shall develop in unexpected directions. Her cry for equal\npurity will but end in the formal institution of the polygamy of the\nOrient--\"\n\nAs I spoke the figure before me appeared to be undergoing a\ntransformation, and, ere I had finished, I perceived I was talking to an\nangry, seedy man in a red muffler.\n\n\"Thee keeps down the proletariat,\" he interrupted venomously. \"Thee lives\non the sweat of his brow, while thee fattens at ease. Thee plants thy\nfoot on his neck.\"\n\n\"Do I?\" I exclaimed, lifting up my foot involuntarily.\n\nMistaking the motion, he disappeared, and in his stead I saw a withered\nold pauper with the Victoria Cross on his breast. \"I went to the mouth of\nhell for thee,\" he said, with large reproachful eyes; \"and thou leavest\nme to rot in the workhouse.\"\n\n\"I am awfully sorry!\" I said. \"I never heard of thee. It is the nation--\"\n\n\"The nation!\" he cried scornfully. \"_Thou_ art the nation; the nation is\nonly a collection of individuals. Thou art responsible. Thou art the\nman.\"\n\n\"Thou art the man,\" echoed a thousand voices: \"Society is only an\nabstraction.\" And, looking round, I saw, to my horror, that the women had\nquite disappeared, and their places were filled by men of all\ncomplexions, countries, times, ages, and sexes.\n\n\"I died in the streets,\" shouted an old cripple in the background--\"round\nthe corner from thy house, in thy wealthy parish--I died of starvation in\nthis nineteenth century of the Christian era, and a generation after\nDickens's 'Christmas Carol.'\"\n\n\"If I had only known!\" I murmured, while my eyes grew moist. \"Why didst\nthou not come to me?\"\n\n\"I was too proud to beg,\" he answered. \"The really poor never beg.\"\n\n\"Then how am I responsible?\" I retorted.\n\n\"How art thou responsible?\" cried the voices indignantly; and one\ndominating the rest added: \"I want work and can't get it. Dost thou call\nthyself civilised?\"\n\n\"Civilised?\" echoed a weedy young man scornfully.  \"I am a genius, yet I\nhave had nothing to eat all day. Thy congeners killed Keats and\nChatterton, and when I am dead thou wilt be sorry for what thou hast not\ndone.\"\n\n\"But hast thou published anything?\" I asked.\n\n\"How could I publish?\" he replied, indignantly.\n\n\"Then how could I be aware of thee?\" I inquired.\n\n\"But my great-grandfather _did_ publish,\" said another.  \"Thou goest into\necstacies over him, and his books have sold by tens of thousands; but me\nthou leavest pensionless, to earn my living as a cooper. Bah!\"\n\n\"And thou didst put _my_ father in prison,\" said another, \"for publishing\nthe works of a Continental novelist; but when the novelist himself comes\nhere, thou puttest him in the place of honour.\"\n\nI was fast growing overwhelmed with shame.\n\n\"Where is thy patriotism! Thou art letting some of the most unique\nBritish birds become extinct!\" \"Yes, and thou lettest Christmas cards be\nmade in Germany, and thou deridest Whistler, and refusest to read Dod\nGrile, and thou lettest books be published with the sheets pinned instead\nof sewn. And the way thou neglectest Coleridge's grave----\"\n\n\"Coleridge's grave?\" interrupted a sad-eyed enthusiast. \"Why, thou hast\nput no stone at all to mark where James Thomson lies!\"\n\n\"Thou Hun, thou Vandal!\" shrieked a fresh contingent of voices in\ndefiance of the late Professor Freeman. \"Thou hast allowed the Emanuel\nHospital to be knocked down, thou hast whitewashed the oaken ceiling of\nKing Charles's room at Dartmouth, and threatened to destroy the view from\nRichmond Hill. Thou hast smashed cathedral windows, or scratched thy name\non them, hast pulled down Roman walls, and allowed commons to be\ninclosed. Thou coverest the Lake District with advertisements of pills,\nand the blue heaven itself with sky-signs; and in thy passion for cheap\nand nasty pictorial journalism thou art allowing the art of\nwood-engraving to die out, even as thou acceptest photogravures instead\nof etchings.\"\n\nI cowered before their wrath, while renewed cries of \"Thou art\nresponsible! Thou! Thou!\" resounded from all sides.\n\n\"A pretty Christian _thou_ art!\" exclaimed another voice in unthinking\nvituperation. \"Thou decimatest savage tribes with rum and Maxim guns,\nthou makest money by corrupting the East with opium. Thou allowest the\nArmenians to be done to death, and thou wilt not put a stop to\nchild-marriages in India.\"\n\n\"But for thee I should have been alive to-day,\" broke in a venerable\nspirit hovering near the ceiling. \"If thou hadst refused to sell poison\nexcept in specially shaped bottles----\"\n\n\"What canst thou expect of a man who allows anybody to carry firearms?\"\ninterrupted another voice.\n\n\"Or who fills his newspaper with divorce cases?\"\n\n\"Is it any wonder the rising generation is cynical, and the young maiden\nof fifteen has ceased to be bashful?\"\n\n\"Shame on thee!\" hissed the chorus, and advanced upon me so threateningly\nthat I seized my hat and rushed from the room. But a burly being with a\nBlue Book blocked my way.\n\n\"Where didst thou get that hat?\" he cried. \"Doubtless from some sweating\nestablishment. And those clothes; didst thou investigate where they were\nmade?  didst thou inquire how much thy tailor paid his hands?  didst thou\nengage an accountant to examine his books?\"\n\n\"I--I am so busy,\" I stammered feebly.\n\n\"Shuffler! How knowest thou thou art not spreading to the world the germs\nof scarlet fever and typhoid picked up in the sweaters' dens?\"\n\n\"What cares _he_?\" cried a tall, thin man, with a slight stoop and gold\nspectacles. \"Does he not poison the air every day with the smoke of his\ncoal fires?\"\n\n\"Pison the air!\" repeated a battered, blear-eyed reprobate. \"He pisoned\nmy soul. He ruined me with promiskus charity. Whenever I was stoney-broke\n'e give me doles in aid, 'e did. 'E wos werry bad to me, 'e wos. 'E\ndestroyed my self-respeck, druv me to drink, broke up my home, and druv\nmy darters on the streets.\"\n\n\"This is what comes of undisciplined compassion,\" observed the\ngold-spectacled gentleman, glowering at me. \"The integrity and virtue of\na whole family sacrificed to the gratification of thy altruistic\nemotions!\"\n\n\"Stand out of the way!\" I cried to the burly man; \"I wish to leave my own\nhouse.\"\n\n\"And carry thy rudeness abroad?\" he retorted indignantly. \"Perchance thou\nwouldst like to go to the Continent, and swagger through Europe clad in\nthy loud-patterned checks and thine insular self-sufficiency.\"\n\nI tried to move him out of the way by brute force, and we wrestled, and\nhe threw me. I heard myself strike the floor with a thud.\n\nRubbing my eyes, instead of my back, I discovered that I was safe in my\nreading-chair, and that it was the lady novelist's novel that had made\nthe noise. I picked it up, but I still seemed to see the reproachful eyes\nof a thousand tormentors, and hear their objurgations. Yet I had none of\nthe emotions of Scrooge, no prickings of conscience, no ferment of good\nresolutions. Instead, I felt a wave of bitterness and indignation\nflooding my soul.\n\n\"I will _not_ be responsible for the universe!\" I cried to the ceiling.\n\"I am sick of the woman question, and the problem of man makes my gorge\nrise. Is there one question in the world that can really be settled? No,\nnot one, except by superficial thinkers. Just as the comprehensive\nexplanation of 'the flower in the crannied wall' is the explanation of\nthe whole universe, so every question is but a thin layer of ice over\ninfinite depths. You may touch it lightly, you may skate over it; but\npress it at all, and you sink into bottomless abysses. The simplest\ninterrogation is a doorway to chaos, to endless perspectives of winding\npaths perpetually turning upon themselves in a blind maze. Suppose one is\nbesought to sign a petition against capital punishment. A really\nconscientious and logical person, pursuing truth after the manner\nrecommended by Descartes, and professed by Huxley, could not settle this\nquestion for himself without going into the endless question of Free-will\n_versus_ Necessity, and studying the various systems of philosophy and\nethics. Murder may be due to insane impulse: Insanity must therefore be\nstudied. Moreover, ought not hanging to be abolished in cases of murder\nand reserved for more noxious crimes, such as those of fraudulent\ndirectors? This opens up new perspectives and new lines of study. The\nwhole theory of Punishment would also have to be gone into: should it be\nrestrictive, or revengeful, or reformative? (See Aristotle, Bentham,\nOwen, etc.) Incidentally great tracts of the science of Psychology are\ninvolved. And what right have we to interfere with our fellow-creatures\nat all? This opens up the vast domains of Law and Government, and\nrequires the perusal of Montesquieu, Bodin, Rousseau, Mill, etc., etc.\nSociology would also be called in to determine the beneficent or\nmaleficent influence of the death-punishment upon the popular mind; and\nstatistics would be required to trace the operation of the systems of\npunishment in various countries. History would be consulted to the same\neffect. The sanctity of human life being a religious dogma, the religions\nof the world would have to be studied, to see under what conditions it\nhas been thought permissible to destroy life. One ought not to rely on\ntranslations: Confucius should be read in Chinese, the Koran in Arabic,\nand the few years spent in the acquisition of Persian would be rewarded\nby a first-hand familiarity with the Zend Avesta. The Old Testament\nenjoins capital punishment. On what grounds, then, if one is leaning the\nother way, may a text be set aside that seems to settle the matter\npositively?  Here comes in the vast army of Bible commentators and\ntheologians. But perhaps the text is of late origin, interpolated. The\nDutch and German savants rise in their might, with their ingenious\ntheories and microscopic scholarship. But there are other scientists who\nbid us not heed the Bible at all, because it contradicts the latest\neditions of their primers. Is, then, science strictly accurate? To answer\nthis you must have a thorough acquaintance with biology, geology,\nastronomy, besides deciding for yourself between the conflicting views at\nnearly every point. By the time you have made up your mind as to whether\ncapital punishment should be abolished, it has passed out of the\nstatute-book, and you are dead, or mad, or murdered.\n\n\"But were this the only question a man has to settle in his short span of\nyears, he might cheerfully engage in its solution. But life bristles with\na hundred questions equally capital, and with a thousand-and-one minor\nproblems on which he is expected to have an opinion, and about which he\nis asked at one time or other, if only at dinner.\"\n\nAt this moment the Poet who shares my chambers came in--later than he\nshould have done--and interrupted my soliloquy. But I was still hot, and\nenlisted his interest in my vision and my apologia, and began drawing up\na list of the questions, in which after a while he became so interested\nthat he started adding to it. Hours flew like minutes, and only the\nsplitting headache we both brought upon ourselves drove us to desist.\nHere is our first rough list of the questions that confront the modern\nman--a disorderly, deficient, and tautological list, no doubt, to which\nany reader can add many hundred more.\n\n\n    VEXED QUESTIONS\n\n    Queen Mary and Bothwell. Shakespeare and Bacon. Correct\n    transliteration of Greek; pronunciation of Latin. Sunday opening of\n    museums; of theatres. The English Sunday; Bank Holiday. Darwinism. Is\n    there spontaneous creation? or spontaneous combustion? The germ\n    theory; Pasteur's cures; Mattei's cures; Virchow's cell theory. Unity\n    of Homer; of the Bible. Dickens v. Thackeray. Shall we ever fly? or\n    steer balloons? The credit system; the discount system.\n    Impressionism, decadence, Japanese art, the _plein air_ school.\n    Realism _v._ romance; Gothic _v._ Greek art. Russian fiction, Dutch,\n    Bulgarian, Norwegian, American, etc., etc.: opinion of every novel\n    ever written, of every school, in every language (you must read them\n    in the original); ditto of every opera and piece of music, with\n    supplementary opinions about every vocalist and performer; ditto of\n    every play, with supplementary opinions about every actor, dancer,\n    etc.; ditto of every poem; ditto of every picture ever painted, with\n    estimates of every artist in every one of his manners at every stage\n    of his development and decisions as to which pictures are not\n    genuine; also of every critic of literature, drama, art, and music\n    (in all of which departments certain names are equal to an appalling\n    plexus of questions--Wagner, Ibsen, Meredith, Browning, Comte,\n    Goethe, Shakespeare, Dante, Degas, Rousseau, Tolsto\u00ef, Maeterlinck,\n    Strindberg, Zola, Whistler, Leopardi, Emerson, Carlyle, Swedenborg,\n    Rabelais). Socialism, its various schools, its past and its future;\n    Anarchism: bombs. Labour questions: the Eight Hours' Day, the\n    Unemployed, the Living Wage, etc., etc. Mr. Gladstone's career. Shall\n    members of Parliament be paid? Chamberlain's position; ditto for\n    every statesman in every country, to-day and in all past ages. South\n    Africa, Rhodes, Captain Jim. The English girl _v._ the French or the\n    American. Invidious comparisons of every people from every point of\n    view, physical, moral, intellectual, and aesthetic. Vizetelly.\n    Vivisection. First love _v._ later love; French marriage system _v._\n    the English. The corrupt choruses in the Greek dramas (also in modern\n    burlesque--with the question of the Church and Stage Guild, Zaeo's\n    back, the County Council, etc.). How to make London beautiful. Fogs.\n    Bi-metallism. Secondary Education. Volunteer or conscript? Anonymity\n    in journalism. Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism:\n    their mutual superiorities, their past and their future. Plato,\n    Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and all philosophers and philosophies. The\n    Independent Theatre. The origin of language, Where do the Aryans come\n    from? Was Mrs. Maybrick guilty? Same question for every great\n    murderer. The Tichborne case, and every other _cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre_,\n    including divorce cases. Crime and punishment. Music-hall songs.\n    Heredity: are acquired qualities inherited? Is tobacco a mistake? Is\n    drink? Is marriage? Is the high hat? Polygamy; the social evil. Are\n    the planets inhabited? Is the English concert pitch too high? The\n    divided skirt. The antiquity of man. Geology: is the story of the\n    rocks short, or long, or true? Geology _v._ Genesis; Genesis _v._\n    Kuenen. Was Pope a poet? Was Whitman? Was Poe a drunkard, or Griswold\n    a liar? Was Hamlet mad? Was Blake? Is waltzing immoral? Is humour\n    declining? Is there a modern British drama? Corporal punishment in\n    schools. Compulsory vaccination. What shall we do with our daughters?\n    or our sons?  or our criminals? or our paupers? or ourselves? Female\n    franchise. Republicanism. Which is the best soap? or tooth-powder? Is\n    Morris's printing really good? Is the race progressing? Is our navy\n    fit? Should dynamite be used in war? or in peace? What persons should\n    be buried in Westminster Abbey? Origin of every fairy-tale. Who made\n    our proverbs and ballads? Cold baths _v._ hot or Turkish. Home Rule.\n    Should the Royal Academy be abolished? and who should be the next\n    R.A.? Should there be an Academy of Literature? or a Channel Tunnel?\n    Was De Lesseps to blame? Should we not patronise English\n    watering-places? Should there be pianos in board schools? or\n    theology? Authors and publishers; artists and authors. Is literature\n    a trade? Should pauper aliens be admitted? or pauper couples\n    separated? Bank Holiday. Irving _v._ Tree. The world's politics,\n    present, future, and even past--retrospective questions being\n    constantly re-agitated: as, Should the American slaves have been\n    emancipated? or Was the French Revolution a Folly? _Apropos_, which\n    is the best history of it? Who is the rightful Queen of England? Is\n    cycling injurious to the cyclist? or the public? Who was the Man in\n    the Iron Mask? Is the Stock Exchange immoral? What is influenza?\n    Ought we to give cabmen more than their fare? Tips generally. Should\n    dogs be muzzled? Have we a right to extend our empire? or to keep it?\n    Should we federate it? Are there ghosts? Is spiritualism a fraud? Is\n    theosophy? Was Madame Blavatsky? Was Jezebel a wretch, or a\n    Hellenist? The abuse of the quarantine. Should ladies ride astride?\n    Amateurs _v_. professionals in sports. Is prize-fighting beneficial?\n    Is trial by jury played out? The cost of law: Chancery. Abuses of the\n    Universities. The Cambridge Spinning House. Compulsory Greek. The\n    endowment of research. A teaching university in London. Is there a\n    sea-serpent? Servants _v._ mistresses. Shall the Jews have Palestine?\n    Classical _v._ modern side in schools. Should we abolish the\n    censorship of plays? or fees? or found a dramatic academy? or a State\n    theatre? Should gambling be legal? Should potatoes be boiled in their\n    skins? should dynamiters? Should newspapers publish racing tips? or\n    divorce cases? or comment? The New Journalism. What is the best ninth\n    move in the Evans gambit? Would Morphy have been a first-class\n    chess-player to-day? Is the Steinitz gambit sound? Do plants dream?\n    Ought we to fill up income-tax papers accurately? Shelley and Harriet\n    and Mary. Swift and Vanessa and Stella. Lord and Lady Byron. Did Mrs.\n    Carlyle deserve it? The limits of biography; of photography in\n    painting; of the spot-stroke in billiards. Did Shakespeare hold\n    horses? Should girls be brought up like boys, or boys like girls, or\n    both like one another? Are animals automata? Have they reason? or do\n    they live without reason? Will Brighton A's fall? or Peruvians rise?\n    Is it cruel to cage birds and animals? What is the best breed of\n    horses? Did Wellington say \"Up, Guards, and at 'em\"? Cremation _v._\n    Burial. Should immoral men be allowed to retain office? Is suicide\n    immoral? Opinion of the character of Elizabeth, Parnell, Catherine,\n    Cleopatra, Rousseau, Jack the Ripper, Semiramis, Lucrezia Borgia,\n    etc., etc. The present state of the Libel Law; and of the Game Laws.\n    Is vegetarianism higher? or healthier? Do actors feel their parts?\n    Should German type be abolished? or book-edges cut? or editions\n    artificially limited? or organ-grinders? How about\n    church-and-muffin-bells? Peasant proprietorship. Deer or Highlanders?\n    Were our ancestors taller than we? Is fruit or market-gardening or\n    cattle-farming more profitable? Dutch _v._ Italian gardening. What is\n    an etching? Do dreams come true? Is freemasonry a fraud? or\n    champagne? are Havanas? Best brand of whiskey? Ought Building and\n    Friendly Societies to be supervised? Smoking in theatres. Should\n    gentlemen pay ladies' cab-fares? Genius and insanity. Are cigarettes\n    poisonous? Is luxury a boon? Thirteen at table, and all other\n    superstitions--are they foolish? Why young men don't marry. Shall we\n    ever reach the Pole? How soon will England and the States be at war?\n    The real sites and people in Thackeray's novels. A universal penny\n    post? Cheap telegrams and telephones? Is the Bank of England safe?\n    Are the planets inhabited? Should girls have more liberty? Should\n    they propose? or wear crinolines? Why not have an unlimited paper\n    currency? or a decimal system and coinage? or a one-pound note?\n    Should we abolish the Lords? or preserve the Commons? Why not\n    euthanasia? Should dramatic critics write plays? Who built the\n    Pyramids? Are the English the Lost Ten Tribes? Should we send\n    missions to the heathen? How long will our coal hold out? Who\n    executed Charles I.? Are the tablets of Tel-el-Amarna trustworthy?\n    are hieroglyphic readers? Will war ever die? or people live to a\n    hundred? The best moustache-forcer, bicycle, typewriter, and system\n    of shorthand or of teaching the blind? Was Sam Weller possible? Who\n    was the original of Becky Sharp? Of Dodo? Does tea hurt? Do\n    gutta-percha shoes? or cork soles? Shall we disestablish the church?\n    or tolerate a reredos in St. Paul's? Is Euclid played out? Is there a\n    fourth dimension of space? Which is the real old Curiosity Shop? Is\n    the Continental man better educated than the Briton? Why can't we\n    square the circle? or solve equations to the _n_th degree? or\n    colour-print in England? What is the use of South Kensington? Is\n    paraffin good for baldness? or eucalyptus for influenza? How many\n    elements are there? Should cousins marry? or the House be adjourned\n    on Derby Day? Do water-colours fade? Will the ether theory live? or\n    Stanley's reputation? Is Free Trade fair? Is a Free Press? Is\n    fox-hunting cruel? or pigeon-shooting? How about the Queen's\n    staghounds? Should not each railway station bear its name in big\n    letters? and have better refreshments? Should we permit sky-signs?\n    Limits of advertisement. Preservation of historic buildings and\n    beautiful views _v_. utilitarianism. Is the coinage ugly? Should we\n    not get letters on Sunday? Who really wrote the \"Marseillaise\"? Are\n    examinations any real test? Promotion in the Army or the Civil\n    Service. Is logic or mathematics the primal science? and what is the\n    best system of symbolic logic? Should curates be paid more and\n    archbishops less? Should postmen knock? or combine? Are they under\n    military r\u00e9gime? or underpaid? Should Board School children be taught\n    religion? The future of China and Japan. Is Anglo-Indian society\n    immoral? Style or matter? Have we one personality or many?--with a\n    hundred other questions of psychology and ethics. A graduated income\n    tax--with a hundred other questions of political economy. Asphalt for\n    horses. Will the French republic endure? Will America have an\n    aristocracy? Shall Welsh perish? Is Platonic love possible? Did\n    Shakespeare write \"Coriolanus\"? Is there a skull in Holbein's\n    \"Ambassadors\"? What is the meaning of Dryden's line, \"He was and is\n    the Captain of the Test\"? or of the horny projection under the left\n    wing of the sub-parasite of the third leg of a black-beetle? Was Orme\n    poisoned? Are there fresh-water jelly-fishes? Is physiognomy true? or\n    phrenology? or graphology? or cheiromancy? If so, what are their\n    laws? Opinions on Guelphs and Ghibellines, fasting displays,\n    infanticide, the genealogy of the peerage, the origin of public-house\n    signs, Siberia, the author of Junius, of the Sibylline Books,\n    werewolves, dyeing one's hair, coffin-ships, standing armies, the\n    mediaeval monasteries, Church Brotherhoods, state insurance of the\n    poor, promiscuous almsgiving, the rights of animals, the C. D. Acts,\n    the Kernoozer Club, emigration, book-plates, the Psychical Society,\n    Kindergarten, Henry George, Positivism, Chevalier's Coster,\n    colour-blindness, Total Abstinence, Arbitration, the best hundred\n    books, Local Option, Women's Rights, the Wandering Jew, the Flying\n    Dutchman, the Neanderthal skull, the Early Closing movement, the\n    Prince of Wales, and the Tonic Sol-fa notation. Is there an English\n    hexameter? Is a perfect translation impossible? Will the coloured\n    races conquer? Is consumption curable? Is celibacy possible? Can\n    novels be really dramatised? Is the French school of acting superior\n    to ours? Should literary men be offered peerages? or refuse them?\n    Should quack-doctors be prosecuted? Should critics practise without a\n    license? Are the poor happier or unhappier than the rich? or is Paley\n    right? Did Paley steal his celebrated watch? Did Milton steal from\n    Vondel? Is the Salon dead in England? Should duelling be revived?\n    What is the right thing in dados, hall-lamps, dressing-gowns, etc.?\n    Should ladies smoke? Is there a Ghetto in England? Anti-Semitism. Why\n    should London wait? or German waiters? Mr. Stead's revival of\n    pilgrimages. Is Grimm's Law universal? The abuses of the Civil\n    Service; of the Pension List. Dr. Barnardo. Grievances of\n    match-girls; of elementary teachers. Are our police reliable? Is\n    Stevenson's Scotch accurate? Is our lifeboat service efficient? The\n    Eastern Question. What is an English fairy-tale? What are the spots\n    on the sun? Have they anything to do with commercial crises? Should\n    we spoil the Court if we spared the Black Rod? or the City if we\n    spared the Lord Mayor? Is chloroforming dangerous? Should armorial\n    bearings be taxed? or a tradesman's holiday use of his cart? Should\n    classical texts be Bowdlerised for school-boys? Is the confessional\n    of value? Is red the best colour for a soldier's uniform or for a\n    target? Will it rain to-morrow? Ought any one to carry firearms? Do\n    we permit the cancan on the English stage? or a\u00ebrial flights without\n    nets? Where are the lost Tales of Miletus? Should lawyers wear their\n    own hair? Was the Silent System so bad? Should a novel have a\n    purpose? Was the _Victoria_ Fund rightly distributed? What is the\n    origin of Egyptian civilisation? Is it allowable to say, \"It's me\"?\n    Every other doubtful point of grammar and--worse still--of\n    pronunciation; also of etymology. May we say \"Give an ovation\"? Is\n    the German Emperor a genius, or a fool? Should bachelors be taxed?\n    Will the family be abolished? Ensilage. Why was Ovid banished from\n    Rome? Is the soul immortal? Is our art-pottery bad? Is the Revised\n    Version of the Bible superior to the Old? Who stole Gainsborough's\n    picture? Which are the rarest coins and stamps? Is there any sugar in\n    the blood? Blondes or brunettes? Do monkeys talk? What should you\n    lead at whist? Should directors of insolvent companies be prosecuted?\n    Or classics be annotated? Was Boswell a fool? Do I exist? Does\n    anybody else exist? Is England declining? Shall the costers stand in\n    Farringdon Street? Do green wall-papers contain arsenic? Shall we\n    adopt phonetic spelling? Is life worth living?\n\n\nThe last question at least I thought I could answer, as I bore to bed\nwith me that headache which you have doubtless acquired if you have been\nfoolish enough to read the list. If only one were a journalist, one would\nhave definite opinions on all these points.\n\nAnd to these questions every day brings a fresh quota. You are expected\nto have read the latest paragraph in the latest paper, and the newest\nnovel, and not to have missed such and such an article in such and such a\nquarterly. And all the while you are fulfilling the duties of, and\nsolving the problems of, son, brother, cousin, husband, father, friend,\nparishioner, citizen, patriot, all complicated by specific religious and\nsocial relations, and earning your living by some business that has its\nown hosts of special problems, and you are answering letters from\neverybody about everything, and deciding as to the genuineness of begging\nappeals, and wrestling with some form or forms of disease, pain, and\nsorrow.\n\n\"Truly, we are imperfect instruments for determining truth,\" I said to\nthe Poet. \"The sane person acts from impulse, and only pretends to give a\nreason. Reason is only called in to justify the verdict of prejudice.\nSometimes the impulse is sentiment--which is prejudice touched with\nemotion. We cannot judge anything on pure, abstract grounds, because the\nbalance is biassed. A human being is born a bundle of prejudices, a group\nof instincts and intuitions and emotions that precede judgment.\nPatriotism is prejudice touched with pride, and politics is prejudice\ntouched with spite. Philosophy is prejudice put into propositions, and\nart is prejudice put into paint or sound, and religion is a pious\nopinion. Every man is born a Platonist or an Aristotelian, a Romanticist,\nor a Realist, or an Impressionist, and usually erects his own limitations\ninto a creed. Every country, town, district, family, individual, has a\nspecial set of prejudices along the lines of which it moves, and which it\nmistakes for exclusive truths or reasoned conclusions. Touch human\nsociety anywhere, it is rotten, it crumbles into a myriad notes of\ninterrogation; the acid of analysis dissolves every ideal. Humanity only\nkeeps alive and sound by going on in faith and hope,--_solvitur\nambulando_,--if it sat down to ask questions, it would freeze like the\ntraveller in the Polar regions. The world is saved by bad logic.\"\n\n\"And by good feeling,\" added my friend the Poet.\n\n\"And in the face of all these questions,\" I cried, surveying the list\nruefully again, \"we go on accumulating researches and multiplying books\nwithout end, vituperating the benefactors who destroyed the library of\nAlexandria, and exhuming the civilisations that the earthquakes of Time\nhave swallowed under. The Hamlet of centuries, 'sicklied o'er with the\npale cast of thought,' the nineteenth of that ilk mouches along,\nsoliloquising about more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of\nin any of its predecessors' philosophies. Ah me! Analysis is paralysis\nand introspection is vivisection and culture drives one mad. What will be\nthe end of it all?\"\n\n\"The end will be,\" answered the Poet, \"that the overstrung nerves of the\ncentury will give way, and that we shall fall into the simple old faith\nof Omar Khayy\u00e1m:\n\n  \"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,\n   A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, and Thou\n   Beside me singing in the Wilderness--\n   O Wilderness were Paradise enow.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said I, \"the only wisdom is to live. Action is substance and\nthought shadow.\" And so--paradoxically enough--I began to think out\n\n  A WORKING PHILOSOPHY\n\n  The solar system turns without thine aid.\n  Live, die! The universe is not afraid.\n  What is is right! If aught seems wrong below,\n  Then wrong it is--of thee to leave it so.\n  Then wrong it first becomes for human thought,\n  Which else would die of dieting on naught.\n  Tied down by race and sex and creed and station,\n  Go, learn to find thy strength in limitation,\n  To do the little good that comes to hand,\n  Content to love and not to understand;\n  Faithful to friends and country, work and dreams,\n  Knowing the Real is the thing that seems.\n  While reverencing every nobleness,\n  In whatsoever tongue or shape or dress,\n  Speak out the word that to _thy_ soul seems right,\n  Strike out thy path by individual light:\n  'Tis contradictory rays that give the White.\n\n\"The ideas are good. But what a pity you are not a poet!\" said my friend\nthe Poet.\n\nBut, though I recognise that prejudice in the deepest sense supplies the\nmatter of judgment, while logic is only regulative of the form, yet in\nthe more work-a-day sense of the word in which prejudice is taken to mean\nan opinion formed without reasoning and maintained in despite of it, I\nclaim to write absolutely without prejudice. The syllogism is my lord and\nking. A kind-hearted lady said I had a cruel face. It is true. I am\nabsolutely remorseless in tracking down a _non sequitur_, pitiless in\nforcing data to yield up their implicit conclusions. \"Logic! Logic!\"\nsnorted my friend the Poet. \"Life is not logical. We cannot be logical.\"\n\"Of course not,\" said I; \"I should not dream of asking men to live\nlogically: all I ask is that they should argue logically.\"\n\nBut to be unprejudiced does not mean to have no convictions. The\nsuperficial confuse definiteness with prejudice, forgetting that definite\nopinions may be the result of careful judgment. Post-judiced I trust I\nam. But prejudiced? Heaven forfend! Why, 'tis because I do not wish to\nbind myself to anything that I may say in them that I mark these personal\ncommunications \"Without Prejudice\"! For I do not at all mind\ncontradicting myself. If it were some one of reverend years or superior\ntalents I might hesitate, but between equals----! Contradiction is the\nprivilege of _camaraderie_ and the essence of _causerie_. We agree to\ndiffer--I and myself. I am none of your dogmatic fellows with\npigeon-holes for minds, and whatever I say I do not stick to. And I will\ntell you why. There is hardly a pretty woman of my acquaintance who has\nnot asked for my hand. Owing to this passion for palmistry in polite\ncircles, I have discovered that I possess as many characters as there are\npalmists. Do you wonder, therefore, if, with such a posse of\npersonalities to pick from, I am never alike two days running? With so\nvaried a psychological wardrobe at command, it would be mere self-denial\nto be faithful to one's self. I leave that to the one-I'd who can see\nonly one side of a question. Said Tennyson to a friend (who printed it):\n\"'In Memoriam' is more optimistic than I am\"; and there is more of the\nreal man in that little remark than in all the biographies. The published\nprophet has to live up to his public halo. So have I seen an actress on\ntour slip from a third-class railway carriage into a brougham. Tennyson\nwas not mealy-mouthed, but then he did not bargain for an audience of\nphonographs. Nowadays it is difficult to distinguish your friends from\nyour biographers. The worst of it is that the land is thick with fools\nwho think nothing of a great man the moment they discover he was a man.\nTennyson was all the greater for his honest doubt. The cocksure centuries\nare passed for ever. In these hard times we have to work for our\nopinions; we cannot rely on inheriting them from our fathers.\n\nI write with a capital I at the risk of being accused of egotism.\nApparently it is more modest to be conceited in the third person, like\nthe child who says \"Tommy is a good boy,\" or in the first person plural,\nlike the leader-writer of \"The Times,\" who bids the Continent tremble at\nhis frown. By a singular fallacy, which ought scarcely to deceive\nchildren, it is forgotten that everything that has ever been written\nsince the world began has been written by some one person, by an \"I,\"\nthough that \"I\" might have been omitted from the composition or replaced\nby the journalistic \"we.\" To some extent the journalist does sink his\npersonality in that imaginary personality of his paper, a personality\nbuilt up, like the human personality, by its past; and the result is a\npompous, colourless, lifeless simulacrum. But in every other department\nof letters the trail of the \"I\" is over every page and every sentence.\nThe most impersonal essays and poems are all in a sense egoistic.\nEverything should really be between inverted commas with an introductory\n_Thus say I_. But as these are omitted, as being understood, they come at\nlast to be _mis_understood.\n\nIn the days ere writing was invented, this elementary error was not\npossible. The words were heard issuing from the lips of a single man;\nevery opinion, every law of conduct, must have been at first formulated\nthrough the lips of some one man. And to this day, in spite of the\nwilderness of tradition and authority by which we are overgrown, the\nvoice of the one man is still our only living source of inspiration and\nhelp. Every new thought must pass through the brain, every moral ideal\nthrough the conscience, of an individual. Voices, voices, we want--not\nechoes. Better the mistaken voice of honest individuality than the\nsoulless bleat of the flock. There are too many of Kipling's Tomlinsons\nin the world, whose consciences are wholly compact of _on dits_, on whom\nthe devil himself, sinned they never so sadly, would refuse to waste his\ngood pit-coal. \"Bad taste\"--that opprobrious phrase which, worse than the\naccusation of a crime, cannot be refuted, for it is the king of the\nquestion-beggars,--\"bad taste\" is responsible for half the reticence that\nmarks current writing, for the failure to prick the bladders of every\nspecies that bloat themselves all around us. \"Good taste\" is the\nstaunchest ally of hypocrisy, and corruption is the obverse side of\ncivilisation. I do not believe in these general truths that rule the\nmarket. What is \"true for all\" is false for each. It is the business of\nevery man to speak out, to be himself, to contribute his own thought to\nthe world's thinking--to be egoistic. To be egoistic is not to be\negotistic. Egoism should be distinguished from egotism. The egoist thinks\nfor himself, the egotist about himself. Mr. Meredith's Sir Willoughby\nshould not have been styled the _Egoist_. The egoist offers his thought\nto his fellow-men, the egotist thinks it is the only thought worth their\nacceptance. These papers of mine joyously plead guilty to egoism, but not\nto egotism. If they, for instance, pretend to appraise the powers of my\ncontemporaries, they do not pretend to be more than an individual\nappraisal. Whoever wants another opinion can go somewhere else. There is\nno lack of practitioners in criticism, more or less skilful. There must\nbe a struggle for existence among opinions, as among all other things,\nand the egoist is content to send the children of his thought into the\nthick of the fray, confident that the fittest will survive. Only he is\nnot so childish as to make-believe that an impersonal dignified\nsomething-not-himself that makes for the ink-pot is speaking--and not he\nhimself, he \"with his little I.\" The affectation of modesty is perhaps\nthe most ludicrous of all human shams. I am reminded of the two Jews who\nquarrelled in synagogue, during the procession of palm-branches, because\neach wanted to be last, as befitted the humblest man in Israel, which\neach claimed to be. This is indeed \"the pride that apes humility.\" There\nis a good deal of this sort of pride in the careful and conscientious\nsuppression of the egoistic in books and speeches. I have nothing of this\nmodesty to be proud of. I know that I am cleverer than the man in the\nstreet, though I take no credit to myself for it, as it is a mere\naccident of birth, and on the whole a regrettable one. It was this\nabsence of modesty from my composition that recently enabled me to\npropose the toast of literature coupled with the name of Mr. Zangwill. I\nsaid that I could wish that some one more competent and distinguished\nthan myself had been chosen to do justice to such a toast and to such a\ndistinguished man of letters, but I did my best to pay him the tribute he\ndeserved ere I sat down amid universal applause. When I rose amid renewed\ncheers to reply, I began by saying that I could wish that some one more\ncompetent and distinguished than myself had been chosen to respond to so\nimportant a toast--the last speaker had considerably overrated my humble\nachievements in the fields of literature. So that you see I could easily\nmaster the modest manner, if I took any pains or set any store by it. But\nin my articles of faith the \"I\" is just what I would accentuate most, the\n\"I\" through which for each of us the universe flows, by which any truth\nmust be perceived in order to be true, and which is not to be replaced by\nthat false abstraction, the communal mind. Here are a laughing\nphilosopher's definitions of some cardinal things:\n\n    Philosophy--All my I.\n    Art--All my Eye.\n    Religion--All my Ay.\n\nAlso at the outset let it be distinctly understood that I write without\nany prejudice in favour of grammar. The fear of the critics is the\nbeginning of pedantry. I detest your scholiast whose footnotes would take\nThackeray to task for his \"and whiches,\" and your professor who disdains\nthe voice of the people, which is the voice of the god of grammar. I know\nall the scholiast has to say (surely he is the silly [Greek:\nscholastikos] of Greek anecdote), and indeed I owe all my own notions of\ndiction to a work on \"Style\" written by him. It was from the style of\nthis work that I learnt what to avoid. The book reminded me of my old\nschoolmaster, who grew very angry with me for using the word \"ain't,\" and\nvociferated \"Ain't! How often am I to tell you ain't ain't a word?\" I\nsuppose one may take it for granted that the greater the writer the worse\nthe grammar. \"Fools follow rules. Wise men precede them.\" (Query: this\nbeing a quotation from myself, was I bound to put the inverted commas?)\nShakespeare has violated every rule of the schoolroom, and the more\nself-conscious stylist of our own day--Stevenson--would be caned for\ncomposition. I find him writing \"They are not us,\" which is almost as\nblasphemous as \"It's me.\" His reputation has closed the critics' eyes to\nsuch sentences as these in his essay on \"Some Portraits by Raeburn\":\n\"Each of his portraits are not only a piece of history ...\"; \"Neither of\nthe portraits of Sir Walter Scott were very agreeable to look upon.\"\nStevenson is a master, but not a schoolmaster, of English. Of course bad\ngrammar does not make a genius, any more than bad morals. (Note how much\nthis sentence would lose in crispness if I made it grammatical by tacking\non \"do.\") My friend the musician complained to me that when he studied\nharmony and form he was told he must not do this, that and the other;\nwhereas, when he came to look into the works of the great composers he\nfound they made a practice of all the three. \"Am I a genius?\" he queried\npathetically. \"If so, I could do as I please. I wish I knew.\" Every\nauthor who can read and write is in the same predicament: on the one hand\nhis own instinct for a phrase or a sentence, on the other the contempt of\nevery honest critic. The guardians of the laws of English have a stock of\ntaboos; but unlike the guardians of the laws of England they credit every\ndisregard of them to ignorance. They cannot conceive of malice\naforethought. We are forbidden, for example, to use the word \"phenomenal\"\nin the sense of \"extraordinary.\" But, with Mr. Crummles's Infant\nPhenomenon in everybody's mind, can we expect the adjective to shake off\nthe old associations of its parent noun?\n\nLast year I culled an amusing sentence from a \"Standard\" criticism of a\ntale of adventure: \"The story is a well-told, and in spite of the word\n'unreliable,' a well-written one.\" Now just as many foolish persons\nobject to \"a ... one\" as to \"unreliable.\" As for the first phrase, I am\nsure so great a writer as Tom Hood would have pronounced it A1, while\n\"unreliable\" is defended with unusual warmth by Webster's Dictionary. The\ncontention that \"reliable\" should be \"reli-on-able,\" is ridiculous, and\nWebster's argument is \"laughable,\" which should obviously be\n\"laugh-at-able.\" These remarks are made quite without prejudice, for\npersonally I have little to complain of. (By the way, this sentence is as\nopen to blame as that of the professor who told his pupils \"You must not\nuse a preposition to end a sentence with.\") Though I have sat under an\narmy of critics, I have but once been accused of inelegant English, and\nthen it was only by a lady who wrote that my slipshod style \"aggravated\"\nher.\n\nFinally it will be remarked that by dispensing with illustrations I\npreserve intact my egoism and the dignity of a rival art. Nothing can be\nmore absurd than the conventional illustration which merely attempts to\npicture over again what the writer has already pictured in words. Not\nonly is the effort superfluous, a waste of force, but the artist's\npicture is too often in flat contradiction of the text. Whom are you to\nbelieve, the author or the artist? the man who tells you that the heroine\nis ethereal, or the man who plainly demonstrates that she is podgy? How\noften, too, do the people dress differently in the words and in the\npicture, not to speak of the shifting backgrounds! Dickens had so much\ndifficulty with his illustrations because he saw his characters so much\nmore clearly than any other novelist; the sight of his inner eye was so\ngood. And one can understand, too, how Cruikshank came to fancy he had\ncreated Oliver Twist, much as an actor imagines he \"creates\" a character.\nThe true collaboration between author and artist requires that the work\nshould be divided between them, not reduplicated. Those parts of the\nstory which need the intervention of words should be allotted to the\nwriter, while to the artist should be entrusted the parts better told by\npencil. Neither need trench on the other's province. Description--which\nso many readers skip already--would be abolished. Even incidents--such as\nmurder--could be caught by the artist in the act. And after the artist\nhad killed a character, the author could preach over his corpse. Thus\nthere would be an agreeable reversion to picture-language, the earliest\nway of writing, and the latest. The ends of the ages would meet in a\nromance written on these lines:--\n\n\"Sick at heart we watched till the grey dawn stole in through the\ndiamond-paned casements of the Grange, and then, at last, when we had\ngiven up all hope, we saw coming up the gravel pathway----\"\n\n[_Illustration._[*]]\n\nAfter which the author proceeds: \"Fascinated by the blood that dripped\nfrom the edges of the eight umbrellas, we stood silent; then, throwing\noff our coats, we----\n\n[_Illustration._[*]]\n\n\"So that was how I won the sweetest little bride I ever wedded. But if I\nlive to wed a hundred, I shall never forget that terrible night in\nGrewsome Grange.\n\n\"THE END.\"\n\n[* Transcriber's note: So in original. These are _not_ placeholders for\nactual illustrations in the book.]\n\nMy friend the artist once collaborated with me in an experiment of this\nsort, but we did not pursue it, discovering how feeble an advance ours\nwould be after all; for there were points at which both of us felt we\nought to give way to the tone-poet. When the emotions became too\nintangible for intellectual expression I asked my friend the musician to\ninsert paragraphs in a minor key. The love-scenes I was particularly\nanxious to have written in musical phrases. But he shrank from so\nunconventional a form, not being sure he was a genius. I was also\ndisheartened by the disappointing behaviour of the diverse scents with\nwhich I had expressed myself on certain blank pages. They would not\nremain in their places.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTUNING UP\n\nThey were \"tuning up\" in a wooden hall, stupidly built on the pier to\nshut off the sea and the night (a penny to pay for the privation), and in\nthat strange cacophony of desolate violin strings, tuneless trombones,\nand doleful double basses, in that homeless wail of forlorn brass and\nlost catgut, I found a music sweeter than a Beethoven symphony; for\nmemory's tricksy finger touched of a sudden the source of tears, and\nflashed before the inner eye a rainbow-lit panorama of the early joys of\nthe theatre--the joys that are no more. Was it even at a theatre--was it\neven more than an interlude in a diorama?--that divine singing of \"The\nLast Rose of Summer\" by a lady in evening dress, whose bust is, perhaps\nfor me alone in all the world, still youthful? Was it from this hall of\nthe siren, or was it from some later enchantment, that I, an infant\nUlysses, struggled home by night along a sea road, athwart a gale that\nwell-nigh blew me out to sea? How fierce that salt wind blew, a-yearn to\ndrive me to the shore's edge and whirl me over! How fresh and tameless it\nbeats against me yet, blowing the cobwebs from my brain as that real\nbreeze outside the pier could never do! When my monitory friends gabble\nof change of air I inhale that wind and am strong. For the child is of\nthe elements, elemental, and the man of the complexities, complex. And so\nthat good salt wind blows across my childhood still, though it cannot\nsweep away the mist that hovers thereover.\n\nFor who shall say whether 't was I or my sister who was borne shrieking\nwith fear from the theatre when the black man, \"Othello,\" appeared on the\nboards! The first clear memory of things dramatic is of an amateur\nperformance--alas! I have seen few others. 'T was a farce--when was an\namateur performance other? There was much play of snuff-boxes passed\npunctiliously 'twixt irascible old gentlemen with coloured handkerchiefs.\nAlso there was dinner beforehand--my first experience of chicken and\nchampagne. And then there is a great break till the real theatre rises\nstately and splendid, like Britannia ruling the waves--nay, Britannia\nherself, or, as they call it lovingly down Shoreditch way, \"the Brit.\"\n\nWhen to my fashionable friends I have held forth on the glories and the\nhumours of \"the Brit.,\" they have taken it for granted, and I have lacked\nthe courage or the energy to undeceive them, that my visits to this\ntemple of the people were expeditions of Haroun Al Raschid in the back\nstreets of Bagdad or adventures of Prince Florizel in Rupert Street; but\nof a truth I have climbed the gallery stairs in sober boyish earnestness,\nelbowed of the gods, and elbowing, and if I did not yield to the\nseductions of \"ginger-beer and Banbury\" that filled up clamantly the\nentr'actes, 't was that I had not the coppers. \"Guy Fawkes\" was my first\npiece, in the days when the drama's \"fireworks\" were not epigrams, and so\nthe smell of the sulphur still purifies the air. All the long series of\n\"London successes,\" with their array of genius and furniture, have faded\nlike insubstantial pageants, but the rude vault piled with flour-barrels\nfor the desperado's torch is fixed as by chemic process. Consider the\npreparation of the brain for that memory. What! I should actually go to a\nplay--that far-off wonder! \"The Miller and his Men\" cut in cardboard\nshould no longer stave off my longing for the living passion of the\ntheatre. 'T was a very elongated young man who took me, a young\ncigar-maker fond of reciting, spouting Shakespeare from a sixpenny\nedition, playing Hamlet mentally as he rolled the tobacco-leaf. There was\na halo about his head, for he was on speaking terms with the low comedian\nof the \"Brit.,\" and, I understood, was permitted upon occasion to pay for\na pint of half-and-half. Alas! all this did not avail to save him from an\nearly tomb. Poor worshipper of the green room, perchance thy ghost still\nwalks there. Or is there room in some other world for thy baffled\naspirations?\n\nIn such clouds of glory did the drama first come to me, sulphurously\nsplendid. In the \"Brit.\" I made my first acquaintance with the limelit\nhumanity that, magnificent in its crimes and in its virtues, sins or\nsuffers in false eyebrows or white muslin to the sound of soft music.\nHere I met that strange creation, the villain--a being as mythic,\nmeseems, as the centaur, and, like it, more beast than man. The \"Brit.\"\nwas a hot place for villains, the gallery accepting none but the highest\nprinciples of speech and conduct, and ginger-beer were not too weighty a\nform of expressing detestation of the more comprehensive breaches of the\ndecalogue. Hisses the villain never escaped, and I was puzzled to know\nhow the poor actor could discriminate betwixt the hiss ethical and the\nhiss aesthetic. But perhaps no player ever received the latter; the house\nwas very loyal to its favourites, all of whom had their well-defined\nr\u00f4les in every play, which spared the playwrights the task of indicating\ncharacter. Before the heroine had come on we knew that she was young and\nvirtuous--had she not been so for the last five and twenty years?--the\ncomic man had not to open his mouth for us to begin to laugh; a latent\nsibilance foreran the villain. Least mutable of all, the hero swaggered\non, virtuous without mawkishness, pugnacious without brutality. How\nsublime a destiny, to stand for morals and muscle to the generations of\nHoxton, to incarnate the copy-book crossed with the \"Sporting Times!\"\nWere they bearable in private life, these monsters of virtue?\n\nJ. B. Howe was long this paragon of men--affectionately curtailed to\nJabey. Once, when the villain was about to club him, \"Look out, Jabey!\"\ncried an agonised female voice. It followed from the happy understanding\non both sides of the curtain that--give ear, O envious lessees!--no play\never failed. How could it? It was always the same play.\n\nOf like kidney was the Grecian Theatre, where one went out between the\nacts to dance, or to see the dancing, upon a great illuminated platform.\n'T was the drama brought back to its primitive origins in the Bacchic\ndances--the Grecian Theatre, in good sooth! How they footed it under the\nstars, those regiments of romping couples, giggling, flirting, munching!\nAlas! _Fuit Troja!_ The Grecian is \"saved.\" Its dancing days are over, it\nis become the Headquarters of Salvation. But it is still gay with music,\nvirtue triumphs on, and vice grovels at the penitent form. In such quaint\nwise hath the \"Eagle\" renewed its youth, for the Grecian began life as\nthe Eagle, and was Satan's deadliest lure to the 'prentices of\nClerkenwell and their lasses:\n\n  Up and down the City Road,\n    In and out the Eagle;\n  That's the way the money goes!\n    Pop goes the weasel.\n\nConcerning which immortal lines one of your grammatical pedants has\nobserved, \"There ain't no rhyme to City Road, there ain't no rhyme to\nEagle.\" Great pantomimes have I seen at the Grecian--a happy gallery boy\nat three pence--pantomimes compact of fun and fantasy, far surpassing,\neven to the man's eye, the gilded dullnesses of Drury Lane. The\npantomimes of the Pavilion, too, were frolicsome and wondrous, marred\nonly by the fact that I knew one of the fairies in real life, a\ngood-natured girl who sewed carpet-slippers for a living. The Pavilion,\nby the way, is in the Whitechapel Road, not a mile from the People's\nPalace, in the region where, according to the late Mr. Walter Besant,\nnobody ever laughs. The Pavilion, like the \"Brit.,\" had its stock\ncompany, and when the leading lady appeared for her Benefit as \"Portia,\"\nshe was not the less applauded for being drunk. The quality of mercy is\n_not_ strained. And what more natural than that one should celebrate\none's benefit by getting drunk? Sufficient that \"Shylock\" was sober!\n\nIn Music-Halls, the East-End was as rich as the West,--was it not the\nsame talent that appeared at both, like Sir Boyle Roche's bird, winging\nits way from one to t' other in cabs? Those were the days of the great\nMacdermott, who gave Jingoism to English history, of the great Vance, of\nthe lion comiques, in impeccable shirt-fronts and crush hats. There was\nstill a chairman with a hammer, who accepted champagne from favoured\nmortals, stout gentlemen with gold chains, who might even aspire to\nconversation with the comiques themselves. _Sic itur ad astra_. Now there\nis only a chairman of directors who may, perhaps, scorn to be seen in a\nmusic-hall: a grave and potent seignior whose relations with the\nfootlights may be purely financial. There were still improvisatori who\nwould turn you topical verses on any subject, and who, on the very\nevening of Derby-day, could rhyme the winner when unexpectedly asked by\nthe audience to do so. A verse of Fred Coyne's--let me recall the name\nfrom the early oblivion which gathers over the graves of those who live\namid the shouts of worshippers--still lingers in my memory, bearing in\nitself its own chronology:\n\n  And though we could wish, some beneficent fairy\n    Had preserved the life of the Prince so dear,\n  Yet we WON'T lay the blame on Lieutenant Carey;\n    And these are the latest events of the year.\n\nWith what an answering pandemonium we refused to hold the lieutenant\naccountable for the death of the victim of the African assegais! And the\nladies! How ravishingly they flashed upon the boards, in frocks that,\nlike Charles Lamb at the India Office, made up for beginning late by\nfinishing early! How I used to agree with the bewitching creature who\nsang that lovely lyric strangely omitted from the Anthologies:\n\n  What a nice place to be in!\n  What a nice place, I 'm sure!\n  Such a very jolly place,\n  I've never seen before.\n  It gives me, oh! such pleasure,\n  And it fills my heart with bliss,\n  I could stay here for ever:\n  What a nice place is this!\n\nSuch eyes she made at me--at whom else?--aloft in the balcony; and oh,\nwhat arch smiles, what a play of white teeth! If we could only have met!\nYester-year at a provincial town some one offered to introduce her to me.\nShe was still playing principal boy in the pantomime--a gay, gallant\nPrince, in plumed cap and tights. But I declined. Another of the great\ncomic singers of my childhood--a man--I met on a Margate steamboat. He\ntold me of the lost glories of the ancient days _quorum pars magna fuit_,\nand of the after-histories of his great rivals. One, I recollect, had\nretired with a fortune, opened a magnificent Temperance Hotel at the\nseaside, and then broken his neck by falling down his own splendid\nstaircase, drunk. \"Ah,\" said the veteran, sighing at an overcrowded\nprofession, \"there were only two or three comic singers in those days.\"\n\"There are only two or three now,\" quoth I. And the old man beamed.\nAnother ancient hero of the halls, long since translated to the theatres,\nwhom I first saw at a music-hall in St. Giles', buttonholed me the other\nnight in St. James', in the halls of a Duchess: a curious meeting. That I\nshould have ever reverenced him seemed as strange as that there should be\nstill people to reverence the coronet of the Duchess. Yes, it is very far\noff, that magic time when the world was full of splendid things and\nsplendid men and women, a great Fair, and I, like the child in Henley's\npoem, wandered about, enjoying, desiring, possessing. Now I know there is\nnothing worth wanting, and nothing but poor flesh and blood, despite all\nthe costumes and accessories. For there is no sense in which I have not\nbeen \"behind the scenes.\" And as for the literal theatric sense, I have\nflirted with the goddesses at the wings till they have missed their cues,\nI have supped at the Garrick Club of a Saturday night, when all the stars\ncome out, I have toured with a travelling company, I have had words of my\nown spoken by dainty lips,--nay, I have even played myself, _en amateur_,\nthe irascible old gentleman with the snuff-box and the coloured\nhandkerchief. And what is there to say of the human spectacle, but that\nperhaps the pains and the crimes are necessary to the show, and that\nwithout a blood-and-thunder plot human life would not run, drying up of\nits own dullness? \"All the world's a stage,\" and we are all cast for\nstock r\u00f4les. Some of us have the luck to be heroes, the complacent centre\nof eternal plaudits, some are born for villainy and the brickbat. And\nwhile others have had to play goodness knows what--mediaeval Italian\nprincesses, Cockney cabmen, old Greek hetairae, German cuirassiers,\nAmerican presidents, burglars, South Sea Islanders--I find myself--for\nthe first time on any stage--in the applauded r\u00f4le of man of letters, if\nwith little option of throwing up the part. They have an optimistic\nphrase, those happy-go-lucky creatures of the footlights, when, on the\nvery day of production, nobody knows his words or his business, the scene\nwill not shape itself, and chaos is lord. \"It will be all right at\nnight,\" they say. And we, who play our parts gropingly on this confused\nand noisy scene, wondering what is the plot, and where is the manager,\nand straining our ears for the prompter's whisper, can but echo with\nanother significance their cheery hope: \"It will be all right at night.\"\nPerhaps, when the long day's work has drawn to its end, and the curtain,\nhas fallen upon the plaudits and the hisses, we shall all sit down to\nsupper after the play, complimented by the Author, smiling at the\nseriousness with which we took our r\u00f4les of hero or villain, and glad to\nbe done with, the make-up and the paint. And in the music that shall\nhover about our table, we may perhaps find a celestial restfulness,\ncompared to which the most exquisite orchestras of this earth shall sound\nbut as \"tuning up.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nART IN ENGLAND\n\nMy friend the Apostle was in hot haste, and would not stay to be\ncontradicted. \"Not going to-night!\" he cried, in horror-struck accents.\n\"Why, to-night is the turning-point in the history of the British drama!\nTo-night is the test-battle of the old and the new; it is the shock of\nschools, the clash of nature against convention. This play will decide\nthe fate of our drama for the rest of the century. Here you have a play\nby a leader of the old school produced at a leading theatre. If it\nsucceeds, the old drama may linger on for a year or two more; but if it\nfails, it will be the death-blow of the old gang. They may pack up!\" The\nApostle was at the other end of the street ere I had taken in the full\nimport of these brave words. What! there was a crisis in the drama, and\nI, living in the heart of art, had heard nothing about it! Fortunately it\nwas not too late. I could still make amends for my ignorance. It was\nstill open to me to assist at this historic contest, for the arena was to\nbe the Haymarket, where I am a _persona gratis_. Visions of the great\nfirst night of \"Hernani\" thronged tumultuously before me; my blood pulsed\nwith something of its ancient youthful ardour as I girded my loins with\nblack trousers for the fray, and adjusted my white tie with faltering\nfingers. I had half a mind to don a _gilet rouge_, but the reflection\nthat my wardrobe did not boast of coloured waistcoats gave the victory to\nthe other half. I dashed up to the theatre. All was placid. The stalls\nwere packed with a brilliant audience in correct and unemotional costume.\nThere were classic faces, and romantic faces, and faces that were\nrealistic, but each and all blank of the consciousness of a crisis. The\ntalk was of everything save art and literature. The critics did not even\nsharpen their pencils. They looked bored to a man. In vain my eye roved\nthe arm-chairs in search of a fighting figure. I could not even see the\nmusical iconoclast who had carried his pepper-and-salt suit into the holy\nof holies of the Italian opera. My heart sank within me. When the\norchestra ceased I gave one last despairing glance all round the theatre\nin search of my friend the Apostle. _He was not there!_\n\nThe play was \"The Charlatan,\"--the work of that other apostle, whose\noutspoken Epistles to the English chronically relieve the dull decorum of\nLondon journalism; the man of whom Tennyson came near writing--\n\n  Buchanan to right of him,\n  Buchanan to left of him,\n  Buchanan in front of him,\n         Volleyed and thundered.\n\nBut that night it was the audience that volleyed and thundered, in\nunanimous applause. Hisses or party-cries were not. During the intense\nepisodes, when the house was wrapt in silence, and you could have heard a\nprogramme drop, no opposition partisan as much as laughed. The author was\ncalled at curtain-fall, and retired uninjured. Next morning the critics\nwere scrupulously suave, with no sign of the battle they had been\nthrough. Most wonderful to relate, Mr. William Archer, the risen hope of\nthe stern and unbending Radicals, launched into unwonted praise, and gave\nan airing to some of the eulogistic adjectives that had been mouldering\nin his dictionary; nor did he even appear to be aware that he had gone\nover to the enemy!\n\nFor one thing, Bard Buchanan had given us neither old school nor new, but\na blend of both--nay, a blend of all forms of both--a structure at once\nmodern and mediaeval, with a Norwegian wing. It combined the common-sense\nof England with the glamour of the East, the physiology of the hypnotist\nwith the psychology of Ibsen. More! It was an epitome of all the\nHaymarket plays, a _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of all Mr. Tree's successes. The heroine was\na mixture of Ophelia and hysteria, the hero was a combination of Captain\nSwift, Hamlet, and the Tempter; the paradoxical pessimist was a reminder\nof Mr. Wilde's comedies, the bishop and scientist were in the manner of\nMr. Jones. How clever! Social satire _\u00e0 la Savoy_, s\u00e9ance _\u00e0 la salle\nEgyptienne_, sleep-walking _\u00e0 la Bellini_, moonlight poetry _\u00e0 la\nChristabel_, a touch of spice _\u00e0 la Fran\u00e7aise_, and copious confession _\u00e0\nla Norv\u00e9gienne_, all baked into one pie. How characteristic! And\ncharacteristic, mark you, not only of Mr. Buchanan's chaotic cleverness,\nbut of Mr. Tree's experimental eclecticism. Did I say an epitome of the\nHaymarket plays? This is but another way of saying an abstract and brief\nchronicle of the time, to whose age and body Mr. Tree so shrewdly holds\nup the mirror. For this dying century of ours is all things to all men.\nWe are living in the most picturesque confusion of the old and new known\nto history--in a cross-road of chronology where all the ages meet. 'T is\na confusion of tongues outbabbling Babel, a simultaneous chattering of\nthe centuries. And, more troubled than the Tower-builders, we understand,\none another better than we understand ourselves; again, like \"The\nCharlatan,\" half odic force, half fraud, who is never so honest as when\nhe confesses himself charlatan.\n\nBut this is not what I set out to say. There was a moral to the tale of\nmy friend the absentee Apostle who was so cocksure about the crisis. This\nmoral is that he has Continental blood in his veins. To these foreign\ncorpuscles he owes the floridness of his outlook, his conception of the\nexcited Englishman. The Englishman takes his authors placidly; he is\nnever in a ferment or a frenzy about anything save politics, religion, or\nsport: these are the poles and the axis of his life's pivot; he is not an\nartistic person. Art has never yet taken the centre of the stage in his\nconsciousness; it has never even been accepted as a serious factor of\nlife. All the pother about plays, poems and pictures is made by small\ncircles. Our art has never been national art: I cannot imagine our making\nthe fuss about a great writer that is made about a second-rate journalist\nin Paris. It is Grace the cricketer for whom the hundred thousand\nsubscribe their shilling: fancy a writer thus rewarded, even after\nscoring his century of popular novels. The winning of the Derby gives a\nnew fillip to the monarchy itself. A Victor Hugo in London is a thought\n_\u00e0 faire rire_. A Goethe at the court of Victoria, or directing Drury\nLane Theatre, is of a comic-opera incongruity. Our neighbours across the\nborder have a national celebration of Burns' birthday--they think as much\nof him as of the Battle of Bannockburn. We English, who have produced the\nman whom the whole world acknowledges its greatest poet, have not even a\nShakespeare Day. Surely Shakespeare Sunday would do as much good to the\nnation as Hospital Saturday or Shrove Tuesday! Charles Lamb wanted to say\ngrace before reading Shakespeare, but the Puritans who make England so\ngreat and so dull are only thankful for stomachic mercies.\n\nI cannot easily conceive our working ourselves up to such enthusiasm as\nthe Hungarians lately displayed over the jubilee of Joka\u00ef, an enthusiasm\nthat resounded even unto this country, and shook the _lacunar aureum_ of\nthe Holborn Restaurant with shouts of \"Eljen.\"\n\nThe peculiarity of the Hungarian temperament does not, however, entirely\nexplain their joy in Joka\u00ef. He is so much more than a mere novelist, poet\nand dramatist, with three or four hundred volumes (one need not be\nparticular to a hundred with this modern Lope de Vega) to his credit. He\nis also a soldier and a politician, skilful with the sword as well as the\npen, and with the tongue as well as the sword. He has drawn blood with\neach and all of these weapons, and though nowadays he often votes in the\nHouse without inquiring what he is voting for till he has recorded his\nvote, this does not diminish his claims to practical wisdom. He married\nthe leading actress of Hungary, who, without waiting for an introduction,\nrushed forward from the audience to present him with a bunch of flowers\nwhen a play of his made a hit. Fancy Ellen Terry rushing forward to\npresent Pinero with a bunch of flowers at the conclusion of \"The Second\nMrs. Tanqueray\"! No, the thing is as impossible in England as the\ncombination of r\u00f4les in Joka\u00ef himself. The idea of letting a man be at\nonce man of letters and man of action! Why, we scarcely allow that a man\nof letters may occupy more than one pigeonhole! If he is a poet, we will\nnot admit he can write prose--forgetting that is just what most poets do.\nIf he is a novelist, he cannot write plays,--the truth being, of course,\nthat it is the playwrights who cannot write plays. If he is a humourist\nhe can never be taken seriously, and if he is accepted seriously he must\nbe careful to conceal his sense of the humour of the position. Not only\nso, but we insist on the sub-sub-specialisation which Adam Smith showed\nto be so profitable in the making of pins, and which, passing from the\nfactory to the laboratory, now threatens to pass from science into\nliterature. Having analysed away the infinitely great, we are now\ndevoting ourselves to the apotheosis of the infinitely little.\n\n_A priori_, one would think action the salvation of the literary man, the\ncorrective of \"the fallacies of the den,\" the provider of that experience\nwhich is the raw material of literature, and prevents it from being spun\nout of the emptiness of one's own entrails. But the practical Briton\nknows better. He has never forgiven John Morley for going into politics\n(though I doubt not \"honest John\" would now find much to revise in his\nessay on \"Compromise\"); and he finds Socialism ever so much more Utopian\nsince William Morris went into it. Can you imagine a true-born Briton\nfollowing the flag of Swinburne, or throwing up a barricade with George\nMeredith? To the last Beaconsfield was suspected of persiflage because he\nwrote novels and was witty. America makes her authors ministers and\nenvoys, but England insists that brains are a disqualification for\npractical life. \"Authors are so unpractical: we don't want them to\nact--we only want them to teach us how to act.\" A chemist or an\nastronomer must needs isolate himself from the world to supply the pure\ntheory on which the practical arts are founded, and so the _litt\u00e9rateur_,\ntoo, is expected to live out of the world in order to teach it how to\nlive. But the analogy is false.\n\nYou can work out your mathematical calculations by the week, and hand\nover the results to the navigator. But the navigation of the stream of\ntime is another matter. There is no abstract theory of life that can be\nstudied without living oneself. Life is always concrete; it is built up\nof emotions, and you cannot have the emotions brought into your study, as\nyou can order in your hydrochloric acid or your frog's leg. As well\nexpect anchorites to set the tune for men in the thick of the fight! They\nwill chant Masses when they should be shouting Marseillaises. In despair\nour men of letters leave the country, and become politicians in little\nsavage islands; or they leave the town and become invisible behind their\nhaloes; or they take to golf in small Scotch cities, and pretend that\nthis satisfies their thirst for activity. Sometimes they turn\nmarket-gardeners and fob off the interviewer with remarks about\ncaterpillars. Browning was reduced to dining out. It may be contended\nthat the writer must sequester himself to cultivate the Beautiful. But\nthe Beautiful that has not its roots in the True is not the Good. Or it\nmaybe urged that active life would limit the writer's output. Exactly:\nthat is one of the reasons that make active life so advisable. Every\nwriter would write less and feel more. The crop of literature should only\nbe grown in alternate years. As it is, a writer is a barrel-organ who\ncomes to the end of his tunes, clicks, and starts afresh, just as a\nscholar is a revolving bookcase. Consider, too, how a holiday of action\nwould disenthral the writer from the pettiness of cliques and coteries,\nwith their pedantic atmosphere and false perspectives. I would have every\nUniversity don work in the docks six months a year (six months' idleness\nis surely quite enough for any man); every platonic essayist should\nattend a course of music-halls; and if I could afford it I would set up\nall the superfine critics in nice little grocers' shops, with the cosiest\nof back parlours. Why, bless my soul! it is your man of culture, your\nauthor, your leader of thought, who is parochial, suburban, _born\u00e9_, and\nthe rest of it! It is a commonplace that the Londoner is the most\nprovincial of all Englishmen, living in sublime ignorance of what is\nthought and done in the rest of the kingdom; and in similar wise, when a\nman sneers at the _bourgeoisie_, I never think of looking up his pedigree\nin Debrett. It is, no doubt, extremely exasperating that the world was\nnot created for the convenience and to the taste of artistic persons, but\nunfortunately the thing had to be turned out before their advice could be\nobtained.\n\nThat young England--bless its stupid healthy soul--is more interested in\nlife and football than in literature and art, was amply proved by the\nlethargy about the Laureateship. On the Continent the claims of the\nrivals would have set the students brawling and the journalists duelling;\nhere it barely caused a ripple in the five o'clock teacup. My friend the\nApostle was not wholly wrong; there is a development of native drama\nahead of us; only it will come about peaceably,--we shall not hear the\nnoise of the captains and the shouting. And the old conventions have a\nlong run yet before them. They cling even to the skirts of \"The Second\nMrs. Tanqueray.\" Indeed, the new school can scarcely be said to have\nappeared. The literary quality of our plays has improved, thanks to Jones\nand Pinero, and not forgetting Grundy. And that is all. The old school is\nas vigorous as ever. In the person of \"Charley's Aunt\" it is alive and\nkicking up its petticoats, and the audience rolls in helpless laughter at\nMr. Penley's slightest movement. Talk of literature, indeed! Why, the\nfortunate comedian assured me that if he chose he could spin out\n\"Charley's Aunt\" from a two-hours' play to a four-hours' play, merely by\neking out his own \"business.\" Think of this, aspiring Sheridans, ye who\npolish the dialogue with midnight oil; realise the true inwardness of the\ndrama, and go burn me your epigrams!\n\nIn literature, where the clash of new and old is more audible, it is\nstill the same story. On the conservative side, the real fighting is done\nby Messrs. Smith, who refuse to sell the too daring publication. The\nradicals are crippled by the timidity of editors, and cajoled by the\nfatness of their purses. A gifted young story-teller has been lecturing\non the Revolt of the Authors. But it seems to me our literature has\nalready as wide a charter as is desirable. The two bulwarks of the\nBritish library are Shakespeare and the Bible, and both treat human life\ncomprehensively, not with the onesidedness of self-styled Realism. I\nwould advise my young literary friends to emblazon on their banner\n\"Shakespeare and the Bible.\" Real Realism is what English literature\nneeds. The one undoubted development in recent English literature is the\nshort story. But this is less due to any advance in artistic aspiration\nthan to the fact that there is a good serial market for short stories,\nand the turnover is quicker for the trader than if he turned out long\nnovels. Small stories, quick returns! In verity, this much-vaunted\nefflorescence of the _conte_ is due to the _compte_. It is quite\ncharacteristic of our nation to arrive at a new art-form through this\npractical channel. But if you want a proof of the half-heartedness of our\nliterary battles, turn to the \"Fogey's\" article on \"The Young Men\" in a\nrecent _Contemporary Review_. What a chance for a much-needed onslaught\non our minor prophets! It might have been \"English bards and Scotch\nreviewers\" over again. But no! the Scotch reviewer's weapon is merely a\nrose-water squirt. The only thing that perturbates him (as Mr. Francis\nThompson would say) is my assertion that a ray of hopefulness is stealing\nagain into English poetry. Since the days of Jeffrey we have only had one\nreally \"first-class fighting man\" (Henley); but even with him there is no\nreal party fighting, for he is catholic in his antipathies, and those\nwhom he chastises love him, and swear that his is the least jaded Pegasus\nof the day. You see, therefore, how well-balanced we are in this \"happy\nisle, set in a silver sea.\" The Fogeys are respectful to the young men,\nand the young men actually admire the Fogeys. That the young men admire\none another goes without saying. Here surely is \"the atmosphere of\npraise\" of Mr. Pinero's hortation.\n\nAnd while I do not believe that art is best nourished in this \"atmosphere\nof praise,\" preferring to read instead \"an atmosphere of appraisal,\" I\nbelieve that of this appraisal the more important element is \"praise.\"\nCriticism with the praise left out savours of the counsel for the\nprosecution rather than of the judge,--and indeed some critics assume\nthat every author is guilty till he is proved good: if he is popular the\npresumption of his guilt is almost irresistible. A Henley young man once\nexplained to me that the function of the critic was to guard the gates of\nliterature, keeping at bay the bulk of print, for it would surely not be\nliterature. This last is true enough; yet the watch-dog attitude\ngenerates a delight to bark and bite, and turns critic literally into\ncynic. Should not the true critic be an interpreter? For bad work let him\naward the damnation of silence. \"It is better to fight for the good than\nto rail at the ill.\"\n\nIt is a great privilege to praise. It is a great joy to give an artist\nthe joy of being understood. Not every artist arrives at the divine\nstandpoint: \"And God saw all that He made, and behold it was very good.\"\nThe human creator is not always content with the rapture of creation. He\nsits lonely amid his worlds. Neglect may be the nurse of strength, but as\noften it is the handmaid of idleness. The artist without an audience will\nsmoke the enchanted cigarettes of Balzac. The rough labour of execution\nis largely the labour of conveying to others what the artist already\nfeels and sees. Why should he toil thanklessly? It is sweeter to dream.\nEven the money that art produces may be a valuable incentive. Not, of\ncourse, if the artist aims at the money; but art wrought for love may\nbring in money, like a woman married for love. In so far as the lover has\nhis eye on the dowry, in so far his love is vitiated; and in so far as\nthe artist has his eye on the profits, in so far is he untrue to a\nmistress who demands undivided allegiance. Natheless, the _auri sacra\nfames_ may be his salvation. What subtle sympathy connects _fama_ with\n_fames_? The butcher's bill may drive him from the dreamland of luxurious\nmeditation to the practical embodiment of his dreams. Only, while he is\nat work, the laws of art alone must be his masters; he must not alter or\nabate a jot by way of concession to the great cash question. When he has\ncompleted his work, then indeed he may sell it in the best market. But\nthe least preliminary paltering with the spirit of commerce is a\ndegradation. Does this seem an ideal demand? Let us remember, then,\nideals are goads and goals, counsels of perfection. No one expects people\nto come quite up to them, but it is better for human nature that they\nshould be there. For there is something in hero-worship, despite\nCarlyle's grandiosities, provided you choose your hero wisely. We do, in\nthis valley of doubt and confusion, touched with false sparkles, follow\nmen who speak from their souls sincerely, who work from their hearts.\nInstinctively we feel it degrading and disillusionising that inspiration\nshall be paid in hard cash, and genius entered on the credit side of a\nledger. Does a man plead that he has to support his wife and children?\nWell, in the first place, he need not have got them. In the second, one\nmay be admirable as a man, but as an artist abominable. Still it is\nbetter that a man should write Adelphi dramas than that his starving\nfamily should qualify for scenes in them. All honour to the artist who\nlives on bread and water in a garret rather than prostitute his art! but\nless honour to the man who lives on _my_ bread, and adds somebody else's\nwhisky to his water, rather than earn an honest living by dishonest books\nand plays. This was the question that split up the Bohemians of Murger.\nWhile the majority did odd jobs for the Philistines, to have the time for\nreal art, the very poet consenting to write Alexandrines for a dentist at\nfifteen sous a dozen--vastly cheaper than oysters--there was an inner\nband of the faithful who preferred starvation to the desecration of their\ngenius for the unsaleable. Even so among the vegetarians there is a\nholier circle that eats only nuts and fruits. The sensible artist will\ncompromise. There is in political economy a region called \"the margin of\nsubsistence.\" It is a sort of purgatory. Above it, we enter the heaven of\nsuperfluities; below it, lies the dread Hades of hunger. It is here that\nthe impecunious artist--with a family (and, alas! the artist is nearly\nalways impecunious--with a family) should pitch his tent. He may be\nallowed to prostitute himself, if need be, sufficiently to pay the\nground-rent. He must not be driven lower down by his devotion to the\nMuses: an artist who dies of starvation is simply a dead donkey. Rather\nthan play a false note, he stops his music for ever. It is sublime--but\nsilly. He had better black boots. There is no reason on earth why a\nshoeblack should not read Schiller, or moralise as he does in Bret\nHarte's parody of Bulwer Lytton. A bachelor artist might do worse than\nget locked up for some simple offence, and thus throw himself upon the\nnation. Remember what Sir Walter Raleigh did in prison. The poet can rise\nsuperior to the sordidness of skilly. Only he must be careful to preserve\nhis seclusion. Leigh Hunt made his cell the artistic centre of London,\nbut I doubt if he got through much work; and more recently, when Joka\u00ef\nwas in gaol, he was compelled to insist on two hours' privacy and\nconfinement per day. To be a \"first-class misdemeanant\" seems to me the\nheight of happiness for a literary man.\n\nUnfortunately there are few honest opportunities for going to gaol. The\nmost honest way of all would be to write the truth about men and things;\nbut this editors will not print. So one has to live at one's own expense.\nNevertheless, the Hotel of the Black Maria remains an ideal.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nBOHEMIA AND VERLAINE\n\nIt is one of the pleasures of my life that I never saw Tennyson. Hence I\nam still able to think of him as a poet, for even his photograph is not\ndisillusionising, and he dressed for the part almost as well as Beerbohm\nTree would have done. Why one's idea of a poet is a fine frenzied being,\nI do not quite know. One seems to pick it up in the very nursery, and\neven the London _gamin_ knows a poet when he doesn't see one. Probably it\nrests upon the ancient tradition of oracles and sibyls, foaming at the\nmouth like champagne bottles. Inspiration meant originally demoniac\npossession, and to \"modern thought\" prophecy and poetry are both\nepileptic. \"Genius is a degenerative psychosis of the epileptoid order.\"\nA large experience of poets has convinced me as little of this as of the\nold view summed up in _genus irritabile vatum_. Poets seem to me the\nhomeliest and most hardworking of mankind--'t is a man in possession, not\na _daimon_ nor a disease. Of course they have their mad moods, but they\ndon't write in them. Writing demands serenity, steadiness, patience; and\nof all kinds of writing, poetry demands the steadiest pen. Complex metres\nand curious rhyme-schemes are not to be achieved without pain and\npatience. Prose is a path, but poetry is a tight-rope, and to walk on it\ndemands the nicest dexterity. You may scribble off prose in the fieriest\nfrenzy--who so fiery and frenzied as your journalist with the printer's\ndevil at his elbow?--but if you would aspire to Parnassus, you must go\nslow and steady. Fancy inditing a sonnet with the compositors waiting for\n\"copy\"! Pegasus were more truly figured as a drayhorse than a steed with\nwings; he jogs along trot-trot, and occasionally he stands at an\nobstinate pause. The splendid and passionate lyrics of Swinburne, with\ntheir structural involutions and complicacies, must have been \"a dem'd\ngrind.\" The English language does not easily lend itself to so much\n\"linked sweetness long drawn out.\" Even the manuscript of Pope's easy\nmeandering verse is disfigured by ceaseless corrections. As he himself\nsays:\n\n  True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,\n  As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.\n\nProbably these very lines run in the original manuscript somewhat as\nfollows:\n\n[Illustration: Handwriting sample]\n\nShelley is the ideal of a poet, a soul of white fire, fed by bread and\nraisins; yet Shelley's last manuscripts are full of lacunae and erasures,\nsome of which have had to be reproduced perforce in the printed editions.\n\n  Clothed with the ... as with light,\n  And the shadows of the night,\n  Like ... next, Hypocrisy,\n  On a crocodile rode by.\n\nIt reads like a puzzle set by a Competition Editor. Here is another one,\nwhich begins as beautifully as Hedda Gabler could desire, and ends in\nblankness.\n\n  Within the surface of the fleeting river\n  The wrinkled image of the city lay,\n  Immovably unquiet, and for ever\n  It trembles, but it never fades away;\n  Go to the [                        ]\n  You, being changed, will find it then as now.\n\nThe fact is, of course, that inspiration is no guarantee of perfection.\nThe limitations of inspiration vary with the limitations of the writer--a\nproposition that may be commended to the theologians. Genius can no more\nsafeguard a man against his own ignorance than it can find a rhyme to\n\"silver.\" Inspiration could not save Keats from his Cockney rhymes nor\nMrs. Browning from her rhymeless rhymes. I met a poet in a London\nsuburb--it seemed odd to see one out of Fleet Street--but after a few\nbewildered instants I recognised him. There was on his brow the burden of\na brooding sorrow. I sought delicately to probe the cause of his grief,\nand he confessed at last that in a much-praised poem just published he\nhad made a monosyllable dissyllabic. He had never got over a youthful\nmispronunciation, and in an unguarded moment of inspiration it had\nslipped in.\n\nThis prosaic view of poetry is distasteful to many, who like to think\nthat \"Paradise Lost\" came out in a jet. But all these grandiose\nconceptions belong to the obscurantist view of human life, which is\npopular with all who hate, in Matthew Arnold's phrase, \"to think clear\nand see straight.\" People fancy that the dignity of human life demands\nthat artists at least should be Ouidaesque, but the true dignity of the\nartist is to be sublimely simple rather than simply sublime. The finest\nart--be it literature, music, or painting--is, after all that inspiration\ncan do has been done, a matter of painful pegging away; and the finest\nartists will be found quietly occupying themselves with their art without\npose or fuss. That side of the business is largely monopolised by the\nlittle men. But even the big men sometimes fall victims to the popular\nconception, as when a Byron stagily takes the centre of the universe, and\nlooms lurid like the spirit of the Brocken. We do not need biographical\nscandal-mongers to tell us what \"the real Lord Byron\" was like. He was\nlike \"Don Juan,\" his own poem; shrewd, cynical, worldly, with flashes of\nexquisite feeling. The poem which is cut out of young ladies' editions of\nByron is the one that represents him most truly in his blend of\nsensualism and idealism, whereas the Brocken figure is but Byron as he\nappeared to himself in his stormiest and gloomiest moments, and even that\nphantasm artistically draped and limelit by a poet's imagination. If\npeople realised how much Byron wrote in his pitiable span of thirty-six\nyears, how much hard labour went to make those cleverly-rhymed stanzas of\n\"Childe Harold\" or \"Don Juan,\" despite Swinburne's accusation of\nbotchery, they would see that he really had very little time to be\nwicked. They would understand that art--even the most decadent--is based\non strenuous labour.\n\n                     Young, gay,\n  Radiant, adorned outside; a hidden ground\n  Of thought and of austerity within.\n\nEven in poetically declaring himself a decadent, the artist must take as\nmany pains as fall to the prosiest bourgeois. This is the paradox of the\nposition. Just as the pyrrhonist in maintaining that there is no truth\nasserts one, so the literary pessimist partly contradicts his contention\nof the futility of existence by his anxiety to express himself elegantly.\nLeopardi's Italian and Schopenhauer's German are far superior to those of\nthe optimistic philosophers; and one of the most polished poems of our\nday is poor Thomson's \"City of Dreadful Night.\" So, too, the poet who\ndeclares himself an idler and a vagabond gives the lie to his pretensions\nby the labour he takes to clothe them in unimpeachable verse. The other\nmorning I looked out of my study window after breakfast and discovered\nthat the weather was heavenly. I had lingered over the meal, reading the\nbeautiful political speeches, from which I gathered there was a Crisis at\nhand. I knew that Crisis. I had heard about it ever since I learnt to\nhear. Nevertheless, the newspapers were still devoting as much space to\nit as if it were brand-new, and beguiling me to take interest in it. I\nfelt quite annoyed when I looked at the blue sky after breakfast and took\ndeep breaths of ambrosial air, and thought how I had wasted my time.\nThrilled by the sunshine, a cosmic rapture seized me, and I wondered that\nmen should fritter away their time in politics and other serious\noccupations. The inspiration grew and grew, and I felt that my lips had\nbeen touched by the sacred fire, and that I had been called to preach a\ngreat moral lesson to mankind. So I took up my pen and wrote:\n\n  Bright the sun this lovely May-day;\n  Youth and love should have their heyday;\n  Every day should be a play-day.\n\n  Yet mankind will work and worry,\n  Over trifles fuss and flurry,\n  Getting hot as Indian curry.\n\n  Orators, in such a season,\n  How unreasonable is reason!\n  'Gainst the sunshine't is a treason.\n\n  What care I for Gladstone's glories?\n  Hang the Radicals and Tories!\n  Give me hammocks, pipes and stories!\n\n  What's the use of all this wrangling,\n  Grammar and emotions mangling?\n  Up the river let's go angling.\n\n  Sweet are walks and swimming nice is,\n  Bring me lemon-squash and ices,\n  Bother that eternal Crisis!\n\nI was called away to lunch in the middle of the attack of inspiration.\nInspiration is of course very useful, but it has a way of suggesting\nwords that won't rhyme, and luring you off into all sorts of false\ntracks. Moreover, it affords no help whatever in polishing. After lunch I\nset to work with renewed zeal, licking the lines into their present\nperfection. At last they were finished, and as I lit the gas to enable me\nto see to make a fair copy, I realised that the beautiful blue day was\ngone.\n\nYes, the busy bee is a fraud by the side of the irresponsible artistic\nbutterfly.\n\nSims Reeves tells an amusing anecdote of Mario the singer. Being brought\none Thursday night by an eminent composer to sing at a big fashionable\nparty, he found so great a line of carriages in front of his own that it\nwas past midnight ere he arrived at the door. The thought that it was\nalready Friday, and that he was about to sing in a new house, whose\nhostess he did not even know, had already dismayed the superstitious\nsinger. But when he saw the number on the door was 13, no power on earth\nand no amount of argument could induce him to enter. \"Ah, yes,\" said the\nhostess, smiling pleasantly, when the composer explained, \"a very\ningenious excuse, for which Mario ought to be grateful to you. Of course\nhe was intoxicated, and after a long argumentation you at last persuaded\nhim to go home.\"\n\nPoe was doubtless occasionally drunk; but think of the years of sober\nlabour, of stooping over desks, that must have gone to make those\nwonderful tales! Which is the true Poe, the hard drinker or the hard\nworker? That the artist must get drunk is, indeed, the belief of certain\nschools of young men even to-day; but is it not based on the old eternal\nfalse-logic, that because some artists have got drunk, therefore to get\ndrunk is to be artistic? It was Murger who invented the Bohemian artist,\npoor and gay and of an easy morality. \"Musette and Mimi!\" says Sarcey.\n\"The image of those ideal beings shone on every man who was twenty-one\nabout 1848. 'La Vie de Boh\u00e8me' was youth's breviary--fifty years ago.\"\nThe great dramatic critic goes on to complain of the onslaught made upon\nhim because he wrote against this \"idleness of disposition, this\nheedlessness for the morrow, this inclination to look for the day's\ntobacco and the quarter's rent from loans and debts rather than from\nhonest work, this witty contempt for current morality.\" But this is\nscarcely the teaching of the ever delightful book, which catches the\nspirit of youth and gaiety and irresponsibility wedded to artistic ardour\nas no other book has done before or since, and for which one might put in\nthe plea that Charles Lamb made for the dramatists of the Restoration.\nIts world is only a pleasing fiction, and the ordinary rules of morality\ndo not carry over into it. It is the East of Suez of literature, \"where\nthere ain't no Ten Commandments, and a man may raise a thirst.\" The real\nBohemia, as Jules Valdes showed in \"R\u00e9fractaires,\" is a world of misery\nand discontent. Still more sordid is the English Bohemia expounded by Mr.\nGissing in \"New Grub Street.\" Mr. Robert Buchanan indeed writes as if\nthere had been a Murgerian Bohemia in England in his young days. \"_Et ego\nfui in Bohemi\u00e2_. There were inky fellows and bouncing girls, _then_;\n_now_ there are only fine ladies, and respectable God-fearing men of\nletters.\" Really! Surely there are plenty of bouncing girls and inky\nfellows still, just as there were respectable God-fearing men of letters\nand fine ladies even in the roaring forties. I doubt if Bohemia was ever\nso amusing as Mr. Buchanan imagines now, and I suspect the bouncing girls\nwere \"gey ill to live with.\" What is true in the immortal Bohemian myth,\nwhat appeals to the universal human instinct, is the eternal contrast\nbetween the dreams and aspirations of youth and the sobrieties of success\nand middle age. As Jeffery Prowse sang:\n\n  I dwelt in a city enchanted,\n    And lonely, indeed, was my lot;\n  Two guineas a week, all I wanted,\n    Was certainly all that I got.\n  Well, somehow I found it was plenty,\n    Perhaps you may find it the same,\n  If--_if_ you are just five-and-twenty,\n    With industry, hope, and an aim;\n  Though the latitude's rather uncertain,\n    And the longitude also is vague,\n  The persons I pity who know not the City,\n    The beautiful City of Prague!\n\nThis Bohemia will never disappear, because every generation of youth\nreconstructs it afresh, to migrate from it into the world of\nrespectability above or the world of shame below. \"Qu'on est bien \u00e0 vingt\nans!\" will always be a cry to fill the breast of portly respectability\nwith tender regret. As Thackeray put it in that delightful poem, which is\nalmost an improvement on B\u00e9ranger:\n\n  With pensive eyes the little room I view,\n    Where, in my youth, I weathered it so long;\n  With a wild mistress, a staunch friend or two,\n    And a light heart still breaking into song;\n  Making a mock of life and all its cares,\n    Rich in the glory of my rising sun,\n  Lightly I vaulted up four pair of stairs\n    In the brave days when I was twenty-one.\n\nWhat a pity that life is so stern and severe, that for the light morality\nof Bohemia somebody must pay, some life be wrecked! Nature fills us with\nyouth and romance, but for her own purposes only. She is the great\nmatrimonial agent, and heavy is the penalty she exacts from those who\nwould escape her books, and extract from life more poetry than it holds.\nAnd so the beautiful roselight of Bohemia veils many a tragedy, many a\ntreachery. Yet will the _grisette_ be ever a gracious memory, and\nliterature will always embalm the \"Mimi Pinson\" of De Musset.\n\nShe is dead now, _la grisette_, even in Paris, and \"hic jacet\" may be\nwritten over the bonnet she threw _pardessus les moulins_.\n\n  Ah, Clemence! When I saw thee last\n    Trip down the rue de Seine,\n  And turning, when thy form had pass'd,\n    I said, \"We meet again,\"\n  I dreamed not in that idle glance\n    Thy latest image came,\n  And only left to Memory's trance\n    A shadow and a name.\n\nThat is how she affected even the Puritan Oliver Wendell Holmes. Yes,\nthere is something in the Bohemian tradition that touches the sternest of\nus--not the roystering, dissolute, dishonourable, shady Bohemia that is\nalways with us, bounded by the greenroom, the racecourse, the gambling\nclub, and the Bankruptcy Court, but the Bohemia that is as unreal as\nShakespeare's \"desert country near the sea,\" the land of light purses and\nlight loves, set against the spiritual blight that sometimes follows on\npecuniary and connubial blessedness. For, after all, morality is larger\nthan a single virtue, and Charles Surface is always more agreeable than\nJoseph or Tom Jones than Blifil, even when Joseph or Blifil is as proper\nas he pretends. And if Tom or Charles is a poet to boot, what can we not\nforgive him? The poet must have his experiences--be sure that nine tenths\nof them are purely of the imagination. For the other tenth--well, if\nBurns had been strictly temperate, \"the world had wanted many an idle\nsong,\" and we should not have celebrated his centenary so\nenthusiastically. The poet expresses the joy and sorrow of the race whose\nsilent emotions become vocal in him, and it is necessary that he should\nhave a full and varied life, from which \"nihil humanum\" is alien. Mr.\nBarry Pain once wrote a subtle story, which only three persons\nunderstood, to show that a great poet might be an elegant egotist, of\nunruffled life and linen. If so, I should say that such a poet's genius\nwould largely consist of hereditary experience; he would, in language\nthat is not so unscientific as it sounds, be a reincarnation of a soul\nthat had \"sinned and suffered.\" But as a rule the poet does his own\nsinning and suffering, and catches for himself that haunting sense of the\nglory and futility of life which is the undertone of the modern poet's\nsong, and which finds such magical expression in Heine's verses:\n\n  I have loved, oh, many a maiden kind,\n    And many a right good fellow,--\n  Where are they all? So pipes the wind,\n    So foams and wanders the billow.\n\nBut the poet's morals are maligned. The fierce light which beats upon the\nthrone of song reveals the nooks and crannies of the singers' lives,\nwhich for the rest they themselves expose rather than conceal. I should\nsay that the average morality of the poet is much superior to the average\nmorality of the man of the world who sins in well-bred silence. The poet\ngloats over his sins--is musically remorseful or swingingly defiant; he\nhints or exaggerates or invents. That is where the poet's imagination\ncomes in--to give to airy nothings a local habitation and a name. The\npoet's imagination is often far more licentious than his life; the\n\"poet's licence\" is rightly understood to be limited to his language. To\nhave written erotic verses is almost a certificate of respectability: the\nenergy that might have been expended in action has run to rhyme.  _Qui\nose tout dire arrive \u00e0 tout faire_, say the French. Arrives _at_,\nperhaps, though even this is doubtful, but certainly does not start from\nthat platform. Much less questionable were it to say: _Qui ose tout faire\narrive \u00e0 ne rien dire._\n\nThe late M. Verlaine will be cited as a substantiation of the popular\nidea of the vagabond poet. The Verlaine legend has now been consecrated\nby his death; and for all time, I suppose, Verlaine will rank with Villon\nas an impossible person. He may have been all that is said, all that is\nhinted, even in Mr. George Moore's famous description of him. \"I once saw\nVerlaine. I shall not forget the bald prominent forehead (_une t\u00eate\nglabre_), the cavernous eyes, the macabre expression of burnt-out lust\nsmouldering upon his face.\"\n\nBut there is another side to him, and it is perhaps because I do not go\nabout the world with Mr. Moore's \"macabresque\" eye, which to-day happily\nsees things in a soberer colouring, that I saw this other side of\nVerlaine when, like Mr. George Moore, I hunted him up on his native\nheath. For one thing, I was not prepared to see anything very lurid and\n_diabolique_: life is really not so picturesque as all that. I knew\nbesides that he had been a schoolmaster in England; and can you imagine\nanything more tedious and toilsome than to be the \"French master,\" the\npoor, despised, \"frog-eating Mounseer Jacques\" of boys' stories, the butt\nof all their facetious brutality? If ever anything was calculated to make\na man _diabolique_! I trust biographers will not forget to place all this\ndepressing drudgery to our \"vagabond's\" credit. Think of it! The first\npoet of France correcting French exercises! The poet of the passions\nconjugating the verb _aimer_ in its hideous grammatical reality!\n\n  Fumons philosophiquement,\n      Promenons-nous\n        Paisiblement:\n    Rien faire est doux.\n\nSo might Verlaine write, though contradicting himself by doing something\nin so doing; but in the absurd actual he had to earn his bread and\nbutter, and man cannot live by poetry alone, unless one sings the joys\nand sorrows of the middle classes. It was rather late at night before,\nhaving vainly hunted for him in his favourite restaurants, I found the\nnarrow, poverty-stricken _rue_ in which Verlaine was living a year or so\nago. Passing through a dark courtyard, I had to mount interminable stone\nstairs, lighting foul French matches as I went, to relieve the blackness.\nAt last I arrived outside his door, very near the sky. I knocked. A voice\ncalled out, \"I've gone to bed.\" I explained my lateness and said I would\ncall to-morrow.\n\n\"No, no! _Attendez!_\" I heard him jump out of bed, stumble and grope\nabout, and then strike a match; and in another instant the door opened,\nand in the interstice appeared a homely nightcapped _bourgeois_ pulling\non his trousers. There flashed on me incongruously the thought of our\nEnglish laureate's stately home by the sea, in which, jealously guarded\nby hedges and flunkeys, the poet chiselled his calm stanzas; and all the\nvagabond in me leapt out to meet the unpretentious child of Paris. He\ngreeted me with simple cordiality; and, ugly and coarse though his face\nwas, it was lit up throughout by a pleasant smile. His notorious leg was\nbandaged, but not repulsively. No, \"homely\" is the only impression I\nshall ever have of Verlaine, the man. Even in that much maligned\n\"macabresque\" head of his, there was more of the _bonhomme_ than of the\npoet or the satyr. The little garret was his all in all; a bed took up\nhalf the space. On the table stood the remains of supper. A few shelves\nof books, a sketch or two, and a bird-cage with a canary were the only\nattempts at ornament.\n\nSuch was Verlaine at the climax of his fame, when he had won a sure\nimmortality; simple and childlike, and with a child's unshamed acceptance\nof any money one might leave behind on the mantelpiece. He seems to have\nmade very little by his verses. He spoke English quite well, having\nprobably acquired it when teaching French; and he was perhaps more proud\nof it than of his poems. Mr. Moore says he wished to translate Tennyson.\nHe read aloud a poem he had just written in celebration of his own\nfiftieth birthday. There was an allusion to a \"crystal goblet.\" \"_Ce\nverre-l\u00e0!_\" he interpolated, with a humorous smile, pointing to a cheap\nglass with the dregs of absinthe that stood on the table. There was also\nan allusion to a \"blue-bird,\" a sort of symbol of the magic of spring, I\nfancy, that flutters through many of his poems. (The \"_plumage bleut\u00ea de\nl'orgueil_\" figures in one of his very last verses.) When he arrived at\nthis \"blue-bird\" he pointed to the cage with the same droll twinkle:\n\"_Cet oiseau-ci._\" When I left him he stood at the head of the gloomy\nstone stairs to light me down, and the image of him in his red cotton\nnightcap is still vivid. And now he is only an immortal name. Ah, well!\nafter the English school-rooms, the French prisons, the Parisian garrets\nand hospitals, the tomb is not so bad. _Rien faire est doux_.\n\nIn giving him place with the immortals I feel no hesitation. An English\nclergyman found immortality by writing one poem,--\"The Burial of Sir John\nMoore,\"--and, however posterity may appraise Verlaine's work as a whole,\nhe has left three or four lyrics which can die only if the French\nlanguage dies, or if mankind in its latter end undergoes a paralysis of\nthe poetic sense such as Darwin suffered from in his old age. Much of his\nverse--especially his later verse--is to me, at least, as obscure as\nMallarm\u00e9. But\n\n  Il pleut dans mon coeur\n  Comme il pleut dans la rue\n\ncan never be surpassed for the fidelity with which it renders the endless\ndrip, drip of melancholia, unless it is by that other magical lyric:\n\n  Les sanglots longs\n  Des violons\n    De l'automne\n  Blessent mon coeur\n  D'une langueur\n    Monotone.\n\nHe is the poet of rhythm, of the nuance, of personal emotion. French\npoetry has always leant to the frigid, the academic, the rhetorical--in a\nword, to the prosaic. The spirit of Boileau has ruled it from his cold\nmarble urn. It has always lacked \"soul,\" the haunting, elusive magic of\nwistful words set to the music of their own rhythm, the \"finer light in\nlight,\" that are of the essence of poetry. This subtle and delicate echo\nof far-off celestial music, together with some of the most spiritual\npoems that Catholicism has ever inspired, have been added to French\nliterature by the gross-souled, gross-bodied vagrant of the prisons and\nthe hospitals! Which is a mystery to the Philistine. But did not our own\nartistic prisoner once sing:\n\n  Surely there was a time I might have trod\n  The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance\n  Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God?\n\nWas ever more devout Catholic than Benvenuto Cellini, who murdered his\nenemies and counted his beads equal gusto?\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE INDESTRUCTIBLES\n\nI wonder if you have ever been struck by the catholicity--not to say the\nself-contradictoriness--of the constant correspondent. The creature will\nenter with zest into any discussion; there is no topic too small for it,\nand certainly none too great. The following letters, carefully culled\nfrom the annual contributions of a lady whose epistolary career I have\nfollowed with interest, will indicate the delicious inconsequence that\nhas made them for me such grateful reading:\n\n1888.\n\n    SIR,--There is nothing in life worth purchasing by pulsations and\n    respirations. The world is a dank, malarious marsh, with fitful\n    Will-o'-the-Wisp flashes of false radiance--a vast cemetery waiting\n    for our corpses. There is no such thing as happiness.\n\n      Nature, red in tooth and claw\n      With ravin, shrieks against\n\n    the idea. Youth is an illusion, maturity a regret, and old age an\n    apprehension. Fortunately Providence has sent us a panacea--Universal\n    Suicide.\n\n    I am, Sir,\n    Yours obediently,\n    AGATHA P. ROBINS.\n\n1889.\n\n    SIR,--Surely \"A Mad Englishman\" and \"Dorothy X.,\" who maintain so\n    glibly that country life is more enjoyable than town life, fail to\n    realise how much of our pleasure depends on human intercourse. It is\n    given only to poets to talk with trees. Nor can ordinary mortals find\n\n      Sermons in stones,\n      Books in the running brooks.\n\n    We need the cathedrals and the libraries that are to be found only in\n    the great centres of national life--yes, and also the art galleries\n    and the theatres. Of course, if people will martyr themselves to keep\n    up appearances, and want to live in a fashionable neighbourhood, they\n    will not find town life either cheap or pleasant. But if they are\n    content to live outside the aristocratic radius, they can find many a\n    comfortable villa, with baths (hot and cold), and back gardens which\n    may easily be converted into rustic retreats (I would especially\n    recommend rhododendrons). If you are also not above omnibuses (taking\n    a cab only when it rains, and selecting a driver who does not look as\n    if he would swear), and are satisfied to go to the pit, then I feel\n    sure London is not only as cheap as the obscurest village, but gives\n    you a far greater return for your money. Newly-married couples in\n    especial often make a great mistake in settling in the country for\n    the sake of economy. It is only in the town that they can really lead\n    a tranquil, happy life, enriched with all the resources of culture\n    and civilisation.\n\n    I am, Sir,\n    Yours obediently,\n    AGATHA P. ROBINS.\n\n1890.\n\n    SIR,--The failure of marriage is too apparent to be glossed over any\n    longer. \"A.Y.Z.\" and \"A Woman of No Importance\" deserve the thanks of\n    every honest heart for their brave outspokenness. Too long has this\n    mediaeval monstrosity cramped our lives. The beautiful word \"Home\"\n    conceals a doll's house or whitewashes a sepulchre. Marriage is\n    misery in two syllables. How can people be happy chained together\n    like galley-slaves? It contradicts all we know of human nature.\n\n      Love, free as air, at sight of human ties\n      Spreads his light wings and in a moment flies.\n\n    Away with this effete Pharisaism! Let us realise the infinite\n    possibilities of happiness latent in the blessing of existence. The\n    world is longing for freedom to love truly, nobly, wisely, many.\n\n    I am, Sir,\n    Yours obediently,\n    AGATHA P. ROBINS.\n\n1891.\n\n    SIR,--I can testify by personal experience to the fact that the\n    manners of our children are deteriorating. Coming up to the\n    Metropolis for a day's excursion last Bank Holiday, I could not walk\n    anywhere without overhearing ribald remarks--and, what was worse, at\n    my own expense--even from respectably dressed children. Let those\n    look to it who\n\n      Teach the young idea how to shoot.\n\n    I thank Heaven my lot has always been cast in a sweet Devonshire\n    village, where the contagion of ill-conduct has not yet spread among\n    the juvenile population.\n\n    I am, Sir,\n    Yours obediently,\n    AGATHA P. ROBINS.\n\n1892.\n\n    SIR,--Have your flippant correspondents, \"Polygamist\" and \"Illegal\n    Brother-in-Law,\" any conception of the thousands (ay, tens of\n    thousands) of hearts that are, languishing in misery because they\n    cannot marry their deceased sisters' husbands? And all because of a\n    text which is not to be found in the Bible! Fie upon you, ye\n    so-called Bishops,\n\n      Dressed in a little brief authority.\n\n    Abolish this unrighteous law, I say, and let floods of sunshine and\n    happiness into a million darkened homes.\n\n    I am, Sir,\n    Yours obediently,\n    AGATHA P. ROBINS.\n\nBut, after all, is it fair to juxtaposit Agatha's letters? What if one\nwere to collect the leaders of any newspaper on any given subject, before\nor after any event? I have met Agatha P. Robins in many other places at\nmany other times. Sometimes she is interested in the best substitute for\nshirt-buttons or for Christianity, sometimes in the problem of living on\na thousand a year, sometimes in the abolition of stag-hunting.\n\n  SIGNS OF THE SILLY SEASON.\n\n  A gooseberry that groweth green and great,\n    A serpent round the sea serenely curled,\n  A lonely soul that fails to find a mate,\n    A boy redundant in a teeming world,\n\n  A sister yearning for dead sisters' shoes,\n    A life that longs for death, or after-life,\n  A ghost, a mistress whom her maids abuse,\n    An erring judge, a French or German wife,\n\n  A child's long ear or holiday, a slum,\n    A man gone bald, or drunk, a coin's design--\n  Should things like these across your paper come,\n    Conclude the Silly Season will be fine.\n\nIt is difficult to trace exactly when \"The Season\" ends and \"The Silly\nSeason\" begins. It needs the finest discrimination to know when the\nadjective comes in--without a worldly training, indeed, you cannot tell\nthe one from the other. But the past masters of the social art proclaim\nthat \"The Season\" is dead, and we bow our heads in reverence. Yes, it is\nvanished, that focus of futilities, that wonderful Season, that\nphantasmagoria of absurdities, of abortive ambitions, over which a\nhundred humourists have made merry: it is dead, with its splendours and\njubilations and processions--dead as the ropes of roses in St. James's\nstreet. Often have I debated the potency of satire, again and again have\nI suggested to learned friends a scientific and historical investigation\nof the popular belief that satire moves mountains or even molehills. But\nthey agree only in shrinking from the task. To take only the last\nhalf-century: we have had one supreme satirist who harped eternally on\nthe failings of fashion and the vanity of things. In his novels society\nsaw itself reflected in all its attitudes and postures and posings. Not\none meanness or folly escaped. What Professor Huxley has done for the\ncrayfish, that Thackeray did for the Snob. He studied him lovingly, he\ndissected him, he classified every variety of him. A thousand disciples,\nless gifted but equally remorseless, followed in the Master's footsteps.\n\"Punch\" took up the tale, and week by week repeated the joke. It was\nheard in drawing-room recitations to the accompaniment of pianos; it even\nwent on the stage. Ladies rushed into print to expose foibles men never\nguessed, and to say of the sex at large what less gifted women say only\nof their personal friends. For years we have never ceased for a moment to\nhear the lash of the whip, the swish of the birch, the whizz of the\narrow, the ping of the bullet, the thwack of the flail, the thud of the\nhammer, the buzzing of the hornet. And what does it all amount to? How\nmuch execution has been done? Is society purer or nobler? Have less\ndaughters been sold at Vanity Fair, or more invitations been sent to poor\nrelatives? Has Jones got better manners or champagne? Is Mrs. Ponsonby de\nTomkins more distant to duchesses? Did my Lady Clara Vere de Vere\nconsider whether Hood's seamstress was at work on her court gown? Is any\none wiser or kinder or honester for all the literary pother? Are the\ndiplomatic corps less maculate than in the days of Grenville Murray? Have\nwe not, on the contrary, cast on our own imperfections the complaisance\nof an eye educated in the superior imperfections of our neighbours?\n\nLo, here is a new satirist arisen, Sarah Jeannette Duncan, who, in \"The\nSimple Adventures of a Memsahib,\" sketches Anglo-Indian society in a\nmanner that would not discredit Thackeray--and with something, too, of\nThackeray's haunting sense of the pathos of the dead Past and the flying\nPresent. But will the memsahib of to-morrow take warning by the fate of\nHelen Peachey, who went out to India in all her bridal bravery, in all\nher youth and freshness? Will she escape exchanging the placidity of Fra\nAngelico's piping cherubim for the petulance and ring-shadowed eyes of\nthe seasoned matron? Will she be on her guard against shrinking to the\nprejudices and flirtations of a coterie, dying to all finer and higher\nissues? Will she worship virtue more and viceroys less? Alas, I fear me\nnot--no more than Pagett, M. P., will leave off talking solar myths, or\nfoolish things cease to be done under the deodars. Will Hogarth keep\nwine-bibbers from the bottle, or can you make men sober by acts of\n\"L'Assommoir\"? Will \"Madame Bovary\" stay a sister's fall, or \"Sapho\"\nrepel an eligible young man? Will \"The Dunciad\" keep one dunce from\nscribbling, or \"Le Tartufe\" elevate a single ecclesiastic? As well expect\n\"long firms\" to run short, and the moths to avoid the footlights, and the\nfool to cease from the land. \"How gay they were, and how luxurious, and\nhow important in their little day! How gorgeous were the attendants of\ntheir circumstances, on the box with a crest upon their turbans!--there\nis a firm in Calcutta that supplies beautiful crests. And now, let me\nthink! some of them in the Circular Road Cemetery--cholera, fever,\nheat-apoplexy; some of them under the Christian daisies of\nEngland--probably abscess of the liver.\" Yes, madam, we know it all, we\nrecognize the Thackeray touch. \"And soon, very soon, our brief day, too,\nwill have died in a red sunset behind clustering palms, and all its\nlittle doings and graspings and pushings, all its petty scandals and\nsurmises and sensations, will echo further and further back into the\nnight.\" True, most true, and pity 't is 't is true. But meantime we will\ngo on with our little doings and graspings and pushings--yes, madam, even\nyou and I who have realised the vanity of all things; for the knowledge\nthereof--this, too, is vanity. \"And it was all a striving and a striving,\nand an ending in nothing, and no one knew what they had lived and worked\nfor.\" Yea, so it is, Frau Schreiner. And still we are living on--and oh!\nhow hard we work (on African farms or otherwhere) to express artistically\nour sense of the futility of life!\n\n  VANITAS VANITATUM.\n\n  A rich voluptuous languor of dim pain,\n    A dreamy sense of passionate regret,\n  Delicious tears and some sweet, sad refrain,\n    Some throbbing, vague, and tender canzonet,\n  That mourns for life so real and so vain,\n    Wherein we glory while our eyes are wet.\n\nI am afraid, if I pursue this investigation, I shall end by believing\nthat satire is simply an aesthetic satisfaction--the last luxury of the\nsinful. Ridicule, we are always told, is a tremendous destructive--an\natmosphere in which nothing can live. But is it? Christianity, Kings, and\nWar are little the worse for the jets of mockery that have been playing\non them for two centuries. In Swift's day the wits at the coffee-houses\nregarded religion as a farce that even the Augurs could not keep up any\nlonger without public winking; yet Diderot and the Encyclopaedia are\ndead, and the bishops we have always with us! It was thought War could\nnot survive Voltaire's remark that a monarch picks up a parcel of men who\nhave nothing to do, dresses them in blue cloth at two shillings a yard,\nand marches away with them to glory--but here is our Henley singing a\nsong of the sword, while all our novelists are looking to their weapons.\nDespite Heine's sarcasm, the collection of English kings is as incomplete\nas ever. A passing fad can, perhaps, be made to pass along a little\nfaster, but it only makes room for another. True, \"Punch\" killed the\ncraze for sunflowers and long necks; but then \"Punch\" invented it. It was\nmerely made to be destroyed brilliantly, like a Chinese cracker or a\nRoman candle. Folly is older than \"Punch's\" jokes, and will survive them.\nSnobbery and self-seeking, pettiness and stupidity, envy, hate, and all\nuncharitableness, were no secret to the mummies in the British Museum.\n\"Unto the place whither the rivers go, thither they go again.\" Are there\nnot a hundred sayings in Ecclesiastes and Menander, in Horace and\nMoli\u00e8re, as apt to-day as though fresh from the typewriter? One of the\nlearned friends to whom I proposed the thesis contended that Perseus and\nJuvenal at least are out of date. But this was merely my learned friend's\nignorance. Is it not the truest piety to conclude that those things which\nthe ridicule of the ages cannot kill deserve their immortality--that\nKings, War, and Christianity play a part in the scheme of creation, and\nthat even snobbery and jobbery, folly and fraud, rouge and\nrespectability, and horse-racing, bounders and politicians, the\nprize-ring and the marriage market, are all necessary to the fun of\nVanity Fair! They are thrown up by the flux of things for Honesty to set\nhis heel on. So houp-la! On with the dance! louder, ye fiddlers! faster,\nO merry-go-round! Nay, not so glum, ye moralists and satirists,\nphilanthropists and preachers; link hands all--_ducdame, ducdame!_--and\nthank the gods for keeping you in occupation. What should we do without\nour fools? The question seems pat for a Silly Season correspondence.\nCome, gather, fools all. Ye could not be better employed than in\nanswering it. For, mark, brother-satirists mine, you cannot kill the\nSilly Season correspondence.\n\nAnd you cannot kill Ghosts. Perhaps because they do not exist. No other\ndead thing is so tenacious of life as your ghost. If ridicule were really\nfatal, we should have given up the ghost long since. Consider the fires\nof burlesque through which he has passed unscathed. What indignity has\nbeen spared him? Now at last he is to encounter the supreme test--he is\nto be taken seriously. The Psychical Society has the matter in hand--or\nshould one say, the spirit? And Mr. Stead, who believes in himself in a\nway that is refreshing in these atheistic times, proposes either to\nrehabilitate the ghost or to lay him for ever. But this latter is beyond\nthe might of man or society.\n\nAnd you cannot kill Grouse. At least I can't. I sometimes suspect there\nare others of the population equally incompetent, and perhaps still less\ninterested in battues; though the Twelfth figures in everybody's calendar\nlike a Church festival, and the newspapers devote leaders to it, and the\ncomic papers have pictures, and sometimes even jokes about it, and you\nwould think the whole population of these islands struck work and went\na-shooting with gillies and dogs and appropriate costume. But that is the\ncraftiness of the editors, from Mr. Buckle and Mr. Yates down to the\neditor of the _Halfpenny Democrat_--they make the humblest of us feel we\nare in the best sets, so we all come up to town for the season, and are\nseen at three parties a night, and we ride in the Park, and we go to\nHenley and Goodwood to a man; and we yacht at Cowes, and pot grouse in\nScotland--still with the same wonderful unanimity; and we hunt with the\nhounds, and run with the salmon, and keep our Christmas in country\nhouses, and come up smiling for the New Year, ready to recommence the\nsame old Sisyphean round. I suppose the people who really do these things\ncould be exhibited in the National Gallery, but the space their doings\nfill is incalculable.\n\nAnd you cannot kill Adelphi Melodrama. But I have a piece of advice to\noffer to the Italian gentlemen who have done so much for our stage. It\nis, that they run their theatre on a principal of duality befitting their\njoint management. Let it be the home of Melodrama and Burlesque, the same\nplay serving for both _genres_. Let, say, Mr. Sims--who is so clever in\neither species--write the pieces--each melodrama being its own burlesque.\nAn extra dash of colour here, an ambiguous line there, with a serious\nmeaning in the melodrama and a droll in the burlesque, will secure the\nbrothers two audiences, and after eight o'clock I guarantee standing room\nonly. The simple will come to weep and thrill, the cynics to laugh and\nchuckle. And everybody will be happy.\n\nIn sooth, is not the world divided into those who take the great cosmic\ndrama seriously, and those who treat it as farce? On the one hand the\nworkers and the fighters, on the other the journalists, politicians, and\nmen about town. Yet have the workers and the fighters the nobler part. A\ngenuine emotion, an earnest conviction, vitalises life. The day-dreams of\nhungry youth are better than the dinners of prosaic maturity, and a\nsimple maiden in her flower is worth a hundred epigrams. I had rather be\nan Adelphi god than a smoking-room satyr.\n\nWho shall blame the melodramatist? He writes for those to whom literature\nmakes no appeal. Literature is a freemasonry of the highest minds, and\nthat poetry is Greek to the masses I should scarcely have thought a\n\"Question at Issue\" demanding substantiation from Mr. George Gissing. Mr.\nGosse must know that the eclipse which darkened England at the passing of\nAlfred Tennyson was invented by the newspapers and the poets who outraced\none another to weep upon his tomb. Look upon Mr. Booth's map of East\nLondon, with its coloured lines showing the swarms of human beings who\nlive ignobly and die obscurely, and realise for yourself of what import\nthe cult of beautiful form is to these human ant-heaps. Walk down the\npopulous Whitechapel Road of a Saturday night, or traverse the long slimy\nalleys of Rotherhithe among the timber wharves, and discover how many of\nyour countrymen and contemporaries are living neither in your country nor\nin your century. To Mr. Henry James, the dull undertone of pain and\nsorrow is part of the music of London--such harmony is in aesthetic\nsouls. But the dull and the gross, who only suffer and endure, the muddy\nvesture of decay closes them in and they cannot hear it.\n\nWhat shall literature do for these? In a great smoky Midland town, on\ndreary pavements, under sloppy skies, I saw a girl who was a greater\nargument for melodrama than all the cheques of all the managers. She was\ngoing to her work in the raw dawn, her lunch in a package under her arm;\nthe back was bent and the face was pale and pinched, but there was a\nslumbering fire of romance in the deep-fringed eyes, and suggestions of\npoetry lurked in the shadows of her hair; and at once my breast was full\nof stirrings to write for her--only for her--a book full of beauty and\nhappiness and sunshine, and, oh! such false views of life, such\ninaccurate pictures of the pleasures of a society she would never know.\nThe hero should be handsome and brave and good, with a curling moustache;\nand the heroine should be beautiful and true, with an extensive wardrobe;\nand the clouds would come only to roll by, and the story should die away\nin an odour of orange-blossom, and in a music of marriage-bells. And\nthere should be lots of money for everybody, and any amount of laughter\nand gaiety, and I would give dances twice a volume, and see that all the\ngirls had partners, delightful waltzers with good conversation. And there\nwould be garden-parties (weather permitting invariably), and picnics\nwithout green spiders, and sails without sea-sickness. And as for truth\nand realism--fie on them! We can create a much nicer world than nature's.\nWhy be plagiarists, when we can make universes of our own?\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nCONCERNING GENERAL ELECTIONS\n\nTwice in succession has it befallen me to be privately busy in a\nbackwater when the main stream was spuming and ramping with the great\nbore of a general election. I have been able to hear the swallows twitter\nat sunrise in serene unconsciousness of the crisis, to watch the rooks\nhoming at twilight, as though the course of Nature were still the same,\nand to see the moonlight rippling over the sombre water at midnight in\nunaffected tranquillity. Myself was scarcely better informed of the tidal\nflood: stray echoes of speech, odd fragments of newspaper floated down to\nme, and at intervals some visitant from the greater deep held, like a\nsea-shell, the rumour of its sounding waters.\n\nAnd, indeed, where shall we find a better metaphor for party-government\nthan this of the tide, of the ebb and flow of political\npower--remorseless, inevitable, regardless of those who, tossed high on\nthe stream, imagine they direct it? And in this metaphor the People must\nplay Moon, like the clown in \"A Midsummer Night's Dream.\" But, as Juliet\nsays:\n\n  O swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon.\n\nThe cause of this inconstancy has not escaped even the philosophers. The\nWhig and the Tory, rival lovers of Luna,--moonstruck ravers,--woo her\nwith honeyed words and dulcet promises, and she inclines her coquettish\near--most of the month she is all ear--to the highest bidder. But when\nshe comes to her full--and is all eye--then she perceives her swain\nfaithless and empty-handed, and straightway she plights her troth to his\nclamorous and expostulant fellow, who dangles his untried promises before\nher disappointed vision. And the days pass, and she rises and sets; but\nlo! the bridal gifts linger still, and the horn of plenty is an empty\ntrumpet, and, forgetful of her first lover's failure, she turns to him\nagain. And so for ever, in a fickle quest of fidelity, pathetic enough.\nPerhaps she--with the two strings to her bow--shares the just fate of\ncoquettes, happy with neither; perhaps she were wiser to give herself to\na single lover, and be rid for ever of these hesitancies. And yet, would\nshe profit by the change? Endymion, the one youth whose beauty drew her\nfrom heaven, remained perpetually asleep. Is there not some profound\nsignificance in the ancient myth, some truth that would have pleased\nFrancis Bacon, Baron Verulam (as the pedants will have us call the man\nwho did not write Shakespeare).\n\nBut the philosophers, who have understood the levity of mind that\nunderlies changes of Cabinets, have not always understood the numerical\npettiness of the voting power by which the change is effected. Just as\nevery philosopher is born a Platonist or an Aristotelian, so, as Mr.\nGilbert sings, is every Englishman born a little Liberal or a little\nConservative: even if his politics be not original sin, it is early\nacquired. Thus, then, the nation consists of two great camps--the\nLiberals and the Conservatives--which are practically fixed; standing\narmies that may be relied upon. A born Liberal may wax fat and kick at\nhis ancient principles: a born Conservative may change his coat and turn\nWhig. But these exceptions are rare. For the most part men stick to their\nparty and die as foolish as they were born--which is called consistency.\nConvinced sometimes against their will, they are of the same opinion\nstill. Loyalty and obstinacy will look facts in the face and never\nblench, and every one remains truer to his social circle than to his\nprivate judgments. People's politics are their prejudices at a masked\nball, and the Conservatives will vote Conservative and the Liberals\nLiberal, through a cannonade of unanswerable cartoons. Apart from these\ntwo great standing armies, there is a shifting body of free-lances,\nguerrillas, Jacks-o'-both-sides, call them what you will--waverers who\nhave too much conscience or too little, who are swayed by their reason or\ntheir pocket, or who are gullible enough to believe that the opposition\nwill do better, or sportsmen enough to desire fair play and a chance for\nthe other side, and who are found fighting now in this camp, now in that.\nThe camps themselves are fairly matched: Rads and Tories--the sexes of\npolitics--are as evenly created as men and women. They are like ten-pound\nweights standing on either scale of a balance. What, then, determines the\noscillation this way or that? Evidently the miserable little half-ounce\nweight placed sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. In\nfine,'tisthe tiny squadron of free-lances that wins general elections,\nthe voters who think or who don't think, or who veer to be with the\nmajority. The Jacks-o'-both-sides rule England, even as the Parnell\nbrigade ruled Parliament. To this floating population is it given to make\nor unmake Cabinets; theirs is the righteous indignation that sweeps the\ncountry like a new broom, and sweeps Ministries into limbo; to them is\nmade the magniloquent \"appeal to the country!\" _L'\u00e9tat, c'est nous!_\nmight be the motto of this third party, were it but conscious of itself\nas a party.\n\n\"The majority is never right,\" cries Dr. Stockmann in \"The Enemy of the\nPeople.\" \"Never, I say. That is one of those conventional lies against\nwhich a free, thoughtful man must rebel. Who are they that make up the\nmajority of a country? Is it the wise men or the foolish? I think we must\nagree that the foolish folk are, at present, in a terribly overwhelming\nmajority all around and about us the wide world over. But, devil take it,\nit can surely never be right that the foolish should rule over the\nwise.... The majority has might--unhappily--but right it has not. I and a\nfew others are right.\" But how if \"I and a few others\" organised\nthemselves after the fashion of the Parnellites? how if the wise men made\nup their minds that the world should no longer be governed with the\nproverbial minimum of wisdom, and, taking advantage of the natural\nbalance of parties, resolved that they should be the ones to supply the\nprinciple of movement to the equilibrated social machine? Surely the\nMillennium could not long resist the Philosophers' party. But, alas!\nwould the wise men agree? Would not they also split up into two factions?\nAnd even if philosophers were kings and kings philosophers, _would_ the\nkingdom of Plato be at hand?\n\nPopular suffrage is much maligned. \"Think,\" says Bouvard, one of the\ntragi-comic twain who serve for title to that saddest of all humorous\nbooks, Flaubert's \"Bouvard et P\u00e9cuchet,\" \"think of all those who buy\npomades and patent medicines. These blockheads form the electorate and we\nsubmit to their will. Why can't one make three thousand a year by\nbreeding rabbits? Because too much crowding together is fatal to them. In\nlike manner, by the mere coming together of a crowd the germs of\nstupidity which it contains get developed and the consequences are\nincalculable.\" But popular suffrage does not operate like this at all.\nOne might almost say that half the stupidity contradicts and annihilates\nthe other half: in practice the franchise carries its own antidote,--the\n\"germs of stupidity\" do not get developed, but destroyed. The metaphor of\ngerms would be more appropriate if applied to the ideas of the\nparty-programmes, for these ideas are introduced by a few wise or foolish\nmen and disseminated epidemically throughout their respective parties.\nDemocracy never escapes aristocracy, for the people never invents ideas;\nits whole power is that of choice between the ideas offered by its\nwould-be leaders, and even these ideas it accepts less as a philosopher\nthan as a patient, rather as \"germs\" than as thoughts. And when once it\nhas accepted its leaders or its representatives, the beautiful\nparliamentary system deprives it of all further rights of interference\nfor a term of years, and the policy of the country is far more dependent\non the intestine rivalries and manoeuvrings of the representatives than\non the desires and demands of the represented. In a really democratic\nsystem there would be a central bureau of statesmen not necessarily\nelected by the voice of the people, and this bureau should have for\nobject not the wrangling over measures, but the mere proposition of them.\nThese trained thinkers and diplomatists--accepting advice freely from the\ngreat newspapers and the chiefs of factions--would propose whatever\nmeasures seemed necessary from time to time for the preservation, the\nelevation, and the dignity of the commonweal, and these propositions\nwould be submitted officially to every franchise-holder, just as the\ninquisitive census-paper or the parochial voting-paper is to-day. The\n\"Ayes\" or \"Noes\" of the people would have it, not of those who represent\nthem, save the mark! The details could be drafted by specialists, as\nto-day. That this would be a better or even a feasible system I do not\nsay; but I do maintain that any other democracy than this is a fraud. To\nhave the ten-thousandth part of a voice in selecting among the varying\npolicies of sundry ambitious gentlemen, all of whom have been foisted on\nme by committees, and of whom the successful one--whose professed views\nmay be quite antithetical to mine and can at best only roughly represent\nthem--will have, when he is not absent or manoeuvred into silence, the\nsix-hundred-and-seventieth part of a voice in accepting or rejecting the\nideas of half a dozen very ambitious gentlemen, whose measures are\nthemselves liable to be quashed at the eleventh hour by an Upper House\nthat sits without my will or consent, and which is in its turn legally\nliable to be superseded by the Sovereign, whose government is all the\nwhile being really carried on in silence by permanent officials whose\nvery names I do not know and who have no connection with me beyond\naccepting, in ignorance of my existence, my dole towards their\nsalaries,--this is not a form of democracy that appeals very attractively\nto me as an individual member of Demos.\n\nAnd, moreover, the position of my Member of Parliament is scarcely less\nparadoxical than my own r\u00f4le of free and independent elector. He is the\nmouthpiece of his constituents, and yet he is expected to have a will and\nconscience of his own. Why? Why should he be any more honest than a\nlawyer or a journalist? Each of these classes is paid to maintain certain\npropositions, and the most successful in these lines are those with the\nhighest powers of persuasion. The constituency wishes certain opinions\nand desires put forward in Parliament,--why should the man who offers to\nexecute the job be presumed to share those opinions and desires? The\npoint is, can he represent them more forcibly than the rival candidates?\nI do not for a moment imagine that the M. P. invariably agrees with the\npolitics of his electors; I only inquire why he should have to profess\nto,--why should he pay this homage of hypocrisy to an illogical ideal?\nTheoretically we do not elect our M. P. because _he_ wants to get on, but\nbecause _we_ want to get on or the country to get on; because _we_ want\ncertain measures carried, not because _he_ wants certain measures\ncarried. Therefore it is to our interest to get the most skilled advocate\nat our command; his personal opinions are no concern of ours. A fig for\nhis ambitions and aspirations! This may not be a dignified position for\nthe M. P., but it is the one logically implicated in the democratic\nnotion of universal suffrage; and when the gentleman honestly asserts\nhimself and his private ambitions and his private conscience, he is\ndeucedly dishonest to his constituents.\n\nTo be strictly logical, indeed, M. P.'s should confine themselves to\nstating the wishes of the people they represent: they might as well be\nmechanical dolls, moved through the lobbies by the respective\nwire-pullers and fitted with inarticulate noises. Or, for the matter of\nthat, they might be superseded altogether by written summaries of the\nopinions of the winning majority in each constituency on all the points\nat issue in the current session. The chiefs of the party could play the\ngame with markers. But indeed what is the use of dealing the cards at\nall, when the Prime Minister holds all the trumps in advance, not up his\nsleeve, but openly on the table? As for the speeches in the House, they\nhave as much effect upon the issue as the conversations at the\ncard-table. They are an obsolete survival from the times when members\nwere liable to come to the House with open minds, instead of having them\nclosed by their constituencies. Indeed, I can suggest a simple device by\nwhich, without any departure from the ancient forms of the House, most of\nthe evils of Party Government could be swept away. By the system of\n\"pairing\" a Tory may neutralize a Radical, and both go on together\nwithout interfering with the good of the country. Let therefore the\nentire minority pair off with members of the opposite party, leaving the\nbare majority in possession of the floor. Being agreed on their policy,\nthese would not want to make speeches, but would simply spend their time\nwalking through the \"Ayes\" lobby. A few afternoons of pleasant\npromenading would provide the country with enough legislation for a\nlifetime. _Solvitur ambulando._ The party leaders would be enabled to\nhusband their energies for the hustings, since like all the agreeable\nmembers they would easily find \"partners.\" It is only the bores who would\nbe left to walk the House. It will be observed that this incalculable\ngain of time, temper, money, and Acts of Parliament would be secured\nwithout revolution, on constitutional lines, and by a mere extension of\nan existing practice. I am convinced the salvation of the country depends\non the universal adoption of the system of Parliamentary \"pairing,\" or\nlegislation by walking \"wall-flowers.\"\n\nA further advantage of this system deserves to be noted. As it takes\nforty members to make a House, should the Governmental majority fall\nbelow this number no business could be transacted. Thus it would become\nimpossible, when the country was almost equally divided, for one party to\nimpose its will on the nation by force of a bare majority. Again,\ntherefore, a very necessary reform would be achieved on strictly\nconstitutional lines.\n\nIn so confused a constitution, or so constitutional a confusion, it ill\nbecomes one to inquire why pre-eminence in Parliament is attained by\ndexterity in the word-duel, and why a John Stuart Mill, who gave his life\nto the study of sociological questions, is a failure in the House, while\na Randolph Churchill, who confessedly found politics more exciting than\nany other form of sport, including even horse-racing, should be a\nsuccess. As in Athens of old, the rhetorician is master of the field.\nDoes it not seem ridiculous that a man shall be allowed to legislate who\nhas not passed an examination in political philosophy, political economy,\nand universal history? As absurd as that men should be able to set up as\ncritics merely by purchasing reviews, that they should be permitted to\nply without a license. Still, monstrous as is the mischief wrought by the\nquack critic, his sphere of influence is limited. But this question of\ngovernment touches us all. No one ought to be allowed in the House who\nhas not satisfactorily grappled with papers like the following.\n\n1. Explain the use of the following phrases: \"Home Rule,\" \"Liberty,\"\n\"Well-being of the Masses,\" \"G. O. M.,\" \"Good of the State,\" \"The\nConstitution.\" What meaning do you attach to them, if any?\n\n2. \"The Function of an Opposition Is To Oppose.\" Criticise this statement\nfrom the point of view of the Party in Power, and trace carefully the\nmodification in its view produced by a change of government.\n\n3. What is a good electoral address? Is there any relation between it and\nits owner's votes in the House?\n\n4. (a) Prove that Female Franchise is demanded not only by the women of\nEngland, but by every consideration of reason and justice.\n\n(b) Disprove the same.\n\n5. The leader of your party suddenly reverses his policy.\n\n(a) What would you think?\n\n(b) What would you say?\n\n(c) How would you vote?\n\nGive no reasons for your answer.\n\n6. If C represents Conscience, and C1 the Constituency, show that C1 will\nalways be represented by C2[*].\n\n[Transcriber's note: So in original.]\n\n7. What is a working-man? Explain why professional men who work sixteen\nhours a day are excluded from this category.\n\n8. Define a political victory, and distinguish between a political\nvictory and a moral victory.\n\nBut perhaps the discrepancy is less than meets the eye. The House of\nCommons is a _Representative_ Assembly; the rhetoricians and fencers\nrepresent the unreason and the pugnacity of the partisans. A country has\nthe politicians it deserves. I have heard the most ignorant girls rage\nagainst Mr. Gladstone; damsels in their teens who knew nothing of life or\nits problems, nor could have studied any question for themselves; pretty\ngirls withal, but who at the mention of the veteran statesman took on the\navenging aspect of the Eumenides.\n\nIt was a girl of quite another temper who replied to me when, talking\nover old times and old discussions, I said I had not yet become a\nSocialist: \"I don't think you ever knew what you were.\" I winced as at a\njust reproach, yet when I had left her the retort occurred to me (as\nretorts will, when too late) that there was no particular merit in being\na \"what,\" that men were not necessarily \"'ists\" or \"'ites,\" that thoughts\ndid not fit into pigeonholes, and that if there was any merit in the\nmatter it consisted rather in preserving free play and elasticity of\nmind. Because certain men had put certain ideas into the world it did not\nfollow that every other man had definitely to accept or reject each and\nall of them, and to become an \"'ite\" or an \"anti-'ite\" in so doing.\nPlague take great men! What right had they to force one into the\njury-box? Still less was it compulsory to return a verdict if, as the\nvulgar were apt to think, the acceptance of any one \"'ism\" precluded the\nacceptance of another, so that to be an Ibsenite was synonymous with\ndetesting the dramas of Sardou, and to be a Wagnerite involved a horror\nof Mendelssohn. It was only the uncultured who held their artistic and\npolitical creeds with the narrowness of Little Bethel, importing into\nthought and aesthetics the zealotry they had lost in religion. The book\nof Experience, thought I, is not an Encyclopaedia, with every possible\ntopic neatly ranged in alphabetical order; 'tis no A B C Time Table, with\nthe trains docketed for the enlightenment of the simple,'t is rather an\nEncyclopaedia torn into a million million fragments by kittens and pasted\ntogether again by infants, so that all possible things are inextricably\ninterfused, every one with every other; 't is a Bradshaw edited by a\nmaniac, where the trains that start but don't arrive are not even\ndistinguished from the trains that arrive but don't start. Wherever\npersons are conscious of the infinite complexities of things, they will\nbe found cautious of creed and timid of assertion. You have probably\nnoted that at Waterloo Station, in London, no porter will ever bind\nhimself to a definite statement concerning any train. It is only the\ninartistic who hold that black is black and white is white,\nunconditionally, irretrievably; and who have invented the proverb \"He'd\nsay black's white\" to express the Sophist _in excelsis_. It must be true,\nas Ruskin contends, that not one man in fifteen thousand has ever\nobserved anything, else how account for this wide-spread fallacy? The\n\"wit of one,\" instead of crystallising this \"wisdom of the many,\" should\nhave flatly contradicted it. For, take two blackboards and place them at\nright angles to each other: let a ray of bright sunlight fall upon them,\nso that one cast a shadow on the other. The portion of blackboard\novershadowed will indeed be blackish, but the portion illuminated by full\nsunlight will be comparatively white, although it is still thought of as\na \"_black_-board.\" So, too, ask the man in the street for the colour of\ntrees, and he will reply \"green.\" If I may permit myself a vulgar\nlocution, the green is in his eye. Trees are, of course, all colours of\nthe rainbow, according to kind and season; and grass, too, is by no means\nalways so green as people think it. We start in our childhood with\nprejudices on these subjects--what is education but the systematic\nimparting of prejudice?--and we rarely recover. Even the primitive rhymes\nof childhood fix ideas unalterably in our minds:\n\n  The rose is red, the violet's blue,\n  Sugar is sweet and so are you.\n\nTea-roses are not red nor Neapolitan violets blue; sugar is only sweet to\nthose unversed in metaphysics, and sugar of lead not even to them. As for\nthe compliment to the juvenile petticoat, let it remain. But the\nblackness of black is a superstition that deserves no such courteous\nconcessions. There is, in fact, no black and no white at all, as any\nblack-and-white artist will tell you. Black is not a colour: it is merely\nthe negation of light. By day nothing is ever black--it always contains\nreflected light from some surrounding object or objects: if you look at a\n\"black\" thing by day, you see its details, which convincingly proves that\nlight is not absent. If there were such a thing as a black object, it\ncould only prove its existence by being seen; but if it is seen it is no\nlonger black, and if it is black it is no longer seen. The mourners at a\nfuneral no more wear black than the bridesmaids at a wedding wear white.\nTo be white, a thing would have to escape all reflected light; and even\nif this were possible, the sunlight itself, the source of all light and\ncolour, would tinge it with yellow, or red, or pink, according to the\ntime of day. \"What!\" the injudicious reader will cry, \"is not snow white?\nDoes not the Dictionary boast even a double-barreled epithet\n'snow-white'! How about the 'great white sea' that stretches round the\nPole?\" I cannot help it: these adjectives, these expressions were\ninvented before artists had taught men to see: hastily, as by men falling\nin love at first sight, who are destined to make many discoveries\nconcerning their idol later on. Snow is never white, any more than the\nbeloved is absolutely blameless. For snow to be \"snow-white,\" the sky\nwould have to be white, whereas in those arctic circles it should be\neither blue or grey. Moreover, the snow being only semi-opaque must be\ntinctured by the shadow of the darkness of its own depths; as for\nicebergs, well, you may see green, brown, and even deep-grey ice, whilst\nthe whitest have pinnacles and crags that must break the light like\nprisms into all the colours of the spectrum, and all these hues, again,\ndo not fail to tint the snow. Nor will the white bear improve the\nsituation, for, to judge by the specimen in our London Zoological\nGardens, white bears are dirty yellow, just as black bears are dirty\nbrown.\n\nBut, so far from realising that black may be white, your average voter\nseems to imagine that neither is ever even tempered: that his party is\npurest white, and the opposition party impurest black. That the other\nside reverses this colouring does not trouble him: it is merely due to\nthe aforesaid sophistical faculty of proving black white. I once knew a\nman--no average voter he--who owned two comic papers, the one Radical,\nthe other Conservative. How he must have chuckled as he planned the\ncartoons and settled the chiaroscuro! What blacks for the Tories to be\nanswered by counter-blacks for the Radicals! Beaconsfield as a sweep,\nGladstone as an Angel of Light; Beaconsfield as Ormuzd, Gladstone as\nAhriman; each in turn Lucifer, Son of the Morning, and Satan, the\ndiscomfited demon. I tremble to think what would have happened if, by one\nof those _contretemps_ which sometimes occur even in real life, the\ncartoons had got interchanged. And caricatures such as these influence\nthe elections! The most childish nonsense, written in the\npicture-language so dear to children! And on such ineptitudes the\ndestinies of the nation are supposed to turn! 'T is a comforting\nreflection, then, that the whole thing is so largely a farce, that the\nreal axis of events is elsewhere--by no means a thing to grieve over. If\nthe British Constitution is a paradox not to be fathomed by human\nintellect, why, that is a quality which it shares with Space and Time and\nall deep and elemental things. Your deep thinker is invariably a\nparadox-monger, because everything when probed to its bottom proves\nillusive, and is found to contain its own contradiction. Truth is not a\ndead butterfly, to be transfixed with a pin and labelled, but a living,\nairy, evasive butterfly. Perhaps that is the inner meaning of the\nWhistlerian motto. The Hegelian self-contradictoriness of the British\nConstitution will not, therefore, affright us. To Tennyson the fact that\nit is a \"crowned republic\" seemed a source of security. The English have\nabolished the Crown, though they are too loyal to inform the Sovereign of\nhis deposition; in like manner they have evaded Democracy by conceding\nuniversal suffrage. The strength of the British Constitution lies in its\ninherent absurdity, its audacious paradoxicalness. It exists by force of\nnot being carried out. And the reason of this illogicality is clear: our\nConstitution, like Topsy, was not made but \"growed,\" and that which grows\nis never logically perfect; it is like an old tree, strangely gnarled,\nwith countless abrasions and mutilations, and sometimes even curious\ngrafts. Here the lightning struck it, and yonder branch was snapped in\nthe great gale. Machine-made schemes may be theoretically perfect, but\nthey will never suit human nature, which is a soil for living growths,\nnot a concrete foundation for elegant architecture. This is the truth\nwhich trips up Comte, and Fourier, and St. Simon, and all the\nsystem-makers and utopia-builders. Perfect things are dead things: the\nlaw of life is imperfection and movement. Life is never logical, it is\nonly alive. If man had been made by machinery his body would not have\nbeen erratically hairy; his toes would long since have been improved away\nor welded together by an American patentee; nor would there have\nremained, for our humiliation, those traces of a caudal appendage which\nsome osteologists have thought to perceive in our distinguished anatomy;\nour brotherhood to the beasts would have been betrayed only by our\nbehaviour.\n\nSo that, though Politics be as absurd as the Constitution, God bless her,\nit may yet fulfil as useful a function. Who would deprive the hosts of\nworking-men of their generous enthusiasms, even though these be to the\nprofit of the professional politician? Who would narrow their horizon\nback to the public-house and the workshop or the clerical desk and the\nmusic-hall, by assuring them that all these great national and\ninternational questions will be no penny the worse or the better for\ntheir interest in them? For it is they, not the State, that will be\nbenefited. Politics is a great educative force: it teaches history,\ngeography, and the art of debate, and is not without relation to\nShakespeare and the musical glasses. The flies on the wheel are not\nmoving the wheel, but they are travelling and seeing the world, whereas\nthey might otherwise be buzzing around the dust-bin. Politics sets the\nhumblest at the centre of great cross-roads of history: it promotes clubs\nand all manner of fellowship, and enables the poorest--on polling-day at\nleast--to know himself the equal of the greatest. Even the most\nilliterate is spared the mortification of being reminded that he cannot\nsign his name. And finally, and most of all, it preserves among us the\nlost art of fighting. The long and oft-vaunted immunity of England from\nthe foot of a foreign foe has its drawbacks: we have forgotten what war\nreally means, we have delegated our courage and patriotism to an army of\nmercenaries, who represent us in the field as a nobleman's carriage\nrepresents him at a funeral; we are valiant vicariously and sublime by\ndeputy; we take the war-fever in its pleasant heats, and contract out the\nchills and the blood-letting. And so the blood-letting fails to purge us\nas before: the evil humours are still in the system. All those seething,\nrestless spirits which generate in the blood of a once warlike race clog\nus up and turn to bile and dyspeptic distempers. Our militant instincts,\nsuppressed by a too-secure civilization, break out in sordid maladies of\nthe social organism. As a vent-hole for the envy, hatred and\nuncharitableness of mankind, politics cannot be overestimated. In the\nabsence of real battles on our soil these sham fights of the\npolling-booth--sham because they determine nothing, because the great\nsilent forces are working behind all the noises--are the national purge\nfor \"our present discontents\"; no more truly efficacious than that\nancient therapeutics of the lancet, a General Election yet comforts the\npatient, he takes a lease of fresh hope, the sun leaps out, the clouds\npack, the sky is blue, the grass is dew-pearled, God's in his heaven, and\nall's right with the world. Even the beaten party feels that it has won a\nmoral victory, and confidently looks forward to victory without morality\nat the next turn of the wheel. And so all these diseased humours of the\nbody politic pass harmlessly off.\n\nNo one but a confirmed cynic would wish to do away with all this harmless\ndissipation, all the innocent fun of electioneering, the speeches,\nriotings, mud-throwings, everybody happy as sandboys or mudlarks. What a\ngreat day that was--Plancus being M. P. and I a boy in a provincial\ntown--when the Blues and the Reds meant broken heads, and the flowing\ntide of beer, and spruce carriages with beribboned horses, and jocund\nwaggonettes, and bands and banners, and \"hoorays,\" and shuttered shops,\nand an outpour of citizens; a day festive, yet solemn, pregnant with\nmysterious dooms and destinies, fatal, ineluctable, if victory fell to\nthe wrong-coloured ribbons. I remember when my father went to poll his\nvote--a strange, weird article that had to be carried carefully concealed\non the person, lest the roughs of the opposition should catch a glimpse\nof the tip of it and bash in the holder's head--with what awed\nimagination we followed his course, as of a hero gone to storm a redoubt\nor lead a forlorn hope! with what anxiety we waited at home with the\nbandages! For the civil war, which our constitution foments, was less of\na sham then than now, and the polling-booths vied with the playing-fields\nof Eton as the nursery of England's heroes. Ah, the brave old times! An\nanaemic age languishes for want of you, and finds its solace in \"bluggy\"\ntales. For just as politics supplies the shadow, the simulacrum of\nfighting, so art supplies the shadows of life to those who lack the\nsubstance. We herd in towns, and take the country in dashes of\nwater-colour framed in gilt. We marry for money, and satiate our baulked\nsense of romance with concoctions from Mudie's. We lie and haggle and\ncheat only the better to apprehend the subtleties of spiritual discourse\nin fashionable churches, and our generous appreciation of the consummate\nchivalry of the hero of melodrama is the reward we owe ourselves for the\npain it gave us to kick our wives. Practical joking is banished from\nreputable circles--even Bob Sawyer is ranging himself; and so this\nprimitive appetite seeks its satisfaction in farcical comedies. Poetic\ntragedies owe their attraction to the dominance in real life of the drab\nand the unlovely, and the overstrain of the intellect in modern life\ngives a peculiar flavour to the ineptitudes of Gaiety burlesque. All the\nprimal instincts and passions are still in us, though distorted,\nexaggerated, diminished, modified, applied to different objects and\npurposes. The man with vagabond instincts becomes an explorer, Ishmael\nwrites social dramas, the happier son of a defalcating cashier rises to\nbe a minister of finance, the born liar turns novelist, the man with\nmurder in his soul hunts big game in foreign lands or settles down at\nhome as a critic. And so, too, the born warrior becomes a political\nleader; and politics, if it does not do any of the things it professes to\ndo, plays yet an invaluable part in modern life, bridging over,\nperchance, the transition from the bellicose ages to those belauded days\nwhen the war-drum shall throb no longer, \"and the kindly earth shall\nslumber, lapt in universal law.\"\n\nThat this is confusedly and sub-consciously understood, even by\npoliticians, is shown by their very vocabulary. The Salvation Army itself\nboasts no more militant a phraseology than the profession whose business\nit is to administer peacefully the affairs of the realm. That which\nshould be, and sometimes is, expressed by nautical metaphors--the ship of\nstate, guiding the helm, and the rest of it--is much more frequently\nexpressed by military metaphors. Even the posts of duty are the \"spoils\"\nof office. The State which to Plato was a deliberately harmonised music\nis to us a deliberate discord, and the acme of politics, whose crowning\nglory should be a peaceful measure, is by the vulgar not so inaccurately\nregarded as attained at a General Election, the nomenclature of which\npositively bristles with bayonets. Seats are won as towns were of old,\nand, as in the days of Joshua, victory is achieved by walking round the\ntown and blowing your own trumpets. Great organs shamelessly lament that\ntheir side has no good grievance to go to the country with,--as if the\nabsence of grievances were not the very object of government! A stirring\nwar-cry--that is the indispensable. If good government were really the\nobject of a General Election, it would all be over and done with in a\nday. Election day would everywhere be as simultaneous as Christmas, and\nvotes would be polled with the punctuality with which puddings are eaten.\nBut this would be to contract a campaign into a battle--to make a short\nstory out of a great military serial, peppered with exciting incidents,\nto be continued in our next. We want our vicissitudes, our sharpshooting,\nour skirmishing, our days of triumph for the Whigs, and our days of\ntriumph for the Tories. What we like best of all is when the fighting is\nso level that the Election progresses as breathlessly as a good\nUniversity boat race. Failing that, we like to see one side swamping the\nother, like a great flood, the stream rising daily higher and higher,\nwith a crescendo roar, till the vanquished are swept away in a thunderous\nmountain of waters. So for a full moon the waters rage, the noise of\nbattle roars, till our suppressed fighting instincts have been deluded\ninto repose and satisfaction, till the champing war-horses have been\nquieted by being allowed to snort and cry \"Ha! ha!\" to see the glitter of\nstage spears, and to hear the noise of the supers and the shouting. This\nis the real end masked beneath all those interminable phrases. And it is\nachieved at any and every cost. For does not everybody complain that a\nGeneral Election upsets everything? The publishers groan, the theatrical\nmanagers tear their wigs. Englishmen cannot think of two things at once;\nthey are like heavy, solid craft, sound of timber but slow of turning.\n\"One thing at a time\" is a national proverb. They cannot even read two\nbooks at once, and if two classics should be published on the same day\none would be a failure. There is the book of the week, and the book of\nthe season, and the book of the year. This applies even to our\nappreciation of past periods, and because Shakespeare is the first of the\nElizabethan dramatists, the rest are nowhere. Wherefore one would suppose\nthat everybody would make haste to get the Election out of the way; but,\non the contrary, it is allowed to linger on, till sometimes our\noverstrained suspense snaps, and the Election dribbles out in unregarded\nissues. No, the fight's the thing! War, if not dead, is banished from our\nshores; the duello has been laughed to death; cock-fighting and\nbull-baiting have ceased to charm: politics alone remains to gratify the\npugnacity and cruelty that civilisation has robbed of their due objects.\nHow we brighten up again at a bye-election, when duels which passed\nunregarded in the big battle, when towns scarcely noted at the fag-end of\nthe great campaign, become the cynosure of every eye. Through Slocum or\nEatonswill the hub of the universe temporarily passes: to its population\nof four thousand, mostly fools, are entrusted the destinies of the\nEmpire; it is theirs to make or mar. The duel is watched by a breathless\nnation. The party leaders on each side cheer on their men; their careers\nand claims and countenances fill up the papers, and they cross swords in\na shower of telegrams. Advice to those about to enter Parliament: Elect\nfor a bye-election. Why be a nonentity, a mere M.P., when by a little\npatience you may hold the centre of the stage, if only for a week? Better\nalmost to be beaten at a bye-election than to be successful at a General.\n\nIn case I should ever seek the suffrages of electors myself, I would\nventure to remind opposition agents and private secretaries that these\nrandom criticisms of the glorious constitution (hear, hear!) of that\ngreat Empire on which the sun never sets (cheers), over which the Union\nJack waves (loud cheers)--a thousand years the battle and the\nbreeze--hem!--I--I--ahem!--Lord Salisbury (loud and prolonged cheers)--I\nmean that I trust they will not forget that all this is set down without\nprejudice.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE REALISTIC NOVEL\n\nThe realistic novel, we know from Zola, that apostle of insufficient\ninsight, is based on \"human documents,\" and \"human documents\" are made up\nof \"facts.\" _But in human life there are no facts._\n\nThis is not a paradox, but a \"fact.\" Life is in the eye of the observer.\nThe humour or the pity of it belongs entirely to the spectator, and\ndepends upon the gift of vision he brings. There are no facts, like\nbricks, to build stories with. What, pray, in the realm of human life\n_is_ a fact? By no means a stubborn thing, as the proverb pretends. On\nthe contrary, a most pliant, shifting, chameleon-coloured thing, as\nflexible as figures in the hands of the statistician. What is commonly\ncalled a fact is merely a one-sided piece of information, a dead thing,\nnot the series of complex, mutually inter-working relations that\nconstitutes a fact as it exhibits itself to the literary vivisectionist.\nI walked with a friend in a shabby district of central London, a region\nthat had once been genteel, but was now broken up into apartments.\nSqualid babies, with wan, pathetic faces, pullulated on the doorsteps;\nthey showed from behind dingy windows at the breasts of haggard women.\nThe fronts of the houses were black, the plaster had crumbled away, the\npaint had peeled off. It was the ruins of a minor Carthage, and, like\nMarius, I was lost in mournful reverie; my companion remarked, \"These\nhouses are going up; they now pay 7 per cent.\" He was perfectly\njustified. There are a hundred ways of looking at any fact. The\nhistorian, the scientist, the economist, the poet, the philanthropist,\nthe novelist, the anarchist, the intelligent foreigner,--each would take\naway a different impression from the street, and all these impressions\nwould be facts, all equally valid, all equally true, and all equally\nfalse. Life, I repeat, is in the eye of the observer. What is farce to\nyou is often tragedy to the actual performer. The man who slips over a\npiece of orange peel, or chases his hat along the muddy pavement, is\nrarely conscious of the humour of the situation. On the other hand, you\nshall see persons involved in heartrending tragedies to whom the thing\nshows as farce, like little children playing in churchyards or riding\ntombstones astride. To the little imps of comedy, who, according to Mr.\nMeredith, sit up aloft, holding their sides at the spectacle of mankind,\nto the\n\n         Spirit of the world,\n  Beholding the absurdities of men,\n  Their vaunts, their feats, ...\n\nhuman life must be a very different matter from what we poor players on\nthe scene imagine it; we are cutting a very different figure, not only\nfrom that which faces us from the mirror of vanity, but from that which\nis \"as ithers see us.\" Not only, then, may our tragedy be comedy; our\ncomedy may be tragedy. The play of humour at least suggests these\nalternatives. Life is Janus-faced, and the humourist invests his\ncharacters with a double mask; they stand for comedy as well as for\ntragedy; Don Quixote wears the buskin as well as the sock. Humour, whose\ndefinition has always eluded analysis, may, perhaps (to attempt a\ndefinition _currente calamo_), be that subtle flashing from one aspect to\nanother, that turning the coin so rapidly that one seems to see\nsimultaneously the face and the reverse, the pity and the humour of life,\nand knows not whether to laugh or weep. Humour is, then, the simultaneous\nrevelation of the dual aspects of life; the synthetical fusion of\nopposites; the gift of writing with a double pen, of saying two things in\none, of showing shine and shadow together. This is why the humourist has\nalways the gift of pathos; though the gift of pathos does not equally\nimply the gift of humour. The tragic writer must always produce one-sided\nwork, so must the \"funnyman\" who were only a \"funny man\" and not a\nhumourist (though this is rarer). Each can only show one side of life at\na time; the humourist alone can show both. Great novels of romance and\nadventure, great works of imagination, great poems, may be written by\npersons without humour; but only the humourist can reproduce life. Milton\nis great; but the poet of life is Shakespeare. Thus the whole case of\n\"realism\" falls to the ground. There being no \"facts,\" Zola's laborious\nseries is futile; it may be true to art, but it is not true to life. His\nvision is incomplete, is inexhaustive; it lacks humour, and to the\nscientific novelist the lack of humour is fatal. He is the one novelist\nwho cannot succeed without it. Leave out humour, and you may get art and\nmany other fine things, but you do not get the lights and shadows or the\n\"values\" of life.\n\nAll novels are written from the novelist's point of view. They are his\nvision of the world. They are not life, but individual refractions of it.\nThe ironical pessimism of Thomas Hardy is as false as the sentimental\noptimism of Walter Besant or the miso-androus meliorism of Sarah Grand.\nWhat Hall Caine happily calls \"the scenic view of life\" of Dickens is no\nmore true than the philosophic view of Mrs. Humphry Ward. Each is\nexistence viewing itself through a single medium. \"Tess of the\nD'Urbervilles\" is as false as \"Lorna Doone\" or \"Plain Tales from the\nHills.\" Life, large, chaotic, inexpressible, not to be bound down by a\nformula, peeps at itself through the brain of each artist, but eludes\nphotography. This is the true inwardness of the Proteus myth. The\nhumourist alone, by presenting life in its own eternal contradictoriness,\nby not being tied down to one point of view, like his less gifted\nbrother, comes nearest to expressing its elusive essence. The great\nnovelists are Fielding, Cervantes, Flaubert, Thackeray. But all the\nnovelists supplement one another, and relatively-true single impressions\nof life go to make up a true picture of\n\n  Life, like a dome of many coloured glass.\n\nIt is because there are all novels and every aspect of existence in\nShakespeare that he sits supreme, the throned sovereign of the literature\nof life.\n\nAll this is writ to console those who suffer too poignantly from\nbook-tragedies and \"pictures of life.\" The artist selects, he studies\ntone and composition, whereas in real life tragedies are often\naccompanied by \"extenuating circumstances.\" The unloved girl temporarily\nforgets her sorrow in the last new novel, or a picnic up the river; the\nbroken-hearted hero betakes himself to billiards and brandy-and-soda, or\ntoys with a beefsteak. Again, many pathetic tales are the outcome of\nimperfect insight. The novelist imagines how he would feel in the shoes\nof his characters, and cries out with the pain of hypothetic bunions.\nThis mistake better deserves the name of \"the pathetic fallacy\" than the\npoetic misreading of Nature to which Buskin has annexed it. A good novel\nmay be made of bad psychology; indeed, this is what most novels are made\nof. Yet the gentle reader, misled by the simulation of life, makes\nhimself miserable over dabs of black ink on white paper. The failure of\ntwo imaginary beings to unite their lives in wedlock brings unhappiness\ninto myriad homes. How delicious is that story of the German novelist\nwho, having failed to unite his leading couple at the conclusion of a\nnewspaper serial, saw no way of appeasing the grief and indignation of\nhis vast audience save by inserting in the advertisement columns of a\nlater issue of the journal an announcement of their union under the usual\nhead of \"Marriages\"!\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nIN DEFENCE OF GAMBLING\n\nWithout gambling life would lose its salt in many a humble household. The\nhumdrum, deadening routine of monotonous daily toil finds relief by this\ncreation of an outside interest; to have a shilling on the favourite\nenlarges and colours existence, gives it a wider and vaguer horizon.\nImagine the delicious anguish of suspense, the excitement of hearing the\nresult, the exultation of winning. And the beauty of gambling is that you\ncannot lose. Gambling is really a disguised system of purchase. One buys\nexcitement, a most valuable emotion, for which even the members of the\nAnti-Gambling League are prepared to pay heavily in other forms! And the\nadvantage of gambling over all these other forms is the possibility that\nyou may not be called upon to pay for your purchase after all--nay, that\n_you_ may even be paid instead! You get not only excitement, but a\npossible bonus. Is there any earthly transaction that offers such\nadvantages? Why, 't is always \"heads I win, tails you lose.\" Who speaks\nof losing at cards? As well speak of losing at play-going or\nnovel-reading; what is called loss is simply payment for excitement. You\ncannot lose at cards, though you may win; unless it be in games where\nskill preponderates, and then loss means penalty for lack of skill. The\nmere transfer of money from hand to hand leaves the wealth of the world\nwhat it was before. 'T is redistribution, not destruction. It is scarcely\nrelevant to look for the evils of gambling in its effects--to point to\nruined reputations and ruined homes. Everything is capable of abuse, from\nlove to religion. The evil of gambling lies in the fact that it is an\nunworthy form of excitement--that it is possible to colour life more\nintellectually. The Anti-Gambling League, for all its recent prospectus,\nwill not put down gambling among the poorer classes, except by widening\ntheir outlook otherwise, by creating other interests outside the dull\ndaily groove. For the well-to-do classes there is less excuse. With all\nthe arts and amenities of life at their command, it is degrading to use\nup time and nervous energy in so brainless a pursuit. The gambling that\nis inherent in the constitution of modern civilization is another affair:\nthat is pursued for the sake of gain; or for a livelihood. The Stock\nExchange is an unhappy consequence of the joint-stock company; credit in\nbusiness is an equally inevitable outcome of the ramified mechanism of\nexchange. We are all gamblers to-day, insomuch as there is no stable\nrelation between work and reward, and the failure of a bank in Calcutta\nmay impoverish a shopkeeper in Camden Town. Our investments may rise or\nfall in value through the obscure machinations of unknown millionaires.\nAnd even the Anti-Gambling League has no word to say against those great\ngambling concerns, Life and Fire Assurance Societies, which bet you that\nyou will not die or be burnt out within a certain number of years, or\nthose journals which offer you large odds that you won't be smashed up\nwhile reading them. The prudential considerations behind these forms of\ngambling seem quite to moralise them: indeed, to refuse to accept the bet\nof the Life Assurance Companies is now considered immoral; a man is\nexpected to amend on his marriage at the very latest.\n\nThere is a form of gambling to which I must myself plead guilty. A\nforlorn, shabby creature, pathetically spruced up, arrives from a\nten-mile tramp. He has been a journalist or a poet, but owing to this or\nthat he is on his beam-ends. He has eaten nothing for two days. His wife\nis dying, his children are weeping for food. His voice breaks beautifully\nas he tells me I am his last hope. What is to be done? According to\nCharles Lamb, the solution is to give, to give always. For either the man\nis in need and speaks truth, or he is a liar and therefore a consummate\nactor. We pay for stage representations: why deny our obolus to the\nhistrionics of the beggar? So artistic a make up, an elocution with such\nmoving notes of pathos, surely deserve our tribute. Nay (and this Elia\nforgot to note), the beggar-actor is frequently the author of his own\npiece; that consistent argument, those tragical episodes, those touches\nof nature, that minute detail, all are his. For my part, this view does\nnot touch me; I scarcely ever pay for the play, so I expect even the\nbeggar to perform to me as to one of \"the press.\" If I give to beggars,\nit is purely from the gambling spirit. What are the odds against the man\nbeing a scamp? If they are short, or if the betting is level, I incline\nto the side of mercy. The money is of so much more consequence to him\nthan to me, if the beggar is genuine, that the speculation is well\nwarranted. I know how wrong it is from the point of view of the Charity\nOrganization Society, but I am a man, not a bureau of beneficence. Few of\nus, I fancy, escape this godly gambling.\n\nHow ill Society is ordered! We pay poor rates and support hospitals and\norphan asylums; but is there any thinking man who can banquet with the\nassurance that nobody is starving? It spoils the dinner of Dives to\nmeditate on the longings of Lazarus, and this is the true skeleton at the\nfeast. The business of philanthropy seems but a mockery, and Government\ntakes charitable toll from us without pacifying our consciences. There is\nsomething rotten in the state of Denmark. Cannot the intellect of man\ndevise a means of guaranteeing the deserving poor against starvation?\n\nNovel-reading is the woman's substitute for gambling--the thing that\ntakes her outside her narrow circle of interests. Her ravenous appetite\nfor new novels is amazing; children are not so gluttonous of cream-tarts.\nTo supply this demand sequestered spinsters in suburban or rustic bowens\nsit spinning the woof and warp of life as it never was on sea or land.\nBound goes the wheel, to and fro glides the shuttle, and the long,\nendless pattern unwinds itself in all its wealth of imaginative device\nand all its glory of fanciful colour. Poor things! What are they to do?\nThey have not the means to study the life they depict; they cannot mix in\nthe circles they describe. Fortunately their ignorance is their\nsalvation; the pretty patterns please the young ladies, the brave notes\nof colour set them a-dreaming. And now in the revolt against the\nthree-volume novel these simple scribblers are to be swept away; the\ncountry parcels will know them no more, and the three-deckers they built\nof yore will be dismantled in the dry dock of the fourpenny box. Poor\ncreatures! Some will take to typewriting and some to drink, some will be\ndriven to the workhouse and some to literature.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nTRULY RURAL\n\n    \"ENGINEER AND SURVEYOR'S DEPARTMENT.\n\n    \"_5 & 6 Wm. IV., cap. 50, sect. 65._\n\n    \"SIR,\n\n    \"I am directed to call your attention to the present condition of\n    trees within your premises, which now overhang the public footpath\n    adjoining, and thereby cause considerable inconvenience to the\n    public. I shall be glad if you will kindly give the matter your best\n    attention, with a view to lopping or cutting the trees in such a\n    manner as to obviate the inconvenience at present complained of.\n\n    \"Yours obediently,\n    \"P. LEONARDO MACREADY,\n    \"_Engineer to the Board._\"\n\nAmid the cosmopolitan medley of letters on my metropolitan\nbreakfast-table--the long and formal-looking, the fat and foreign, and\nthe over-scrawled and the underpaid (the last mainly requests for\nautographs)--this delightful home-grown epistle came with refreshing\npiquancy. It brought a breath of summer into the grey chillness of a\nLondon winter, a suggestion of rustling foliage about the chandelier, and\nthe scent of the hay over the gaslights. \"My dear!\" I exclaimed to the\npartner of my bosom (a tame white rat that likes to perch there), \"_Have\nwe any trees?_\"\n\nMy partner gave a little plaintive squeak. That is her idea of\nconversation. She screams at everything. She would scream at the sight of\na mouse.\n\nI pushed away my plate. I had sat down hungry as a hunter, and had had\ntwo helpings of everything; but now I could eat no more. Excitement had\ntaken away my appetite. The prospect of rural discoveries agitated me. I\nhastened to the window and looked at the front garden. To my astonishment\nand joy there was vegetation in it. There was a dwarf evergreen bush and\na fragment of vine stretching itself sleepily, and a tall thin tree--they\nmight all have got comfortably into one bed, but they had been planted in\nthree far apart, and this gave the garden a desolate Ramsgate-in-winter\nair of \"Beds to let.\" The tall thin tree was absolutely naked, without an\ninch of foliage to cover its wooden limbs; a mere mass of dry sticks. I\nlooked hard at the tree to see where it offended, determined to pluck it\nout. But it returned my gaze with the stolidity of conscious\ninnocence--it held up its wooden arms in deprecation. I re-read Mr. P.\nLeonardo Macready's letter. \"Which now overhang the public footpath\"! Ah!\nthat was what was the matter with my trees. It was raining, but I am an\nEnglishman and the law is sacred, and I went outside into the public\nhighway and looked at the tall thin tree from the new point of view. Sure\nenough--very far up--there _was_ a bough overhanging the public footpath.\n\nI looked up at it and shook my fist menacingly, but it waved its twigs in\nresponse with an irritating amiability. I began to understand what an\nannoyance it must be to have a bough up there that you couldn't flick at\nwith your stick as you passed by, and that even when weighed down by its\nsummer greenery would bemock you if you made a casual clutch at its\nfoliage, and laugh at you in its leaves. I went inside and returned with\na step-ladder and an umbrella and a carving-knife, and I stood on the\nsummit of the ladder and made abortive slashes at space with my right\nhand, while the open umbrella in my left made equally abortive efforts to\nsoar with me skywards. After nearly stabbing the partner of my bosom I\nwent in, both of us wet like drowned rats, and as I settled myself again\nto coffee and correspondence, I could not help wishing that Chang, the\nChinese giant, had remained alive to triumph over my tantalising trees.\nNor could I help wishing that the activity of the local engineers and\nsurveyors had been directed by His Gracious Majesty King William IV. into\nquite a contrary channel.\n\n  William, spare that tree,\n  Touch not a single bough;\n  If you had planted three,\n  They would protect me now.\n\nIf, instead of being requested to amputate a beautiful overhanging arm of\nfoliage, every citizen of London were served with a notice to plant a\ntree in front of his demesne, the face of the great stony city would be\ntransformed. It would become a _rus in urbe_. Why not? Everybody knows\nwhat the late Duke of Devonshire made of Eastbourne; and the beauty of\nBournemouth is mainly an affair of trees. Why should we not walk under\nthe boughs of Oxford Street? What law of nature or William IV. ordains an\neternal divorce between shops and trees? Why should one not hear the\nbirds sing in the Strand as well as in the Inns of Court? Let us have\ntrees instead of lamp-posts--with electric lights twinkling from their\nleaves. Already there are London streets quite well-wooded. Even in the\nWhitechapel Road it is possible to read--\n\n  A book of verses underneath a bough;\n\nbut I shall not be content till Matthew Arnold's exquisite quatrain comes\nliterally true of London--\n\n  Roses that down the _alleys_ shine afar,\n  And open jasmine-muffled lattices,\n  And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,\n  And the full moon and the white evening star.\n\nIt might be well if we could transplant to our more prosaic city ways the\nbeautiful old custom of planting a tree on the birth of a child. It is\ntrue that ladies might object to having their age recorded by the growth\nof rings on the trunk; but then they could easily pass the tree on to an\nelder sister when they got beyond the average wedding-ring age. Besides,\npeople would quickly forget whose birth it marked, and the town trees\nwould soon become anonymous. I would therefore suggest the formation of a\ntree-planting party, pledged not to support any candidate for Parliament\nwho would not vote for the ruralisation of the Metropolis. To the Home\nRule of Mr. Gladstone, with his weakness for cutting down trees, must be\nopposed Home Ruralisation. What a fine platform cry--\"a truly rural\nLondon!\"--with the unique advantage of being unpronounceable by\ndemagogues in drink. The poor would welcome the policy as a boon. They\nare not by any means so unpoetical as Gissing would make out. Only the\nother day a baby was found buried in a window flower-box; which is\npractically the idea of Keats' \"Isabella, or the Pot of Basil,\" an idea\nwhich was itself a graft from the stock of Boccaccio.\n\nIf the parish dignitaries became thus associated in our minds with the\nBeautiful instead of with bills and blue papers, one might be able to\nwhip up some enthusiasm for the civic life, and contemplate even\nincome-tax schedules with a Platonic or Aristotelian rapture. It is not\neverybody who can rhapsodise with Mr. Bernard Shaw or the Fabian Society\nover sewer rates, and find in the contemplation of communal gas and water\nsomething of the inspiration and ecstasy that the late Professor Tyndall\nfound in the thought of the conservation of energy.\n\nIn firing us to local patriotism by the example of provincial cities, the\nenthusiast does not allow sufficiently for the size of London. It\nswallows us all up; there are twenty provincial cities in its maw: it is\nnot a city, but a province. We cannot rouse ourselves to an interest in\nBrixton and Camberwell, in Poplar and Highbury. There is no glory in\nbeing a dweller in so amorphous a city, whose motley floating population\nis alone sufficient to stock a town; there can be no sense of brotherhood\nin meeting a Londoner abroad, still less a Middlesex or Surrey man.\nDevonians may feast off junkets and cream, in touching fellowship, and\nthe hearts of Edinburgh men stir with common memories of Princes Street;\nbut a Cockney, who has far more to be proud of, is overwhelmed into\napathy. It is only in a compact city that one can develop that sense of\nspecial belonging which George Eliot contends is at the root of so many\nvirtues. I might just as well be taxed to beautify Dublin as Canonbury,\nfor all the difference it would make in my grumblings. And if our city is\ntoo large to inspire us, our parish is too small. And so to most of us, I\nfear, parochialism is a bore. Theoretically, we know that the parish we\nlive in is greater than many a provincial town. We know that we ought to\ntake an interest in its history, and be proud of its great men. But\nsomehow, despite Mr. Frederic Harrison, our suburb leaves us cold. Our\nreal life does not centre about our own parish at all. We circle about\nthe great thoroughfares that radiate from Charing Cross, and the pivot of\nour lives is Piccadilly. Born to the Metropolis, we cannot narrow our\nminds to a district, nor to parish give up what was meant for London. We\nrefuse to become provincials. We do not even know that we boast of a Town\nHall, till we are compelled to attend and show cause why we have not paid\nthe rates, or any part thereof, the same having been lawfully demanded.\nIf there are any other great men in the neighbourhood, we do not know\ntheir addresses. They are shy and retiring. It is only the retired who\nare not shy. That sort of great man comes forth in his tens. He _has_\nbeen a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker, and he _is_--a bore.\nOnce he solicited your patronage, to-day he solicits your vote. Having\ngiven up making profits, he now wishes to make by-laws, and finds a gleam\nof his old delight in sending out heavy bills to the neighbourhood. You\nget a list of him, which policemen announce their intention of calling\nfor. You are asked to decide among a column of him, uniformly obscure,\nbut divided invidiously enough into tradesmen and gentlemen. Who compiled\nthis list or nominated these gentlemen and tradesmen, you have not the\nghost of a notion. They are sprung upon you as imperiously and\nmysteriously as their own demand-notes. You look down the column and make\nrandom crosses by the wayside. You select a sanitary engineer in\npreference to an undertaker, forgetting that he is the deadlier of the\ntwo, and you vote for your retired wine-dealer to prevent him going back\ninto business. But most of the names convey nothing to you, and give you\nthe sensation of a donkey between two heaps of straw, or of a straw\nbetween two heaps of donkeys. And having thus exercised that high English\nprivilege, for which you would shed your blood if it were taken away, you\nare content for the rest of the year to grumble at the doings of your\nrepresentatives. It does not occur to you that public duty calls upon you\nto comprehend the parochial mysteries and solicit the parochial\ndignities. They seem too petty for a man of any stature--a sort of small\nbeer for babes and sucklings.\n\nMay it not be that the voice of public duty, when it calls upon you to be\na citizen and a parishioner, calls with too piping a voice? There is no\nrousing note, nothing of the resonance of a clarion call. A suggestion of\npoverty and the workhouse clings to everything parochial, something of\ndrab and joyless. Is there no way of infusing colour into this depressing\ngreyness, a martial _timbre_ into this anaemic note? If we are to pay the\npiper let us hear him. Let the tax-collector go his rounds at the head of\na brass band, playing patriotic airs. Let brocaded standard-bearers raise\naloft a banner with the soul-stirring insignia, \"England expects every\nman to pay his duty.\" Let the hollow roll of the drum thrill the dull\nsuburban street, and animate the areas of semi-detached villas. No longer\nshall the devil and General Booth have all the good tunes, and the ragged\nrearguard of urchins keeping time with their bare feet shall follow the\ndrum to the surer and saner goal of civic salvation. The music of the\nstreets will become a joy instead of a terror, and English performers\nwill find a new market. See paterfamilias prick up his ears as the\ndistant strains of national music impinge upon his tympanum, see his\nheart heaving his shirt-front with patriotic ardour, while, with a joyous\ncry \"The Collectors are coming, hurrah, hurrah!\" he rushes to his\ncheque-book as the soldier rushes to arms. Is he not serving his country\nas much as the soldier, and without pay--or even discount? Nay, why\nshould the idea of patriotic duty be so emphatically connected with the\nshedding of blood, and all the pomp and pageantry reserved for the\nprofession of Destruction? Why should not the lifeboat be launched, or\nthe coal dug, or the drain-pipe laid, or the taxes paid, to a musical\naccompaniment, and under the shadow of the national flag? Great is the\npower of the Symbol: for a few inches of rag at elevenpence\nthree-farthings a yard (warranted not to shrink) men will give their\nlives. And greater still is the power of music.\n\n  Dear to the London housemaid,\n    The fife of fusilier,\n  And to the Cockney urchin\n    The drum of Booth is dear;\n  Sweet sounds the barrel-organ\n    Where'er the cits parade;\n  But the dearest of all music\n    The Tax-Collectors played.\n\nYou will be glad to hear that scarcely had this grumble appeared in print\nwhen I saw a procession that made me think Birnam wood had come to\nDunsinane. Soon either pavement was planted with ready-made trees, all\na-blowing and a-growing. If it had happened in the night, I should have\nrubbed my eyes and imagined some good genius had transported me to the\nBoulevards. I hastened to place a little _gu\u00e9ridon_ outside the garden\ngate, and to decorate it with glasses of absinthe and vermouth; but a\ngendarme came along and asked me to move on.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nOPINIONS OF THE YOUNG FOGEY\n\nWhen I first met the Young Fogey I thought him very brilliant. His\nphilosophical pose, too, of combining the caution of age with the daring\nof youth was fascinating. \"I have evolved,\" he used to say. \"Once I would\nnot attach sanctity to ideas because they were old: now I attach no\nsanctity to ideas because they are new.\" But I soon discovered that the\nYoung Fogey was one of that large class of persons who do not evolve but\nrevolve, whose brilliancy is that of the fixed star. They give out\narrestive thoughts, and you are vastly impressed, but on longer\nacquaintance, or on returning to them after an interval, you find that it\nis they who have been arrested by their thoughts. Such persons do not\nlast you more than one or two years: they require a succession of new\naudiences to keep up their reputation, like a witty play, which all the\nworld goes to see in turn, but which it would be deucedly dull to see\nnight after night, year in, year out. The cleverest of them know this\nneed of new ears, and of making provincial and foreign tours when they\nhave exhausted London. But when the Young Fogey chanced upon me drinking\nlager beer at the Austrian Derby, during a tedious interval between the\nraces, he was probably confused by the distance from Piccadilly into a\nsense of originality, and perceiving a couple of books on my table:\n\"What! do you _read_ the books you review?\" he asked in feigned\nastonishment; adding, with an impromptu air, \"I always _write_ the books\n_I_ review. Criticism of other people is waste of time. An artist who is\nworth his salt knows his value better than anybody else; and an artist\nwho is not worth his salt is not worth your criticism, and will learn\nnothing from it in any case. There is immeasurably too much book-making,\nas it is.\"\n\n\"But criticism tends to keep down book-making,\" I observed meekly.\n\n\"Quite the contrary. Criticism encourages it. Most books are not read.\nWho can possibly read ninety-nine of the worst hundred books published\nevery week? If they were not even criticised, the writers would shut up\ntheir inkstands. Publicity is their aim, but publication does not supply\nit. Most publishers are rather privateers. It is the critics who supply\nfame to fools. It's even worse with plays. Why should every trumpery\nfarce that can get itself badly produced by a moneyless manager who\ndecamps the day after, be allotted a space in every morning, evening, and\nweekly newspaper, Fame blowing simultaneously a hundred trumps? My\ngreatest book never got half as much notice as a wretched little\ncurtain-raiser which took me a morning to knock off, and the news of\nwhich was flashed from China to Peru immediately, whereas the eulogies of\nmy book were dribbled out in monthly instalments, and belated\ntestimonials kept straggling in long after its successor had been\npublished. In those days I belonged to a Press-cutting Agency, and I\ndiscovered that--to measure Fame by the square inch--you may get many\nmore yards of reputation by the most flippant playlet than by your\nliterary _magnum opus_; to say nothing of the pictures and interviews of\nyour actors and actresses. That your silliest player--especially if it be\na pretty she--gets photographed in the papers sixteen times to your once,\ngoes without saying. The only real recipe for Fame nowadays is to be a\npretty girl and exhibit yourself publicly. The modern editor has got it\ninto the paste-brush he calls his head that the public is infinitely\ngreedy for the minutest theatrical details. It is really too idiotic,\nthis fuss over our parrots. If there were only plays for them to talk!\nThe decline of the British drama----\"\n\n\"By which you mean that they decline your plays,\" I interrupted.\n\n\"Granted,\" said the Young Fogey; \"but even when they give us Shakespeare,\nthey play the patron, and literary critics argue deferentially with them\nas to the treatment of the text, and beg them not to put William's head\nunder the pump. Did you see that monumental headline in the 'Daily\nChronicle,' the paper that poses as the organ of sweetness and light?--\n\n    'MR. TREE'S NEW PLAY.\n    'Henry IV. At The Haymarket.'\n\n\"So Mr. Tree 'created' Falstaff in more than the conventional sense of\nthat arrogant stage-verb! Act? Anybody can act! We're all acting, always,\nin every phase of our social life. Every back drawing-room is a theatre\nroyal. A child can act, and the 'infant phenomenon' cannot be\ndistinguished from the leading lady or gentleman except by size. But no\nchild ever wrote a play. Acting is the lowest of the arts. And even if it\nwere the highest, it would be brought low again by its infinite\nself-repetition. Imagine playing one part for a season, a year, a decade.\nActors are not even parrots--they are automatic puppets that move their\nlimbs in fixed fashions, and make squeaking sounds at prescribed moments.\nThere was a French Minister of Education who drew up a most rigid\nTime-Code, which hung in his bureau; and it was the joy of his life to\ntake out his watch and say 'Half-past three! Ha! every boy in France is\nnow learning geography'; or, 'A quarter to twelve! Ha! every French\nschoolgirl is now writing in a copy-book.' I have the same sort of\nfeeling about my actor-acquaintances. 'Half-past nine? Ah! What is\nHerbert doing? He is taking poison.' 'A quarter to eleven! Dear me! Rose\nis crawling under a table.'\n\n\"And these creatures want every privilege, forsooth! Fame, gold,\nchampagne, the best society and the worst. To be of Bohemia and\nBelgravia, to make the best of both worlds. If things don't mend, to sit\nin a stall will soon become an index of imbecility. It will be like being\nseen at the Academy.\n\n\"And, talking of the Academy, did ever any more infantile idea enter the\nhuman brain than that a couple of thousand pictures worth seeing can be\npainted every year? Why, since the beginning of the world there haven't\nbeen two thousand pictures painted worth seeing! Imagine two thousand\nmanuscript novels being scattered around on two thousand desks, a\nshilling admission! Do we get one good novel a year? Scarcely. One good\nsymphony or opera? Of course not. Then why expect to get a picture worth\nhanging? And every picture should hang by itself--it's an artistic\nentity, self-complete. To crowd it among a lot of others is like\nconducting an orchestra every instrument of which is playing a different\ntune. 'T isn't even as if the poor painters got anything out of the show.\nPeople won't buy pictures--prices are monstrously inflated to an\nartificial point: the artists would take less, only they don't like to\ncome down from their pedestal, and so they starve up there in dignity.\nArtists have played a foolish game. They have gone nap on gentility and\nhigh prices, and gentility has failed them.\n\n\"When great prices are given for pictures, it is generally with a view to\nselling them again: a dubious compliment to the artist. No man gets a\nthousand pounds' worth of pure art joy out of any picture. He can spend\nhis thousand pounds to much more of aesthetic advantage. But there is no\ninherent sacredness in prices. A picture is worth only what it will\nfetch. Let our artists be satisfied with a fair day's wage for a fair\nday's work, like any other species of craftsman. After all, they were all\ncraftsmen--Michael Angelo, Titian, Donatello, Canova--wall-decorators,\ndoor-painters, ceiling-colourers, tomb-builders, stone-masons, working to\ncontract and to measure. When our artists are content with the pay of\nmanual labourers and the joy of art, taste may be stimulated in the\nmasses, and original work be going at the price of lithographs. Why\nshouldn't artists even paint public-house signs? Beer being the national\nreligion, why shouldn't it find adequate expression in Art?\n\n\"Not that it matters much whether our artists live or die,--Art seems\nabout over. It seems to be an accident that happened once or twice in the\nPast,--among the Greeks, at the Renaissance, in Spain, in Holland,--which\nno amount of art-schools and art-publications can coax back. To found\nAcademies and R.A.-ships is to spur a dead horse. Look at the Greek\nsculptures, look at the Italian pictures, and ask yourself what we have\nto put beside them after all our endless exhibitions! Modern\nimprovements! _Plein air!_ Bah! Where can you show me more 'atmosphere'\nthan in Carpaccio, or in Jacques d'Arthois. Impressionism? Look at that\nsnow-effect by old Van Valckenborch here! But we do the modern, the\ncontemporary, you cry----\"\n\n\"No, I don't,\" I interrupted feebly, more to let him take breath than for\nthe jest's sake. But he ignored the opportunity.\n\n\"But they've all done the contemporary! Only _their_ contemporary, not\nyours. The fallacy almost amounts to an Irish bull. The ancients _were_\nthe moderns--to themselves--just as we shall be the ancients to our\nsuccessors. The Renaissance people all did contemporary work, under\npretence of doing historical: contemporary types for Madonnas, local\nlandscapes for Oriental scenery, up-to-date dresses for New Testament\nepisodes, portraits of their patrons for patron-saints and apostles. Did\nyou ever see a more modern figure than Tintoretto's portrait of himself,\nthe elderly man in a frock-coat who looks on at his own wonderful picture\nof St. Mark descending to rescue a Christian slave? An Academician or a\nnew English Art Clubbite who had done only one tiny corner of this\npicture would so swell as to the head that his laurel-wreath wouldn't fit\nhim any longer. There's no ambition nowadays--Degas, Whistler, yes. But\nfor the rest--dwarfs. Modern improvements indeed! Science may improve,\nbut not art. Art, like religion, is an absolute in life--nobody will ever\npaint better than Velasquez, write better than Shakespeare, or pray\nbetter than the Psalmist. Science is the variable--always on the go; and\nwhen we think of progress it is just as well that we foolishly keep our\neye on the machine-room.\"\n\n\"Won't you have a drink?\" I broke in, seizing the first opportunity.\n\n\"Thanks! What's that book?\"\n\n\"'Olympia's Journal'! It's all about Olympia's husband, she married him\nto write about him--he was such 'good copy.'\"\n\nI had unchained a torrent. \"Novelists ought never to be introduced into\nnovels,\" burst forth the Young Fogey. \"The subject-matter of novelists is\nreal normal life, and novelists are neither real nor normal. They are\nmonsters whose function in life is to observe other people's lives. For\none novelist to make copy of another is like cannibalism.\n\n\"If the psychology of the novelist, who is the student of other people's\npsychology, is to be studied, where are you to stop? Why not study the\npeculiarities of the novelist who studies the novelist, of the reflector\nof life who reflects the reflector of life--nay, of the critic who\nreflects upon the reflection of the reflector? This modern mania for\npicking ourselves to pieces is only the old childish desire 'to see the\nwheels go wound.' People were much better in the old days when they\ndidn't bother so much how their wheels went round. I always sympathised\nwith the indignant old lady who came to my schoolmaster when our class\nbegan to take up physiology, and protested that she wasn't going to have\nher boy learn what was in his inside--it was indecent. People are not\nmade healthier by knowing how their functions work; animals never study\nphysiology, and plants blossom without knowing anything at all about\nanything. Knowledge only generates a morbid fussiness, as with Mr.\nJerome's celebrated Cockney who discovered himself to be possessed of\nevery ailment in the medical dictionary except housemaid's knee. And to\nlearn what is in your mental inside is equally indecent and equally\ndiscomposing. 'I have never thought about thinking,' said the wise\nGoethe. No one can go through a treatise on insanity and come out as sane\nas he started. And there is an even more insidious way in which this\nhuman vivisection operates for evil. People now forgive their\nfriends--they call their eccentricities 'pathological,' and endure\ninstead of discouraging them. I had two letters this very morning.  'Poor\nA!' said B.: 'his vanity has ceased to offend me--I feel it is\npathological.' 'Poor B!' said A.: 'it is impossible to resent his\negotism--it is simply pathological.'\n\n\"This scientific Christianity wouldn't be so bad if people didn't condone\ntheir own faults, too. They can't get up early--it's heredity. The early\nbird who caught the worm must have had a grandparent who stayed out late.\nAre they lazy? Their uncle was a country parson. They are like the man\nwho refused to give charity because he had such expensive tastes. To\nacquiesce in your own weaknesses because they are hereditary, without\nmaking an effort to eradicate them, is bad science as well as bad morals.\nAmong the items given you by heredity do not forget the potentiality of\nself-improvement by inward struggle. No one says, 'I can't speak French,\nand I sha'n't try, because my father was an illiterate Irishman.'\nSelf-knowledge tends to weaken self-discipline, foster self-indulgence,\nand corrode character.\"\n\n\"But what of the old Greek maxim 'Know thyself'?\"\n\n\"Old Greek sophistry! Knowing requires a subject to know and an object to\nbe known. You can't be subject and object too--introspection is a\nself-contradiction. Hasn't every one noticed that everybody else fails to\ndiscover himself in a novel or a sermon, though his lineaments are\npainted down to the minutest details of wart and mole? And it's quite\nnatural. Every soul is to itself the centre of the universe--through\nwhich the infinite panorama passes; nothing exists but in relation to it:\nto its standards of beauty, of right and wrong, of humour, of admiration,\neverything is brought. There's no man so low or so ridiculous but he\nfinds somebody else more so, and the London street-boy who sneers at the\nlong-haired poet is exalted to a sense of superiority. I once met a human\nmonstrosity--hunch-backed, cross-eyed, palsied, and wooden-legged. My\nsoul sickened with pity, but his face brightened in a smile of contempt\nand his cross-eyes danced with glee. I appealed to his sense of the\nridiculous. Listen to the comments of people upon one another after a\nparty, and confess that a coterie is often but a mutual contempt society.\nThat is what makes life livable--every living creature is an amused eye\nupon the universe. Terence said as much long ago. We amuse one another,\nand exist to gratify one another's sense of superiority, like the\nislanders who live by taking in one another's washing. It will be a\nthousand pities if the spread of travelling removes the mutual\nsuperiorities of Englishmen and Frenchmen, Chinamen and Hindoos. I went\nto a dinner-party the other day. The host and hostess were\nimpossible--like spiteful studies by Thackeray caricatured by Dickens.\nYet there were they arrogating to themselves every privilege of judgment\nand jurisdiction that the most fashionable peers or the sublimest souls\ncould claim; to their own minds the arbiters of elegance, the patrons of\nthe arts, the flagellators of vice and snobbery, the gracious laudators\nof virtue, the easy fomenters of scandal.\n\n\"Prithee, was ever one of us capable of not lecturing on ethics or not\npreaching a sermon? Did not Sir Barnes Newcome lecture on the Family? Do\nwe not all hold forth on the condition of the poor, the morality of the\nmining-market; the inferior ethics of the coloured races, and a hundred\nother lofty topics, warming our coat-tails at the glow of our own virtue?\n'T is the fault of language which enables arrant scoundrels to use fine\nwords that they have never felt. Humility, self-sacrifice,\nnoble-mindedness, are phrases easily picked up by people for whom their\nonly meaning is in the dictionary, and who know it is the correct thing\nto admire them. They are like students of chemistry who babble of H2SO4\nand NH3 by book without ever having seen a laboratory or a retort, or\ntone-deaf people raving over Beethoven. And these lip-servants of virtue\nare unconscious that they have never known the real thing. Every\ndiscussion between civilised persons presupposes moral perfection all\nround--a common elevated platform from which one surveys the age and its\nproblems, and considers how to bring the world at large up to one's own\nlevel. You cannot discuss anything with a person who has ever been\npublicly imperfect--at any point you may tread on his corns. Has he been\nbankrupt? The slightest reference to honesty, finance, or business may\nseem an insult. Has he figured in the Divorce Court? How are you to talk\nabout the last new play without seeming personal? This explains why\nexposed persons are cut: they have made conversation impossible by\ncutting away the common ground of it, the hypothesis of perfection. Even\nwith persons who have merely lost relatives one has to be careful to\navoid references to mortality. The complete diner-out has to be equipped\nwith a knowledge of his fellows to the third and fourth generation, so as\nto avoid giving offence. To say that late marriages are a mistake or\nsecond marriages a folly may be to make enemies for life. Which, by the\nway, is absurd: all conversation should be regarded as privileged and\nimpersonal. 'T is brain meeting brain, not foot treading gingerly among\nirrelevant personal considerations. And just as we are all willing to\npreach, we are all willing to be preached at--it gives us such an\nopportunity of gauging the preacher's morality and ability. The Scotch\npeasants who denounce their meenister's orthodoxy are an extreme case,\nbut if we were not really judging our judges we should go to opposition\nchurches. What we demand from preaching--as from newspapers--is an echo\nof our own voices, and when the preacher or the newspaper leads it is\nonly by pretending to follow. Opportunity makes the politician. Watch the\ncrowd streaming out of church after a sermon. Do they wear an air of\nedification or humiliation? Are they bowed down with the consciousness of\ntheir backslidings? No: they are aesthetes come from a literary and\noratorical performance. They are not thinking of themselves at all, but\nof the quality of the sermon. Yes, around each of us the world turns, and\neach soul is the hub of the universe. Popular suffrage is the recognition\nof this great fact: not one of us but is competent to arrange the affairs\nof the country. Every man Jack and woman Jill is a standard, a test, an\nimperial weight and measure, and the universe must endure our verdict as\nit goes round us. To expect this central standard to turn back on itself\nand become aware of its own defects and distortions is like expecting a\npair of scales to weigh itself; or--more absurd still--expecting a false\npair of scales to weigh itself truly. 'All men think all men mortal but\nthemselves,' and so all men find all men wanting except themselves. If\nthey ever for a moment suspect that they are not perfect--whether the\nsuspicion leak in through reflection or reprobation--'t is but for a\nmoment. We cannot live on bad terms with ourselves, nor with a\nconsciousness which doubts and despises us--whether it be our own\nconsciousness or a friend's. Our nature throws up earthworks against a\ncontemptuous opinion. Just as a bodily wound is repaired by the wonderful\nnormal processes of circulation and nutrition, so our self-love tends to\nrepair the wounds of the soul. We feel that even if we are not perfect,\nwe are as perfect as possible _under the circumstances_. If so-and-so and\nso-and-so had had to go through our sufferings or our temptations, he or\nshe would have acted no better. And even in our wildest remorse we are\nself-satisfied with our self-dissatisfaction. Nor is this need of our\nnature for self-reconcilement wholly without spiritual significance. It\npoints to an incurable morality in the human soul, and to the truth that\nif we mainly use our ideals to condemn other people by, we are bound to\ncondemn ourselves by them if we can once be got to perceive that we\n_have_ violated them ourselves, though we at once seek peace in\nextenuating circumstances. Peace of mind is the homage which vice pays to\nvirtue. Nor, though it matters immensely to society what ideals people\nhave, and that they have the right ones, to the people themselves it\nmatters only that they _have_ ideals, right or wrong. Where there is\nhonour among thieves, a thief may have a fine sense of self-respect.\"\n\n\"Plato agrees with you,\" said I. \"He points out that if thieves were\nutter scoundrels they could not act in concert.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said the Young Fogey, \"Plato was a great thinker. In truth, the\nonly incorrigible rogue is he who is devoid of ideals, who has allowed\nhis ethical nature to disintegrate. Such a one ceases to be a _person_.\nHe has lost the integrating factor--the moral--which binds human\npersonality together. He is a mere aggregation of random impulses. The\nlast stage of moral decay is impersonality. Impersonality sums up 'the\ndaughters of joy,' with their indifference to aught but the moment.\n\n\"But it is wonderful what shreds of personality, what tags and rags of\nthe ideal, the most degraded may retain. Was there ever a soul that did\nnot think some one action beneath its dignity? An absolutely unscrupulous\nperson is a contradiction in terms. To be unscrupulous were to cease to\nbe a person, to have become a bundle of instincts and impulses. But no\none is so good or so bad as he appears. The chronicler of the 'Book of\nSnobs' was himself a bit of a snob, and the poet who sought for the\nspiritual where Thackeray had looked for the snobbish, who bade us note\n\n      \"All the world's coarse thumb\n      And finger failed to plumb,\n  So passed in making up the main account;\n      All instincts immature,\n      All purposes unsure,\n  That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount,\n\nwas almost as weak as the satirist in that respect for titles and riches\nwhich is the veritable 'last infirmity of noble minds.'\n\n\"Still, Browning's is the truer view of human life, and till we see our\nneighbours as Omniscience sees them, our kindest and cruellest estimates\nwill be equally wide of the mark.\n\n\"And conversely, unless you develop a personality, you cannot be moral,\nor even immoral. You can be social or anti-social--that is, your actions\ncan make for the good or the ill of society. But moral or immoral it is\nnot given to everybody to be. For I do not agree with those who would\nsubstitute social and anti-social for those ancient adjectives. We are\nconcerned with the quality of acts as well as with their effects, with\nthe soul as well as its environment. And it takes a real live soul to do\ngood or evil. That is the point of Mr. Kipling's Tomlinson--a mere bundle\nof hearsays--who could win neither hell nor heaven. It is also the\nteaching of Ibsen. You must not shrink from wrong because you are told it\nis wrong, but because you see it is wrong. But few people can expect to\ndevelop a personality of their own. Current morality is the automatic\napplication of misunderstood principles. And so it must always be. For\nthe function of the average man is to obey. Was it not Napoleon who said\nthat men are meant either to lead or to obey, and those who can do\nneither should be killed off? Ethics is the conscience of the best\nregulating the conduct of the worst. Hence there are no immutable rules\nof morality:\n\n  \"For the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandoo,\n  And the crimes of Clapham chaste at Martaban.\n\nBut there are immutable _principles_. To spit in a guest's face is with\nsome savage tribes a mark of respect. But this does not invalidate the\nprinciple that to guests should be shown courtesy. Rules vary with time\nand place, principles are eternal; and even if unmentionable things are\ndone in Africa and Polynesia, if 'the dark places of the earth are full\nof cruelty,' that does not invalidate the principles of morality, as our\nmodern blood-and-thunder young man affects to believe. For that the\nprinciples of right and justice have not yet been discovered in barbarous\ncountries no more destroys their universality and legitimacy than the\nprinciples of the differential calculus are affected by the primitive\npractice of counting on the fingers. And while the ethical geniuses--the\nsenior wranglers of the soul--are groping towards further truths and\nfiner shades of feeling, deeper reaches of pity and subtler perceptions\nof justice, the rank and file and the wooden spoons must needs apply the\nold ethics, even against the new teachers themselves. Every truth has to\nfight for recognition, to prove itself not a lie. The brilliant and\nimpatient young men who scoff at conventions because the people who hold\nthem are unreal--not persons, feeling and passing moral truths through\ntheir own soul, but parrots--forget that just because the people are\nunreal, their maxims are real; that they do not represent the people who\nmouth them, but the great moralists and thinkers behind. Against the\nbrilliant rushlights of contemporary cleverness shine the stars of the\nages. 'T is the immemorial mistake of iconoclasts--even granted they are\ntaller than their fellow-men--to be ever conscious of the extra inches,\ninstead of the common feet. Nevertheless\" (and here the Young Fogey put\non his most judicial manner) \"the extra inches must tell. For because\nreal ethics resides not in rules but in principles, obedience to the\nletter may mean falsity to the spirit, if the circumstances that dictated\nthe rules have changed. This is not casuistry. 'T is a concept not to be\nfound in Panaetius or Cicero or the Jesuit Fathers. It means that we are\nnot to wear our boyhood's waistcoats, but to be measured for manhood's.\nTight-lacing is bad for the spiritual circulation. 'Get rid of the Hebrew\nold clo', cried that curious Carlyle, the chief dealer in them. Amen, say\nI: but do not let us therefore go naked. And since we have stumbled upon\n'Sartor Resartus,' permit me a comparison in keeping. I once saw a tailor\nmeasuring the boys in a charity school. He drew a chalk line five feet up\na wall, and dividing the upper part of the line by horizontal\nchalk-marks, stood the boys beside it, one after another, and according\nto the chalk-mark which the crown of the unfortunate creature's head\ngrazed, Master Snip called out 'Fours,' 'Ones,' 'Fives.' Fat boys or lean\nboys, big-bodied or big-legged, narrow-chested or broad-shouldered, 't\nwas all ones--or twos--to him. Did they agree in height, the same\nclothes--tight or loose--for all! Thus is it with our moral maxims.\nGenius or goose, saint or sinner--your head to the chalk-mark! And\nrightly. When one has to deal with great masses one cannot consider\nlittle details. The principles of morality must be broad and simple, and\nthe world is right to apply them sternly and undiscriminatingly. The\ngeneral cannot consider the peculiarities of a particular soldier, though\nthe corporal of the regiment may make allowances for him. And so with\nbreaches of morals. The world at large should condemn; but the private\nfriends, who know the circumstances in every petty involution, who know\nthe temptations and the extenuating factors, should form as it were a\ncourt of appeal. If they elected to stand by the offender, the world at\nlarge should reconsider its verdict. This is what practically took place\nin the George Eliot and Lewes instance. Weighed, not by the steelyard of\ngeneral principle, but by the delicate chemical balance of special\ndetail, they were not found wanting. The Magna Charta is still only a\npious aspiration. 'Every man shall be tried by a jury of his peers.' How\nprofound! For only our equals can know our travails and temptations. How,\nnow, if we had to try Shakespeare! which of us would dare sit on the\npanel? Yet we 'chatter about Shelley.' He did wrong--granted. But was it\nwrong of him to do it? That is another question altogether. Subjective\nmorality and objective morality are two different things. But the whole\nsubject of the sexes is wrapped in hypocrisy, and the breaches of\nmorality are committed less by the celebrated than by the obscure. The\nsavage sarcasm of Schopenhauer's refusal to discuss monogamy because it\nhad never yet come within the range of practical politics is still\njustified. I remember once reading an anecdote about a besieged town. The\ndefenders resolved to make a sortie on a certain day, only, in dread of\ntheir plan somehow leaking out beyond the gates, or of their womankind\ndissuading some from the perilous enterprise, they administered a solemn\noath to one another that none of them should tell his wife, nor speak of\nit again even to another man, till the moment arrived. But each\nindividual man told the partner of his bosom, only binding her by most\nfearsome oaths to say nothing to any other woman or man. All the women\nkept their oaths, each going about with the proud sense of being the only\nwoman in the great secret. And so the women all met in the market-place,\nchattering about every subject on earth but that which was nearest their\nhearts, and the men moved among them, mutually silent. The whole\ncommunity knew the secret whereof no one spoke. You perceive the\nparallel? Sex is the secret we are all in. Why shouldn't we talk openly?\nWhy shouldn't we face facts? The marriage laws should be made as\nflexible, not as inflexible, as possible. Why? Because the bad people\nwill evade everything and the good people endure anything. The bad people\nwill break the best laws and the good people will respect the worst laws.\nHence, stringency squeezes the saint and lets the sinner slip. Harsh\nlegislation puts a penalty on virtue: the vicious skirt round it\nsurreptitiously, or are openly happy in despite of it. The only thing\nimmutable in sexual morality is the principle of regulating it with a\nview to the highest ends of the soul and the state: the regulations\nthemselves are mutable, and we should not sacrifice too many human beings\nto gratify the idealism of the happily married. At the same time do not\nsuspect me of Hilltopsy-turveydom, which seems to me based on bad\nphysiology and worse psychology. Mr. Grant Allen, man of science as he is\nin his spare moments, is more like Matthew Arnold's Shelley, a beautiful\nand ineffectual angel beating in the void his luminous wings in vain. So\ncomplex is the problem which seems to him so simple, that it is not\nimprobable that the present monogamy (tempered by polygamy) is the best\nof all possible arrangements. This is not to belaud the present system,\nany more than it is optimistic to say this is the best of all possible\nworlds. It may be so, but it remains a pity that no better was possible.\nAnd Mrs. Grundy herself seems to me as over-abused as marriage. The\ncelerity with which she became a byword, from the moment she made her\naccidental appearance in Tom Morton's 'Speed the Plough,' shows how the\npopular instinct needed some such incarnation of our neighbours'\nopinions. She stands, the representative of the ethical level of the age,\nnot of fixed pruderies. She is by no means the staid old soul her\nmaligners imagine--never was there creature more changeable. As we move\non, so will she move on with us. Once she allowed our squires to get\ndrunk after dinner, now she is shocked at a one-bottle man. You will\nnever shake her off, you brilliant young gentlemen. For as you\nestablished your own ethics, she would still be there to see that your\nideas were carried out. Granted she is a scandal-monger. But scandal is\nthe sewer-system of society: the dirty work must be done somehow. Mrs.\nGrundy is your scavenger. Americans don't talk scandal, but I fail to see\nhow they will keep their homes clean without it. The scandal-mongers may\nbe inspired by no lofty motives, but they make a wonderful unpaid\ndetective force. Sheridan was not a philosopher. Ubiquitous and\nomniscient, Mrs. Grundy is always with you. Once you might have escaped\nher by making the grand tour, but now she has a Cook's circular ticket\nand watches you from the Pyramids or the temples of Japan,--especially\nif, like myself, you have the misfortune to be a celebrity. The only way\nto escape her is to be photographed widely. Wasn't it Adam Smith who said\nthat conscience was only the reflection in ourselves of our neighbours'\nopinions? If we didn't value their opinions there would be no morality.\nForeign travel makes you feel there is something in the idea. Who cares\nwhat a parcel of jabbering strangers think about his actions? The moment\nyou lose touch with your environment, the moment you cease to vibrate to\nits nuances, your morality is in a parlous condition. Better go home and\nsit down on the well-known couch of Catullus, and feel once more that\npeople are real and life is earnest and the horizon is not its goal. What\nis this mania for movement? If you travel unintelligently you see nothing\nthat you couldn't have seen more comfortably in a panorama--the world\ngoing round you. If you travel intelligently, you discover the relativity\nof all customs and ideas, you distrust your own beliefs, your backbone is\nrelaxed, your vitality snapped, and you come home a molluscous\ncosmopolitan. It is the same thing that happens if you travel mentally\ninstead of by mileage--if you go in for that modern curse, 'Culture.' You\nare not meant to absorb the art and literature of foreigners and dead\npeoples, fluttering like a bee from flower to flower. These things were\nmade by men for their own race and age; they never thought of you,--you\nare an eavesdropper. Cathedrals were built for Christians to pray in, not\nfor connoisseurs to gloat over. You should develop along your own lines,\nstrong and simple, not be a many-sided nullity. The true Englishmen are\nploughmen and sailors and shopkeepers, not culture-snobs.\n\n\"The greatest poets in every language are those who know only their own\nlanguage. Shakespeare and Keats handled English as a million Professors\nof Poetry cooperating could never handle it. The greatest Art has always\nsprung from the direct pressure of the real world upon the souls of the\nartists. To be cultured is to lose that vivid sense of the reality of the\nlife around you, to see it intellectually rather than to feel it\nintuitively. Hence art that is too self-conscious misses the throb of\nlife. George Eliot failed as soon as she began to substitute intellectual\nconcepts for the vivid impressions of early memories. The moment people\nbegin to prate about Art, the day of Art is over, and decadence is set\nin. Art should be the natural semi-unconscious enhancement of other\nthings. The speaker wishing to convince becomes artistically oratorical,\nthe prophet becomes artistically poetic, the church-builder artistically\narchitectural, the painter of Madonnas artistically picturesque, the\ncomposer of prayer-chants artistically musical. Art was the child of\nReligion, but it has long since abandoned its mother. Portrait and\nlandscape painting arose as accessories to sacred pictures; the origin of\nthe opera is to be sought in the Mass; literature developed from\nreligious writings. But gradually it was discovered that you might paint\nnoblemen as well as sages, and that scenery could be dissociated from the\nbackgrounds of Crucifixions and Marriages at Cana. And from seeing that\nArt needn't have a religious meaning or content, men came to see that it\nneedn't have any meaning or content at all. Art, indeed, presents\npossibilities of a divorce from intellect and morals of which artists\nhave eagerly availed themselves. But Art for Art's sake is Dead-Sea\nfruit--rosy without, ashes within. Socrates was not perhaps quite right\nin saying that the Beautiful was the Useful, but it doesn't follow that\nthe Beautiful should be the Useless. Even crockery, cutlery, and\nfurniture should never be Beautiful at the cost of utility. Their Beauty\nshould be implicated with their natural shapes, inblent with and\ninseparable from their uses, not a monstrous accretion from without. The\nmost artistic knife is the quintessence of knifehood.\"\n\n\"But that is my idea of Art for Art's sake,\" I interrupted, for he had\nnow got his second wind. \"Art has always to express the quintessence of\nsomething--be it a street, a life, a national movement, a----\"\n\n\"Art for Art's sake means making beautiful knives that won't cut and\nbeautiful glasses that won't hold water, and beautiful pictures and poems\nthat say nothing. The people who want their Art dissociated from their\nmorals are in danger of spiritual blight, and inhabiting a universe of\nempty nothings. Too much self-consciousness is as sterile as too little.\nLook at these modern Renaissances! They all----\"\n\n\"Yes, I know: I have written about that,\" I said. \"And now there is\nanother one, the Jewish. Have you read the plan for 'A Jewish State,' by\nDr. Herzl, of Vienna? No dreamer he, but wonderfully sane, despite his\nlofty conception of a moralised, rationalised, modern State. Too\n'modern,' indeed, this idea of Messiah as a joint-stock company! I\npredicted years ago we should come to that. But methinks the Doctor----\"\n\n\"They are starting the Grand Prix,\" hastily interrupted the Young Fogey.\n\"Good-bye! Such a delightful talk!\" And turning his back on the horses,\nhe hurried off the field to lose himself and perhaps find a new pair of\nEnglish ears among the parasols and equipages of the sunlit Prater.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nCRITICS AND PEOPLE\n\nWhat is the critic's duty at the play? Does he represent Art, or does he\nrepresent the Public? If he represent Art, then he is but a refracting\nmedium between the purveyor and the public, which will therefore be\nwofully mistaken if it seek in his critiques a guide to its play-going,\nas it to some extent does. For while people do not always like a play\nbecause they are told it is good, they often refrain from going to see\none because they are told it is bad. When I was a dramatic critic--a\nphrase that merely means I did not pay for my seat--nothing struck me\nmore forcibly than the frequent discrepancy between the opinions of the\naudience at a _premi\u00e8re_ and the opinions of the papers. Again and again\nhave I seen an audience moved to laughter and cheers and tears by a play\nwhich the great outside public would be informed the next morning was\nindifferent or worse. The discrepancy was sometimes explicable by\n_claques_, which are almost as discreditable to managements as the\nkeeping of tame critics, who eat food out of their hand. Sometimes it was\nnot professional _claques_, but amateurs come to see a friend's play _en\nmasse_, and applauding out of all proportion to its merits, not so much\nperhaps from friendship as from simple astonishment at finding any\nmerits. But putting aside _claques_, it remains true that an audience\nwill often heartily enjoy what a critic will heartily damn--sometimes in\nhalf a dozen papers, your capable critic being like a six-barrelled\nrevolver. And so--often enough--the piece, after futile efforts to\nmasquerade in the advertisement columns in a turned garment of favourable\nphrases, dies in an odour of burnt paper; the treasury is robbed of its\ndue returns; and numerous worthy persons to whom it would have given\nboundless pleasure are deprived of their just enjoyment. The obvious\ntruth is that the public and the critics--the people who pay to see plays\nand the people who are paid to see plays--have different canons of\ncriticism. Sometimes their judgments coincide, but quite as frequently\nthey disagree. It is the same with popular books. And the reason of this\nis not far to seek. The critic is not only more cultured than the average\nplaygoer, he is more _blas\u00e9_. He knows the stock situations, the stage\ntricks, the farcical misunderstandings, the machine-made pathos, the dull\nmechanic round of repartee, the innocent infant who intervenes in a\ndivorce suit (like the Queen's Proctor), the misprised mother-in-law, the\nbearded spinster sighing like a furnace, the ingenuous and slangy young\nperson of fifteen with the well-known cheek, and the even more\nstereotyped personages preserved in Mr. Jerome's \"Stage-land.\" They all\ncome, if not from Sheffield, from a perpetual tour in the provinces. The\ncritic knows, too, which plays are taken from the French and which from\nthe English, where the actor is gagging and when he is \"fluffy.\" A good\ndeal of the disillusionment of the scene is also his: he knows that the\nhero is not young nor the heroine beautiful, nor the villain as vicious\nas either.\n\nHow different the attitude of the occasional playgoer! Seeing only a\ntithe of the plays of the day, he neither knows nor cares whether they\nrepeat one another. The most hackneyed device may seem brilliantly\noriginal to him, the stalest stage trick as fresh as if just hot from the\nbrain; and jokes that deterred the dove from returning to the ark arride\nhim vastly. _Per contra_, for his unjaded imagination absolutely new\nscenes and dialogues have no more novelty than the comparatively aged.\nProbability or truth to life he demands not, perfection of form were\nthrown away upon him. His soul melts before the simplest pathos, he is\nmade happy by a happy ending, and when Momus sits on a hat \"he openeth\nhis mouth and saith Ha! ha!\" He is a flute upon which you may play what\nfalse notes you will. In some versions of \"Uncle Tom's Cabin\" he placidly\naccepts two Topsies. I s'pec's one growed out of t' other. He hath a\npassion for the real as well as the ideal, and in order to see a\nfire-engine, or Westminster Bridge, or a snow-storm, he will perspire you\ntwo hours at the pit's mouth. He could see them any day in the street,\nbut it gives him wondrous joy to see them in their wrong places. How\nabsurd, then, for the average critic to be play-taster to the occasional\nplaygoer! He no more represents him than an M. P. represents the baby he\nkisses. As well might one ask a connoisseur to choose the claret for a\nback-parlour supper-party. Thus the critic cannot honestly represent the\nPublic. That he cannot represent Art without injuring the Theatre as well\nas the Public, has already been shown. The conclusion one is driven to is\nthat the critic has no _raison d'\u00eatre_ at all in the topical press. There\nhe should be replaced by the reporter. The influence of cultivated\ncriticism should be brought to bear on the drama only from the columns of\nhigh-class magazines or books.\n\nNor am I more certain of the use of the art critic. He is far too\nconflicting to be of any practical value, and he as often contradicts\nhimself as his fellows. He hides his ignorance in elegant English,\nsometimes illuminated by epigram, and from his dogmatic verdicts there is\nno appeal. Not infrequently he is resolved to be a critic \"in spite of\nnature,\" as Sir Joshua has it in a delicious phrase which was possibly\ngiven him by his friend \"the great lexicographer.\" In a letter to the\n\"Idler,\" the painter recommends those devoid of eye or taste, and with no\ngreat disposition to reading and study, to \"assume the character of a\nconnoisseur, which may be purchased at a much cheaper rate than that of a\ncritic in poetry.\" \"The remembrance of a few names of painters, with\ntheir general characters,\" says Sir Joshua, \"and a few rules of the\nAcademy, which they may pick up among the Painters, will go a great way\ntowards making a very notable Connoisseur.\" He goes on to describe a\ngentleman of this cast, whose mouth was full of the cant of Criticism,\n\"which he emitted with that volubility which generally those orators have\nwho annex no ideas to their words.\"\n\nWhen I once expressed to Mr. Whistler my conviction that, with the single\nexception of religion, more nonsense was talked on the subject of art\nthan on any other topic in the world, that great authority refused to\nallow religion any such precedence. Certainly during the season when, for\nthe middle-class Londoner, art \"happens,\" the claims of art to that proud\npre-eminence become overwhelming, if only temporarily so. Everybody gives\nhis opinion freely, and it is worth the price. To criticise painting is\nonly less difficult than to execute it. Fifty per cent. of art is sheer\nscience, the rigid, accurate science of form and perspective, I do not\nsay that accuracy is necessary to art. Still it is what most people\npresume to judge. But does one person in a hundred know the true\nproportions of things, or possess the eye to gauge the anatomy of a\nfigure? Owing to the neglect in schools of the rudiments of drawing, our\neyes barely note the commonest objects; we remark just enough of their\ncharacteristics to identify them. \"Consider!\" as Mr. John Davidson writes\nin his \"Random Itinerary\": \"did you ever see a sparrow? You have heard\nand read about sparrows. The streets are full of them; you know they\nexist. But you could not describe one, or say what like is its note. You\nhave never seen a sparrow, any more than you have seen the\nthousand-and-one men and women you passed in Fleet street the last time\nyou walked through it. _Did_ you ever see a sparrow?\" And then there is\ncolour. Do you really know what the colour of that landscape is, or what\ncomplex hues mantle the surface of yonder all-mirroring pool? Do you know\nthat, the appearance of nature is constantly varying with every change of\nlight and every passing cloud? Do you know how Primrose Hill looks at\nnight? Perhaps you think you know how a haystack looks in the sunlight;\nyet across the Channel the illustrious Monet devoted months to painting\none haystack, making fresh discoveries daily. I do not believe you know\nhow many Roman figures there are on your watch-dial. You probably think\nthere are twelve. But what is far more important, you may be quite devoid\nof artistic sensibility. Yet you would not hesitate to criticise the\nAcademy or even to be paid for it. I had occasion to buy a doll the other\nday. It was a she-doll. There seems, by the way, a tremendous\npreponderance of the fair sex in dolls: what difficult social problems\nmust agitate the Dolls' Houses! This was a pretty doll, with wide blue\neyes, and a wealth of golden tow, and an expression of aristocratic\ninnocence on its waxen cheek, faintly flushed with paint, and I bore it\nhome with pride. But when I came to examine it, I found it was but a\nsawdust abomination. Oh the modelling of the arm, oh the anatomy of the\nleg, oh the patella proximate to the ankle! I felt that if I gave that\ndoll to the expectant infant, she might grow up to be an art critic.\nThus, then, mused I sorrowfully, is the nation's taste made in Germany.\nWe are corrupted from the cradle, even as upon our tombs badly carved\nangels balance themselves dolefully. Let me make a nation's dolls: I care\nnot who makes its pictures. Was it of these dolls a late President of the\nRoyal Academy was thinking, when he said that the German genius did not\nfind its best expression in plastic art? The Academy will not be\npermanently improved until we improve our dolls.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nTABLE-TALK\n\nNow that the world is so full of free dinners for the well-fed, it\nbehoves hostesses to reconsider their methods. With so many dinner-tables\nopen to the lion, or even to the cub, they must do their spiriting\ndexterously if they would feed him. In these days when seven hostesses\npluck hold of the swallow-tails of one man, and the form of grace before\nmeals must be, \"For those we are about to receive, Lord make us truly\nthankful,\" something more than the average attraction is needed to induce\nthe noble animal to dine at your expense. There is one improvement in the\ngreat dinner function for which I would respectfully solicit the\nattention of ladies who entertain but do not amuse. \"It is a great point\nin a gallery how you hang your pictures,\" says the sage of Concord, \"and\nnot less in society how you seat your party. When a man meets his\naccurate mate, Society begins and life is delicious.\" Yes, but how rarely\ndoes a man meet his accurate mate in these minor marriages of the\ndinner-table! How often is he chained for hours to an unsympathetic soul\nhe has not even made the mistake of selecting. The terrible length of the\nmodern dinner makes the grievance very real, and in a society already\nvibrant with the demand for easier divorce it is curious that there has\narisen no Sarah Grand of the dining-room to protest against this diurnal\nevil. Suppose that at a dance you were told off to one perpetual partner,\nwho would ever don pumps? Is it not obvious that at a dinner you should\nhave the same privilege as at a dance--the privilege of choosing your\npartner for each course? It could be done during the drawing-room wait. I\ngive an example of an ordinary menu, marked after the fashion of a\ngentleman's dance programme, from which it will the seen at a glance how\nmuch more delightful a dinner would become if you could change your\npartner as often as your plate.\n\n    MENU, JUNE 15th, 1894.\n\n       Plats.               Engagements.\n    1. Hors d'oeuvres . . . . S. S.\n    2. Soup . . . . . . . . . A. P. S.\n    3. Poisson . . . . . . .  Pinky.\n    4. Poisson . . . . . . .  L. R.\n    5. Entr\u00e9e . . . . . . . . Blue Bow.\n    6. Entr\u00e9e . . . . . . . . Red Hair.\n    7. Joint . . . . . . . .  W.\n    8. Sweet . . . . . . . .  Minnie.\n    9. Sweet . . . . . . . .  Minnie.\n    10. Cheese . . . . . . .  Long Arms.\n    11. Dessert . . . . . . . I. V.\n\n    (Interval before ladies rise.)\n\n    Extra Entr\u00e9e . . . . . .  Agnes.\n    Extra Joint . . . . . . . Eyeglasses.\n    Extra Sweet . . . . . . . Minnie.\n\nYou perceive at once that you would always put your idol _pro tem_, down\nfor the sweets, which would become as fertile a source of flirtation as\n\"love\" in tennis. Of course the same tact and discretion would be needed\nin filling your menu as in filling your programme. Some ladies who are\nexcellent at the entr\u00e9e may be inadvisable for the joint, which they may\nsit out, expecting to monopolise your attention to the detriment of your\nmeal. Others who are dull at the soup may be agreeably vivacious towards\nthe later items. A new series of formulae would be added to the language:\n\n\"May I have the pleasure of seeing your menu?\"\n\n\"Will you give me one sweet?\"\n\n\"Can you spare me the joint?\"\n\n\"I am so sorry: I have just given it away.\"\n\n\"See me eat the poisson, as Grossmith says.\"\n\n\"Will you put me down for a fish?\"\n\n\"This is our entr\u00e9e, I think.\"\n\n\"May I have my dessert, Minnie?\"\n\n\"Are you engaged for the cheese?\"\n\n\"Yes; but you can have the second entr\u00e9e.\"\n\n\"Don't forget to keep the soup for me!\"\n\n\"If you don't mind sitting it out!\"\n\n\"Are you open for the extra joint?\"\n\n\"Thank you: I am full up.\"\n\nFor hostesses who shrink from such a revolution, a beginning might be\nmade by an automatic change of seats by the gentlemen, say one to the\nright as in the _chass\u00e9-crois\u00e9_ of the Caledonians. Failing this, the\nonly remaining method of avoiding monotony and the chilling separation of\nthe extremes of the board is to follow the example of King Arthur and\nemploy a round table. The round dinner-table is the only way of making\nboth ends meet.\n\nHaving got your round table, what are you to eat upon it? There is hardly\nany edible known to the menu which some sect or other would not banish\nfrom the kitchen, while if you were to follow the \"Lancet\" you would eat\nnothing at all, starving like Tantalus amid a wealth of provisions. Of\nthese sects of the stomach I was aware of many. But it is only recently\nthat the claims of \"natural food\" have been brought within my heathen\nken. The apostle of the new creed is an American lady doctor, whose\ngospel, however, is somewhat vitiated by her championship of Mrs.\nMaybrick, so that one cannot resist the temptation of suspecting that she\nthinks the jury would never have found that interesting lady guilty if\nthey had fed upon starchless food. For this is the creed of the new\nteaching. All starch foods are chiefly digested in the intestines instead\nof in the main stomach, and hence are unnatural and morbiferous, and the\nchief cause of the nervous prostration and broken-down health that abound\non all sides. (Herr Nordau gives quite a different explanation of the\ngeneral breakdown, but no matter.) \"The 'Natural Food Society,'\" says its\nofficial organ, \"is founded in the belief that the food of primeval man\nconsisted of fruit and nuts of sub-tropical climes, spontaneously\nproduced; that on these foods man was, and may again become, at least as\nfree from disease as the animals are in a state of nature.\" How curiously\napposite seem Dryden's lines, written in a very different connection!\n\n  This was the fruit the private spirit brought,\n  Occasioned by great zeal and little thought.\n  While crowds unlearned, with rude devotion warm,\n  About the sacred viands buzz and swarm.\n\nAnd this couplet of his, too, might be commended to the devotees:\n\n  A thousand daily sects rise up and die;\n  A thousand more the perished race supply.\n\nWhat does it matter what primeval man ate? It is not even certain that he\nwas a member of the Natural Food Society. The savage, as we know him,\nlives on the game he hunts and shoots, and prefers his fellow-man to\nvegetarianism. No one ever accused the red Indian of nervous prostration,\n\"when wild in woods the noble savage ran\"; nor are leopards and tigers\nusually in broken-down health. But, in justice to the Natural Food\nSociety, I must admit that it displays a pleasant absence of fanaticism,\nfor there is a proviso in italics: \"_All persons about to experiment with\nthe non-starch food system are urged at first not to use nuts, but to use\ninstead whatever animal food they have been accustomed to._\" The central\nfeature of the system is abstention from bread, cereals, pulses, and\nstarchy vegetables, for which food fruits are to be substituted. All this\nseems a mighty poor excuse for the formation of a new sect. Fortunately\nthe Society uses up its superfluous energies \"in working for the higher\nlife,\" and in its coupling of health and holiness is sound in its\npsychology, whatever it may be in its physiology.\n\nYou never heard of Peterkin's pudding, by the way, but there is a fine\nmoral baked in it. Johannes came to his wife one day and said, \"_Liebes_\nGretchen, could you not make me a pudding such as Peterkin is always\nboasting his wife makes him? I am dying of envy to taste it. Every time\nhe talks of it my chops water.\" \"It is not impossible I could make you\none,\" said Gretchen good-naturedly; \"I will go and ask Frau Peterkin how\nshe makes it.\" When Johannes returned that evening from the workshop,\nwhere Peterkin had been raving more than ever over his wife's pudding,\nGretchen said gleefully, \"I have been to Frau Peterkin: she has a good\nheart, and she gave me the whole recipe for Peterkin's pudding.\" Johannes\nrubbed his hands, and his mouth watered already in anticipation. \"It is\nmade with raisins,\" began Gretchen. Johannes's jaw fell. \"We can scarcely\nafford raisins,\" he interrupted: \"couldn't you manage without raisins?\"\n\"Oh, I dare say,\" said Gretchen, doubtfully. \"There is also candied\nlemon-peel.\" Johannes whistled. \"Ach, we can't run to that,\" he said.\n\"No, indeed,\" assented Gretchen; \"but we must have suet and yeast.\" \"I\ndon't see the necessity,\" quoth Johannes. \"A good cook like you\"--here he\ngave her a sounding kiss--\"can get along without such trifles as those.\"\n\"Well, I will try,\" said the good Gretchen, as cheerfully as she could;\nand so next morning Johannes went to work light-hearted and gay. When he\nreturned home, lo! the long-desired dainty stood on the supper-table,\nbeautifully brown. He ran to embrace his wife in gratitude and joy; then\nhe tremblingly broke off a hunch of pudding and took a huge bite. His\nwife, anxiously watching his face, saw it assume a look of perplexity,\nfollowed by one of disgust. Johannes gave a great snort of contempt.\n\"_Lieber Gott!_\" he cried, \"and _this_ is what Peterkin is always\nbragging about!\"\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nTHE ABOLITION OF MONEY\n\nThe Cynic was very old and very wise and very unpopular. I was the only\nperson at his \"At Home\" that afternoon. I gave him my views on\nBi-metallism, having just read the leader in the \"Times.\" He yawned\nobtrusively, and growled, \"Bi-metallism, indeed! The only remedy for\nmodern civilisation is A-metallism. Money must be abolished. The root of\nall evil must be pulled up.\"\n\n\"Money abolished!\" I echoed in amaze. \"Why, any student of political\neconomy will tell you we could not live without it. Lacking a common\nmeasure of value, we----\"\n\n\"So it has always been held by students when answering political-economy\npapers,\" he interrupted impatiently. \"Yet I dreamt once of a land where\nthe currency was called in, and the morning stars sang together.\"\n\n\"But the exchange of commodities----\" I began.\n\n\"Was effected by the sublime simplicity of barter. At one sweep were\nswept away all that monstrous credit system which had created an army of\naccountants and a Court of bankruptcy; all that chaos of single and\ndouble-faced entry--all that sleight-of-hand abracadabra of\nsignatures--all those paper phantoms of capital. The Stock Exchange and\nother gambling-hells shrivelled up. There was a vast saving of clerical\nlabour, and there were few loopholes for fraud. Everything was too\nsimple. Swift retribution overtook the man who shirked his obligations to\nhis fellows. Nobody could juggle with bits of paper at the North Pole and\nruin people at the South. The windows of human Society were cleared of\nthe gigantic complex cobweb full of dead flies. One could look inside and\nsee what was going on. 'Gentlemen' could not flourish in the light. They\nwere like the fungi that grew in cellars. Every man became both a worker\nand a trader.\"\n\n\"Not an unmixed gain, that,\" I protested.\n\n\"I grant you,\" said the Cynic. \"Some of the finer shades of fine\ngentlemanliness were lost: the honourable feeling of cheating one's\ntradesmen, the noble scorn of tailors, the lofty despisal of duns. When\nall men were tradesmen, these higher class distinctions fused into one\nanother. There arose a clannish feeling which prevented the tradesman\nfrom defrauding one of his own class. But there was an even graver evil\nto be placed to the debit side of the new system. For the professors of\npolitical economy (who had thrown up their posts as a conscientious\nprotest against the abolition of money and of salaries) proved to be\nright. So clumsy was the mechanism of exchange that men were actually\ndriven to doing more than one kind of work. All those advantages of\nspecialisation which Adam Smith, supplemented by Babbage, had so\nlaboriously pointed out were completely lost to a wasteful world. Rather\nthan be without certain luxuries and necessaries men gave up moving their\nlegs all day up and down in time with iron treadles, or feeding machines\nwith bits of material exactly alike, or remaining doubled up underground,\nor making marks from hour to hour and from year to year on pieces of\nruled paper. The waste by friction became enormous. Some of the least\nthrifty even made their own furniture, and wove their own clothes, and\ncarved out rude ornaments for themselves. Whether from a natural want of\neconomy, or from an unwillingness to encounter the difficulties of\ntraffic, or from a mere spirit of independence, these men deliberately\nreverted to the condition from which mankind had so painfully emerged.\n\n\"Some even pretended to enjoy it, and, rather paradoxically, asserted\nthat the abolition of gold had brought about the golden age of primitive\nlegend. Others who felt keenly the falling-off in production, and the\nabsence of those huge stores of unsold commodities which glutted the\nancient markets, and gave a nation a sense of wealth in the midst of\npoverty; the aesthetic spirits who lamented the disappearance of the\nancient mansions and palaces, which, although they were empty three parts\nof the year, yet afforded men the consolation of knowing that they were\nample enough to shelter the majority of the homeless--men of this stamp\nwere chagrined by the cumbersome mechanism of exchange, which made these\nglories of the past impracticable, and they were for introducing\ncounters. But counters, although they had the advantage of lacking\nintrinsic value, would be quite as bad as actual coins if men could\nentirely trust one another never to repudiate their obligations.\nUnfortunately Society had grown so honest under the new _r\u00e9gime_ that\nthis condition was fulfilled, and the operation of counters would have\nbeen identical with that of money. Moreover, counters would have brought\nback card-playing, horse-racing, fire and life assurance, and other forms\nof gambling, which without them involved such complex calculations and\nvaluations of loaves and fishes that all the pleasure was spoilt. When\nthese things were pointed out to the aesthetic and the economical, they\nwere convinced and remained of the same opinion.\n\n\"But even with all these deficits, the balance in favour of the _status\nquo_ was eminently satisfactory. It was rediscovered that man really\nwanted very little here below, and that it was better for all to get it\nthan for some to continue to want it; and, taking into account also the\ngeneral freedom from war, newspapers, and other evils of a moneyed\ncivilisation, it must be conceded that the common people had very little\nto grumble at.\"\n\n\"But what of the uncommon people?\" I interrupted at last. \"They must have\nbeen martyred.\"\n\n\"Certainly, for the good of the common people. You see, everything was\ntopsy-turvey. Besides, they suffered only during the earlier stages of\ntransition. There was, for instance, the poet who went round among the\nworkmen to chaffer verses. But there were few willing to barter solid\ngoods for poetry. Here and there an intelligent artisan in love purchased\na serenade, and an occasional lunatic (for Nature hath her aberrations\nunder any system) became the proprietor of an epic. But the sons of toil\ndrove few bargains or hard with the sons of the Muses. The best poets\nfared worst, for the crowd sympathised not with their temper, nor with\ntheir diction, and they were like to die of starvation and so achieve\nspeedy recognition. But the minor poets, too, were in sore strait. The\nmarket was exceedingly limited. Sellers were many and buyers few.\nRondeaux were hawked about from butcher to baker, at ten to the joint, or\nthree to the four-pound loaf, and triolets were going at a\nhollow-toothful of brandy. A ballade-worth of butter would hardly cover a\nluncheon biscuit, while a five-act blank-verse tragedy was given away for\na pound of tea, and that only when the characters were incestuous and the\ncaesuras irreproachable. A famous female poet was reduced to pawning her\nbest sonnet for a glass of lemonade and a bun.\n\n\"Times were no less hard for the comic writer. Hitherto he had only to\noutrage his mother-tongue, or to debase the moral currency, to find the\nland ready to accord him of the fat thereof. He used to sit in a room in\nFleet street and make or steal jokes in return for gold. By the wonderful\nmechanism of the old Society other men and women, in whatever part of the\nworld he might stray, would rush to feed and clothe and house him, and\nplay and sing and dance to him, and physic him, and drive him about in\ncarriages, and tell him the news and shave him, and press upon him\naromatic mixtures to smoke, and love him, and kowtow to him, and beg of\nhim, and even laugh at his jokes, all in return for making or stealing\njokes in Fleet street. Some of these men and women would detest jokes, or\nhave a blindness to their points; nevertheless, not one but would be\neager to express in the most practical form his or her sense of the\nservices rendered to Society by the joker. But now that people saw with\nopen eyes through the transparent mechanism of exchange, they were\nextremely loth to part with their tangible commodities in return for mere\nflashes of wit or vulgarity. Previously they had only half realised that\nthey were soberly and seriously making coats, or working machines, or\nsmelting iron, while these jesters were merely cudgelling their brains or\nconsulting back files. The complexity of the thing had disguised the\nfacts. But now that they saw exactly what was going on, they became\nsuddenly callous to numerous vested interests, and their new-found desire\nto know why they should give up the fruits of their labour pressed very\ncruelly upon innocent individuals. The comic writer found it no joke to\nlive with 'I'd Rajah not's' going at seventy-five to the cigarette, or\nmockeries of the mother-in-law yielding but a ton of coals to the\nthousand. Puns were barely vendible, and even comic pictures could only\nbe sold at a great sacrifice of decency.\n\n\"The heir was a type of sufferer. When he came around asking for\nchampagne and chicken, the working-man said, 'What are you offering us in\nexchange?' and he replied, 'My relationship to my father.' But they would\nnot buy.\n\n\"Antiquarians and scholars, too, found it a hard task to live. No one\nneeded the things they raked up from the dust-heap of the past. Critics\nwere in an exceptionally critical condition. No one cared to exchange his\nproductions with a man who in return had to offer only his opinion of\nsomebody else's! As this opinion was usually worthless even under the old\n_r\u00e9gime_, people soon began to turn up their noses at it, and nobody\nwould give a rusk for the information that Turner was a better artist\nthan Nature, or that hanging was too good for Whistler. Remarks about the\nItalian Renaissance were accounted paltry equivalents for green peas,\ninvidious comparisons among the Lake poets were not easily negotiable for\nalpaca umbrellas, and the subtlest misreadings of Shakespeare were\nconsidered trivial substitutes for small-clothes. The artists were\nreduced to borrowing half-rolls from their models, partly because people\nhad gone back to Nature and liked their scenery free from oil, and drank\nin the Spirit of Beauty without water, and partly because it was so\ndifficult to assess the value of a picture now that critics had been\nstarved out and speculation had died away. Allegorical painters continued\na much-misunderstood race, and the fusion of classes had reacted fatally\non the brisk trade in 'Portraits of a Gentleman.' People who, in their\ncelestial aspirations after the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, had\nforgotten that they ate and drank and required food, warmth, and shelter\nto hatch all these sublime things with Capital Letters--people who had\nheretofore poured lofty scorn on those who could not forget that a man\nwas a being with a body--these were now the most clamant demanders of the\nmaterial. Only by the withdrawal of physical necessaries and luxuries did\nthey come to realise how much they had depended on such, or to perceive\nthe impossibility of the Worship of Truth on an empty stomach. Alas!\nunder this crude system of barter the most ardent expression of their\nsentiments concerning the ideal and the _Kalokagathon_ would not keep\nthem in cigars. The professional paradoxist went about with holes in his\nboots. Epigrams in hand, sickness at heart, and emptiness at stomach, he\ncrawled through the town in search of a buyer. He offered a dozen of the\nchoicest apothegms for a pair of hob-nailed boots, conjuring the cobbler\nlike the veriest 'commercial' to note the superiority of the manufacture.\nHe pointed out that he travelled with the latest novelties in\nImpressionist Ethics, perfect unfitness guaranteed. He even offered to\nmake a reduction if the cobbler would take a quantity. The worthy\ncraftsman, stung by the prospect of a cheap job lot of epigrams, was\nprevailed upon to look at the goods. But when he read that 'Vice is the\nfoundation of all virtue,' that 'Self-sacrifice is the quintessence of\nselfishness,' and that 'The Good of Evil outweighs the Evil of Good,' he\nfelt that he could do much better with his boots, even if he only\nemployed them to kick the epigrammatist. The poor wretch thought himself\nlucky when he succeeded in purchasing two epigramsworth of tobacco and a\nparadoxworth of potatoes. To cap his misfortunes, the nation suffered\nfrom a sudden invasion of immigrant epigrammatists, so that cynicisms\nwent a-begging at ten for a sausage-roll. Nor was the dull but moral\nmaxim at less discount than the witty but improper epigram. Essays\ninculcating the most superior virtues failed to counterbalance a day's\ncharing, and the finest spiritualistic soft soap would not wash clothes.\nEven the washerwoman deemed her work more real and valuable than the\nmanufacture of moralities too fine for use, and the deliberate effusion\nof sentiments too good to be true.\n\n\"In those days, too, a complete political platform, comprising a score of\nfirst-class articles of faith, sold at a pair of second-hand\nslop-trousers, and a speech of three hours and three hundred parentheses\ncould not fetch more than a pot of jam in the open market. The workhouses\nwere crowded with politicians, critics, poets, novelists, bishops,\nsporting tipsters, scholars, heirs, soldiers, dudes, painters,\njournalists, peers, bookmakers, landlords, punsters, idealists, and other\nincorrigible persons. Nothing was more curious and heartrending in the\nhistory of this transition to a new stage than the rapidity with which\nthose who had been most exigent towards life bated their terms. Men who,\nin their aspirations after the Good and the Beautiful and the True, had\nunwittingly wasted an intolerable deal of the world's substance in\nriotous idealising,--men who had so long breathed the atmosphere of\nottomans and rose-leaves that they were barely conscious of their\nprivileges,--now found themselves clamouring for bread wherewith to stay\nthe cravings of their inner selves, and accounted themselves happy if\nthey found a roof to shelter them. The pathos of it was that they felt it\nall too intensely to see the pathos of it, or to express it in poem,\npicture, or song.\n\n\"It was, of course, the current political economy to which was due this\nimmense depreciation in the exchange value of the higher kinds of\nintellectual and artistic work. In the old Socialistic system which had\nbeen swept away by the abolition of money, men had purchased literary and\nmusical commodities in common, each consumer paying his quota for his\nshare of an unconsumable and infinitely divisible whole. But now few\nindividuals cared or could afford to purchase whole works for their\nprivate edification; and so it came to pass that men of talent suffered\nas much as men of genius in the olden days. And when it began to be\nunderstood of the people that the times were other, and that Art and\nLetters and Apostleship would not pay, men turned in resignation to work\nwith their hands, and they made all kinds of useful things.\n\n\"And the bookmakers returned not to their pens, nor the pot-boiling\npainters to their palettes, nor the apostles to their prophesying, being\notherwise engaged and not thereto driven by inward necessity.\n\n\"And the Society of Authors perished!\n\n\"But the great poets, and the prophets, and the workers in colour and\nform, upon whom the spirit rested, these wrought on when their daily\nlabour for a livelihood was at an end, for joy of their art and for the\nreligious fire that was in them, giving freely of their best to their\nfellow-men, and exempt for evermore from all taint of trade.\"\n\nThe Cynic paused, and I sat silent, deeply impressed by what he had said,\nand striving to imprint every word of it upon my memory, so that I might\nsell it to a magazine.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nMODERN MYTH-MAKING\n\nSo far as I can gather from the publications of the Folklore Society, the\nscience of Folklore is in a promising condition. The doctors seem to be\nagreed neither about the facts nor the methods nor the conclusions, but\notherwise their unanimity is wonderful. Originally the science was made\nin Germany, where it still flourishes, like all sciences that require\ninfinite pains and inexhaustible dulness. All that can be done with any\nfruitfulness is apparently the collection and classification of stories,\nsongs and superstitions. Hypotheses and theories are mainly bricks\nwithout straw, and the only certain conclusion that may be drawn from the\nprevalence of folk-tales all over the world is that all men are liars.\nThis was the first contribution to the science, and the Psalmist may be\nregarded as the founder of Folklore. Herder made an advance when he\ncollected the folk-songs of many nations; and Grimm as a collector was\ntruly scientific, but when he brought in his mythological explanations he\nbrought in mythology. Benfey's celebrated theory that European folk-tales\nare Oriental in origin and comparatively recent in date seems to be\nbearing up well.\n\nBut no one seems to study the mythopoetic instinct as it manifests itself\nin modern life, in the daily refraction of fact through the medium of\nimagination (a medium whose power of refraction is far greater than that\nof water). Because we no longer create gods and goddesses, or people the\nwoods and brooks with fairies and nymphs, and the forest with gnomes and\nthe hills with hobgoblins--because we do not soften our lives with an\natmosphere of gracious supernaturalism, and fresco our azure ceiling with\nangels--it is assumed that the mythopoetic instinct is dead. Far from it!\nIt is as lively as ever, and we may watch it at play in the building up\nof legends, in the creation of mythical figures; in the shaping of the\nBoulanger legend, the Napoleonic legend, the Beaconsfield legend with its\npoetical machinery of the primrose, the Booth legend, the Blavatsky\nlegend; in the fathering of epigrams upon typical wits like Sheridan, or\nthe attribution of all jokes to \"Punch\"; in the creation of non-existent\nbodies like the \u00c6sthetes, and in the private circulation of scandals\nabout public personages; in the perpetual revival of the Blood Accusation\nagainst the Jews, or the pathetic clinging to the miracles of exposed\nSpiritualists and Theosophists; in the Gladstone of Tory imaginations and\nthe Balfour of Radical; in the Irish patriot of oratory; in the\nbig-footed Englishwoman of French fancy, and the English conception of\nthe Scotchman who cannot see a joke; in the persistence of traditional\nbeliefs or prejudices that would be destroyed by one inspection.\n\nApotheosis is still with us, and diabolification (if I may coin a word).\nWe canonise as prodigally as in the mediaeval ages, and are as keen as\never about relics. We are still looking out for dead King Arthur: he will\nreturn by way of the County Council. _Plus \u00e7a change plus c'est la\nm\u00e9me[*] chose_--probably the profoundest observation ever made by a\nFrenchman. Our mythopoetic instinct is as active as of yore, only the\nmode of its expression is changed. It works on modern lines, has taken to\nprose instead of poetry, and only occasionally unfurls wings. Why does\nnot the Folklore Society investigate the origin of our modern myths? Why\nnot seize on the instinct as it is seen at play in our midst, moulding\nmovements and fashioning faiths? Why not catch it in the act--employ\nvivisection, so to speak, instead of dissecting dead remains? Why not try\nto extract from the living present the laws of the creation and\ndevelopment of myths and the conditions of their persistence, so that by\napplying these laws retrospectively we may come to understand our\nheritage of tradition? Ah! but this would require insight into life,\nwhich your scientist has no mind for. Besides, dry-as-dust\nwork--collation and classification--may be distributed among the members\nof a society; but how require of them fresh vision? There is dispute as\nto how folklore arose: one school talks vaguely of creation by the clan,\nthe community, the race; another insists that the germ at least must\nalways have sprung from some one individual mind, just as a proverb may\nbe the wisdom of many but must be the wit of one; that ideas that are \"in\nthe air,\" like a tree whose branches are everywhere and whose trunk\nnowhere, had a single root once; and that every _on dit_ was literally\n\"_one says_\" originally. But if we watch the process of mythopoetising in\nour daily life, we shall see both theories illustrated. Consider the myth\nof Lord Randolph's small stature: it may be traced easily enough to Mr.\nFuraiss's pencil. Many people who have the impression forget whence they\nderived it; and many who never saw Punch had the idea conveyed to them by\nLondon letter-writing journalists who never saw Churchill. Yet there is\nno doubt that the myth is the creation of a single man. In this instance\nthe genesis is clear, and it makes for the one-man theory. In other\ninstances, I can quite imagine myths arising from a spectacle witnessed\nin common by a multitude, or an incident developing itself under the eyes\nof many. No single reporter of the doings in Sherwood Forest built up the\nRobin Hood legend.\n\n[* Transcriber's note: So in original. One would rather expect an accent\ncirconflexe on the first 'e', not an accent aigu.]\n\nDoubtless every ballad was the work of an individual; crowds do not\nspontaneously burst out into identical remarks, except on the stage. But\nthe crowd was ready for the individual's ballad; it furnished him with\nhis theme and his inspiration, so that he \"gave back in rain what he\nreceived in mist.\" Thus, most folklore would owe its birth to the\nco-operation of the individual and the community--the former the creative\nor male factor, the latter the receptive or feminine factor. The one man\nlaunches his jest, his caricature, his story, his melody, into a\nsympathetic but inarticulate environment. Then it is taken up, it is\ntransformed, it grows mighty. The \"Times\" is something very different\nfrom the total of the contributors' manuscripts.\n\nPerhaps the most interesting field of folklore work, from the point of\nview of mere literature, was that opened up by Von Hahn's classification\nof the stories of the world according to their original elements, their\nbare plots. There are about seventy main types of stories to which all\nthe wandering tales of the world may be reduced. As thus:\n\n\nGRATEFUL BEASTS' TYPE\n\n1. A man saves some beasts and a man from a pit.\n\n2. The beasts somehow make him rich, and the man somehow tries to ruin\nhim.\n\nI have little doubt that these might be fined down to seventeen on a very\nbroad basis of classification. I should like to see an analysis of the\nworld's novels similar to that which Polti has made for the drama.\nProbably it would need a Society to do it, though it would be easy enough\nto keep pace with the output when once the arrears were cleared off.\nThere are only twenty novels published every week in England, omitting\nserials, and probably only two or three hundred in the whole world. By a\ndivision of labour these could be easily taken to pieces and their plots\ndissected. In time this might lead to a copyright in incidents as well as\nin words and titles, and the stock situations would be stocked no more,\nand the conventional novelists would be killed off. Even if Parliament\ndid not see its way to copyrighting incidents, for fear good ideas\nspoiled by weak writers should be lost to use by the strong, the\npublication of a catalogue of the motives of fiction already treated\nwould deter all but the most shameless from changing infants at nurse, or\nrescuing young ladies from bulls, or mistaking brother and sister for\nlovers, or having to do with wills lost, stolen, or strayed. Colossal as\nthe task looks, a first rough analysis would sweep away half the new\nnovels of the month and include three-fourths of the fiction of the past.\nHere is the broadest and most general formula of English fiction as she\nis wrote for the young person: _A young man meets a young woman under\nunpropitious conditions which delay their union._\n\nNine-tenths of the novels of the day may be dissected under the following\nheads: (_a_) Description of Hero; (_b_) Of Heroine; (_c_) How they first\nmet; (_d_) Why they did not marry till the last chapter.\n\nThere! Quite unintentionally I have given away the secret of\nnovel-writing. It is, for all the world, like the parlour game of\nConsequences, wherein each person fills up a form unknown to the others.\nThe muscular John Jones met the beautiful Princess of Portman Square in\nthe Old Kent Road, and said to her, \"Oh, 'Arriet, I'm waitin' for you,\"\nand she replied, \"You must wait till the end of the third volume,\" and\nthe consequences were that they got married, and the world said, \"We must\nget this from Mudie's.\" After this lesson in fiction any one may rival\nthe masters, provided he can hold a pen and doesn't mind leaving the\nspelling to the compositors. You may perhaps think that the real value of\na book lies in the accessories before the marriage, in the pictures of\nlife and character; but I can assure you, unless you turn everything\nround this axis, the critics will tell you you can't construct. For my\npart, I would rather have \"The Story of an African Farm,\" two-storied as\nit really is, than a hundred bungalow romances. Better genius without art\nthan art without genius.\n\nFor French fiction the formula would have to be varied. It would run:\n(_a_)Hero; (_b_)Heroine; (_c_)How they first loved; (_d_)What the hero's\nwife or the heroine's husband did; (_e_)Who died?\n\nAnother piece of work I should like to see done is a census of the\npopulation of novels. Then we should see clearly how far they are a\nreflection of life. In England I warrant the professional men would\noutnumber all others; the aristocracy would come next, and the urban\nworking-man would be swamped by the villagers. The nation of shopkeepers\nwould be poorly represented, and artisans would be few in the land. There\nwould be more perfectly beautiful English girls than there are girls in\nEngland, more American millionaires than even the States can raise, and\nmore penniless lords than if Debrett were a charity list of paupers; more\nsatanic guardsmen than ever wore \"the widow's uniform,\" more briefless\nbarristers than all the men who have eaten dinners in vegetarian\nrestaurants, and more murderers than have ever been caught since the days\nof Jonathan Wild. Indeed, I am not certain but what the population of\nEnglish novels would come out thirteen millions, mostly criminals. The\nrelative proportions of blondes and brunettes would also be brought out,\nand whether there is a run on any especial colour of hair. Plain heroines\ncame in with Jane Eyre. It would be interesting to ascertain if they are\nstill worn or still weary.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHY OF TOPSY-TURVEYDOM\n\nMy friends, topsy-turveydom is not so easy as it looks. The trouble is\nnot in inverting, but in finding _what to invert_. Our language is full\nof ancient saws, but it takes wit to discover which to turn upside down.\nAnybody can stand anything on its head, but it is only the real humourist\nwho knows which thing can stand on its head without falling or looking\nfoolish. 'T is the same in stage dialogue. Many a man of moderate wit can\nfind a repartee when the joke is unconsciously led up to by another\nspeaker. It is the preparation for the joke that is the dramatist's\ndifficulty. To borrow a term from the Greek grammars, the protasis of the\nrepartee is more troublesome than the apodosis. The puzzle is, therefore,\nfind the protasis. When Barry Pain says that sometimes the glowing fire\nin the grate stares at you from behind its bars, as if it could read\npictures in you, you cannot help laughing. If he had given you the\nprotasis, \"You gaze into the fire as if you could read pictures in it,\"\neven you could have invented the inversion. Topsy-turveydom is, I repeat,\nno laughing matter. It is an art--and must be studied. When Besant's\nSchool of Literature is founded, there will be\n\n\nEXERCISES IN TOPSY-TURVEYDOM\n\n1. Invert the following commonplaces humorously:\n\n    Honesty is the best policy.\n    The cup that cheers but not inebriates.\n    Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.\n    Like a child in its mother's arms.\n          (_Not so easy, you see!_)\n\n2. Invert the following _motifs_ humorously:\n\n    (_a_) A parted husband and wife reconciled by their little child.\n    (Stock Poetry.)\n\n    (_b_) A patient marrying his nurse on recovery. (Stock Story.)\n\n    (_c_) A mother-in-law who comes to stay six months. (The Old Humour.)\n\nInversion may be applied, you see, both to ideas and to phrases. Let me\ncontribute a specimen of either sort to the literary primer of the\nfuture:\n\n\nTHE ECONOMY OF SMOKING\n\nI must really give up not smoking, at least till the American Copyright\nAct works smoothly, and I am in a position to afford luxuries. At present\nthis habit of not smoking is a drain upon my resources which I can ill\nsupport. Whenever a man comes to my house, I have to give him cigars, or\nelse gain the reputation of a churly and ill-mannered host. In the olden\ndays, when I was economical and smoked all day long, I could go to that\nman's house and get those cigars back. Very often, too, I used to get the\nbest of the bargain, and thus effect considerable economies in the\npurchase of good tobacco. Nowadays, not only have I got to give away\ncigars for nothing, but they must be good ones. Formerly if I gave my\nfriends bad cigars, it was from a box I was obviously smoking myself, and\ntherefore they had at least the consolation of knowing I was a companion\nin misfortune. But to give others \"evils from which you are yourself\nexempt\" (to quote Lucretius) would be a terrible blend of bad taste and\ninhospitality. Under such circumstances a man looks on a bad cigar as an\ninsult, and the greater insult because it is a gratuitous one. But my\nlosses from these sources are trivial compared with the item for\ntheatres. In the pure, innocent days, when I could not bear to let my\npipe out of my mouth even for a moment, I was unable to go to theatres;\nbut now that I have taken to not smoking, I have fallen a victim to my\nother craving--the passion for the play. Three stalls a week tot up\nfrightfully in a year. No, decidedly I must check this extravagant habit\nof not smoking before I am irretrievably ruined.\n\nThis is forced, but Truth often dwells the bottom of a paradox.\n\n\nTHE DANGER OF LEARNING TO SWIM\n\nThe danger of drowning arises mainly from being able to swim. The ability\nto swim is of little use as a safeguard against drowning, for it is only\nin a minority of cases that the accident thoughtfully allows you every\nfacility for displaying your powers of natation; you are not conceded\ncalm stream, a calm mind, and a bathing-costume; usually you are\ndisorganised, _ab initio_, by the unexpectedness of the thing, you are\nweighed down by your clothes and your purse, you are entangled with\nsails, or clutched at by fellow-passengers, or sucked into vortices. In a\nbig steamer accident, what chance is there for those who can swim? Only\nan occasional Hercules can keep afloat in a heavy sea, and he not for\nlong. The most that swimming can do for you is to enable you to save\nyourself in circumstances where you would very probably be saved by\nsomebody else. On the other hand, the ability to swim exposes you to many\nrisks you w|uld never have run had you been helpless in the water. You\nswim in perilous places, you go out too far and cannot get back, you\nexpose yourself to the possibilities of cramp, you try to save other\npeople's lives and lose your own. There is also the temptation to go to\nthe Bath Club in Piccadilly and die of a too luxurious lunch. On the\nwhole, I believe as many swimmers are drowned as non-swimmers when a\ngeneral accident occurs, while the swimmers invite special accidents of\ntheir own. Do you deduce from this that I advise you not to learn to\nswim? Quite the contrary: it is a delightful and invigorating exercise.\nOnly you must not imagine you are thereby armed against fate. Swimming\nfor amusement is as different from swimming for life as yachting on the\nThames is from crossing the Atlantic.\n\n\nFor my example of phrase-inversion I cannot do better than reprint the\nopen letter addressed by me--in the height of his success, and in parody\nof his manner--to the great _phraseur_ and _farunix_ of his little day;\nespecially as some have thought to see in it proof that prophecy has not\nyet died out of Israel.\n\n\nMY DEAR SIR: I have never for one moment doubted that you are a thinker,\na poet, an art critic, a dramatist, a novelist, a wit, an Athenian, and\nwhatever else you say you are. You are all these things--I confess it to\nyour shame. I have always looked down upon you with admiration. As an\nepigrammatist I consider you only second to myself, though I admit that\nin the sentiment, \"to be intelligible is to be found out,\" I had the\ndisadvantage of prior publication. When you point out that Art is\ninfinitely superior to Nature, I feel that you are cribbing from my\nunpublished poems, and I am quite at one with you in regarding the sunset\nas a plagiarism. Nature is undoubtedly a trespasser, and should be warned\noff without the option of a fine. I say these things to make it quite\nclear that I speak to you more in anger than in sorrow. You are much too\nimportant to be discussed seriously, and if I take the trouble to give\nyou advice, it is only because I am so much younger than you. I am\ncertain you are ruining yourself by cigarette cynicism; far better the\nrough, clay-pipe cynicism of a Swift. There is no smoke without fire, but\nit requires very little fire to keep a cigarette going. The art of\nadvertising oneself by playful puffs is not superior to Nature. But you\nare not really playful and innocent; it would be ungracious to deny that\nyou have all the corruption which the Stage has so truly connected with\nthe cigarette. Still, isn't it about time you got divorced and settled\ndown? At present there are only two good plays in the world--\"The Second\nBook of Samuel\" and \"Lady Windermere's Fan\"; surely you have power to add\nto their number. Try a quiet life of artistic production, and don't talk\nso much about Art. We are tired of missionaries, whether they wear the\nwhite tie of the Church or of Society, and it is a great pity we have not\nthe simple remedy of the savages, who eat theirs. These few words of\nadmonition would be incomplete if I did not impress upon you that policy\nis the only honesty. Art is short and life is long, and a stitch in time\ndebars one from having a new coat. You can take a drink to the horse, but\nyou can't make him well; and nothing succeeds like failure. Vice is the\nonly perfect form of virtue, and virtue---- Easy there! Steady! Avast!\nBelay! Which!\n\nThe Boeotians are dull folk, no doubt, but life would be dull without\nthem. Imagine a wilderness of Wildes! It would be like a sky all\nrainbows. Then what beautiful whetstones the Boeotians are! Abuse them,\nby all means, so long as they will pay for it. But what a blessing that\nthe minds capable of taking the artistic view of life are rare enough to\nkeep the race sane! The coarser forms of egotism seem less baneful to the\nbrain-tissue. You claim to be an Athenian, but the Athenians did not\nsmoke cigarettes. It is true that tobacco had not been invented, but this\nis a sordid detail If Athens stands for anything in the history of\nculture, it is for sanity, balance, strength. Aristotle, at least as much\nan Athenian as any native of Ireland, meditated about aesthetics, but he\nmeditated also about politics, logic, philosophy, political economy,\nethics--everything. Socrates was a _causeur_, but he was also a martyr.\nNo, after all the Beautiful is _not_ so important as you imagine you are.\nNo doubt for a few billion years painters and musicians and\nepigrammatists will remain the centre cf creation; but when the sun grows\ncold it is conceivable that invaluable canvases may be used up as fuel,\nand that humanity may sacrifice even your printed paradoxes to keep\nwarmth a little longer in its decrepit bones. The fact is, you are too\n_born\u00e9_, too one-sided, to be accepted as as a \"king of men.\" You take\nsuch broad views that you grow narrow. What you want is a little\nknowledge of life, and twelve months' hard labour.\n\n\nBut though topsy-turveydom may be attained with comparative ease, it\nperforms a lofty philosophical function. Everything rusts by use. Our\nmoral ideals grow mouldy if preached too much; our stories stale if told\ntoo often. Conventionality is but a living death. The other side of\neverything must be shown, the reverse of the medal, the silver side of\nthe shield as well as the golden. Convex things are equally concave, and\nconcave things convex. The world was made round so that one man's \"up\"\nshould be another man's \"down.\" The world is the Earthly Paradox, with\nfour cardinal points of mutual contradiction, all equally N., S., E., and\nW. 'T is thus a symbol of all paradoxes, of all propositions in which\nmutually contradictory things are true. Nay, paradox is the only truth,\nfor it cannot be denied; including, like the world, its own\ncontradiction. Topsy-turveydom unfolds our musty ideas to the sun and\nspreads them out the other way. The man who reverses the Fifth\nCommandment and says that parents should honour their children is not a\nflippant jester, but a philosophic thinker. This is the true inwardness\nof the topsy-turvey humourist.\n\nTopsy-turveydom has played a prodigious part in the progress of thought.\nThe history of philosophy and science is merely a tale of development by\ntopsy-turveydom, every new thinker simply contradicting his predecessor.\nThales said water was the primitive principle of all things; so\nAnaximander said it was air, whereupon Anaximenes said it was matter.\nThis made Pythagoras maintain it was not concrete matter but abstract\nnumber; whereupon Xenophanes would have it that it was not number but\npure monistic being, and his disciple Zeno invented some delightful and\nimmortal paradoxes to prove that time and motion and number and change\nhave no existence, and only existence exists. Up comes Heraclitus,\nproving that existence doesn't exist, and there is nothing in the world\nbut becoming: that so far from change not existing, nothing exists but\nchange. It was now about time to return to earth, and so Empedocles and\nDemocritus came along with their Atoms; thereby provoking Anaxagoras into\nbringing in Soul to explain things. Things were going on thus\nsatisfactorily when the Sophists appeared on the scene to say that we\ndidn't really know anything, because all our knowledge was subjective, so\nSocrates insisted that it didn't matter, because conduct was\nthree-fourths of life. Plato retorted that it did matter, and he invented\nan archetypal universe of which this was a faint and distorted copy.\nNaturally Aristotle must contradict him by founding empirical science,\nwhich concerns itself only with this world. On his heels came the Stoics,\nwho would have nothing to do with science except in so far as it made men\nvirtuous, and who wanted to live soberly and severely. This provoked the\nneo-Platonists into craving for ecstatic union with the supernatural. The\ntransition period from ancient philosophy to modern was one long fight\nbetween Nominalists and Realises, the one school teaching the exact\nopposite of the other.\n\nBut it is in the history of Modern Philosophy and Modern Science that one\nfinds the strongest examples of this progress by paradox. The triumph of\ntopsy-turveydom was when Galileo, the Oscar Wilde of Astronomy, declared\nthat the earth went round the sun--a sheer piece of inversion. Darwin,\nthe Barry Pain of Biology, asserted that man rose from the brutes, and\nthat, instead of creatures being adapted to conditions, conditions\nadapted creatures. Berkeley, the Lewis Carroll of Metaphysics,\ndemonstrated that our bodies are in our minds, and Kant, the W. S.\nGilbert of Philosophy, showed that space and time live in us. In\nLiterature it is the same story. To credit the scholars, Homer is no\nlonger a man, nor the Bible a book. As for Zechariah, it was written\nbefore Genesis. This topsy-turveydom is a valuable organon of scientific\ndiscovery. Take any accepted proposition, invert it, and you get a New\nTruth. Any historian who wishes to make a name has but to state that Ahab\nwas a saint and Elijah a Philistine--that Ananias was a realist and\nGeorge Washington a liar--that Charles I. was a Republican hampered by\nhis official position, and that the Armada defeated Drake--that Socrates\ndied of drinking, and that hemlock was what he gave Xantippe. In fact,\nthere is no domain of intellect in which a judicious cultivation of\ntopsy-turveydom may not be recommended. Ask why R. A.'s are invariably\ncolour-blind, and you become a great art critic, while a random regret\nthat Mendelssohn had no ear for music will bring you to the very front in\nmusical circles. For the tail shall always wag the dog in the end, and\nAristides will never be able to remain in Athens if men will call him\n\"the Just.\" _Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse._ We are bored--and then\ncomes the topsy-turveyist's opportunity. \"To every action there is an\nequal and contrary reaction\" is a sure law of motion, and in the seesaw\nof speculation the \"down\" of to-day is the \"up\" of to-morrow. Next\ncentury we shall be sick of science; and indeed the spooks are already\nreturning for the funeral of this. I shall end with\n\n  AN APOLOGY TO A CELEBRATED CHARACTER\n\n  As a synonym for sin,\n               Jezebel,\n  I 'll no longer drag you in,\n               Jezebel.\n  Now I know your glorious mission was to spread\n       the truths Phoenician,\n  Metaphoric life anew you shall begin,\n               Jezebel;\n  Metaphoric life anew you shall begin,\n\n  Cultured Baalite, loyal wife,\n              Jezebel,\n  Martyr in a noble strife,\n              Jezebel;\n  Protestant for light and sweetness 'gainst the\n      narrow incompleteness\n  Of Elijah and Elisha's view of life,\n              Jezebel;\n  Of Elijah and Elisha's view of life.\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nGHOST-STORIES\n\nWhy do ghosts walk at Christmas? What seduction hath Yule Tide for these\nphantastic fellows, that it lures them from their warm fireplaces? Is it\nthat the cool snow is grateful after the fervours of their torrid zone,\nwhere even the pyrometer would fail to record the temperature? Is it that\nDickens is responsible for the season, and that Marley's ghost has set\nthe fashion among the younger spooks? The ghost of Hamlet's father was\nnot so timed: he walked in all weathers. Perhaps it is the supernatural\nassociations of Christmas that create the atmosphere in which ghosts live\nand move and have their being. Or perchance it is at the season of family\nreunion that the thoughts turn most naturally to vacant chairs and the\npresences that once filled them. Or is it that the ghosts walk for me\nalone, by reason that Christmas always brings me haunting thoughts of\nthem? For my youth was nursed upon the \"penny dreadfuls\" of an age that\nknew not \"Chums,\" nor the \"Boys' Own Paper.\" They were not so very\ndreadful, those \"penny dreadfuls,\" though dreadfully disrespectful to\nschoolmasters, who were wont to rend them in pieces in revenge. The\nheroes of the stories began to urge on their wild career in the\nschool-room, where they executed practical jokes that would have\ngladdened the heart of Mr. Gilbert's merry Governor; the jokers were\nnever found out unless they confessed to spare another boy's feelings,\nand then the schoolmaster was so touched that he spared theirs. After\npassing through five forms and upsetting them all, they arrived at the\nsixth form, which demanded a new volume to itself, called, let us say,\n\"Tom Tiddler's School-days Continued,\" and mainly devoted to cigars and\nflirtation. \"Tom Tiddler at College\" followed--all \"wines\" and\nproctor-baiting, with Tom Tiddler as stroke in the victorious 'Varsity\neight. \"Tom Tiddler Abroad\" was the next title, for the chronicle of a\npopular hero would run on for years and years; and in this section red\nIndians and wild beasts were rampant. 'T were long to trace the fortunes\nof Tom Tiddler in all their thrilling involutions; but when he had\npainted the globe red he married and settled down. And then began \"Young\nTom Tiddler's School-days,\" \"Young Tom Tiddler's Schooldays Continued,\"\n\"Young Tom Tiddler Abroad,\" and all the weekly round of breathlessness;\nand never was proverb truer than that the young cock cackles as the old\ncock crows. By the time interest palled in the son a new generation of\nreaders had arisen, and the unblushing paper commenced to run \"Tom\nTiddler's School-days\" again. So went the whirligig. But at Christmas,\nwhen the blue-nosed waifs carol in the cold and boys have extra pennies,\nTom Tiddler himself slunk into the background, lost in the ample folds of\na \"Double Number,\" the same blazoned impudently, as though it did not\ndemand double money. But the extra pennyworth was all ghosts: ghosts,\nghosts, ghosts; full measure, pressed down and running over; not your\nIbsenian shadows of heredity, but real live ghosts, handsomely appointed,\nwith chains and groans and wavy wardrobes. They lived in moated granges\nand ivy-wreathed castles, and paced snowy terraces or dark, desolate\ncorridors. There was no talk then of psychic manifestations, or auras, or\ntelepathy, or spiritual aether. Ghosts were solid realities in those days\nof the double number.\n\n\"To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late,\" as Macaulay\nsings, and it is no less impossible to escape spirit-rapping and all the\nfascinating _menu_ of the Psychical Society. The epidemic, which is\ncontagious to the last degree, seizes its victims when they are off\nguard, under pretense of amusing an idle hour, and ends by robbing them\nof sleep and health; some it drives into lunatic asylums and some into\nnewspaper correspondence. That thought-reading is not necessarily\ndelusion or collusion is now generally recognised; a _prot\u00e9g\u00e9e_ of Mr. F.\nW. Myers convinced me of the possibility of simple feats, though not of\nher explanation of them. She credited them to spirits, and wicked spirits\nto boot. In vain, I pointed out that spirits who occupied themselves so\ndocilely about matters so trivial must be harmless creatures with no more\nguile than the village idiot: she would concede no grain of goodness in\ntheir composition. Table-turning I had never seen. Ghosts I had never\nmet, though I had met plenty of persons who had their acquaintance. Like\nLady Mary Wortley Montagu--or is it Madame de St\u00e4el[*]?--I did not\nbelieve in them, but I was afraid of them. Premonitions I had often had,\nbut they had scarcely ever come true. But now I am prepared to believe\nanything and everything, and to come up to the Penitent Form--if there be\none--of the Psychical Society and to declare myself saved. I am already\npreparing a waxen image of a notorious critic, to stick pins thereinto.\nNot that I did not always believe the Spook Society was doing necessary\nwork in supplementing the crude treatises of our psychologists, who are\nthe most fatuous and self-complacent scientists going.\n\n[* Transcriber's note: So in original. One would rather expect the accent\ntr\u00e9ma on the 'e', not on the 'a'.]\n\nMy conversion to a deeper interest in the obscurer psychic phenomena\nbefell through encountering a theatrical touring company in a dull\nprovincial town. The barber told me about it--a dapper young Englishman\nof twenty-five, with an unimpeachable necktie.\n\nBARBER. \"They're playing 'Macbeth' to-night, sir.\"\n\nAUTHOR. (growling). \"Indeed?\"\n\nB. \"Yes, sir; I'm told it's pretty thick.\"\n\nA. \"What's pretty thick?\"\n\nB. \"'Macbeth.'\"\n\nA. \"What do you mean by 'thick'?\"\n\nB. \"Full of gore, sir. I don't like those sort o' pieces. I like\nopera--'Utopia' and that sort o' thing. You can see plenty o' thick\nthings in real life. I don't want to go to the theatre to get the creeps\nand horrors. But I've seen 'Othello' and 'Virginius.'\"\n\nA. \"Ha! Do you know who wrote 'Othello'?\"\n\nB. \"No, that I don't.\"\n\nA. \"Do you know who wrote 'Macbeth'?\"\n\nB. \"Now you ask me something!\"\n\nA. (speculating sadly on the vanity of fame and the absurdity of being a\nnational bard, but determined to vindicate a brother author) \"'Othello'\nand 'Macbeth' were written by Shakespeare.\"\n\nB. (unmoved) \"Ah! that's the man that wrote 'Taming of the Shrew,' isn't\nit?\"\n\nA. (astonished) \"Yes.\"\n\nSo the Author went to see the thick play, and found he knew Lady Macbeth,\nnay, had--by an odd episode--first seen her in dressing-gown and\ncurl-papers; so, presuming upon this intimate acquaintanceship, he got\nhimself bidden to the Banquet--in less Shakespearian language, he went to\nsupper. The Banquet was uninterrupted by Banquos or other bogies. Lady\nMacbeth--in a Parisian art-gown--sipped milk after her bloody exertions,\nand listened graciously, her fair young head haloed in smoke, to her\nguest's comparison of herself with Mrs. Siddons. But Lady Macbeth's\nChaperon was a Medium, self-made, and when the compliments and the supper\nhad been cleared away, the Medium kindly proposed to exhibit her\nnewly-discovered prowess with the Planchette. The Planchette, as\neverybody knows, and as I didn't know myself till I saw it, is a wooden\nheart that runs on two hind wheels, and has a pencil stuck through the\ncentre of its apex. The Medium gracefully places her hand upon the heart,\nwhich after an interval of Quaker-like meditation begins to write, as\nabruptly as a Quaker is moved by the Spirit, and as abruptly finishes.\n\nAUTHOR. \"What do I want to do early to-morrow morning?\"\n\nWhat was in his mind was: \"Send a wire to Manchester.\" The Planchette\nalmost instantly scribbled: \"Send a telegram to your brother.\" Now, his\nbrother _was_ connected with the matter; and although at the time he\nconsidered the Planchette half wrong, yet in the morning, after\nreconsidering the question, the Author actually did send the wire to his\nbrother instead. Sundry other things did the Planchette write, mostly\nwise, but sometimes foolish. It did not hesitate, for example, over the\npublisher of a certain anonymous book, but failed to give the title,\nthough it wrote glibly, \"Children of Night.\" These results were\nsufficiently startling to invite further investigation, so the trio next\nproceeded to \"call spirits from the vasty deep\" by making a circle of\ntheir thirty fingers upon a wooden table. Very soon the table gave signs\nof upheaval, while some cobbling sprite fell to tapping merrily at his\ntrade within its ligneous recesses. Lady Macbeth said that these taps\ndenoted its readiness to hold communion with the grosser earth, and\nconstituted its sole vocabulary. As in the game of Animal, Vegetable, and\nMineral, its information was to be extracted by a series of queries\nadmitting of \"yes\" or \"no\" in answer. One tap denoted \"no,\" three \"yes,\"\nand two \"doubtful.\" It could also give numerical replies. The table or\nthe sprite, having indicated its acquiescence in this code, proceeded to\ngive a most satisfactory account of itself. It told the Author his age,\nthe time of day, the date of the month, carefully allowing for its being\npast midnight (which none of the human trio had thought of); it was\nexcellently posted on his private concerns, knowing the date of his\nprojected visit to America, and the name of his past work and his future\nwife. Its orthography was impeccable, though its method was somewhat\ntodious, for the Author had to run through the alphabet to provoke the\nsprite into tapping at any particular letter. But one soon grew\nreconciled to its cumbrous methods, as though holding converse with a\nforeigner; and its remarks made up in emphasis what they lacked in\nbrevity, and were given with exemplary promptitude. Interrogated as to\nits own personality, it declared it was an unborn spirit, destined to be\nborn in ten years. \"Do you know what makes you be born?\" inquired the\nAuthor. \"Yes,\" it replied. \"Will you tell us?\" \"Yes.\" \"Tell us, then.\"\n\"F-O-R-C-E.\" \"Is it God's force?\" \"No.\" \"Is He not omnipotent, then?\"\n\"No.\" \"What is the true religion?\" \"Buddhism.\" \"Do you mean Madame\nBlavatsky was right?\" \"Yes.\" \"Is there a heaven?\" \"Yes.\" \"A Hell?\" \"No.\"\nTo hear a small still voice rapping, rapping in the silence of the small\nhours, rapping out the secrets of the universe, was weird enough. It was\nas though Milton's words were indeed inspired, and--\n\n  Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth\n  Unseen.\n\n\"What!\" thought the Author, \"shall the Great Secret which has puzzled so\nmany heads--heads in caps and heads in turbans, heads in bonnets and\nheads in berettas, as Heine hath it--shall the explanation of the\nUniverse, which baffled Aristotle, and puzzled Hegel, and still more his\nreaders, be the property of this wretched little unborn babe, this infant\nrapping in the night, and with no language but a rap? Was, then,\nWordsworth right, and is our birth 'but a sleep and a forgetting'?\" And,\nmingled with these questionings, a sort of compassion for the poor orphan\nspirit, inarticulate and misunderstood, beating humbly at the gates of\nspeech. Natheless was the Author quite incredulous, and even while he was\nlistening reverently to these voices from Steadland, his cold cynic brain\nwas revolving a scientific theory to account for the striking\nmanifestations.\n\nIn the course of two or three _s\u00e9ances_, with lights turned low, but\nhonesty burning high--for Lady Macbeth was guileless, and her Chaperon\nabove suspicion,--various other \"spirits\" hastened to be interviewed.\nThere was \"Ma,\" who afterwards turned out to be the Chaperon's \"Pa,\"\nwhose name--a queer French name--it gave in full. The Chaperon's \"Pa,\"\nwho was dead, announced he was no longer a widower, for his relief had\njust rejoined him on Wednesday--the 10th. This news of her mother's death\nwas unknown to the Chaperon. In truth, \"Pa\" is still a widower.\n\nAnother \"spirit\"--a woman (who refused to give her age)--predicted that\nthe amount of money taken at the theatre the next night would be \u00a344. The\nactual returns on the morrow were \u00a344 0_s_. 6_d_. But when, elated by its\nsuccess, it prophesied \u00a343, the returns were only \u00a334. But this same\ncreature, that gave only an inverted truth--perhaps it was momentarily\ncontrolled by the spirit of Oscar Wilde--displayed remarkable knowledge\nin other directions. Asked if it knew what piece had been played the week\nbefore in the theatre--a question that none of the three could have\nanswered--it replied, \"'The Road to ----'\" \"Do you mean 'The Road to\nRuin'?\" the Author interrupted eagerly, tired of its tedious\nletter-by-letter methods. \"No,\" it responded vehemently; and finished,\n\"'F-o-r-t-u-n-e.'\" Lady Macbeth consulted the \"Era,\" and sure enough \"The\nRoad to Fortune\" had preceded her own company. \"Can you tell us the piece\nto follow?\" the author asked; and the \"spirit\" responded readily \"'The\nPro----'\" \"Do you mean 'The Professor's Love Story'?\" the Author again\ninterrupted. \"No; 'The Prodigal,'\" answered the table. \"Ah! 'The\nProdigal,'\" echoed the Author, confounding it temporarily with \"The\nProfligate\"; but the spirit dissented, and added, \"'Daughter.'\" There\nbeing no means of verifying this for the moment, the Author proceeded to\ninquire for the piece to follow that, and was unhesitatingly informed\nthat it was \"The Bauble Shop.\" \"Where is 'The Bauble Shop' now?\" he\ninquired. The spirit amiably rapped out \"Eastbourne.\" This was correct\naccording to the \"Era.\" Consulting the hoardings after leaving the house,\nthe Author discovered that the other replies were quite exact, save for\nthe fact that \"The Bauble Shop\" was to come first and \"The Prodigal\nDaughter\" second. Here was the paradoxical humour of this Oscar Wilde-ish\n\"spirit\" again.\n\nEndless was the information vouchsafed by these disembodied\nintelligences, in any language one pleased; and, although they at times\ndisplayed remarkable obstinacy, refusing to answer, or breaking off\nabruptly in the middle of a most interesting communication, as though\nthey had been betrayed into indiscretion: yet, to speak generally, there\nwas scarcely any topic on which they were not ready to discourse--past,\npresent, or to come--and their remarks, whether accurate or not, were\ninvariably logical, bearing an intelligible relation to the question.\nEven sporting tips were obtainable without a fee, and Avington was given\nas the winner of the Liverpool Cup, though the Author had never heard of\nhim, and the other two were not aware he was booked for the race, still\nless that he was the favourite. In the sequel he only came second. Real\ntips did the \"spirits\" give, tipping the table vehemently. They were also\nvery obedient to commands, moving or lifting the table in whatsoever\ndirection the Author ordered, much as though they were men from Maple's;\nand when he willed them to raise it, the united forces of Lady Macbeth\nand Lady Macbeth's Chaperon could not easily depress its spirits. Nor did\nthey contradict one another. There was a cheerful unanimity about the\nAuthor's dying at fifty-seven. But this did not perturb the Author, whose\nquestions were all cunningly contrived to test his theory of the\n\"spiritual world.\" For instance, he set them naming cards, placed on the\ntable with faces downwards and _unknown to anybody_; arguing that with\ntheir bloated omniscience they could scarcely fail to name a card shoved\nunder their very noses. Nor did they--altogether. Most began well, but\nwere spoiled by success. However, here is the record performance--eight\nconsecutive attempts of the table to give the \"correct card\" under the\nimposition of the hands of the Chaperon and the Author only, neither\nknowing the card till it was turned up to verify the table's assertion:\n\n     TABLE'S CARD.             ACTUAL CARD.\n\n1. Jack of Diamonds .  .  . Queen of Spades.\n\n2. Jack of Diamonds .  .  . Jack of Diamonds.\n\n3. Three of Clubs  .   .  . Jack of Spades.\n\n4. Jack of Diamonds .  .  . Jack of Diamonds.\n\n5. Seven of Clubs   .  .  . Five of Diamonds.\n\n6. Three of Spades  .  .  . Three of Spades.\n\n7. Ten of Hearts    .  .  . Ten of Hearts.\n\n8. Nine of Clubs    .  .  . Nine of Clubs.\n\nHere are five bull's-eyes out of eight shots! The name of the performer\ndeserves record. It was the spirit of a German woman, named Gretehen, who\ndied three years ago, but refused to say at what age. She was wrong\nsometimes, but then it may have been her feminine instinct for fibbing.\n\"The spirits play tricks,\" say the spiritualists. \"Sometimes they are\nwicked spirits, who tell lies.\" The Planchette also wrote out the names\nof unseen cards placed upon it face downwards. The artistic spirit of the\nAuthor now bids him pause: the narrative has now reached a point of\ninterest at which recollections of \"Tom Tiddler's Schooldays\" urge him to\npen the breathless motto: \"To be continued in our next.\"\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nA THEORY OF TABLE-TURNING\n\nThe yearning of humanity for the supernatural, even for the\npseudo-supernatural, is as pathetic as it is profound. Wherefore I regret\nthat I can make no concessions to it. The following theory of\ntable-turning came to me as I experimented, from my general knowledge of\npsychology. I have not compared it with the theories of the Psychical\nSociety, which I have never read, preferring to jot down the impressions\nof an independent observer, which, if they should at all coincide with\nthe explanations of the spook-hunters, will irrefutably demonstrate that\ntheir Society was founded in vain. If, moreover, as Mr. Andrew Lang has\nsince pointed out, it coincides largely with the theory of Dr. Carpenter,\nso much the better.\n\nWhat are the facts? If two or more people (according to the size of the\ntable) place their hands in circular contact around a table, and possess\ntheir souls in patience for a delightfully uncertain period, sundry\nstrange manifestations will occur. Even after the first few moments the\nmore imaginative will feel the table throbbing, unsuspicious of the fact\nthat it is the blood at their finger-tips. Presently, too, an uncanny\nwave of cold air will pass underneath the arch of their palms. This is,\naccording to the professional witches of Endor, the frigid flitting of\nthe spirits, but the most superficial meteorologist will expound it you\nlearnedly. Your hand, passive and in a fixed position, heats the air\nunder it, which, becoming lighter, is constantly displaced by the colder\ncircumambient air. Finally, when everybody is wrought up to an exalted\nexpectation of the supernatural, the table begins to oscillate, to move\nslowly to and fro, to waltz, and even to raise itself partially or wholly\noff the ground. Sometimes it taps instead of moving. Nor are these\nmotions and these taps merely the intoxicated irregularities of an\nexuberant energy. They are coherent responses (according to a code agreed\nupon with the \"spirit\" in possession) to questions asked by one of the\nsitters. They are the expression of infinite and ungrudging information\non almost every subject. Through this wooden language, through this music\nof the tables and this dancing movement of their legs, tabular\ninformation respecting your past or other people's past and future lives,\ntogether with full details of the doings of the departed in those other\nspheres of heaven or hell which they adorn or illumine respectively, may\nbe obtained at the lowest rates, and with only that reasonable delay\nwhich results from the exigencies of a letter-code. For the \"spirits\" of\nthe table, be it understood, are unable to communicate with earth except\nby taps and movements for \"yes\" or \"no,\" or by rapping out numbers; so\nthat they have to signify their meaning, snailwise, letter by letter. The\n\"spirit\" of the Planchette will indeed write you out sentences; but to\nthat, like the actor in melodrama, I will return anon. In the stock\n_s\u00e9ances_, I know, spirits materialise themselves and glide white-sheeted\nthrough darkened rooms. But as my own _s\u00e9ances_ and \"spirits\" were\npersonally conducted by myself, the optical illusions of Messrs.\nMaskelyne & Cook, the Pepper's Ghost of the dear old Polytechnic, had no\nopportunity of putting in an appearance. My spooks did nothing but answer\nquestions, so that the very suggestion that they were spirits came\nentirely from me. In fact, they do but dance to the \"medium's\" piping;\nand should he suggest that they are methylated, the chances are that not\na few would cheerfully acquiesce in this description of themselves. In\nshort, it is only the prepossession, the pathetic prejudice, in favour of\nvisitors from other worlds that leads at all to the thought of \"spirits,\"\ndrawing such a red herring across the track that the average observer,\nwho is nothing if not unobservant, has all his partisan faculties of\nmis-observation brought into full play on behalf of the spirit-world.\nDoubtless the actual presence of \"spirits\" is the cheapest way of\naccounting for the phenomena. But one might as well call in \"spirits\" to\nexplain the dancing of a kettle-lid. Not till every natural hypothesis\nhas been exhausted is the scientific observer entitled to call in the\nsupernatural. And in reality all that has to be explained is the\nmechanical movements of tables under certain specified conditions, the\nsaid movements having an apparent relation to will and intelligence.\n\nFirst of all, what moves the table?\n\nWell, the slightest exercise of the finger or wrist muscles is sufficient\nto move the small, light round table which is usually the subject of\nexperiment; and when once the slightest movement is established--by the\ninvoluntary contraction of a single muscle--all the other persons'\nmuscles, in accommodating themselves to the movement of the table, cannot\nhelp helping it, either by pulling or pushing in the direction in which\nit is going. It is, in fact, almost impossible to follow the movement of\na moving table and yet keep your superimposed hands perfectly passive;\nand with ninety-nine persons out of a hundred the startled interest in\nthe movement even begets an unconscious desire to help it, which at times\nalmost rises to a curious semi-conscious self-deception, a voluntary\nexaggeration of the marvellous. Yet nothing makes the ordinary sitter\nangrier than to be told he has helped to move the table. It is as though\nhe were accused of cheating at whist, or worse, of playing a foolish\ncard. Take half a dozen persons at random, and there are sure to be one\nor two so impressionable and emotional that they cannot help contributing\nthe slight initial impulse which gathers force as it goes. These nervous\nsubjects cannot sit a quarter of an hour perfectly still without a\ntwitching of the muscles, while the tense state of expectation which\nsubtly transforms itself into a wish to see the table move and not have\nthe experiment in vain, finally compels them, despite themselves, to\nstart the \"manifestations.\" Indeed, to think of a thing is half to do it.\nEvery idea has a tendency to project itself in action. If you think\nstrongly, for instance, of lifting your hand, it is difficult not to do\nit, for the idea of motion is motion in embryo. The wish is father to the\nthought, and the thought to the deed. The wish to see the table move is\nthe grandfather of its motion. Even with the most sceptical, when the\ntable is requested to go in a particular direction the muscles\ninvoluntarily tend thither. All the deepest analyses of scientific\npsychology are involved in this wretched little episode of table-turning,\nand it is not marvellous that the ordinary observer should perceive only\nthe marvellous.\n\nSo much for the movements. But how about the raps? How about those\nmysterious tappings which come from the very heart of the table, as\neloquent of the preternatural as those immortal taps heard by Poe ere the\nraven stepped into his chamber? I should be more impressed by these taps\nif I were not capable of manufacturing them myself _ad lib._ without\ndetection, by secretly manipulating the ball of my thumb. One is\ntherefore justified in assuming that, where these raps are not produced\nby conscious fraud, they are the involuntary result of the same motions\nthat produced them voluntarily. Even wood has a certain elasticity, and\nan imperceptible increase followed by an imperceptible relaxation of\npressure on the surface of the table will alter the tension of the wood,\nthe molecules of which in springing back to their prior position will\nemit a creak or a tap, just as a piece of extended elastic will when let\ngo again. Both the raps and the movements, then, are in essence phenomena\nof the same order: simple results of muscular pressure, conscious,\nsub-conscious, or unconscious.\n\nIt now only remains to explain the answers themselves, to account not\nonly for their almost invariably logical form, but also for their\noccasionally astonishing content. For the table is not infrequently wiser\nthan anybody in the room; also it knows the past and is ready to predict\nthe future.\n\nThe whole thing is really an excellent object-lesson in Psychology. For\nthe solution is obvious. The table being unconscious, _you answer\nyourself_--you not only produce the raps and movements, but you regulate\nthem.\n\nThe connection between mind and body is, it seems to me, admirably\nillustrated by table-turning. According to the latest philosophic view,\nthe connection itself defies human comprehension. It is simply a case of\n_non possumus intelligere_. But the connection itself may be expressed\nthus: No idea or feeling without physical disturbance, no physical\ndisturbance without feeling or idea. Mind and body are as related as the\ntune to the violin-string. Every state of mind tends to set up nervous\nvibration, and every nervous vibration tends to set up a state of mind.\nIn either case the tendency may be, and usually is, counteracted. The\naverage member of a spiritualistic circle cannot prevent the thought in\nhis brain taking on bodily expression to the extent of a muscular\ncontraction stimulating the very sensitive tips of the fingers. You\ncannot think of a joke or see the humour of anything without wanting to\nsmile, though you may suppress your smile in obedience to other\nconsiderations. Nor can you put your features into smiling position,\nwithout experiencing a latent sense of amusement, though you would not\nknow what you were smiling at. But if six cool scientific intellects,\nacquainted with the tricks of their own organisms and determined to\ndissever thought from motion, were to sit round a table, they might sit\ntill doomsday without the \"spirit\" turning up. This is what the\nspiritualists mean by unsympathetic persons, persons obnoxious to the\nspirits, persons with antipathetic auras, and all the rest of the jargon.\nBut six intellects taken at random, being anything but cool and\nscientific, are not able to prevent their ideas passing over into action\nin the shape of muscular twitches; though if even the unscientific were\nto look up at the ceiling and forget all about the table, the table would\nprobably forget to move. Now the majority of the replies of the table\ndeal with matters actively present to the consciousness of at least one\nof the six owners of the superimposed hands. When the table raps out\nsomething known only to this one person, and the startled person admits\nthat the table is right, an uncanny feeling is produced; the table seems\nat least to be a thought-reader, and on this wave of astonishment the\nhypothesis of \"spirits\" rides up triumphantly. When the topic is one of\nwhich nobody knows anything--_e.g._, whether the supposed spirit is a man\nor woman--chance, or a vague idea floating up in the mind of one of the\nparty, determines the reply.\n\nBut what of those replies in which some striking truth is told of which\nnone of the party was conscious, as for instance in the examples I gave\nin my last, when the table informed us that Mr. Jones's \"Bauble Shop\" was\nthen playing at Eastbourne, or that \"The Road to Fortune\" had been\nplaying in the town in which we were the week before we arrived? To clear\nup this most remarkable aspect of the whole matter we must go still\ndeeper into Psychology.\n\nWhat we are pleased to call our Mind is made up of two parts--our\nConsciousness and--what I shall call loosely yet sufficingly and without\nprejudice to Metaphysics--our Sub-Consciousness. The latter is\nimmeasurably the vaster portion. It is a tossing ocean of thoughts which\nfeeds the narrow little fountain of Consciousness. It holds all our\nmemories. We cannot be conscious of all ourselves and all our past at\nonce--that way madness lies, or divinity. We may know ten languages, but\nwe can only think in the mould of one at a time. Our thoughts and\nmemories can only come up into clear Consciousness by ones or twos--to be\ndealt with and then dismissed. They spirit from the great deep of\nSub-Consciousness into the thin fountain-stream of Consciousness, and\nfall back again into the great deep. And this great deep is never still,\nthough we know nothing of its churning save by its tossing up through the\nfountain some new mental combination of which it had received only the\nelements--as when the mathematician has the solution of a problem flashed\nupon him at the moment of waking, or as the author has the development of\nhis plot thrust upon him when he is playing billiards, or as the wit\nfinds repartees invented for him by his brilliant but unknown\ncollaborator. This is what the crowd calls \"inspiration,\" the late Mr.\nStevenson \"Brownies,\" and the scientist \"unconscious cerebration.\" A man\nof talent has a good Working Consciousness, a man of genius a good\nWorking Sub-Consciousness. Hence the frequent mental instability of\ngenius. The Infant Prodigy's feats are done by his Sub-Consciousness.\nInstinct is Racial Genius, Genius is Individual Instinct. The highest\nGenius is sane. A Shakespeare or a Goethe has both a good Working\nConsciousness and a good Working Sub-Consciousness, with the former so\nself-balanced that it regulates the products of the latter. The\ncultivation of the Working Consciousness may either improve or impair the\nproducts of its bigger brother. Education, the cultivation of the\ncritical faculty, would be fatal to some writers, actors, painters, and\nmusicians; it would but spoil the Working Sub-Consciousness. Others--more\nsanely balanced--would gain in art more than they lost in nature.\n\nNow, what are the elements with which our Sub-Consciousness works?--what\ndoes this ocean contain? It would be easier to discover what it does not\ncontain. Wrecks and argosies and dead faces, mermaidens and subterranean\npalaces, and the traces of vanished generations; these are but a\nmillionth part of its treasures: the Sub-Consciousness were perhaps\nbetter likened to the property-room and scene-dock of the Great Cosmic\nTheatre, holding infinite wardrobes and scenes ready-painted, parks and\nseas and libraries, and ruined cottages and whitewashed attics, to say\nnaught of an army of supers ready to put on all the faces we have ever\nseen. In our Sub-Consciousness, moreover, are stored up all the voices\nand sounds and scents we have ever perceived, and to all these\nreminiscences of our own sensations are perhaps added the shadows of our\nancestors' sensations--episodes that perchance we re-experience only in\ndreamland--so that part of the vivid vision of genius, of the poet's eye\nbodying forth the shapes of things unknown, may be inherited Memory. And\nthus Imagination, when it is not a mere fresh combination of elements\nexperienced, may be only a peculiar variety of atavism.\n\nFrom this boundless reservoir, then, which holds our heredity and our\nexperience, go forth the battalions of dreams--the infinitely possible\npermutations and combinations of its elements, wrought by the Working\nSub-Consciousness when the poor Working Consciousness cannot get sound\nasleep, but must watch perforce with half an eye the procession of\nthoughts and images over which it has lost control. For it is the duty of\nConsciousness to control the stream sent up by Sub-Consciousness. When it\nis awake but unable to do this, we have Insanity; when asleep, Dreams. In\nSomnambulism the Working Sub-Consciousness is seen in an accentuated\nphase. It does all the work of its little brother, even to exercising its\nowner's muscles. To be \"possessed\" by a popular song is a species of\ninsanity--Consciousness ridden by a singing Sub-Consciousness.\n\nBetween our Consciousness and our Sub-Consciousness there is more or less\neasy communication. It is not perfect. You cannot draw up what you will\nfrom the ocean: you cannot always directly remember a name or a date that\nyou know--you can only set an indirect train of thought at work. _Per\ncontra_, it is not easy to transfer certain conscious states to the\nstorehouse of Sub-Consciousness--to learn a page of prose, or deposit the\nmemory of a piece of music, which you are forced to play slowly and\nthoughtfully before the digital dexterity is added to the treasures of\nyour Sub-Consciousness. Under exceptional conditions, exceptional flotsam\nand jetsam is tossed up into Consciousness, as in the case of that\nservant girl who spoke Latin, Greek, and Hebrew in her delirium, having\nunconsciously absorbed the same from overhearing the studies of her\nlearned master many years before.\n\nNow, just as a conscious thought has an accompaniment of physical motion,\nso has a sub-conscious thought. Thus, then, a thought which does not pass\nthrough the thin fountain-stream of Consciousness may yet produce the\nsame muscular twitches as if it were clearly present to the presiding\nEgo. In the case of the \"Road to Fortune,\" the name must have really sunk\ninto my brain, although I was unaware of it, and probably could not have\nconsciously recalled it to save my life. The stage-manager subsequently\nreminded me that he had in my presence regretted that the \"Road to\nFortune\" had done such good business, since there would probably be a\nreaction. _I_ have only a recollection of his telling me that the success\nof the preceding piece would hurt his--my Consciousness had grasped at\nthe intellectual side of his remark, my Sub-Consciousness had absorbed\nthe irrelevant fact of the name of the piece. In examining the \"Era,\" to\nverify this item, Lady Macbeth's eye must have unconsciously noted that\n\"The Bauble Shop\" was at Eastbourne; but the information was not\nregistered in her Consciousness, for there is a struggle of thoughts to\ncatch the thinker's I--that is to say the Central Consciousness--and only\nthe fittest can survive. We are indeed wiser than we know. Our\nSub-Consciousness knows all we know, and all we have forgotten, and all\nthat our mental sponge sucked in without spirting it through\nConsciousness. In fact, attention or inattention often determines whether\na thought or a feeling shall come up into clear Consciousness or not. You\ncan feel a pain in your big toe if you want to. Conversely, in the\nexcitement of battle soldiers do not always feel their wounds.\n\nWhen the table prophesies or delivers \"a message from the other world,\"\nthe result is a compound of fluke with expectation or with apprehension.\nFears or hopes dimly in the mind get accentuated, or transmuted, or\ndistorted as in dreams; and when the \"spirits\" are proved wrong, as in\nthe matter of the Chaperon's mother, the spiritualists tell you that you\nhave got hold of a \"lying spirit.\" Verily a cheap explanation! \"They play\ntricks sometimes,\" say their apologists. The true explanation is that\nyour Sub-Consciousness was ignorant of the reply your Consciousness asked\nfor. Endless as its contents seem, there are limits; and when it does not\nknow, your Sub-Consciousness will rarely confess it. It makes a brazen\nguess, keeping the logical form of the answer, because your\nSub-Consciousness knows that, but blundering deplorably in the matter.\nSometimes it will not speak at all, but when it does it is cocksure to\nthe last degree. Its humour is the humour of the stock joke, the Old\nHumour--as when it will not tell a woman's age. Its sulkiness and\neccentricity and occasional indecency are just what one would expect from\na Sub-Consciousness, whose thoughts have no central I to keep them in\norder. (Compare Goethe's explanation of the obscenities of Ophelia.)\nSometimes, too, there are Obstructive Associations, which account for its\ninability to make up its want of mind; and as there are usually several\npersons at table, the result is complicated by their separate\nSub-Consciousnesses. In brief, table-turning is a method of interrogating\nyour Sub-Consciousness. It is, so to speak, objective introspection. The\ntable enables you to peep at your Sub-Consciousness, to know your larger\nself. It is an external medium on which you may see registered visibly\nand audibly (through the vibrations you sub-consciously communicate to\nit) that Sub-Consciousness which _ex hypothesi_ you cannot peep at\ndirectly. The moving table may be considered the objectification of\nSub-Consciousness, or a mirror in which Sub-Consciousness is reflected to\nthe gaze of Consciousness (to the great benefit of the science of\nPsychology, which may be revolutionised by table-turning). By humouring\nyour Sub-Consciousness, by addressing it as though it were a separate\nidentity utterly unconnected with you, by asking a \"spirit\" to answer\nyou, you help to break your Mind in two, to detach the Sub-Consciousness\nfrom the Consciousness, and so to get results which astonish yourself. So\ndivided is mind against itself that (as when I thought \"The Pro--\" was to\nbe \"The Professor's Love Story\") even a conscious expectation of\nsomething different does not turn the Sub-Consciousness from its first\ndogged determination; or it may be that somebody else's Sub-Consciousness\nwas in the ascendant. The \"mediums\" who excuse the \"spirits\" on the\nground of their mendacity are not necessarily frauds: they are themselves\ndeceived; they do not know that if the \"spirits\" lie, it is because a\ntrue reply was not latent in any one of the _human_ Consciousnesses or\nSub-Consciousnesses present. But the conclusion of the whole matter seems\nto be this: there is a germ of scientific truth which the professional\nspiritualists doctor and wrap round with complex trickery in order to\nextract backsheesh from poor old women of both sexes anxious for\ninformation about deceased relatives. Circles are formed with pretentious\nmysticism, and no self-respecting \"spirit\" will appear without being\nreceived in state with extinguished lights and creepy accompaniments. The\nunconscious revelations made by the sitters are the sole genuine\nfoundation of the spiritualists' influence. Consciousness holds converse\nwith deceased relatives, and Sub-Consciousness, which knows all about\nthem, answers for them. \"I can call spirits from the vasty deep\" myself,\nand they will come when I call them, but the \"vasty deep\" is the deep of\nmy own Sub-Consciousness. We seem to hear voices from spirit-land; but as\nwhen we hold a sea-shell to our ear and seem to hear the ocean it is only\nthe blood in our own veins, so--to continue Eugene Lee-Hamilton's fine\nsonnet--\n\n  Lo! in my heart I hear, as in a shell,\n  The murmur of a world beyond the grave,\n  Distinct, distinct, though faint and far it be.\n  Thou fool! this echo is a cheat as well,--\n  The hum of earthly instincts,--and we crave\n  A world unreal as the shell-heard sea.\n\nTables might be \"turned\" to various purposes. Criminals might be\ncompelled to yield up their secrets to them in uncontrollable muscular\nvibrations, their Sub-Consciousness being tapped. For students under\nexamination table-turning would be very useful for recalling forgotten\nknowledge. The Planchette would be the most convenient form. For\nobviously the _modus operandi_ of the Planchette is exactly the same as\nthe table's. The medium's Sub-Consciousness arrives at an answer by\nguesswork, reminiscence, etc., and produces the muscular movements of\nwriting without first passing the message through the writer's\nConsciousness. Mr. Stead has, I believe, a familiar spirit called Julia.\nThis is merely a projection of his own Sub-Consciousness, the Planchette\nbeing the artificial instrument for enabling him to give\npseudo-objectivity to his thought, to detach a shred of his mind. Even\nso, many a dramatist marshals toy figures on a mimic stage. The external\nimage is a help to weak imaginations. The process of novel-writing\ninvolves breaking up your mind into bits--one for each character. And\nwhen the characters are said to take the reins into their own hands, it\nmeans that the bits are developing an independent existence. If Mr. Stead\nis not careful, Julia will get the upper hand of him, his\nSub-Consciousness will dominate his Consciousness, and then he will be\nmad. This detachment of bits of mind is dangerous; the monster may\noverpower Frankenstein. Julia is literally a child of Mr. Stead's brain,\na psychical daughter embodied in a Planchette. Double Consciousness,\nDouble Identity, are well-known forms of insanity. In a mild degree they\nconsist with sanity. Landseer could paint different heads simultaneously\nwith both hands.\n\nHypnotism, on this theory, would be the lulling of the patient's\nConsciousness, the closing of his central I, and the setting of his\nSub-Consciousness to work in accordance with suggestions.\nThought-transference seems a superfluous hypothesis here. Death is the\ncessation of both Consciousness and Sub-Consciousness; and when a drowned\nman is resuscitated his Sub-Consciousness can never have ceased. Do you\nfail to understand Sub-Consciousness? So do I--as much as that our\ndigestion operates and our blood circulates without asking our\npermission. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Sub-Consciousness is\nsimply the psychical side of the molecular changes that are going on in\nour nervous system. There is more than \"metaphysical conceit\" in that\nelegy of Donne's:\n\n            Her pure and eloquent blood\n    Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought\n    That one might almost say her body thought.\n\nSub-Consciousness is a greater marvel in itself than any that it\nexplains, and beats the spooks hollower than they are. Just consider the\nphenomena of dreams, what things we do, what sights we see. It is only\nthe commonness of dreams that blinds us to the fact that they are more\nmarvellous than ghost-stories. Mr. Lang thinks the theory of the\nsub-conscious self that uses our muscles for its own ends is \"the most\nstartling thing ever offered to the public; and that it should be\nregarded as true by a sceptic is staggering to our judicial faculties.\"\nBut why? Our noble selves--are they not already exposed to the indignity\nof dreams? What matters another insult? We need not be greatly put out if\nSub-Consciousness is busy in the day-time too. And what about\nSomnambulism? What about musical or literary creation? Are not our ideas\nmade for us in the kitchen of our Sub-Consciousness? Our Consciousness is\nonly a small part of ourselves. What produced De Quincey's opium dreams\nwas certainly not Consciousness. I can see visions, myself, without\nopium. In certain excited states of the brain I can travel in my chair,\nor bed, perfectly awake, through an endless and variegated series of\nscenes--domestic interiors with people talking or eating or playing\ncards, battle-fields with glittering phalanxes, beautiful tossing seas,\ngorgeous forests, melancholy hospitals, busy newspaper offices, etc.,\netc. These are almost entirely detached from my will, and the chief\ninterest of the spectacle is the unexpectedness of its episodes. The\nscenes and the people have all the concreteness and detail of actuality,\nalthough I never forget that I am observing my own hallucinations. Just\nfancy what ghosts I could see in the dark if I lost my central control\nand let my Sub-Consciousness get the upper hand! Sociologists say, the\nseeing of dead people in dreams gave rise to the idea of ghosts. I would\nsuggest that the same process as that of dreaming gives rise to the\nghosts themselves. Great is the Sub-Consciousness! Who shall say what it\ndoes not contain, either _in esse_ or _in posse!_ Till we have exhausted\nthe Sub-Consciousness let us not talk of spooks.\n\nTwo things alone remain to be considered. One is how the Planchette or\nthe table is able to read cards placed face downwards upon it; the second\nis, is telepathy or thought-transference a possibility? As to the first\npoint I have never yet been able to satisfy myself whether the results\nare more than Chance would account for; for Chance has strange\nvagaries--themselves part of the doctrine of Chances--and in order to\ndecide, one would have to make a far more extended induction than I have\nhad time for. But if the mathematical probabilities are really exceeded,\none would be driven to the suspicion that there resides in the\nSub-Consciousness a sense of which we are unaware, perhaps an extra way\nof perceiving by the tips of the fingers, which may be either a new\nembryonic sense, not yet developed by the struggle for existence, or the\nrudimentary survival of an old sense eliminated in the struggle, perhaps\na relic from those primeval homogeneous organisms in which every part of\nthe body did every kind of work. After all, the senses are all\ndevelopments of the sense of touch. This suspicion is strengthened by the\nfact that the correct card is often given at the first trial, and not\nafter, as if this unused sense were soon exhausted. By the way, though\nthe \"spirits\" mostly failed to tell a card placed face down, and unknown\nto any one in the room, they were invariably successful when it was\nplaced face up: a sufficient proof--is it not?--that there could be\nnothing in the replies which was not already in some one's mind.\n\nWith regard to the question of telepathy, though I am tempted to believe\nin it, I have not yet met with any convincing instance of it.\nThought-reading _\u00e0 la_ Stuart Cumberland almost any one could do who\npractised it. The thought-reader merely takes the place of the table as a\nreceiver of muscular vibrations. What tempts me to believe in the\ntransfer of thought without physical connection is that, given telepathy,\nall the mysterious phenomena that have persisted in popular belief\nthrough the centuries could be swept away at one fell swoop. By\ntelepathy, working mainly through the Sub-Consciousness, I will explain\nyou Clairvoyance (that is, not the mere seeing of pictures, which is a\nphenomenon akin to dreaming, but the vision of other people's\nSub-Consciousnesses), ghosts, witchcraft, possession, wraiths, Mahatmas,\nastral bodies, etc., etc. But it is rather absurd to call in a new\nmystery to explain what may not even be facts. And so, till I am\nconvinced either of ghosts or of telepathy, I must accord an impartial\nincredulousness to both. _Credat Christianus_, F. W. Myers or W. T.\nStead! For I gather that the Psychical Society assert that they _must_\nexist. But as yet--_je n'en vois pas la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9_. If it is indeed\npossible to telegraph without fees and to put a psychical girdle round\nthe earth in twenty seconds, by all means let the noses of those\nextortionate cable companies be put out of joint. To me it is just as\nwonderful that mind can communicate with mind by letter or even by\nspeech. One more puzzle adds no light to our darkness. And as for ghosts,\nI have more than a lurking sympathy with the farrier in \"Silas Marner.\"\n\n\"'If ghos'es want me to believe in 'em, let 'em leave off skulking i' the\ndark and i' lone places--let 'em come where there's company and candles!'\n\n\"'As if ghos'es 'u'd want to be believed in by anybody so ignorant!' said\nMr. Macey, in deep disgust at the farrier's crass incompetence to\napprehend the conditions of ghostly phenomena.\"\n\nAnd supposing \"ghos'es\" do exist--the moment the Supernatural is attested\nand classified it becomes as natural as anything else. Such spooks would\nadd nothing to the dignity and sanctity of the scheme of creation, and\nare no friends to religion. The world would only be made to look more\nridiculous if our deceased friends really rapped tables and pulled off\nbedclothes, as Miss Florence Marryat's do. Mrs. Besant (who up to the\nmoment of going to press is still a Theosophist), in her latest reading\nof the riddle of this painful earth, does but explain _obscurum per\nobscurius_. Where is the point of a progression through stages, if there\nis no continuous consciousness? What does it matter if I am not myself,\nbut somebody else in his fifth plane or her nineteenth incarnation?\nDecidedly it is better to bear the religions we have, than fly to others\nthat we know not of. If Mr. F. W. Myers hears that some ill-trained\nobservers have seen ghosts, he becomes Dantesque and dithyrambic about\n\"the love that rules the world and all the stars.\" For my part, I fail to\ndraw the moral. I am content to look nearer home--at coal-heavers and\ncostermongers, poets and engineers--and to found my theory of life on\nless deniable data. A fig for your ghosts! What! Here have I been living\nand working and thinking nigh half a lifetime, and only now these gentry\nshould deign to give me cognisance of their existence. Dame Nature would\nhave indeed treated me scurvily had she reduced me to such absurd\noracles. The phenomena seem so rare and so irregular, the vast majority\nof mankind having to go through life only afraid of ghosts, but never\nseeing them, that no general law of posthumous existence could be based\non these obscure and erratic accidents. There may be only a survival of\nthe fittest. It is not in the aberrations, but in the constant factors of\nhuman life that we must seek for light, and the attitude of these\nsmellers after immortality is precisely that of the mediaevals who sought\nfor the workings of divinity in eccentric variations from its own habits,\ntill miracles became so commonplace that, as Charles Reade deliciously\nsums it up, a man in \"The Cloister and the Hearth\" could reply to his\nfellow, who was anxious to know why the market-place was black with\ngroups, \"Ye born fool! it is only a miracle.\" If I am to seek for\n\"intimations of immortality,\" let me find them not in the haphazard\nfreaks of disembodied intelligence, but where Wordsworth found them, and\nwhere Mr. Myers was once content to find them, in\n\n    Those obstinate questionings\n    Of sense and outward things,\n    Fallings from us, vanishings!\n    Blank misgivings of a creature\n  Moving about in worlds not realised,\n  High instincts before which our mortal nature\n  Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.\n\nIf Moses came to London he would be very disgusted with Mr. Stead and the\ncorrespondents of \"Borderland\" who collect \"facts\" for him. For that\nsupremely sane and sage legislator made one clean sweep of all the\nfestering superstitions that fascinate the silly and the sentimental\nto-day as much as they did three thousand years ago. Mr. Stead is a\nPuritan, and the Old Testament should be his impregnable rock. Yet\nDeuteronomy is most definite about \"Julia.\" \"There shall not be found\nwith thee ... a consulter with a familiar spirit. For whosoever doeth\nthese things is an abomination unto the Lord.\" His organisation of\nresearch is a delusion; science is not to be thus syndicated. The\nordinary observer has no idea of scientific sifting, and in ten minutes I\nexposed a gentleman who impressed a large London club as \"the most\nwonderful thought-reader in Europe.\"\n\n\"Nature has many methods of producing the same effect,\" says Henry\nJames's greater brother. \"She may make our ears ring by the sound of a\nbell, or by a dose of quinine; make us see yellow by spreading a field of\nbuttercups before our eyes, or by mixing a little Santonine powder with\nour food.\" Probably not ten per cent. of the correspondents of\n\"orderland\" are aware of the existence of such \"subjective sensations,\"\nor realize, despite their nightly experience of dreams, that it does not\ntake an actual external object to give you the sensation of something\noutside yourself. And passing optical illusions may have all the\nsubstantiality of ghosts. When Benvenuto Cellini went to consult a\nwizard, as he relates in his \"Memoirs,\" countless spirits were raised for\nhis behoof, dancing amid the voluminous smoke of a kindled fire. He\nactually _saw_ them: it was a splendid case for \"Borderland.\" Yet the\nprobabilities are that the cunning magician merely projected\nmagic-lantern pictures on the background of the vapour. My brother woke\nup one morning, and accidentally directing his eyes to the ceiling,\nbeheld there a couple of monsters--uncouth, amorphous creatures with\nramifying conformations and deep purple veins. After a few moments they\npassed away; but the next morning, lo! they were there again, and the\nnext, and the next, till at last, in alarm, off he goes to a specialist\nin eyes and unfolds his tale of woe. Is he, perhaps, going blind? \"So\nyou've discovered them at last!\" laughs the eminent oculist. \"These\nthings are Purkinje's Figures--the shadows of the network of\nblood-vessels of the retina microscopically magnified on the ceiling:\neverybody ought to see them--it's a sign the eye is a good working lens.\nBut they don't notice them except by accident, when the light slants\nsideways, and when there's a specially good background for them to be\nprojected and magnified upon.\" And, taking him into his mystic chamber,\nand reconstituting the conditions, \"Look!\" says he, \"there are your old\nfriends again!\" And there they were, sure enough, in all their amorphous\nhorror. It is, in fact, not so much the actual external object that\ndetermines our perception, as attention or inattention; and with wise\nunconsciousness we ignore all that it is not necessary for us to see at\nthe moment. If our organism were always in perfect health, if our senses\nwere not deceivers ever, if we did not dream as solid a world as that\nwhich we inhabit by day, then, indeed, a single appearance of a ghost\nwould settle the question; but as things are, our own eyes are just what\nwe mustn't believe.\n\nAs Helmholtz pointed out, we ought to see everything double, except the\nfew objects in the centre of vision; and as a matter of fact we do get\ndouble images, but the prejudiced intelligence perceives them as one. The\ndrunken man is thus your only true seer. Genius, which has always been\nsuspected of affinity with drunkenness, is really a faculty for seeing\nabnormally--that is to say, veraciously. Andrew Lang, who thinks that all\nchildren have genius, is thus partially justified; for till they have\nbeen taught to see conventionally, they see with fresh insight. Hence the\nawkwardness of their questions. Mr. Bernard Shaw recently wrote an\narticle on \"How to Become a Genius,\" but he omitted to supply the recipe.\nIt is simply this: see what you do see, and not what everybody tells you\nyou see. To think what everybody says is to be a Philistine, and to say\nwhat everybody thinks is to be a genius. Every healthy eye sees\nPurkinje's Figures when the conditions are present; but only a rare eye\nperceives them consciously. That is the eye of genius, but the\nPhilistines cry, \"Disease! Degeneration!\"\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\nSOCIETIES TO FOUND\n\nI have noted in my Sancho Panza moments a number of deficiencies in the\ncommonweal which can only be remedied--in our modern manner--by\nsocieties. Let me start with a few of the most needed.\n\n\n1. SOCIETY FOR PROVIDING NEW OATHS\n\nThe present currency is badly worn and was always nasty. Swear-words are\na necessity. They are the safety-valves of the soul. Why not have them\nnice and innocent--the kind of oath a girl can use to her mother? It is\nunfair men should monopolise the bad language. I wonder the Women's\nRights women have not sworn about it. I have already suggested that\nWellington's \"twopenny damn\" be replaced by \"I don't care a double-blank\ndomino.\" This gives a compound or twopenny sensation of the unspeakable,\ncombined with absolute innocuity, like a vegetarian chop or a temperance\nchampagne. A milder form (the penny plain) would be \"a blank cheque.\" The\nsociety ought to offer prizes for the best suggestions.\n\n\n2. SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING READINGS AMONG REVIEWERS\n\nIt is a notorious fact that critics are the most ill-read class in the\ncommunity. There are few occupations so laborious, exhaustive, and\ninadequately remunerated, as reviewing; and who can wonder if the\nwretched reviewer never finds time to read a book from one week's end to\nthe other. It is a cruel anomaly that men, some of whom may have souls as\nmuch as we have, should be shut out from all the pleasures of literature,\nand all the possibilities of self-culture that books contain. The poor\ncritic goes to his grave, picking up a smattering of cant phrases that\nare in the air--\"Zolaism,\"--\"Ibsenites,\" \"D\u00e9cadents,\" \"Symbolism,\" \"the\nnew humour,\" \"the strong-man poetry,\" and what not--but to become\nacquainted at first hand with the meaning or meaninglessness of these\nphrases is denied him by the hard conditions of his life. Publishers\nwould greatly help the proposed society by sending out books cut.\n\n\n3. SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF CELEBRITIES\n\n\"Mankind's available stock of admiration is not large enough for all the\ndemands made upon it,\" wrote Professor Bain, with the one flash of humour\nI have noticed in his big treatises. If, as Wordsworth contends,\n\n  We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love,\n\na certain number of objects of admiration is indispensable. But the\nsurplusage of celebrities in this age is simply overwhelming. Celebrity\nis cheap to-day. You may arrive at it by a million avenues. It is almost\nimpossible to keep your name out of the papers. Culture is so catholic\nthat celebrities who in the old days would have been monopolised by\nesoteric cliques are common property. The paleographer and the\ncoleopterist claim a share of our admiration equally with the serpentine\ndancer and the record-breaking cyclist, and the judicious editor prints\ntheir \"interviews\" at equal length. We have an impartial acquaintance\nwith the tastes and views of cardinals and comic singers; and the future\nof the papacy is given almost as much space as Little Tich's talent for\nwater-colour, and his fondness for the 'cello and his baby. Moreover,\nthat coil of cable which makes the whole world kin has burdened us with\nthe celebrities of the universe. When to these are added the celebrities\nof the past, of every period, country, and variety, the brain reels. Too\nmany cooks spoil the broth, and too many celebrities numb our faculty of\nwonder. The vivid feeling that is possible when heroes are few fades into\na faint reflection of emotion. The celebrity's name calls up not\nadmiration, but only a shadowy consciousness that admiration is due. We\nnever pause to get the emotion. I am afraid the first proceeding of the\nsociety will have to be the suppression of the illustrated weeklies,\nwhich manufacture celebrities artificially to fill up their pages, and,\nin order to have pretty pictures, give every actress that makes a little\nhit a prominence which Shakespeare did not deserve. If there is no\ncelebrity of the week it is necessary to create one, is the editorial\nmotto. If a man is a celebrity you interview him, and if you interview\nhim he is a celebrity.\n\nYou will not believe me (though I don't care a double-blank domino if you\ndon't, for it is true) when I tell you that an opposition society already\nexists--a society for the manufacture of celebrities. Self-puffery has\nalways gone on in a sporadic fashion, most people sending their own puffs\nto the papers, and rolling their own logs, on the principle that if you\nwant a thing done well you must do it yourself. But the idea of the\nsociety is the organisation of self-puffery. It is done through an\nassociation which undertakes (for a fee) to insert anything you choose to\nsend it about yourself in a hundred native papers, and a hundred\nColonial, Indian, and American papers, as well as to get special articles\nwritten thereon, and to organise press receptions, luncheons, journeys,\ndinners, etc., etc. _O tempora! O mores!_ What an exposure of the lower\njournalism! Oh the crush of celebrities there will be when the society\nhas been at work a few years!\n\n\n4. THE CHARITY OF CHARITIES\n\nThe begging-letters and circulars are enough to light your fires the\nwhole year, and it is a pity they are not sent to the poor, to whom they\nwould be of more value. Still, not to have the worry of receiving and\ndiscriminating among these appeals is another of the many compensations\nof poverty. There are a thousand varieties of Charity (some beginning at\na Home and others going abroad), and the most munificent can support only\na few, and perhaps will select the wrong few. And most of these Charities\nare struggling along painfully, their resources taxed to the utmost by\nthe severe winter and the coal strike; many can scarcely make both ends\nmeet. There is nothing to prevent the weaker dying of want, and our\nCharities suffering from a heavy mortality. And of course it will be the\nbest and most retiring Charities that will starve to death rather than\nbeg of the first comer, while the brazen Charities will perambulate the\nstreets with strident clamour, rattling full money-boxes.\n\nDo we not therefore need another Charity? Nay, blaspheme not, nor clench\nthy purse-strings. One other Charity--just one more--is a social\nnecessity. I would call it \"The Charity of Charities.\" 'T is a central\nbureau of beneficence, to which each doubting philanthropist should send\nsuch sums as he knows not how to dispense. The bureau should inquire into\nthe circumstances of each Charity, and grant or refuse relief strictly in\naccordance with its needs or merits. The Charity Organisation Society is\nanother affair altogether. Perhaps people are afraid of pauperising the\nCharities assisted, but there is no reason why these should not continue\nto be self-supporting as far as possible. Such as could not manage to\nexist in this country could be assisted to emigrate, while every help\nwould be given to exiled or persecuted Charities to gain a sphere of\nactivity in this country. Fortunately, there are always large-minded men\namong us who will receive any Charity, however despised, with open arms!\nThere would be visitation committees to call at the offices of the\nCharities, to see that they were not pleading poverty when the officials\nwere drawing big salaries; a loan society to help them over bad times, so\nas not to destroy their self-respect by doles in aid; while a cookery\nschool for accounts and a sanatorium for those that failed to keep their\nbalance might also be annexes of this grand institution.\n\n\n\n\nXIX\n\nINDECENCY ON THE ENGLISH STAGE\n\n[_This protest was dated Jan. 1, 1891. Things are rather better now._]\n\nI am not a young person. Nothing ever brings a blush to my cheek except\nthe rouge-pencil or the exposure of my stealthy deeds of good I can read\nthe Elizabethan dramatists or Rabelais with equanimity, and the only\nthing that mars my enjoyment of Juvenal is the occasional obscurity of\nthe Latin. I like the immoral passages in \"Mademoiselle de Maupin,\" even\nif I do not go so far as Swinburne and call it \"the holy book of beauty.\"\nIbsen refreshes me like a tonic, and I even believe in Zola. And yet, if\nI were State censor of the English stage--which fortunately I am not--I\nshould suppress half of our plays for their indecency. The other half I\nshould suppress for their fatuity. But that is another story.\n\nThat vice loses half its evil by losing all its grossness, is a maxim for\nwhich the world cannot be too thankful to Burke; for though the point of\nview be not true, an important aspect of the truth is undoubtedly\nexhibited. Now, what we get on the English stage is the grossness without\nthe vice--or, to put it more accurately, the vulgarity without the open\npresentation of the vice. You may mean anything, so long as you say\nsomething else. Almost every farcical comedy or comic opera--to leave the\nmusic-hall alone--is vitiated by a vein of vulgar indecency which is\nsimply despicable. The aim of the artist is not to conceal art--there is\nnone to conceal--but to conceal his indecencies decently, and yet in the\nmost readily discoverable manner. The successful stage-piece is too often\nbut a symphony in blue. What the English, with their fashion of spoiling\nFrench importations, incorrectly term _doubles entendres_, are almost\nindispensable items in the fare of some London theatres of good repute.\nAnd the references to things sexual are usually as stupid as they are\nsuperfluous to the development of the plot or the characters. There is\nnot the shadow of an excuse for their introduction. They are simply silly\naccretions on the play, quite unimplicated with the spirit of the scene,\nand losing all meaning in their effort to have two. One can enjoy the\nsparkle of wit and the rich halo of comedy playing around situations\nunaffectedly \"improper\"; even the farces of the Palais Royal amuse with\nthe broad foolery of their _esprit gaulois_; but the English endeavour to\nmake the best of both worlds, the English author who combines the prude\nand the pimp--for these one can have nothing but contempt. And the\nmeasure of one's longing for a sane and virile view and presentation of\nlife will be the measure of one's abhorrence of immorality which has not\neven the decency to be indecent.\n\nThe French dramatist gives us characters living in \"a state of sin\" (one\nof the United States not recognised at the Court of St. James's). The\nEnglish dramatist conveys the plot, conveys the situations which spring\nout of the \"state of sin,\" but leaves out the basis on which the whole\nrests. Thus, instead of situations intelligibly indecent, we get\nsituations unintelligibly indecent. Eros, like an Indian conjuror, is\nleft suspended from nothing. As the English playgoer does not ask for\nintelligible situations, he is satisfied with the residuum. The\ndramatist's uneasy striving to account for the behaviour of his\npersonages only renders the latent character of the residuum more\nglaring.\n\nThe truth is, that everything depends on treatment and atmosphere. Lord\nHoughton has treated the difficult theme of a mother's and daughter's\nlove for the same man with tenderness and grace; a foreign writer would\nlay bare and anatomise with more of scalpel and less of sentiment. The\nformer satisfies our aesthetic instincts; the latter would, in addition,\nappeal to our intellectual curiosity. To the English dramatist the whole\nstory would be _tabu_; but if the Continental man had got some striking\nsituations out of it, the Briton's soul would hanker after those\nsituations. So he would make the mother a maiden aunt, and give us the\nfamiliar spectacle of the aged spinster languishing for matrimony, as\nincarnated for the nonce in the person of her niece's lover. Miss Sophie\nLarkin would play the part, and it would be intended to be a comic one.\nThere is more suggestiveness in the conventional stage figure of the\namorous old maid than in all Congreve's comedies. And yet what figure is\nmore certain to please, in the whole gallery of puppets? Scenes and\ncharacters of this sort you may have by the dozen; but to build a moral\nplay upon an \"immoral\" basis is to court damnation. To construct a noble\npiece of work on the basis of \"improper\" relations between your chief\ncharacters is to show the cloven hoof. Once the initial scheme granted,\nthe rest may be as bracing as an Alpine breeze; but the critics will\nscent brimstone. But to build an immoral play upon a \"moral\" basis--that\nway gladness lies. Critics, who would rage at the delineation of a\ncharacter remotely resembling a human being's, will pat you on the back\nwith a good-humoured smile, and at most a laughing word of reprobation\nfor your azure audacities. Ladies, who, whether they are married or\nunmarried, are in England presumed to be agnostics in sexual matters,\nwill roar themselves hoarse over farces whose stories could only be told\nto the ultramarines. Ibsen may not untie a shoe-latchet in the interest\nof truth, while English burlesque managers may put an army of girls into\ntights. One dramatist may steal a horse-laugh by a tawdry vulgarity,\nwhile another may not look over an ankle. It is the same with literature.\nWe look askance at \"The Kreutzer Sonata,\" but tolerate the vulgar\nanecdotal indecencies of the sporting journal. The artist's eye may not\nsee life steadily, and see it whole; but it is licensed to wink and ogle\nat will from behind its blinker. If the artist's \"immorality\" is the\nartistic embodiment of a frank Paganism, or is inspired by an ethical or\na scientific purpose, he is a filthy-minded fellow. Seriousness is the\nunpardonable sin. Coarseness can be condoned, if it is only flippant and\nfrivolous enough. In short, the only excuse for indecency is to have\nnone.\n\nUnfortunately, practical considerations are so involved with artistic\nthat it may be imprudent to accord the artist as wide a charter as he\nwould wish. The ideals of sincerity and honesty may in the present social\nenvironment be so potential for harm that it is for the common interest\nthat they should not be gratified. This may be so, though I do not\nbelieve it. But whether it be so or not, of one thing I am certain,--and\nthat is that the half-hearted dallying with things sexual is wholly an\nevil; that the prurient sniffing and sniggering round the subject is more\nfraught with peril to a community, more debasing to the emotional\ncurrency, more blighting to the higher sexual feelings of the race, than\nthe most shameless public repudiation of all moral restraints. Evil cures\nitself in the sunlight; it grows and flourishes in the darkness. Vice\nlooks fascinating in the gloaming; the morning shows up the tawdriness\nand the paint.\n\n\n\n\nXX\n\nLOVE IN LIFE AND LITERATURE\n\nLove! Love! Love! The air is full of it as I write, though the autumn\nleaves are falling. Shakespeare's immortal love-poem is playing amid the\ncynicism of modern London, like that famous fountain of Dickens's in the\nTemple gardens. The \"largest circulation\" has barely ceased to flutter\nthe middle-class breakfast-table with discussions on \"the Age of Love\"\nand Little Billee and Trilby--America's \"Romeo and Juliet\"--loom large at\nthe Haymarket. Mr. T. P. O'Connor, forgetting even Napoleon, his King\nCharles's head, is ruling high at the libraries with _r\u00e9chauff\u00e9s_ of\n\"Some Old Love Stories,\" and the \"way of a man with a maid\" is still the\nunfailing topic of books and plays. One would almost think that Coleridge\nwas to be taken \"at the foot of the letter\"--\n\n  All thoughts, all passions, all delights\n    Whatever stirs this mortal frame,\n  All are but ministers of Love,\n    And feed his sacred flame.\n\nBut alas! suffer me to be as sceptical as Stevenson in \"Virginibus\nPuerisque.\" In how many lives does Love really play a dominant part? The\naverage taxpayer is no more capable of a \"grand passion\" than of a grand\nopera. \"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart.\" Ay, my Lord Byron,\nbut 'tis not \"woman's whole existence,\" neither. Focussed in books or\nplays to a factitious unity, the rays are sadly scattered in life.\nNatheless Love remains an interest, an ideal, to all but the hopeless\nGradgrinds. Many a sedate citizen's pulse will leap with Romeo's when\nForbes-Robertson's eye first lights upon the Southern child \"whose beauty\nhangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear.\" Many\na fashionable maid, with an eye for an establishment, will shed tears\nwhen Mrs. Patrick Campbell, martyr to unchaffering love, makes her\nquietus with a bare dagger.\n\nFor the traces left by Love in life are so numerous and diverse that even\nthe cynic--which is often bad language for the unprejudiced\nobserver--cannot quite doubt it away. There seems to be no other way of\naccounting for the facts. When you start learning a new language you\nalways find yourself confronted with the verb \"to love\"--invariably the\nnormal type of the first conjugation. In every language on earth the\nstudent may be heard declaring, with more zeal than discretion, that he\nand you and they and every other person, singular or plural, have loved,\nand do love, and will love. \"To love\" is the model verb, expressing the\narchetype of activity. Once you can love grammatically there is a world\nof things you may do without stumbling. For, strange to say, \"to love,\"\nwhich in real life is associated with so much that is bizarre and\nviolent, is always \"regular\" in grammar. Ancient and modern tongues tell\nthe same tale--from Hebrew to street-Arabic, from Greek to the\nelephantine language that was \"made in Germany.\" Not only is \"to love\"\ndeficient in no language (as _home_ is deficient in French, and _Geist_\nin English), but it is never even \"defective.\" No mood or tense is ever\nwanting--a proof of how it has been conjugated in every mood and tense of\nlife, in association with every variety of proper and improper noun, and\nevery pronoun at all personal. Not merely have people loved\nunconditionally in every language, but there is none in which they would\nnot have loved, or might not have loved, had circumstances permitted;\nnone in which they have not been loved, or (for hope springs eternal in\nthe human breast) have been about to be loved. Even woman has an Active\nVoice in the matter; indeed, \"to love\" is so perfect that, compared with\nit, \"to marry\" is quite irregular. For, while \"to love\" is sufficient for\nboth sexes, directly you get to marriage you find in some languages that\ndivision has crept in, and that there is one word for the use of ladies\nand another for gentlemen only. Turning from the evidence enshrined in\nlanguage to the records of history, the same truth meets us at any date\nwe appoint. Everywhere \"'T is love that makes the world go round.\" It is\ndizzying to think what would have happened if Eve had not accepted Adam.\nWhat could have attracted her if it was not love? Surely not his money,\nnor his family. For these she couldn't have cared a fig-leaf.\nUnfortunately, the daughters of Eve have not always taken after their\nmother. The statistics of crime and insanity testify eloquently to the\nreality of love, arithmetic teaching the same lesson as history and\ngrammar. Consider, too, the piles of love at Mudie's! A million\nstory-tellers in all periods and at all places cannot have all told\nstories, though they have all, alas! told the same story. They must have\nhad mole-hills for their mountains, if not straw for their bricks. There\nare those who, with Bacon, consider love a variety of insanity; but it is\nmore often merely a form of misunderstanding. When the misunderstanding\nis mutual, it may even lead to marriage. As a rule Beauty begets man's\nlove, Power woman's. At least, so women tell me. But then, I am not\nbeautiful. It must be said for the man that every lover is a species of\nPlatonist--he identifies the Beautiful with the Good and the True. The\nwoman's admiration has less of the ethical quality; she is dazzled, and\ntoo often feels, \"If he be but true to me, what care I how false he be.\"\n\n\"The Stage is more beholding to Love than the life of man,\" says Bacon.\nThe \"Daily Telegraph\" is perhaps even more \"beholding\" to it. The\ningenuity with which this great organ raises the cloyless topic every\nsilly season under another name, is beyond all praise. No conclusion will\never be arrived at, of course, because \"Love\" means a different thing\nwith each correspondent, and it is difficult to lay down general truths\nabout a relation that varies with each of the countless couples that have\never experienced it, or have fancied they experienced it. The set theme\nof a newspaper correspondence always reminds me of a nervous old lady\ncrossing the roadway: she runs this way and that way, gets splashed by\nevery passing wheel, jumps back, jumps forward again, finds temporary\nharbour on a crossing-stage under a lamp, darts sideways, and ends by\narriving in another street altogether. So that the heading of a\ncorrespondence is scant guide as to what is being discussed under it; and\nno one would be surprised to find a recipe against baldness under the\ntitle of \"The Age of Love.\" But then \"The Age of Love\" is an absurd and\nanswerless question. Experience shows that all ages fall in love--and out\nagain; so that, to quote the pithy Bacon again, \"a man may have a quarrel\nto marry when he will.\" Octogenarians elope, and Mr. Gilbert's elderly\nbaby died a _blas\u00e9_ old _rou\u00e9_ of five.\n\nRomeo's passion was a second, not a first, love: he had already loved\nRosaline. Juliet's first--and only--love came to her only eleven years\nafter she had been weaned, \"come Lammas.\" Save that the \"Age of Love\" may\nbe said to be \"Youth\"--for Love aye rejuvenates--there is nothing to be\nsaid. Wherefore the German gentleman who protested against the _clich\u00e9s_\nof novel-writers in the matter of the eternity of passion was well within\nthe wilderness of the subject. The _clich\u00e9_ metaphor, by the way, is\nitself becoming a _clich\u00e9_, so stereotyped do we grow in protesting\nagainst the stereotyped. Germans are, perhaps, not the best authorities\non passion: they are too sentimental for love and too domestic for\nromance. Still, our German is justified in his complaint: the love-scenes\nin our novels and dramas correspond very little to human nature. In works\nof pure romance this is no drawback to artistic beauty; but in much\nmodern work purporting to mirror contemporary life, the love-making has\nneither the beauty that springs from idealisation, nor that which springs\nfrom reality. Property-speeches and stock-sentiments still do duty for\nwhat really takes place in modern love-making. We have played with the\ntraditional puppets so long that we have come to believe they are alive.\nThey may have been alive once--when life was more elemental; they still\nexist, perchance, in those primitive conditions which are really the past\nsurviving into the present. But in no field of human life is there\ngreater need of fresh observation than in this of love. The\never-increasing subtlety and complexity of modern love have not yet found\nadequate registration and interpretation in art. Art always seems to me a\nmagic mirror in which the shapes of the past are held long after they\nhave passed away. The author of to-day looks not into his heart--but into\nthe mirror--and writes. Primitive Love found its poet in Longus the\nGreek, with his \"Daphnis and Chloe\"; but who has given us Modern Love?\nNot Meredith himself, despite his sonnets; though \"The Egoist\" is a\nterrible analysis of a modern lover, as saddening as the \"Modern Lover\"\nof George Moore. The poets are ill guides to love. Their passions are\nhalf-fantastic, if not of imagination all compact. Shelley's\n\"Epipsychidion\" was the expression of a passing mood; Tennyson's \"Come\ninto the Garden, Maud,\" a lyric exaltation that must have died down when\nMaud appeared, and could in any case scarce have survived its fiftieth\nrewriting; Rossetti's interpretation of \"The House of Life\" is as purely\nindividual as Patmore's \"Angel in the House\"; Swinburne sings of\nphantasms; we can no more take our poets for types of modern lovers than\nwe can accept Dante or Petrarch as representatives of the mediaeval\nlover. These poets used their goddesses as mystic inspirers. Dante was\nnot in love with Beatrice, the daughter of Portinari, but with his own\nimagination: she married Simone as he Gemma, and thus he was still able\nto worship her. The devotion of Petrarch to Laura did not prevent his\nhaving children by another lady. If we turn to modern prose-writers, we\nfail to find any really subtle treatment of Modern Love. Henry James\nhimself shrinks from analysing it, even allusively and insinuatingly.\nZola's handling of the love-theme is as primary as Pierre Loti's, for\nZola has the eye for masses, not for individual subtleties. Tolsto\u00ef,\ninformed by something of the rage of the old ascetics, is too iconoclast;\nMaupassant's stories sometimes suggest a cynicism as profound as\nChamfort's or that old French poet's who wrote:\n\n  Femme, plaisir de demye heure,\n  Et ennuy qui sans fin demeure.\n\nIbsen is as idealistic as Strindberg is materialist. Shall we seek light\nin the modern lady-novelist, with her demand for phases of passion suited\nto every stage of existence? Shall we fall in with the agnosticism of\nJohn Davidson, and admit that no man has ever understood a woman, a man,\nor himself, and _vice versa_? 'T is seemingly the opinion of Nordau that,\nafter the first flush of youth, we do but play \"The Comedy of Sentiment,\"\nfeigning and making believe to recapture\n\n  That first lyric rapture.\n\nAnd his friend Auguste Dietrich writes:\n\n    Se faire vivement d\u00e9sirer et para\u00eetre refuser alors ce qu'elle br\u00fble\n    d'accorder ... voil\u00e0 la com\u00e9die que de tout temps ont jou\u00e9e les\n    femmes.\n\nNot quite a fair analysis, this: like all cynicism, it is crude. Juliet\nfor one did not play this comedy, though she was aware of the r\u00f4le.\n\n  Or, if thou think'st I am too quickly won,\n  I'll frown and be perverse and say thee nay,\n  So thou wilt woo.\n\nNor is it always comedy, even when played. Darwin, in his \"Descent of\nMan,\" recognizes a real innate coyness, and that not merely of the female\nsex, which has been a great factor in improving the race. And, since we\nare come to the scientific standpoint, let it be admitted that marriage\nis a racial safeguard which does not exhaust the possibilities of\nromantic passion. Nature, as Schopenhauer would say, has over-baited the\nhook. Our capacities for romance are far in excess of the needs of the\nrace: we have a surplus of emotion, and Satan finds mischievous vent for\nit. We are confronted with a curious dualism of soul and body, with two\nstreams of tendency that will not always run parallel: _hinc illae\nlachrymae_. This it is that makes M. Bourget's \"Cruel Enigme.\" Perhaps\nthe ancients were wiser, with whom the woman had no right of choice,\npassing without will from father to husband. When the Romans evolved\ntheir concept of the marriage-contract between man and woman instead of\nbetween father and son-in-law, the trouble began. Emancipated woman\ndeveloped soul and sentiment, and when Roman Law conquered the world, it\nspread everywhere the seeds of romance. Romance--the very etymology\ncarries its history, for 't is only natural that the first love-stories\nshould have been written in the language of Rome. Nor is it inapt that\nthe typical lover should recall Rome by his name:\n\n  O, Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou. Romeo?\n\nRomantic Love is the rose Evolution has grown on earthly soil. _Floreat!_\nStrange that Nordau, in his \"Conventional Lies of Civilisation,\" should\necho this aspiration and gush over the Goethean _Wahlverwandtschaft_--the\nelective affinity of souls--almost with the rapture of a Platonist,\nconceiving love as the soul finding its pre-natal half. Surely, to his\nway of thinking, scientific selection were better for the race than such\nnatural selection, especially as natural selection cannot operate in our\ncomplicated civilisation, where at every turn the poetry of life dashes\nitself against the dead wall of prose. The miracle has happened. Edwin\nloves Angelina, and by a strange coincidence Angelina also loves Edwin.\nBut then come the countless questions of income, position, family. Adam\nand Eve were the only couple that started free from relatives. Else,\nperhaps, had their garden not been \"Paradise.\" All later lovers have had\nto consult other people's tastes as well as their own, and there has\nprobably never been a marriage that has pleased all parties unconcerned.\nAnd even when the course of true love runs smooth, do the lovers marry\nwhom they were in love with? Alas! marriage is a parlous business: one\nloves one's ideal, but the beloved is always real. The wiser sort take a\nleaf out of Dante's book or Petrarch's, and retain their illusions. \"The\npoets call it love--we doctors give it another name,\" says a kindly old\ncharacter in one of Echegaray's comedies: \"How is it cured? This very day\nwith the aid of the priest; and so excellent a specific is this, that\nafter a month's appliance, neither of the wedded pair retains a vestige\nof remembrance of the fatal sickness.\"\n\nThere is a kind of scientific selection in the intermarriage of persons\nof quality, which is at the bottom of their supposed superciliousness and\ndisdain of trade, though blood does not infallibly produce breeding.\nThere is the same tribal instinct in the aversion of Jews from exogamy,\nand it is this sort of scientific selection which is subconsciously going\non when parents and guardians, sisters, cousins, and aunts, interfere\nwith the \"elective affinities.\" Money, too, is really a security for the\ndue rearing of offspring. It is to be hoped there is a tear beneath the\nsneers of Sudermann's comedy, \"Die Schmetterlingschlacht,\" for the\nsorrows of moneyless mothers with unmarriageable girls.\n\n  Do\u00e4n't thou marry for munny, but go\u00e4 wheer munny is,\n\nsaid Tennyson's Northern Farmer--a sentiment which was anticipated or\nplagiarised by Wendell Holmes as \"Don't marry for money, but take care\nthe girl you love has money.\" Few people may marry directly for money, or\neven for position, but few marriages are uncomplicated by considerations\nof money and position. Little wonder if\n\n  Love, light as air, at sight of human ties\n  Spreads his light wings and in a moment flies.\n\nLovers may thrust such thoughts into the background, but is not this\nwilful blindness as much \"The Comedy of Sentiment\" as that which supplies\nthe theme of Nordau's novel? It weighed upon Walter Bagehot that\n\"immortal souls\" should have to think of tare and tret and the price of\nbutter; but \"sich is life\"--prose and poetry intertangled. The cloud may\nhave a silver lining, but clouds are not all silver. Wherefore Nordau's\nglorification of the love-match is curiously unscientific; it belongs to\nsilver-cloudland; it might work among the birds of [Greek:\nNephelo-kokkugia]. Loveless marriages may beget happiness, if not\necstacy; and love-matches may be neither for the interest of the\nindividuals nor of the race. They serve, however, to feed Art, and one\nreal love-match will justify a hundred novels and plays, just as one good\nghost will supply a hundred ghost-stories. Considering how many dead\npeople there are, the percentage of those permitted to play ghost is so\ninfinitesimal as to be incredible _a priori_; nevertheless, how we snatch\nat the possibility of ghosts! Even so we like to connect love and\nmarriage, two things naturally divorced, and to fancy that wedding bells\nare rung by Cupid. But, after all, what is love? In lawn-tennis it counts\nfor nothing. In the dictionary it figures, _inter alia_, as \"a kind of\nlight silken stuff.\" And, as Dumas _fils_ sagely sums it up in \"Le\nDemi-Monde\": \"Dans le mariage, quand l'amour existe, l'habitude le tue,\net quand il n'existe pas elle le fait na\u00eetre.\"\n\n\n\n\nXXI\n\nDEATH AND MARRIAGE\n\nIt was with melancholy amusement that I read in the scientific journals\nthat sewer-gas was comparatively innocuous. After the hundreds of\nsanitary tracts in which the deadliness of sewer-gas has been an axiom of\nfaith, after the thousand-and-one deaths from it in the contemporary\nnovel, it is grimly diverting to learn that sewer-gas may be welcomed\nwithout fear to our hearths and homes. The same process appears to be\novertaking science with which we are familiar in the sphere of\nhistory--all the bad gases are getting purified and the good spirits\nvilified. The invincible solids are being liquefied, and the a\u00ebry\nnothings are being given solid habitations. The Professor tells me that\nliquid oxygen is obtainable only under great pressure, and at a colossal\ncost. I beg respectfully to suggest to the millionaires the advisability\nof laying in quarts of it for their dinner-parties. This sparkling\nbeverage--essence of oxygen, mark you--would not need to be iced, for the\nNorth Pole is as a red-hot poker compared with it. Such a beverage would\nmake a sensation and provide paragraphs for the society journals and the\n\"Times\" obituary. It is true the guests would not like it, but they would\nbe anxious to quaff it. Have you never noticed the innocent joy which the\npop and froth of cheap champagne gives to suburban souls? There is a\nmagic halo about champagne--an aroma of aristocracy--which sanctifies it\nfor people who would be happier with lemonade. Wherefore I doubt not\nthere would be a public to adventure on liquid oxygen, though it were\ncongealed in the attempt. The imbibition thereof might indeed replace\nsuicide and cremation--it would both kill and cure, and our frozen bodies\nmight be preserved in family ice-safes for the edification of scientific\nposterity. I should not marvel if liquid air or oxygen became an article\nof the euthanasian creed. As for sewer-gas, we may yet live to see it\nmanufactured artificially for the improvement of the public health, and\nconveyed to our overcrowded drawing-rooms with all the paraphernalia of\npipes and the mendacious meter. Science has turned so many somersaults\neven in my short lifetime that I am prepared for anything. I have even\nserious doubts as to the stability of Darwinism, I have seen so many\nimmortal truths die young. I verily believe that the cocksureness of our\ncentury is destined to be the amusement of the next, which may not\nimpossibly believe that the ape is descended from man by retrogression.\n\n  Our little systems have their day,\n  They have their day--and come again.\n\nThe science of medicine in particular seems to be always in a critical\ncondition, and the bacillus bobs up and down in a manner that is \"painful\nand free.\" Like Hamlet's father's ghost, it eludes our question: we know\nnot if it is \"a spirit of health or goblin damned,\" angel or demon or\ndelusion. The microbe of to-day is the myth of to-morrow. Surgery is the\nonly department of medicine which has made real advances in our century.\nThe rest is guesswork and experiment on vile bodies. I do not know why\nthe Peculiar People should be persecuted for refusing vivi-injection.\nTolsto\u00ef, a friend of his told me, breathes fire and fury against the\ndoctors, and will have none of their drugs or their doctrines, and he is\nnot alone in believing that every tombstone is a monument to some\ndoctor's skill. \"When doctors disagree,\" says the proverb. But do they\never agree--unless they consult? I went to an eminent oculist once, who\nanointed my eyes with cocaine in order to make the pupils dilate. But my\npupils refused to obey. He was dumfoundered, and said that such a refusal\nwas unheard of: it contradicted all experience and all the books. I felt\nquite conscience-stricken. He tried again and again, but my pupils\nremained obdurately small. I apologised for my originality, and he peered\nat my eyes minutely, evidently expecting to find the new humour. So I\nsuggested he might try Horror, which I understood from the novelists made\nthe pupils dilate; but he replied that that would not be professional. He\ntold me, however, a fact which I thought well worth his fee. An erudite\nscientist had devoted a monograph to cocaine, but failed to discover the\none fact about it which was worth knowing, and which had raised cocaine\nto the first rank--to wit, that applied externally it was an anaesthetic,\nso that if you put a drop on your tongue you might bite your tongue\nwithout hurting yourself. Doubtless the poor man was ready enough to bite\nhis tongue when his book was spoilt by the discovery. But I cannot help\nthinking that his case was typical of science--which is appallingly\nexhaustive and self-satisfied, but seems just to miss the one essential\nthing.\n\nHave you heard the legend of the Marriage of the Angel of Death with a\nmortal woman? He was aweary of his cheerless professional round, and\nlonged for domestic joys to brighten his scanty leisure. It did not\nstrike him to \"domesticate the Recording Angel\"; but one day, being sent\nto despatch a beautiful woman, he fell in love with her instead, and\nmarried her. But dire was the punishment of his disobedience. The\nbeautiful woman turned out a shrew, who made Death's life not worth\nliving, and as he had refused to kill her when her hour sounded, she was\nnow immortal. In despair he deserted her and her child, and would never\ngo near her, so that her neighbourhood was always healthy, and she\nunconsciously made the fortune of several insanitary watering-places. In\ncourse of time Death's son grew up, and with that curious filial\nperversity (which has been especially remarked in the children of\nclergymen) he became a physician. And his fame as a physician spread far\nand wide, inasmuch as he knew the secret of Death, that uxorious and\nhenpecked Angel having revealed it to his wife in a weak moment. If the\nAngel stood at the foot of the bed, he was only terrifying the patient;\nif, however, he took up his position at the head of the bed, he was in\ndeadly earnest, and hope was vain. Inheriting sufficient of his father's\nnature to see him when he was invisible to others, the physician was\nnaturally able to prophesy with undeviating accuracy, though the cunning\nrascal made great play with stethoscopes and syringes and what not, and\nfelt pulses and thumped chests before he gave judgment, and was\nsolicitous in administering drugs when he foresaw the patient was\ndestined to recover. Now, it befell one day that the Princess of\nPaphlagonia (of whom I have told elsewhere) fell grievously sick, and\nnone of the physicians could do aught to relieve her. So the king issued\na proclamation that whosoever could cure her could have her to wife. Now,\nthe fame of the beauty of the princess had travelled as far as the renown\nof the mighty physician, so that desire was kindled in his heart to try\nfor the grand prize. And so Death's son set out and travelled over land\nand sea, comforting the sick everywhere as he passed by, and curing all\nthose that were fated not to die. And at last he arrived in the capital\nof Paphlagonia, and was received with great joy by the king and all his\ncourt, and ushered into the sick-chamber. A great warmth gathered at his\nheart as his eyes fell upon the marvellous fairness of the princess; but\nthe next moment his heart was turned to ice, for lo! he perceived the\nAngel of Death standing at the head of the bed. After a moment of agony\nthe physician commanded all present to leave the chamber; then for the\nfirst time he broke the silence his mother had imposed upon him.\n\"Father,\" he said, \"have you no pity upon me--you who once loved a woman\nyourself?\" Then Death answered, in a hollow voice: \"I must do my duty. I\ndisobeyed once, and my punishment was greater than I could bear.\"\n\"Father,\" pleaded the physician again, \"will you not move to the foot of\nthe bed?\" \"Nay, I cannot,\" answered Death harshly: \"I was commanded to\nstay here, and here I must stay.\" \"And thou wilt stay there whatever I\nsay or do?\" asked the physician plaintively. \"Yea,\" answered Death\nstoutly. Then, wrought up to desperation, the physician called the\nattendants in again and bade them turn the bed round, so that Death was\nleft standing at the foot. But the Angel, seeing himself outwitted,\nrushed back to the head. The physician thereupon dismissed the attendants\nand upbraided him with his broken promise, but Death stood firm. At last\nthe physician lost his temper and all his good bedside manner, and cried\nfuriously: \"If you're not gone instantly, I'll send for mother!\" And the\nAngel of Death vanished in the twinkling of the bedpost.\n\nTill we can marry off Azrael to a termagant, I do not believe we shall\never really turn the tables upon him. Nothing is more surprising to a\nreader of advertisement columns than that people still continue to die.\nAn army of alchemists has discovered the Elixir of Life, and retails it\nat one-and-three-halfpence a phial. Paracelsus has turned pill-maker, and\nprospers exceedingly, and sells out to a joint-stock company. But the\ngreat procession gravewards goes on, the \"thin black lines\" creeping\nalong all day long, and there is no falling off in the consumption of\nsherry and biscuits. The scythe of the Black Angel shines--_opus\nfervet_--and it is always the mowing season. Sometimes he stands at the\nfoot of the bed, and then there is triumph for the pharmacopoeia;\nsometimes he stands at the head, and then the bed becomes a grave and he\na tombstone. Alas! his marriage is but a pleasant myth, and his\ninfallible son a dream. Azrael is still a bachelor, and science is not\nshrew enough to drive him away. Perhaps 't is as well the leeches cannot\navert him; perhaps 't is a blessing that they blunder, and the kindly\ngrass grows over their mistakes. As it is, too many people are an\nunconscionable long time in dying. Their habit of procrastination is with\nthem to the last. They linger on--a misery to themselves, and a thorn to\nthose anxious to mourn their loss. They do not know how to retire\ngracefully. The art of leaving a world should be taught as a branch of\ndeportment.\n\nAn American philanthropist who died recently was in the habit of girding\nat the arrangements of the universe, which did not seem to him organised\nafter the fashion of a bureau of beneficence. He was wont to regret that\nhe had not been present at the creation, so as to give a few hints.\n\"Well, what would you have advised?\" a friend once challenged him to say.\n\"I would have advised,\" he retorted, \"that health be made catching\ninstead of disease.\" At first hearing, this sounds taking, but its\nplausibility diminishes under investigation. Health is the normal state\nof an organism, the perfect working of its parts,--it is not something\nsuperadded, as disease is. You might as well expect one watch to catch\nthe right time from another. The philanthropist would have been more\nwithin the bounds of the reasonable if he had demanded that disease\nshould be more egotistic and less epidemic. Every organism ought to\nconsume its own smoke, and not communicate its misfortunes to its\nneighbours. And this it does satisfactorily enough in organic disease; it\nis only when those impish germs, microbes and bacilli, mix themselves up\nwith the matter that we get pathological socialism. I confess that the\nwhole germ business seems to me an illogical element in the scheme of\ndestruction, though 't is of a piece with the structure of things. And\nyet there is a sense in which health _is_ catching. There is a contagion\nof confidence as well as of panic, and the surest way to escape epidemics\nis to disbelieve them. Radiant people radiate health. The mind is a big\nfactor in things hygienic. 'T is a poor medicine that takes no account of\nthe soul. We are not earthen receptacles for drugs, but breathing clay\nvivified by thoughts and passions. And in the universe of morals, at any\nrate, health is catching just as much as disease. We are ennobled by\nnoble souls, and uplifted by righteousness. We pattern ourselves\nunconsciously upon our friends. Character is contagious, and emotion\nepidemic, and good-humour has its germs; copy-book maxims are null and\nvoid: packets of propositions leave us cold. Morality can only be taught\nby object-lessons; they err egregiously who would teach it by the card. A\nfine character in a play or a novel outweighs a sermon; and in real life\nthe preacher pales before the practiser. It is a great day when a man\ndiscovers for himself that honesty is the best policy. Morality is a\nmatter of feeling and will, not of intellect. Handbooks of ethics may\nedify the intellect, and \"Cicero de Officiis\" be the favourite reading of\nrogues. I knew a university student who at his examination cribbed Kant's\npanegyric of the moral law from a concealed text-book.\n\nThe legend of Death's marriage recalls to me that of John L. Sullivan's.\nIt is said that the famous bruiser was in like grievous plight. His wife\nbeat him, and he had to sue for a divorce on the ground of cruelty! There\nis something deliciously pathetic about the insignificance of a great man\nto his wife--his valet feels small at least on pay-day. \"The Schoolmaster\nAbroad\" is a rampant divinity with a ferocious ferule; at home he is a\nmeek person in slippers. The policeman who stands majestically at the\ncross-roads, waving the white glove of authority, nods in the\nchimney-corner without a helmet. Bishop Proudie was not much of a hero to\nMrs. Proudie, and even a beadle is, I fear, but moderately imposing in\nthe domestic sanctum. That a prophet is not without honour save in his\nown country, we know; but even if he travel abroad, he must leave his\nwife behind him,--else will he never continuously contemplate his own\ngreatness. This is why so many great men remain bachelors. It perhaps\nalso explains why the others are so unhappy in their marriages. Perhaps\nthere ought to be a training-school for the supply of great men's wives.\n\n\n\n\nXXII\n\nTHE CHOICE OF PARENTS\n\n\"Yes,\" said Marindin quietly, \"they may say they write for Posterity, but\nwhat living author besides myself does write for Posterity?\"\n\nThis sounded so unlike Marindin's modesty that I wondered if the port and\nthe paradoxes of our Christmas dinner had got into his head at last. The\nveteran man of letters had talked brilliantly _more suo_ of many things,\nmost of all perhaps of his dead friend, Charles Dickens. Who seemed more\nsurely to have been writing Christmas stories for Posterity? we had asked\nourselves musingly, as we discussed the change of temper since the days\nwhen Dickens or Father Christmas might have stood for the Time-Spirit.\nMany good things had Marindin said of Ibsen and Nietzsche and the modern\napostles of self-development who sneered at the Gospel of self-sacrifice,\nand at all the amiable virtues our infancy had drawn from \"The Fairchild\nFamily\" with its engaging references to Jeremiah xvii. 9. But now he was\nbreaking out in a new way, and I missed the reassuring twinkle in his\neye.\n\n\"I think I may without arrogance claim to be the one author who really\nhas considerable influence with Posterity,\" he went on, drawing serenely\nat his cigar and adjusting his right leg more comfortably across the arm\nof his easy-chair. \"Is there any one else whom Posterity listens to?\"\n\nI shifted uneasily in my own arm-chair. \"What do you mean?\" I inquired\nbaldly.\n\n\"Don't you know I write for the unborn?\" he counter-queried.\n\n\"But they don't read you--yet,\" I said, trying to smile.\n\n\"My dear fellow! Why, I'm the best-read man in Ante-land. The unborn\nswear by me! My publishers, Fore and Futurus, are simply rolling in\npromissory notes.\"\n\n\"You've become a Theosophist!\" I cried in alarm, for that familiar\ntwinkle in his eye had been replaced by a strange exaltation.\n\n\"And what if I have?\"\n\n\"Theosophy!\" I cried scornfully--\"Theology for Atheists! The main\ncontemporary form of the Higher Foolishness.\"\n\n\"The Higher Foolishness!\" echoed Marindin indignantly.\n\n\"Yes, the Foolishness of the fool with brains. The brainless fool fulfils\nhimself in low ways--in alcoholic saturnalia, in salvation carnivals, in\nfreethought hysterics, in political bombs. The Higher Foolishness\nexpresses itself in aberrations of poetry and art, in table-rapping and\ntheosophy, in vegetarianism, and in mystic calculations about the Beast.\"\n\n\"It is you who are the fool,\" he replied shortly. \"Theosophy is\ntrue--that is, my form of it. Birth is but the name for the entry upon\nthis particular form of existence.\n\n  \"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.\n    The soul that rises with us, our life's star,\n  Hath had elsewhere its setting,\n    And cometh from afar.\n\n\"The unborn pre-exist, even as the dead persist; and instead of\naddressing Posterity posthumously and circuitously, I have anticipated\nits verdict. I have written for the unborn, direct. I have been the\napostle of the New Ethics among the pre-natal populations, the prophet of\nindividualism among the unborn.\"\n\n\"What! You have propagated the teaching that free choice must be the\nbattle-cry of the future, that the only genuine morality is that which is\nthe spontaneous outcome of an emancipated individuality!\"\n\n\"Precisely.\"\n\n\"But what has free choice to do with the unborn?\"\n\n\"What has it to do? Great heavens! Everything. The battle-cry of the\nfuture will be Free Birth.\"\n\n\"Free Birth!\" I echoed.\n\n\"Yes--this is what I have been preaching to the unborn--the choice of\ntheir parents before consenting to be born! Compulsory birth must be\nswept away. What! would you sweep away all checks upon the individuality\nof the individual--once he is born would you tear asunder all the\nswaddling-bands of our baby civilisation; would you replace the rules of\nthe nursery by the orderly anarchy of manhood and womanhood, and yet\nretain such an incoherent anachronism as compulsory birth--a disability\nwhich often cripples a man upon the very threshold of his career? Without\nthis initial reform the individualism of your Ibsens and Auberon Herberts\nbecomes a mere simulacrum, a hollow mockery. If you are to develop your\nindividuality, it must be your own individuality that you develop, not an\nindividuality thrust upon you by a couple of outsiders.\"\n\n\"And you have preached this with success?\"\n\n\"With unheard-of success.\"\n\n\"Unheard-of, indeed!\" I muttered sarcastically.\n\n\"In _your_ plane of existence!\" he retorted. \"In Ante-land the movement\nhas spread widely; scarcely a soul but has become convinced of the evils\nof compulsion in this most personal matter, and of the necessity of\nhaving a voice in its own incarnation. And it is I, _moi qui vous parle_,\nwho have sown the seeds of the revolt against our present social\narrangements. Too long had parents presumed upon the ignorance and\nhelplessness of the unborn and upon their failure to combine. But now the\ngreat wave of emancipation which is lifting us all off our feet has\nreached the coming race. And soon the old ideal will be nothing but a\nstrangled snake by the cradle of Hercules.\"\n\n\"Why, I never heard of such a thing in all my born days!\" I cried\nhelplessly.\n\n\"Of course not; you are more ignorant than the babe unborn. You trouble\nyourself about the next world, but as to what may be going on in the last\nworld, that never enters your head. But for the tyranny of outward social\nforms you and I might have deferred our birth till a serener century.\nHenceforth the dreamer of dreams will have only himself to blame if he is\nborn out of his due time and called upon to set the crooked straight. Job\nhimself would have escaped his misfortunes if he had only had the\npatience to wait. In future any one who is born in a hurry will be a born\nidiot.\"\n\n\"What! Will the unborn choose the time of birth as well as their\nparents?\"\n\n\"One is implicated in the other. Suppose the soul wished to be the son of\nan American Duke, naturally it would have to wait till aristocracy was\ndeveloped across the Atlantic, say some time in the next century.\"\n\n\"I see. And is there a public opinion in Ante-land that regulates private\naction?\"\n\n\"Yes, but I have now educated it to the higher ethics. It used to be the\nrespectable thing to be born of strangers without one's own consent,\nthough at the bottom of their souls many persons believed this to be\nsheer immorality, and cursed the day they were led to the cradle, and\nbecame the mere playthings of the parents who acquired them--pretty toys\nto be dandled and caressed, just a larger variety of doll. But all this\nis almost over. Henceforth birth will be considered immoral unless it is\nspontaneous--the outcome of an intelligent selection of parents, based on\nlove.\"\n\n\"On love?\"\n\n\"Yes; should not a child love its father and mother? and how can we\nexpect it to love people it has never seen, to whom it is tied in the\nmost brutal way, without a voice in the control of its destinies at the\nabsolutely most important turning-point of its whole existence?\"\n\n\"True, a child should love its parents,\" I conceded. \"But is not the\nquiet, sober affection that springs up after birth, an affection founded\non mutual association and mutual esteem, better than all the tempestuous\nardours of pre-natal passion that may not survive the christening?\"\n\n\"Ah, that is the good old orthodox cant!\" cried Marindin, puffing out a\ngreat cloud of smoke. \"What certainty is there this post-natal love would\nspring up? And, at any rate, a man would no longer be able to blame\nProvidence if he found himself tied for life to a couple for whom he had\nnothing but loathing and contempt. Even the adherents of the old\nconception of compulsory childship begin to see that the stringency of\nthe filial tie needs relaxation. Already it is recognised that in cases\nof cruelty the child may be divorced from the parent. But there is a\nhopeless incompatibility of temper and temperament which is not\nnecessarily attended with cruelty. Drunkenness, lunacy, and criminality\nshould also be regarded as valid grounds for divorce, the parent being no\nlonger allowed to bear the name of the child it has dishonoured.\"\n\n\"But who shall say,\" I asked sceptically, \"that the new self-appointed\ngeneration will be happier than the old? What guarantee is there that the\nchoice of parents will be made with taste and discretion?\"\n\nMarindin shrugged his shoulders impatiently.\n\n\"Come and interview the unborn,\" he said, and fixed his unsmiling eye on\nmine, as though to hypnotise me. What happened then I shall never be able\nto explain. I was translated into another scale of being, into the last\nworld in fact; and just as it is impossible to describe a symphony to a\ndeaf mute or a sunset to a man born blind, so it is impossible for me to\nput down in terms of our present consciousness the experiences I went\nthrough in that earlier pre-natal stage of existence. What I perceived in\nAnte-land must needs be expressed through the language of this world, to\nwhich in effect it bears as true and constant a relation as the vibration\nof a violin string to its music. I soon gathered that, as Marindin had\nclaimed, his doctrines had made considerable incursions in the last\nworld, and, what was more surprising, in this. There seemed to be quite a\nconsiderable sect of parents spread all through Europe and America,\npledged to respect the rights of the unborn, and it was in co-operation\nwith this enlightened minority--destined, no doubt, in time to become the\nUniversal Church--that the unborn worked. The sect embraced many couples\nof wealth and position, and, as was to be expected, at the start there\nhad been a rush among the unborn for millionaire parents. But it was soon\ndiscovered that birth for money was a mistake, that it too often led to a\nspendthrift youth and a bankrupt age, and that there was not seldom a\nlegacy duty to pay in the shape of hereditary diseases, sometimes\namounting to as much as two pains in the pound; the gold rush was\ntherefore abating. Birth for beauty had also been popular till experience\ndemonstrated the insubstantiality of good looks as a panoply throughout\nlife. Gradually the real conditions of earthly happiness were coming to\nbe understood. Unborn preachers in their unbuilt churches tried in their\nunspoken sermons to lead souls to the higher bodies or to save souls from\nprecipitate incarnation. Marindin's own unwritten books sustained Paley's\nthesis of the essentially equal distribution of happiness among all\nclasses, and left it for the individual soul to decide between the\nrealities of toil and the unrealities of prosperity, Marindin took the\nopportunity of our presence in Ante-land to pay a visit to his\npublishers, Fore and Futurus, of whose honesty and generosity he spoke in\nglowing terms. Fore received us; he seemed to be a thorough gentleman,\nthis unborn publisher. He showed us the design for a cover to a new\n\"Guide to the Selection of Parents,\" which he was about to bring out, and\nwhich he hoped would become the standard work on the subject. I gathered\nthat these \"Guides\" were very popular as birthday presents, enabling, as\nthey did, those just about to be born to think once more before making\nthe final plunge. The feature of the Fore and Futurus \"Guide\" was the\nappendix of contributions from souls already born, whose mistakes might\nserve to benefit those still unattached.\n\n\"But how can there be a guide to such a frightful labyrinth?\" I inquired\ncuriously. \"Japhet in search of a father had a light task before him\ncompared with the selection of one. And it is not only the selection of a\nfather, but of a mother! To take the outside variations only: the father\nmay be handsome, good-looking, plain or ugly; the mother may be\nbeautiful, pretty, plain or ugly. Any of these types of fathers may be\npaired with any of these types of mothers, which makes sixteen\ncomplications. Then there is complexion--fair or dark--which makes\nsixty-four, for you know how, by algebraic calculations, every new\npossibility multiplies into all the others. If one turns to mental and\nmoral characteristics, one's brain swims to think of the new\ncomplications incalculably numerous and all multiplying into the old\nphysical combinations. Multiply furthermore by all the combinations\narising from considerations of health, money, position, nationality,\nreligion, order of birth--whether as first, second, or thirteenth\nchild--and the strongest intellect reels and breaks down. Even now I have\nnot enumerated all the possibilities; for the total would have to be\ndoubled for the contingency of sex, since I presume birth would not be\nabsolutely free, unless it included the right of choosing one's sex.\n\n\"To take a concrete instance of the embarrassment which Free Birth would\nbring, and of the invidious distinctions that would have to be made:\nwhich is the better lot?--to be the third daughter of a\nnineteenth-century, healthy, ugly, penniless, clever, middle-aged, moral,\nfree-thinking German Baron by a beautiful, rich, stupid, plebeian Spanish\ndancer, with one child by a previous marriage, and a tendency to\nconsumption; or the second son of a twentieth-century American Duke,\nunhealthy, uncultured, handsome, chaste, Ritualist, elderly and poor, by\nan English heiress, ugly, low-born, Low Church, ill-bred, intellectual,\nwith a silly and only semi-detached mother? But this would be a problem\nof unreal simplicity, bearing as much relation to actuality as the first\nlaw of motion to the flight of a bird, for your choice would lie not\nbetween one pair and another, but among all possible pairs.\"\n\n\"All existing pairs possible to you,\" corrected Marindin. \"People manage\nto choose husbands and wives, though according to your computation the\nwhole of the opposite sex would have to be examined and selected from. In\npractice the choice is narrowed down to a few individuals. So with the\nchoice of parents--most are already snapped up, monopolised or mortgaged,\nor contracted for, and you have either to choose from the leavings or\npostpone your birth, and bide your time a century or two. But the problem\nis greatly simplified by the P. C.\"\n\n\"What is the P. C.?\" I murmured.\n\n\"The Parental Certificate, of course. Throughout the terrestrial branch\nof our sect no one is eligible for parentage who does not possess it. It\nis given only to those who have passed the P. D. or Parents' Degree\nexamination, and supplements the old P. L. or Parents' Licence, which was\nopenly bought and sold.\"\n\n\"And the qualifications?\"\n\n\"Oh, very elementary. The candidate is required to pass an exam, (both\nwritten and oral) in the training of the young, and to be certified of\nsound mind in sound body. The P. L. itself has been transformed into a\nlicence to keep one, two or more children, according to means.\"\n\n\"You see our 'Guide' deals merely with the great typical pairs,\"\nexplained the publisher. \"What Aristotle did for Logic our author has\ndone for Birth. He only pretends to give general categories. Aristotle\ncould not guarantee a man shall properly reason, nor can any individual\nbe infallibly inspired to the wisest choice of parentage. Of course the\nphotographs of parents are of great service to the unborn who are\nthinking of settling down.\"\n\n\"How do they get to see them?\"\n\n\"Oh, as soon as a couple passes the P. D. and receives the P. C. they\nappear in the illustrated papers--especially the ladies' papers.\n'Graduates of the Week' is the heading. And then there is the P. T.--the\nPathological Tree.\"\n\nI looked at the publisher in perplexity.\n\n\"Gracious! I forget this is your first visit to Ante-land,\" he said,\napologetically. \"Look! Here are some P. Ts. my lawyer has just been\nlooking over for me, the property of parents whose advertisements for\nchildren I have been answering. My friends are rather anxious I should\nincarnate.\"\n\nI surveyed the parchment roll with curiosity. It was a tree, on the model\nof a genealogical tree, but tracing the hygienic record of the family.\n\n\"In our sect,\" said Marindin impressively, \"it will become the pride of\nthe family to have an unblemished pedigree, and any child who gets\nhimself born into such a family will do so with the responsibility of\ncarrying on the noble tradition of the house and living up to the\nsanitary scutcheon--_sant\u00e9 oblige_. When children begin to be fastidious\nabout the families they are born into, parents will have to improve, or\ndie childless. And, as the love of offspring springs eternal in the human\nbreast, this will have an immense influence upon the evolution of the\nrace to higher goals. I do not know any force of the future on which we\ncan count more hopefully than on the refinement resulting from the\nstruggle for offspring and the survival of the fittest to be parents.\nUndesirable families will become extinct. The unborn will subtly mould\nthe born to higher things. Childlessness will become again what it was in\nthe Orient--a shame and a reproach.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" asserted the publisher, smoothing out the P. Ts.; \"the old\nunreasoned instinct and repugnance will be put on a true basis when it is\nseen that childlessness is a proof of unworthiness--a brand of failure.\"\n\n\"As old-maidenhood is, less justly, to-day,\" I put in.\n\n\"Quite so,\" said Marindin eagerly. \"In their anxiety to be worthy of\nselection by Posterity, parents will rise to heights of health and\nholiness of which our sick generation does not dream. If they do not, woe\nto them! They will be remorselessly left to die out without issue.\n\n\"The change has begun; our sect is spreading fast. In the course of a\ncentury or two physical and mental deformities will vanish from the\nearth.\" His eye flashed prophetic fire.\n\n\"So soon?\" I said, with a sceptical smile.\n\n\"How could they survive?\" Marindin inquired scathingly.\n\n\"Is it likely any of us would consent to be born hunchbacks?\" broke in\nthe publisher; \"or to enter families with hereditary gout? Would any sane\nAntelander put himself under the yoke of animal instincts or tendencies\nto drink? Ah, here is a bibulous grandfather!\" and he tossed one of the\nP. Ts. disdainfully aside, though I observed that the old gentleman in\nquestion had been an English Earl.\n\n\"But, Mr. Fore,\" I protested, \"will all the unborn attach such importance\nto the pathological pedigree as you do? What power will make them train\nup their parents in the way they should go?\"\n\n\"The greatest power on earth,\" broke in Marindin; \"the power of\nselfishness, backed by education. Enlightened selfishness is all that is\nneeded to bring about the millennium. The selfishness of to-day is so\nstupid. Let the unborn care only for their own skins, and they will\nimprove the parents, and be well brought up themselves by the good\nparents they have selected.\"\n\n\"But come now, Mr. Fore,\" I said; \"the new system has been partially at\nwork, I understand, for some time. Do you assure me, on your word of\nhonor as an unborn publisher, that the filial franchise has been\ninvariably exercised wisely and well?\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" interrupted Marindin. \"Haven't I already told you there\nhas been much fumbling and experimentation, some souls being born for\nmoney and some for beauty and some for position? But pioneers must always\nsuffer--for the benefit of those who come after.\"\n\n\"Certainly there have been rash and improvident births,\" admitted the\npublisher. \"Hasty births, premature births, secret births, morganatic\nbirths, illegitimate births, and every variety of infelicitous intrusion\nupon your planet. The rash are born too early, the cautious too late;\nsome even repent on the very brink of birth and elect to be stillborn.\nBut in the majority of cases birth is the outcome of mature deliberation;\na contract entered into with a full sense of the responsibilities of the\nsituation.\"\n\n\"But what do you understand by illegitimate birth?\" I asked.\n\n\"The selection of parents not possessing the P. C. There are always\neccentric spirits who would defy the dearest and most sacred institutions\norganised by society for its own protection. We are gradually creating a\npublic opinion to discountenance such breaches of the law, and such\nperils to the commonweal, subversive as they are of all our efforts to\npromote the general happiness and holiness. Even in your uncivilised\ncommunities,\" continued the publisher, \"these unlicensed and illegitimate\nimmigrants are stamped with life-long opprobrium and subjected to\ndegrading disabilities; how much infamy should then attach to them when\nthe sin they are born in is their own!\"\n\n\"A lesser degree of illegitimacy,\" added Marindin, \"is to be born into a\nfamily already containing the full number it is licensed for. This\nhappens particularly in rich families, introductions into which are\nnaturally most sought after. It is still a moot point whether the birth\nshould be legitimatised on the death of one of the other children.\"\n\n\"But it is the indirect results that I look forward to most,\" he went on\nafter a pause. \"For example, the solution of Nihilism in Russia.\"\n\n\"What has that to do with the unborn?\" I asked, quite puzzled.\n\n\"Don't you see that the czarship will die out?\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"No one will risk being born into the Imperial family. I should say that\nbirth within four degrees of consanguinity of the Czar would be so rare\nthat it would come to be regarded as criminal.\"\n\n\"Yes, that and many another question will be solved quite peaceably,\"\nsaid the publisher. \"You saw me reject a noble grandfather; the growth of\ndemocratic ideals among us must ultimately abolish hereditary\naristocracy. So, too, the question of second marriages and the deceased\nwife's sister may be left to the taste and ethical standards of the\nunborn, who can easily, if they choose, set their faces against such\nunions.\"\n\n\"You see the centre of gravity would be shifted to the pre-natal period,\"\nexplained Marindin, \"when the soul is more liable to noble influences.\nThe moment the human being is born it is definitely moulded; all your\ntraining can only modify the congenital cast. But the real potentialities\nare in the unborn. While there is not life there is hope. When you\ncommence to educate the child it is already too late. But if the great\nforces of education are brought to bear upon the unformed, you may bring\nall Itigh qualities to birth. Think, for instance, how this will\ncontribute to the cause of religion. The unborn will simply eliminate the\nfalse religions by refusing to be born into them. Persuade the unborn,\ntouch _them_, convert _them_! You, I am sure, Mr. Fore,\" he said, turning\nto the worthy publisher, \"would never consent to be born into the wrong\nreligion!\"\n\n\"Not if hell-fire was the penalty of an unhappy selection,\" replied Mr.\nFore.\n\n\"Of course not,\" said Marindin. \"Missionaries have always flown in the\nface of psychology. Henceforward, moreover, Jews will be converted at a\nperiod more convenient for baptism.\"\n\n\"We hope to mould politics, too,\" added the publisher, \"by boycotting\ncertain races and replenishing others.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" cried Marindin; \"it is my hope that by impregnating the unborn\nwith a specific set of prejudices, they might be induced to settle in\nparticular countries, and I cannot help thinking that patriotism would be\nmore intelligent when it was voluntary; self-imposed from admiration of\nthe ideals and history of a particular people. Indeed this seems to me\nabsolutely the only way in which, reason can be brought to bear on the\ngreat war question, for in lieu of that loud eloquence of Woolwich\ninfants there would be exercised the silent pressure of the unborn, who\ncould simply annihilate an undesirable nation, or decimate an offensive\ndistrict by refusing to be born in it. Surely this would be the most\nrational way of settling the ever-menacing Franco-Prussian quarrel.\"\n\n\"I observe already a certain anti-Gallic feeling in Ante-land,\" put in\nthe publisher. \"A growing disinclination to be born in France, if not a\npreference for being made in Germany. But these things belong to _la\nhaute politique_\"\n\n\"My own suspicion is,\" I ventured to suggest, \"that there is a growing\ndisinclination to be born anywhere, and this new privilege of free choice\nwill simply bring matters to a climax. Your folks, confronted by the\nendless problem of choosing their own country and century, their own\nfamily and their own religion, will dilly-dally and shilly-shally and put\noff birth so long that they will never change their condition at all.\nThey will come to the conviction that it is better not to be born; better\nto bear the evils that they know than fly to others that they know not\nof. What if the immigration of destitute little aliens into our planet\nceased altogether?\"\n\nMarindin shrugged his shoulders, and there came into his face that\nindescribable look of the hopeless mystic.\n\n\"Then humanity would have reached its goal: it would come naturally and\ngently to an end. The euthanasia of the race would be accomplished, and\nthe glorified planet, cleansed of wickedness at last, would take up its\npart again in the chorus of the spheres. But like most ideals, I fear\nthis is but a pleasant dream.\" Then, as the publisher turned away to\nreplace the P. Ts. in a safe, he added softly: \"Intelligence is never\nlikely to be so widely diffused in Ante-land that the masses would fight\nshy of birth. There would always be a sufficient proportion of unborn\nfools left who would prefer the palpabilities of bodily form to the\ninsubstantialities of pre-natal existence. Between you and me, our friend\nthe publisher is extremely anxious to be published.\"\n\n\"And yet he seems intelligent enough,\" I argued.\n\n\"Ah, well, it cannot be denied that there are _some_ lives decidedly\nworth living, and our friend Fore will probably bring up his parents to\nthe same profession as himself.\"\n\n\"No doubt there would always be competition for the best _births_,\" I\nobserved, smiling.\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Marindin sadly; \"the struggle for existence will always\ncontinue among the unborn.\"\n\nSuddenly a thought set me a-grin. \"Why, what difference can the choice of\nparents make after all?\" I cried. \"Suppose you had picked my parents--you\nwould have been I, and I should be somebody else, and somebody else would\nbe you. And there would be the three of us, just the same as now,\" and I\nchuckled aloud.\n\n\"You seem to have had pleasant dreams, old man,\" replied Marindin. But\nhis voice sounded strange and far away.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI opened my eyes wide in astonishment, and saw him buried in an\neasy-chair, with a book in his hand and two tears rolling down his\ncheeks.\n\n\"I've been reading of Tiny Tim while you snoozed,\" he said\napologetically.\n\n\n\n\nXXIII\n\nPATER AND PROSE\n\nIt seems only yesterday--and it is only yesteryear--since Walter Pater\nsat by my side in a Club garden, and listened eloquently to my\nafter-lunch _causerie_, and now he is gone\n\n  To where, beyond the Voices, there is Peace.\n\nYou grasp that his eloquence was oracular, silent. He had an air. There\nwas in him--as in his work--a suggestion of aloofness from the homespun\nworld. I suspect he had never heard Chevalier. I should not wonder if he\nhad never even heard of him. He was wrapped in the atmosphere of Oxford,\nand though \"the last enchantments of the Middle Ages\" in no wise threw\ntheir glamour over his thought, there was a cloistral distinction in his\nattitude. He reminded me of my friend the Cambridge professor, who, when\nthe O'Shea business was filling eight columns daily of the papers that\ndeprecate honest art, innocently asked me if there was anything new about\nParnell. Pater did not probably carry detachment from the contemporary so\nfar as that, but he was in harmony with his hedonistic creed in\npermitting only a select fraction of the cosmos to have the entry to his\nconsciousness. A delightful, elegantly-furnished consciousness it was,\nwith the latest improvements, and with every justification for\nexclusiveness. But there is in men of Mr. Pater's stamp something of what\nmight be termed the higher Pod-snappery. They put things aside with the\nwave of a white-gloved hand: this and that do not exist, Mr. Podsnap\nhimself--O the irony of it!--among them. Like Mr. Podsnap, though on a\ndifferent plane, they take themselves and their view of life too\nseriously. When I told Mr. Pater that there was a pun in his \"Plato and\nPlatonism,\" he asked anxiously for its precise locality, so that he might\nremove it. This I could not remember, but I told him I did not see why he\nshould remove one of the best things in the book. But my assurances that\nthe pun was excellent did not seem to tranquillise him. Now, why should\nnot a philosopher make a pun? Shakespeare was an incorrigible punster.\nWhy should a man's life be divided into little artificial sections, like\nthe labelled heads in the phrenologist's window? I do not want to see a\nman put on his Sunday clothes to talk about religion. But a congenital\ninelasticity is fostered in the atmosphere of common-rooms, there where\nsolemn-footed serving-men present the port with sacerdotal ceremonies,\nand where, if the dons are no longer (in the classic phrase of Gibbon)\n\"sunk in port and superstition,\" the port is still a superstition. This\nabsence of humour, this superhuman seriousness bred of heavy traditions\npeculiarly English, this sobriety nourished by sacerdotal port, give the\nvictim quite a wrong sense of values and proportions. He mistakes\nUniversity for Universe. His tastes become the measure of a creation of\nwhich he is the centre. Hence an abiding gravity that is ever on the\nbrink of dulness. The Englishman cannot afford to be grave, the bore is\nso close at hand.\n\nAnd yet, if one did not take oneself seriously, I suppose nothing would\never be done. A kindly illusion about their importance in the scheme of\nthings is Nature's instrument for getting work out of men. \"Don't you\nthink Flaubert took himself too seriously?\" I heard a lady novelist ask a\ngentleman practitioner. Certainly his correspondence with George Sand\nreveals an anchorite of letters, who tortured the phrase and sacrificed\nsleep to the adjective, and the brothers De Goncourt--themselves very\nserious gentlemen--have recorded how he considered his book as good as\nfinished because he had invented the \"dying falls\" of the music of his\nperiods. But if Flaubert had sufficiently contemplated the infinities,\nthe immense indifference of things, if, like the astronomer in search of\na creed, he had concentrated his vision on the point to which the whole\nsolar system is drifting, French prose would have lost some of its most\nwonderful pages; and had the late Mr. Pater been less troubled by the\nrose-leaf of style and more by the thorns of the time, English prose\nwould have been the poorer by harmonies and felicities unsurpassed and\nunsurpassable. This is to ignore Pater the Philosopher and Pater the\nCritic. Of these persons there will be varying estimates. They have even\nin a sense, through the extravagances of a disciple, been subjected to\nthe verdict of a British jury--a sufficiently ironic revenge upon the\nfastidious shrinker from the Philistines; and though, of course, it was\nnot theories of art and philosophy that were being \"tried by jury,\" yet\nthese side-issues contributed to prejudice the twelve good men and true.\nBut it is only congruous with the trend of democratic thought that\neverything should come under the censorship of the crowd, and the only\nwonder is that long ere this the vexed questions of our troubled time\nhave not been solved by _pl\u00e9biscite_.\n\nA leading New York paper is commended for its patronage of literature,\nbecause it offers large prizes for stories, the prizes to be awarded by\nthe votes of its readers. If the crowd is capable of appraising\nliterature, there is no reason why it should not take science and art\nsimilarly into its hands, nor why the counting of heads should not\nreplace the marshalling of arguments in philosophy and ethics. In\npolitics the mob has a right to be heard, because it has a right to\nexpress its grievances. Could an aristocracy be trusted to do justly by\nDemos, democracy would have no reason to be. But this right of the\nmany-headed monster to a control of the governmental agencies that affect\nits own happiness, does not involve the ability to decide less selfish\nproblems; and when, as rarely happens, abstract problems find themselves\nin the witness-box, then the \"Palladium of British liberty\" becomes a\nmockery of justice. \"Legal judgment of his peers,\" says Magna Charta; but\nwhen an exceptional man blunders into the dock, is he ever accorded a\npanel of his equals? Things are no better in France. When Flaubert was\narraigned for his \"Madame Bovary,\" he did not get a box of men of\nletters, though there is so much more sense of art in the citizens of\nParis, that even by the bourgeois jury he was acquitted without a stain\non the character of his book. The central figure of our English episode\nhad nothing so creditable as an immoral book to his charge, but\nindirectly the relations of art and morality came into question, and he\ndeclared that he followed Pater, the one critic he recognised, in\nbelieving that there were no relations between art and morality, that a\nbook could not be immoral, but might be something worse--badly written.\nNow, this is the favourite doctrine of Chelsea, and doubtless something\nmay be said for it; but to put it forth, as the doctrine of Pater is a\nlibel--almost a criminal libel--on that great writer. These young men who\nlive for the Beautiful have only understood as much of Pater as would\njustify epicurean existence.\n\nLet us examine this pretension of the prophet of the importance of being\nflippant, to be a disciple of Pater.\n\nNo doubt Pater was something of an Impressionist in his philosophy of\nlife. An eloquent expounder of the Heracletian flux, [Greek: panta rei],\nof the relativity of systems of thought and conduct, and of the duty of\nseizing the flying moments--\"failure in life is to form habits,\"--he did\nnot omit, like his one-sided disciples, to consider the quality of those\nmoments. It was the _highest_ quality you were to give to your moments as\nthey passed; to fail to do this was \"on this short day of frost and sun\nto sleep before evening.\" (\"The Renaissance.\") \"Marius the Epicurean\" was\nnot an Epicurean in the sense in which the doctrines of Epicurus have\nbeen travestied through the ages: he turned away sickened from the\nbarbarities of the gladiatorial combats, longing for the time when the\nforces of the future would create a heart that would make it impossible\nto be thus pleasured. If \"_Carpe diem_\" is Pater's motto, the hour is not\nto be plucked ignobly; if style is his watchword in art, style alone\ncannot make great Art, though it may make good Art. The distinction,\nbetween good Art and great Art depends immediately _not on its form_ but\non its matter. \"It is on the quality of the matter it informs or\ncontrols, its compass, its variety, its alliance to great ends, or the\ndepth of the note of revolt, or the largeness of hope in it, that the\ngreatness of literary art depends, as 'The Divine Comedy,' 'Paradise\nLost,' 'Les Mis\u00e9rables,' the English Bible, are great art.\" (\"Essay on\nStyle.\") Your Chelsea manikin would never dream of these things as great\nart: his whole soul is expressed in ballads and canzonets, in strange\nesoteric contes, in nocturnes and colour-symphonies, in the bric-\u00e0-brac\nof aesthetics. Furthermore let the _soi-disant_ disciples ponder this\nexplicit statement of the Master: \"Given the conditions I haye tried to\nexplain as constituting good art,--then, if it be devoted further to the\nincrease of men's happiness, to the redemption of the oppressed, or the\nenlargement of our sympathies with each other, or to such presentment of\nnew or old truth about ourselves and our relation to the world as may\nennoble and fortify us in our sojourn here, or immediately, as with\nDante, to the glory of God, it will also be great Art.\" Yes, if Pater\nprotested against \"the vulgarity which is dead to form,\" he was no less\ncontemptuous of \"the stupidity which is dead to the substance.\"\n(\"Postscript to Appreciations.\") If he fought shy of the Absolute, if he\ndenied \"fixed principles,\" and repudiated \"every formula less living and\nflexible than life\" (\"Essay on Coleridge\"), he could still sympathise\npassionately with Coleridge's hunger for the Eternal.\n\nSo much for the literary art. But even in painting, where the\nself-sufficiency of style is proclaimed somewhat more speciously, the\npurveyor of Chelsea ware will find scant countenance in the adored\nMaster. Nowhere can I find him preaching \"Art for Art's sake,\" in the\njejune sense of the empty-headed acolytes of the aesthetic. With him the\nformula was for the _spectator_ of art; it has been misapplied to the\n_maker_ of art. Pater's studies of the great pictures of the Renaissance\nare, if anything, rather too much taken up with their intellectual\ncontent, and their latent revelation of the temper of the time and the\nartist. No, these young men are no disciples of Pater. In their\nresoluteness to live in the Beautiful (which is not always\ndistinguishable from the Bestial), they have forgotten the other items of\nthe trinity of Goethe, they have lost sight of the True and the Whole. It\nis Whistler who is the prophet of the divorce of Art from Life, of the\nantithesis of Art and Nature. When Whistler said, \"Another foolish\nsunset,\" he spake the word that called into being all these \"degenerate\"\nparadoxes, though I am not sure but what Mr. Sydney Grundy was before him\nin creating a stage-manager who thinks meanly of the moons and the scenic\nbackgrounds of real life. It is a good joke, this of Nature paling before\nArt, or reduced to plagiarising Art,--\"Where, if not from the\nImpressionists, do we get those wonderful brown fogs that come creeping\ndown our streets, blurring the gas lamps and changing the houses into\nmonstrous shadows?\"--but as the basis of a philosophy of Art it palls.\nThe germ of truth in it is that metaphysically these effects may be said\nnot to have existed till artists taught us to see and to look for them.\nBut, after all, wise old Shakespeare has the last word:\n\n        Nature is made better by no mean\n  But Nature makes that mean: so o'er that Art,\n  Which you say adds to Nature, is an Art\n  That Nature makes.\n\nBut these things are not for the British jury. Pater, the literary\nartist, however, one is more driven to praise than to appraise. This\nexquisite care for words has something of moral purity--as well as\nphysical daintiness in it. There is indeed something priestly in this\nconsecration of language, in this reverent ablution of the counters of\nthought, those poor counters so overcrusted with the dirt of travel, so\nloosely interchangeable among the vulgar; the figure of the stooping\ndevotee shows sublime in a garrulous world. What a heap of mischief M.\nJourdain has done by his discovery that he was talking prose all his\nlife! Prose, indeed! Moliere has much to answer for. The rough,\nshuffling, slipshod, down-at-heel, clipped, frayed talk of every-day life\nbears as much relation to prose as a music-hall ditty to poetry. The name\n\"prose\" must be reserved for the fine art of language--that fine art\nwhose other branch is poetry. It is a grammarians' term, \"prose,\" and\nbelongs not to the herd. They do not need it, and it would never have\ncome into M. Jourdain's head or out of his mouth, had he not taken a\ntutor. And yet the delusion is common enough--even with those to whom\nMoliere is Greek--that prose is anything which is not poetry. As well say\nthat poetry is anything which is not prose. Of the two branches of the\nart of language, prose is the more difficult. This is not the opinion of\nthose who know nothing about it. They fancy a difficulty about rhymes and\nmetres. 'T is all the other way. Rhymes are the rudders of thought; they\nsteer the poet's bark. He cannot get to Heaven itself without striking\n\"seven,\" or mixing up his meaning with foreign \"leaven.\" His shifts to\navoid these shifts are pathetic to a degree. He flounders about twixt\n\"given\" and \"levin,\" and has been known to snatch desperately at\n\"reaven.\" Of all fraudulent crafts commend me to the poet's. He is a\nparagon of deceit and quackery, a jingling knave. 'T is a game of _bouts\nrim\u00e9s_, and he calls it \"inspiration.\" No wonder Plato would have none of\nhim in his Republic, even though Plato's poets were guiltless of rhyme\nand slaves only to metre. But the metre of verse, too, is a friend to\nthought, and its enemy. It is like wheels to a cart; not unsagaciously is\nPegasus figured with wings. He flies away with you, and you are lulled by\nthe regular flap, flap of his pinions, and his goal concerns you little.\nThe swing and the rush of the verse compensate for reason, and it is\nwonderful how far a little sense will fly when tricked out with fine\nfeathers. Even in stately, rhymeless decasyllabics the march and music of\nthe verse help a limping thought along like a sore-footed soldier\nstriding to the band. But the prose-writer has none of these advantages.\nHe is like an actor without properties. His thoughts do not go along with\na flutter of flags and a blare of trombones. Nor do they glide upon\ncastors. They must needs lumber on after a fashion of their own, and if\nthere is a music to their ambulation it must be individual, neither in\ncommon nor in three-eight time, but winding and quickening at will, with\nno strait symmetry of antiphonal bars. There is nothing to tell you the\nwriter has made \"prose\"--as the spacing and the capital letters invite\nyou to look for poetry. He has to depend only upon himself. This is why\nblank verse--which approaches prose most nearly--is so much more\ndifficult to write than rhymed verse, though it looks so much easier and\nmore tempting to the amateur. Are we not justified, then, in taking the\nlogical step further, and saying that prose, which strips itself of the\nlast rags of adventitious ornament, and which tempts the amateur most of\nall, is the highest of all literary forms, the most difficult of all to\nhandle triumphantly? May we not compare the music of it--that music which\nwe get in Ruskin and in Pater--to the larger rhythms to which the savage\ndrum-beat has developed? Rhythm is undoubtedly an instinct, but\ncivilisation brings complexity. From the tom-tom to the tune, from the\ntune to the symphony. In the vaster reaches and sweeps of the rhythm of\nprose there is a massive music as of Wagnerian orchestras. Anybody can\nenjoy the castanet-play of rhymes; half your popular proverbs clash at\nthe ends; \"the jigging of our rhyming mother-wits\" is on everybody's\nlips. But for the blank verse of \"Paradise Lost\" there is only \"audience\nfit, though few\"; and as for the music of prose, so little is it\nunderstood that critics vaguely aware of it had to invent the term \"prose\npoet\" when they found the stress of passion and imagination effervescing\ninto resonant utterance. On the other hand, there are those who do not\nacknowledge Pope as a poet. The essence of the long-standing quarrel is a\nconfusion. From the point of view of form there is only one kind of\nwriter to be recognised--the artist in words. Of him there are two\nvarieties: the artist who uses rhyme and metre, and the artist\nwho--wilfully or through impotence--dispenses with them. From the point\nof view of matter there is the artist with \"soul\" and the artist without\n\"soul.\" \"Soul\" is shorthand for that mysterious something the absence of\nwhich urges people to deny Pope the title of poet. They feel the\nintangible something is not there, \"the consecration and the poet's\ndream.\" But with the conventional distinctions, there is no name left for\nPope, if he is not a poet. The truth is that he was an artist in\nwords--as masterly as the Mantuan himself, though without that golden\ncadence and charm which keep Virgil a poet by any classification. On the\nother hand, Carlyle, who had such scorn of the rhyming crew, was himself\na poet to the popular imagination, though to us he will be an artist in\nprose _plus_ soul. There are, thus, really two classes of writers:\n\n    I. Prose-Artists.\n    II. Verse-Artists.\n\nEach of these splits up into two kinds, according as the writer has or\nlacks \"soul.\" Or, if you think \"soul\" the more important differentia, we\nwill say there are artists with \"soul\" and artists without \"soul,\" and\nthat some of each sort work in prose and some in verse. But the\nclassification is a crass one, and the English language unfortunately\ndoes not possess words to express the distinctions, while the ambiguous\nassociations of the word \"prose\" increase the difficulty of inventing\nthem. We do not even possess any equivalent of the French \"prosateur,\"\nthough I see no reason why \"prosator\" should not be used. Without\nneologisms, and avoiding the ambiguous adjective \"prosaic,\" and using\n\"poetic\" to express \"soulfulness\" and not the handling of metres, we get\n\n\n1. Poetic Verse-Artists. (Poets.)\n\n2. Non-Poetic Verse-Artists. (Verse-Writers.)\n\n3. Poetic Prose-Artists. (Prose Poets.)\n\n4. Non-Poetic Prose-Artists. (Prose Writers.)\n\n\nKeats is a verse poet, Pope a verse writer, Buskin a prose poet, and\nHallam a prose writer.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe two great writers of our day who have sinned most against the laws of\nwriting are Browning and Meredith, the one in verse, the other in prose.\nI speak not merely of obscurities, to perpetrate which is in\nevery sense to stand in one's own light, but of sheer fatuities,\ntweakings-of-the-nose to our reverend mother-tongue, as either might have\nexpressed it. But what I am most concerned to suggest here is that the\ndistinction between prose and poetry (using prose to mean artistically\nwrought language) will not survive investigation. The popular instinct\nhas long ago seen that the vital thing is the _matter_--that it is\nprofanity to call that \"poetry\" which is only verse; it remains to be\nrecognised that even the distinction of form rests only on the\nnon-recognition of the rhythm of \"prose,\"--a rhythm that is not metre in\nso far as metre has the sense of regular measure, but may for all that\nhave laws of its own, which await the discoverer and the systematiser.\n\nThe affinity of prose-rhythms is, I have hinted, with the higher\ndevelopments of music, which, compared with the simple tunes of the\nstreet, are as apparently lawless and unlicensed as is prose compared to\nverse. And as it is not poets who follow laws, but precede them--as\ntrochee and iambic, alcaic and hexameter, are the inventions of\ngrammarians following on the trail of genius--so it behoves the Aristotle\nwho would discover the laws of the rhythm of prose to study the masters\nof the art, masters by instinct and a faultless ear and the grace of God,\nand endeavour by patient induction to wrest from their sentences the\nsecrets of their harmonies. Who will write the prosody of prose?\n\nIt is sad to have to declare that the bulk of contemporary writers lie\noutside all these classifications. They are artists neither in prose nor\nverse, and though they may have \"soul,\" they cannot make it visible. For\n\"soul\" may be expressed equally through painting and sculpture and music\nand acting, audits dimly discerned presence can scarcely convert slipshod\nwriting into literature. No one would accept as art a picture in which a\ngleam of imagination struggled against the draughtsmanship of the\nschoolboy to whom arms are toasting-forks, or applaud an actor who might\nbe brimming over with sensibility but could command neither his voice nor\nhis face. No one has any business to come before the public who has not\nstudied the medium through which he proposes to exhibit his \"soul\":\nunfortunately this is the age and England is the country of the amateur,\nand in every department we are deluged with the crude. The fault lies\nless with the amateur than with the public before which he presents\nhimself, and which, incompetent to distinguish art from amateurishness,\nis as likely to bless the one as the other. Of all forms of art\nliterature suffers most; for the pity is, and pity'tis't is true,\neverybody learns to talk and write at an early age. This makes the\ntransition to literature so fatally easy. _Facilis descensus Averni!_ To\npaint, one must at least know how to mix colours and handle a brush; to\ncompose, one must be familiar with the meaning of strayed spiders' legs\non curious parallel bars, and there are strange disconcerting rumours of\n\"orchestration.\" But to produce literature you have simply to dip pen in\nink or open your mouth and see what God will give you. Hence particularly\nthe flood of novels, hence the low position of the novel; although, as\nTheodore Watts has pointed out, it is practically the modern Epic. I have\nmet distinguished students of Greek texts who have never conceived of the\nnovel as a work of art, or as anything beyond the amusement of an idle\nhour--something for the women and the children. One such told me he would\nnot read \"The Mill on the Floss\" because it ended unhappily. I must\nconclude he has only read Aeschylus for his examinations. Acting stands\nnext to literature in its seductiveness. The actor's instrument is his\nbody, and everybody has a body. If, in addition to a \"body,\" the creature\nconceives himself to possess a \"soul,\" the odds are there will be\nlaughter for the \"gods.\" I tremble for the time when the popular\neducationist shall have had his way and every child be seised of the\nrudiments of drawing. We shall see sights then. At present, despite the\nhorrors of the galleries and the widespread ignorance of art, painting\ncannot compete with literature as a misunderstood art. For the\npublic--which is the only critic that counts in the long run--does not\ndemand grammar, much less style; and the novel of the season may bristle\nwith passages that could be set for correction at examinations in\nEnglish. It is a little thing, but it seems to me significant, that the\nannouncement of terms of the local branch of Mudie's, in the little town\nat which I am writing these lines, runs thus:\n\n    The subscription for one set entitles the subscriber to one complete\n    work at a time, whether in one, two, or three volumes, and can be\n    exchanged as often as desired.\n\n\n\n\nXXIV\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF NAMES\n\nFar-fetched as the idea seems that names and characters have any\ninterconnection, yet no great writer but has felt that one name, and one\nalone, would suit each particular creation. The tortures and travels that\nBalzac went through till he found \"Z. Marcas\" are well known. So is the\nagony of Flaubert on hearing that Zola was anticipating him in the name\nof Bouvard, which it had cost Flaubert six years' search to find. Zola's\nmagnanimity in parting with it deserves a _fauteuil_. Somebody in the\nprovinces told me that his minister had preached upon the subject of\nnames, laying it down that in every name lurked a subtle virtue,--or\nvice; the former the bearer of the name was in duty bound to cultivate,\nthe latter to root out. Fantastic as this speculation be, even for a\nminister, no one doubts that people's names may have an influence upon\ntheir lives; and, in the case of the Christian name at least, children\nought to be protected by the State against the bad taste and the cruelty\nof their parents. More certainly than the stars our names control our\ndestinies, for they are no meaningless collocation of syllables, but have\ndeep-rooted relations with the history and manner of life of our\nancestors. The Smiths were once smiths, the Browns dark in complexion;\nand so, if we could only trace it, every name would reveal some inner\nsignificance, from Adam (red earth) downwards. Why do publishers tend to\n\"n\" in their names'? Some of the chief London publishers run to a final\n\"n\"--Macmillan, Longman, Chapman; Hodder & Stoughton; Hutchinson & Co.;\nSampson Low, Marston & Co.; Lawrence & Bullen; Fisher Unwin; Heinemann.\nThe last, indeed, is nothing but \"n\" sounds; such a name could not escape\ntaking to publishing. I find also in the publishers' lists T. Nelson &\nCo.; Eden, Remington & Co.; Henry Sotheran; John Lane; Effingham Wilson;\nInnes & Co. (as fatal as Heinemann); George Allen & Co.; Osgood,\nMcIlvaine & Co.; Gardner, Darton & Co. Sometimes the \"n\" is prominent at\nthe beginning or in the middle, as in Henry & Co.; Ward & Downey;\nConstable & Co.; Digby, Long & Co.; Arnold; G. P. Putnam's Sons; Kegan\nPaul, Trench, Tr\u00fcbner & Co. (wherein each partner boasts his separate\n\"n\"); Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier (wherein there are at least three\n\"n\"s); John C. Nimmo; Edward Stanford; Gibbings & Co.; Chatto & Windus;\nNisbet & Co. When the \"n\" is not in the surname, at least the Christian\ncontains the indispensable letter, as John Murray, Elkin Matthew.\n\nEven when it can find refuge nowhere else the \"n\" creeps into the \"and\"\nof the firm or into the \"Sons.\" The very Clarendon Press has the\ntrademark. Who is the stock publisher of the eighteenth century? Tonson!\nWho were the first publishers of Shakespeare? Condell & Heminge.\n\nAnd while publishers run mysteriously to \"n,\" authors run with equal\npersistency to \"r\"--in their surnames for the most part, but at least\nsomehow or somewhere.\n\nWho are our professors of fiction to-day? Hardy, Meredith, Blackmore,\nBarrie, Rudyard Kipling, Walter Besant (and James Rice), George Moore,\nFrankfort Moore, Olive Schreiner, George Fleming, Henry James, Hamlin\nGarland, Henry B. Fuller, Harold Frederic, Frank Harris, Marion Crawford,\nArthur Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard, Miss Braddon, Sarah Grand, Mrs. Parr,\nGeorge Egerton, Rhoda Broughton, H. D. Traill, Jerome K. Jerome, Barry\nPain, W. E. Norris, Crockett, Ian Maclaren, Robert Barr, Ashby Sterry,\nMorley Roberts, Mabel Robinson, F. W. Robinson, John Strange Winter, Du\nMaurier (late but not least to follow his lucky \"r\"), Helen Mathers,\nHenry Seton Merriman, etc., etc.\n\nWho were the giants of the last generation? Thackeray, Charles Dickens,\nCharles Reade, George Eliot, Bulwer Lytton, Charlotte Bront\u00eb, Trollope,\nDisraeli.\n\nWho are our prophets and thinkers? Carlyle, Ruskin, Emerson, Darwin, John\nStuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Froude, Freeman.\n\nWho are the poets of the Victorian era? Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson,\nAlgernon Charles Swinburne (\"r\"-ed throughout), D. Gabriel Rossetti,\nChristina Rossetti, Matthew Arnold, William Morris, Robert Buchanan,\nAndrew Lang, Robert Bridges, Lewis Morris, Edwin Arnold, Alfred Austin,\nNorman Gale, Richard Le Gallienne, Philip Bourke Marston, Mary F.\nRobinson, Theodore Watts, etc., etc.\n\nWho are the dramatists of to-day? Grundy, Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones, W.\nS. Gilbert, Haddon Chambers, Comyns Carr, Carton, Raleigh, George E. Sims\n(mark the virtue of that long-mysterious \"r\").\n\nAnd who in the past have done anything for our prose dramatic literature?\nSheridan and Oliver Goldsmith, and, earlier still, Congreve, Wycherley,\nFarquhar, and Vanbrugh. Nay, which are the mighty names in our\nliterature? Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Herrick, Dryden,\nAlexander Pope, Butler, Sterne, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Walter\nScott, Robert Burns.\n\nYou may even look at the greatest names in the world's literature. Homer,\nVirgil (Maro), Horace, Firdusi, Omar Khayyam, Cervantes, Calderon,\nPetrarch, Rabelais, Dante Alighieri, Schiller, Voltaire, Rousseau,\nMoliere, Corneille, Racine, Honore de Balzac, Flaubert, Victor Hugo,\nVerlaine, Heinrich Heine.\n\nOf course there are not a few minus the \"r,\" as Milton, Keats, Goethe,\nSwift, etc., etc.\n\nThere seems indeed to be a sub-species of \"sons\"--Ben Jonson, Dr.\nJohnson, William Watson, John Davidson, Austin Dobson. Nevertheless there\nis an overwhelming preponderance of \"r\" sounds in the names of the\nworld's authors. What is the underlying reason? Is there a certain rugged\nvirility in the letter, which made it somehow expressive of the nature of\nthe original owners? \"N\" is certainly suave and plausible in comparison,\nand might well produce a posterity of publishers. What adds some colour\nto the suspicion is that, when writers have chosen _noms de guerre_, they\nhave frequently--though all unconsciously--taken names in \"r.\" This\nexplains why all the lady novelists run to \"George.\" Publisher _versus_\nauthor may now be expressed symbolically as N/R, N over R, the N of money\nover the R of art.\n\nWith our artists I find a less strong tendency to \"l's\" as well as to\n\"r's,\" and it is therefore only appropriate that a Leighton should long\npreside over the Royal Academy, a Millais be its chief ornament, and\nfinally its head, and a Whistler its chief omission; that constable and\nWalker should be the glory of English art, that Reynolds should be our\nnational portrait-painter, and Landseer our animal-painter, and Wilkie\nour domestic painter. Turner made up for his surname by the superfluity\nof \"l's\" in his William Mallord, Raphael starts as an R. A., while\nMichael Angelo, with his predominance in \"l's,\" is rightly king of art.\nThe absence of \"l\" in Hogarth's name and the strong presence of \"r\" of\ncourse denotes that the satirist was more of a literary man than an\nartist. The \"r\" in Whistler, on the other hand, clearly indicates the\nliterary faculty of the author of \"The Gentle Art of Making Enemies.\" And\nif Du Maurier's real future was hinted in his orthography, Leech and\nTenniel and Phil May and Linley Sambourne have vindicated their \"l's.\" So\nhave Luke Fildes, Alma Tadema, H. T. Wells, G. D. Leslie, John Collier,\nVal Prinsep, Solomon J. Solomon, Frank Bramley, Phil Morris, Calderon,\nLeader, Nettleship, Seymour Lucas, Waterlow, William Strutt, Albert\nMoore, W. W. Ouless, C. W. Wyllie, Sir John Gilbert, Louise Jopling,\nOnslow Ford, and even W. C. Horsley. There are only three foreign\nAcademicians at the time of writing, but they all boast the \"l.\"\n\nWith musicians there is a tendency to \"m's\" and \"n's,\" which sounds\nharmonious enough, Mendelssohn, Massenet, Mascagni, Mackenzie, Schumann,\nhave both letters; Mozart but one. Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, Saint-Sa\u00ebns,\nSullivan, Charles Salaman, Edward Solomon, Frederic Cowen, run \"n\"-wards\nwith the unanimity of publishers, while Gounod, Stanford, Audran,\nSebastian Bach, Donizetti, work in the \"n\" otherwise, and Wagner has the\nlibrettist's \"r\" in addition. Would you play the piano? You must have the\n\"n\" of the piano, like Pachmann, Rubinstein, Rosenthal, Hofmann,\nFrederick Dawson, Madame Schumann, Fanny Davies, Agnes Zimmermann,\nLeonard Borwick, Nathalie Janotha, Sapellnikoff, Sophie Menter. Even for\nother instruments, including the human voice divine, the \"n\" is\nadvisable. Paganini, Jenny Lind, Norman N\u00e9ruda, Christine Nilsson--all\npatronized it largely. Adelina Patti, Johannes Wolf, and many others make\na \"Christian\" use of it. If, on the other hand, you wish to manufacture\npianos your chance of founding a first-class firm will be largely\nenhanced if your name begins with \"b.\"\n\nActors, like authors, roll their \"r's\"; and if their names are\npseudonyms, so much the greater proof that some occult instinct makes\nthem elect for that virile letter. Who are our leading actors and\nactor-managers? The double-r's: Henry Irving, Herbert Beerbohm Tree (two\npairs), Forbes-Robertson, George Alexander, Arthur Roberts, Edward S.\nWillard, Edward Terry, Charles Brookfield, Wilson Barrett, Fred Terry,\nFred Kerr, Charles Warner, W. Terriss, George Grossmith, Charles Hawtrey,\nArthur Bourchier (two pairs). Scarcely any leading actor lacks one \"r,\"\nas Charles Wyndham, Cyril Maude, Louis Waller, etc., etc. Those without\nany \"r's\" may console themselves with the memory of Edmund Kean, though\nGarrick--a name almost wholly compact of \"r\"--is the patron saint of the\nstage.\n\nThe ladies follow the gentlemen. From Ellen Terry and Winifred Emery to\nAda Rehan and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, from Rose Leclercq and Marie\nBancroft to Marion Terry and Irene Vanbrugh, few dare dispense with the\n\"r.\"\n\nBut I have said enough. I have opened up new perspectives for the curious\nand the philosophic, which they may follow up for themselves. Here is a\nfresh field for faddists and mystagogues. Already I have proved as much\nas many systems of mediaeval philosophy which strove to extract the\nessence of things from the study of words and letters. Already I have\ncollected more evidence than the sectarians of the Shakespeare-Bacon.\nBacon write Shakespeare, indeed! A man without an \"r\" to his name,\npointed out by his \"n\" for a publisher, and, indeed, not without some of\nthe characteristics of the class. Seriously, the truth is that l, m, n,\nand r are the leading letters in name-making; but still there does seem\nto be more in the coincidence to which I have drawn attention than mere\naccident explains.\n\n\n\n\nXXV\n\nAUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS\n\nIt is done. The publishers have formed a League. The poor sweated victims\nof the author's greed have at last turned upon the oppressor. Mr. Gosse,\non a memorable occasion, confusedly blending the tones of the prophet of\nrighteousness with the accents of the political economist, admonished the\ngreedy author that he was killing the goose with the golden eggs. And now\nthe goose has resolved to be a goose no longer. The Authors' Society, a\nsort of trade union, has been answered by the creation of a Publishers'\nUnion, with all the delightful potentialities of a literary lock-out. It\nis time, therefore, for a person without prejudice to say a word to both\nsides.\n\nWith the spirit which prompted the creation of the Authors' Society,\nLiterature has nothing to do. To define Literature exactly is not easy.\nTo say at what point words become or cease to be literature is a problem\nsimilar in kind to the sophistical Greek puzzle of saying at what point\nthe few become many. Perhaps we shall find a solution by looking at the\ngenesis and history of written words. Literature, we find, began as\nreligion. The earliest books of every nation are sacred books. Herbert\nSpencer dwells on the veneration which the average person feels for the\nprinted word, his almost touching belief in books and newspapers. \"I read\nit in a book\" is equivalent to saying \"It is certainly true.\" The great\nphilosopher has failed to see that this instinct is a survival from the\ntimes when the only books were holy books. The first book published in\nEurope, as soon as printing was invented, was the Latin Bible--the\nMazarin Bible as it is called; and it is the Bible which is responsible\nfor the belief in print. Despite the degradation of the printed word\nto-day, there is something fine in this tenacious popular instinct, as\nthere is something ignoble in all Literature which palters with it. The\nLiterature of every country is still sacred. The books of its sages and\nseers should still be holy books to it. The true man of letters always\nwas and must always be a lay priest, even though he seem neither to\npreach nor to be religious in the popular sense of those terms. The\nqualities to be sought for in Literature are therefore inspiration and\nsincerity. The man of letters is born, not made. His place is in the\nTemple, and it is not his fault that the moneychangers have set up their\nstalls there. But, in addition to these few chosen spirits, born in every\nage to be its teachers, there is an overwhelming multitude of writers\ncalled into being by the conditions of the time. These are the artists\nwhom Stevenson likened to the \"Daughters of Joy.\" They are cunning\ncraftsmen, turning out what the public demands, without any priestly\nconsciousness, and sometimes even without conscience, mere tradesmen\nwith--at bottom--the souls of tradesmen. Their work has charm, but lacks\nsignificance. They write essays which are merely amusing, histories which\nare only facts, and stories which are only lies.\n\nThe capacity of the world for reading the uninspired is truly\nastonishing, and the hundred worst books may be found in every\nbookseller's window. Would that it were of books that Occam had written:\n\"Non sunt multiplicandi praeter necessitatem\"! The men who produce these\nunnecessary books perform a necessary function, as things are. Why should\nthey be less well treated than bootmakers or tailors, butchers or bakers\nor candlestick makers? Why should they not get as much as possible for\ntheir labours? Why should they not, like every other kind of working-man,\nfound a Labour Union? Indeed, instead of censuring these authors for\ntrying to obtain a fair wage, I feel rather inclined to reproach them for\nnot having more closely imitated the methods of Trades-Unionism, for not\nhaving welded the whole writing body into a strong association for the\nenforcement of fair prices and the suppression of sweating, which is more\nmonstrous and wide-spread in the literary than in any other profession\nwhatever. Such an organisation would be met by many difficulties, for\nwriting differs from other species of skilled labour by the immense\ndifferences of individual talent, while from professions in which there\nare parallel variations of skill, _e.g._, law and medicine, it differs by\nthe fact that there is no initial qualification (by examination)\nattesting a minimum amount of skill. Not even grammar is necessary for\nauthorship, or even for successful authorship. Besides which, writing is\ndone by innumerable persons in their spare time--Literature is a world of\ninky-fingered blacklegs. Thus, writing admits neither of the union-fixed\nminimum wage of the manual labourer, nor of the etiquette-fixed fee of\nthe professional; so that the methods of the trade union are only\npartially applicable to the ink-horny-handed sons of toil. But even the\npossible has not yet been achieved, so that the current idea of an\norganization of the writing classes, against which publishers have had to\ngird up their loins to fight, has very little foundation. There is\nnothing but a registered disorganisation. What the publishers are really\nafraid of is not a Society, but a man, and that man a middle-man? no\nother than that terrible bogey, the agent, who drinks champagne out of\ntheir skulls.\n\nSo much for the author-craftsman. But what of the author-priest? Do the\ncommercial conditions apply to him? Certainly they do--with this\nimportant modification, that, while with the author-craftsman the\ncommercial conditions may justly regulate the matter and manner of his\nwork, with the author-priest the commercial conditions do not begin until\nhe has completed his work. The state of the market, the condition of the\npublic mind--these will have no influence on the work itself. Not a comma\nnor a syllable will he alter for all the gold of Afric[*]. But, the\nmanuscript once finished, the commercial considerations begin. The\nprophet has written his message, but the world has yet to hear it. Now,\nwe cannot easily conceive Isaiah or Jeremiah hawking round his prophecies\nat the houses of publishers, or permitting a smart Yankee to syndicate\nthem through the world, or even allowing popular magazines to dribble\nthem out by monthly instalments. But the modern prophet has no housetop,\nand it is as difficult to imagine him moving his nation by voice alone as\narranging with a local brother-seer to trumpet forth the great tidings\nsimultaneously at New York in order to obtain the American copyright.\nEven if he should try to teach the people by word of mouth, there will be\nbare benches unless he charges for admission, as all lecturers will tell\nyou. People value at nothing what they can get for nothing; and, as\nStevenson suggested, \"if we were charged so much a head for sunsets, or\nif God sent round a drum before the hawthorns came in flower, what a work\nshould we not make about their beauty!\" No, the prophet cannot escape the\ncommercial question. For, in order that his message may reach his age, it\nmust be published, and publication cannot be achieved without expense.\n\n[* Transcriber's note: So in original.]\n\nTolsto\u00ef himself, who gives his books freely to the world, cannot really\nsave the public the expense of buying them. All he sacrifices is that\ncomparatively small proportion of the returns which is claimed by the\nauthor in royalties; he cannot eliminate the profits of the publisher,\nthe bookseller, etc., etc. For between the message and its hearers come a\ngreat number of intermediaries, many of them inevitable. We will assume\nfor the purposes of our analysis that our prophet is already popular. The\nhearers are waiting eagerly. Here is the manuscript, there are the\nreaders. Problem--to bring them together. This is the task of the\npublisher. Incidentally, the publisher employs the printer, bookbinder,\netc.; but this part of the business, though usually undertaken by the\npublisher, does not necessarily belong to him. He is essentially only the\ndistributor. In return for this function of distribution, whether it\nincludes supervising mechanical production or not, the publisher is\nentitled to his payment. How much? Evidently, exactly as much as is made\nby capital and personal service in business generally. The shillings of\nthe public are the gross returns for the book. These have to be divided\nbetween all the agents employed in producing the book--author, printer,\nbinder, publisher, bookseller, etc. This is not literally what happens,\nbut it is arithmetically true in the long run. How much for each?\nEvidently just as much as they can each get, for there is no right but\nmight and nothing but tug-of-war. There is nothing absolute in the\npartition of profits: infinite action and reaction. While the costs of\nthe mechanical part are comparatively stable, the relation of author and\npublisher oscillates ceaselessly; and while the cautious publisher by the\nmultiplicity of his transactions may rely upon an average of profits,\nlike all business men plucking stability out of the heart of vicissitude,\nthe author has no such surety. Between merit and reward there is in\nliterature no relation. Just as the music-hall singer may earn a larger\nincome than the statesman, so may the tawdry tale-teller drive the\nthinker and artist out of the market.\n\nThe artistic value of a book is therefore absolutely unrelated to the\ncommercial value; but such commercial value as there is--to whom should\nit fall if not to the author? Like the other parties, he has a right to\nall he can get. You will say it is very sordid to think of money; you\nwill speak of divine inspiration; you would rather see him go on the\nrates; to save him from base reward you even borrow his books instead of\nbuying them; you cannot understand why he should prefer an honest\nCopyright Act to a halo. Good! Put it that I agree with you. It is sordid\nto sell one's muse. One should be like Mr. Harold Skimpole, and let the\nbutcher and the baker go howl. The thought of money sullies the fairest\nmanuscript. The touch of a cheque taints. Good again! _Only_, when the\ngreat poem is written, when the great novel is done, _there is money in\nit_! Who is to have this money? The author? Certainly not. We are agreed\nhis soul must be kept virgin. _But why the publisher?_ (Above all, why\nthe American publisher?) Why not the printer? Why not the binder or the\nbookseller? Why not the deserving poor? None of these will be defiled by\nthe profits. Why should the money not be used to found a Lying-in\nHospital, or an Asylum for Decayed Authors, or a Museum to keep Honest\nPublishers in? Why should not authors have the _kudos_ of paying off the\nNational Debt? If they are to be the only Socialists in a world of\nindividualists, let them at least have the satisfaction of knowing their\nmoney is applied to worthy public purposes.\n\nBut I do _not_ agree with you. \"The best work at the best prices\" is no\nunworthy motto. The Authors' Society, indeed, tries to put this non-moral\nprinciple of valuation upon an ethical basis. It says, for instance, that\nif the publisher reckons his office expenses in the cost of production,\nthen the author has a right to reckon his, even including any journeys or\nresearches he may have had to make in order to write his book. But this\nright is not only an ethical fallacy: it is a politico-economical one,\nbecause the economical question is only concerned with the _distribution_\nof the work, and the money or the heart's blood that went to make it has\nnothing to do with the question, while the publisher's office expenses\nare of the essence of the question. Some authors also claim that the\npublisher has no right to make successful books pay for unsuccessful. But\nhere again he has every right. The publisher is not a piece-worker; he\nhas to keep a large organization going, involving ramifications in every\ntown. It is the existence of this network, of this distributive\nmechanism, that enables the successful book to be sold everywhere; and\nthe publisher, like every business man, must allow percentages for bad\ndebts and unprofitable speculations. Publishers have a right to capture\nthe bulk of the profits of authors' first books, because they largely\nsupply the author with his public. It is surprising how even good books\nhave to be pressed on an unwilling world, much as cards are forced by\nconjurers. The number of people that select their books by their own\nfree-will is incredibly small. On the other hand, when a popular author\nbrings a publisher a book, it is he who improves the publisher's\ndistributing agency, by bringing him new clients, and even sometimes\nstrengthening his position with booksellers and libraries, by enabling\nhim, armed with a book universally in demand, to fight against deductions\nand discounts throughout his business generally. And, just as the\npublisher may rightly depress the profits of an unknown author, so the\npopular author has a moral right to larger royalties--which right,\nhowever, would avail him nothing were it not backed by might. It is in\nthe competition of rival publishers that his strength lies.\n\nAnd here comes in the question of the agent. Publishers may rave as they\nwill, but authors have every right to employ agents to save them from the\nunpleasant task of chaffering and of speaking highly of themselves. And\nit is the author who pays the agent, not the publishers, their whinings\nnotwithstanding. The agent may indeed squeeze out larger sums than\npublishers like to disgorge, but how can he obtain more than the\nmarket-value? Political economy is dead against the possibility. He\ncannot, in fact, obtain more than the author may and frequently does\nobtain for himself. If a competing publisher offers a larger sum than\nwill pay him in coin, at any rate he will not offer more than will pay\nhim in reputation, or in the extension of his _client\u00e8le_ on the lines\nindicated above. It is still only the market-value. If the reputation\nhonourably built up by the labours of years comes to have a monetary\nvalue outside the monetary value of the particular book--a sort of\ngoodwill value, in fact,--why should the author or his agent be abused\nfor obtaining it? Will not the publisher in his turn grind down the\nunknown man to the lowest possible penny? The prostration of the\npublisher before the celebrity is only equalled by his insolence toward\nthe obscure. Is there any author who has not suffered in his beginnings\nfrom the greed of publishers? Far from making money at the start, how\nmany authors have got a hearing without having had to pay for it out of\ntheir own pockets? \"The wrongs of publishers\" is a good red-herring to\ndraw across the track, a smart counter-cry. But publishers have still the\ngame in their hands all along the line. Not a few still keep their\naccounts secret, still recklessly supply themselves with that opportunity\nwhich, the proverb says, makes even honest men thieves. As for\nAmerica--what goes on across that week of ocean who dares conjecture? And\nnow, what with rumors of wars and free silver--ah me!\n\nIn forming a Masters' Union, the publishers have at last abandoned the\npretence of being swayed by any but pecuniary considerations in the\nexercise of their high function. There is something refreshing in this\nclearing of the air, in this abandonment of the Joseph Surface manner.\nAnd yet, I confess, my heart shelters a regret for the old style of\npublisher, as for the old style of author. Something of picturesque\nclings even to Jacob Tonson, with \"his two left legs.\" The publisher as\nthe patron of genius, the nurser of young talent, the re-inspirer of old,\nthe scholar and gentleman, at once the friend and the banker of his\nauthors, makes a pleasing figure. It was perhaps more ideal than real,\nfor even of Murray we read in \"Lord Beaconsfield's Letters \": \"Washington\nIrving demanded a large price. Murray murmured. Irving talked of\nposterity and the badness of the public taste, and Murray said that\nauthors who wrote for posterity must publish on their own account.\"\nStill, if the publisher would live up to this ideal, his would remain an\nhonorable profession, instead of sinking to a trade. He would rank with\nthe rare theatrical manager to whom art is dearer than profit--if such a\none still survives. But the trail of business is over the age: the\ntheatrical manager is a shameless tradesman, and more and more the\npublisher will become the mere distributer, if indeed he be not\neliminated by a mechanical organisation. The popular author needs only a\ncentral store to supply the trade with his printed writings, the cost of\nproduction of which is covered by the first day's sales. This is, of\ncourse, to ignore the publisher in his aspect of initiator of series, art\nbooks and encyclopaedias. But to originate is to depart from publishing\nproper and to become entitled to the profits of the inventor; nay, almost\nto step over into the province of authorship and the dignity thereof.\n\nBut if we can forgive the publisher for succumbing to the business spirit\nof the age, we cannot as readily acquiesce in the huckstering spirit that\nhas crept over literature. The \"battle of the books\" has become one of\naccount-books, and the literary columns of the newspapers bristle with\npecuniary paragraphs. Even the \"chatter about Shelley\" was better than\nthe contemporary gossip about the takings of authors, for the most part\nvastly exaggerated. A paragraph which must have inflated him with pride\nled to a friend of mine being haled up before the Income Tax\nCommissioners. \"How long have you been an author?\" he was asked in\naddition. \"Six years,\" he replied. \"And you have only paid income tax for\nfive!\" was the horrified exclamation. Here is the nemesis of all this\nfoolish fuss about _L. S. D._ The British mind now supposes authorship to\nbe a trade, like any other. You go into it, and you at once begin to make\na regular income; and, once successful, you go on steadily earning large\nsums, automatically. The thing works itself. You are never ill or\nuninspired; you are never to let your mind lie fallow, never to travel\nand gather new inspiration, never to shut up shop and loaf. You simply go\non making so much a year--for do not the papers say so? And that you\nshould cherish the immoral sentiments contained in the following stanzas,\nas at least two authors of my acquaintance do, is simply incredible to\nthe envious Philistine.\n\n  THE AUTHOR TO THE SYNDICATOR.\n\n  Thou lord, of bloated syndicates,\n    Thou master of the mint,\n  Who payest at the highest rates\n    And takest without stint,\n      Go back, go back to wild New York,\n        Go back across the sea;\n      Go, corners make in beans and pork,\n        No corners make in me.\n\n  For thou art 'cute and thou art smart,\n    No dead flies hang on thee;\n  Thou carest not one jot for Art,\n    But only _L. S. D._\n      Go 'back, go back, etc.\n\n  Thy aims are low, thy profits high;\n    Thy mind is only bent,\n  Whatever live, whatever die,\n    To scoop in cent per cent.\n      Go back, go back, etc.\n\n  To thee the greatest authors are\n    Those who most greatly sell;\n  But he whose soul is as a Star--\n    Why, he may go to H-ll!\n      Go back, go back to wild New York,\n        Go back across the sea;\n      Go, corners make in beans and pork,\n        No corners make in me.\n\nAn author's income must be indeed difficult to adjudge. He is the\nmanufacturer of a patent article--which only he can turn out. But he is\nalso the vendor thereof, and his transactions involve sales of serial--as\nwell as of book-rights synchronised in two or more countries--a tedious\nand delicate task. And a great part of his business--\"the tributes that\ntake up his time,\" the MSS. he has to read, etc., etc.--must be conducted\nentirely without profit, or rather must be run at a loss. Who can\ndetermine what are the working expenses of so complex an industrial\nenterprise? An artist subtracts the cost of his models: may an author\nsubtract the cost of the experiences which supply him with his material,\nand, if so, how are they to be estimated? Mr. Conan Doyle and Mr. Anthony\nHope both write historical novels; but while the former buys and studies\nlarge quantities of books, and travels to see castles and battlefields,\nthe latter professedly works from intuition. Are both these men's incomes\nto be treated alike? Goethe deliberately fell in love so as to write\npoems when the passion had subsided: how much should be deducted from his\ngross returns to cover the working expenses of his love-affairs? And even\nwhen we do not go about it in such cold blood, our art--is it not woven\nof our pain and our passion, our \"emotions recollected in tranquility\"?\nDo these emotions cost us nothing? Do they not \"wear and tear\" our\nsystem, justifying us in writing off 5 per cent. for depreciation in our\nmachinery? Countless are the problems that arise out of this new view of\nauthorship as an exact trade. Scientifically speaking, the author is a\npieceworker, whose productiveness is fitful and temporary. However widely\nthe fame of his business extend, he cannot extend it; he cannot increase\nhis output by adding new clerks or new branches: every order received\nmeans work for his own brain and his own hands. If he keep other hands\nthey are called ghosts, and such ghosts are frowned upon even by the\nPsychical Society.\n\nNo, the more I think of it, the more it is borne in upon me that authors\nshould be exempted from income tax altogether--if, indeed, the income\nitself should not rather be provided for them (free of duty) by a\ngrateful Government. Carlyle is said to have claimed exemption on the\nground that the earnings of a writer are incalculable: it seems to me\nthat it is rather the working expenses which are incalculable. \"I\nsometimes sit and yearn for anything in the shape of an income that would\ncome in,\" wrote poor sick Stevenson on a languorous summer afternoon,--by\nthe way, I hope his doctors' expenses were deducted from his gross\nreturns, as incurred in order to keep the writing machinery going; or did\nhe perchance fly to Samoa to escape the tax altogether?--\"Mine has all\ngot to be gone and fished for with the immortal mind of man. What I want\nis the income that really comes in of itself, while all you have to do is\njust to blossom and exist, and sit on chairs.\" Poor R. L. S.!--does it\nnot make you think of \"mighty poets in their misery dead\"? Does it\nnot--if you are more prosaic--bring home to you the absurdity of taxing\nprofessional incomes as though they were akin to those which \"come in\" to\nthe happy folk who have but \"to blossom and exist and sit on chairs\"? And\nwill you not, whoever you are, rejoice that the work done with so much\nart and conscience and suffering, obtained, in Stevenson's latter days,\nits highest possible money-reward through the much-abhorred Agent? Why do\nnot millionaires hear of the woes of authors and send them anonymous\nbank-notes? Why do not \"national testimonials\" happen in the author's\nlifetime in the shape of purses of gold? They are more digestible than\nposthumous stones. Alas! the author's path is thorny enough. And it is\nagainst this jaded, unhappy creature that the publishers have had to make\na Union! Well, well, there will soon be no Authors' Union except the\nWorkhouse.\n\n\n\n\nXXVI\n\nTHE PENALTIES OF FAME\n\nThere is one form of persecution to which celebrity or notoriety is\nsubject, which Ouida has omitted in her impassioned protest. It is\ninterviewing carried one step further--from the ridiculous to the sublime\nof audacity. The auto-interview, one might christen it, if the\nofficiating purist would pass the hybrid name. Yon are asked to supply\ninformation about yourself by post, prepaid. The ordinary interview,\nwhatever may be said against it, is at least painless; and, annoying as\nit is to after-reflection to have had your brain picked of its ideas by a\nstranger who gets paid for them, still the mechanical vexations of\nliterature are entirely taken over by the journalist who hangs on your\nlips; though, if I may betray the secrets of the prison-house, he often\nexpects you to supply the questions as well as the answers. But when you\nare asked to write your life for a biographical dictionary, or to\ncommunicate particulars about yourself to a newspaper, it is difficult,\nhowever equable your temperament, not to feel a modicum of irritation. It\nis not only the labour of writing and the cost of stamps that anger you.\nYour innate modesty is outraged. How is it possible for you to say all\nthose nice things about yourself which you know to be your due, and which\na third person might even exaggerate? What business have editors to\nexpose you to such inner conflict? A scholar I knew suffered agonies from\nthis source. He was constantly making learned discoveries which nobody\nunderstood but himself, and so editors were always pestering him to write\nleaderettes about them. He got over the difficulty by leaving blanks for\nthe eulogistic adjectives, which the editors had to fill in. As thus:\n\"Mr. Theophilus Rogers, the ---- savant, has unearthed another papyrus in\nAsia Minor which throws a flood of light on the primitive seismology of\nSyria.\" Once a careless editor forgot to fill in the lacuna, and the\npaper lost a lot of subscribers by reason of its improper language,\nwhilst the friends of Theophilus wanted him to bring an action for libel,\nunconscious that it would lie against himself.\n\nBut perhaps the climax of irritation is reached when, having troubled to\nwrite down autobiographical details, having wrestled with your modesty\nand overthrown it, having posted your letter and prepaid it, the ----\neditor rejects your contribution without thanks. This hard fate overtook\nme--_moi qui vous parle_--not very long ago. The conductor of a penny\njournal, not unconnected with literary tit-bits, honoured me with a\ntriple interrogatory. This professional Rosa Dartle wanted to know--\n\n    (1) The conditions under which you write your novels.\n\n    (2) How you get your plots and characters.\n\n    (3) How you find your titles.\n\nI was very busy. I was very modest. But the accompanying assurance that\nan anxious world was on the _qui vive_ for the information appealed to my\nhigher self, and I took up my pen and wrote:--\n\n    (1) The conditions under which I write my novels can be better\n    imagined than described.\n\n    (2) My plots and characters I get from the MSS, submitted to me by\n    young authors, whose clever but crude ideas I hate to see wasted. I\n    always read everything sent to me, and would advise young authors to\n    encourage younger authors to send them their efforts.\n\n    (3) As for my titles, they are the only things I work out myself, and\n    you will therefore excuse me if I preserve a measure of reticence as\n    to the method by which I get them.\n\n\"What is being interviewed like?\" a young lady once asked me, unconscious\nshe was subjecting me to the process. \"It is being asked what you\ndrink--and not getting it,\" I explained to her. The curiosity of the\ninterviewer is indeed boundless. He even asks which is your favourite\nauthor, so that you are forced to advertise some other fellow. And yet\nthere is another side to the question, which Ouida ignores. There are two\nperiods in the life of successful persons--the first when they are\nanxious to be interviewed, the second when people are anxious to\ninterview them. With some there thus arrives a third period, in which\nthey are anxious not to be interviewed, but this is rare. Doubtless there\nare superior persons who never craved for fame even in their callow\nyouth, and possibly Ouida herself may have taken to authorship as an\nelaborate means of diverting attention from herself. But the majority of\nmortals, being fools by edict of Puck and Carlyle, are pleased to fly\nthrough the lips of men. Even Tennyson, whose horror of the interviewer\nalmost reached insanity, whose later life was one long \"We are observed:\nlet us dissemble,\" is said to have been disappointed when the casual\npedestrian took no notice of him at all. A lady in the Isle of Wight told\nme that the great poet was wont to put his handkerchief over his face if\nhe met anybody. Naturally this would make the most illiterate person stop\nand gaze and wonder who this merry-andrew might be. Assuredly this is not\nthe fine simplicity of manners one expects from a great man. \"Earl, do\nyou wear one of these?\" asked an American democrat of an English peer at\nhis table, as he produced a coronet from a cupboard and stuck the\npudding-dish upon the inverted spikes. Tennyson seemed to be always\nconscious of his laurel crown. The nobler course had been to deck his\npuddings with the sprigs.\n\n  Kind hearts are more than laurel crowns,\n  And simple mien than Saxon song.\n\nOuida does a public service by insisting that it is presumptuous of the\ncrowd to judge the conduct of men of genius, whose life is pitched in\nquite a different key, and runs very frequently in the melancholy minor\nmode. The travail of soul, the workings of the mind, the agonies and the\nraptures of genius must be so remote from the common ken, that it is\nunjust to apply to it the vulgar meteyard; and so, far be it from me to\nblame the inspired singer of \"Crossing the Bar,\" or to imagine that he\ncould have been other than he was! All the same, it is permissible to\nregret that he should have throughout his life pandered to the popular\nconception of a poet. There was something of a robuster quality in\nBrowning, who managed to be a seer and a mystic in despite of afternoon\nteas. Ouida beats the tom-tom far too loudly. From one point of view the\npost-mortem revelations of great men's friends, which kindle her ire,\nperform a public good, even if at the expense of a private wrong. The\nattempt to apotheosise human nature, to invest our kindred clay with\ntheatrical glamour and to drape it from the property-room, this mythical\ncreation of \"a magnified non-natural man,\" what is it all but the\nperpetuation of the false psychology of the past? There is no durable\ngood in this childish \"make-believe.\" It is time for humanity to outgrow\nthis puerile self-deception about its powers and characteristics and\nlimitations. A great man is a man as well as great, and he may be all the\nwonderful things that Carlyle claimed without ceasing to be human and\ntherefore erring. And if he would go about simply and naturally, without\ndeveloping a self-consciousness as vast and unhealthy as the liver of a\ngoose intended for _p\u00e2t\u00e9_, he would be happier and wiser, and secure the\ninattention he yearns for. Moreover, while Ouida is rightly intolerant of\nthe abuse of genius by the bourgeois, the dictionary scarcely affords her\nown genius sufficient vituperation for the bourgeois. I am at a loss to\nunderstand by what logic genius gains the right to hate the bourgeois. It\nhas not the excuse of the bourgeois--stupidity. That the crowd hates\nsuperiority and is venomously anxious to degrade it to its own level, is\none of Ouida's many delusions about life. Discounting vulgar curiosity, a\ngood deal of the crowd's interest in genius, however annoying and\nridiculous the shapes it takes, springs at bottom from a sense of\nreverence and admiration; and surely it is sheer priggishness, if it be\nnot rank midsummer madness, on the part of genius to regard itself as\npersecuted by foolish and malicious persons. Methinks the lady doth\nprotest too much. Still it would be unjust to deny her perfect seclusion\nfrom the world, if she feels she needs it.\n\nPerhaps the mildest form of persecution is that of the autographomaniacs.\n\"They send me my own books,\" one of the most popular authors in England\ncomplained to me pathetically the other day, \"and they ask me to write in\nthem. But to write in them is all that you can do for the books of your\nfriends. If you do this for strangers, what is there left for your\nfriends?\" Although far less beloved of the book-buyer than the\nillustrious novelist, I could yet offer him the sympathy of a minor\nfellow-sufferer. It is the American reader who is the main persecutor. He\nis not \"gentle,\" forsooth--a very bully, rather. But why do I say \"he,\"\nwhen it is generally \"she\"? \"You have eluded all my wiles hitherto,\" she\nwrote me the other day: \"now I ask you straight out for your autograph.\"\nThis honesty would have softened me had I not just had to pay fivepence\non the letter--and for the second time that day! Of course her request\nwas not accompanied by a stamped envelope either, though, if it had been,\nthe stamp would have been an American; invalid, a pictorial irony. She\nhas a trick, moreover, of addressing you--most economically--care of your\nAmerican publishers, who expedite the letter with vengeful\n_empressement_, so that you pay double at your end of the Atlantic. And\nwhen everything else is in order, her epistle is insufficiently stamped,\nand your income is frittered away in futile fivepences. It is too much.\nThe cup is full. We must no longer bow our necks beneath the oppressor's\nyoke, no longer tremble at the postman's knock. _We_ must strike,\ninstead--we other men of letters. For authors, too, are human: manual\nlabourers, overworked and underpaid, with no hope of an eight hours' day.\nTheir pay must not be still further reduced by this monstrous stamp-tax.\nWill not some Burns--more poetical than John--raise the banner of revolt?\nPerhaps William Morris may reconcile his hitherto contradictory _r\u00f4les_\nby placing himself at the head of the movement. Henceforward no author is\nto despatch his autograph to an admirer, charm she never so cunningly.\nBeshrew these admirers! a man's personality is in his books, not in his\nscrawl. Whosoever violates this prescription shall be accounted a\nblackleg. On one condition only shall autographs be sent--to wit, that\nthey be paid for.\n\nI do not, indeed, propose that the author shall pocket the money, though\nI see no shame in the deed: everything is worth what it can fetch, and if\nan adventitious value comes to attach to a signature, the author were\namply justified in pocketing this legitimate supplement to the scanty\nrewards of his travail of soul and body--just as he were justified,\nshould locks of his hair come into demand, in alternating the scissors\nand the hair-restorer. But as a suspicion still prevails that authors\nlive on ambrosia and nectar (carriage paid), that the butcher, the baker,\nand the candlestick maker tumble over one another in their eagerness to\noffer their goods at the shrine of genius, it may be unwise to shock\none's admirers too much by pocketing their oboli; and I would suggest--in\nall seriousness--that a charge be made in the future for all autographs:\neach celebrity could fix it according to the special demand, and the\nreturns should go for charitable purposes. An \"Autograph Fund\" should be\nfounded in every profession admitting of notoriety. Among actors the fund\ncould be devoted to that excellent charity the Dramatic and Musical\nBenevolent Fund; among writers, to the support of decayed critics and\nneglected novelists. Why not? In days when men cannot bear to see even\nNiagara wasting its energies in misdirected roars, why should so prolific\na source of profit as autographomania be neglected? The authors' strike\nmust be initiated at once: the Autograph Fund demands an instant\nTreasurer. I don't mind contributing ten signatures to start it, if\ntwelve other writers, of equal eminence and illegibility, will guarantee\na like amount.\n\nWhat profits it to woo the thankless Muse, or to appeal to the\nautograph-huntress? In a foolish moment of unpardonable sentimentality, I\nsuggested that she should pay for her treasure by a charity contribution;\nat the very least let her refrain, I prayed, from American stamps. But\nshe does not read me, alas! though my writings are the sole solace of her\ndays and nights; there is no way of attracting her attention. Still,\nstill her stamps flow in. I cry _Oyez, Oyez_, but she is bent over\n\"Trilby,\" and I am but the shadow of a name--of a name that is\ninteresting enough tacked on to my favourite motto or a brief\nautobiography, and may serve to round off her autographic alphabet. Will\nnot Mr. Du Maurier cry aloud to her on behalf of his brother-authors, he\nwhose housetop is the sun, whose voice reaches from the summits of the\nRockies to the pampas of La Plata, and echoes from the ice-floes of\nLabrador to the cliffs of Cape Horn? Will he not tell her that even as\n\"the crimes of Clapham\" are \"chaste in Martaban,\" so the stamps of the\nStates are the waste-paper of the London mails. Mr. Kipling, whom I have\njust quoted, is more fortunate. Breathing the air of Brattleboro',\nVermont, he is supplied with native stamps to carry on his correspondence\nwithal. For Mr. Kipling--so he has confided to me in an amusing narrative\nof his autograph experiences, designed for the warning of\nfellow-craftsmen to whom my project may have sounded seductive--had\nactually anticipated my plan: he had sent out two hundred circulars to\nthe admiring crew who ranked him before Shakespeare, proposing that they\nshould send him a donation for a charity in return for his signature.\nThen the flood-gates--not of heaven--were opened. For weeks abuse rained\nin upon him, and \"thief\" seems to have been the mildest rebuke he\nreceived. To be asked for an autograph was an honour (even with the\nstamps omitted). He bowed his head beneath the deluge, praying perhaps--\n\n  Of the two hundred grant but two\n  To take a charitable view.\n\nBut no, as one man and one woman they cast him out of grace.\n\nAnd yet he seems to persevere--for 't is indeed an excellent way of\ncircumventing the wily. In the Chicago _Record_ I read that he wrote to\nan autograph-beggar that he would send his autograph on receiving proof\nthat the autograph-hunter had deposited two and a half dollars in a\ncertain New York fresh air fund. This is an ingenious variation of the\noriginal scheme, for it puts aside the possibility of personal\npeculation; but I doubt whether it answers. Each celebrity must solve for\nhimself this harassing problem: there be those who simply stick to the\nstamps ... great free spirits, these, the Napoleons of the pen, _Jenseits\nvon Gut und B\u00f6se_, whose names it is not for me to bewray. Others, like\nmyself, stricken with the paralysis of a Puritan conscience, waver and\nvex themselves. One ought not to encourage this craze for the external\naccidents of greatness--the appeal may be fraudulent--and yet what right\nhave you to the stamps?--and after all 't is flattering to be adored from\nTerra del Fuego; it argues taste--and taste should not go unrecognized in\na Philistine world. _Eureka!_ I have found the solution. Don't stick to\nthe stamps, but send _them_ to the funds of a charity.\n\nThese views of mine on autographs have greatly distressed the unfair sex.\nThe ladies--God bless them--resent a severely logical view of anything,\nand to disturb their small sentimentalities is to be cold-blooded and\ncynical. Once, when I wasj imprudent enough to wonder if the \"young\nperson\" with the well-known cheek, to which blushes were brought, existed\nany longer in this age of neurotic novels written by ladies for\ngentlemen, I received a delicious communication from an Australian damsel\ninforming me that she had been in love with me up till the fatal day on\nwhich she read my cynical conception of her sex,--which reminds me of\nanother well-meaning young lady who wrote me the other day from America\nthat her epistle was prompted \"neither by love nor admiration.\" If I hint\nthat popular lady novelists do not invariably produce masterpieces of\nstyle and syntax, I am accused of inflicting the \"tarantulous bites of\nenvious detractors.\" I am driven--most reluctantly--to a suspicion that\nhas long been faintly glimmering in my bosom, a suspicion that ladies\nhave no sense of humour. It is gravely pointed out to me by incensed\nwriters of incense-laden letters that the demand for a writer's autograph\nis a mark of veneration; that his letter is reverentially handed about on\nspecial occasions quite without a thought of its possible commercial\nvalue and that often--though here the argument itself becomes cunningly\ncommercial--it becomes the focus of a local hero-worship that expresses\nitself outwardly in increased purchases of the author's books. Now, of\ncourse every author is only too aware that requests for his autographs\nare manifestations of reverence, and is only too apt to disregard the\nsupposition of crude curiosity. He knows that it is only natural that\npeople, forewarned by the scarcity of autographs of Shakespeare, should\nbe anxious to safeguard posterity against a similar calamity. But that\nany author should have humour enough to see the absurdity of the\nautograph mania, this is what his fair _client\u00e8le_ has not humour enough\nto understand. Anthony Hope--who, by the way, told me he had received a\nletter from an unknown lady, the object of which was to abuse _me_ for my\nheresy on this heart-burning question--says that if to write his name on\nslips of paper adds to the sum of the world's pleasure, he is ready to do\nit. This is a noble attitude; but the good people do not always do the\nmost good. Ought one to pamper this interest in mere externals? Here are\nthe man's books, pictures, symphonies: if these have profited you, be\ncontent--you have had enough. He has shown you his soul,--why should he\nshow you his hand? One knows into what this sort of thing\ndegenerates--into the exploitation of celebrities by smart American\njournalists, to whom genius and notoriety are equally alike mere\npossibilities of sensational copy with screaming head-lines. A. Z. has\nwritten the opera of the century: the public is dying to know the cut of\nhis trousers and the proportion of milk in his _caf\u00e9 au lait_. X. Y. has\nmurdered his uncle and vivisected his grandmother: how interesting to\nascertain his favourite novel, and whether he approves of the bicycle for\nladies! For one person who knows anything of the artistic output of the\nday there are ten who know all about the producers and how much money\nthey are making. Even when our interest in artistic work is intellectual,\nwe are more likely to read criticisms of it than to place ourselves\n_vis-\u00e0-vis_ with the work. Not the truest criticism, not the subtlest\nmisinterpretation, can give us anything like the sensation or the\nstimulus that results from direct contact with the work itself. As well\nenjoy the \"Moonlight Sonata\" through a technical analysis of its form.\nBut this is a venial vice compared with taking your Sonata through the\nmedium of a paragraph about Beethoven's shoe-buckles.\n\nThe autograph craze is, I maintain, only another aspect of this modern\nmania for irrelevant gossip; just as the tit-bits breed of papers is but\nthe outer manifestation of an inner disgrace. We no longer tackle great\nworks and ordered trains of thought: everything must be snappy and spicy;\nand we open our books and papers, awaiting, like the criminal in \"The\nMikado,\" \"the sensation of a short sharp shock.\" To possess a man's\nautograph may as easily become a substitute for studying his work as an\nincentive to purchasing it. The critique displaces the book itself: the\nautograph may displace even the critique. All this without reference to\nthe trouble and expense entailed by an aggregation of the trivial\ntaskwork of signing one's name, addressing envelopes, sticking on stamps,\nand occasionally paying for them, and not infrequently defraying the\nextra postage on insufficiently stamped admiration. Henry James, in his\nlatest story in \"The Yellow Book,\" says deliciously: \"Lambert's novels\nappeared to have brought him no money: they had only brought him, so far\nas I could make out, tributes that took up his time.\" The earnings of the\nmost popular authors are, I fear me, sadly exaggerated, and their own\nanticipations seldom realised. As the other American novelist--Mr.\nHowells--humourously puts it: \"I never get a cheque from my publisher\nwithout feeling distinctly poorer.\" The average author is indeed very\nmuch in the position of a cabman surveying a shilling. And the even less\nsubstantial \"tributes,\" be it noted, are not limited to aspirations after\nautographs. That would be little to grumble at. But everybody knows that\nthe demands made upon a celebrity--and especially upon an author--are\n\"peculiar and extensive.\" He is expected to be not only an author--and\neven, according to the more high-minded among the unsuccessful critics,\nto be that without fee or reward--but also to officiate gratuitously as\npublisher's reader to the universe at large--unprinted; as author's\nagent, hawking unknown MSS. about among his friends the publishers, and\nplacing unknown young men on the staff of the leading journals; as\ndramatic agent, introducing plays and players to his friends the\nmanagers--who will not produce his own works; and, in fine, to act as\ngeneral adviser to aspirants of every species. Nay, was not Hall Caine\nrecently asked by a lady admirer in poor health, about to visit the Isle\nof Man, to find lodgings for her? Heavens! who knows what scandal might\nhave arisen had the author of \"The Manxman\" inconsiderately turned\nhimself into a house-agent! The famous tale of the Nova Scotian sheep in\n\"The School for Scandal\" might have been eclipsed by the sequel. Now, the\npoor lady meant well enough: she may even have thought to show how deep\nher faith in the novelist's domestic genius and financial impeccability!\nIt simply did not occur to her that she was not the only call upon Mr.\nCaine's time; and she may have felt as resentful at his reluctance as the\nbeggar who stigmatises Rothschild as niggard because he cannot wheedle a\nshare in his bounty. It may be that I am incapable of envisaging this\nwhole matter fairly, because--to make a clean breast of it--I am one of\nthose Philistine persons who shock Americans by never having been to\nStratford-on-Avon. It is true that I have read Shakespeare--and even his\ncommentators, which gives me the pull over Shakespeare himself; it is\ntrue that I agree with the persons who haven't read him that he is the\ngreatest poet the world has ever seen or is likely to see; it is true\nthat Shakespeare is part of my life and thought; but somehow my interest\nin him does not extend to his second-best bed, and I do not greatly yearn\nto see the room in which Bacon was not born. I do not even care whether\nShakespeare was written by Shakespeare or \"by another man of the same\nname.\" Do you remember that poem of Amy Levy's, telling of how she sat\nlistening to people chattering about a dead, poet they had known, his\nlooks and ways, and thinking to herself--\n\n  I, who had never seen your face,\n  Perhaps I knew you best.\n\nIt is this flaw in an otherwise well regulated mind, this \"blind spot\" in\nmy spiritual eye, that perhaps makes me attach undue unimportance to the\nattraction of autographs. There is an eminent actress who invariably\nrefuses to send her autograph; but the eminent actor who is her husband\ninvariably sends a letter of apology to the disappointed correspondent.\nSince I am in the mood for confessions, let me candidly admit that my own\nattitude has a somewhat similar duality. Though I curse in these pages, I\nbless like Balaam when it comes to the point. Never have I omitted to\nreturn a sufficiently stamped, envelope with the coveted\nsign-manual--never twice alike. Never have I failed to put my name in a\nbirthday book under a specific date--never twice alike. And though I hate\nto answer applications for autographs, I should be still more annoyed not\nto receive them. And as for sneering at the ladies, they have, I vow, no\nmore constant admirer. I could, indeed, desire that when they are next\nangry with me they would read me before they criticise me; that they\nwould base their denunciations on my text, and my whole text, rather than\non some paper's mistaken comment upon another paper's inaccurate extract.\nBut nothing that they can say of me, however harsh, shall, I protest,\nabate a jot of my respect for them or myself.\n\n\n\n\nXXVII\n\nON FINISHING A BOOK\n\nBetween three and four of the morning the last words of the book were\nwritten, and, putting down my pen--without falling asleep, as I should\nhave done had my task been to read the book, instead of to write it--I\nbegan to muse on the emotions I ought to have felt, and on the emotions\nother and greater authors had felt. There was a time, \"in the days that\nwere earlier,\" when the writing of a book was a rare and solemn task, to\nbe approached--like the writing of \"Paradise Lost\"--after years of devout\nand arduous preparation, under the \"great Taskmaster's eye.\" Now it is\nall a rush and a fever and a fret, and the mad breathlessness of the New\nYork newspaper office has spread from journalism to literature, and\nnovelists cheerfully contract to write books in the next century, quite\nunregardful of whether there will be any books in them by then. That was\na very leisurely prescription in the Old Testament: \"When a man taketh a\nnew wife he shall not go out in the host, neither shall he be charged\nwith any business; he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer his\nwife which he hath taken.\" Delightful honeymoon of those pastoral days!\nNow the honeymoon has dwindled to a week, or in the case of actors and\nactresses to a matinee (for they appear at night as usual), and few of us\npossess sufficient oxen and sheep and manservants and maidservants to\nstrike work for a year. If only our authors would produce but one book a\nyear, instead of yielding two or three harvests to make hay withal while\nthe sun shines! Nor do they do these things much better in France. From\nthe patient parturition of a Flaubert--the father of the Realists--we\nhave come down to the mechanical annual crop of his degenerate\ndescendant, Zola. Perhaps the age of great works--like the age of great\nfolios--is over, so that none will ever have again those fine sensations\nthat made Gibbon chronicle how he finished his monumental history between\nthe hours of eleven and twelve at night in the summer-house at Lausanne,\nor that dictated the stately sentiment of Hallam's wind-up of his\n\"Introduction to the Literature of Europe\": \"I hereby terminate a work\nwhich has furnished, the occupation of not very few years.... I cannot\naffect to doubt that I have contributed something to the general\nliterature of my country, something to the honourable estimation of my\nown name and to the inheritance of those, if it is for me still to\ncherish that hope, to whom I have to bequeath it.\"\n\nThackeray must have felt something of this fine glow when he finished\n\"Vanity Fair,\" despite his genial simulation of \"Come, children, let us\nshut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.\" Dickens,\nwho had not humour enough for such self-mockery, took his endings very\nseriously indeed, and even in the middle of his books had all the\nemotions of parting when some favourite character had to quit the stage,\nsome poor Dombey or Little Nell. You remember what he wrote in the\npreface to \"David Copperfield\" of \"how sorrowfully the pen is laid down\nat the close of a two-years' imaginative task, or how an author feels as\nif he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world,\nwhen a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever.\"\nAnd contrast his superfluously solemn asseveration, \"No one can ever\nbelieve this narrative in the reading more than I believed it in the\nwriting,\" with the whimsical melancholy of the \"Vanity Fair\" preface, the\nreferences to the Becky doll and the Amelia puppet. One feels that\nThackeray was the greater Master, in that he took himself less seriously,\nand had the finer sense of proportion. But that he lived with his\ncharacters quite as much as his great contemporary may be seen from that\ncharming Roundabout Paper \"De Finibus,\" where he describes the loneliness\nof his study after all those people had gone who had been boarding and\nlodging with him for twenty months. They had plagued him and bored him at\nall sorts of uncomfortable hours, and yet now he would be almost glad if\none of them would walk in and chat with him as of yore--\"an odd,\npleasant, humourous, melancholy feeling.\" In how much more solemn a mood\nDickens finishes \"Our Mutual Friend,\" congratulating himself on having\nbeen saved--with Mr. and Mrs. Boffin and the Lammles, with Bella Wilfer\nand Rogue Riderhood--from a destructive railway accident, so that he\ncannot help thinking of the time when the words with which he closes the\nbook will be written against his life--\"The End.\" Thackeray needed no\nrailway accident to remind him of \"The End,\" and two lines before the\nclose of \"Vanity Fair\" we find him writing--in the prime of his life,\n\"Ah, _vanitas vanitatum_! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us\nhas his desire, or, having it, is satisfied?\" That thought occurred to\nGibbon, too, for he had not taken many turns under the silver moon in\nthat coveted walk of acacias, enjoying the spectacle of the lake and the\nmountains, and the recovery of his freedom and the establishment of his\nfame, before a sober melancholy was spread over his mind by the idea that\nhe \"had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and\nthat whatsoever might be the future fate of his history, the life of the\nhistorian must be short and precarious.\" When George Eliot put the last\nstroke to \"Romola,\" the book which \"ploughed into her more than any of\nher books,\" which she \"began as a young woman and finished as an old\nwoman,\" she exclaimed in her diary--\"_Ebenezer!_\" O unpredictable\nejaculation! _Ebenezer!_ 'T is true the erudite Miss Evans had Hebrew an\nknew that it meant \"a stone of help.\" And in the evening she went to her\n\"La Gazza Ladra.\" Let us hope that some false persuasion of the\nimmortality of \"Romola\" counteracted that bodily malaise and suffering of\nwhich she complained to Sara Hennell. Such pleasant persuasion buoyed up\nFielding, as he wrote the beginning of the end of \"Tom Jones,\"--that\nalmost endless epic,--for with a last fling at the critics he cries: \"All\nthese works, however, I am well convinced, will be dead long before this\npage shall offer itself to thy perusal; for however short the period may\nbe of my own performances, they will most probably outlive their own\ninfirm author, and the weakly productions of his abusive cotemporaries.\"\n\nBut it is rather the tradition of Trollope that rules to-day--Trollope,\nthat canny craftsman who wrote every day for a stated number of hours,\nand who, if he finished a novel twenty minutes before the end of his\nterm, would take up a clean sheet of paper and commence another. Did I\nsay the canny Trollope? Nay, this is rather uncanny, unearthly, unhuman.\nWhat! You have lived with your characters day and night for months and\nmonths, have thought their thoughts and been racked by their passions,\nand you can calmly wind up their affairs and turn instanter to a new\ncircle of acquaintances? 'T is the very coquetry of composition, the\nheartless flirtation of fiction-mongering. Thackeray, indeed, confesses\nto liking to begin another piece of work after one piece is out of hand,\nwere it only to write half a dozen lines; but \"that is something towards\nNumber the Next,\" not towards Book the Next, for these old giants wrote\nfrom hand to mouth. I have always figured to myself Trollope's novels as\nall written on a long endless scroll of paper rolled on an iron axis,\nnailed up in his study. The publishers approach to buy so many yards of\nfiction, and shopman Anthony, scissors in hand, unrolls the scroll and\nsnips it off at the desired point. This counter-jumping conception of the\nMuses prevails with the customers to-day, with the editors who buy\nfiction at so much a thousand words. Carlyle--Heaven preserve me from\nfinishing a book as he did his \"French Revolution,\" to lose it and write\nit all over again!--had the truer idea when he suggested that authors\nshould be paid by what they do _not_ write. But it was reserved for the\nlibraries to reach the lowest conception of literature. Their clients\nenjoy the privilege of having so many books at a time, a book being a\nbook just as an orange is an orange. If the book the reader wants is not\nthere, why, there is another book for him to take; by which beautiful\nsystem the good writer reaps very little advantage over the mediocre, for\nindifferent books are forced upon the public as the conjuror forces cards\non people who think they are choosing them. It is a wonder the libraries\ndo not purvey their literature by the pound.\n\n\n\n\nPART II.\n\nHERE, THERE, AND SOMEWHERE ELSE: PHILOSOPHIC EXCURSIONS.\n\n[The following pages are not intended as a substitute for Baedeker or\nMurray. Nor can I solicit your interest on the ground of new places and\nstrange discoveries. To the philosophic tourist all places are equally\ngood to soliloquise in; and in inviting you to accompany my excursions I\nneed scarcely explain that the route is not according to Bradshaw but to\nthe A. B. C., and that you may break the journey at any point.]\n\n\n\n\nABERDEEN\n\nCritics of London allow too little for the charm of irregularity and\nhistorical association--for odd bits and queer views coming unexpectedly\nround the corner to meet one, for strange ancient gardens and fragments\nof field in the backways of Holborn, for quaint waterside alleys and\nold-world churches in out-of-the-way turnings--for everything, in fact,\nthat has the charm of natural growth. If I had my way, I would not give\nup Booksellers' Row for a thousand improvements in the Strand. Where\nshall you find a more piquant peace than in the shady quadrangles that\nbranch out of the bustle of Fleet Street, and flash a memory of Oxford\nspires or Cambridge gardens on the inner eye? What spot in the world has\ninspired a nobler sonnet than Wordsworth's on Westminster Bridge? Who\nwould exchange our happy incongruity for the mechanical regularity of the\nmushroom cities of the States? Paris has, no doubt, made herself\nbeautiful; but she could have afforded not to be, much better than she\ncan afford to be. The theorist holds up Glasgow as a model city--a\npioneer--and the splendour of its municipal buildings is as the justice\nof Aristides. But if an ugly woman does not dress well, who should? With\nall its civic spirit, Glasgow remains grey, prosaic, intolerable--the\nchampion platitude of commercial civilisation. Aberdeen would have been a\nfar finer example of the schematic city of which theorists dream. There\nis something heroic about the spaciousness of its streets, the loftiness\nof the buildings, and the omnipresence of granite--a Tyrtaean spirit,\nwhich finds its supreme embodiment in the noble statue of Wallace poised\non rough craglets of unpolished granite, and of General Gordon with his\nmartial cloak around him. If Edinburgh be the Athens of Scotland,\nAberdeen is its Sparta. And yet after a while Aberdeen becomes a\nweariness and an abomination. For you discover that it is one endless\nseries of geometrical diagrams. The pavements run in parallel lines, the\nhouses are rectilineal, the gardens are squares or oblongs; if by chance\nthe land sprawls in billocks and hollows, nevertheless is it partitioned\nin rigid lines. The architecture is equally austere. The very curves\ndemonstrate the theorem that a curve is made up of little straight lines,\nthe arches are stiff and unbending, and wherever a public building\ndemands an ornament, a fir-shaped cone of straight lines rises in stoic\nseverity. In vain one seeks for a refuge from Euclid--for an odd turning\nor a crooked by-way. To match the straight-ness of their streets and the\ngranite of their structures the Aberdonians are hard-headed,\nclose-fisted, and logical (there is a proverb that no Jew can settle\namong them), and when they die they are laid out neatly in a rectangular\ncemetery with parallel rows of graves. Even when they stand about\ngossiping they fall naturally into geometric figures: if two disconnected\nmen are smoking silently in the roadway, they trisect it; and if another\nman arrives he converts the company into an equilateral triangle. I am\nconvinced the moon shrinks from appearing in Union Street except it is in\nperfect quarters, and hides timidly behind a cloud unless its arcs are\npresentable. Professor Bain was born in Aberdeen. This accounts for much\nin our British metaphysics. Aberdeen produced the man who vivisected\nShelley's \"Skylark,\" and explained away the human mind and all that is\ntherein; Aberdeen educated him, graduated him, married him, gave him the\nchair of Logic in her University, and finally made him Lord Rector. Bain\nthinks entirely in straight lines. He is the apotheosis of the\nAberdonian. Which is a warning against regular cities.\n\nAccording to the Rev. W. A. Cornaby in \"The Contemporary Review,\" the\nstraight line is an abomination to the Chinese; they avoid it by curves\nand zigzags, and they think in curves and zigzags. Hence it seems the\nChinese suffer from a spurious idealism, just as my Aberdonians suffer\nfrom a spurious materialism. If only the maidens of Aberdeen would marry\nthe mandarins of the too Flowery Land, what a perfect race we might\nexpect!\n\n\n\n\nANTWERP\n\nThis is the era of Exhibitions. An epidemic of Exhibitions traverses the\nworld, breaking out now at Paris, now at Chicago, now at Antwerp. To\nvisit them is our modern Pilgrimage; they force us to make the Grand\nTour, as our little wars teach us geography. They are supposed to give a\nfillip to the prosperity of their town, and to nourish the pride and\npocket of the citizens. What other function they fulfil is dubious. Time\nwas when \"the long laborious miles\" of the Crystal Palace were acclaimed\nas the dawn of the Golden Age, when swords should be turned into the most\nimproved substitute for pruning-hooks, and each man\n\n      find his own in all men's good,\n  And all men work in noble brotherhood.\n\nUnhappily, that millennial vision is still far away,--\n\n   Far, how far, no tongue can say,\n\nas the canny Tennyson did not forget, even in his rapt prophetic strain.\nAnd we have grown chiller. We no longer raise the song of praise because\nmanufacturers of all nations send specimens of their work to a common\ncentre in quest of medals. The world is already federated by the chains\nof commerce; international barter is an inseparable part of the movement\nof life, and infinite intertangled threads of union stretch across the\nseas from shipping office to shipping office. Wherefore the millennium is\nas likely to arrive _vi\u00e2_ Bayreuth or Lourdes, or any other centre of\nPilgrimage, as by way of an International Exhibition. No, we must take\nour Exhibitions more humbly: they are amusing and instructive; they earn\ndividends or lose capital; they stimulate orders for the goods on view,\nand they end in a shower of medals. In France, according to Mark Twain,\nfew men escape the Legion of Honor. Is there any artificial product that\nhas escaped a medal at some Exhibition or the other? I cannot recall\neating or drinking anything undecorated. They grow on every bush, those\nmedals, copious as the Queen's Arms over the shop-windows of the High\nStreet. No store, however lowly, but the Queen deals there; no article,\nhowever poor, but has earned golden opinions, or at least silver and\nbronze. For the industrial or Gradgrind mind an Exhibition is doubtless a\nriot, an orgy; for the exhibitors it is a sensational battle-field; for\nthe average spectator it is as exciting as a walk through Whiteley's, or\na stroll down Oxford Street. From the Antwerp Exhibition proper I bear\naway nothing but an impression of a wonderful paper-making machine, at\none end of which the paper enters as liquid pulp, to issue at the other\nas a solid sheet. A pity the process was not carried one step farther, to\nthe printed newspaper stage--so that what went in as rags should come out\nas mendacity. Such success as the Antwerp Exhibition has won is a success\nof side-shows; a panorama of camels and dancing-girls defiles before my\neyes, my ears are yet ringing with the barbarous music and incantations\nof the Orient. Old Antwerp rises picturesque, with its burghers and\nwarriors; the glorious picture galleries stretch away, overladen with\nartistic treasure; the mimic elephant mounts, mammoth-like, to the skies;\nthe grounds and the fa\u00e7ades of the buildings gleam fairy-like in the soft\nnight air, with a million illuminations; and lo! there in the German\nrestaurant the beautiful daughters of the Fatherland smile, in coifs and\ntuckers and short skirts, Katti and Luisa and Nina, dulciferous names\nthat trip off the tongue as the gentle creatures trip from table to table\nwith flasks of Rhenish wine; the mellifluous voice of Sarah cries\ncigarettes at her booth in the Rue du Caire--Sarah, the Egyptian Jewess,\nwhose ancestors went back to the land of Pharaoh in defiance of Rabbinic\ndecree--Sarah, with the charm of her eighteen summers and her graceful\nvirginal figure and her sweet unconscious coquetry, as different from the\nbarmaid's as Rosalind's from Audrey's; and Sarah's brother, briskest of\nbusiness boys, resurges with his polyglot solicitations to buy nougat: a\nmannish swashbuckler without, a cherubic infant within: I see the Congo\nnegroes, mere frauds from the States, in your opinion, daintiest of\nAmerican friends, who came all the way from Paris to meet me. But soft!\nwhat has all this to do with the Industrial Exhibition?\n\n_Rien, absolument rien._ Give us these things anywhere, give us lights\nand gardens and music, give us dances and damsels, give us Congo\nencampments and \"_ballons dirigeables_,\" and thither will we troop to\nmake us merry. Ah! but the incurable conscientiousness of the human race\ninsists on pills with its jam. Or is it that it has never yet dawned upon\nhumanity that jam may be taken without pills? There was a time--it lasted\nseventy thousand ages according to the Chinese manuscript which Elia\nsaw--when mankind ate their meat raw. Then, one day, as every schoolboy\nknows, Bo-bo carelessly set his father's cottage on fire, and, burning\nthe litter of new-farrowed pigs it held, accidentally invented\n_crackling_. So delicious was burnt pig discovered to be that everybody\nfell to setting his house on fire to obtain it. \"Thus this custom of\nfiring houses continued, till in process of time a sage arose, like our\nLocke, who made a discovery that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any\nother animal, might be cooked (_burnt_, as they called it) without the\nnecessity of consuming a whole house to dress it.... By such slow degrees\ndo the most useful and seemingly the most obvious arts make their way\namong mankind.\" For seventy thousand ages mankind did without _al fresco_\nentertainments. Then some one invented Exhibitions, and mankind found it\ndelicious to promenade the grounds amid twinkling lights and joyous\nmusic. But no Locke has yet discovered that musical promenades may be had\nwithout elevating a whole Exhibition in the background. At Earl's Court\nthey still keep up a pretence of Industrial Exhibition, though we have\nlong since lost interest in the pretext, and no longer inquire whether\nthe painted scenery that walls in the grounds is called the Alps or the\nApennines or the Champs-Elys\u00e9es. And yet methinks mankind did discover\nthe open-air entertainment, as perchance roast pig was known and\nforgotten again long centuries before Bo-bo. For what was Ranelagh, what\nVauxhall? Were not the gardens of Vauxhall \"made illustrious by a\nthousand lights finely disposed,\" or, as Thackeray puts it, by a \"hundred\nthousand _extra_ lamps, which were always lighted\"? Were not \"concerts of\nmusick\" given nightly by fiddlers in cocked hats, ensconced in a \"gilded\ncockleshell,\" and was not the price of admission a shilling? \"Vauxhall\nmust ever be an estate to its proprietor,\" wrote Boswell, \"as it is\npeculiarly adapted to the taste of the English nation; there being a\nmixture of curious show--gay exhibition--music, vocal and instrumental,\nnot too refined for the general ear; and, though last not least, good\neating and drinking for those who choose to purchase that regale.\" But\nBoswell prophesied ill. Public gardens were always distasteful to English\nPuritanism, because they lent themselves to rendezvous; and though\nBoswell, in protesting against the rise of price to two shillings,\ncertifies to the elegance and innocence of the entertainment, and though\nMr. Osborne and Miss Amelia walked unharmed in its groves and glades, and\nit was not Rebecca Sharp's fault that Jos. Sedley got drunk on the bowl\nof rack punch, still Vauxhall, like Ranelagh and Cremorne, has come down\nto us with tainted reputation. It died in the odour of brimstone, and\nonly in the magical ink-pool of literature can we still behold the\nheralded gallants in the boxes junketing with low-bodiced ladies of\nquality whose patches show piquantly on their damask cheeks. Rosherville\nremains in ignoble respectability, the place to spend an h-less day, our\none uninstructive institution, for even \"Constantinople\" and \"Venice\"\nhave a specious background of geographical and even of industrial\ninformation: Rosherville, which only once flowered into poetry, and then\nunder another name,--when Mr. Anstey's barber wedded the Tinted Venus\nwith a ring.\n\nAnd in the magical ink-pool I see you and me still sitting, O\nTransatlantic Parisienne, as we sat that sunny afternoon--three hundred\nyears ago--in ancient Antwerp, in _oud Antwerpen_, niched in the\nwindowseat of that quaint hostelry which gives on the great market-place,\nand watching the festive procession. Do you remember the gorgeous\ncostumes of our fellow-burghers, and the trappings of their prancing\nchargers in those days when life was not plain, but coloured, and\nexistence was one vast fancy-dress ball? How glad we were to welcome the\nArchduke Martinias of Austria, our sovereign elect, or was it Fran\u00e7ois\nSonnius, our first Bishop, coming to be installed in our glorious\nCathedral, amid the joyous carillons of its bells! Can you not still see\nthe Angels hovering over the Virgin, and the Golden Calf,\nflower-wreathed, and the Flight into Egypt, on that na\u00efve donkey, and\n\"the Flying Dutchman,\" tugged by a horse, and the gilded galley rowed in\nmake-believe by little children in their Sunday clothes, catching crabs\nin air, and the incongruous camels bestridden by Arab sheikhs with\nAfrican pages, and the Persians on ponies, and the Crusaders in their\nfine foolish coats-of-mail, and the gay courtiers, with clanking swords,\nand the halberdiers, and the particoloured arquebusiers, and the archers\nin green and red, and the spearsmen in sugarloaf hats, and the cherubs\nriding on dolphins? Can you not hear the beating of the drum, and the Ave\nMaria of the white-robed chorus-boys, and the irrelevant strains of the\nDanish national anthem, and the japes of the jester with his cap and\nbells? What happy times for butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers\nwhen, instead of working, they could go in processions, bearing aloft the\ninsignia of their guilds, and when middle-class girls, ignorant of the\nNew Womanhood, could loll on triumphal cars with roses in their hair! Do\nyou remember how the topmost divinity smiled to me from her perilous\nperch, too high to rouse your jealousy, and how the little cherub that\nsat up aloft besprinkled us mischievously with eau de cologne? Ah, shall\nwe ever again be as happy as we were three hundred years ago? will the\nwine be ever as red, the potato salad as appetising, or the cheese (did\nthey really enjoy Gorgonzola and Camembert in the sixteenth century?) as\ndelicious as in that ancient Flemish hostelry with its Lutheran motto:\n\n  Wie nikt mint Wijn, Wijf en Sangh,\n  Blijft een Geck sijn Leven langh!\n\nWas it from its inscribed beams that Shelley borrowed his famous lyric\n\"Love's Philosophy\"? for did we not read:\n\n  Den Hemel drinckt, en d'Aerde drinckt:\n  Waerom souden wij ni\u00ebt drinckt?\n\n(\"Heaven drinks, and earth drinks: why shouldn't we drink?\") At any rate\nit pleased us to recall the delectable lines:\n\n  And the sunlight clasps the earth,\n  And the moonbeams kiss the sea;\n  What are all these kissings worth\n      If thou kiss not me?\n\nBut what does it matter what one did three hundred years ago?\n\nOr, what does it matter what one did that dim Arabian night when we set\nout with the cavalcade of camels in the marriage procession, and the\nbride cowered veiled in her corner of the coach, and the plump mother\nsmiled archly at us, and the brother and the bridegroom, mounted on Arab\nsteeds, smacked each other's faces in ceremonial solemnity, exactly like\n\"the two Macs\" in the music-hall? Was it then, or in the nineteenth\ncentury, that we rode the camel together, I on the hindmost peak? \"Oh,\nthe oont, oh, the oont, oh, the gawdforsaken oont!\" as the poet of the\nbarrack-room sings. He seems to double up like a garden-chair to receive\none; then his knees unfold and the rider shoots up; then the camel rises\nto his full height, and one ducks instinctively for fear of striking the\nstars. \"_Salaam Aleikhoom_,\" I cried to the drivers, airing my Arabic,\nwhich I make by mispronouncing Hebrew; and they answered effusively,\n\"Yankee Doodle! Chicago!\" Alas for the glamour of the Orient! They had\nall come from the greater fair, perhaps spent their lives in traveling\nfrom fair to fair, mercenaries of some latter-day Barnum.\n\nThere was a fine stalwart Egyptian, who stood beating a gong to summon\nthe faithful to improper dances. I gave him a cup of coffee, and he held\nit on high, and with gratitude effusing from every pore of his dusky\nface, cried, \"Columbus!\" Then he mounted a flight of stairs and shouted\nbeamingly, \"1492!\"\n\nHe took a sip, and then his wife called him chidingly, and he fled to\nher. But he returned to drain the cup in my presence, crying between each\nsip \"Columbus\" or \"1492.\" Never before have I bought so much gratitude\nfor ten centimes. Henceforward I found \"Columbus\" a watchword, and \"1492\"\na magic talisman, causing dusky eyes to kindle and turbaned heads to nod\nbeamingly.\n\nThe town-barber of _Alt Antwerpen_, who was wont to shave me in the\nsixteenth century, had a beautiful motto:--\n\n  I am Hair-dresser, Barber, and Surgeon,\n   I shave with, soap and much delight,\n  Although there are barbers who do it\n    As though they were in a fright.\n\nBut it is surpassed by a hundred delightful things in \"The Visitor's\nHandybook,\" which the touts in New Antwerp, ignorant of its treasures,\npress upon the traveller gratis. It opens auspiciously: \"The opening\npages of our little guide we have devoted to a short review of the city\nof Antwerp, the streets of which still contain elegant specimens of those\nquaint and handsome edifices of the Netherlands are truly famous, and\nwhich in Antwerp, perhaps more than in any other city, seem to abound.\"\nHere are some more gems: \"Visitors will be naturally anxious to secure a\ncomfortable apartment, in selecting which the following list will be\nfound of service:--see advertisements, all of which can be strongly\nrecommended.\" \"Facing you is the King's Palace; not a very attractive\none; however, as a rule, not open to the public, but admission may\nsometimes be obtained although at great trouble during the absence of the\nKing.\" \"It was formally inaugurated by the presence of the Queen,\nPrincess Beatrice, and a numerous compagny representing the European\nBenches and Pairs.\" \"A wonderfully painted ceiling, in which the\nattendant can point out some marvellous effects.\" \"The Visitor's\nHandybook\" is in its thirteenth free edition, and is worth double the\nprice. Antwerp is very strong linguistically. The _quatre\nlangues_--Flemish, French, English, and German--make a universal\nconfusion of tongues, and the whole town is nothing but a huge open\nFlemish--French dictionary, every shop-sign or street-name being\ntranslated. A few sturdy burghers stick to the old tongue, and sometimes\nEnglish rules the roast. \"The Welsh Harp\" (which is Antwerp way) is a\nsailor's cabaret near the quay. There is even a trace of Irish influence\nin the etymology of Antwerp as given in the official handbook; for\nAntigon, the giant who used to cut off the hand of any shipman that\nrefused him tribute, and whose throwing it (_Handwerpen_) into the river\ngave the name to the city, is stated beforehand to have lived in the\ncastle of Antwerp. They are not destitute of wit, the Belgians, if I may\njudge by some specimens I heard. It is a local joke to refer to the\nfamous \"_dirigeable_\" balloon, which burst in the latter days of the\nExhibition, as the \"_d\u00e9chirable_\" balloon. \"They pooh-pooh the past\nnowadays,\" said a tram-conductor to me, \"but when I look at the Cathedral\nand Rubens' 'Descent from the Cross' I think our forefathers were _assez\nmalins_.\" A seedy vendor of lottery-tickets declared that every one of\nthem would draw a prize. \"Wherefore, then, my friend,\" quoth I, \"do you\nnot keep them?\" \"_Je ne suis pas \u00e9go\u00efste_,\" he said, with a shrug. To\ndefend myself against his masterful solicitousness, I stated solemnly\nthat lotteries were illegal in England, and that if I returned thither\nwith a lottery-ticket the British Government would throw me into prison.\nBut he was not daunted: \"_Appuyez-vous sur moi_,\" he replied\nreassuringly.\n\n\n\n\nBROADSTAIRS AND RAMSGATE\n\nA story is current in the Clubs that Mr. Henry James innocently went to\nRamsgate, in order to possess his soul in peace. 'T was the height of the\nrougher Ramsgate season, and there is something irresistibly incongruous\nin the juxtaposition of the rarefied American novelist and the roaring\nsands of Albion. In the which juxtaposition the story leaves him; and we\nare ignorant of whether he turned tail and fled back to quieter London,\nor whether he stayed on to collect unexpected material. Our analytical\ncousin's stippling methods are, it is to be feared, but poorly adapted\nfor the painting of holiday crowds, which require the scene-painter's\nbrush, and lend themselves reluctantly to nuances. The colours have not\nthat dubiety so dear to the artist of the penumbra; the sands are as\nyellow as the benches are red; and the niggers are quite as black as they\nare burnt-corked. The love-making, too, is devoid of subtlety. When you\nsee--as I saw last Bank Holiday on Ramsgate beach--Edwin and Angelina\nasleep in each other's arms, the situation strikes you as too simple for\nanalysis. It is like the loves of the elements, or the propensity of\ncarbon to combine with oxygen. An even more idyllic couple I came upon\nprone amid the poppies on the cliff hard by, absorbing the peace and the\nsunshine, steeping themselves in the calm of Nature after the finest\nWordsworthian manner. But presently there is the roll of a drum, and the\nscream of a fife in distress rises from below, and Angelina pricks up her\nears. \"I wish they'd come up 'ere,\" she murmurs wistfully; \"I'd jump up\nlike steam; I could just do a dance.\"\n\nYet all the same their seclusion among the wild flowers on the edge of\nthe cliff showed a glimmering of soul. Not theirs the hankering for that\nstrip of sand near the stone pier, which a worthy dame of my acquaintance\nonce compared to a successful fly-paper. Scientific investigation shows\nthe congestion at this particular spot to be due to the file of\nbathing-machines which blocks the view of the sea from half the beach. To\nthe bulk of the visitors this yellow patch _is_ Ramsgate, just as a\nsmall, cocoanut-bearing area of Hampstead woodland is the Heath, most of\nwhose glorious acres have never felt the tread of a donkey or a cheap\ntripper. Not that there are many other attractions in Ramsgate, which is\nadministered by councillors more sleepy than sage. Having literally\ndefaced their town by a railway-station, built a harbour which will not\nhold water, constructed a promenade pier in the least accessible quarter,\nand provided a band which plays mainly \"intervals,\" they naturally refuse\nto venture on further improvements, such as refuges on the parade, or\ntrees in the shadeless streets, and, in the excess of their zeal, have\neven, so I hear, declined the railway company's offer to give them a lift\n(from sands to cliff), and Mr. Sebag Montefiore's offer to allow the\npublic gardens to be continued right through his estate on towards\nDumpton. Even so, these worthy burghers have more of my regard than their\nbrethren of Margate, who have sacrificed their trust to the Moloch of\nadvertisement. Stand on Margate Parade and look seaward, and the main\nimpression is Pills. Sail towards Margate Pier and look landward, and the\nmain impression is Disinfectant Powder.\n\nBaby Broadstairs has known better how to guard its dignity and its\nbeauty; so that Dickens might still look from Bleak House on as dainty a\nscene as in the days when he lounged on the dear old, black,\nweather-beaten pier. I spent a week at Broadstairs in the height of a\nDynamite Mystery. We were very proud of the Mystery, we of Broadstairs,\nand of the space we filled in the papers. Ramsgate, with its\ncontemporaneous murder sensation, we turned up our noses at, till\nRamsgate had a wreck and redressed the balance. For the rest, we made\nsand-pies, and bathed and sailed, and listened to a band that went wheezy\non Bank Holiday. Broadstairs boasts of one drunkard, who does odd jobs as\nwell. He is tall, venerable, and melancholy, and has the air of a\ntemperance orator. \"Joe's one of the best chaps on the pier when he's\nsober,\" said his mate to me sorrowfully; \"but when he's drunk he makes a\nfool of himself.\" This was not quite true; for Joe was not always\nfoolish. Why, when two gentlemen came down from London in a gipsy caravan\nto teach us Theosophy, and all Broadstairs fluttered towards their\noil-lamp, leaving the band to tootle to the sad sea waves, I could not\nget him to mount the Cheap Jack rostrum in opposition! The most I could\nspur him to was an indignant defence of London against the lecturer's\ndenunciation of it as an immoral city, a pit of unrighteousness. \"'T\nain't true!\" he thundered raucously. \"Many's the gent from Lunnon as has\nbehaved most liberal to me.\" One day there was an attempt to disturb\nJoe's monopoly as drunkard, and I am afraid I had a hand in it. A human\ncaricature in broken boots addressed me as I lay on the beach (writing\nwith a stylographic pen and blotting the sheets with the sand), and\nbesought me to buy sprigs of lavender. He proved to me by ocular\ndemonstration that he had no money in his pockets; whereupon I proved to\nhim by parity of reasoning that I had none in mine either. However, I\nremembered me of a penny postage-stamp (unlicked), and tendered it\ndiffidently, and he received it with disproportionate benedictions. Later\nin the day he reappeared under my window, hurling up maudlin abuse. He\nhad got drunk on my postage-stamp!\n\nI told him to get along with him, which he did. For some time he\nstaggered about Broadstairs in search of its policeman. He came across\nhim at last, and was straightway clapped into an open victoria and driven\nacross the sunny fields to Ramsgate. Meantime, Broadstairs was left\nunprotected--perhaps Joe kept an eye on it.\n\nBroadstairs has also a jolly old waterman, who paddles about apparently\nto pick up exhausted bathers. One morning as I was swimming past his boat\nhe warned me back. \"Any danger?\" I asked. \"Ladies,\" he replied,\nambiguously enough. It thus transpired that his function is to preserve a\nscientific frontier between the sexes. Considering that the ladies one\nmeets at sea are much more clothed than the ladies whose diaphanous\ndrapery one engirdles in ball-rooms, this prudery is amusing. It is\nconsoling to remember that the Continental practice prevails in many a\nquaint nook along our coasts, and that the ladies are sensible enough to\nwalk to and from their bathing tents, clothed and unashamed. Strange to\nsay, Broadstairs has placed its ladies' machines nearest the pier, for\nthe benefit of loungers armed with glasses; and I must not forget to\nmention that the boatman himself holds a daily _lev\u00e9e_ of mermaidens, who\nmake direct for his boat and gambol around the prow. If anything needs\nreforming in our marine manners, it is rather the male costume. Why we\nmen are allowed to go about like savages, clothed only in skins (and\nthose our own), is to me one of the puzzles of popular ethics. What is\nsauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. At Folkestone, where the\nmachine-people are dreadfully set against ladies and gentlemen using the\nsame water, promiscuous bathing flourishes more nakedly than anywhere on\nthe Continent; and the gentlemen have neither tents nor costumes. In\nMargate and Deal the machines are of either sex, and the gentlemen are\nclad in coloured pocket-handkerchiefs. At Birchington I bathed from a\nboat which was besieged by a bevy of wandering water-nymphs, begging me\nto let them dive from it. And they dived divinely!\n\nThough the _profanum vulgus_ takes possession of our strands, and Edwin\nand Angelina are common objects of the sea-shore, yet I cannot help\nthinking that there is many a vulgar British beach that would ravish us\ndid we light upon it in other lands. Oh, how picturesque! What a gay\ngrouping of colour! What an enchanting medley of pink parasols and golden\nsand and chintz tents and white bathing-machines, and blue skies and\nblack minstrels and green waters, and creamy flannels and gauzy dresses!\nAnd--_ciel!_ what cherubic children! and--_corpo di Bacco!_--what pretty\nwomen! What frank _abandon_ to the airy influences of the scene! What\nunconventionality! What unrestraint! See how that staid old _signor_\nallows himself to be buried and excavated by the _bambino_. Watch that\ncharming _maman_ unblushingly bathing _b\u00e9b\u00e9_. Note that portly _matrona_\ncareering upon the _asino_! What cares she for her dignity? Listen to the\nbabel--\"[Greek: hokae pokae, hokae pokae]\" \"Drei shies a pfennig!\" \"Your\nphotograph, _se\u00f1orita?_\" Look! the coquettish _contadina_ is slapping the\nface of the roguish _vetturino_! How the good-natured crowd, easily\npleased, gathers round the Ethiopian troubadour, trolling in unison his\namorous catches!--\n\n  _Daisy, Daisy, donne-moi ta r\u00e9ponse._\n\nAnd hark! Do you not hear in the distance the squeak of _Puncinello_? Ah!\nwhy have we none of this happy carelessness in England?--we who take our\npleasures _moult tristement_--why have we not this lightheartedness, this\n_camaraderie_ of enjoyment? Why cannot we throw aside our insular\nstiffness, our British hauteur, and be natural?\n\nI journeyed to Broadstairs, late at night, riding in a three-horsed brake\nwith many a jocund passenger. And then something happened. Something\nineffably trivial, and yet a matter of life and death. We were bowling\nmerrily along the country lanes in the fragrant air. It was a dark,\nstarless night, but so warm that the easterly sea-breeze fanned us like a\nzephyr. And through the gloom a flash-light leaped and waned, flickered\nand died and gleamed again with electric brilliance--\"the Winnaker(?)\nlight from France,\" a garrulous inhabitant assured us; a rare phenomenon\nto be seen only once in a decade, when an east wind clarifies the\natmosphere, and allows the rays to pierce through two dozen miles of\nstrait. It seemed like La Belle France winking amicably to us across the\nwaters. And a little to the left twinkled \"The Green Man\"--no friendly\npublic-house, but a danger-signal from behind the Goodwin Sands, likewise\nvisible but by miracle.\n\nAnd as we marvelled at these jewels of the night, that shamed the\nabsentee stars, the brake stood still with a jolt and a shock that threw\nour gay company into momentary alarm. But it was nothing. Only a horse\nfallen down dead! One of our overworked wheelers had suddenly sunk upon\nthe earth, a carcase. Dust to dust! Who shall tell of the daylong agony\nof the dumb beast as he plodded pertinaciously through the heat,\nministering to the pleasures of his masters? Had he been a man, how we\nshould have praised him, belauded the beauty of his end, telling one\nanother sanctimoniously that he had died in harness. As it was we merely\nstripped him of his harness and deposited it in the brake! We unhitched\nthe leader and put him between the shafts, side by side with the other\nhorse, both incurious and indifferent, wasting nor glance nor nasal rub\nupon their defunct comrade. We men feign better. And then we drew him to\nthe edge of the track, a rigid, lumbering mass; and the garrulous\ninhabitant discussed the value of the carcase, and the driver cracked his\nwhip, and the living horses stirred their haunches, and in a moment we\nwere spanking along, leaving our fellow-creature to darkness and\nsolitude. Only the flash-light from France glimmered upon the poor dead\nbeast, coming all the way to cheer him; only the green eye from beyond\nthe Goodwins blinked upon his unheaving flanks.\n\nAnd from far ahead came back to his deaf ears with ever-diminishing\nintensity our noisy madrigal--most music-hall, most melancholy--his only\ndirge:\n\n  Mary Jane was a farmer's daughter,\n  Mary Jane did what she oughter.\n  She fell in love but all in vain.\n  O poor Mary! O poor Jane!\n\n\n\n\nBUDAPEST\n\nThe Millennial Exhibition of Budapest--for which the Directors gave me a\nseason ticket as soon as they heard I was leaving--professes to celebrate\nthe foundation of Hungary; but 896 is a very long time ago, and the event\ndoes not seem to have been reported in the newspapers of the period.\nHowever, as a Hungarian explained to me, when you are counting by\nthousands you are not particular to a year or two, so perhaps it was not\nprecisely ten centuries ago that the foundation of Hungary was\ninaugurated by a national assembly that created \"the Constitution of\nPusztaszer.\" After all, have not those irrepressible German savants\ndiscovered that Christ was born in the year 6 B.C.? At any rate, there is\nno doubt that the Magyars did steal a country some time or other in the\nremote past, or in more political language, did obtain a footing in\nEurope by ousting the Slav tribes that peopled the great plain bounded by\nthe Carpathians and the Danube and the Tisza. They came from Central\nAsia, on a late wave of that big \"Westward ho!\" movement of the Eastern\npeoples, a race of shepherds changed into an army of mounted archers, and\npitched their tents first in Galieia, uniting their seven tribes under\nthe great chief Arp\u00e1d; but, harassed continually by local tribes with\nunpronounceable names, they moved farther westwards to their present\nquarters, where, after a vain but spirited attempt to annex Europe\ngenerally, they settled down to comfort and civilisation, ceased to offer\nwhite horses to idols, and embraced Christianity.\n\nIt seems that land-thieves are called conquerors; and after a thousand\nyears of possession of their stolen goods, the glamour of a divine\nsanctity gets over the past, and high-minded natives live and die for the\ncountry which seems to have been theirs from time immemorial, and in\nwhich their holiest feelings are enrooted. What makes national robberies\nmoral is the fact that there is honour among the thieves. The morality of\ncrowds is, in fact, as different from that of individuals as \"the\npsychology of crowds\" which has just engaged the attention of an\ningenious scientist. Into the original conquerors of a country a\nmiscellaneous assortment of other races always gets absorbed, as the\nFranks by the Gauls, the Turkish Bulgarians by the Slavs. The Hungarians\nabsorbed into themselves Italians, Germans, and Czechs, and the modern\nHungarian is, according to Arminius Vambery, a typical product of the\nfusion of Europe and Asia, Turanian and Aryan. And that is the sort of\nway in which after a few centuries we get the chauvinistic cries:\n\"Germany for the Germans,\" \"Poland for the Polish,\" \"Hungary for the\nHungarians.\" In truth, no nation has a right to anything it cannot hold\nby might. And who shall determine what a nation is? Who are the\nAmericans? Who are the English? \"Norman and Saxon and Dane are we.\" And\nonce upon a time some of us threw up our country and sailed away in the\n_Mayflower_. For patriotism is not the only bond of brotherhood. Men may\nbe the sons of an idea as well as of a soil. There was a Hungarian girl\nselling silver at a stall, who had spent four years in Chicago. Never\nhave I heard better American, except it be from a Budapest man who had\ncome back to revisit his native town, and was disgusted with its\nsmallness and slowness. _Per contra_, I met an American girl in\nSwitzerland who had lived much in Germany, and whose English had such a\nTeutonic intonation that it was difficult to realise she was not speaking\nGerman. And language is but typical of the rest. All other national\ncharacteristics are imbibed as subtly. What makes a nation is a certain\ncommon spirit,--_Volksgeist_, as the German psychologists have christened\nit,--and this spirit exercises a hypnotic effect over all that comes\nwithin its range, moulding and transforming. There is action and\nreaction. The nation makes the national spirit, and the national spirit\nmakes the nation. The flag, the constitution, the national anthems, the\nnational prejudices, the language, the proverbs--these are the product of\nthe people they produce.\n\nI am inclined to allow more importance to education and environment than\nto actual birth in a country, and to believe that for a \"native,\" birth\nis only an etymological necessity. Natives are made as well as born. The\n\"born\" native has merely the advantage of prior arrival, and if the\n\"foreign\" immigrant is only of a plastic age he may come to love the\nstep-mother-country more than one of her own sons, educated abroad. This\nconsideration would solve every _Uitlander_ question: is the national\nspirit strong enough to suck in the foreigners? Can the nation digest\nthem, to vary the metaphor--assimilate them to its own substance? I once\nproposed to a biologist--who flouted it--that a definition of Life might\nbe \"the power of converting foreign elements, taken in as food, to one's\nown substance.\" Thus, a plant sucks up chemical elements and makes\nflowers; a man turns them to flesh. Here is a piece of meat: eaten by a\ndog it runs to tail and teeth, for a cat it makes fur and whiskers, for a\nbird feathers, for a woman a lovable face. And so the test of life in a\nnation would be its power of transforming its immigrants into patriots.\nOnly a dead nation is afraid of foreigners.\n\nThe figure has its limits, however: one cannot gulp down too large a\npiece of meat. And there are things inedible--substances which no stomach\ncan digest. The Americans will never make Yankees of their Chinese. On\nthe other hand, nowhere have I found more ardent patriots than among the\nJews. Englishmen in England, Americans in America, Italians in Italy,\nFrenchmen in France, and only not Russians in Russia because they are not\nallowed to be, they are rabid Hungarians in Hungary; and if I have caught\nany enthusiasm for Hungary it is from the lips of a young and brilliant\nJew, Vidor Emil, who piloted me about Budapest, and who, under Marmorek\nOszk\u00e1r, another young Jew, built \"Old Buda,\" perhaps the most interesting\nfeature of the Millennial Exhibition. This Jewish patriotism, which loves\nat once Israel and some other nation, may appear curious and\ncontradictory; but human nature is nothing if not curious and\ncontradictory, and this dual affection has been aptly compared to that of\na mother for her different children. And besides, in a contest the love\nof Israel goes down before the more local patriotism. French and German\nJews fought each other in the Franco-German war, and probably it is only\npersecution that accentuates the consciousness of Jewish brotherhood.\nWherever the Jews have perfect equality and have been tempted out of the\nGhetto, there the beginnings of disintegration are manifest. And who\nshall say how much Jewish blood dilutes the nations of the Occident, for\nall their chauvinistic talk!\n\nMr. Du Maurier, in his unmentionable novel, suspects, like Lowell, that a\ndrop of it has lurked in every artistic temperament. And, in sober truth,\nthe drain from Israel throughout the centuries has been immense. In every\nage, in every country, Jews have been sucked up into the more brilliant\nlife around them, exchanging contempt and danger for consideration and\npeace. I know an English gentleman who goes about in fear and trembling\nlest it transpire that he is of the race of the apostles, and he be\ndriven out of decent Christian society.  _Cherchez le Juif_ is, indeed,\nno empty cry, whenever a new artistic or journalistic planet swims into\nour ken. That the Jew rules over the Continental press is not quite so\nuntrue as most anti-Semitic cries. \"Have you any Christians on your\nstaff?\" I said to the editor of the great Budapest newspaper, \"Pesther\nLloyd,\" a fine figure of a man, long-bearded and benevolent, like an\nancient sage. He pondered. \"I think we have one,\" he said. On the other\nhand, there are many German and Austrian papers on which there is only\none Jew. And in any case the real meaning of the cry is ludicrously\nuntrue.\n\nFor the Jew by no means uses his power to help Jews indiscriminately:\nthere is no secret brotherhood of the synagogue. The Jewish journalists\nhave probably never been in a synagogue, except perhaps as children; they\nare divorced in thought and temper from the body proper. And the only\nsense in which their pen can be said to have a Jewish bias is in that\ncomplimentary sense which makes the Jew synonymous with the champion of\nsweetness and light, of liberty and reason. In this sense it is true that\nthe Jew is wielding an insidious influence throughout Europe, like the\nold apostles among the heathen.\n\n\"Oh yes, the Jews are very well off in Hungary,\" said one of the staff of\nthe \"Pesther Lloyd.\" \"There are 150,000 Jews in Budapest; they enter all\nthe professions, and supply two members to the House of Magnates, and\nnine to the Chamber of Deputies, and there are two State Councillors; and\nyou know with us every member of Parliament 'thous' every other in\nprivate as an equal. For the laws, liberal as they are, are not so\nliberal as the spirit of society. I, mere journalist as I am, have the\nmost friendly talks with the Prime Minister, and am a member of the\nswellest political clubs. We are a good deal like England, by the way:\nour middle-classes produce our leaders, our aristocracy lacks eloquence\nand talent, and has only a court influence. Our House of Commons is the\nmost fashionable club. We have no censor, whereas Austria has an\noppressive censorship as well as anti-Semitism. In fact, the influence of\nVienna has caused a decline in our own tolerant spirit, and at the best\nof times a Jew needed to have three times the talent of a Christian to\nmake equal progress in any career.\" A consideration which sufficiently\naccounts for the superiority of the Jewish remnant. Intolerance and\npersecution are furnaces which, when they do not destroy, temper and\nanneal and strengthen. It is as with the bare-footed, half-clad, underfed\nchildren of the slums: those that do survive are strong indeed. Let my\npatriotic cicerone, the Jewish architect, testify. First in all his\nexaminations, a violinist, a bicyclist, a gymnast, he was to be gazetted\na premier lieutenant as soon as he had completed his military service. He\nwas a linguist, too (as every travelled Hungarian must be, for Hungarian\nwill carry him nowhere), speaking excellent English and reading our\nmagazines regularly. _Humani nihil a me alienum puto_ might have been his\nmotto. Kossuth himself is said to have had a Jewish grandmother. The Jews\nare largely responsible for the prosperity of Budapest, as they were for\nthat of Vienna, which now turns round upon them. Fancy a country\nquarrelling with its coal and iron! And the true wealth of a country is\neven more in its population than in its dead products. I found the\nViennese comic papers full of the old anti-Semitic jokes, hashed up, I\nhave little doubt, by the same journalists who are supposed to judaize\nthe press of Europe. Even so in America, are not the Jewish caricatures\nin _Puck_ often done by a brother of M. de Blowitz? In something of the\nsame spirit, when the notorious Lueger, whose platform was the extinction\nof the Jews of Vienna, was up for election as Burgomaster of that town, a\npoor Jew took a bribe of a couple of florins to vote for him. \"God will\nfrustrate him,\" said the pious Jew. \"Meantime I have his money.\"\n\nThe chief surprise of Hungary is its language. Though one knows that\nJoka\u00ef writes in the strange tongue which sticks its verb into the middle\nof its noun, yet one vaguely thinks of it as of Gaelic or\nWelsh--something archaic, kept for Eisteddfods and Renaissances--and it\nis not till one arrives in Hungary that one realises that it is a living,\ndisconcerting reality. The great European languages have affinities with\none another: Latin puts one on bowing terms with French and Spanish,\nItalian and Portuguese; English is not entirely unrelated to German,\nDutch, and even Norwegian; old Greek is the key to modern. But in Hungary\none comes face to face with an absolutely new language, in which even\nguesswork is impossible. When \"Levelez\u00f6-Lap\" means a postcard, and \"\u00e1ra\negy napra\" means price per day, you feel that it is all up. The nearest\nrelatives of Hungarian are Turkish and Finnish, the Asiatic ancestors of\nthe race having lived between Finns and Turks; and it bears traces of\ntheir migrations, and of the great Mongol invasion of Europe by Djingis\nKhan.\n\nWith a language thus handicapped, it was a mistake to have scarcely a\nword of any other tongue in an Exhibition designed to attract Europe. The\nonly scrap of English I saw was in the \"French Theatre,\" in the show of\n\"Living Pictures,\" the (London) director of which had forgotten to alter\nthe titles printed beneath the frames. Even in giving the names of\nforeign authors the Hungarians preserve their habit of placing the\nChristian name second; so that I saw in the booksellers' windows works by\nEliot George, Kock Paul, and Black William.\n\nHungary is still in the flush of youth, high-spirited, brilliant,\nenthusiastic, and a little out of perspective in its national\nconsciousness. But who would ever do anything if he saw his true place in\nthe cosmos? The rapid rise of Budapest--unprecedented save in the gold\ncountries--into a capital of European importance, has shed a buoyant\noptimism, refreshing enough in this jaded century, over the inhabitants\nof that beautiful city. \"We are the Vienna of the future,\" cried my\ncicerone, \"and already Vienna is feeling our rivalry. The retired Jewish\nmerchants who went there to spend their fortunes are now coming to us;\nthe anti-Semitism of Vienna is at once the cause and the effect of bad\nbusiness. And Vienna is on the downward grade; we are on the upward.\nVienna has never been the capital of Austria,--which is a mere federation\nof races,--as Budapest is the capital of Hungary. The German is proud of\nVienna, yes; but the Czech looks to Prague, the Pole to Cracow, the\nAustro-Italian swears by Trieste.\"\n\nHe also complained that there is rather a tendency to think of Hungary as\nsubject to Austria, instead of an associated state; and that this\ntendency is fomented by the Austrian papers, whose references to Hungary\ninsinuate this conception. The Hungarian papers, whose tone would\ncounteract it, not being in German, are not read by the rest of Europe.\nHungary had always beaten Austria. She had never been defeated save by\nallies of Austria. But Hungary, which is so mettlesome and restive in her\npatriotism, whose great son, Kossuth, would never even accept the\ncompromise with the House of Hapsburg, has yet no compunction in\ndominating inferior races, in grinding Serbs, Croats and Roumanians into\nher own pattern. The Hungarians, who are in the minority, are yet\nmoulding these alien nationalities to their own will. But _que\nvoulez-vous?_ The inhabitants of many nations have adopted Christianity,\nthe nations themselves never. Perhaps the next step for the Christian\nmissionaries is to found international Christianity.\n\nStill the Hungarians have the qualities of their defects. Unlike the\nTurks, their neighbours, they are a race with a future, and Budapest is\nfrom one point of view one of the sightliest capitals of Europe. What\ntown has a fairer situation? With Parisian Pesth sitting stately on one\nbank of the Danube, and Turkish Buda climbing up the hills in a series of\nhanging gardens crowned by gilt domes and cupolas on the other, the two\njoined by wonderful bridges, she exhibits an unsurpassed contrast; and at\nnight, when the long stretch of the river is a-twinkle with lights\nreflected as shining spears, she may even vie with Venice or the Thames\nEmbankment. From the Andrassy Avenue, a beautiful Boulevard, with its\ncaf\u00e9s and book-shops, and pleasant interludes of flower-beds and\nfountains, you may get, in a few minutes--crossing the Danube on a great\nsteamer, and ascending the heights of Buda by a funicular railway--to a\nspot where, seated in an avenue of chestnut trees and looking on the\nvilla-strewn slopes of sleeping hills, or watching the sun set in\nsplendour behind them, you may forget that you are living in a bustling\nmodern town, and one with an Exhibition to boot.\n\nYou may dream of the picturesque days when, as shown in Ujv\u00e1ry's great\npanorama of the sister towns in 1680, Buda was by far \"the better half,\"\nand Pesth was a tiny spot. You may visit the tomb of Gul Baba, father of\nthe roses, a shrine of pilgrimage to all good Turks. You may find a good\nquarter of an hour in the Church of St. Matthias, whose spire comes up\nwhite amid the green as you turn a corner; a curious monument, that was\nthree centuries a-building; its interior suffused, like St. Mark's, by a\ngolden glow, its coloured windows original in shape, and no two pillars\nor capitals alike in design, yet all contributing to a quaint unity and\nharmony. And it is at Buda that the chief national buildings stand,\nusually flanked by chestnut trees, and the statues in memory of the wars.\nHere is the War-Office of the Territorial Army (which is distinct from\nthe joint Austro-Hungarian army); here are the Premier's Palace, the\nHouses of Parliament, and the King's Palace of many windows set on a\nbreezy hill, and now being enlarged at a cost of thirty million florins.\nFortunate Francis Joseph, to command such a panorama from his bedroom\nwindow: his hanging gardens, that slope towards the Danube, flowing with\nmolten sparkle, spanned by the great suspension bridge and the railway\nbridges; and broken by the beautiful Margaret Island; the spires and\nchimneys and cupolas of Pesth, and the mountains of Buda.\n\nMargaret Island is the \"Pearl of the Danube,\" a charming retreat in\nspring and autumn, when the heat does not force Fashion to the mountains,\nand famous for its mineral springs, hot and cold. It belongs to the\nKing's cousin, Prince Joseph, and is a white elephant. The cost of\ngardening this beautiful island is colossal, and though the Prince has\njust drained a portion which used to be a swamp, the Danube is a standing\ndanger. It is scarcely surprising that he cannot find a purchaser at\nthree million florins. One of the walls of his private garden (which\nproduces celebrated roses) is the remnant of an old cloister. A tramcar\nruns through the island, giving one tantalising vistas of glorious\nstretches of woodland. Altogether Budapest would be an ideal place for a\nhoneymoon but for the beauty of the women, which might make the\nbridegroom dissatisfied.\n\nBut the Pesth part of Budapest is a disappointment. One expects to feel\nthe first breath of the East, and one gets a modern, a Western, almost an\nAmerican town, with an electric underground railway and a telephonic\nnewspaper which reads itself out all day long to whosoever will clap the\ncups to his ears--the old town crier in terms of modern science. But it\nrounds off the day, poetically enough, with music, so that when I sought\nto hear the latest news, I was treated to Handel's \"Hallelujah.\" How much\nmore soothing than our own \"extra special,\" with its final crop of\nhorrors! Music, indeed, is ever resounding: the gipsy bands are\neverywhere playing--Hungarian, not gipsy music, as Liszt imagined, for\nthey never play to \"the white men.\" The splendid \"R\u00e1k\u00f3czi\" March, which\nBerlioz introduced into his \"Faust,\" is, however, of gipsy origin, having\nbeen invented, says tradition, by Cinka Panna, the faithful gipsy girl of\nR\u00e1k\u00f3czi II., after his defeat. There are also Betj\u00e1r melodies, the songs\nof the brigand cavaliers, the romantic robbers who took from the rich to\ngive to the poor, like our Robin Hood.\n\nThe Exhibition, which I fear will be a financial failure, is only one of\nthe many celebrations of the Millennium, which include the erection of\nstatues and an Arc de Triomphe, the opening of a canal, the construction\nof two new bridges, of three or four great public buildings, the\ninauguration of the splendid new Houses of Parliament--situated like our\nown on the river-side,--international congresses, historical cort\u00e8ges,\nand the opening of five hundred new primary schools! This programme is a\nsufficient guarantee that the Exhibition itself is similarly\nthorough-going, that it represents every side and department of the\nnational life; and if much of it does not differ from other Exhibitions,\nor even from Whiteley's Stores, this can only be the more gratifying to\nthe Hungarians, inasmuch as it proves that they have indeed come into\nstep with the general march of European civilisation. For my part I am\nnot sure that I do not prefer Arp\u00e1d's Hungarians, who believed in one God\nand one wife, and roved about Europe in the four-wheeled waggons they had\ninvented. And I am certain that in the Exhibition I preferred the\nbeautiful aquarium in the cool dim grotto, which has nothing to do with\nHungary, to all the splendours of the Historical Group of Buildings, to\nthe great model steamer, the naval and military pavilions, the very new\nand very glaring native pictures, and even the wonderful models of the\ntown and the steamer-laden Danube. One great lack in the Exhibition is\nlavatories. Even at my hotel--a place of gilded saloons--they charged two\nflorins (about 3_s_. 4_d_.) for a plain bath, as if in sheer surprise. In\n\"Old Buda\" I could only get a bucket from an old woman in which to wash.\nAnd the next day, when I repaired confidently in search of this bucket,\nthere was nothing but a tiny saucepan, the contents of which she poured\nover my hands, watering a garden-plot at the same time. After the first\njet I moved my hands away and said that would do. \"No, no,\" she cried:\n\"if you wash, you must wash properly.\" And I had to stand still and be\npoured upon till she was satisfied.\n\nPerhaps the most interesting exhibit is the \"ethnographic village,\"\ndesigned to represent the life of the Hungarian provinces, though made\nrather ridiculous by the rigidity of the waxwork figures, arranged about\nthe quaint and impossibly clean houses in their various occupations, but\nhaving the air of \"tableaux morts\" rather than of \"tableaux vivants.\" The\nbest group was _al fresco_, representing half-naked gipsy-like creatures\nwith coal-black hair squatting outside tents and mud-houses, the women\nsmoking pipes. And this exhibition of unrealities brings me on to the\nmost original feature of the Exhibition, which seems to have escaped all\nthe reporters--to wit, the exhibition of realities. For the committee\nhave hit on a most ingenious notion. The peasants of Hungary marry, and\nthey marry picturesquely. Why should this picturesqueness be wasted, or\nonly be reproduced artificially in comic operas? When a marriage is to be\ncelebrated in any village, let the scene be shifted to the capital: let\nthe wedding-party come up to the Exhibition. Free transit is provided on\nthe railway for the happy couple, the wedding-guests, and all the\nstage-properties. And so they come up to Budapest,--from Toroczk\u00f3,\nSzabolcs, Krass\u00f3-Sz\u00f6r\u00e9ny, and who knows what outlandish places, glad of\nthe opportunity of seeing the great capital,--and they gather in the\nExhibition grounds, the lads with flower-wreathed hats and streamers of\nmany-coloured ribbons, the lasses with gay skirts and tall black combs,\nthe old women with lace head-shawls, carrying bundles of house-linen and\nstockings for the bride; and the sheepish pair are made one, and the\npeasants dance and then go in procession to the strains of the R\u00e1k\u00f3czi\nMarch, and are photographed with odd spectators (like myself) tacked on,\nand they sit down to the wedding-dinner under the trees, and the viands\nare heaped high on the white table-cloths, sun-dappled with the shadows\nof the moving leaves. And then they visit themselves in waxwork, and go\ninto ecstacies over the stolid representations of their life and their\nfurniture, and they walk about the town--a sort of grown-up\nschool-procession--and go home to thrill the wide-eyed village with tales\nof the wonderful city.\n\nBut the other instance of converting realities into spectacles is not so\ncommendable. In the supplementary exhibition of \"Old Buda\" stands a\nreproduction of an Old Buda mosque, built of stone, majolica and wood, in\na mixture of Turkish and European architecture, with minaret and cupolas,\nand a small kiosk in the Indian style for a sleeping fakir. Here Moslems\nand Dervishes assemble to say or dance their prayers; and for a florin\nyou may ascend the gallery and watch them below. The mosque opened on the\nholy night of Bairam, the most solemn feast of the Mohammedan year, and\nquite a crowd planked down their silver to listen to the pious\nworshippers. Is it not shameful? I am happy to say I did not pay for my\nseat. Even in Budapest I was a _persona gratis_. 'T was certainly a\nremarkable scene, its solemnity emphasized by the thunder without, that\ndrowned the voice of the mu\u00ebddin calling to prayer, and by the lightning\nand rain-torrents that sent the pretty little _al fresco_ waitresses\nscudding about with their serviettes on their heads to tend the few\nparties in the leafy square that dined on regardless of diluted wine or\nunder the protection of umbrellas. How the Turks further wetted\nthemselves by complex ablutions in the tank (meydi\u00e4h) in the courtyard\nwithout, how they removed their shoes and, entering the mosque, knelt on\ntheir carpets facing towards Mecca, and turning their backs on me, a\nserried array of long-robed figures swaying and falling forward with\nautomatic regularity, and showing pairs of heels not always clean, while\nthe Imam chanted heart-breaking dirges overhead, I shall not detail, for\neverybody has read of Moslem services. But I do not remember to have come\nacross any accurate description of a service of Dancing Dervishes such as\nfollowed the more orthodox ceremonial.\n\nAll the mere Mussulmans having retired, the Dervishes sat around\ncross-legged, forming an oval. Presently they began to say some phrase,\npresumably Turkish (it sounded like _es \"klabbam vivurah\"_), which they\nrepeated and repeated and repeated with the same endless, uniform,\nmonotonous intonation, swaying from right to left and from left to right,\ntill I felt the whole universe was this phrase, and nothing else would\nhappen till the end of the world, and the world would never end. At last,\nwhen I had reconciled myself to living for ever and ever with this sound\nin my ears, they broke into a pleasant melody with rhyming stanzas and a\nrefrain of _Hazlee_. Then they started on another word with endless\niteration, and then they repeated _Allah, Allah, Allah_, swaying and\nswaying till the universe began to reel. I became aware that their chief,\nwho was seated on a special red carpet, was counting on a rosary, and I\ndrew relief from the deduction that an end would come. It did, but worse\nremained behind; for the Dervishes got up and formed a ring round their\nchief, and began swaying right and left and backwards and forwards,\nunrestingly, remorselessly, getting quicker and quicker, till there was\nnothing in the world but swayings this way and that way, back and forth.\n\nAt last the movements began to slow down and to sweep over larger curves,\nand suddenly they stopped altogether, only to recommence as the fanatics\nstarted singing a joyous hymn. Alas! thought I, one half the world is a\nlaughing-stock to the other half, if indeed not rather a source of tears.\nFor now the chief, whose fine gloomy Eastern face still haunts me, was\nbowing to his men, and they were responding with strange raucous cries\ncompounded of the roars of wild beasts and the pants of locomotives. _Hu!\nHu!_ they roared in savage unison, _Hu! Hu!_ monotonously, endlessly,\nmaking strange motions. Hoarser and more bestial grew the frightful\nroars, wilder and wilder grew the movements, the head-gear falling off,\nfaces growing black, the chief standing silent with his hand on his\nbreast, but in his pale face a tense look of ever-gathering excitement.\nAnd then two of the Dervishes held out a curved sword, and the roars\nredoubled and the chests heaved with wilder breaths; and suddenly the\nChief, throwing off his stocking-wraps, jumped on the blade with his\nnaked feet and balanced himself upon it, the muscles of his face rigid,\nhis teeth clenched. Four times he stood upon the bare sword-edge amid\nthis hellish howling and this mad swaying, the perspiration running down\nthe foreheads of the devotees, some of them foaming at the mouth. And\nthen they moved round in a circle to the right, howling _He! He!_ an\nArmenian Dervish in a tall brown hat varying it by _Ho! Ho!_ and another\nworshipper singing in a high voice.\n\nThe chief bared his breast, and twirling a heavy-hafted dagger, plunged\nit into his side. When this had been repeated three or four times,\npandemonium ceased. The Holy Man, with an air of supreme exhaustion and\nsupreme ecstasy, reclad himself in his white mantle, and the faithful\nones wiped their brows, and re-squatting on the ground exultantly\nvociferated _Allah_ about a hundred times, nodding their heads, and\nfinally changing their cry into _Bou! Bou!_ After a little singing and a\nshouting of _Din! Din!_ they pressed their foreheads to the ground with a\nshout of _Bou!_ and suddenly rose and decamped. Other nights other\nservices, and the hysterical worship sometimes embraces a sort of\nserpentine skirt-dancing with frenzied twirling. There was no blood from\nthe chief's wounds, but the performance does not seem to me to be\njugglery. It seems rather akin to hypnotism. The wild cries and gyrations\ninduce a state of anesthesia, just as by the excitement of battle the\nsoldier is so wrought up that he does not feel his wounds. Even in a sham\nfight a soldier told me he got to such a pitch that he could have done or\nsuffered anything. As for the blood not running from the wounds, I\nconjecture that the places had become insensitive by frequent stabbing in\nthe same spot. And this is the miracle that testifies to the saintliness\nof the Dervish and to the truth of his doctrines! I suspect that much of\n\"the wisdom of the East\" is of this character: ancient discoveries of the\nshady side of human psychology, the grotesque aberrations, trances,\nhypnotic impressionability, double personalities, ghosts, second-sight,\nwhat not. And these being misunderstood have always been supposed to\ntrench on the divine. For what is not normal is not human, and what is\nnot human is superhuman. So runs the simple logic. But hysteria can never\nbe a foundation for a creed, and a true religion must always appeal to\nthe common central facts of human experience.\n\nThere was another Exhibition going on, as it always goes on, in the town,\nfor the People's Park has very little verdure and consists almost\nentirely of side-shows and open-air restaurants. I saw swings and\nmerry-go-rounds, a circus, and a marionette theatre, and heard Punch and\nJudy discussing their domestic differences in Hungarian, and Toby barking\nin the same uncouth tongue. The joy with which the public greeted each\ncrack on the head administered by Herr Punch's stick showed me how\nhopeless it was to write literary plays. For the primitive emotions will\nalways be the most captivating. A fight must ever beat the most subtle\npsychology; and indeed those writers for whom the drama is the art of\nmanufacturing excitement and suspense must find it difficult to compete\nwith a lottery drawing, a prize-fight, or a horse-race, where the issue\nis known not even to the organiser of the excitement. And this\nconsideration will show why some books are very successful, the art of\nwhich is very little. Nothing is harder in real life than to put your\nback against the wall on a dark staircase and keep three armed men at bay\nwith your whirling sword. But nothing is easier than for the romantic\nwriter to dip his pen in ink and say that his hero did that. And nothing\nis more stimulating and exciting for the reader than to imagine the hero\ndoing it; and in his gratitude to the giver of all this beautiful\nbreathlessness he is likely, unless he is an analytical person, to\nmistake a cheap effect for precious art. But the bulk of humanity must\nalways remain at the Punch-and-Judy stage of art. If only the critics\nwould outgrow it! The clowns in the circus who came on with red noses\nwere a further proof of the sempiternal simplicity of our race; and I\ncould have wished for the heart of that urchin whom I saw trying to peer\nin under the canvas, and whom, with a reminiscence of the young\nGradgrinds, I was about to pay for, when he suddenly produced a florin\nand many coppers and went in like a man. Sitting in the front row, I had\na curious presentiment that the daring bare-backed rider would be thrown\nat my feet; and sure enough he was, and, as I picked him up, I saw by the\nperspiration what toil his graceful feats concealed. Poor cavalier! I am\nsure his pride was more hurt than his person, and he excelled himself in\ngalloping round poised on one toe. When he was recalled after his exit,\nhe tumbled his thanks, giving us complex somersaults in lieu of bows. I\nsometimes fancy he was a holier person than the Chief of the Dancing\nDervishes.\n\n\n\n\nCHICAGO\n\nThe function and value of literature are curiously illustrated by the\npassing away of the Great White Elephant. The criticisms by spectators of\nthe World's Fair have not been so comprehensive as the Fair itself, and I\nfeel that I ought to supplement them by the impressions it made upon one\nwho did not see it. For, despite the assurance of the official programme,\nthat I delivered an address in the Parliament of Religions, I was in\nEngland, so far as I know, the whole time. The first impression the Fair\nmade upon me was one of sublimity--but of what Sir William Hamilton calls\n\"the material sublime,\" scarcely at all of \"the moral sublime,\" which was\nsupposed to be its _raison d'\u00eatre_. I was, of course, aware that great\nspiritual facts underlay the physical grandeurs; but spiritual emotion is\ndifficult to get at a distance. One requires the actual objects to\nimpinge on the soul, the architectural glories and industrial splendours\nto touch through bodily vision. One realises it so vaguely, and fails to\nget the half-aesthetic, half-religious, uplifting that concrete\nvisualisation should supply. It is, perhaps, a pity that Whitman did not\nlive to see the spectacle, he whose inspiration came so often from\nsynthesis, from a vision of the ALL. The cosmopolitan cataloguer, the man\nwho made inventories almost epical, is the one man to whom the Fair would\nhave been a magnificent inspiration. Judging from the Fair, Whitman would\nseem justified in claiming to be the voice of America. The Fair was like\nhim both in its moral broadness and its material all-inclusiveness. In\nhis absence no poet has risen \"to the height of this great argument,\" so\nthat now the insubstantial pageant is faded, now that \"the cloud-capp'd\ntowers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples,\" have dissolved, \"like\nthe baseless fabric of a vision,\" they have left not a rack of real\nliterature behind. And to what but literature can one look for a\npermanent conservator of the eternal lesson of an ephemeral exhibition?\nTruly, as the Latin poet said, literature is more durable than monuments\nand dynasties. Except as an object-lesson in the unity and federation of\nmankind, the Fair had no valuable _raison d'\u00eatre_, and, unfortunately,\nthe school-term was short and the number of pupils comparatively limited.\n\nAmerica is a long way from everywhere, even from itself, and the moral\nheat dissipates in crossing the ocean to the Old World. The Congress of\nReligions in whose voluminous report the Fair has still a chance of\nsurviving itself, was the most patently spiritual side of the Exposition,\nand was, undoubtedly, a most valuable index of the progress of human\ncatholicism. That the sects are as narrow as they are numerous, is still\nlargely true, and half the world is still ignorant of how the other half\nprays, though by a happy accident of birth all the world inherits the one\ntrue religion. The greatest force in the universe is the \"_vis\ninertiae_,\" and the forces already at work must \"dree their weird.\" To\nthose who are outside all the sects without even circumscribing them, the\nWorld's Fair must bring home at once the greatness and vanity of man's\nlife--man who lives like the angels and dies like the brutes--the mortal\nparadox that has puzzled all thinkers from the Psalmist to Pascal. For\nthe unbeliever this must ever be the ugly reverse of all glories that are\nmerely material, though the sensuous optimist need not allow the skeleton\nat the feast to spoil his appetite.\n\nThe last impression made by the World's Fair upon me was one of\nsadness--sadness at not having seen it.\n\n\n\n\nEDINBURGH\n\nTill I went to Edinburgh I did not know what \"The Evergreen\" was.\nNewspaper criticisms had given me vague misrepresentations of a Scottish\n\"Yellow Book\" calling itself a \"Northern Seasonal.\" But even had I seen a\ncopy myself I doubt if I should have understood it without going to\nEdinburgh and even had I gone to Edinburgh I should still have been in\ntwilight had? I not met Patrick Geddes, Professor of Botany at the\nUniversity of Dundee. For Patrick Geddes is the key to the Northern\nposition in life and letters. \"The Evergreen\" was not established as an\nantidote to the \"Yellow Book,\" though it might well seem a colour\ncounter-symbol--the green of spring set against the yellow of decadent\nleaves. It is, indeed, an antidote but undesigned; else had not yellow\nfigured so profusely upon the cover. \"The Evergreen\" of to-day professes\nto be inspired by \"The Evergreen\" which Allan Ramsay published in 1724,\nto stimulate a return to local and national tradition and living nature.\nPatrick Geddes and Colleagues, who publish it and other books--on a new\nsystem of giving the author all the profits, as certified by a chartered\naccountant--inherit Ramsay's old home. That is to say, they are located\nin a sort of \"University Settlement,\" known as Ramsay Garden, a charming\ncollection of flats, overlooking from its eastled hill the picturesque\ncity, and built by the many-sided Professor of Botany, and they aspire\nalso to follow in \"the gentle shepherd's\" footsteps as workers and\nwriters, publishers and builders. In fact, their aim is synthesis,\nconstruction, after our long epoch of analysis, destruction. They would\norganise life as a whole, expressing themselves through educational and\ncivic activities, through art and architecture, and make of Edinburgh the\n\"Cit\u00e9 du Bon Accord\" dreamed of by Elis\u00e9e Reclus. They feel acutely the\n\"need of fresh readings in life, of fresh groupings in science, both now\nmainly from the humanist's side, as lately from the naturalist's side.\"\nIn this University Settlement the publishing and writing department is to\nrepresent the scriptorium of the ancient monasteries. Of the local and\nnational traditions this new Scottish school is particularly concerned to\nfoster the so-called \"Celtic renascence,\" and--what is more interesting\nto outsiders--the revival and development of the old Continental\nsympathies of Scotland. The ancient league with France has deeply marked\nScotch history, and even moulded Scotch architecture. As Disraeli said in\nhis inaugural address on his institution as Lord Rector of the University\nof Glasgow, \"it is not in Scotland that the name of France will ever be\nmentioned without affection.\" So, among the endless projects of the\neffervescent Professor, is one for reviving the Scotch college in\nParis--the original building happening still to survive--and for making\nit a centre for Scottish students and Scottish culture in the gay city.\n\nThus, while the men of \"The Evergreen\" would renew local feeling and\nlocal colour, they \"would also express the larger view of Edinburgh as\nnot only a National and Imperial but a European city--the larger view of\nScotland, again as in recent, in mediaeval, most of all in ancient times,\none of the European Powers of Culture--as of course far smaller countries\nlike Norway are to-day.\" An aspiration with which all intelligent men\nmust sympathise. The quest at once of local colour and cosmopolitanism is\nnot at all self-contradictory. The truest cosmopolitanism goes with the\nintensest local colour, for otherwise you contribute nothing to the human\ntreasury and make mankind one vast featureless monotony. Harmonious\ndiversity is the true cosmopolitan concept, and who will not applaud this\ndesire of Edinburgh to range itself again amongst the capitals of\nculture? Why should it take its tone from London? That centripetal force\nwhich draws villages to towns and towns to capitals everywhere tends to\nconcentrate in one city a country's culture, and to brand as provincial\nthat which is not of the centre. But the centre is corrosive of\noriginality, and if now and then a great man does abide therein, it is\nbecause he has the gift of solitude amid crowds, and is not obnoxious to\nthe contagion of the common thought. The Scotch School, though its effort\nto emancipate itself from the intellectual thraldom of London is to be\ncommended, does not escape the dangers that lie in wait for all schools,\nwhich upset one convention by another. Still, a school of thought which\nis also a school of action has in itself the germs of perpetual\nself-recuperation.\n\nYes, there can be little danger of sinking into barren formulae, into\nglib aesthetic prattle about Renascence, in a movement of which one\nexpression is the purification of those plaguy, if picturesque, Closes,\nwhich are the foul blot upon the beautiful Athens of the North. Those\nsunless courts, entered by needles' eyes of apertures, congested with\nhellish, heaven-scaling barracks, reeking with refuse and evil odours,\ninhabited promiscuously by poverty and prostitution, worse than the worst\nslums of London itself--how could they have been left so long to pollute\nthe fairest and well-nigh the wealthiest city in the kingdom? \"Do you\nwonder Edinburgh is renowned for its medical schools?\" asked the\nProfessor grimly, as he darted in and out among those foul alleys,\nexplaining how he was demolishing this and reconstructing that--at once a\nDestroying Angel and a Redeemer. Veritable ghettoes they seemed, these\nblind alleys of gigantic habitations, branching out from the High Street,\nhidden away from the superficial passer-by faring to Holyrood. They were\nthe pioneers of the trans-Atlantic sky-builders, were those old burghers,\nwho, shut in about their castled hill by the two lochs, one of which is\nnow the enchanting Princes Street, were fain to build heavenwards as\npopulation grew. It was a stormy morning when the mercurial Professor of\nBotany, recking naught of the rain that saturated his brown cloak, itself\nreluctantly donned, led me hither and thither, through the highways and\nbyways of old Edinburgh. Everywhere a litter of building operations, and\nwe trod gingerly many a decadent staircase. Sometimes a double row of\nhouses had already been knocked away, revealing a Close within a Close,\neyeless house behind blind alley, and even so the diameter of the court\nstill but a few yards. What human ant-heaps, what histories, farces,\ntragedies played out in airless tenebrosity!\n\nThe native writers seem to have strangely neglected the artistic wealth\nof all this poverty: pathos and humour reside, then, only in villages!\nThrums and Drum-tochty and Galloway exhaust the human tragi-comedy. Ah!\nmy friends, go to the ant-hill and be wise! The Professor of Botany\n(seeming now rather of entomology) explained the principle upon which he\nwas destroying and rebuilding. One had to be cautious. He pointed out the\nhead of a boy carved over one of the archways, the one survivor of a\nfatal subsidence many years ago, when the ground floor of one of the\ngigantic houses was converted into a shop, with plate-glass windows in\nlieu of the solid stonework. \"Heave awa'!\" cried a piping voice amid the\n_d\u00e9bris_: \"I'm no dead yet.\"\n\nThe Professor's own destruction was conservative in character: it was his\naim to preserve the ancient note in the architecture, and to make a clean\nOld Edinburgh of a dirty. Air and light were to be no longer excluded;\noutside every house, as flats or storeys are called, a balcony was to\nrun, giving on sky and open ground. Eminent personages like Lord\nRosebery, ancestrally connected with ancient demesnes, long perverted\ninto pigsties, had been induced to repurchase them, thus restoring an\narchaic flavour of aristocratic prestige to these despised quarters. The\nmoral effect of grappling with an evil that had seemed so hopeless could\nnot fail to be inspiring; and, as we plodded through the pouring:\nstreets, \"I will remove this, I will reconstruct that,\" cried the\nenthusiastic Professor, till I almost felt I was walking with the Emperor\nof Edinburgh. But whence come the sinews of war? Evidently no professor's\nprivy purse would suffice. I gathered that the apostle of the sanitary\npicturesque had inspired sundry local capitalists with his own patriotic\nenthusiasm. What a miracle, this trust in a man over-brimming with ideas,\nthe brilliant biological theoriser of \"The Evolution of Sex\" in the\nContemporary Science Series, the patron of fantastic artists like John\nDuncan! Obviously it is his architectural faculty that has saved him.\nThere stand the houses he has built--visible, tangible, delectable;\nconcrete proofs that he is no mere visionary.\n\nAnd yet we may be sure the more frigid society of Edina still looks\naskance on this dreamer in stone and fresco; for after all Edinburgh, as\nProfessor Blaekie said, is an \"East-windy, west-endy city.\" Cold and\nstately, it sits on its height with something of the austere mournfulness\nof a ruined capital. But we did not concern ourselves about the legal and\nscholastic quarters, the Professor and I. We penetrated into inhabited\ninteriors in the Closes, meeting strange female ruins on staircases, or\nbonny housewives in bed-sitting-rooms, in one of which a sick husband lay\napologetically abed. And when even the Professor was forced at last to\ntake refuge from the driving rain, it was in John Knox's house that we\nensconced ourselves--the grim, unlovely house of the great Calvinist, the\ndoorway of which fanatically baptised me in a positive waterfall, and in\nwhose dark rooms, as the buxom care-taker declared in explaining the\npresence of an empty cage, no bird could live. It is not only in its\nCloses, methought, that Scotland needs regen eration. Many a spiritual\nblind-alley has still to receive sunshine and air, \"sweetness and light.\"\nSo let us welcome \"The Evergreen\" and the planters thereof, stunted and\nmean though its growth be as yet; for not only in Scotland may they bring\nrefreshment, but in that larger world where analysis and criticism have\nended in degeneration and despair.\n\n\n\n\nFIESOLE AND FLORENCE\n\nAt Fiesole I just missed a sensation. Two friends of mine were climbing\nat midnight the steep hill to the village, when from beneath a dark arch\nthere dashed down towards them two breathless _carabinieri_, their cloaks\nflapping in the moonlight like the wings of the demon-bats of pantomime.\n\"Is it your way that the murdered man lies?\" they panted. \"Murdered man!\"\nAt once a hundred shadowy reminiscences stirred in my friends' minds:\nProsper M\u00e9rim\u00e9e's novels, stories of vendettas, plots of plays, _morceaux\nd'op\u00e9ras_, even of comic operas; and it was with a feeling in which the\nlatter element predominated that they answered that they had come across\nno corpse. The police-officers thanked them and hurried off, so my\nfriends soon understood, as far as possible from the scene of the event;\nfor, passing through the arch, the _Inglesi_ came upon a track of blood,\nblack and clotted in the moonlight. But it did not seem real to\nthem--they still had a consciousness of comic opera, a consciousness\nwhich was intensified rather than lessened when they emerged upon a group\nof excited villagers discussing the crime, and learnt its cause. Two\nrival bands, one from a neighbouring village, had been performing at a\nlocal _concerto_, and the two rival trumpeters had continued to blow\ntheir own trumpets after business hours. \"Fancy blowing with that little\nmouth!\" said one. \"I'm glad I haven't your maw (_boccone_)!\" retorted the\nother.\n\nFrom words it came to knives, and ere you could say Jacopo Robinson a\ntrumpeter lay weltering in his blood, or rather in his gore, and the\nmurderer was flying into the arms of the police, who incontinently turned\nand fled the other way. When my friends passed by the house of the\nvictim, the midnight air was ringing with the horrible curses of his\nbereaved sister, whose spasmodic face was visible at a window. But the\ncold-blooded artistic English felt no answering throb of sympathy--it was\nstill a scene in a play to them, still a _coup de th\u00e9\u00e2tre_--they had lost\nthe primary human instincts, corrupted by a long course of melodrama and\ncomic opera. To-day I myself saw a carnival procession in the village\npiazza--a veritable survival of the Middle Ages; a triumphal car wreathed\nin flowers, driven by masquerading mummers and surrounded by Pierrots and\npeasant buffoons, a thoroughly na\u00efve and primitive bit of religion. But\nit needed a perceptible effort to shake off the sense of the operatic, to\naccept the thing as genuine. Ruskin contended (in that _olla podrida_\ncalled \"Modern Painters\") that the Swiss peasants do not really dance and\nsing happily in the market-place; and hence he argued--comically\nenough--that the money spent on the stage reproduction of their happiness\nshould be spent in really promoting their happiness. With my Italian\npeasants I feel the opposite: that such excellent picturesque effects\nshould not be wasted on mere reality, but should be turned to real use\nupon the stage. So, too, it is difficult to take a roadside beggar\nseriously; he seems to ask, not for alms, but for a frame. Happy the\nunlettered and the inartistic, to whom even the picturesque person is a\nperson, who can think of olive oil when he sees the olive-trees weaving\ntheir graceful patterns above the stone walls, and can watch the sun set\nin lurid splendour behind the purple mountains with never a thought of\nTurner or Childe Harold!\n\nFor modern civilised beings, in incessant relations with the reflections\nof life through literature and art, it is difficult to receive any\nimpressions which do not re-reflect what lies in the mirror of art. And\nhere is an amusing side-issue. We are presented in plays and books, with\nnumerous situations in which the ignorance of one of the parties is a\nnecessary factor in the particular dramatic situation which it is sought\nto evolve. But as this person, _ex hypothesi_, belongs to the class of\nsociety which is familiar with this particular plot _ad nauseam_, is it\npossible that he or she should go on betraying the same ignorance on\nwhich the plot originally was based? Even Marguerite has seen \"Faust\"\nnowadays!\n\nThis suggests an objection to old plots quite apart from their oldness,\nfor that which started by being probable becomes improbable by age. Even\nif it were ever possible for a man to be jealous of a woman because he\nsaw her kissing a man whom, after long and weary years of superfluous\nseparation, he discovered to be her brother, it should surely be\nimpossible to-day. If I saw any man kissing my _fianc\u00e9e_ I should know at\nonce it was my future brother-in-law--or at any rate I should\ninquire--which the old hero never seemed to do. And yet I will wager that\nin the course of this year at least a dozen novels and plays will be\nbuilt up upon this theme. It is, by the way, a noticeable characteristic\nof people in plays never to have read nor to be interested in any but the\npetty dramatic matter which is interesting them--and let us hope the\naudience--at the moment. It may be replied that the economy of the stage\ndemands that everything that is not strictly essential should be\neliminated; but yet it ought to be possible, by a few words, to give the\nidea that the figures upon the boards are doing more than moving to the\nstrings of the playwright. Just so the painter of the gulf should suggest\nthe ocean beyond; the painter of the landscape, the infinity of space and\natmosphere in which it is enisled. What the _plein air_ school contended\nfor in painting is no less requisite in literature.\n\nThis consideration seems to account for the uneasy sense of unreality\nwhich we feel in the modern machine-made Sardou play, in which the\ncharacters have the air of existing entirely to themselves, and for the\nsake of the particular play, and do not give that large sense of being\npart of the civilised humanity we know that reads and thinks. The men\nmake love or profess hate, repudiate their wives, or cut off their sons\nwith shillings, all with the air of its happening for the first time, and\nwholly devoid of that sense of the ridiculous which they could not help\nfeeling if they had been accustomed themselves to read novels and sit in\nstalls.\n\nIt is, in fact, impossible for us moderns, educated in a long literary\ntradition, to live our lives as naturally and na\u00efvely as the unlettered\nof to-day, or the people of the preliterary geological epoch. This is\nbrought out \"ostensively,\" as Bacon would say, in \"Don Quixote,\" or in\nthe Russian novel \"A Simple Story\"--apparently so called because it is so\ncomplex--in which Gontcharov's hero lives in what Alice might call\n\"behind the looking-glass\" of literature. He is a country boy who comes\nup to St. Petersburg, and after a course of Russian novels is transformed\ninto a series of imitations of their heroes. He does nothing, feels\nnothing, thinks nothing except after the pattern of these creatures of\nthe quill.\n\nWell! we are all like that, more or less. Though we may not be as\nchivalrously inspired as the Knight of La Mancha, nor run to the extremes\nof the simple Russian, we are all to some extent remoulded in imitation\nof the Booklanders, and this is the truth in the \"decadent\" paradox that\nnature copies art. There is a drop of ink in the blood of the most\nnatural of us; we are all hybrids, crossed with literature, and\nShakespeare is as much the author of our being as either of our parents.\nThe effect of the stage in regulating the poses and costumes of\nsusceptible souls has not escaped notice; but the effect of novels and\npoetry is more insidious. Who ever shuddered with bitter alliterative\nkisses before Swinburne, and who has failed to do so since? What poor\nlittle cockney clerk in his first spasms of poetry but has felt, sitting\nby his girl in the music hall, that if she walked over the grave in which\nhe was planted, his \"dust would hear her and beat, had he lain for a\ncentury dead\" (though how Maud could survive her lover for a century,\nTennyson failed to explain)?  _Per contra_, the ingenuous spinster taking\nher notions of love from Maupassant's \"Bel-Ami,\" or Gabriele d'Annunzio's\n\"Trionfo della Morte,\" becomes a man-hater. Yes, I fear that the artistic\ntreatment of life has a good deal to answer for. People do not yet\nunderstand that the mirror of art does not reflect life unrefracted. The\ngreat eternal theme of art is love-making; but even artists have to give\nup some time to art-making.\n\nBut to wind up anent our murderer. He is still at large. The police have\ngiven up the chase in despair. But he has never left the village, and we\nvillagers all wink at one another as we discuss his whereabouts; and when\nwe meet him driving his cart or come across him cutting wood in the\nforest and he genially gives us _Buon' giorno_ we salute him with\nanswering politeness. Only in the village band there is a temporary\ntrumpeter, for even the police might hear of him if he performed in\npublic loudly enough. But Italian justice, though it does really savour\nof comic opera, is not so farcical as it appears on the surface. It is an\nunwritten law that the police shall not _pigliare_ him till the sessions\nare nigh. He is on parole, so to speak, to come up when called upon; if\nhe were really to take flight, he would be declared an outlaw, and the\nonly reason the police cannot find him is that they know where he is. How\nsensible! Why board and lodge him gratis for weeks? He has outraged the\ncommunity: shall the community reward him with free meals? Even when he\nis caught he will be treated with the same economy. Capital punishment\nthere is none in Italy. Why waste a citizen and a tax-payer? Especially\nwhen one has already been destroyed! No, he will be sentenced to a term\nof imprisonment. But he will not serve it. He will escape, or it will be\ncommuted. And while he is in gaol he will have a good time. He will smoke\nand play cards, or, leaning out of his dungeon casement, hold a levee of\nhis friends. Recently the soldiers at Bergamo mutinied because they were\nsupplied with worse bread than the denizens of the gaol. I trust the\nringleaders were sent to prison so as to remedy this dietary injustice.\n\nPlease do _me_ the justice to remark that I have been in Italy for\nseveral paragraphs without once referring to the Old Masters. But the\nfact is that I have not been much at the Masked Balls. Does this saying\nseem cryptic? All it means is that the confusion into which our\nscientific century has thrown us is worse confounded than usual in the\nuniverse of pictures; that the Galleries appear to be made up of pictures\nmasquerading under wrong names. Time was when one might go about\ncomfortably with a Baedeker and a stock of admiration and distribute it\nas per instructions. But these good old times are over. The Old Masters\nof yesterday are the young apprentices of to-day. It is pitiable to think\nhow many well-meaning enthusiasts have fallen victims to the careless or\ncrafty curator. Sometimes it scarcely needs a connoisseur to suspect the\ngood faith of catalogues. I, myself, a mere babe and suckling, came to\nthe conclusion, after a visit to the Velasquez Exhibition in London, that\nVelasquez must have been very versatile. It is too bad that artists\nshould be hanged for crimes they never committed. 'T is to be hoped their\nghosts carefully avoid the Galleries. But beshrew your paintings! My eyes\nmake pictures--not like Coleridge's when they're shut, but when they 're\nopen. Who would not rather lie with me in the _podere_ in the shade of\nthe cypress trees, under the blue, blue sky, and behold through a tangle\nof olive-boughs the marvellous Dome of Florence, as satisfying as the\nsea, or under a starry heaven the loveliest of cities glittering like a\nrival firmament with answering constellations? And yet I recant. For if\nthere is one piece of art which is better than nature, 't is Botticelli's\nso-called \"Spring,\" which, long misprised and now worm-riddled, adds the\nlast magic to the wonderful flower-city. To her that hath shall be given.\n\n\n\n\nGLASGOW\n\n\"And what do you think of Glasgow?\" said the pretty lady interviewer--I\nhave the right to say she was pretty because she said in print that I\nwasn't. I replied that of course Glasgow wasn't pretty but--and here\nwould have followed an amiable dissertation upon the municipal\nsuperiority of Glasgow. \"But,\" hastily interrupted the lady interviewer,\n\"have you seen the fine vista of St. Vincent Street, the Great Western\nRoad, the finest thoroughfare in Europe, the charming residential\ndistricts of Pollokshields West and Dowanhill, the wide view from the\nSouth Side Park or picturesque Camphill?\" I tried to edge in an abashed\n\"No,\" for a monosyllable is the most one can hope to secure of the\nconversation in an interview; but the pretty lady interviewer went on\nreproachfully: \"Have you seen that stately hill of the dead, the\nNecropolis, from Cathedral Square? It is itself a quaint and beautiful\nmedley of architecture past and present. Have you seen beautiful\nKelvingrove, through which flows the classic Kelvin? In many world-famous\ncities have I been and yet seen nothing more beautiful than the view on\none side of Partick Bridge.\" I apologised to Glasgow, inwardly\nconfounding the eminent Scotch _litt\u00e9rateur_ who had assured me that\nGlasgow was the most loathsome den north of Tweed, almost the only such\nden,--his malison upon Glasgow! But although I feel personally nothing\nbut gratitude to Glasgow and its noisy University students, I cannot\nhonestly award it the apple for beauty. After all it is the centre of the\ntown that one naturally gravitates to, and no charm of suburbs can remove\nthe general impression of commercial dinginess.\n\nNo, Glasgow must be content with its wealth and its public spirit. If it\ndoes not stir the imagination like Edinburgh, it satisfies the brain and\nthe heart, for it is grappling manfully with many social problems, with\nthe opening of parks and hospitals, and especially with the housing of\nthe poor, and is developing an artistic conscience to boot. It owns its\ngas and water, and I had the felicity of meeting the Lord Provost at the\nvery moment when, his glittering insignia heaving with emotion on his\njoyous breast, he had to announce to the Town Council that the\nfiercely-canvassed step of taking over the tramways had resulted in a\nbalance to the good. When the Lord Provost had returned to his chair, I\nwas shown the Councillors themselves at their mahogany tables, in their\nbeautiful Council-chamber, and I made notes--not of the debate, as the\nlynx-eyed reporter, who counted the number of times I sucked my pencil,\nimagined--but of the improved appearance of George Square under snow.\nSeen through the windows the square stretched away pure and beautiful the\ngloomy statues blanched and Prince Albert's horse gleaming proudly with\nwhite trappings. The Municipal Buildings deserve all the praise they have\nreceived. The special staircase, which is used only on state occasions,\npresents from point to point a marvellously proportioned medley of arches\nand pillars and arcades, with a dominant Corinthian note. It is really\n\"frozen music.\" And when adorned with tropical plants and lit up with\nelectric lights and pretty faces, it must indeed be a superb sight. Very\nimposing, too, is the vast Banqueting Hall, from whose platform, to test\nthe acoustic effect of the rows of wires stretched six inches apart under\nthe ceiling to break the sound, I addressed vacancy. The panels of this\nhall still await their artists. 'T is a rare opportunity for Glasgow to\nemulate the Parisian Pantheon; and, indeed, there is so much art-work to\nbe done in Glasgow that one begins to understand why it is threatening to\nbecome the capital of British Art. The best road in Scotland is no longer\nthat which leads to England. It was curious for a humble author to walk\nthese stately halls, convoyed by courteous officers in red swallow-tails,\nand to rub shoulders with civic millionaires. An awesome air of wealth\nhung over the men and the place, a crushing suggestion of vast\nenterprises, of engineering and railway building and the running of\nsteamers, a subtle aroma of colossal fortunes, wrested from the world by\nthe leverage of an initial half-crown. I have often gone to places with\nonly half a crown in my pocket, but it never seemed to lead to anything.\nSo I surveyed these men with blended reverence and bewilderment,\nwondering why they bothered themselves to make all that money, and\nwhether they ever suspected they were but tools in the hands of destiny,\nby whose marvellous alchemy the self-centred ambition of the individual\nis transmuted to the service of the world. The genial Bailie Simons, who\nwas my host--fancy living in daily contact with a Bailie!--informed me\nthat the grave city fathers are sadly degenerating. Thirty years ago they\ndid not smoke in public: now there is a smoking-room in the sacred\nbuilding itself; and at least one of them has been seen to leave it in a\nwhite hat.\n\nLike the king's daughter, Glasgow is all glorious within, and its inner\nartistic aspirations make up for and are perhaps inversely inspired by\nits outer unloveliness. The world must not judge Glasgow's taste by the\nrecent Puritanic rumpus over the nude. The worthy Bailies and the Chief\nConstable who drew the line at Leighton and Solomon have overlooked the\ninteresting nudities in their own Galleries. The affinity of the Scotch\nand the French, which has often been noted in history, and which accounts\nfor their swamping the English in literature, has made Style the\nwatchword of the Glasgow School of Art. Whistler's \"Carlyle\" hangs in the\nCorporation Galleries, and it was the stylist, Lavery, who secured the\ntedious commission to commemorate Her Majesty's opening of the Glasgow\nExhibition by the usual plethora of portraits. It would have made a more\ninteresting picture had Mr. Lavery perpetuated the fact--so pregnant a\ncontribution to the philosophy of Exhibitions--that a profit of \u00a310,000\nwas derived from the switchbacks. The picture would then have made a nice\nsupplement to Mr. Lavery's famous studies of \"Croquet\" and \"Tennis.\" The\nvery slabs of the Corporation staircase are infected with Impressionism,\nand their natural veinings body forth, here a charge of cavalry, there a\nmarch of infantry, and yonder a portrait of Sir William Vernon Harcourt\nwith a prophetic coronet. The stones of Glasgow await their Ruskin. The\nExhibition which I saw at the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts was far more\ninteresting than the last Academy, though it contained some of the same\npictures. I was able to tell the Scotch artists an anecdote which no one\nhad heard before, for the simple reason that it was true, and that it\nhappened to me. It was in Perth that, puzzling over a grimy statue, I was\naccosted by a bare-footed newsboy with his raucous cry of \"Hair-r-ald,\nGlasgow Hair-r-ald!\"\n\n\"I'll take one,\" quoth I, \"if you'll tell me whose statue that is.\"\n\n\"'T is Rabbie Burns\" replied he, on the nail.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said I, taking the paper. \"And what did he do, to deserve\nthe statue?\"\n\nMy newsboy scratched his head. Perceiving his embarrassment, a party of\nhis friends down the street called out in stentorian chorus: \"Ay, 't is\nBabbie Burns.\"\n\n\"But what did he do to deserve the statue?\" I thundered back. They hung\ntheir heads. At last my newsboy recovered himself; his face brightened.\n\"Well?\" said I again, \"what did he do to deserve this statue?\"\n\n\"He _deed_!\" answered the intelligent little man.\n\nAnother newsboy, whom I asked if he had ever read Sir Walter Scott,\nreplied, \"No, he is _ower dreich_ (over dry).\"\n\nTalking of statues, I see that Paisley is going to erect a full-sized\nfigure of the late Thomas Coats, with a bronze high hat under his bronze\narm. The history of the Corporation Art Galleries is curious. The nucleus\nof the collection is the bequest of a coach-builder, who seems to have\nhad a Glaswegian Renaissance all to himself, for it was years after his\ndeath before his legacy was routed out from the lumber-rooms to which it\nhad been consigned, and ere its many genuine treasures were catalogued by\nMr. James Paton, the learned curator, whose magic-lantern exhibit the\nother day of the coach-building connoisseur's face was the first display\nof his lineaments to an ungrateful posterity. The Galleries now claim to\ncontain so many Old Masters that no connoisseur is complete without a\nknowledge of them. Except Velasquez, there is scarcely one of the great\npainters who is not represented here, even including Giorgione, of whom,\nparodying Hegel's remark about the one disciple who understood him (\"and\nhe doesn't understand me!\"), it may be said that there are only two\ngenuine specimens of him in the world, and that both of these are by his\npupils. What Mary Logan would say to these Rembrandts and Rubenses I know\nnot; but there is much of indisputable value in this collection, to say\nnothing of Flaxman's masterpiece--the statue of Pitt,--or the recent\naccessions, such as the Whistler, or David Murray's \"Fir Faggots,\" or the\nbust of Victor Hugo by Rodin.\n\nPictorially the hill of the dead was the most interesting part of Glasgow\nI saw--a scene which, especially in its simple severe Protestant draping\nof snow, might well tempt the artist. At its summit John Knox looks down\nupon the Cathedral, whose altars and images were broken during the\nReformation, and whose new stained windows (made in Germany) testify by\ntheir preference for Old Testament subjects to the latent Puritanism of\nCaledonia. Especially interesting is the crypt, with its sepulchral\nchurch, whose subterranean service is recorded in \"Rob Roy.\" One of the\npillars of the crypt proper is called the Rob Roy pillar, for behind it\nthe great outlaw is supposed to have hidden. Near it is the shrine of St.\nMungo, patron saint of Glasgow, who has presumably risen in the hierarchy\nnow that Glasgow has been made a county. Facing the shrine is a window\ndecorated with a portrait of Edward Irving, clothed as St. John the\nBaptist. The cicerone said it was greatly admired because the eyes\nfollowed you about wherever you walked. This is not the first time I have\nbeen asked to admire as supreme art what is really one of the commonest\nof optical delusions. After the Cathedral had closed, it had to be\nreopened because I had lost a glove within. After a careful search the\nglove was found in the gloomy crypt, pointing its finger at this\nmiraculous picture, unable to tear itself away. But perhaps the most\ncharacteristic thing I came across in Glasgow was an inscription at the\nend of the bridge leading to the picturesque cemetery. \"The adjoining\nbridge was erected by the Merchants' House of Glasgow to afford a proper\nentrance to their new cemetery, combining convenient access to the\ngrounds with suitable decoration to the venerable Cathedral and\nsurrounding scenery, to unite the tombs of many generations who have gone\nbefore with the resting-places destined for generations yet unborn, where\nthe ashes of all shall repose until the rising of the just, when that\nwhich is born a natural body shall be raised a spiritual body, when this\ncorruptible must put on incorruption, when this mortal must put on\nimmortality, when death is swallowed up in victory.\" There you have\nGlasgow! An auctioneer's advertisement blent with an edifying sermon, a\nhappy combination of commerce and Christianity, making the best of this\nworld and the next.\n\nI left Glasgow in a choking yellow fog. Five minutes from the city the\ntrain steamed into bright sunshine, which continued till five minutes\nfrom London, where a sisterly yellow fog was waiting. As Tennyson sings,\nI had gone \"from the night to the night.\"\n\n\n\n\nHASLEMERE\n\nI am up a \"B\u00f4 tree.\" Every schoolboy knows (that is, of course, every\nBuddhistic schoolboy) that when the Buddha made \"the great renunciation,\"\nhe attained Nirvana by sitting under a \"B\u00f4 tree.\" My \"B\u00f4 tree\" is a great\noak in the heart of the woods, mounted by a dizzy spiral staircase, at\nthe summit of which you enter Nirvana by means of the \"House on the\nGarden,\" a glass-house floored with boards and furnished with rustic\nchairs, a lounge and a writing-table; and here, amid the tree-tops, I\nwrite to the music of thrush and blackbird, with restful glances at the\nsailing clouds or at the sunny weald, that circles for miles around and\nends to the south in the \"downs\" that hide the English Channel. Perhaps\nit is because my landscape takes in Tennyson's happy Haslemere home that\nmy thought runs so much on him to-day, and then runs back to a cold stone\nstaircase up which I toiled in pitchy blackness to see a great French\npoet. Taine, who preferred Alfred de Musset to Tennyson, made of a\ncontrast between the two men the most telling pages in his history of our\nliterature, setting in graphic antithesis the dust and flare and fever of\nthe Boulevards against the\n\n  English home, gray twilight poured\n    On dewy pastures, dewy trees,\n  Softer than sleep,--all things in order stored,\n    A haunt of ancient peace,\n\nwhere the English Laureate brooded over his chiselled verses. How much\nmore piquant a contrast might be drawn between the jealously-guarded\ncastle in which Tennyson entrenched himself and the accessible garret in\nthe Rue St. Jacques where Verlaine held his court in absolute bonhomie\nand d\u00e9shabille.\n\nBut, alas! there is no Nirvana on my \"B\u00f4 Tree\"--at least, not to-day. The\nblatancy of a brass band bursts forth on the breeze. A popular waltz\nsilences the cuckoos. I climb down my spiral staircase and hasten across\nthe wood to discover what these strange sounds portend. In front of the\ncreeper-clad house I come upon a scene of comic opera. This is the\nvillage f\u00eate day, and here are the festive villagers come to pay\nallegiance to the lord of the manor. The majority are Foresters,\nand wear green sashes, and carry banners like to the pictorial\npocket-handkerchiefs of Brobdingnag. The music gives over, and my host\naddresses them from between the roses of his porch, and they laugh at his\ngenial jokes with the unanimity of the footlights. There are tiny tots\nand old women in the background, and yonder is the Village Beauty--a ripe\nmaid, i' faith, and a comely. There are other girls in her train; but,\noddsbobs! what have they done with their tights? and why do they delay to\nannounce her approaching marriage in merry melodic chorus? But I conceal\nmy surprise and, as the cynical Man from Town (gadzooks!), ogle the Pride\nof the Village, to the disgust of her rural swain, who has started\nblowing the trombone and dare not desist, though his cheeks get redder\nand more explosive each instant. In the next Act we all go down to the\nannual dinner, in a long rose-wreathed tent, and the Parson says grace\nand the Parson's Clerk \"Amen,\" and the Squire (in corduroy knickerbockers\nand leggings) bestows his benediction on all the village, while without,\nthe happy peasants project sticks at cocoanuts or try their strength with\nmallets, and all is virtuous and feudal. In the third Act we are in the\nVicarage Garden--a beautiful set, with real rhododendrons. Sir Roger de\nCoverley takes tea i'fackins with the Parson, and the Stalwart Farmer\npasses the sugar to the Man from Town, who is gazing out wistfully\ntowards the Village Green, where the Village Beauty foots it featly with\nthe Village Idiot. The last Act passes in the Drawing-Boom of \"B\u00f4 tree\"\nHouse, where the Archdeacon's Daughter touches her tinkling guitar and\nwarbles a plaintive ballad:--\n\n   O give my love to Nancy,\n     The girl that I adore--\n   Tell her that she'll never see\n     Her soldier any more--\n   Tell her I died in battle\n     Fighting with the black,\n   Every inch a soldier,\n     Beneath the Union Jack.\n\nDear na\u00efve old song, fitting climax of a feudal day, sweet with the\nfreshness of those simple times, when art for art's sake was a shibboleth\nuninvented, and every other man was not diabolically clever! How many\nmothers and sisters wept over thy primitive pathos, as they knitted the\nBerlin wool-work! how many masculine hearts throbbed more manfully at the\nappeal of thy crude patriotism! To-day we analyse ruthlessly thy metre,\nproclaiming it the butterwoman's rank to market, and thy sentiment, which\nwe dub pinchbeck, and we remember that the Union Jack is used only in the\nNavy; we are deaf to thy inspiration and dumb at thy chorus; we are\nsceptical as to thy soldier's love: Nancy, we know from realistic poets\nof the Barrack Room, took up with another young man before her month was\nout; and as for the black, he is the object of our devoutest solicitude.\nGo to! thou art surely a Gilbertian travesty, a deliciously droll\ncompound of vulgar patriotism and maudlin pathos. And yet somehow there\nare tears on the smiling cheeks of the Man from Town. Let us go out and\nhear the nightingales and be sentimental under the moon. Hark how they\nprecipitate their notes in a fine lyric rapture. This is the same \"Jug,\nJug, Jug,\" that called forth Keats' immortal ode. We cannot hear the\nbirds' music for itself; it comes to us through melodious chimes of\npoetry. Nature has been so filtered through human emotion, so passed and\nrepassed through the alembic of poetic passion, that she has ceased to be\nnatural. Little children and fools, on whom, according to the Talmud, the\ngift of prophecy devolved when the Temples fell, may still see her naked,\nbut for the lettered man she is draped in lyric conventions. There is\nanthropomorphism in literature as well as in theology: for George Eliot\nNature is steeped in humanity; she cannot see anything for itself. \"Our\ndelight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass to-day might be no more\nthan the faint perception of wearied souls, if it were not for the\nsunshine and the grass in the far-off years which still live in us and\ntransform our perception into love.\" I wonder if she ever wrote a pure\ndescription of scenery without psychological or mythological allusions.\nTo a soul saturated with literary prepossessions, nightingales, like love\nand most things human, are apt to disappoint and disenchant.\n\n  Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard\n  Are sweeter.\n\nThe cultured American, who has no nightingales at home--not even big\nones--and who arranges to hear an English nightingale between a\nperformance at Ober-Ammergau and an exploration of the Catacombs of\nParis, often wants his money back after the songster \"on yon bloomy\nspray\" has \"warbled at eve when all the woods are still.\" He has been\nexpecting something like a song of Patti accompanied on the piano by\nPaderewski. It was an American poetess--Mrs. Piatt--who informed the\nskylark:\n\n  The song thou sang'st to Shelley was not half\n  So sweet as that which Shelley sang to thee!\n\nAfter all, birds repeat themselves sadly--they strike one note, like a\nminor poet, and live on the reputation of their first success. It is\namusing for a few minutes to hear a clever bird giving imitations of the\ncuckoo clock, but the joke palls. The Archdeacon's Daughter has a wider\nrepertoire. And so? though the nightingales are still singing,\nconversation springs up in the copse as if it were a drawing-room and the\nsingers human. My host discourses of the litter of pigs just arrived from\nthe Great Nowhere, and dilates upon the fact that of the 3,423,807 pigs\nin England no two tails are curled alike. Perhaps even so no two\nnightingales curl their phrase identically, and one roulade differeth\nfrom another in glory.\n\n\n\n\nPARIS\n\nDecidedly the Parisian atmosphere is charged with artistic electricity.\nThe play, the novel and the picture flourish on the same stem, and the\nvery advertisement posters tell their lies artistically. Paris is the\nmetropolis of ideas. You may catch them there and set up as a prophet on\nthe strength of a fortnight's holiday. Maeterlinck says he learnt all he\nknows from a man he met in a _brasserie_. Fancy picking up ideas in a\npothouse! In London you could only pick up \"h's.\" The reverse of the\nmedal is the morbidity that ideas and _brasseries_ engender. In the caf\u00e9s\nof the Boule Miehe, where the decadent movements are hatched and the\nfledgling Verlaines come to drown theusorrows in vermouth, you may see\nthe lacklustre visages and tumbled hair of \"diabolical\" poets and the\nworld-weary figures of end-of-the-century youngsters pledging their\nmistresses in American grog.\n\nBut the great heart of the People, that beats still to the homely old\nmusic, and you shall find no trace of morbidity in the melodramas of the\nPorte-St.-Martin or the music-halls of the people's quarter. To-day is\nthe Gingerbread Fair--_La Foire au Pain d'\u00c9pices_; and _Tout Paris_--that\nis to say, everybody who isn't anybody--is elbowing its way towards the\ncentre of gaiety. Tramcars deposit their packed freights near the\nBastile[*], and where the women of the Revolution knitted, feeding their\neyes on blood, bonnetless old crones sit drinking red wine in the sun.\nThe sky is radiantly blue, and there is a music of merry-go-rounds. They\nare far more elegant than our English merry-go-rounds, these\n_carrousels_, hung with tapestry, and offering you circumambient\npalanquins or even elephants. Before a toy stage, on which a mechanical\nskirt-dancer disports herself with a tireless smile, an automatic\n_chef-d'orchestre_ conducts the revolutionary march (none other than\n\"Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay\") while grotesque figures strike stiffly at bells.\nOn the pavement an old man has spread for sale a litter of broken dolls,\nblind, halt and lame, when not decapitated; and in the roadway the\nfestive crowd splits to allow the passage of a child's coffin covered\nwith white flowers. The air thrills with the \"ping\" of unsuccessful\nshots: I take a gun, and by aiming at a ball dancing on a fountain jet,\nhit a bull's-eye two yards to the left. I throw flat rings at a sort of\nninepins, five shots for a halfpenny: the first four leave the pins\nstolid and the public derisive. I throw the last at random, bring down\nhalf the pins, and stalk off: nonchalantly, the pet of the fickle French\npopulace. I buy pancakes fried on the stall while you wait--they are\nselling like hot cakes--and but for the difficulty of finding one with my\nname picked out in pink on the gingerbread, I would buy a pig and hang it\non my breast. Some of the pigs have mottoes instead of names:\n\n  De toute la cr\u00e9ation\n  C'est moi le plus cochon.\n\n[* Transcriber's note: So in original.]\n\nAnother asserts:\n\n  De la t\u00eate \u00e0 la queue\n  Je suis d\u00e9licieux.\n\nI ignore the pigs, but I pacify local prejudice by buying two gingerbread\nsailors--a Russian and a French--shaking hands in symbolisation of the\nRusso-French alliance, and I further prove myself a patriot by throwing\nbright wooden balls into the mouth of a great-faced German, for which I\nreceive the guerdon of a paper rose and a Berlin wool monkey. I purchase\na ticket from a clown standing on a platform begirt by noisy cages, and\npartake in a raffle for a live turkey; but fortunately I am spared the\ntask of carrying it through the Fair, and not wishing to tempt Providence\nagain, I content myself with trying for soap. A pack of cards is spread\nround a wheel with an index: round goes the wheel, and whoever has the\ncard at which the index stops gets an orange, or if he likes to save up\nhis oranges exchanges them for a box of soap. You get four cards for two\nsous, but I take all the pack. Round goes the wheel imperturbably. It\nstops. Amid the breathless anxiety of the crowd I examine my cards, and\ninvariably find myself the fortunate possessor of the winning one. But,\nby some mysterious arithmetic, which amuses the crowd, every time I win I\nhave to pay several sous. By such roundabout methods I ultimately arrive\nat the soap. I have my portrait taken, allured by the \"only a franc.\" My\nimage has a degenerate air; the photographer informs me it will not stay\nunless he fixes it with enamel--which will be another franc. By the time\nit is framed it has come up to six francs, and then, as I leave, the\nattendant begs I will remember him! I give him the photograph, and\ndepart, hoping he will remember me. At the Place de la Nation the fun\ngrows thicker: there is a rain of confetti, and everybody comes out in\ncoloured spots; the switchback is busy, chairs mount and descend on\nropes, and there is a bunch of balloons; on a platform outside a booth a\nshowman beats a drum, the riding-master cracks his whip, and ladies of\nuncertain ages and exuberant busts smile all day in evening dress; in the\nneighbouring Cirque the Ball of the City of Paris is whirling noisily.\nYes, life goes on in the old, old way in the land of equality and\nbrotherhood; and the \"red fool-fury of the Seine\" is but a froth on the\nsurface. The \"Twilight of the Peoples\" is the morbid vision of a myopic\nseer. With which reflection we will leave Sanity Fair.\n\nAs I write there is an appalling, long-drawn crash, which brings the\nwhole Quarter to its doors and windows. \"Bombs\" are in everybody's mouth,\nand I find myself automatically repeating a sentence out of the Latin\nexercise-book of my boyhood: \"How comes it that thunder is sometimes\nheard when the sky is clear?\" I irrelevantly remember that \"sometimes\"\nmust be translated \"not never.\" In the streets little groups are\ngathered, gesticulating and surmising. Some say \"The Panth\u00e9on,\" others\n\"The Luxembourg\"; others trust it is only a gas explosion. I shock my\ngroup by hoping it is a bomb, so that I may say I have heard it go off.\nBut I know nothing till I read \"Paris Day by Day\" next evening in \"The\nDaily Telegraph,\" and find that my ambition has been gratified, and that\nthe chief victim of the explosion is a Decadent Poet. Has any one been\ntaking seriously Nordau's cry for the extinction of the Degenerates?\n\nThe dead have their day in France, but it was not _le jour des morts_\nwhen I bethought myself of visiting the grave of Maupassant. I do not\ncare for these crowded \"at homes,\"--I prefer to pay my respects in\nsolitude. You will not think this remark flippant if you are familiar\nwith French cemeteries, if you know those great family sepulchres, fitted\nup as little chapels, through whose doors, crowned with the black cross,\nyou may see the great wax tapers in the candelabra at the altar, the\nstained-glass windows with the figure of the Madonna and Child, the\neikons of Christ, the praying-stools, the vases, the busts or photographs\nof the deceased--worthy people who not only thought life worth living but\ndeath worth dying, and did the one and the other respectably and\nbecomingly. Maupassant lies in one art-quarter of Paris, just as Heinrich\nHeine lies in the other. The cemetery is off the Boulevard Raspail,\nwithin bow-shot of the _ateliers_ of Whistler and Bouguereau, overlooked\nby an imposing statue of M. Raspail which sets forth that scientific\ncitizen's many virtues and services. He proclaimed Universal Franchise in\n1830, he proclaimed the Republic in 1848, and his pedestal now proclaims\nwith equal cocksureness that science is the only religion of the future.\n\"Give me a cell and I will build you up all organised life,\" cries the\nstatue, and its stony hand seems to wave theatrically as in emulation of\nthe bas-reliefs on its base representing Raspail animating his\n_camarades_ to victory. But alas! _tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse_,\nand not all the residents of the Boulevard are aware of the origin of\ntheir address. Chateaubriand survives as a steak and Raspail as a\nBoulevard.\n\nThe cemetery Montparnasse is densely populated, and I wandered long\nwithout finding the author of \"Boule de Suif.\" It was a wilderness of\nartificial flowers, great wreaths made of beads. Beads, beads, beads,\nblack or lavender, and even white and yellow, blooming garishly in all\nsizes on every grave and stone, in strange theatrical sentimentality;\ncomplex products of civilisation, making death as unnatural as the\nfeverish life of the Boulevards. Sometimes the beaded flowers were\nprotected by glass shades, sometimes they were supplemented by leaden or\nmarble images. Over one grave I found a little porcelain angel, his wings\nblue as with the cold; and under him last year's angel in melancholy\nsupersession. Elsewhere, most terrible sight of all in this ghastly\nplace, was a white porcelain urn on which were painted a woman's and a\nman's hand clasped, the graceful feminine fingers in artistic contrast\nwith the scrupulously-cuffed male wrist with the motto, \"_\u00c0 mon mari,\nRegrets \u00e9ternels._\" Wondering how soon she remarried, I roved gloomily\namong these arcades of bourgeois beads, these fadeless flowers, these\nmonstrous ever-blacks, relieved to find a touch of humour, as in a\ncolossal wreath ostentatiously inscribed \"_\u00c0 ma belle-m\u00e8re._\" I peeped\ninto the great family tombs, irresistibly reminded of \"Lo, the poor\nIndian,\" and the tribes who provision their dead; I wondered if the old\nghosts ever turn in their graves (as there is plenty of room for them to\ndo) when some daughter of their house makes an imprudent alliance. Do\nthey hold family councils in the chapel, I thought, and lament the\ngrowing scepticism of their grandchildren? Do they sigh to see themselves\nso changed from the photographs in the family album that confronts their\nhollow orbits? Do they take themselves as seriously in death as they did\nin life? But they were all scornfully incommunicative. And at last,\ndespairing of discovering the goal of my journeyings, I inquired of a\nguardian in a peaked blue cap and a blue cloak, who informed me that it\nwas in the twenty-sixth section of the other cemetery. Wonderfully\nprecise, red-tape, bureaucratic, symmetrical people, the French, for all\ntheir superficial curvetings! I repaired to the other portion of the\ncemetery, to lose myself again among boundless black beads and endless\nchapels and funereal urns; and at last I besought another blue-cloaked\nguardian to show me the grave of Maupassant. \"_Par i\u00e7i,_\" he said\nnonchalantly: and eschewing the gravel walks he took a short cut through\na lane of dead maidens--\n\n  What's become of all the gold\n  Used to hang and brush their bosoms?--\n\nand, descending an avenue of estimable _p\u00e8res de famille_, turned the\ncorner of an elegant sepulchre, to which only the most fashionable ghosts\ncould possibly have the entry. Dear, dear, what heart-burnings there must\nbe among the more snobbish shadows of Montparnasse! My guide made me\npause and admire, and he likewise insisted on the tribute of my tear\nbefore an obelisk to slaughtered soldiers and a handsome memorial to\nburnt firemen.\n\nBut perceiving my impatience to arrive at the grave of Maupassant,\n\"_Mais, monsieur_,\" he protested, \"_il n'y a rien d'extraordinaire._\"\n\"_Vraiment!_\" said I, \"_c'est l\u00e0 l'extraordinaire._\" \"_Rien du tout\nd'extraordinaire_,\" he repeated doggedly. \"_Sauf le cadavre_,\" I\nretorted. He shook his head, \"_Tr\u00e8s pauvre la tombe_,\" he muttered: \"_pas\ndu tout riche._\" Another guardian, wall-eyed, here joined him, and\ncatching the subject of conversation, \"_Tr\u00e8s pauvre_,\" he corroborated\ncompassionately. But he went with us, accompanied by a very lean young\nFrenchman with a soft felt hat, an over-long frock-coat, tweed trowsers,\nand a black alpaca umbrella. He looked like a French translation of some\ncharacter of Dickens. At last we arrived at the grave. \"_C'est l\u00e0!_\" and\nboth guardians shook their heads dolefully. \"_Tr\u00e8s pauvre!_\" sighed one.\n\"_Rien du tout--rien_,\" sighed the other. And, thank Heaven, they were\nright. Nothing but green turf and real flowers, and a name and a date on\na black cross--the first real grave I had come across. No beads, no\ntawdry images, nothing but the dignity of death, nothing but \"Guy de\nMaupassant, 6 Juillet, '93,\" on the cross, and \"Guy de Maupassant,\n1850-93,\" at the foot. The shrubs were few, and the flowers were common\nand frost-bitten; but in that desert of bourgeois beads, the simple green\ngrave stood out in touching sublimity. The great novelist seemed to be as\nclose to the reality of death as he had been to that of life. Those other\ndead seemed so falsely romanticist. It was a beautiful sunny winter\nafternoon. There was a feel of spring in the air, of the Resurrection and\nthe Life. Beyond the bare slim branches of the trees of the other\ncemetery, gracefully etched against the sky, the sun was setting in a\nbeautiful bank of dusky clouds. Life was so alive that day, and death so\ndead. Outside the tomb the poem of light and air, and inside the\ntomb--what? I thought of the last words of \"Une Vie,\" that fine novel,\nwhich even Tolsto\u00ef considers great, of the old servant's summing up: \"_La\nvie, voyez-vous, \u00e7a n'est jamais si bon ni si mauvais qu'on croit_.\"\n\"Perhaps,\" thought I, \"'t is the same with death.\" \"The _Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Gens\nde Lettres_ had to buy the ground for him,\" interrupted the wall-eyed\nguardian compassionately. The Dickensy Frenchman heaved a great sigh.\n\"_Vous croyez!_\" he said. \"Yes,\" asseverated the other guardian--\"he has\nit in perpetuity.\" Ignorant of the customs of death, I wondered if one's\ncorpse were liable to eviction, and whether the statute of limitations\nought not to apply. \"_Je pensais qu'il avait une certaine position_,\"\nobserved the Frenchman dubiously. \"_Non_,\" replied the wall-eyed\nguardian, shaking his head, \"_Non, il est mort sans le sou_.\" At the\nmention of coin I distributed _pourboire_. The first guardian went away.\nI lingered at the tomb, alive now to its more sordid side. Only one row\nof bourgeois graves, some occupied, some still _\u00e1 louer_, separated it\nfrom an unlovely waste piece of ground, bounded by the gaunt brick wall\nof the fast-filling cemetery. As I began to muse thereon, I heard a cry,\nand perceived my guardian peeping from round the corner of a distant\ntomb, and beckoning me with imperative forefinger. I wanted to stay; I\nwanted to have \"Meditations at the grave of Maupassant,\" to ponder on the\nirony of death, to think of the brilliant novelist, the lover of life,\ncut off in his pride, to lie amid perspectives of black and lavender\nbeads. But my guardian would not let me. \"_Il n'y a rien \u00e0 voir_,\" he\ncried almost angrily, and haled me off to see the real treasures of his\ncemetery. In vain I persisted that I must not give him trouble, that I\ncould discover the beauties for myself. \"_O monsieur!_\" he said\nreproachfully. Fearing he might return my _pourboire_, I followed him\nhelplessly to inspect the pompous bead-covered tombs of the well-to-do,\nshocking him by stopping to muse at the rude mound of an anonymous\ncorpse, remembered only by a little bunch of _immortelles_. One of the\nfashionable sepulchres stood open, and was being dusted by a man and a\nwoman (on a dust _from_ dust principle, apparently). Most of the dust\nseemed to be little beads. My keeper exchanged a word with the cleaners,\nand I profited by the occasion to escape. I sneaked back to the grave of\nMaupassant, but I had barely achieved a single Reflection, when \"_Hol\u00e0,\nhol\u00e0!_\" resounded in loud tones from afar. I started guiltily, but in a\nmoment I realised that it was the cry of expulsion. The sunset was\nfading, and the gates were to be locked. I hastened across the cemetery,\nevading my guardian's face of reproach, and in another few moments the\npaths were deserted, the twilight had fallen, and the dead were left\nalone with their beads.\n\n\n\n\nSLAPTON SANDS\n\nAfter all the world is a large place. At the moment of writing I have\nnever heard of Home Rule, nor do I care two straws whether the House of\nLords is to be blown up on the fifth of November. What moves my interest,\nwhat stirs my soul, what arouses the politician that lurks in the best of\nus, is this question of the crab-pots. Shall the trawlers of Brixham be\nallowed to slash at our cords and to send our wicker baskets adrift,\nspoiling our marine harvests and making our larders barren against the\nwinter? They hover about our beautiful bay--these fiends in human shape,\nwith brown wings outspread--and wantonly lay waste our fishing-pots in\ntheir reckless course, so that our crabs walk backwards into the sea. We\nhave had gentlefolks down from London about it, men who argue and\npalaver, and wear high hats and are said to have long bills, and there is\ntalk of a Government cutter to protect us, towed by red tape, and the\ntrawlers are to cast their nets farther asea. But beware of believing\nwhat you read in the Brixham papers,--we have no voice to represent us in\nthe press, and so these Brixham organs spread falsehoods about us in\nevery corner of the globe. A pretty pretence, forsooth, that it is the\nsteamers who plough up our crab-pots. Why, from Michaelmas to Christmas,\nwhen the trawlers are away, not a single pot is disturbed from its\nstation, though the funnels smoke as usual in the eye of heaven. No, no,\nye hirelings of the press. Turn your mercenary quills elsewhere, beslaver\nMr. Gladstone or belabour him, arbitrate on the affairs of nations, and\nthrow your weighty influence into the scale of European politics. But do\nnot confuse the mind of the country on the question of crab-pots.\n\nWe do not get the Brixham papers here, but friends in London tell us that\nis what they say. It is the same with the crabs--we have to order them\nfrom London. All local products come _vi\u00e2_ London nowadays: London is\nlike a central ganglion, through which all sensations must travel before\nbeing felt at the outside points where they were really incurred. This is\nthe case even with Irish patriots: they are made in Ireland, but if you\nwant them you have to go to London clubs for them. We have only had one\nfuneral here since I came, and then we got our material from London. He\nhad gone up to a London hospital--poor fellow!--and that was the end of\nhim. The village butcher it was, who thus went the way of all flesh, and\nall of us went to his funeral and wept, for want of something else to do.\nOne cannot always be flippant, even on a holiday. Fortunately the butcher\nleft an aged father, who announced his intention of carrying on the\nbusiness, so we dried our eyes and dined, sure of the future. We thought\nof the many creatures the deceased had killed--the Juno-eyed oxen, the\ntender lambs, the peaceful pigs--and we did not see why we should be so\nsentimental over the human species. We are all murderers, and yet we are\nready to gush over the first corpse that comes along. How I envy the\ndeath-bed of a vegetarian!\n\nWe are not vegetarians here, but at least we eschew the six-course dinner\nwhich so few travellers ever succeed in shaking off, even in _Ultima\nThule_. The most of modern travelling is a sort of Cook's Tour.\nEverywhere the _menu_ is before you, everywhere waves the napkin, like\nthe flag of civilisation. Nowhere do we eat ourselves into the real life\nof the people; everywhere the same monotonous variety of fare in\nkitchen-French. In the remotest Orkneys, in the caves of Iona, in the\nfjords of Norway, amid the crevasses of the Alps,--'t is the same tale of\n_entr\u00e9es_ and _entremets_. When Dr. Johnson made his tour in the\nHighlands, he was allowed to forget he was not taking a walk down Fleet\nStreet. He interviewed the chiefs in their fastnesses, the cottagers in\ntheir crofts. He broke rye-bread with the shepherd, ate haggis and\nporridge with the peasant, and drank a gill of whisky to see \"what makes\na Scotchman happy.\" Behind him he left his dish of tea, and the pet pork\nthat made the veins of his forehead swell with ecstasy. But to-day the\ndinner-gong resounds where Rob Boy's bugle blared, and you may sit behind\nyour serviette\n\n  Where the sun his beacon red\n  Kindles on Ben Voirlich's head,\n\nor where the monument of a Gaelic poet broods above the heather. The\ntyranny of the _table-d'h\u00f4te_ ceases not even at sea. Every ship bears\nthese monster meals in its belly--from salami to pineapple--whether it\nwalk the Boreal waters, or touch the Happy Isles of Mid-Pacific, or\nswelter in the Red Sea. Not all the majesties and terrors of naked nature\ncan dock one _hors d'oeuvre_ from the _menu_. Our stomachs we have always\nwith us--the traveller's only real _vade mecum_. We change our sky but\nnot our stomach. When Nansen reaches the North Pole, he will, I am sure,\nbe able to put up at the local hotel, and have every luxury of the\ncosmopolitan cuisine except the ices, which will probably have been all\nsent up to the London market. It is this sort of thing that makes foreign\ntravel merely an expensive delusion. Your common traveller never gets\naway from England, fare he never so far. His church, his kitchen and his\ncompany are those he left behind him. To get away from England one must\ngo to Devonshire or Cornwall. But even here, amid the combes and the\nleys, the crags and the quarries, the modern hotel, with its perfect\nsanitation and imperfect French, is springing up with the rapidity of\nBadraoulbadour's palace. It spoils the primitiveness of the people, and\ngives them ideas below their station. They lose their simple manliness\nand take tips. They corrupt their autochthonic customs, and drink\nchampagne cider. The modern hotel is a upas-tree, under whose boughs\npoetry withers. One looks to see the ancient ballads lose their blood and\nbrawn. In time we may expect to find Cornwall producing _vers de\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9_. As thus:--\n\n      And shall Trelawney dine?\n      And shall Trelawney dine?\n  Then thrice ten thousand Cornish men\n      Will order in the wine.\n\nIn the absence of six-course dinners and newspapers about Home Rule, we\nhave had to fall back upon literature. We borrowed Zola's latest--from\nthe rector,--and read it simultaneously, stealing it from one another.\nEven the dogs have devoured bits of it. The poodle has taken in most,\nbeing French. She is an elegant, tricksy creature, Miss Plachecki by\nname, but called--for short--\"Wopsy.\" Wopsy's back is arranged in beds\nlike a Dutch garden; she has rosettes of black hair symmetrically\ndisposed about her hind quarters, and her tail is exactly like a mutton\ncutlet in its frill. She belongs to the Woman of the party. Chum belongs\nto the Girl. He is a bull-pup, with a frightfully ferocious face, but he\nnever bites unless he wants to hurt you. Girl says she took him to a\nfashionable photographer's, but the artist refused to pose him. In vain\nshe pointed out that Chum was more paralysed than he; that Chum was\ntrembling all over (I opine 't was at the sight of the actresses'\nportraits--the young dog!). The photographer steadfastly kept the\napparatus between him and the animal, telling Girl a story about a man\nwho owned a bull-dog with a bad memory. The man, coming home late, and\nentering his sitting-room, was met by an ominous growl in the darkness.\nBull-dogs have little smell, and so the man was not recognized. He made a\nmovement towards the mantelpiece, where the matches were, to strike a\nlight and convince the dog of its mistake. But unfortunately the dog\nguarded the mantelpiece, and every move was answered by a ghastly growl.\nMore unfortunately still, the man's bedroom was only approached through\nthe sitting-room, and its door was only approached through the dog. So,\nfor want of a match, the man passed the night like a Peri at the gates of\nParadise. At last Girl posed Chum, herself, her draperies constituting a\nnebulous background; and the artist, walking warily, adjusted his\ninstrument, and the sun which shines alike on saints and bull-pups,\npainted the squatter's portrait. But, alas! a woeful disappointment was\nin store. When the proofs arrived, it was found that all that delightful\nuncouthness of visage which is Chum's chief charm, all that fascinating\nferocity which makes him a thing of ugliness and a joy for ever, had\nvanished--refined away, idealised into a demureness as of domestic tabby,\na platitudinarian peacefulness--nay, a sort of beauty! The camera had\nbeen so accustomed to actresses that it could no longer work naturally.\n\n\n\n\nVENICE\n\nI am reading Nietzsche and Tolsto\u00ef. Each tells me that the morality of\nthe day is all wrong, and that he has discovered the one true way of\nsalvation. Life, cries Nietzsche, strength, sunshine, beauty. Death,\ncries Tolsto\u00ef, abnegation, pity, holiness. 'T is all as old as the hills,\nand withal so simple that one wonders why Nietzsche should have needed\neleven volumes to say it in and Tolsto\u00ef endless pamphlets. I never can\nunderstand the lengths to which some authors go in self-repetition. Half\nthe books are written to prove that water is dry, and the other half that\nit's wet. If you would only stop and think just for one moment, cries\nTolsto\u00ef, you would at once see what a ridiculous life you are leading and\nyou would refuse to lead it any longer. Stop and think! Ay, but 't is\ndifficult thinking to-day.\n\nIt will be all over and done with so long--by the time you read\nthis--that the Triple Alliance may be in three pieces; but for the moment\nthe complications of European politics alternately startle and depress my\nday with furious cannonades of honour from an Italian gunboat and brazen\ndronings of national anthems from a German band. For the young man whom\nTolsto\u00ef has described as the most comic figure in Europe, coming to meet\nUmberto I. in Venice, inconsiderately stationed his yacht just outside my\nwindow; and though he is gone at last, _Gott sei Dank_, the echoes of him\nstill linger in irrelevant cannon-shots that send the pigeons scurrying\nin mad swoops; while, as if removed from the oppression of his presence,\nthe band of the _Hohenzollern_ plays London music-hall tunes all day\nlong, commencing, significantly enough, with \"Oh, Mr. Porter, what a\nfunny man you are!\" I never realised how international is our music-hall\ntill I heard Italians staggering home at midnight, singing \"Two lovely\nblack eyes\" in choice Venetian. A beautiful yacht this _Hohenzollern_, as\nlarge as an Atlantic liner: I suppose an Imperial yacht is like an\nImperial pint.  'T was a great moment when it sailed in round a bend,\nslow and serene--a glorious white vessel, radiant with flags, stately and\nmajestic in its movement as a sonnet of Milton, and about it a black\nswarm of gondolas, those of the noble families equipped with half a dozen\ngondoliers in green, yellow, or blue liveries, and at the stern of each\nboat a trail of silk. And the dense crowds huzzahed, and the band played\n\"God Save the Queen,\" only in German, so that it meant, _Heil dir im\nSiegeskranz_. And after that came the Italian national air, which isn't\nan anthem, but a quick march, and so lacks dignity. The \"Wacht am Rhein\"\nmade a half-hearted effort to be present, but in the night we had the\nEmperor's own \"Sang an Aegir,\" stuck in the middle of a Wagner programme.\nBeyond this, compliment could scarcely go.\n\nThis brazen air was the one jar on the poetry of a spectacle possible\nonly in Venice. Imagine it! Wagner played on a floating fairy-pagoda,\nbuilt as of gold flame, and shot with green and red, on the broad bosom\nof St. Mark's basin, in the divine night, the stars seen hanging\ndiversely in free space, not stuck like gold-headed nails in a dark\nceiling; and in the mystery of the darkness, the domes and spires and\npalaces of Venice, and the dim creeping boats, and the quivering\nreflections of the illuminated Imperial vessel; and across the narrow\ntrack of luminous water made by the Pagoda--that glittered with a\nfantastic splendour as of Aladdin and Arabian nights--sudden gondolas\ngliding from darkness to darkness, the beautiful curve of the prow\nsharply revealed, the gondolier growing semi-transparent and quivering\nwith light, a strange half-demoniac figure bestriding his black bark.\nAnd, mingled with the music, the hum of multitudes and the tramp of feet\nand the silence of the vast night. All as Nietzsche's poem on Venice hath\nit--\"Gondeln, Lichter, Musik.\" Yes, they play politics prettily on the\nGrand Canal--the finest street in Europe. Does it matter much what is the\ngame? Cannons and colour, bands and decorations, bread and circuses,\nemperors uncovering to us, beautiful queens waving dainty\nhandkerchiefs--this is what lies behind the dry Treaties of the history\nbooks. A few short weeks back we had been very angry with our King, and\nhad talked of Republics and what not. But the dead men in Abyssinia are\ndead, and we are alive, and the Bengal fire on the palaces is really very\npicturesque. If we would only stop and think--just for one moment! But\nthere's the rub.\n\nIt's no use stopping and thinking, unless everybody else will stop and\nthink at the same time. For you cannot refuse to lead a life that\neverybody is leading, unless you are willing to be crushed by the\nrevolutions of the social machinery. Socialists, for instance, are often\ntwitted with not \"behaving as sich.\" But socialists say that socialism\nshould be the law of the land: they do not say that it is practicable for\nan odd man here and there to be a socialist in a world of individualists.\nTolsto\u00ef, to be of effect, would have to move all mankind at once to\nrenounce its ways, to abjure the lust of the eye and the pride of life.\nAnd he would have to keep on moving it, or back it would roll. Mazzini\nand the unification of Italy--what words to conjure with! But Mazzini is\ndead, and how much of Italy is alive! 'T is more like a great show-place,\nsupported by its visitors, than a real, live country. Stop and think! 'T\nis perhaps better not to think, for fear we should stop. William II., at\nany rate--he is not likely to stop and think. This young man--from all I\nhave observed since he became my neighbour--lives a highly coloured\ndramatic existence, in which there are sixty minutes to every hour and\nsixty seconds to every minute, the sort of life that should have pleased\nWalter Pater. He must be a disciple of Nietzsche, a lover of the strong\nand the splendid, this German gentleman who is just off to Vienna to\nprance at the head of fifteen hundred horsemen. While he lived opposite\nme, it was all excursions and alarums. As a neighbour an emperor is\ndistinctly noisy. The local comic papers suggested that, as a universal\ngenius, Guglielmo II. would at once set about rowing a two-oared sandolo.\nBut this difficult feat Guglielmo did not essay, being convoyed more\ncomfortably in a long-boat by a brawny crew. Curious, by the way, that\ntransformation of William! They announce plays here by G. Shakespeare,\nthe divine Guglielmo.\n\n'T is all very well for Guglielmo, the gondola of Avon, to invite us to\nsit on the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings; and in a\ncity of departed Doges and lost glories't is easy to moralise over\nearthly greatness. But kings are not always dead, and I daresay as\nWilliam II. in his cocked hat gazed from the quarter-deck of the\n_Hohenzollern_ at the marvellous but untenanted Palace of the ancient\nBridegrooms of the Sea, he felt that a living lion is better than a dead\nDoge. And yet it is a strange life, a king's. What an unreal universe of\nflags and cannons and phrases must monarchs inhabit! Do they think that\nthe streets are always gay with streamers and bunting and triumphal\narches, always thunderous with throats of men or guns, always impassable?\nDo they imagine their subjects spend their whole lives in packed black\nmasses, waving hats? Poor kings! I always class them with novelists for\nignorance of real life. And to think that they can only get to know life\nfrom novels! If they would only stop, and think! But even when they do\nstop, they never seem to think. Napoleon on St. Helena never faced\nrealities, aggressively pompous to the end. Then there is Don Carlos,\nwhom I miss in my afternoon stroll. He who might have dazzled us with\ndivinity is visibly a feather-less biped. The poor, mock king had to\nleave Venice because his brother-sovereigns would not have called upon\nhim. For Don Carlos still keeps up the form and style of a crowned head,\nand remains the last of the Bourbons, a picturesque ruin, reproach to a\nblasphemous generation, heedless of the divine right of kings.\n\nAnd the \"divinity that doth hedge a king\" can be kept up nowhere so\ncheaply as in Venice. Venice is the dress-coat of cities, making all men\nequal. Well might Wordsworth dub her \"the eldest child of liberty\"! For\nin the streets of Venice you cannot drive or ride--walk you must. No\ngleaming broughams, no spanking steeds: nothing--be you monarch or\nmendicant--but your two legs. 'T is strange, in a land of no horses, to\nfind Venetians styled \"Cavalier\" for title of honour. They should surely\nbe called \"Gondoliers.\" For the gondola is your only chance of display.\nRich Americans may flaunt it with four gondoliers and print \"Palazzo\" on\ntheir visiting-cards. But doctors and lawyers live in Palaces, and even a\nmoderate purse can keep a horseless carriage. And your St. Mark's Square,\nwhich is the largest drawing-room in the world, is also the most\ndemocratic. Ladies of quality jostle shawled street-walkers, a German\nsailor galls the kibe of a beautiful Browning duchess, officers with\nshowy epaulettes glitter among respectable shopkeepers; helmeted\ncuirassiers, Austrian admirals, policemen with coloured tufts like\nlamp-cleaners, German baronesses, bouncing bonnes with babies,\ngarlic-scented workingmen, American schoolgirls, and kings in exile, are\nmixed pell-mell, all in perfect freedom and equality, and, though in the\nshadow of St. Mark's Church, quite Christian. And an Italian crowd is\nalso Christian in its freedom from crush. It does not turn a fete into a\nfight and a concourse into a competition. Thus, as the Prince Consort was\namused to find we English said of our pleasure-parties, all \"passes off\nwell.\" Except when there is rain. And the heavens threw unmistakable cold\nwater on the Triple Alliance. The day of the Emperor's stay was the one\nwet day Venice had known for months--so dank and chill, with so sooty a\nsky, that my friend the artist, who had just been reading in the London\npaper that his work had not caught the glamour and the colour of Venice,\nthat the South had not yet revealed its passionate secrets to him,\nchuckled grimly. What is all this nonsense about an Italian hothouse? At\nFlorence I was afraid of being snow-bound in the sunny South. For, long\nand heavily, though the London meteorologists registered sunshine,\n\n  Cadeva dal cielo la neve\n  Con tutta la sua quiete.\n\n  (Down from heaven fell the snow\n  With all its quietness.)\n\nThis perfect description of snowfall--which I found rudely chalked on the\nwall of a Venetian alley--could never have been conceived in the Italy of\npopular imagination. The superstition about Italian sunshine is like that\nabout Italian beauty. If the country about Florence is the loveliest in\nEurope, surely the plain of Lombardy around Padua is the ugliest--a land\nof symmetrical tree-stumps and stony villas flaunting themselves on the\nroadway in pompous publicity.\n\nIn Venice the Emperor seemed specially to irritate the elements. The\nilluminations were extinguished by a terrific torrent that sent the\npeople pattering away into the black, starless night, gleaming with rain\nand fire; and to-night when the imperial band attempted to play \"Sang an\nAegir\" again, the heavens fell, and audience and orchestra vanished in\nthe twinkling of a gas-lamp, while the pavement of the Piazza glittered\ngolden as the facade of St. Mark's with dancing reflections, and the\nlights burnt blue in the wind. Yes, though the papers next day said the\nEmperor's Song was applauded enthusiastically, Jupiter Pluvius at least\nnever plays the courtier, and Boreas must be a rude reminder to monarchs\nof their essential humanity. Come, let us sit upon the ground and tell\nsad stories of the colds of kings. In the daylight I chanced upon a rough\nwooden platform, bordered with plush and surrounded by tawdry terraces of\ncoloured, glass cups. This was the fairy, Aladdin-like Pagoda. And such,\nmethinks, are kings, on closer acquaintance. How majestic seemed William\nII., and Humbert, the Kaiserin and Queen Margherita, when, massed in our\nthousands on the Piazza, we clamoured for a glimpse of them: how\ninaccessible and star-like when, after much exciting but irrelevant\nshadow pantomime, they actually appeared on the balcony of the Palace, as\nif to feed us like the pigeons we had displaced! With what tumultuous\nrapture did we behold their faces! Stop and think! You cannot stop and\nthink. Enthusiasm is a microbe, and is independent of its object: even so\nwe could yawn over Punch and Judy, if the crowd assembled to yawn.\nRepublicans who came to sneer remained to cheer.\n\n  'T is comic this,\n  And comic that,\n  And clown on royal pay,\n  But 't is \"Long live _unser Kaiser!_\"\n  When the band begins to play.\n\nAnd humanity has need of leaders, heroes--'t is a primal instinct. The\nJews had Jehovah himself for sovereign, but nothing would content them\nbut a real man-king, who should rule them and judge them and go out\nbefore them in war. Kings were leaders once, but in modern days they are\nonly symbols, just as flags are: the whole force of the nation is behind\nthem, and they stand for home and country. This it is that gives them\nmajesty and divinity. 'T is a case of transformation of function, an old\ninstitution adapted to new uses, and valuable partly as giving colour to\nlife, partly for preventing the evils which Gibbon so pregnantly showed\nto be inseparable from any system of primacy not based on an immutable\nheredity. The trouble is when the flag wishes to order the march.\n\nAn unbroken tradition has kept up the old phrases of loyalty, and so what\nwonder if a king sometimes takes them seriously! \"_Le roi le veult_\" not\nunnaturally leads sometimes to a king willing. And also we are not quite\nconscious of the transformation; it has come about so gradually that no\none knows when kings ceased to be leaders, and when they became flags,\nand so with the new feeling blend confusedly strands of the old. We\nEnglish have abolished the sovereign, but we are too loyal to say so. In\nGermany the sovereign has refused to be a symbol, and in a country\nover-civilised in thought and under-civilised in action, he has had a\npretty good innings. I must confess I do not find this attitude of his\nmerely ridiculous. It forces clearly upon the modern world the question\nof kingship, whether it is to be a sham or a reality. Unpopular as\nWilliam II. has made himself by his martinet methods--ridiculous, if you\nwill--yet there is only one step from the ridiculous to the sublime. In a\nflippant age he takes himself seriously, has a sense of a responsible\nrelation to his people. Have you seen the cartoon he designed to inspire\nthe nations of the West to league together for the protection of their\nideals against the races of the East? The thought may be trite, the\nphilosophy leagues behind the doctrines of the Berlin _Aufgekl\u00e4rter_, but\nit shows a soul above card-playing or court-gossip. What a noble chance\nthere would be for a modern sovereign who should really be the head of\nhis people, on a par with the culture of his age, in harmony with its\nhighest ideals, fostering all that is finest in life and character, in\nart and thought! Snobbishness would be converted to useful ends, and\ncourtiers would become philosophers out of sheer flattery. But such a\nPlatonic king is scarcely to be looked for: the training is so bad.\n\nThe presence of kings makes places abnormal and out of character, but in\nVenice it rather gives one a sense of the true Venice, she that once held\nthe gorgeous East in fee. For the Venice of every day only escapes\nvulgarity by force of beauty: she lives up to the English and German\ntripper, borders her great Piazza with photograph shops, and counts on\nthe sentimental traveller to feed her pigeons. Oh, that trail of the\ntourist over Europe, falsifying the very things he went out for to see!\n\"Coelum non animum mutant,\" said the Roman poet long ago of travellers,\nbut the modern traveller carries his sky with him. Instead of \"Venice in\nLondon\" 't is London in Venice. Carefully fenced off from the local life\nby his _table d'h\u00f4te_, it is rarely that the Briton comes to understand\nthat he and not the native is the foreigner, the _forestiere_. Cities on\nshow are never real; they are like people posturing before a camera,\ninstead of being taken _au naturel_. And \"the season\" is the time in\nwhich they are least real. Too many Cooks' tourists spoil the broth.\nCities _en f\u00eate_ are masked and prankt, and the spring in Italy is like\none long _Forestieri_ day. At the church of Eremitani in Padua I was\ntaken to see some Mantegnas at a side-altar while a very devout\ncongregation was celebrating Eastertide, and the verger unlocked a gate\nand pocketed his tip with undiminished piety. How apt an image of life,\nthese Italian churches--some of us praying and some of us sightseeing! It\nmust be confusing to the celestial bookkeepers to distinguish the Bibles\nfrom the Baedekers. And while the real Venice is as unreal as the real\nFlorence or the real Rome, Venice welcoming her king gives one a truer\nimpression of the Venice of our dreams, the Queen of the seas in the\nbrave days of old. Let us forget the steamboats and the iron bridges, let\nus make believe that the _Hohenzollern_ is the great Bucentaur, in which\nthe Doge went out to wed the Adriatic and which that arch-Philistine\nNapoleon broke up. For the Venice of every day is a dead city, with\nnothing left of its ancient glories but wealth. Though the millions be\nreckoned in lire, there are over a hundred millionaires in Venice. But of\nthat mighty artistic and religious impulse which produced countless\nchurches and palaces, pictures and frescoes, which strewed the very\nstreet walls with spirited sculpture, and warmed even parochial offices\nwith priceless paintings, there is as little trace as of the indomitable\nenergy that founded a great Republic on wooden piles and guarded it from\nthe sea by dykes and from its enemies by the sea. The escutcheons of its\ngreat families are fast becoming archaeological, and Americans and Jews\ninhabit their palaces. How great a power Venice was I never realised till\nI was permitted to see the Archives. It takes three-quarters of an hour\nto walk through these galleries of town records. Miles of memorandums,\nwildernesses of reports, acres of ambassadors' letters from every court\nin Europe, written in cipher with inter-bound Italian translations. I\ntried to find the report of the ambassador at the Court of St. James\nanent the execution of Charles I., but gave up hopeless, oppressed by the\nmusty myriads of volumes, and found comfort in the signature of Queen\nElizabeth, surely the most regal autograph in the world, like some ship\ngoing out against the Armada with swelling canvas and pennants streaming.\nThere's a woman after Nietzsche's heart--strong, splendid, and\nunscrupulous. If Nietzsche had married her, he might have changed his\nphilosophy. What a diplomatist, this Englishwoman! To this day the\nDirettore of the Archives of Venice swears by her. Those awesome\nArchives! The reports of the Council of Ten alone stretch away through\nvasty halls of death. And then people talk of writing history! How\nfortunate that the exact details of royal, political and military events\nare as unessential as they are unattainable! Real history consists mainly\nof the things that haven't happened--the millions of everyday lives,\nsunrise and sunset, ships and harvests, the winds and the rain, and the\nbargains in the market-place. The reading of Clio's blood-stained scroll\nwould be unbearable, were it not for the reflection that all the\nimportant things have been left out--the myriads of sunny mornings that\ndawned on the \"Dark Ages,\" and filled creation with the joy of life; the\nhopes and loves throbbing in the great obscure mass of humanity; the\nindividual virtues and victories that co-existed with the decadence of\ngreat empires; the vast ocean of consciousness of which History just\nskims the surface. And now all that great Venetian life is over, the\ndreaded Council of Ten is as the dust that covers its reports, and the\nDoge's Palace is a spectacle for tourists at a franc a head. Great Caesar\ndead and turned to show. And those who pay the franc scarcely seem to\nreflect that princes and artists did not live and die in Italy to help\nyoung British or German couples over their honeymoon; that Dandolo and\nFoscari, Sansovino and Tintoretto, passed away with no suspicion of that\nlatter-day trinity--Bride, Bridegroom, and Baedeker. Strange that that\nwhich was so real to themselves is so romantic to us! Such is the\ntransmutation of time, which can colour with poetry things much more\nprosaic than life in ancient Venice. Nothing of us that doth fade\n\n  But doth, suffer a sea-change\n  Into something rich and strange.\n\nPoets and seers feel the richness and strangeness of the life that is\npassing under their very eyes. With Maeterlinck it is the mystery, with\nStevenson the colour, with Wordsworth the divinity. To see the glamour of\nthe contemporary is the note of your modern. Whitman spent his life\ntrying to see it in the most unpromising materials. The wondering\nperception of steamships and electric-cables has already grown dulled to\nus: it requires a Kipling to revivify it. The new photographic process\nwhich enables one to carry out Sydney Smith's desire on a hot day, to\ntake off one's flesh and sit in one's bones, alone seems wonderful to us;\nthough to see through a window is just as marvellous as to see through a\nbrick wall. For if _nil admirari_ be the motto of the sage, _omne\nadmirari_ is that of the poet, and the poetry which wafts from the past\nto the soul of the most commonplace person is seen in the present by him\nwho hath eyes. The pathos of that which _must_ pass away is no less great\nthan the pathos of that which _has_ passed away. And what produces the\nart-feeling in both cases is the same--the fresh, intense perception of\nthings for themselves alone: only the ordinary man finds it easier to\ndetach his own interests from the past than from the present of which he\nis part. Romance is not in things, but in the souls that observe. Every\nplace, however enchanted, is inhabited by prosaic persons who earn their\nliving there. My chambermaid was born in Padua--Padua, outside which\nDonatello could not achieve perfection; Padua, ever dear to us because\nPortia feigned to have studied law at its University. Alas! alas! the two\ngentlemen of Verona go down to business in tram-cars, and the\n\n  Magic casements opening on the foam\n  Of fa\u00ebry lands in perilous seas forlorn\n\nare cleaned and repaired by some one who sends in the bill. Yet, since\nbelieving is seeing, let us behold, not the chambermaid and the\nwindow-cleaner, but the magic casement and the moonrise. And if to the\ncommonplace our own age is commonplace, yet our age, like youth, is a\nfault that will mend with time. Our politics, and philosophies too, will\ncrumble and decay, the dust will gather on our books and newspapers,\narchaeologists will prize our coins, the fashion of our ugly garments\nwill grow picturesque, and samples of our streets will be rebuilt in\nexhibitions. What is then left to console us for the eternal flux? Only\nthat posterity shall grow old-fashioned too, while we, like antiquity,\nshall have enjoyed that which never grows old--the sunshine and the\nstars, love and friendship, the smiles of little children, and the\nfreshness of flowers, aspiration and achievement, thought and worship,\nstruggle and self-sacrifice.\n\nThese, these are the eternal things--that persist in every age, in every\nenvironment, in old Etruscan villages as in the Paris of to-day: these\nare the realities to which \"the latest scientific conveniences\" are but\npadding, and in which we have had no superiority over our ancestors, even\nas we shall have no inferiority to our successors, though they riot in\n\"Vril\" and balloons, and go on Cooks' Tours to the constellations. The\nnetwork of nerves in which we live and move and have our being is only\ncapable of a certain quota of sensations, and no invention will really\nenlarge our enjoyments except it be of a new set of nerves. Persons whose\nlives have known strange vicissitudes have been astonished to find\npleasure and pain about equally distributed in all; and I am optimist\nenough to think that no age will be really less unhappy than the present.\nReformers who imagine they improve on the past age do but alter old\ninstitutions to fit new feelings. Reformers are necessary because\notherwise the new feelings would be cramped by the old institutions. But\nthere is no addition to the sum of pleasure. Progress really means not\nlagging behind; and however far we march, the same sunshine will throw\nthe same shadow of pain across our path. The notion of progress, said\nSpinoza, is a futility, because God, of whom the universe is a\nmanifestation, is always perfect. Later philosophers have found this\ndoctrine a barren blind-alley, and craved for the notion of a more\nenergising God. But both notions seem perfectly compatible. Progress may\nbe just the way perfection manifests itself. The universe moves--and at\neach point is perfect. It is as good as it could be--at the moment: it\ncould not be any better. For if it could have been, it would have been:\nit has no interest in being otherwise. That it is not perfect in our\nsense of the word matters little to the metaphysician. We have such\nlimited experiences of universes that we cannot judge what a really good\none should be like; and to say that ours is bad is to foul our own nest.\n\nHe had no doubt of the perfection of the universe, that gentle old\nFranciscan who lives with his twenty-nine brethren on the islet of St.\nFrancesco del Deserto, a rarely visited spot off Venice, that somehow\nreminded me of the island in Mr. H. A. Jones' \"Michael and his Lost\nAngel.\" He had never been to Assisi, where his tutelary saint was born.\n\"Have you no wish to see it?\" I asked. \"My only wish is to obey.\" Dear\nold man! He had stopped all his life; but thinking--ah! that is another\nmatter. It was in this island that St. Francis preached to the birds. He\nwas saying the Office when all the birds stopped to listen, and St.\nFrancis took advantage of the opportunity. It was his disciple St. Antony\nwho preached to the fishes, and there is a delicious picture in Padua\nshowing all the fishes perking their heads out of the water and listening\nin devout dumbness, the very oysters open to conviction. Poor dear\nfishes! What a delightful change to receive from the upper world\nsomething else than hooks! What a sweet simple cloister hath this lonely\nmonastery--a plain stone walk under a red-tiled arcade supported by rough\nbrick pillars, the walls lined by quaint black-and-white engravings of\nsaints engaged in miracles. There is a well in the centre which used to\nbe of sea-water, but St. Bernard of Siena blessed it and it turned sweet.\nI have drunk of the water, so I can vouch the story is true. And there is\na beautiful cypress walk. What a tranquil retreat!\n\n  O Beata Solitudo!\n  O Sola Beatitudo!\n\nas the inscription over the lintel hath it. I do not wonder that St.\nFrancis came here when he was greatly fatigued, \"after converting the\nSultan of Egypt,\" as the old Franciscan na\u00efvely explained. 'T is the sort\nof sanatorium Tolsto\u00ef would need, after converting the German Emperor!\nAnd despite St. Francis, and his doctrine of brotherhood with birds and\nfishes, we go on with our cannibal cookery, and even his own Church still\nteaches that animals have no souls, though that is perhaps because they\nhave no _soldi_. And despite Tolsto\u00ef and his tracts, the people who stop\nwill not think and the people who think will not stop. For to convert the\nworld is the one miracle that the saints have never compassed. Yet is the\nsunshine of these sweet souls never lost, and the gentle mien of the old\nFranciscan made me feel at peace even with my sandolier when I found him\nsound asleep in his boat, wrapped up in my cloak.\n\nAnd these are the types of character Nietzsche would destroy. They are\ndegenerative, forsooth! They make against life and the joy thereof. Ah,\nbut the joy of life is not only the joy of self-assertion: there is the\njoy of self-effacement, which is only another form of self-expression,\nthe assertion of a higher self. That was the secret of Jesus, of Buddha.\nWhereas the doctrine of Nietzsche--_c'est le secret de Polichinelle_. The\nman in the street needs no encouragement to enjoyment. It is only by the\ntravail of the centuries that he has been taught to prefer to his own\npleasure somebody else's absence of pain. Human nature is like Venice or\nHolland--a province slowly wrested from the sea, and secured by dams and\ndykes. Woe to him who makes a breach in the sea-walls! And yet Nietzsche\nis to be read, though 't is a pity he is to be translated into English\nfor the seduction of unripe minds. The desuetude of Latin as a common\nlanguage for scholars is to be regretted; it kept the thinkers of Europe\nin touch, and kept out the _profanum vulgus_. As I have often pointed\nout, a truth grows so stale that it is almost a lie, and to invert any\nconventionality is to produce what is almost a truth. Truth is convex as\nwell as concave.\n\nThis method of inversion is Nietzsche's main weapon: as earnest as any of\nour pulpiteering Puritans, he wears his morality inside out. He denies\nthe copy-book, as Luther denied the infallibility of the Pope. He\ntransposes all moral values, finds virtue often weakness and vice often\nstrength, girds at all the cloud-spinning philosophers, and is one of the\nmost brilliant and suggestive of modern writers, full of epigram and\nwhimsy, and wielding the clumsy German tongue with rare grace and\ndexterity. But, as might be expected of the son of a parson, he pursues\nhis reaction against conventional cant beyond the bounds of legitimate\nparadox, replacing the narrow by the narrower. Nietzsche was necessary;\nsome one had to call a spade a spade. The great forces of modern thought,\nwhich have been gathering for centuries, had to find shameless\nexpression; and Nietzsche's scorn for those who have tried to patch up\nhollow truces with bygone beliefs, and dress up new heresies in old\nSunday clothes, is amply justified. But what is not justified is his\nadmiration of himself--an admiration so pronounced that it has landed him\nin a lunatic asylum. Our systems of chronology ought to be recast, cries\nhe; and even as men have dated from A.D., so are they to date from A.N.,\nthe year of Nietzsche. Not that he expects immediate recognition: \"Erst\ndas Uebermorgen geh\u00f6rt mir. Einige werden posthum geboren.\" But the bulk\nof what he tells us is really involved in all modern conceptions of the\ncosmus--it could have been found long ago in Herbert Spencer.\n\nAnti-Christ he calls himself, and beats the drum and invites you to\ninspect the greatest philosophy on earth. \"Now hold your breath with\nawe,\" he has the air of saying, \"or if you are not strong enough to hear\nthis fearsome truth, go home to the nursery and read Hegel.\" And after\nthis fanfaronade, lo! some commonplace that you shall find in a hundred\nmodern poets or philosophers. 'T is like the clown in the circus who\nworks himself up with a mighty pother to mount the bare-backed steed, and\nthen hangs on to the tail. No, no, good Herr Nietzsche, we want our\nSaints Francis as well as our Napoleons. The one kind is as much in the\n\"order of nature\" as the other; and pity and humility, if they are the\nvirtues of \"nations in their decline,\" are preferable to the vices of\nnations at their zenith. And, good Count Tolsto\u00ef, a universe of Saints\nFrancis would be an intolerable bore. The cowl does not cover all the\nvirtues, nor the dress-coat all the sins.  'T is a world we live in, not\na monastery; and it is amid the clash of mighty opposites that the music\nof the spheres is beaten out.\n\n\"Everything in Venice is delivered up to the Evil One now,\" writes John\nBuskin to Father Jacopo of the Armenian monastery; and such has been the\nimmemorial language of prophets. I sometimes suspect the Evil One\ndeserves more gratitude than he gets. Where would be the play without the\nvillain of the piece? No, the devil is not so black as he is painted, nor\nthe angel so white. And hence these incessant swings of the philosophical\npendulum as one truth or the other is perceived. The true ethics of the\nfuture will give the devil his due, and deduct a discount from the angel.\n\nThe Armenian monastery which has posted up Ruskin's letter is\nparadoxically proud of its association with Lord Byron, who studied\nArmenian there; and visitors come there in consequence, and buy books\nthat the monks print. So that Satan has his uses, and Scripture can quote\nthe devil for its own purposes. The book I bought was a charming\ncollection of Armenian folk-songs, and it contains one delicious poem\nwhose refrain has haunted me ever since:\n\n  ON THE PARTRIDGE.\n\n  The sun boats from the mountain's top,\n       Pretty, pretty.\n  The partridge comes from her nest:\n  She was saluted by the flowers,\n  She flew and came from the mountain's top,\n       Ah! pretty, pretty,\n       Ah! dear little partridge!\n\nOnly the highest genius--and what is higher than the folk-genius?--would\ndare to be so na\u00efve:\n\n  Ah! pretty, pretty,\n  Ah! dear little partridge!\n\n\n\n\nVENTNOR\n\nI did not get to Ventnor without a struggle. Everybody that I met held up\nhands of horror. \"What! Going to Ventnor? You will be roasted before your\ntime.\" My friends grieved, my very publishers wrung their hands, my\nnewsvendor took me aside and besought me to live on a high hill. Yet\nthrough the whole of August I sat coolly writing on a low terrace. There\nis a superstition about Ventnor, and none of the people who talk glibly\nabout its temperature have ever been there. But I think I have discovered\nthe origin of the great Ventnor myth. The place is a winter resort of\nconsumptives; and Mr. Frederick Greenwood, who was the chief charm of\nVentnor, told me that you may take coffee on your lawn in November. The\ntown, then, is warm in winter. The popular mind, with its hasty logic,\nthinks that this is tantamount to saying it is broiling hot in summer. I\nfancy there is a similar fiction about Bournemouth. But as a rule the\nBritish climate pays no heed to guide-books. By the natives, Ventnor,\nthough as beautiful as a little Italian town, seems to be regarded as a\ngood place to go away from, for every other man keeps a coaching\nestablishment (I don't mean a school), and you cannot walk two yards\nwithout being accosted by a tout, who resents your walking the next two.\nIts regatta is a puerile affair, its own boating crews going off by\npreference to rival regattas. But in illuminations it comes out far\nbetter than Cowes, whose loyal inhabitants throw all the burden of\nfireworks upon the royal and other yachts anchored in the bay. And\nbesides, Ventnor has a carnival, which I saw in the shop-windows in the\nshape of comic masks.\n\nBonchurch, the suburb of Ventnor, which plumes itself upon a very\nartificial pond, furnished in the best style with sycamores, Scotch firs,\nelms and swans, is more interesting for containing the old churchyard by\nthe sea which received the bones of John Sterling and inspired the best\npoem of Philip Bourke Marston:--\n\n  Do they hear, through the glad April weather,\n    The green grasses waving above them?\n    Do they think there are none left to love them,\n  They have lain for so long there together?\n    Do they hear the note of the cuckoo,\n      The cry of gulls on the wing,\n    The laughter of winds and waters,\n      The feet of the dancing Spring?\n\nI was married in Ventnor. At least so I gather from the local newspapers,\nin whose visitors' lists there figures the entry, \"Mr. and Mrs.\nZangwill.\" I do not care to correct it, because, the lady being my\nmother, it is perfectly accurate and leads to charming misconceptions.\n\"There, that's he,\" loudly whispered a young man, nudging his sweetheart,\n\"and there's his wife with him.\" \"That! why, she looks old enough to be\nhis mother,\" replied the young lady. \"Ah!\" said her lover, with an air of\nconscious virtue and a better bargain, \"they're awfully mercenary, these\nliterary chaps.\" The reverse of this happened to a young friend of mine.\nHe married an old lady who possessed a very large fortune. During the\nhoneymoon his solicitous attentions to her excited the admiration of\nanother old lady, who passed her life in a Bath-chair. \"Dear me!\" she\nthought: \"how delightful in these degenerate days to see a young man so\nattentive to his mother!\" and, dying soon after, left him another large\nfortune.\n\n\n\n\nSOMEWHERE ELSE\n\nBefore I chanced on the great discovery which has made all my holidays\nreal boons, and pleasure trips quite a pleasure, I used to go through all\nthe horrors of preliminary indecision, which are still, alas! the lot of\nthe vast majority. I would travel for weeks in Bradshaw, and end by\nsticking a pin at random between the leaves as if it were a Bible, vowing\nto go where destiny pointed. Once the pin stuck at London, and so I had\nto stick there too, and was defrauded of my holiday. But even when the\npin sent me to Putney, or Coventry, I was invariably disappointed. Like\nthe inquisitive and precocious infant of the poem, I was always asking\nfor the address of Peace, but whenever I called I was told that she was\nnot in, while the mocking refrain seemed to ring in my ears: \"Not there,\nnot there, my child.\" And at last I asked angrily of the rocks and caves:\n\"Will no one tell me where Peace may be found? Wherever I go I find she\nis somewhere else.\" Then, at last, one nymph's soft heart grew tender and\npitiful towards me, and Echo, hardly waiting till I had completed my\nsentence, answered: \"Somewhere Else.\"\n\nA wild thrill of joy ran through me. At last I had found the solution of\nthe haunting puzzle. Somewhere Else. That was it. Not Scotland, nor\nSwitzerland, nor Japan. None of the common places of travel. But\nSomewhere Else. Wherever I went, I wished I had gone Somewhere Else.\nThen, why not go there at first? What was the good of repining when it\nwas too late? In future, I would make a bee-line for the abode of\nPeace--not hesitate and shilly-shally, and then go to Bournemouth, or\nNorway, or Ceylon, only to be sorry I had not gone to Somewhere Else\ndirect. In a flash, all the glories of the discovery crowded upon me--the\ngain of time, temper, money, everything. \"A thousand thanks, sweet Echo,\"\nI cried. \"My obedience to thy advice shall prove that I am not\nungrateful.\" Echo, with cynical candour, shouted \"Great fool,\" but I\ncannot follow her in her end-of-the-century philosophy. And I have taken\nher advice. I went Somewhere Else immediately, and since then I have gone\nthere every year regularly. My relatives do not care for it, and suggest\nall sorts of conventional places, such as Monte Carlo and Southend, but\nwherever they go, be it the most beautiful spot on earth, I remain\nfaithful to my discovery, and go to Somewhere Else, where Peace never\nfails to greet me with the special welcome accorded to an annual visitor.\nThe place grows upon me with every season. Sometimes, I think I should\nlike to stay on and die there. No other spot in the wide universe has\nhalf such charm for me, and even when I do die, I don't think I shall go\nto where all the other happy idlers go. I shall go to Somewhere Else.\n\nFor Cromer may be the garden of sleep, but you shall find sleepier\ngardens and more papaverous poppies--Somewhere Else. The mountain-pines\nof Switzerland may be tall, and the skies of Italy blue, but there are\ntaller pines and bluer skies--Somewhere Else. The bay of San Francisco\nmay be beautiful, and the landscapes of Provence lovely, and the crags of\nNorway sublime, but Somewhere Else there are fairer visions and scenes\nmore majestical--\n\n  An ampler setter, a diviner air,\n  And fields invested with purpureal gleams.\n\nIt never palls upon you--Somewhere Else. Every loved landmark grows\ndearer to you year by year, and year by year apartments are\ncheaper--Somewhere Else. The facilities for getting to it are enormous.\nAll roads lead to it, far more truly than to Rome. There can be no\naccidents on the journey. How often do we read of people setting forth on\ntheir holidays full of life and hope--yea, sometimes even on their\nhoneymoon--and lo! a signalman nods, or a bridge breaks, and they are\nleft mangled on the rails or washed into the river. And to think that\nthey would have escaped if they had only gone to Somewhere Else! Too late\nthe weeping relatives wring their hands and moan the remark. Henceforth,\namong the ten million pleasure-pilgrims, who will be guided by me, there\nwill be no more tragedies by flood or field. Railway assurance will\nbecome a thing of the past, and a fatal blow will be struck at modern\nhebdomadal journalism. To turn to minor matters, your friends can never\nutter the irritating \"I told you not to go there!\" if you have been to\nSomewhere Else. And you need not label your luggage; that always goes to\nSomewhere Else of itself. Last advantage of Somewhere Else, you may show\nyour face in it, though you departed last year without paying your bill.\nThere are no creditors in this blessed haven. Earth's load drops off your\nshoulders when you go to Somewhere Else.\n\nI give this counsel in a disinterested spirit. I have not made\nspeculative purchases of land, I am not booming a generous jerry-builder.\nAnd yet I cannot help reflecting apprehensively on the consequences of my\nrecommendation. Already I see my sweet retreat the prey of the howling\nmob; I hear the German band playing on the stone parade, and catch the\nsad strains of the comic singer. Sacrilegious feet tramp the solitudes,\nand sandwich papers become common objects of the sea-shore. Shilling\nyachts will ply where I watched the skimming curlew, and new villas will\ntotter on the edge of the ocean and beguile the innocent billows to be\nhouse-breakers. Nay, the place will become the Alsatia of humanity, the\nrefuge for all those men and women people would rather see Somewhere\nElse, and whose travelling expenses they will perchance defray.\nImagination reels before the horror of such an agglomeration of the\nunamiable. And the terrible thing about my terrestrial paradise is that\nthere is no escaping from it. Everything has the defects of its\nqualities, and this is the reverse of the dazzling medal--the drawback\nwhich annuls all the advantages of Somewhere Else in the event of its\nbecoming popular. In vain shall I then endeavour to flee from it. Though\nI projected myself from the giant cannon that sent Jules Verne's hero to\nthe moon, I should inevitably arrive--boomerang-like--at Somewhere Else.\n\n\n\n\nPART III.\n\nAFTER-THOUGHTS: A BUNDLE OF BREVITIES.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Moonshine]\n\nCertainly the Moon was very charming that soft summer's night, as I\nwatched its full golden orb gliding nonchalantly in the serene, starry\nheaven, and keeping me company as I strode across the silent gorse.\nBut--to be indiscreet--I had grown aweary of the Moon, and of the stars\nalso, as of beautiful pictures hung--or should one say, skied?--in a\nperpetual Academy. _Caelum non animum mutant_ is only tolerably true. A\nderangement of stars is all the change you get by travelling--everywhere\nthe same golden-headed nails, as Hugo, hard-driven, called them, are\nsticking in the firmament. This particular moon was hanging, not over a\nchurch steeple, like De Musset's moon,\n\n  Comme un point sur un i,\n\nbut like the big yellow dial of the clock in a church tower. An\nilluminated clock-face--but blank, featureless, expressionless, useless;\nin a word, without hands. Now I could not help thinking that if there had\nreally been a Providence it would have put hands to the Moon--a big and a\nlittle--and made it the chronometer of the world--nay, of the cosmos--the\nuniversal time-piece, to which all eyes, in every place and planet, could\nbe raised for information; by which all clocks could be set--moon\ntime--an infallible monitor and measurer of the flight of the hours;\ndivinely right, not to be argued with; though I warrant there be some\nwould still swear by their watches. This were the true cosmopolitanism,\ndestroying those distressful variations which make your clock vary with\nyour climate, and which throw the shadow of pyrrhonism over truths which\nshould be clear as daylight. For if, when it is five o'clock here, it may\nbe two o'clock there and supper-time yonder, if it is night and day at\nthe same moment, then is black white, and Pilate right--and\nHeraclitus,--and the nonconformist conscience a vain thing.\n\nIn supporting correct moral principles, the Moon would be of some use,\ninstead of staring at us with an idiot face, signifying nothing. The\nstars, too, could be better employed than in winking at what goes on here\nbelow. Like ladies' gold watches by the side of Big Ben, they could\nrepeat the same great eternal truth--that it was half-past nine, or five\nminutes to eleven.\n\n  Soon as the evening shades prevail\n  The moon takes up the wondrous tale,\n  While all the stars that round her burn,\n  And all the planets in their turn,\n  Confirm the tidings as they roll,\n  And spread the _time_ from pole to pole.\n\nAn obvious result of a synchronised universe would be the federation of\nmankind, Peace on Earth, and all those other beatitudes at present vainly\nsought by World Fairs, and pig-sticking prophets.\n\nTill we have hands to the Moon I shall not look for the Millennium.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Capital]\n\nSuddenly the Moon went behind a cloud, as if to demonstrate that even\nthen there would be difficulties. Besides, I remembered it had its\nquarter-days. Here my thoughts made a transition to money matters, and,\nafter the manner of Richard Carstone in \"Bleak House,\" I fell to\nreckoning up the sums I had saved of late. It is a calculation I make\nalmost every week nowadays. I have lost nothing by any of the\nJerry-Building Societies, nothing by any of the great Bank Failures. By\nnot having any money one saves thousands a year in these unsettled times.\nMr. Hamerton cites with amusement the remark of a wealthy Englishman, who\ncould not understand \"why men are so imprudent as to allow themselves to\nsink into money embarrassments.\" \"There is a simple rule that I follow\nmyself,\" said he, \"and that I have always found a great safeguard: it is,\n_never to let one's balance at the banker's fall below five thousand\npounds_.\" The rich Englishman's rule was quite wrong: the only safeguard\nis to have no balance at all. High and dry on the Lucretian tower of\npoverty, you may watch with complacency the struggles of the sinking\nfunds. What a burden capital must be to those anxious to find safe\ninvestments at high rates of interest! It looks as if interest will sink\nto freezing point, and capital will have to flow to other planets if that\ncomical claim for \"wages of abstinence\" is to be met any longer. Perhaps\nit will flow to Mars, the home in exile of the old political economy.\nAlready a beginning has been made by investments in mines which are not\nupon this earth.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Credit]\n\nEvery day makes clearer the evils of our complex credit system--that\nFrankenstein creation we have lost control over, that ampulaceous growth\nof capital, most of which is merely figures in a book, and which only\nexists in virtue of not being asked for, much as the tit-bits on a\nrestaurant menu are \"off\" when ordered. The real meaning of National\nDebts is that every civilised country is bankrupt, and only goes on\ntrading because its creditors give it time. To the uncertainties of the\nweather, and the chances of cholera, war, and earthquake, we have added\nan artificial uncertainty worse than any of these--we have invented a\nseries of financial cyclones, which sweep round the globe, devastating\nall lands, and no more to be predicted--despite theories of sun-spots,\ncyclones and financial crises--than wrecks at sea; indeed, far less\npredictable, for I believe with the ex-mayor quoted by Bonamy Price, that\nfinance is a subject which no man can understand in this world, or even\nin the next. The infinite ramifications, the endless actions and\nreactions, are beyond the grasp of any one but an impostor. The Professor\njust mentioned thought he had found the right thread of theory in the\nlabyrinth of \"Currency and Banking,\" and really did make a most sensible\nanalysis of what actually went on in financial operations. Only he left\nout one great factor--the immense influence on the market of other\npeople's wrong theories. No, if there is a right thread of theory, it\nmust be so tangled as to be worse than useless. My friend the business\nman tells me that for success in business one requires four things: a\nlarge capital, industry, insight, and caution--and then it's a toss-up. I\nam fain to believe this whole system of modern commerce was devised to\nplease the amateurs of the aleatory.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Small Boy]\n\nA plague on both your Houses of Parliament! They legislate day and night,\nyet leave our lives unmodified. For our lives revolve on the pivot of\ncustom, and our everyday movements are not political. The real ruler of\nEngland is the small boy of the streets! And, in truth, is it not so? By\nthe unphilosophic regarded as akin to vermin, existing for the greater\nconfusion of theologians, the small boy looms large to the man of\ninsight, as the true conservator of custom--the one efficient _custos\nmorum_. He it is who regulates the lengths to which we may go in\neccentricity, and, above all, in hair:\n\n    Get your hair cut!\n\nHe is particular to a shade about clothes, and has a nice taste in hats.\nOne wonders how he acquired it. His patriotic proclivity, his hostility\nto national costumes other than English, his preference for uncoloured\ncomplexions--this one may understand; but his aesthetic instinct is a\nproblem for Weismann. As the interpreter of the conventions, he is of a\ncast-iron rigidity, for is he not a child of Mrs. Grundy--his mother's\nown boy? He has no exceptions--it is \"one law and one measure.\" He is the\nscavenger of manners, as the Constantinople street-dog is of gutters; a\nnatural _police des moeurs_, infinitely more efficient than any\nartificial organisation; an all-ramifying association created to keep the\nbounds of social order, on duty at every street corner, alert to check\nevery outbreak of individuality. Do ladies aspire to ride bicycles? Or\nwear bloomers? There is the small boy to face. It is a question for him.\nConciliate him, and you may laugh at the pragmatic. His, too, is a\nhealthy barbarism, beneficent in its action, that thinks scorn of\neyeglasses and spectacles, and leads him to denounce quadruple vision,\nas, indeed, all departure from the simplicities of physical perfection. A\nhuman scarecrow he abhors, and will follow such an one through six\nstreets to express his disapprobation. Extremes of size? whether of\ntallness or shortness? offend him equally. Whitman was not kinder to \"the\naverage man.\" Nor is the small boy's influence limited to sumptuary and\ncorporeal censorship: by taking up certain songs he \"makes\" the nation's\nballads, and every one knows what that means. Let me train a nation's\nsmall boys, I care not who makes its laws. O small boy, true sovereign of\nEngland, I take off my hat to thee!--to show thee the maker's name in the\nlining, and satify thy anxious inquiries as to where I got it.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: A Day in Town.]\n\nI have often wondered what country children do for a holiday. Do good\npeople go round collecting to give them a day in London or Liverpool or\nManchester, so that their stunted lives that stretch on from year to year\nwith never a whiff of town fog, never a glimpse of green 'buses, or\ndangerous crossings, or furnace-smoke, may be expanded and elevated? If\nnot, I beg to move the starting of a Town Fund at once. Nothing can be\nmore narrowing than rustic existence--there are old yokels whose lives\nhave always moved within a four-mile radius, women who have grown gray\nwithout ever knowing what lay beyond the blue hills that girdled their\nnative village. I once knew a chawbacon who came to town and was barked\nat by a street-dog. He stooped down to pick up one of the rough stones\nlying in the roadway to ward it off withal, but to his astonishment the\nstone refused to budge, for it was an integral part of the road. \"Danged\nif that baint[*] queer!\" he exclaimed. \"At home the dogs be tied and the\nstones be loose. Here the dogs be loose and the stones be tied.\" Now, if\nthat man had enjoyed a school excursion to the town when a boy, he would\nhave deprived me of a good story. A glimpse of the town in youth might\nalso do good in checking the perpetual urban immigration, which, alas!\nremoves so many of the rustic population from the soil, and places them\nunder it. To this end all school excursions to London should take place\nin November. Yes, there is a vast future before that fund, and I shall be\nhappy to start it with five thousand pounds, if two hundred and\nsixty-three one-armed Scotchmen of good moral character will bind\nthemselves to do the same.\n\n[* Transcriber's note: So in original.]\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Profession of Charity.]\n\nMr. Labouchere is singularly unfair to a new profession. Beggary has long\nbeen a recognised profession, with its traditions, customs, and\npast-masters, and it is time that philanthropy should now be admitted to\nan equal status. There is no reason in the world why it should be left in\nthe hands of amateurs, who muddle away funds by their lack of science and\nexperience. Supposing a man sees his way to doing good--founding a home\nfor incurables, or drunkards, or establishing a dispensary, or anything\nyou please--why should he not make a living by it? What if he does get\nfive hundred a year, is he not worth it, provided always the institution\nfulfils a useful function and is not a sham? Surely he does more for\nSociety in return for his money than a Treasury clerk! Probably but for\nhim--but for his wish to earn an income--the charitable institution would\nnever have come into existence. Political economy already shows us how\nthe individual's desire for profit brings humanity all its blessings,\nopens up new countries for it, and supplies them with wars and railways.\nIf men did not buy shares with a view to a percentage on their savings,\nthe march of civilisation would come to a halt. Since the philanthropy of\npercentage is so obvious, why should we not recognise the percentage of\nphilanthropy? Charity has gone into business. Why not?\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Privileges of Poverty.]\n\nThe only people who seem to escape the malady of the century are the\npoor. The _Weltschmerz_ touches them not; however great their suffering,\nit is always individual. The privileges of poverty are, I fear,\ninsufficiently appreciated in these grasping times. It is not only\nincome-tax that the poor man is exempt from. There is a much more painful\ntax on income than the pecuniary--it is the thought of those who are\nworsted in the struggle for bare existence. _Vae victis!_ Yet those who\nachieve the bare existence, who starve not, neither shiver, have surely\nenviable compensations. Not theirs the distressful, wearying problems of\nsociology. Far from feeling any responsibility for their fellow-beings,\nthey do not even fulfil their own personal duty to society,--witness the\nbreeding of babies in back streets. They have no sympathy with the\ntroubles of any other class--they eat their hard crust and they drink\ntheir bitter beer without a thought of the dyspepsia of the diner-out,\nand their appetite is not dulled by any suspicion of heart-sickness in\ngood society. Starvation other than physical they do not understand, and\nspiritual struggles are caviare. The state of the rich does not give them\nsleepless nights--they have no yearnings to reform them or amend their\ncondition. The terrible overcrowding of the upper classes on Belgravian\nstaircases wakes not a pang; they are untouched by the sufferings of\ninsufficiently-clad ladies in draughty stalls and royal antechambers; and\nthe grievances of old army men move them not. Not theirs to ponder\nsorrowfully over the lost souls of politicians or the degeneration of\npublic manners. They live their own lives--and, whatsoever the burden,\nthey do not bear any one's but their own.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Salvation for the Seraphim]\n\nHerbert Spencer says he knew a retired naval officer in whose mind God\nfigured as a transcendently powerful sea-captain; and we have all heard\nthe story of the English admiral who, when fighting the Dutch, felt sure\nGod wouldn't desert a fellow-countryman. But this ingenuous\nidentification of earthly and divine interests has been carried to the\npoint of imbecility by General Booth in his claim to\n\n  \"THE LARGEST CIRCULATION.\"\n\n  The _War Cry_, so the General states,\n  Among the angels circulates,\n  To Heaven having gone; but, oh,\n  That it had first expired below!\n\nWhich is uglier--the crude spiritualism of the Salvationist or the crude\nmaterialism of the scientist? I receive the same sort of shock when I\nperuse Mrs. Spurgeon's fond picture of her departed husband waylaying the\nangels at the shining street-corners to preach the gospel to them, as\nwhen I read that woman's poetry is inferior to man's because she exhales\nless carbonic acid.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Truth--Local and Temporal]\n\nThe other day I listened to some green-room persiflage between an actress\nand an eminent actor-manager. The lady said she had loved him years ago,\nand thrown herself at his head, but had never been able to bring him to a\nproposal. I asked if she would have been satisfied with the provincial\nrights. I am not at all sure that the introduction of this principle of\nlegal partition would not promote domestic harmony, especially in\ntheatrical circles, where the practice already prevails in the matter of\nplays. Indeed, this principle of partition has already been carried\nbeyond its original sphere. Do I not remember a theatrical lawsuit four\nor five years ago in which the plaintiff sought to restrain the defendant\nfrom styling himself part-author of a piece, on the ground that he (the\ndefendant) had not done a stroke of the work, and had been paid ten\npounds for it; while the defendant claimed that he had only parted with\nhis rights as regards London, and that in the provinces he was still\nentitled to claim a share of the authorship? Pascal long ago pointed out,\nin his \"Pens\u00e9es,\" that virtue and vice were largely dependent on distance\nfrom the equator (a latitudinarianism in morals that does not seem to\nhave shocked his Port Royal friends). But even he failed to reach this\ndaring conception of \"local fame.\" The marvel is that when once reached\nit should have been let slip again. It seems to me an invaluable remedy\nfor disputes: absolutely infallible. When Mr. Stuart Cumberland wrote\nfrom India to claim the plot of \"The Charlatan,\" how simple to accord him\nthe authorship--_in India!_ At once we perceive a _modus vivendi_ for the\nfollowers of Donnelly and the adherents of common-sense. In America Bacon\nshall be the author of \"Hamlet,\" but the English rights in the piece\nshall go to Shakespeare. In the same spirit of compromise Cruikshank\nmight have been content to be the author of \"Oliver Twist\" in the\nHebrides and the second-class saloons of Atlantic steamers. Herman should\nbe sole author of \"The Silver King\" in Pall Mall, and Jones in\nPiccadilly. Some metropolitan streets belong by one pavement to one\nparish, and by the other to another; so that in the case of parochial\ncelebrities it would be possible for the rival great men to glare at each\nother across the road--not, however, daring to cross it, for fear of\nlosing their reputation. The Frenchman's long-standing assumption of\nParisian rights in the victory of Waterloo would be put upon a legitimate\nbasis.\n\nBy a logical extension of the principle we could allow Homer to be born\nin Chios on Mondays, in Colophon on Tuesdays, and so with each of the\nseven cities which starved him. They use up the week nicely. On the odd\nday of leap year we might concede that he never existed, and allow him to\nbe resolved into the pieces into which he was torn by Wolf. Had this\npacificatory principle been discovered earlier, \"The Letters of Phalaris\"\nwould never have fluttered Europe, and Swift would have had no need to\nwrite \"The Battle of the Books.\" It is never too late to mend, however,\nand an academy of leading politicians and ecclesiastics should be at once\nformed to draw up an authoritative \"Calendar and Topography of Belief,\"\nfixing once for all the dates and places on or in which it is permissible\nto hold any given opinion. Although, when I come to think of it, Science\nand Religion have long been tacitly reconciled on this principle,\nReligion being true on Sundays and Science on week-days.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Creed of Despair.]\n\nI am convinced that optimism is exactly the wrong sort of medicine for\nour \"present discontents.\" It is time to try homoeopathy. My suggestion\nis that the religion of the future shall consist of the most pessimistic\npropositions imaginable; its creed shall be godless and immoral, its\nthirty-nine articles shall exhaust the possibilities of unfaith and its\nburden shall be _vanitas vanitatum_. Man shall be an automaton, and life\nan hereditary disease, and the world a hospital, and truth a dream, and\nbeauty an optical illusion. These sad tidings of great sorrow shall be\norganized into a state church, with bishops and paraphernalia, and shall\nbe sucked in by the infant at its mother's breast. Men shall be tutored\nin unrighteousness, and innocence shall be under ecclesiastical ban.\nFaith and Hope shall be of the seven deadly virtues, and unalloyed\ndespair of man and nature a dogma it were blasphemous to doubt. The good\nshall be persecuted and the theists tortured, and those that say there is\nbalm in Gilead, shall be thrust beyond the pale of decent society.\n\nThen, oh, what a spiritual revival there will be! Every gleam of light\nwill be eagerly sought for, every ray focussed; every hint of love and\npity and beauty, of significance and divinity, in this infinite and\ninfinitely mysterious universe, will be eagerly snatched up and thrust\nupon an age hide-bound in orthodoxy; every touch and trace of tenderness\nthat softens suffering and sweetens the bitterness of death, will be\ntreasured up in secret mistrust of the reigning creed; every noble\nthought and deed, every sacred tear, will be thrown into the balance of\nheresy with every dear delight of poetry and art, of woods and waters, of\ndawns and sunsets; with every grace of childhood and glory of man and\nwomanhood. And every suppressed doubt of the hideousness of the universe\nwill sink deep and ferment in darkness, and persecution will sit on every\nnatural safety valve till at last the pent forces will swell and crack\nthe sterile soil, and there will be an explosion that shall send a pillar\nof living fire towards the heavens of brass. The clerics will be among\nthe first to feel the stirrings of infidel hope--a few will give up their\nlivings rather than preach what they do not believe, but the\nmajority--especially the bishops--will cling to the Church of Despair,\nhoping against hope that their despair is true. There will be wonderful\nword-spinnings in the reviews, and the dominant pessimism will be\njustified by algebraic analogies. But, beneath it all, the church will be\ninfected to the core with faith, and for the first time in history we\nshall get a believing clergy. There will be secret societies founded to\npublish the Bible, and Colonel Ingersoll will lecture at the hall of\nreligion, and the prisons will be crowded with martyred iconoclasts\nincredulous of the gospel of science. No, there is nothing so unwise as\nyour optimistic organized creeds, with their suggestions of officialdom,\nred-tape, and back-stairs influence. We shall never be perfectly\nreligious and moral till we are trained from childhood to ungodly works,\nforced to attend long sermons on the error of existence, and badgered\ninto public impiety by force of opinion.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Social Bugbears.]\n\nFirst there were the Radicals, who stood for the apogee of human\nvillainy, though it now appears they were Conservatives of the mildest\ntype. Then came the turn of the Atheists, who, for all I have been able\nto discover, were very respectable creatures full of religious ardour,\nwho spelt God with a small \"g\" and justice with a capital \"J.\" Then the\nSocialists had their innings. But \"we are all Socialists now,\" and the\nempty mantle of villainy has fallen upon Anarchism, which, as far as I\ncan make out, is the simplest and most innocent creed ever invented, and\nwhich debars its adherents from exercising any compulsion upon anybody\nelse, relying upon the natural moral working of the human heart. How this\nis compatible with bombs it is for _Messieurs les Anarchistes_ to\nexplain. Needless to say the assassinous Anarchists are disavowed by\ntheir philosophical brethren.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Martyrs.]\n\nAlthough we moderns work harder than our fathers for our opinions, we are\nsometimes taunted with not being so ready to die for them. But, as Renan\npoints out, thinkers have no need to die to demonstrate a theorem. Saints\nmay die for their faith because faith is a personal matter. Even so we\nare still ready to die for our honour. The Christian martyrs did prove\nthat Christianity was a reality to them; but Galileo's death would have\nbeen irrelevant to the rotation of the earth. There is no _argumentum per\nhominem_ possible here; the truth is impersonal. It is only for beliefs\nthat exclude certainty that a man is tempted to martyrdom. The martyr is\nindeed, as the etymology implies, a witness; but his death is not a\nwitness to the truth of his belief--merely to the truth of his believing.\nBlandine at her stake, enduring a hundred horrors unflinchingly, seems in\naddition to prove that faith was the first anaesthetic. It is curious to\nnote how the word \"martyr\" has been degraded; so that we have to-day\nmartyrs to the gout instead of to the truth. The idea of suffering has\nquite ousted the idea of witnessing. What a pity the word got these\npainful associations! There are \"martyrs\" to the truth--witnesses who\nwithout dying testify to the divine streak in life; and unconscious\n\"martyrs\" who, by their simple sincerity, their unpretentious\nunselfishness, prove more than a bookshelf of theology. I have found\n\"martyrdom\" in the grip of a friend's hand, though if I had told him so\nhe would have apologised for squeezing so hard. And is not every pretty\nwoman a \"martyr\"--a revelation of an inner soul of beauty and goodness in\nthis chaotic universe? There! I have succumbed again to the common\nmasculine impulse to conceive beauty and goodness as a chemical\ncombination, subtly inter-related; whereas the slightest practical\nexperience in the laboratory of life discovers them but a mechanical\nmixture, dissociable and not seldom antipathetic.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The London Season]\n\nI remember being so bored one night at dinner, by the ceaseless chatter\nabout Burne-Jones, that I asked my fair neighbour: \"Who is Burne-Jones?\"\nHer reply was as smart as it was feminine. \"I don't believe you.\" There\nis a moral in this. Why be a slave to the season? Why bother to read all\nthe newest novels, see all the newest plays, hear all the newest\nmusicians, remember all the newest \"Reminiscences,\" and believe all the\nnewest religions, when by pleading ignorance you will pass not only as an\neccentric but a connoisseur? On second thoughts, why not eschew the\nseason altogether? God made the seasons and man made the season, as\nCowper forgot to say. And a nice mess man has made of it, turning night\ninto day and heating his rooms in the summer. The London Season, not\nWinter, Mr. Cowper, is the true \"Ruler of the Inverted Year.\"\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Academy]\n\nThe Academy has survived Mr. Burne-Jones' desertion of his old\nassociates, as it would survive art itself. I for one should regret its\ndisappearance. It is a whetstone for wit, like everything established and\nrespectable. I am only sorry we have no Academy of Letters. It gives one\nsuch a standing not to be a member--almost as good a standing as to be\none. If you are left out in the cold you loudly pity those asphyxiating\nin the heat, and if you have a cozy chair by the fireside you fall asleep\nand say nothing. This promotes happiness all round, and makes the\nliterary man contented with his lot. In England authors have no Academy,\nand so have to fall back on the poor publishers: _Hinc illae lachrymae!_\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Portraits of Gentlemen]\n\nEverybody paints the portrait of nobody. Imagine a great writer being\ncalled upon to produce a black-and-white picture of a man of no\nimportance: Let us imagine, say Meredith, being offered a thousand pounds\nfor a pen-and-ink portrait of a provincial mayor--being asked to devote\nhis graphic art, his felicitous choice of words, his gifts of insight and\nsympathy, his genius, in a word, to the portrayal of a real live\nmayor--the same to be published in book-form, asked for at the libraries,\nand discussed at dinner-tables and in the reviews as a specimen of the\nseason's art. Of course Meredith would tell the man to go and be hanged\n(in the Academy); but if he consented, see what would take place. The\nliterary portrait involves, of course, both mind and body, and\npractically the work would have to take the shape of a biography. For\nsome weeks the man would come to Meredith's study and give him talkings.\nAt the first talking Meredith would also make a sketch of the outside\nappearance of his subject. Here the resources of language far exceed\nthose of colour. The happy euphemism of language permits a squint to be\ndescribed as an ambidexterity of vision; it is even quite possible to\nomit an ill-regulated feature altogether. Suppose an artist paints a man\nwithout a nose--the defect _sauterait aux yeux_: it would be as plain as\nthe nose not upon his face. But it is quite possible for the literary\nartist to omit a man's nose without attracting any attention. The\nreader's imagination supplies the nose, without even being conscious of\nits purveyorship. As for the psychological portion of the portrait, the\nauthor would be entirely dependent on the information given by the\nsubject, so that provincial mayors would develop unsuspected virtues.\nWhere the difficulty would come in would be in the absence of darker\nqualities, which would make literary chiaroscuro impossible. It is quite\nlikely, though, that as a result of the talkings the subject would\nunwittingly present the novelist with a real character who would appear\nin his next work of fiction, and be entirely unrecognized either by the\nreader of the biography or its subject.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Photography and Realism]\n\nNo artist of the brush can afford to dispense with models; when he draws\nfrom his inner consciousness the composition is tame and the\ndraughtsmanship wild. The novelist, though his object is not portraiture,\nbut creation, can as little afford to keep aloof from real men and women.\nWhen George Eliot ceased to draw from models and fell back on intuition\nand her library, she produced \"Daniel Deronda.\" But I would demur\naltogether to the use of \"photography\" in literary criticism as\nsynonymous with realism. The photograph is an utter misrepresentation of\nlife, and this not merely because of its false shades and its lack of\ncolour, but because the photographer is not content with literalness. He\naspires to art. So far from being a realist, he is the greatest idealist\nof all. He not only puts you into poses you would never fall into\nnaturally, he not only arranges you so as to hide your characteristic\nuglinesses, and bids you call up an expression you never use, but he\ntouches up and tones down after you are gone, and treats his pictures,\nindeed, as though they were actors and he the dresser. And as each\nphotographer has his own style, no two portraits are ever alike. My\nportraits of Annabel pass as a collection of pretty actresses. Still, if\nthey are not like one another, they resemble one another in being unlike\nher. The only good photographs I have ever seen of myself were done by an\namateur--most of the others might just as well have been taken in my\nabsence. And there is always a painful neatness about photographs: my\nhumble study was once photographed, and it looked like a princely\nlibrary. Bags come out with artistic interstices, fustian gleams like\nsatin. It is the true Platonic touch, glorifying and gilding everything.\nFilth itself would come out like roses. No, no, let us hear no more about\nZola's \"photography.\"\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Great Unhung]\n\nWhat becomes of all the old pins is a problem that worries many simple\nsouls. What becomes of all the rejected pictures is a question that seems\nto trouble nobody. And yet at every exhibition the massacre of innocents\nis appalling. The Royal Academy of London, which is the most hospitable\ninstitution in the world toward \"wet paint,\" still turns away very many\nmore canvases than it admits. Their departure is like the retreat of the\nTen Thousand. Into the Salon one year six thousand eager frames crowded,\nbut when the public came to see, only thirteen hundred were left to tell\nthe tale--\n\n  All that was left of them,\n    Left of six thousand.\n\nMore ruthless still was the slaughter in the New Salon, the Salon of the\nChamps de Mars, where the pictures were decimated. Out of two thousand\nseven hundred works sent in by outsiders, only three hundred survived. It\nis impossible to believe that ideal justice was done, especially when we\nconsider that the jury took only one day to consider the outcome of so\nmany aspirations, such manifold toil. The pictures were wheeled past them\non gigantic easels, an interminable panorama. Even supposing that the\ngentlemen of the jury took a full working day of eight hours, with no\nallowance for d\u00e9jeuner, the average time for examining a picture works\nout at something like ten seconds. In each minute of that fateful day the\ndestiny of half a dozen pictures was decided. Verily, our\npicture-connoisseur seems to have elevated criticism into an instinct--he\nis the smoothest human mechanism on record. One wonders if the critic\nwill ever be replaced by an automaton, something analogous to the camera\nthat has replaced the artist. Meantime, the point is--what becomes of the\nrefused, those unwelcome revenants that return to lower the artist in the\neyes of landladies and concierges? Sometimes, we know, the stone which\nthe builders rejected becomes the corner-stone of the temple, and the\nproscribed painter lives to despise publicly the judges in the gate. But\nthese revenges are rare, and for the poor bulk of mankind the whirligig\nof time revolves but emptily. The average artist rejected of one\nexhibition turns him to another, and the leavings of the Salon beat at\nthe doors of Antwerp and Munich, where the annual of art blooms a little\nlater in the spring.\n\nPitiful it is to follow a picture from refusal to refusal; one imagines\nthe painter sublime amid the litter of secretarial notifications,\ngathering, Antaeus-like, fresh strength from every fall, and coming to a\ngrim and gradual knowledge of the great cosmopolitan conspiracy. One year\nthe rejected of the Academy were hung in London by an enterprising\nfinancier. It was the greatest lift-up the Academy had ever had. Even its\nenemies were silenced temporarily. But the rejected may console\nthemselves. The accepted have scant advantage over them. To sell a\npicture is becoming rarer and rarer, and the dealer is no more respectful\nto the canvas that has achieved the honor of the catalogue than to that\nwhich has preserved the sequestration of the studio. Sometimes the unhung\npicture becomes the medium upon which another is painted (for a picture\nis always worth the canvas it is painted on), sometimes (if it is large)\nit is cut up and sold in bits, sometimes it adorns the family\ndining-room, or decorates the hall of a good-natured friend, and\nsometimes, after a variety of pecuniary adventures, it becomes the proud\npossession of a millionaire.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Abolition of Catalogues.]\n\nThe average Englishman takes his religion on Sundays and his Art in the\nspring. Influences that should permeate life are collected in chunks at\nparticular seasons. This is sufficient to prove how little they are\nreally felt or understood. The Academy headache is the due penalty of\nhypocrisy. It is the catalogue that is the greatest coadjutor of cant. If\npictures, besides being hung, were treated like convicts in becoming\nmerely numbers, without names either of painters or subjects, what a\ndelightful confusion of critical tongues would ensue! But conceding that\na picture should have the painter's name, for the sake of the artist (or\nhis enemies), I would propose that everything else be abolished. It is\nnot unfair to subject pictures to this severe test, because, of all forms\nof art, painting is the one whose appeal is instantaneous, simple and\nself-complete. If a picture cannot speak for itself, no amount of\nadvocacy will save it. If it tells a story (which no good picture\nshould), let it at least do so without invoking the aid of the rival art\nof literature. Literature does not ask the assistance of pictures to make\nits meaning clear. Nor, too, is anything gained by calling colours\nharmonies or symphonies. Let such pictures strike their own chords and\nblow their own trumpets. Catalogues of all kinds are but props to\nartistic inefficiency. If dumb-show plays did not rely on \"books of the\nwords,\" pantomime would have to become a finer art. If ballets had no\nthread of narrative attached to them, their constructors would be driven\nto achieve greater intelligibility, or to give up trying for it--which\nwere the more gratifying alternative. So with the descriptions of\nsymphonies we find in our programmes. Why should good music be translated\ninto bad literature? Surely each art should be self-sufficient;\ndeveloping its effects according to its own laws! A melody does not need\nto be painted, nor a picture to be set to music. The graceful evolutions\nof the dance are their own justification. The only case in which I would\nallow a title to a picture is when it is a portrait. That is an obvious\nnecessity. Portrait-painting is a branch of art which demands\nrecognition.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Artistic Temperament]\n\nThere are two aspects of the artistic temperament--the active or creative\nside, and the passive or receptive side. It is impossible to possess the\npower of creation without possessing also the power of appreciation; but\nit is quite possible to be very susceptible to artistic influences while\ndowered with little or no faculty of origination. On the one hand is the\nartist--poet, musician, or painter; on the other, the artistic person to\nwhom the artist appeals. Between the two, in some arts, stands the\nartistic interpreter--the actor who embodies the aery conceptions of the\npoet, the violinist or pianist who makes audible the inspirations of the\nmusician. But in so far as this artistic interpreter rises to greatness\nin his field, in so far he will be found soaring above the middle ground,\naway from the artistic person, and into the realm of the artist or\ncreator. Joachim and De Reszk\u00e9, Paderewski and Irving, put something of\nthemselves into their work; apart from the fact that they could all do\n(in some cases have done) creative work on their own account. So that\nwhen the interpreter is worth considering at all, he may be considered in\nthe creative category. Limiting ourselves, then, to these two main\nvarieties of the artistic temperament, the active and the passive, I\nshould say that the latter is an unmixed blessing, and the former a mixed\ncurse.\n\nWhat, indeed, can be more delightful than to possess good aesthetic\nfaculties--to be able to enjoy books, music, pictures, plays! This\nartistic sensibility is the one undoubted advantage of man over other\nanimals, the extra octave in the gamut of life. Most enviable of mankind\nis the appreciative person, without a scrap of originality? who has every\ntemptation to enjoy, and none to create. He is the idle heir to treasures\ngreater than India's mines can yield; the bee that sucks at every flower,\nand is not even asked to make honey. For him poets sing, and painters\npaint, and composers write. \"_O fortunates nimium_,\" who not seldom yearn\nfor the fatal gift of genius! For _this_ artistic temperament is a\ncurse--a curse that lights on the noblest and best of mankind! From the\nday of Prometheus to the days of his English laureate it has been a curse\n\n  To vary from the kindly race of men,\n\nand the eagles have not ceased to peck at the liver of men's benefactors.\nAll great and high art is purchased by suffering--it is not the\nmechanical product of dexterous craftsmanship. This is one part of the\nmeaning of that mysterious \"Master Builder\" of Ibsen's. \"Then I saw\nplainly why God had taken my little children from me. It was that I\nshould have nothing else to attach myself to. No such thing as love and\nhappiness, you understand. I was to be only a master builder--nothing\nelse.\" And the tense strings that give the highest and sweetest notes are\nmost in danger of being overstrung.\n\nBut there are compensations. The creative artist is higher in the scale\nof existence than the man, as the man is higher than the beatified oyster\nfor whose condition, as Aristotle pointed out, few would be tempted to\nbarter the misery of human existence. The animal has consciousness, man\nself-consciousness, and the artist over-consciousness. Over-consciousness\nmay be a curse, but, like the primitive curse--labour--there are many who\nwould welcome it!\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Professional Ethics]\n\nThere's no knowing where the artistic temperament may break out. \"I don't\nthink that a person ought to come to the binder and just say to him,\n'Bind that book for so much money.' I think the binder ought to say, 'Is\nthe book worth binding?' and that if it were not he ought to refuse.\" The\napplications of this remarkable principle, enunciated by a bookbinder,\nare obvious. Applied universally it would reform the race. The tailor,\nwhen a man came to be measured, would say, \"Yes, but are you worth\nmeasuring?\" and if he was out of drawing would refuse to dress him, thus\nextruding deformity from the world and restoring the Olympian gods. The\ncharwoman, inspired by George Herbert, would not only \"sweep a room as by\nGod's laws,\" but would inquire whether it was worth sweeping; the wine\nmerchant would refuse wine to rich customers who did not deserve to drink\nit; and the doctors would certainly not devote their best energies to\nkeeping gouty old noblemen alive.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Lay Confessors]\n\nWe writers, as Beaeonsfield said to his sovereign, are a good substitute\nfor the confessional; we like to be allowed peeps into the secret\nchambers of the heart. The most miserable sinners may be as sure of our\nsecrecy as of our absolution. The more terrible the crime the better we\nare pleased. So come and ease your labouring consciences, and pour your\nsorrows into our sympathetic shorthand books, and we will work you up the\nbare material of your lives so artistically that you are the veriest\nPhilistines if you shall not be rather glad to have sinned and suffered.\nFor deep down in our hearts lurks the belief that, as Jerome wittily puts\nit, \"God created the world to give the literary man something to write\nabout!\"\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Q. E. D. Novels]\n\nA novel, like a metaphor, proves nothing: 't is merely a vivid pictorial\npresentation of a single case. I have just read one novel aspiring to\nprove that a couple who skip the marriage ceremony cannot be happy ever\nafter, and another aspiring to prove that marriage is the one drawback to\na happy union. In reality both novels prove the same thing--that the\nauthor is a fool. There is nothing I would not undertake to \"prove\" in a\nnovel. You have only to take an exceptional case and treat it as if it\nwere normal. Aesop's fables could easily be rewritten to prove exactly\nthe opposite morals, just as there is no popular apothegm whose antidote\nmay not be found in the same treasury of folk-wisdom: \"Never put off till\nto-morrow what you can do to-day,\" and \"Sufficient for the day is the\nevil thereof\"; \"Penny wise, pound foolish!\" \"Look after the pence and the\npounds will take care of themselves.\"\n\nIn sooth I suffer from an inability to see the morals of stories--like\nthe auditor who blunts the point of the drollest anecdote by inquiring\n\"And what happened then?\" Even the beautiful allegory of the three rings\nin \"Nathan der Weise,\" always seems to me to throw considerable discredit\non the father who set his sons wrangling over the imitation rings. And,\ninversely, nothing seems easier to me than to invent fables to prove\nwrong morals: _e.g._\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Mouse Who Died]\n\nA pretty gray mouse was in the habit of sauntering from its hole every\nevening to pick up the Crumbs in the Dining Boom. \"What a pretty Mouse!\"\nsaid the Householder, and made more crumbs for Mousie to eat. So great a\nbanquet was thus spread that the Noble-hearted little Mouse cheeped the\nnews to its Sisters and its Cousins and its Aunts, and they all came\nevery evening in the Train of its Tail to regale themselves on the\nremains of the Repast. \"Dear, dear!\" cried the Householder in despair,\n\"the house is overrun with a plague of Vermin.\" And he mixed poison with\nthe crumbs, and the poor little pioneer Mouse perished in contortions of\nagony. Moral: Don't.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Theologic Novels]\n\nUsually the speculations that first reach the great public through the\nmedium of the novel have been familiar _ad nauseam_ to the reading\nclasses for scores of years. Conceive Noah, aroused by the grating of the\nArk upon the summit of Mount Ararat, looking out of the window and\nexclaiming, \"Why, it's been raining!\" Then imagine Mrs. Noah, catching an\nodd syllable of her husband's remark, writing a love story to prove that\nthe barometer portended showers. Finally, picture the world looking in\nalarm for its umbrella, and you have an image of the inception and effect\nof the modern Mrs. Noah's theologic novel.\n\n   MUDIE MEASURE.\n\n   Ten lines make one page;\n   Ten pages make one point;\n   Two points make one chapter;\n   Five chapters make one episode;\n   Two episodes make one volume:\n   Three volumes make one tired.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Prop of Letters]\n\nIs it a bright or a black day for an author when he gets so popular that\nthe big advertisers insist on having him in any organ in which they place\ntheir advertisements? There can be no question but that it will be a\nblack day for letters when the advertiser becomes the arbiter of\nliterature, as this newest development forebodes. Where is this leprosy\nof advertisement to stop? Already it covers almost our whole\ncivilisation. Already the advertiser is a main prop of the press.\n\n  A SONG OF ADVERTISEMENTS. (_After_ Whitman.)\n\n  Give me Hornihand's Pure Mustard;\n  Give me Apple's Soap, with the negress laving the cherub;\n  Give me Bentley's Brimstone Tablets, and Ploughman's\n     Pills--those of the Little Liver.\n  (O get me ads., you agent with the frock-coat and the fountain pen,\n  You with the large commissions\n  And the further discount on cash,\n  Get me ads., _camarado_!\n  Full pages preferred, though little ones not scorning,\n  For I scorn nothing, my brother.)\n  Give me the Alphabetical Snuff;\n  Give me Electric Batteries and False Teeth; also the Tooth-powders;\n  Give me all the Soft Soaps and the Soothing Syrups;\n  Give me all the Cocoas and Cough Lozenges and Corsets;\n  Give me Infants' Food--yea, the diet of babes and sucklings;\n  Give me the Nibs and the Beef Essences, and do not forget the\n     Typewriters.\n  (Forget nothing, _camarado_, for I, the poet, never forget\n     anything.)\n  Give me of the Fat of your agency, and of the Anti-Fat thereof!\n  And I will build you magazines, high-class and well illustrated;\n  Or pictureless _\u00e0 volont\u00e9_, the latter with heavier articles.\n  Also newspapers, daily and weekly, with posters flamboyant,\n  That shall move the state and its pillars,\n  That shall preach the loftiest morals, elevating the masses,\n  By the strength of advertisements,\n  By the mighty strength of advertisements!\n\nIt has been suggested that flypapers should be so sprinkled as to produce\nan aesthetic design in dead flies, so as to introduce beauty into the\nhomes of the poor. It would be more in harmony with the age to lay out\nour public gardens with floral injunctions to use B's hair-dye and C's\ncorn-plaster. Brag and display are the road to riches, and the trail of\nvulgarity is over it all. I take credit to myself for having been among\nthe first to cry in the wilderness; but the critics--bless them!--say it\nis all empty paradox.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Latter-day Poet]\n\nThe one exception to the hunger for advertisement is the modern bard. He\nachieves his vogue by limited editions, and takes pains to prevent\nhimself being an influence. He acquires a factitious fame and an\nartificial value by printing only a few copies, thus making his paper and\nprint sought after rather than his matter. It is all very well for a book\nto become rare by the vicissitudes of literary fortune, but this\nmachine-made rarity can only be prized by people who value their\npossessions merely because other people haven't got them. The old minor\npoet was frenzied and unbought; the new is calm and \"collected.\" At this\nrate the greatest poets would be those of whose works only one copy is\nextant--in MS.\n\n  Bend, bend the knee, and bow the head\n  To reverence the great unread,\n  The great unread and much-reviewed,\n  Whose lines are treasured like the lewd,\n  His first editions prizes reckoned\n  Because there never was a second.\n  Obscurely famous in his rut,\n  Unknown, unpopular, \"uncut,\"\n  Where Byron thrilled a continent,\n  To thrill an auction-room content,\n  He struggles through oblivion's bogs,\n  To gain a place in--catalogues!\n  And falls asleep and joins the dust\n  In simple hope and modest trust\n  That, though Posterity neglect\n  His bones, his books it will collect,\n  And these will grow--O prospect fair!--\n  From year to year more \"scarce\" and \"rare.\"\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: An Attack of Alliteration]\n\nHave you noticed the Renaissance of alliteration in the new journalism?\nThe early English Poets made alliteration the chief element of their\npoetry, and in modern times Swinburne has paid more attention to it (and\nto rhyme) than to meaning, with the result that there has arisen a school\nof poets who don't mean anything--and say it. In the olden days, a bride\nwas bonny, and was requested to busk herself in consequence; all of which\nwas intelligible. Nowadays, the poet would call a basilisk bonny rather\nthan miss his alliteration. Is it because the new journalism is so\nimaginative and emotional that it throws off alliterative phrases as\nnaturally and unconsciously as Whittier confesses he did in writing \"The\nWreck of Rivermouth\"? It is sometimes difficult to believe that\nprovidence is not on the side of the evening bills. When Balmaceda died\nhe committed Suicide by Shooting himself in Santiago--of all places in\nthe world. Boulanger, if from a local point of view he died less\nsatisfactorily, was yet careful to employ a Bullet. It is for the sake of\nthe phrase-makers that Burglars good-naturedly prefer Bermondsey, and\nthat Tigers do not escape from their cages to play in Tragedies till the\nshow arrives at Tewkesbury. The Baboon is already so largely alliterative\nin himself that it was an excess of generosity that made one recently\nattack an infant under such circumstances as to allow the report to be\nheaded, \"Baby Bitten by a Baboon in a Backyard at Bow.\" Alliteration has\nbecome a mighty factor in politics: it is fast replacing epigram, while\nits effects on moral character are tremendous. That \"hardened criminal,\"\nMr. Balfour, might have been a good man instead of a \"base brutal bully,\"\nif his name had only commenced with an X. He is a noteworthy martyr to\nthe mania of the times. I am convinced that the Death of the Duke of\nDevonshire was accelerated by anxiety to please the sub-editors, and it\nis a source of real regret to me to reflect that my own death can afford\nthem no supplementary gratification of this nature.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Humorous]\n\nTo start anything exclusively funny is a serious mistake. This was why\npoor Henry J. Byron's \"Mirth\" was so short-lived. It died of laughing. A\nfriend of mine, with a hopeless passion for psychological analysis, says\nthat the reason people do not laugh over comic papers is that the element\nof the unexpected is wanting. This, he claims, is the essence of the\ncomic. You laugh over a humorous remark in the middle of a serious essay,\nover a witty epigram flashed upon a grave conversation, over the slipping\ninto the gutter of a ponderous gentleman--it is the shock of contrast,\nthe flash of surprise, that tickles. Now this explanation of why people\ndo not laugh over comic papers is obviously wrong, because you are\nsurprised when you see a joke in a comic paper; at the same time, it\ncontains an element of truth. The books which gain a reputation for\nbrilliance are those which are witty at wide intervals; the writer who\nscintillates steadily stands in his own light.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Discount Farce]\n\nHaving started your magazine, you will begin humorously enough by\naffixing a mock price to it. What a strange world of make-believe it is!\nWe are so habituated to shams that we cannot help shamming even where\nthere is nothing to be gained by it. Why is music published at four\nshillings when you can buy it for one and four, or at most one and eight?\nWhy are novels published at thirty-one and six and the magazines at a\nshilling? \"Shilling shockers\" are sold at ninepence, which is as comical\nas selling \"tenpenny nails\" at sixpence. The same principle rules in\nother trades. It almost seems as if there is an ineradicable instinct in\nhumanity for getting things below their price, even if at more than their\nvalue. Hence the marked popularity of \"sales\" and \"reductions.\" The idea\nof getting things cheap reconciles one to getting things one doesn't\nwant. The craze for cheap things leads one into frightful extravagance.\nIn some shops the weakness of humanity is pandered to without disguise,\nand every article is ticketed with a little card, from which the first\nprice is carefully ruled out, and even on the second price you get a\ndiscount for cash. This same discount for cash is at least intelligible,\nbut business men are painfully familiar with another wonderful deduction.\nAfter you wait months for your money, you get a cheque less \"discount on\npayment.\" This seems to involve an exasperating Hibernicism. \"On\npayment,\" forsooth! So long as it remains unpaid, the debt due to you is,\nsay, one hundred pounds. But the moment you really get it, it shrinks to\nninety-five. Why not call it ninety-five at the start and be done with\nit? But, no! men will not give up the subtle pleasure of discounts,\nineffably childish though it be. The rather deaf lady who being asked six\nshillings a yard for stuff replied \"Sixteen shillings a yard! I'll give\nyou eleven,\" and who, when her mistake was pointed out, said \"I couldn't\nthink of paying more than four and sixpence\" was a genuine type of the\npopulation of these islands.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Franchise Farce]\n\nOne American defense of bribery is as clever as it is cynical. It amounts\nto this: that universal suffrage is such a peril to the commonweal that\nhaving been given prematurely, it must insidiously be nullified in\npractice, even at the cost of universal corruption; in short, if the old\nsociety is to be preserved, universal franchise must be transformed into\nuniversal corruption. What an ironic commentary on the constitution that\nwas founded by George Washington, who couldn't tell a lie! The honour of\nAmerica, it appears, \"rooted in dishonour\" stands, and \"faith unfaithful\"\nmakes its politicians falsely true. When one remembers some of the other\ngigantic evils of the society thus conserved by corruption, when one\nthinks of the great immoral capitalists, playing their game regardless of\nwhom they ruin or whom they enrich, when one thinks of the squalid slums\nof the great cities, one wonders whether the society which these things\nshadow were not better damned. It were cleaner, at any rate, to abolish\nuniversal franchise than to flaunt this farce in the eyes of Europe. If\nuniversal suffrage was a mistake, if indeed the gift of the franchise\ndoes not develop a man's conscience and education--and certainly bribery\nis not the way to give him a chance of such development--then why not\nhonestly admit that America has made this mistake, that the ideals of the\nPilgrim Fathers were inferior to Tammany Hall's, and that even the negro\nis not a man and a brother?\n\nDoes our American reply that it is impossible now to take back the\nfranchise? But on his own showing the electors merely regard it as an\nopportunity for extracting \"boodle.\" All that would be impossible, then,\nis to take away this ancient concession without compensation. The\nelectors must be bought out at the full market-value of their votes, with\na few cents and corpse-revivers thrown in for their loss of amusement. At\nevery election dollars and drinks for the ex-electors would be\ncirculating freely under the direction of the Treasury. And, _ex\nhypothesi_, the bulk, or a number of electors sufficient to annul the\ndanger to society, will accept the liquidation, and thus the dishonest\nwill be honestly weeded out of the electorate. But if the cynics were\nwrong, and there remained among the poorer electorate men sufficiently\nhonest to retain their votes, and sufficiently numerous to swamp the old\nsociety--why, then the devil take the old society! The object of\ngovernment is only the good of the majority, and these men, being the\nmajority, have every right to select their own form of good. If they were\nmistaken, nature would soon convince them of their mistake, and the next\ngeneration would profit by the object-lesson. Demos would go on, a sadder\nand a wiser man.\n\nThe solution of the question is that the people must not only govern: it\nmust be fit to govern. To corrupt it with dollars, to drowse it with\ndrink, is only to put off the inevitable day. It were far wiser to help\nit to educate itself for its functions. For, if the revolutionary\neconomic ideas that are in the air are false, they will destroy\nthemselves. And if they are true, they have got to be realised, and will\nget themselves realised. No amount of corruption will save society in the\nlong run. Meantime, either let universal suffrage operate honestly, or\nlet it be suspended or abolished. Let even those States which have\nenfranchised the black man, and which now, in accordance with the deep\nMachiavellian principle, brazenly revealed by our American, dishonestly\nrender his vote nugatory by a reliable inaccuracy in the counting,\nwithdraw their spurious Christianity. A double standard of morals subtly\ninfects the whole core of the nation. Corruption cannot be localised; it\ncreeps and spreads through all departments of thought and action. To give\nwith the right hand, and take away with the left in exchange for a few\ndollars, is a manoeuvre unworthy of a great nation. The transaction is\nfair; let it be above board, let it be lifted into the plane of ethics.\nTo found society upon a farce is to lower those ideals by which, as much\nas by bread, a nation lives.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: The Modern War Farce]\n\nThe horrors of war seem to have reached the vanishing point in our latest\nAfrican campaign. The smallness of the English losses is appalling. I do\nnot see the fun of fighting (_i.e._, of paying taxes) if all the spice\nand relish is to be taken out of the results. I want more blood for my\nmoney--hecatombs of corpses. Two men killed in a whole battle?\nRidiculous! If I cannot have my war at my own doors, and hear the bands\nand the cannon I have paid for, I must at least have sensational\nbattle-fields--Actiums and Waterloos and Marengos. What is the use of war\nif it does not even serve to reduce our surplus population? Soldiering\nwas never so healthy an occupation as to-day; one fights only a few days\na year at the utmost, and if the pay is poor, so is that of the scavenger\nand the engine-driver and the miner, and everybody else who does the\ndirty work of civilisation, and does it, too, without pomp and\ncircumstance and brass bands and laureates.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Fireworks]\n\nIf people cannot do without sulphur and noise, there are always\nfireworks. It is difficult to imagine festivity without them, and yet\nthere must have been a time when rockets did not rise or Catherine wheels\ngo round. You cannot have fireworks without gunpowder, and every\nschool-boy knows that gunpowder was only invented in--I haven't got a\ndictionary of dates handy. Surely we ought to let off fireworks on Roger\nBacon's birthday. \"They let off fireworks when he was born,\" say the\nFrench in a slyly witty proverb, which is a circumlocutory way of saying\nthat a man won't set the Thames on fire. For \"he has not invented\ngunpowder\" is the French equivalent for this idiom of ours, and it is\nobvious to the meanest intellect that a man whose birth was celebrated by\nfireworks could not have been the inventor of gunpowder. And yet there\nwere fireworks of a kind from the earliest times, from the first\nappearance of stars in the firmament with their wandering habits and\nshooting expeditions. And, indeed, did not humanity long regard the\nheavens as a firework show for its amusement, a set piece entirely for\nits delectation? Mankind has always been fond of playing with fire--ever\nsince Prometheus stole it from heaven and burnt his fingers. I am\nconvinced the ancients only used bonfires for messages so as to enjoy the\nflare-up on the mountains. Who would not fight when summoned by a tongue\nof flame?\n\n  And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle.\n\nRoman candles were unknown to the Romans, but they enjoyed themselves\nwith torches, and these were the fireworks at wedding f\u00eates. The golden\nrain in which Jupiter wooed Dana\u00eb was another sort of hymeneal fireworks.\nThere were fireworks at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The love\nof fireworks is a natural passion. Does not nature amuse herself with\nfireworks, especially on tropical summer nights? She loves to flash her\nlightnings (which are not to be put out by the rain), and to crash her\nthunder (which, as everybody knows, is only the report of the meeting of\ntwo electric clouds). And who does not admire her grand pyrotechnic\ndisplay--twice daily--at sunrise and at sunset, or her celebrated local\neffect, the Aurora Borealis?\n\nI have loved fireworks from boyhood, and would rather have had dry bread\nand fireworks than cake with jam. In manhood often I have listened to the\nlong-drawn ecstatic \"aw\" of the Crystal Palace crowd. I have even written\na poem on fireworks. Here it is:--\n\n  A dazzling fiery show of sphery rainbows,\n  Whereof each wonder, monarch of a moment,\n  Yields up its glory to the next one's splendour,\n  And sadly sinks into the arms of darkness.\n\nIs it not a true simile of the favour of the fickle crowd? The most\nbrilliant phenomena are forgotten after a moment. Life and Time are full\nof such fireworks--religions, philosophies, fashions, dynasties. And\noverhead the sure stars shine on. In literature fireworks rarely last.\nThey are too clever to live. A humble rushlight lasts longer. \"All\nfireworks are unsound,\" says Steinitz. He is talking of chess, and chess\nis very much like life. Whistler has painted fireworks--I mean\nliterally--in his blue and silver nocturne of old Battersea Bridge.\nTennyson has painted them in his \"Welcome to Alexandra\" and elsewhere.\n\n  Flash, ye cities, in rivers of fire!\n  Rush to the roof, sudden rocket, and higher,\n  Melt into stars for the land's desire!\n\n\"Sudden rocket.\" How good the adjective is! A poet I know spent hall a\nday in finding the correct epithet for rockets, and was equally pleased\nand annoyed to discover subsequently that he had chosen the same\nadjective as the Master.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Time's Forelock.]\n\nNowadays we let off all our fireworks a day before the fair and tug Time\nby his forelock. A magazine coming out in January must be dated February\nat the very earliest. We \"go ahead\" in an Irish-American sense, and\ncannot endure not to be in advance of our age. We live entirely in the\nfuture, and are too busy to live just at present. Christmas falls late in\nOctober and extends to the end of November, the period being marked by\nheavy showers of Christmas numbers. The Jews begin all their festivals\nthe day before, and Christmas is by far the most Jewish of our holidays.\nOur evening papers come out in the morning, though this will right itself\nin time, for they are getting earlier and earlier, and will ultimately\ncome out the evening before. Dr. Johnson's line about Shakespeare, \"And\npanting Time toils after him in vain,\" is truer of the man of to-day.\nWhat's that you say? All this has been said before? Naturally.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Diaries.]\n\nWho is the most marvellous man? He who keepeth a diary. And by keeping a\ndiary I mean keeping it for the whole year, from January 1st to December\n31st--keeping it, moreover, by daily entry. Only one year in my life did\nI succeed in filling up every department of the three hundred and\nsixty-five, and even then I was often in arrears. Diaries are for those\nwho lead cloistral lives and pure, so that the task is trivial, and\nwhatsoever record of their own leap to light they shall not be shamed.\nDiaries are not for those whose existence is a whirlpool; for such the\nblank page is an added perturbation, a haunting whiteness beseeching the\nblackness of diurnal autobiography, an I O U that calls for instant\nsatisfcation. To the spontaneous vexings of conscience has been added an\nartificial pricking at the neglect of a supererogatory duty. How have I\nblonched to see day adding itself to day, unrecorded, time flying without\nbeing \"kodak'd\" on the wing; and each new neglect retarding the day of\nreckoning even while it aggravated it! Then have I felt myself sinking\nbeneath the self-imposed\n\n  Yoke, intolerable, not to be borne\n  Of the too vast orb of my fate,\n\nyearning for a smaller circumference and a shorter biography. At the\noutset one begins a diary, as one practises a new virtue, or plays with a\nnew toy--enthusiastically. For the first few days of January the entries\nare rich in psychological and episodical matter. Then gradually the\ninterest trails off; to the fertile plains of narrative and analysis\nsucceeds a barren desert, relieved only by a few dates of appointments.\nWith Mark Twain it will be remembered the entries were reduced to \"Got\nup, washed, went to bed.\" The keeping of a diary is generally the first\nNew Year resolution to be broken. How eloquent these old diaries filled\nup for a month or two--and the rest silence!\n\nOn second thoughts there is a more marvellous than the most marvellous\nman. It is he who keepeth a pecuniary diary. I know one such. He has kept\na perfect and absolutely complete record of every farthing he has laid\nout since the days when farthings were his standard of currency. Which of\nus would dare do this, or, doing, would dare cast a backward glance on\nthe financial past? There is a crude, relentless actuality about items of\nexpenditure, not to be softened by euphemistic phrasing. Surely a truer\nproverb than any of its species would be: \"Tell me what you buy, and I'll\ntell you what you be.\" And to think, in reviewing your pecuniary\nbiography, that, though you owe no man a farthing, you have still to pay\nthe bill; that many things you have bought have yet to be paid for \"over\nand over again,\" as the Master Builder said, \"over and over again.\"\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: \"Looking Backward\"]\n\nLooking backward is a luxury which should be indulged in only\nmoderation--say once in fifty years. The preachers will tell you\ndifferently. But life is so restless and feverish nowadays that there is\nno time for obeying the preachers. It is as much as we can do to find\ntime to listen to them. Goethe says, \"He who looks forward sees only one\nway to pursue, but he who looks backward sees many.\" This is the last\nword on the subject. It speaks volumes. But as you cannot walk through\nany of those backways, what is the use of bothering to look for them?\nTrue, your own experience enables you to give advice to others. But\nadvice is a drug in the market. What am I saying? A drug! No, no! Even a\ndrug is taken sometimes. Advice never is. We learn only from our own\nmistakes, and when it is too late to profit by them. No; there is not\nmuch profit in looking backwards. Often it tends to make you pessimistic,\nto sap your energy, to petrify you, as it did Lot's wife. At other times,\ncontrariwise, it makes you expel such salt as is already in you,\ndissolved in tears--\n\n  So sweet, so sad, the days that are no more.\n\nYet what is this but another form of Buskin's \"Pathetic fallacy\"? Those\ndivinely sweet, sad days were in reality just as commonplace as to-day.\n\n  Life is a chaos of comic confusion,\n    Past things alone take a halo harmonious;\n  So from illusion we wake to illusion,\n    Each as the rest just as true and erroneous.\n\nA familiar form of the new illusion we wake to is seen in the exclamation\nthat so often follows retrospection: \"Oh, what a fool I was!\" As a rule,\nnothing can be more conceited than this use of the past tense. A few\npeople, perhaps, can look back complacently upon \"a well-spent life\"\n(wherein all the years have been laid out to advantage, and every hour\nhas been made to go as far as seventy-five minutes, and every odd second\nhas been worth a row of pins at least); but I should not care to meet\nthem. For the bulk of us it is best to press on, doing what our hand\nfindeth to do, and letting the dead past bury its dead. It is quite\nenough to know we cannot escape paying the funeral bills. One of my\nfriends found himself let in for the discharge of a number of extra\nbills, owing to his retrospective proclivities. He was just beginning to\novercome the adverse financial fates when, taking a complacent survey of\nhis past, he was horrified to find it bristling with forgotten debts.\nLooking backward nearly ruined that man. Another of my friends lost his\nlife entirely through it. He was an old man and a celebrity, and a\npublisher offered him \u00a32000 for his memoirs. Unfortunately my friend had\na very bad memory and no diaries, and, like my other friend, he was\nconscientious. The publisher's offer tantalized him terribly. He did not\nknow what to do. At last, in despair, he determined to drown himself. On\nthe moment before his death all his past life would come back to him and\npass before his mental vision. Of course I was to rescue him the instant\nhe lost consciousness, have him rubbed with hot towels and the rest of\nit. We went out bathing together, and everything came off as arranged,\nall except his resurrection. He was too old for such experiments.\n\nA cynical Frenchman has defined life as the collection of recollections\nfor the time when you shall have no memory. It is, at any rate, true (and\nthe preachers are welcome to the moral) that the keenest joys of the\nsenses leave a scant deposit in the memory, and that if sensual pleasures\nare doubled in anticipation, it is the spiritual that are doubled in\nlooking backward.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Long Lives]\n\nJust as there are many persons of whose existence you are unaware till\nyou read their obituaries, so there are many of whose celebrity you are\nignorant till you see the advertisement of their biographies. On all\nsides we are flooded with big books about little people. What is this new\ndisease that has come upon us? Life is short but a \"Life\" is long. Can\nthere be any one man in this great procession of the suns who deserves\nthe two royal octavo volumes, which is the least monument that the pious\nbiographer builds? The perspective is all wrong. Bossuet got the history\nof the world into a fifth of the space. How keen must be the struggle for\nlife amid these shoals of \"Lives.\" How futile and vain this aspiration\nfor a \"Life\" beyond the grave! Vainer still the bid for immortality, when\none's own hand raises the mendacious memorial. It is an open question\nwhether even Marie Bashkirtseff's self-hewn shrine will stand--she, who\nsacrificed her life to her \"Life.\" If it does, it will not be by virtue\nof its veracity. I would not trust George Washington himself to write a\nperfectly accurate record of a prior day. As for the average biography,\nit is but the \"In Memoriam\" of memory. A friend of mine has written some\nexcellent fiction and some entertaining reminiscences; only he has\nmis-labelled his books, and called his fiction \"reminiscences,\" and his\nreminiscences \"fiction.\"\n\n  VIVE LA MORT!\n\n  Wherefore do the critics rage?\n  'T is the Biographic Age.\n  Every dolt who duly died\n  In a book is glorified\n  Uniformly with his betters;\n  All his unimportant letters\n  Edited by writers gifted,\n  Every scrap of MS. sifted,\n  Classified by dates and ages,\n  Pages multiplied on pages,\n  Till the man is--for their pains--\n  Buried 'neath his own Remains.\n  Every day the craze grows stronger,\n  Art is long, but \"lives\" are longer.\n  Those who were the most in view\n  Block the stage _post mortem_ too.\n  Hark the tongues of either sex--\n  Reminiscences of X!\n  Of his juvenile affections\n  Hundreds write their Recollections,\n  (None will recollect their writings)\n  Telling of his love for whitings\n  Fried in butter, or his fancy\n  For bananas, buns, and Nancy.\n  Thank the gracious gods on high,\n  Every day some \"Life\" must die:\n  Death alone is our salvation.\n  Though'tisdubious consolation\n  That of all these countless \"Lives\"\n  Only the unfit survives.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Men and Bookmen]\n\nThe literary market is inundated with people who have no right to a\nstall. Aristocrats are badgered for books merely because they have the\ntitles; and to have achieved success in any other profession than\nliterature is the surest recommendation to the favour of the publishers.\nIf I had to start my literary career over again, I should commence by\nhopping on one leg through the Pyrenees, or figuring in a big divorce\ncase; anything short of assassination, which makes one's success too\nposthumous. It is most unfair, this doubling of the parts of doing and\nwriting. Our modern heroes and heroines are quite too self-conscious;\namid all their deeds of derring-do they have their eye on Mudie's. The\nold way was better. Even before the Pyramids were reared, when books were\npictures and letters were cuneiform, heroes had their poets and kings\ntheir laureates. You can no more imagine Agamemnon, after the fall of\nTroy, rushing off to write an account of it for \"Bentley's,\" than you can\nimagine Helen certifying that she found Pears' soap matchless for the\ncomplexion. It was better for the heroes as well as for the writers.\nAeneas would never have dared to draw such constant attention to his\n\"piety\" as Virgil does; and even Louis Quatorze would have hesitated to\ndescribe the taking of Namur in the language of Boileau--\n\n  Et vous, vents, faites silence:\n  Je vais parler de Louis.\n\nThe true hero nowadays is the man who conquers himself and does not write\nbooks.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: James I. on Tobacco]\n\nBut even ancient kings did write sometimes, as witness this of James I: I\nhold it aye to be a Kings part to the Body-Politicke of all euils &\nexcesses, & would fain demonstrate afresh to my dear Countrey-men how\nabhorrent to Heauen is this stinking incense that ascendeth day & night;\nbut amid the heat & burden of the day I cannot find an hour to examine\ninto this matter _de nouo_, & must needs be content with commending to\nthe readers of \"Without Prejudice\" my booklet, \"A Counterblaste to\nTobacco,\" imprinted _Anno_ 1604, wherein they will find the abuses of\nthis foreign custome duly set forth at length. But, on second thoughts,\nperchance these moderns read nothing but what is under their noses, so I\nwill shortly recapitulate my main positions, merely adding that my\nobjections to Smoak are to-day even stronger than when I wrote. (1) It is\na fallacie of the vulgar that _because_ the braines of men are colde &\nwet, therefore _Tobacco_ Smoak, being hote and dry, is good for them; a\nconclusion which no more followeth on the Premiss than the Ratiocination\nof one who should apply a cake of cold lead to his stomacke, because the\nLiver, being the fountaine of blood, is always hote. Moreover, the Smoak\nhath also a venomous qualitee. (2) It is a vulgar fallacie that the\naffection of mankind for the Practise is a proof that it is good for\nthem; inasmuch as men are ledd astray by a mode, & furthermore, the\naffectation & conceit of the patient persuadeth him he is benefited; yet\nhow shall one drug cure of all diseases men of all complexions? (3) Men\nare by this custom disabled in their goods, spending many pounds a year\nupon this precious stinke, and are no better than drunkards. (4) It is a\ngreat iniquitee & against all humanity that the husband shall not bee\nashamed to reduce thereby his delicate, wholesome and cleane complexioned\nwife to that extremitee that either shee must also corrupt her sweete\nbreath therewith, or else resolve to live in a perpetual stinking\ntorment. In short, tis a custome lothsome to the eye, hateful to the\nNose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, & in the blacke\nstinking fume thereof neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of\nthe pit that is bottomeless.\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: A Counterblaste to James I.]\n\nSo please your Majestie, I would beg leave in all loyaltie & service to\ncry you mercy on behalf of the foreign weed, _Tobacco_, which stands for\nall time condemned by the potent _Counterblaste_ of a monarch, the\nmaruelle of _Christendom_, whose brow hath borne at once the bays of\nApollo, the laurels of Mars, & the crownes of Scotia & Anglia. And\n_imprimis_ I would venture humbly to obserue that your Majesties\narguments are to the last Degree asinine. Euen the title--which, as is\ncustomarie with great personages, is the best part of your Majesties\nbook--is marred by an unseemlie concession to paronomasia. That your\nMajesties manifold abuses of the Logicks may be better espied, I will\ntake them _seriatim_. (1) The ground founded upon the Theoricke of a\ndeceiuable apparence of Reason--your Majestie is mistaken in thinking\nthat I hold it a sure aphorisme in the Physickes. For the braines are\nneuer colde & wet saue when there is water on them; & those who do not\nSmoak haue no braines for _Tobacco_ to benefit. (2) Your Majesties\nargumentation proueth how zealously your Majestie striueth to liue up to\nthe nickname of the _British Solomon_. And, of a veritie, I could not\nmyself run atilt more cunningly at this popular fallacie; though I might\nback up your Majestie with a most transparent illustration--to wit, that\nthe affection of Mankind for monarchs is no proof that they are good for\nthem. (3) I denie that _Tobacco_ wastes ones substance, & I would refer\nyour Majestie to my demonstration of the Extrauagance of not smoaking.\n(4) And is it not an advantage that it resembleth to the Stigian smoak of\nthe pit? The more we accustom ourselves thereto, the lesse we shall\nsuffer when we join your Majestie. Will your Majestie kindlie recommend a\nBrande? Nor can I conclude without a word as to the ill-taste of that\nsupplement to your Majesties booklet--a tax of Six Shillings &\nEighte-Pence uppon euery Pounde-Waighte of _Tobacco_, ouer & aboue the\nCustome of Two Pence uppon the Pound-Waighte usuallye paide heretofore.\nDid your Majestie hope to effect so little by Reason that your Majestie\nmust needs fall back on Reuenue? Hauing challenged this habit by the\nKings pen, how unmannerly to resort to the coastguards cutlass & fight\nthe custome at the Custome House. Was it, perhaps, that your Majestie was\nwishful to promote English Agriculture or was getting up a cornere in\nCabbaiges?\n\nHowsoever, Smoak hath suruiued the _Stuarts_. May I offer your Majestie a\nCigarre?\n\n\n\n\n[Sidenote: Valedictory]\n\nAnd now, gentle reader, the hour has come for parting. You have kept me\ncompany a long time; tolerant of all my whimsies and vagaries, and not\ntoo restive when I became serious and heavy. I have written for you in\nmany places and in many moods, and I cannot hope to have escaped the mood\nof dulness.\n\n  Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;\n    Or surely you'll grow double;\n  Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks:\n    Why all this toil and trouble?\n\nAh, dear Wordsworth, 't is easy enough to answer your question. Still, at\nlast the pen falls from my tired fingers.\n\n  Books! 't is a dull and endless strife:\n    Come, hear the woodland linnet!\n  How sweet his music! On my life,\n    There's more of wisdom in it.\n\nYes, I will go down and hear the woodland linnet, there is one in the\nbird-shop round the corner. Ah me! he will not pipe--his is the wisdom of\nsilence. Never mind; the pavements are flooded with sunshine, and the\nfolk are walking gaily, and the omnibuses roll along top-heavy, and there\nis a blue strip of sky over the Strand. Yes, Spring is here, and the\nviolets are blooming in the old women's baskets. How happy everybody\nseems! Even the sandwich-men have lost their doleful air. The sap is\nstirring in their boards. They are dreaming of their ancient springtides,\nwhen they edited magazines or played \"Hamlet.\" And so, having taken up my\npen again to tell you how I dropped it, let me not lay it down without\nbidding you a fond and last farewell--without prejudice.","title":"Without Prejudice","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":131788}