Project Gutenberg's The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893, by Various
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Title: The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893
An Illustrated Monthly
Author: Various
Release Date: May 7, 2008 [EBook #25372]
Language: English
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* * * * *
THE IDLER MAGAZINE.
AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY.
July 1893.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
THE WOMAN OF THE SAETER.
BY JEROME K. JEROME.
ALPHONSE DAUDET AT HOME.
BY MARIE ADELAIDE BELLOC.
THE DISMAL THRONG.
BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.
IN THE HANDS OF JEFFERSON.
BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS.
MY FIRST BOOK.
BY I. ZANGWILL.
BY THE LIGHT OF THE LAMP.
BY HILDA NEWMAN.
MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NIHILIST.
III.--ONE DAY.
BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.
A SLAVE OF THE RING.
BY ALFRED BERLYN.
PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET.
BY SCOTT RANKIN.
THE IDLER'S CLUB
"TIPPING."
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE VENGEANCE OF HUND.]
_The Woman of the Saeter._
BY JEROME K. JEROME.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. S. BOYD.
-----
Wild-Reindeer stalking is hardly so exciting a sport as the evening's
verandah talk in Norroway hotels would lead the trustful traveller to
suppose. Under the charge of your guide, a very young man with the
dreamy, wistful eyes of those who live in valleys, you leave the
farmstead early in the forenoon, arriving towards twilight at the
desolate hut which, for so long as you remain upon the uplands, will be
your somewhat cheerless headquarters.
Next morning, in the chill, mist-laden dawn you rise; and, after a
breakfast of coffee and dried fish, shoulder your Remington, and step
forth silently into the raw, damp air; the guide locking the door behind
you, the key grating harshly in the rusty lock.
For hour after hour you toil over the steep, stony ground, or wind
through the pines, speaking in whispers, lest your voice reach the quick
ears of your prey, that keeps its head ever pressed against the wind.
Here and there, in the hollows of the hills, lie wide fields of snow,
over which you pick your steps thoughtfully, listening to the smothered
thunder of the torrent, tunnelling its way beneath your feet, and
wondering whether the frozen arch above it be at all points as firm as
is desirable. Now and again, as in single file you walk cautiously along
some jagged ridge, you catch glimpses of the green world, three thousand
feet below you; though you gaze not long upon the view, for your
attention is chiefly directed to watching the footprints of the guide,
lest by deviating to the right or left you find yourself at one stride
back in the valley--or, to be more correct, are found there.
These things you do, and as exercise they are healthful and
invigorating. But a reindeer you never see, and unless, overcoming the
prejudices of your British-bred conscience, you care to take an
occasional pop at a fox, you had better have left your rifle at the hut,
and, instead, have brought a stick, which would have been helpful.
Notwithstanding which the guide continues sanguine, and in broken
English, helped out by stirring gesture, tells of the terrible slaughter
generally done by sportsmen under his superintendence, and of the vast
herds that generally infest these fjelds; and when you grow sceptical
upon the subject of Reins he whispers alluringly of Bears.
Once in a way you will come across a track, and will follow it
breathlessly for hours, and it will lead to a sheer precipice. Whether
the explanation is suicide, or a reprehensible tendency on the part of
the animal towards practical joking, you are left to decide for
yourself. Then, with many rough miles between you and your rest, you
abandon the chase.
But I speak from personal experience merely.
All day long we had tramped through the pitiless rain, stopping only for
an hour at noon to eat some dried venison, and smoke a pipe beneath the
shelter of an overhanging cliff. Soon afterwards Michael knocked over a
ryper (a bird that will hardly take the trouble to hop out of your way)
with his gun-barrel, which incident cheered us a little, and, later on,
our flagging spirits were still further revived by the discovery of
apparently very recent deer-tracks. These we followed, forgetful, in our
eagerness, of the lengthening distance back to the hut, of the fading
daylight, of the gathering mist. The track led us higher and higher,
further and further into the mountains, until on the shores of a
desolate rock-bound vand it abruptly ended, and we stood staring at one
another, and the snow began to fall.
Unless in the next half-hour we could chance upon a saeter, this meant
passing the night upon the mountain. Michael and I looked at the guide,
but though, with characteristic Norwegian sturdiness, he put a bold face
upon it, we could see that in that deepening darkness he knew no more
than we did. Wasting no time on words, we made straight for the nearest
point of descent, knowing that any human habitation must be far below
us.
Down we scrambled, heedless of torn clothes and bleeding hands, the
darkness pressing closer round us. Then suddenly it became black--black
as pitch--and we could only hear each other. Another step might mean
death. We stretched out our hands, and felt each other. Why we spoke in
whispers, I do not know, but we seemed afraid of our own voices. We
agreed there was nothing for it but to stop where we were till morning,
clinging to the short grass; so we lay there side by side, for what may
have been five minutes or may have been an hour. Then, attempting to
turn, I lost my grip and rolled. I made convulsive efforts to clutch the
ground, but the incline was too steep. How far I fell I could not say,
but at last something stopped me. I felt it cautiously with my foot; it
did not yield, so I twisted myself round and touched it with my hand. It
seemed planted firmly in the earth. I passed my arm along to the right,
then to the left. Then I shouted with joy. It was a fence.
[Illustration: "CLINGING TO THE SHORT GRASS."]
Rising and groping about me, I found an opening, and passed through, and
crept forward with palms outstretched until I touched the logs of a hut;
then, feeling my way round, discovered the door, and knocked. There came
no response, so I knocked louder; then pushed, and the heavy woodwork
yielded, groaning. But the darkness within was even darker than the
darkness without. The others had contrived to crawl down and join me.
Michael struck a wax vesta and held it up, and slowly the room came out
of the darkness and stood round us.
Then something rather startling happened. Giving one swift glance about
him, our guide uttered a cry, and rushed out into the night, and
disappeared. We followed to the door, and called after him, but only a
voice came to us out of the blackness, and the only words that we could
catch, shrieked back in terror, were: "The woman of the saeter--the
woman of the saeter."
"Some foolish superstition about the place, I suppose," said Michael.
"In these mountain solitudes men breed ghosts for company. Let us make a
fire. Perhaps, when he sees the light, his desire for food and shelter
may get the better of his fears."
We felt about in the small enclosure round the house, and gathered
juniper and birch-twigs, and kindled a fire upon the open stove built in
the corner of the room. Fortunately, we had some dried reindeer and
bread in our bag, and on that and the ryper, and the contents of our
flasks, we supped. Afterwards, to while away the time, we made an
inspection of the strange eyrie we had lighted on.
It was an old log-built saeter. Some of these mountain farmsteads are as
old as the stone ruins of other countries. Carvings of strange beasts
and demons were upon its blackened rafters, and on the lintel, in runic
letters, ran this legend: "Hund builded me in the days of Haarfager."
The house consisted of two large apartments. Originally, no doubt, these
had been separate dwellings standing beside one another, but they were
now connected by a long, low gallery. Most of the scanty furniture was
almost as ancient as the walls themselves, but many articles of a
comparatively recent date had been added. All was now, however, rotting
and falling into decay.
[Illustration: "BY THE DULL GLOW OF THE BURNING JUNIPER TWIGS."]
The place appeared to have been deserted suddenly by its last occupants.
Household utensils lay as they were left, rust and dirt encrusted on
them. An open book, limp and mildewed, lay face downwards on the table,
while many others were scattered about both rooms, together with much
paper, scored with faded ink. The curtains hung in shreds about the
windows; a woman's cloak, of an antiquated fashion, drooped from a nail
behind the door. In an oak chest we found a tumbled heap of yellow
letters. They were of various dates, extending over a period of four
months, and with them, apparently intended to receive them, lay a large
envelope, inscribed with an address in London that has since
disappeared.
Strong curiosity overcoming faint scruples, we read them by the dull
glow of the burning juniper twigs, and, as we lay aside the last of
them, there rose from the depths below us a wailing cry, and all night
long it rose and died away, and rose again, and died away again; whether
born of our brain or of some human thing, God knows.
[Illustration: "I SPEND AS MUCH TIME AS I CAN WITH HER."]
And these, a little altered and shortened, are the letters:--
_Extract from first letter:_
"I cannot tell you, my dear Joyce, what a haven of peace this place is
to me after the racket and fret of town. I am almost quite recovered
already, and am growing stronger every day; and, joy of joys, my brain
has come back to me, fresher and more vigorous, I think, for its
holiday. In this silence and solitude my thoughts flow freely, and the
difficulties of my task are disappearing as if by magic. We are perched
upon a tiny plateau halfway up the mountain. On one side the rock rises
almost perpendicularly, piercing the sky; while on the other, two
thousand feet below us, the torrent hurls itself into black waters of
the fiord. The house consists of two rooms--or, rather, it is two cabins
connected by a passage. The larger one we use as a living room, and the
other is our sleeping apartment. We have no servant, but do everything
for ourselves. I fear sometimes Muriel must find it lonely. The nearest
human habitation is eight miles away, across the mountain, and not a
soul comes near us. I spend as much time as I can with her, however,
during the day, and make up for it by working at night after she has
gone to sleep, and when I question her, she only laughs, and answers
that she loves to have me all to herself. (Here you will smile
cynically, I know, and say, 'Humph, I wonder will she say the same when
they have been married six years instead of six months.') At the rate I
am working now I shall have finished my first volume by the end of
August, and then, my dear fellow, you must try and come over, and we
will walk and talk together 'amid these storm-reared temples of the
gods.' I have felt a new man since I arrived here. Instead of having to
'cudgel my brains,' as we say, thoughts crowd upon me. This work will
make my name."
_Part of the third letter, the second being mere talk about the
book (a history apparently) that the man was writing:_
"My dear Joyce,--I have written you two letters--this will make the
third--but have been unable to post them. Every day I have been
expecting a visit from some farmer or villager, for the Norwegians are
kindly people towards strangers--to say nothing of the inducements of
trade. A fortnight having passed, however, and the commissariat question
having become serious, I yesterday set out before dawn, and made my way
down to the valley; and this gives me something to tell you. Nearing the
village, I met a peasant woman. To my intense surprise, instead of
returning my salutation, she stared at me, as if I were some wild
animal, and shrank away from me as far as the width of the road would
permit. In the village the same experience awaited me. The children ran
from me, the people avoided me. At last a grey-haired old man appeared
to take pity on me, and from him I learnt the explanation of the
mystery. It seems there is a strange superstition attaching to this
house in which we are living. My things were brought up here by the two
men who accompanied me from Dronthiem, but the natives are afraid to go
near the place, and prefer to keep as far as possible from anyone
connected with it.
"The story is that the house was built by one Hund, 'a maker of runes'
(one of the old saga writers, no doubt), who lived here with his young
wife. All went peacefully until, unfortunately for him, a certain maiden
stationed at a neighbouring saeter grew to love him.--Forgive me if I am
telling you what you know, but a 'saeter' is the name given to the
upland pastures to which, during the summer, are sent the cattle,
generally under the charge of one or more of the maids. Here for three
months these girls will live in their lonely huts entirely shut off from
the world. Customs change little in this land. Two or three such
stations are within climbing distance of this house, at this day, looked
after by the farmers' daughters, as in the days of Hund, 'maker of
runes.'
"Every night, by devious mountain paths, the woman would come and tap
lightly at Hund's door. Hund had built himself two cabins, one behind
the other (these are now, as I think I have explained to you, connected
by a passage); the smaller one was the homestead, in the other he carved
and wrote, so that while the young wife slept the 'maker of runes' and
the saeter woman sat whispering.
[Illustration: "THE WOMAN WOULD TAP LIGHTLY AT HUND'S DOOR."]
"One night, however, the wife learnt all things, but said no word. Then,
as now, the ravine in front of the enclosure was crossed by a slight
bridge of planks, and over this bridge the woman of the saeter passed
and re-passed each night. On a day when Hund had gone down to fish in
the fiord, the wife took an axe, and hacked and hewed at the bridge, yet
it still looked firm and solid; and that night, as Hund sat waiting in
his workshop, there struck upon his ears a piercing cry, and a crashing
of logs and rolling rock, and then again the dull roaring of the torrent
far below.
"But the woman did not die unavenged, for that winter a man, skating far
down the fiord, noticed a curious object embedded in the ice; and when,
stooping, he looked closer, he saw two corpses, one gripping the other
by the throat, and the bodies were the bodies of Hund and his young
wife.
"Since then, they say the woman of the saeter haunts Hund's house, and
if she sees a light within she taps upon the door, and no man may keep
her out. Many, at different times, have tried to occupy the house, but
strange tales are told of them. 'Men do not live at Hund's saeter,' said
my old grey-haired friend, concluding his tale, 'they die there.' I have
persuaded some of the braver of the villagers to bring what provisions
and other necessaries we require up to a plateau about a mile from the
house and leave them there. That is the most I have been able to do. It
comes somewhat as a shock to one to find men and women--fairly educated
and intelligent as many of them are--slaves to fears that one would
expect a child to laugh at. But there is no reasoning with
superstition."
_Extract from the same letter, but from a part seemingly written
a day or two later:_
"At home I should have forgotten such a tale an hour after I had heard
it, but these mountain fastnesses seem strangely fit to be the last
stronghold of the supernatural. The woman haunts me already. At night,
instead of working, I find myself listening for her tapping at the door;
and yesterday an incident occurred that makes me fear for my own common
sense. I had gone out for a long walk alone, and the twilight was
thickening into darkness as I neared home. Suddenly looking up from my
reverie, I saw, standing on a knoll the other side of the ravine, the
figure of a woman. She held a cloak about her head, and I could not see
her face. I took off my cap, and called out a good-night to her, but she
never moved or spoke. Then, God knows why, for my brain was full of
other thoughts at the time, a clammy chill crept over me, and my tongue
grew dry and parched. I stood rooted to the spot, staring at her across
the yawning gorge that divided us, and slowly she moved away, and passed
into the gloom; and I continued my way. I have said nothing to Muriel,
and shall not. The effect the story has had upon myself warns me not
to."
_From a letter dated eleven days later:_
"She has come. I have known she would since that evening I saw her on
the mountain, and last night she came, and we have sat and looked into
each other's eyes. You will say, of course, that I am mad--that I have
not recovered from my fever--that I have been working too hard--that I
have heard a foolish tale, and that it has filled my overstrung brain
with foolish fancies--I have told myself all that. But the thing came,
nevertheless--a creature of flesh and blood? a creature of air? a
creature of my own imagination? what matter; it was real to me.
"It came last night, as I sat working, alone. Each night I have waited
for it, listened for it--longed for it, I know now. I heard the passing
of its feet upon the bridge, the tapping of its hand upon the door,
three times--tap, tap, tap. I felt my loins grow cold, and a pricking
pain about my head, and I gripped my chair with both hands, and waited,
and again there came the tapping--tap, tap, tap. I rose and slipped the
bolt of the door leading to the other room, and again I waited, and
again there came the tapping--tap, tap, tap. Then I opened the heavy
outer door, and the wind rushed past me, scattering my papers, and the
woman entered in, and I closed the door behind her. She threw her hood
back from her head, and unwound a kerchief from about her neck, and laid
it on the table. Then she crossed and sat before the fire, and I noticed
her bare feet were damp with the night dew.
[Illustration: "THE WOMAN ENTERED."]
"I stood over against her and gazed at her, and she smiled at me--a
strange, wicked smile, but I could have laid my soul at her feet. She
never spoke or moved, and neither did I feel the need of spoken words,
for I understood the meaning of those upon the Mount when they said,
'Let us make here tabernacles: it is good for us to be here.'
"How long a time passed thus I do not know, but suddenly the woman held
her hand up, listening, and there came a faint sound from the other
room. Then swiftly she drew her hood about her face and passed out,
closing the door softly behind her; and I drew back the bolt of the
inner door and waited, and hearing nothing more, sat down, and must have
fallen asleep in my chair.
"I awoke, and instantly there flashed through my mind the thought of the
kerchief the woman had left behind her, and I started from my chair to
hide it. But the table was already laid for breakfast, and my wife sat
with her elbows on the table and her head between her hands, watching me
with a look in her eyes that was new to me.
"She kissed me, though her lips were a little cold, and I argued to
myself that the whole thing must have been a dream. But later in the
day, passing the open door when her back was towards me, I saw her take
the kerchief from a locked chest and look at it.
"I have told myself it must have been a kerchief of her own, and that
all the rest has been my imagination--that if not, then my strange
visitant was no spirit, but a woman, and that, if human thing knows
human thing, it was no creature of flesh and blood that sat beside me
last night. Besides, what woman would she be? The nearest saeter is a
three hours' climb to a strong man, the paths are dangerous even in
daylight: what woman would have found them in the night? What woman
would have chilled the air around her, and have made the blood flow cold
through all my veins? Yet if she come again I will speak to her. I will
stretch out my hand and see whether she be mortal thing or only air."
_The fifth letter:_
"My dear Joyce,--Whether your eyes will ever see these letters is
doubtful. From this place I shall never send them. They would read to
you as the ravings of a madman. If ever I return to England I may one
day show them to you, but when I do it will be when I, with you, can
laugh over them. At present I write them merely to hide away--putting
the words down on paper saves my screaming them aloud.
"She comes each night now, taking the same seat beside the embers, and
fixing upon me those eyes, with the hell-light in them, that burn into
my brain; and at rare times she smiles, and all my Being passes out of
me, and is hers. I make no attempt to work. I sit listening for her
footsteps on the creaking bridge, for the rustling of her feet upon the
grass, for the tapping of her hand upon the door. No word is uttered
between us. Each day I say: 'When she comes to-night I will speak to
her. I will stretch out my hand and touch her.' Yet when she enters, all
thought and will goes out from me.
[Illustration: "I STOOD GAZING AT HER."]
"Last night, as I stood gazing at her, my soul filled with her wondrous
beauty as a lake with moonlight, her lips parted, and she started from
her chair, and, turning, I thought I saw a white face pressed against
the window, but as I looked it vanished. Then she drew her cloak about
her, and passed out. I slid back the bolt I always draw now, and stole
into the other room, and, taking down the lantern, held it above the
bed. But Muriel's eyes were closed as if in sleep."
_Extract from the sixth letter:_
"It is not the night I fear, but the day. I hate the sight of this woman
with whom I live, whom I call 'wife.' I shrink from the blow of her cold
lips, the curse of her stony eyes. She has seen, she has learnt; I feel
it, I know it. Yet she winds her arms around my neck, and calls me
sweetheart, and smooths my hair with her soft, false hands. We speak
mocking words of love to one another, but I know her cruel eyes are ever
following me. She is plotting her revenge, and I hate her, I hate her, I
hate her!"
_Part of the seventh letter:_
"This morning I went down to the fiord. I told her I should not be back
until the evening. She stood by the door watching me until we were mere
specks to one another, and a promontory of the mountain shut me from
view. Then, turning aside from the track, I made my way, running and
stumbling over the jagged ground, round to the other side of the
mountain, and began to climb again. It was slow, weary work. Often I had
to go miles out of my road to avoid a ravine, and twice I reached a high
point only to have to descend again. But at length I crossed the ridge,
and crept down to a spot from where, concealed, I could spy upon my own
house. She--my wife--stood by the flimsy bridge. A short hatchet, such
as butchers use, was in her hand. She leant against a pine trunk, with
her arm behind her, as one stands whose back aches with long stooping in
some cramped position; and even at that distance I could see the cruel
smile about her lips.
"Then I recrossed the ridge, and crawled down again, and, waiting until
evening, walked slowly up the path. As I came in view of the house she
saw me, and waved her handkerchief to me, and, in answer, I waved my
hat, and shouted curses at her that the wind whirled away into the
torrent. She met me with a kiss, and I breathed no hint to her that I
had seen. Let her devil's work remain undisturbed. Let it prove to me
what manner of thing this is that haunts me. If it be a Spirit, then the
bridge will bear it safely; if it be woman----
"But I dismiss the thought. If it be human thing why does it sit gazing
at me, never speaking; why does my tongue refuse to question it; why
does all power forsake me in its presence, so that I stand as in a
dream? Yet if it be Spirit, why do I hear the passing of her feet; and
why does the night-rain glisten on her hair?
[Illustration: "TO THE UTMOST EDGE."]
"I force myself back into my chair. It is far into the night, and I am
alone, waiting, listening. If it be Spirit, she will come to me; and if
it be woman, I shall hear her cry above the storm--unless it be a demon
mocking me.
"I have heard the cry. It rose, piercing and shrill, above the storm,
above the riving and rending of the bridge, above the downward crashing
of the logs and loosened stones. I hear it as I listen now. It is
cleaving its way upward from the depths below. It is wailing through the
room as I sit writing.
"I have crawled upon my belly to the utmost edge of the still standing
pier until I could feel with my hand the jagged splinters left by the
fallen planks, and have looked down. But the chasm was full to the brim
with darkness. I shouted, but the wind shook my voice into mocking
laughter. I sit here, feebly striking at the madness that is creeping
nearer and nearer to me. I tell myself the whole thing is but the fever
in my brain. The bridge was rotten. The storm was strong. The cry is but
a single one among the many voices of the mountain. Yet still I listen,
and it rises, clear and shrill, above the moaning of the pines, above
the mighty sobbing of the waters. It beats like blows upon my skull, and
I know that she will never come again."
_Extract from the last letter:_
"I shall address an envelope to you, and leave it among them. Then,
should I never come back, some chance wanderer may one day find and post
them to you, and you will know.
"My books and writings remain untouched. We sit together of a
night--this woman I call 'wife' and I--she holding in her hands some
knitted thing that never grows longer by a single stitch, and I with a
volume before me that is ever open at the same page. And day and night
we watch each other stealthily, moving to and fro about the silent
house; and at times, looking round swiftly, I catch the smile upon her
lips before she has time to smooth it away.
"We speak like strangers about this and that, making talk to hide our
thoughts. We make a pretence of busying ourselves about whatever will
help us to keep apart from one another.
"At night, sitting here between the shadows and the dull glow of the
smouldering twigs, I sometimes think I hear the tapping I have learnt to
listen for, and I start from my seat, and softly open the door and look
out. But only the Night stands there. Then I close-to the latch, and
she--the living woman--asks me in her purring voice what sound I heard,
hiding a smile as she stoops low over her work, and I answer lightly,
and, moving towards her, put my arm about her, feeling her softness and
her suppleness, and wondering, supposing I held her close to me with one
arm while pressing her from me with the other, how long before I should
hear the cracking of her bones.
"For here, amid these savage solitudes, I also am grown savage. The old
primeval passions of love and hate stir within me, and they are fierce
and cruel and strong, beyond what you men of the later ages could
understand. The culture of the centuries has fallen from me as a flimsy
garment whirled away by the mountain wind; the old savage instincts of
the race lie bare. One day I shall twine my fingers about her full white
throat, and her eyes will slowly come towards me, and her lips will
part, and the red tongue creep out; and backwards, step by step, I shall
push her before me, gazing the while upon her bloodless face, and it
will be my turn to smile. Backwards through the open door, backwards
along the garden path between the juniper bushes, backwards till her
heels are overhanging the ravine, and she grips life with nothing but
her little toes, I shall force her, step by step, before me. Then I
shall lean forward, closer, closer, till I kiss her purpling lips, and
down, down, down, past the startled sea-birds, past the white spray of
the foss, past the downward peeping pines, down, down, down, we will go
together, till we find my love where she lies sleeping beneath the
waters of the fiord."
With these words ended the last letter, unsigned. At the first streak of
dawn we left the house, and, after much wandering, found our way back to
the valley. But of our guide we heard no news. Whether he remained still
upon the mountain, or whether by some false step he had perished upon
that night, we never learnt.
[Illustration: ALPHONSE DAUDET.]
_Alphonse Daudet at Home._
BY MARIE ADELAIDE BELLOC.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAN BERG, J. BARNARD DAVIS, AND E. M. JESSOP.
-----
M. and Madame Alphonse Daudet--for it is impossible to mention the great
French writer without also immediately recalling the personality of the
lady who has been his best friend, his tireless collaboratrice, and his
constant companion during the last twenty-five years--have made their
home on the top storey of a fine stately house in the Rue de Belle
Chasse, a narrow old-world street running from the Boulevard Saint
Germain up into the Quartier Latin.
[Illustration: MADAME DAUDET.]
Like most houses on the left bank of the Seine, the "hotel" is built
round a large courtyard, the Daudets' pretty _appartement_ being
situated on the side furthest from the street, and commanding a splendid
view of Southern Paris, whilst in the immediate foreground is one of
those peaceful, quiet gardens, owned by some of the old Paris religious
foundations still left undisturbed by the march of Republican time.
The study in which Alphonse Daudet does all his work, and receives his
more intimate friends, is opposite the hall door, but a strict watch is
kept by Madame Daudet's faithful servants, and no one is allowed to
break in upon the privacy of _le maître_ without some good and
sufficient reason. Few writers are so personally popular with their
readers as is Alphonse Daudet; there is about most of his books a
strange magnetic charm, and every post brings him quaint, curious, and
often pathetic, epistles from men and women all over the world, and of
every nationality, discussing his characters, suggesting alterations,
offering him plots, and asking his advice on their own most intimate
cases of conscience, whilst, if he were to grant all the requests for
personal interviews which come to him day by day, he would literally
have not a moment for work or leisure.
[Illustration: DAUDET AT WORK.]
But to those who have the good fortune of his acquaintance, M. Daudet is
the most delightful and courteous of hosts, and, though rarely alluding
to his own work in conversation, he will always answer those questions
put to him to the best of his ability, and as one who has thought much
and deeply on most subjects of human interest.
The first glance shows you that Daudet's study is a real work room;
there is no straining after effect; the plain, comfortable furniture,
including the large solid writing table covered with papers, proofs,
literary biblots, and the various instruments necessary to his craft,
were made and presented to him by a number of workmen, his military
comrades during the war, and serve to perpetually remind him of what, he
says, has been the most instructive and intensely interesting period of
his life. "That terrible year," I have heard him exclaim more than once,
"taught me many things. It was then for the first time that I learned to
appreciate our workpeople, _le peuple_. Had it not been for what I then
went through, one whole side of good human nature would have been shut
to me. The Paris _ouvrier_ is a splendid fellow, and among my best
friends I reckon some of those who fought by my side in 1870."
During those same eventful months M. Daudet made the acquaintance of the
man who was afterwards to prove his most indefatigable helper; it was
between one of the long waits outside the fortifications. To his
surprise, the novelist saw a young soldier reading a Latin book. In
answer to a question, the _pioupiou_ explained that he had been brought
up to be a priest, but had finally changed his mind and become a
workman. Now, the ex seminarist is M. Daudet's daily companion and
literary agent; it is he who makes all the necessary arrangements with
editors and publishers, and several of Daudet's later writings have been
dictated to him.
All that refers to a great writer's methods cannot but be of interest.
Daudet's novels are really human documents, for from early youth he has
put down from day to day, almost from hour to hour, all that he has
seen, heard, and done. He calls his note-books "my memory." When about
to start a new novel he draws out a general plan, then he copies out all
the incidents from his note-books which he thinks will be of value to
him for the story. The next step is to make out a rough list of
chapters, and then, with infinite care, and constant corrections, he
begins writing out the book, submitting each page to his wife's
criticism, and discussing with her the working out of every incident,
and the arrangement of every episode. Unlike most novelists, M. Daudet
does not care to always write on the same paper, and his manuscripts are
not all written on paper of the same size. Of late he has been using
some large, rough hand-made sheets, which Victor Hugo had specially made
for his own use, and which have been given to M. Daudet by Georges Hugo,
who knew what a pleasure his grandfather would have taken in the thought
that any of his literary leavings would have been useful to his little
Jeanne's father-in-law, for it will be remembered that Léon Daudet, the
novelist's eldest child, married some three years ago "Peach Blossom"
Hugo, for whom was written _L'Art d'être Grand-père_.
Although M. Daudet takes precious care of his little note-books, both
past and present, he has never troubled himself much as to what became
of the fair copies of his novels. They remain in the printers' and
publishers' hands, and will probably some day attain a fabulous value.
His handwriting is clear, and somewhat feminine in form, and he always
uses a steel pen. Till his health broke down he wrote every word of his
manuscripts himself, but of late he has been obliged to dictate to his
wife and two secretaries; re-writing, however, much of his work in the
margin of the manuscript, and also adding to, and polishing, each
chapter in proof, for no writer pays more attention to style and
chiselled form than the man who has been called the French Dickens, and
whose compositions, to the uninitiated, would seem to be singularly
spontaneous.
Since the war M. Daudet has never had an hour's sleep without artificial
aid, such as chloral; but devotees of Lady Nicotine will be interested
to learn that in answer to a question he once said, "I have smoked a
great deal while working, and the more I smoked the better I worked. I
have never noticed that tobacco is injurious, but I must admit that,
when I am not well, even the smell of a cigarette is odious." He added
that he had a great horror of alcohol as a stimulant for work, and has
ofttimes been heard to say that those who believe in working on spirits
had better make up their minds to become total abstainers if they hope
to achieve anything in the way of literature.
Unlike most literary _ménages_, M. and Madame Daudet are one of those
happy couples who are said by cynics to be the exceptions which prove
the rule. Literary men are proverbially unlucky in their helpmates; and
geniuses have been proved again and again to reserve their fitful
humours and uncertain tempers for home use. M. and Madame Daudet are at
once sympathetic, literary partners, and the happiest of married
couples; in _L'Enfance d'une Parisienne_, _Enfants et Mères_, and
_Fragments d'un Livre Inédit_, Madame Daudet has proved that she is in
her own way as original and delicate an artist as her husband. She has
never written a novel, but, as a great French critic once aptly
remarked, "Each one of her books contains the essence of innumerable
novels." Her literary work has been an afterthought, an accident; she is
not anxious to make a name by her writing, and her most intimate friends
have never heard her mention her literary faculty; like most
Frenchwomen, a devoted mother, when not helping her husband, she is
absorbed in her children, and whilst her boys were at the Lycée she
taught herself Latin in order to help them prepare their lessons every
evening; and she is now her young daughter's closest companion and
friend.
One of the most charming characteristics of Alphonse Daudet is his love
for, and pride in, his wife. "I often think of my first meeting with
her," he will say. "I was quite a young fellow, and had a great
prejudice against literary women, and especially against poetesses, but
I came, saw, and was conquered, and," he will conclude smiling, "I have
remained under the charm ever since.... People sometimes ask me whether
I approve of women writing; how should I not, when my own wife has
always written, and when all that is best in my literary work is owing
to her influence and suggestion. There are whole realms of human nature
which we men cannot explore. We have not eyes to see, nor hearts to
understand, certain subtle things which a woman perceives at once; yes,
women have a mission to fulfil in the literature of to-day."
[Illustration: THE PROVENÇAL FURNITURE.]
Strangely enough, M. Daudet made the acquaintance of his future wife
through a favourable review he wrote of a volume of verse published by
her parents, M. and Madame Allard. They were so pleased with the notice
that they wrote and asked the critic to come and see them. How truly
thankful the one time critic must now feel that he was inspired to deal
gently by the little _bouquin_.
Madame Daudet is devoted to art, and her pretty _salon_ is one of the
most artistic _intérieurs_ in Paris, whilst the dining-room, fitted up
with old Provençal furniture, looks as though it had been lifted bodily
out of some fastness in troubadour land.
The tie between the novelist and his children is a very close one; he
has said of Léon that there stands his best work; and, indeed, the young
man is in a fair way to make his father's words come true, for,
inheriting much of both parents' literary faculty, M. Léon Daudet lately
made his _débût_ as a novelist with _Hoerès_, a remarkable story with
a purpose, in which the author strove to explain his somewhat curious
theories on the laws of heredity. Having originally been intended for
the medical profession, he takes a special interest in this subject. It
is curious that three such distinct and different literary gifts should
exist simultaneously in the same family.
As soon as even the cool, narrow streets of the Quartier Latin begin to
grow dusty and sultry with summer heat, the whole Daudet family emigrate
to the novelist's charming country cottage at Champrosay. There old
friends, such as M. Edmond de Goncourt, are ever made welcome, and life
is one long holiday for those who bring no work with them. Daudet
himself has described his country home as being "situated thirty miles
from Paris, at a lovely bend of the Seine, a provincial Seine invaded by
bulrushes, purple irises, and water-lilies, bearing on its bosom tufts
of grass, and clumps of tangled roots, on which the tired dragon-flies
alight, and allow themselves to be lazily floated down the stream."
[Illustration: THE DRAWING ROOM.]
It was in a round, ivy-clad pavilion overhanging the river that _le
maître du logis_ wrote _L'Immortel_. On an exceptionally fine day he
would get into a canoe, and let it drift among the reeds, till, in the
shadow of an old willow-tree, the boat became his study, and the two
crossed oars his desk. Strange that so bitter and profoundly cynical a
study of modern Paris life should have been evolved in such
surroundings, whilst the _Contes de Mon Moulin_, and many other of his
most ideal _nouvelles_, were written in the sombre grey house where M.
and Madame Daudet lived during many years of their early married life.
The author of _Les Rois en Exile_ has not yet utilised Champrosay as a
background to any of his stories; he takes notes, however, of all that
goes on in the little village community, much as he did in the Duc de
Morny's splendid palace, and in time his readers may have the pleasure
of perusing an idyllic yet realistic picture of French country life, an
outcome of his summer experiences.
Alphonse Daudet was born just fifty-three years ago in the sunlit, white
_bâtisse_ at Nimes, which he has described in the painful, melancholy
history of his childhood, entitled _Le Petit Chose_. At an age when
other French boys are themselves _lycéans_, he became usher in a kind of
provincial Dotheboys Hall; and some idea of what the sensitive, poetical
lad went through may be gained by the fact that he more than once
seriously contemplated committing suicide. But fate had something better
in store for _le petit Daudet_, and his seventeenth birthday found him
in Paris sharing his brother Ernest's garret, having arrived in the
great city with just forty sous remaining of his little store, after
spending two days and nights in a third-class carriage.
Even now, there is a touch of protection and maternal affection in the
way in which Ernest Daudet regards his younger brother, and the latter
never mentions his early struggles without recalling the
self-abnegation, generous kindliness, and devotion of "_mon frère_." The
two went through some hard times together. "Ah!" says the great writer,
speaking of those days, "I thought my brother passing rich, for he
earned seventy-five francs a month by being secretary to an old
gentleman at whose dictation he took down his memoirs." And so they
managed to live, going occasionally to the theatre, and seeing not a
little of life, on the sum of thirty shillings a month apiece!
When receiving visitors, the author of _Tartarin_ places himself with
his back to the light on one of the deep, comfortable couches which line
the fireplace of his study, but from out the huge mass of his powerful
head, surrounded by the lionese mane, which has become famous in his
portraits and photographs, gleam two piercing dark eyes, which, like
those of most short-sighted people, seem to perceive what is immediately
before them with an extra intensity of vision.
To ask one who has far outrun his fellows what he thinks of the race
seems a superfluous question. Yet, in answer as to what he would say of
literature as a profession, M. Daudet gave a startlingly clear and
decided answer.
[Illustration: THE BILLIARD AND FENCING ROOM.]
"The man who has it in him to write will do so, however great his
difficulties, but I would never advise any young fellow to make
literature his profession, and I think it is nothing short of madness to
give up a good chance of making your livelihood in some other, though
perhaps less congenial, fashion, in order to pursue the calling of
letters. You would be surprised if you knew the number of young people
who come to me for sympathy with their literary aspirations, and as for
the manuscripts submitted to me, the sending of them back keeps one of
my friends pretty busy, for of late years I have had to refuse to look
at anything sent to me in this way. In vain I say to those who come to
consult me, 'However much occupied you are with your present way of
earning a livelihood, if you have it in you to write anything you will
surely find time to do it.' They go away unconvinced, and a few months
later sees them launched on the perilous seas of journalism; with now
really not a moment to spare for serious writing! Of course, if the
would-be writer has already an income, I see no reason why he should not
give himself up to literature altogether. It was in order to provide a
certain number of coming geniuses with the wherewithal to find at least
spare time in which to write possible masterpieces, that my friend
Edmond de Goncourt and his brother Jules conceived the noble and
unselfish idea to found an institute, the members of which would require
but two qualifications, poverty and exceptional literary power. If a
would-be writer can find someone who will assist him in this manner,
well and good; but no one is a prophet in his own country, and friends
and relations are, as a rule, most unwilling to waste good money on
their young literary acquaintances. Still I admit that the Academie de
Goncourt would fulfil a want, for there have been, and are, great
geniuses who positively cannot produce their masterpieces from bitter
poverty."
"Then do you believe in journalism as a stepping-stone to literature?"
"I cannot say that I do, though, strangely enough, there is scarcely one
of us--I allude to latter-day French novelists and critics--who did not
spend at least a portion of his youth doing hard, pot-boiling newspaper
work. But I deplore the necessity of a novelist having to make
journalism his start in life, for, as all newspaper writing has to be
done against time, his style must certainly deteriorate, and his
literature becomes journalese."
"What was your own first literary essay, M. Daudet?"
"You know I was born a poet, not a novelist; besides, when I was a lad
everyone wrote poetry, so I made my _débût_ by a book of verse entitled
_Mes Amoureuses_. I was just eighteen, and this was my first stroke of
luck; for six weary months I had carried my poor little manuscript from
publisher to publisher, but, strange to say, I never got further than
these great people's ante-chamber; at last, a certain Tardieu, a
publisher who was himself an author, took pity on my _Amoureuses_. The
title had been a happy inspiration, and the volume received some
favourable notices, and led indirectly to my getting journalistic work."
Indeed, it seems to have been more or less of an accident that M. Daudet
did not devote himself entirely to poetry; and probably the very poverty
which seemed so bitter to him during his youth obliged him to try what
he could do in the way of story-writing, that branch of literature being
supposed by the French to be the best from a pecuniary point of view. So
remarkable were his verses felt to be by the critics of the day, that
one of them wrote, "When dying, Alfred de Musset left his two pens as a
last legacy to our literature--Feuillet has taken that of prose; into
Daudet's hand has slipped that of verse."
But some years passed before the poet-journalist became the novelist; at
one time he dreamed of being a great dramatist, and before he was
five-and-twenty several of his plays had been produced at leading Paris
theatres. Fortune smiled upon him, and he was appointed to be one of the
Duc de Morny's secretaries, a post he held four years, and which
supplied him with much valuable material for several of his later
novels, notably _Les Rois en Exile_, _Le Nabab_, and _Numa Romestan_,
for during this period he was brought into close and intimate contact
with all the noteworthy personages of the Third Empire, making at the
same time the acquaintance of most of the literary lions of the
day--Flaubert, with whom he became very intimate; Edmond and Jules de
Goncourt, the two gifted brothers who may be said to have founded the
realistic school of fiction years before Emile Zola came forward as the
apostle of realism; Tourguenieff, the two Dumas, and many others who
welcomed enthusiastically the young Southern poet into their midst.
[Illustration: THE TUILERIES STONE.]
The first page of _Le Petit Chose_ was written in the February of 1866,
and was finished during the author's honeymoon, but it was with _Fromont
Jeune et Risler Ainé_, published six years later, that he made his first
real success as a novelist, the work being crowned by the French
Academy, and arousing a veritable enthusiasm both at home and abroad.
Alphonse Daudet is not a quick worker; he often allows several years to
elapse between his novels, and refuses to bind himself down to any
especial date. _Tartarin de Tarascon_ was, however, an exception to this
rule, for the author wrote it for Messrs. Guillaume, the well-known art
publishers, who, wishing to popularise an improved style of
illustration, offered M. Daudet 150,000 francs (£6,000) to write them a
serio-comic story. _Tartarin_, which obtained an instant popularity,
proved the author's versatility, but won him the hatred of the good
people of Provence, who have never forgiven him for having made fun of
their foibles. On one occasion a bagman, passing through Tarascon, put,
by way of a jest, the name "Alphonse Daudet" in his hotel register. The
news quickly spread, and had it not been for the prompt help of the
innkeeper, who managed to smuggle him out of the town, he might easily
have had cause to regret his foolish joke.
Judging by sales, _Sapho_ has been the most popular of Daudet's novels,
for over a quarter of a million copies have been sold. Like most of his
stories, its appearance provoked a great deal of discussion, as did the
author's dedication "To my two sons at the age of twenty." But, in
answer to his critics, Daudet always replies, "I wrote the book with a
purpose, and I have succeeded in painting the picture as I wished it to
appear. Each of the types mentioned by me really existed; each incident
was copied from life...."
The year following its publication M. Daudet dramatised _Sapho_, and the
play was acted with considerable success at the Gymnase, Jane Hading
being in the _title-rôle_. Last year the play was again acted in Paris,
with Madame Rejane as the heroine.
[Illustration: DAUDET'S YOUNGER SON.]
M. Daudet, like most novelists, takes a special interest in all that
concerns dramatic art and the theatre. When his health permits it he is
a persistent first-nighter, and most of his novels lend themselves in a
rare degree to stage adaptation.
I once asked him what he thought of the attempts now so frequently made
to introduce unconventionality and naked realism on the stage.
"I have every sympathy," he replied, "with the attempts made by Antoine
and his Thêatre Libre to discover strong and unconventional work. But I
do not believe in the new terms which a certain school have invented for
everything; after all, the play's the thing, whether it is produced by a
group who dub themselves romantics, realists, old or new style. Realism
is not necessarily real life; a photograph only gives a rigid, neutral
side of the object placed in front of the camera. A dissection of what
we call affection does not give so vivid an impression of the
master-passion as a true love-sonnet written by a poet. Life is a thing
of infinite gradations; a dramatist wishes to show existence as it
really is, not as it may be under exceptionally revolting
circumstances."
His own favourite dramatist and writer is Shakespeare, whom, however, he
only knows by translation, and _Hamlet_ and _Desdemona_ are his
favourite hero and heroine in the fiction of the world, although he
considered Balzac his literary master.
M. Daudet will seldom be beguiled into talking on politics. Like all
Frenchmen, the late Panama scandals have profoundly shocked and
disgusted him, as revealing a state of things discreditable to the
Government of his country. But the creator of Désirée Dolobelle has a
profound belief in human nature, and believes that, come what may, the
novelist will never lack beautiful and touching models in the world
round and about him.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_The Dismal Throng._
BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEO. HUTCHINSON.
(_Written after reading the last Study in Literary Distemper._)
-----
The Fairy Tale of Life is done,
The horns of Fairyland cease blowing,
The Gods have left us one by one,
And the last Poets, too, are going!
Ended is all the mirth and song,
Fled are the merry Music-makers;
And what remains? The Dismal Throng
Of literary Undertakers!
[Illustration: THOMAS HARDY.]
Clad in deep black of funeral cut,
With faces of forlorn expression,
Their eyes half open, souls close shut,
They stalk along in pale procession;
The latest seed of Schopenhauer,
Born of a Trull of Flaubert's choosing,
They cry, while on the ground they glower,
"There's nothing in the world amusing!"
[Illustration: ZOLA.]
There's Zola, grimy as his theme,
Nosing the sewers with cynic pleasure,
Sceptic of all that poets dream,
All hopes that simple mortals treasure;
With sense most keen for odours strong,
He stirs the Drains and scents disaster,
Grim monarch of the Dismal Throng
Who bow their heads before "the Master."
There's Miss Matilda[1] in the south,
There's Valdes[2] in Madrid and Seville,
There's mad Verlaine[3] with gangrened mouth.
Grinning at Rimbaud and the Devil.
From every nation of the earth,
Instead of smiling merry-makers,
They come, the foes of Love and Mirth,
The Dismal Throng of Undertakers.
[Illustration: TOLSTOI.]
There's Tolstoi, towering in his place
O'er all the rest by head and shoulders;
No sunshine on that noble face
Which Nature meant to charm beholders!
Mad with his self-made martyr's shirt,
Obscene, through hatred of obsceneness,
He from a pulpit built of Dirt
Shrieks his Apocalypse of Cleanness!
[Illustration: IBSEN.]
There's Ibsen,[4] puckering up his lips,
Squirming at Nature and Society,
Drawing with tingling finger-tips
The clothes off naked Impropriety!
So nice, so nasty, and so grim,
He hugs his gloomy bottled thunder;
To summon up one smile from _him_
Would be a miracle of wonder!
[Illustration: PIERRE LOTI.]
There's Maupassant,[5] who takes his cue
From Dame Bovary's bourgeois troubles;
There's Bourget, dyed his own sick "blue,"
There's Loti, blowing blue soap bubbles;
There's Mendès[6] (no Catullus, he!)
There's Richepin,[7] sick with sensual passion.
The Dismal Throng! So foul, so free,
Yet sombre all, as is the fashion.
"Turn down the lights! put out the Sun!
Man is unclean and morals muddy.
The Fairy Tale of Life is done,
Disease and Dirt must be our study!
Tear open Nature's genial heart,
Let neither God nor gods escape us,
But spare, to give our subjects zest,
The basest god of all--Priapus!"
The Dismal Throng! 'Tis thus they preach,
From Christiania to Cadiz,
Recruited as they talk and teach
By dingy lads and draggled ladies;
Without a sunbeam or a song,
With no clear Heaven to hunger after;
The Dismal Throng! the Dismal Throng!
The foes of Life and Love and Laughter!
By Shakespere's Soul! if this goes on,
From every face of man and woman
The gift of gladness will be gone,
And laughter will be thought inhuman!
The only beast who smiles is Man!
_That_ marks him out from meaner creatures!
Confound the Dismal Throng, who plan
To take God's birth-mark from our features!
Manfreds who walk the hospitals.
Laras and Giaours grown scientific,
They wear the clothes and bear the palls
Of Stormy Ones once thought terrific;
They play the same old funeral tune,
And posture with the same dejection,
But turn from howling at the moon
To literary vivisection!
[Illustration: OSCAR WILDE.]
And while they loom before our view,
Dark'ning the air that should be sunny,
Here's Oscar,[8] growing dismal too,
Our Oscar, who was once so funny!
Blue china ceases to delight
The dear curl'd darling of society,
Changed are his breeches, once so bright,
For foreign breaches of propriety!
[Illustration: GEORGE MOORE.]
I like my Oscar, tolerate
My Archer[9] of the Dauntless Grammar,
Nay, e'en my Moore[10] I estimate
Not too unkindly, 'spite his clamour;
But I prefer my roses still
To all the garlic in their garden--
Let Hedda gabble as she will,
I'll stay with Rosalind, in Arden!
O for one laugh of Rabelais,
To rout these moralising croakers!
(The cowls were mightier far than they,
Yet fled before that King of Jokers)
O for a slash of Fielding's pen
To bleed these pimps of Melancholy!
O for a Boz, born once again
To play the Dickens with such folly!
[Illustration: MARK TWAIN.]
Yet stay! why bid the dead arise?
Why call them back from Charon's wherry?
Come, Yankee Mark, with twinkling eyes,
Confuse these ghouls with something merry!
Come, Kipling, with thy soldiers three,
Thy barrack-ladies frail and fervent,
Forsake thy themes of butchery
And be the merry Muses' servant!
Come, Dickens' foster-son, Bret Harte!
Come, Sims, though gigmen flout thy labours!
Tom Hardy, blow the clouds apart
With sound of rustic fifes and tabors!
Dick Blackmore, full of homely joy,
Come from thy garden by the river,
And pelt with fruit and flowers, old boy,
These dismal bores who drone for ever!
[Illustration: GEORGE MEREDITH.]
Come, too, George Meredith, whose eyes,
Though oft with vapours shadow'd over,
Can catch the sunlight from the skies
And flash it down on lass and lover;
Tell us of Life, and Love's young dream,
Show the prismatic soul of Woman,
Bring back the Light, whose morning beam
First made the Beast upright and human!
You _can_ be merry, George, I vow!
Wit through your cloudiest prosing twinkles!
Brood as you may, upon your brow
The cynic, Art, has left no wrinkles!
For you're a poet to the core,
No ghouls can from the Muses win you;
So throw your cap i' the air once more,
And show the joy of earth that's in you!
By Heaven! we want you one and all,
For Hypochondria is reigning--
The Mater Dolorosa's squall
Makes Nature hideous with complaining!
Ah! who will paint the Face that smiled
When Art was virginal and vernal--
The pure Madonna with her Child,
Pure as the light, and as eternal!
Pest on these dreary, dolent airs!
Confound these funeral pomps and poses!
Is Life Dyspepsia's and Despair's,
And Love's complexion all _chlorosis_?
A lie! There's Health, and Mirth, and Song,
The World still laughs, and goes a-Maying--
The dismal, droning, doleful Throng
Are only smuts in sunshine playing!
Play up, ye horns of Fairyland!
Shine out, O sun, and planets seven!
Beyond these clouds a beckoning Hand
Gleams from the lattices of Heaven!
The World's alive--still quick, not dead,
It needs no Undertaker's warning;
So put the Dismal Throng to bed,
And wake once more to Light and Morning!
* * *
[1] Mathilde Serao, an Italian novelist.
[2] A Spanish novelist.
[3] Verlaine and Rimbaud, two poets of the Parisian Decadence.
[4] A Norwegian playwright.
[5] Guy de Maupassant, Paul Bourget, and Pierre Loti, novelists of the
Decadence.
[6] Catulle Mendès, a Parisian poet and novelist.
[7] Jean Richepin, ditto.
[8] Mr. Oscar Wilde.
[9] Mr. William Archer, a newspaper critic.
[10] Mr. George Moore, an author and newspaper critic.
NOTE.--These verses refer to a literary phenomenon that will in
time become historical, that phenomenon being the sudden growth, in
all parts of Europe, of a fungus-literature bred of Foulness and
Decay; and contemporaneously, the intrusion into all parts of human
life of a Calvinistic yet materialistic Morality. This literature
of a sunless Decadence has spread widely, by virtue of its own
uncleanness, and its leading characteristics are gloom, ugliness,
prurience, preachiness, and weedy flabbiness of style. That it has
not flourished in Great Britain, save among a small and discredited
Cockney minority, is due to the inherent manliness and vigour of
the national character. The land of Shakespere, Scott, Burns,
Fielding, Dickens, and Charles Reade is protected against literary
miasmas by the strength of its humour and the sunniness of its
temperament.--R.B.
_In the Hands of Jefferson._
BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY RONALD GRAY.
-----
It is not difficult to appreciate the recent catastrophe in Oceania,
where the island of Great Sangir was partially smothered by terrific
volcanic and seismic convulsions, when one has visited the Western
Indies.
[Illustration: "WHERE LORD NELSON ENJOYED HIS HONEYMOON."]
Many of these tropic isles probably owe their present isolation, if not
their actual existence, to mighty earthquake throes in remote ages of
terrestrial history beyond the memory of man. But man's memory is not a
very extensive affair, and at best probes the past to the extent of a
mere rind of a few thousand years. For the rest he has to read the word
of God, written in fossil and stone and those wondrous arcana of Nature,
which, each in turn, yields a fragment of the secret of truth to human
intellect.
Regions that have been produced or largely modified by earthquake and
volcanic upheaval may, probably enough, vanish at any moment under like
conditions; and the island of Nevis, hard by St. Christopher, in the
West Indies, strongly suggests a possibility of such disaster. It has
always been the regular rendezvous of hurricanes and earthquakes, and it
consists practically of one vast volcanic mountain which rises abruptly
from the sea and pushes its densely-wooded sides three thousand two
hundred feet into the sky. The crater shows no particularly active
inclination at present, but it is doubtless wide awake and merely
resting, like its volcanic neighbour in St. Christopher, where the
breathing of the dormant giant can be noted through rent and rift. The
Fourth Officer of our steamship "Rhine" assured me, as we approached the
lofty dome of Nevis and gazed upon its fertile acclivities and fringe of
palms, that it would never surprise him upon his rounds to find the
place had altogether disappeared under the Caribbean Sea. He added,
according to his custom, an allusion to Columbus, and explained also
that, in the dead and gone days of Slave Traffic, Nevis was a much more
important spot than it is ever likely to become again. Then, indeed, the
island enjoyed no little prosperity and importance, being a head centre
and mart for the industry in negroes. Emancipation, however, wrecked
Nevis, together with a good many other of the Antilles.
At Montpelier, on this island, Lord Nelson enjoyed his honeymoon, but
now only a few trees and a little ruined masonry at the corner of a
sugar-cane plantation appear to mark the spot. Further, it may be
recorded, as a point in favour of the place, that it grows very
exceptional Tangerine oranges. These, to taste in perfection, should be
eaten at the turning point, before their skins grow yellow. We cannot
judge of the noble possibilities in an orange at home. I brought back a
dozen of these Nevis Tangerines with me, but I secretly suspected that,
in spite of their fine reputation, quite inferior sorts would be able to
beat them by the time they got to England; and it was so.
We stopped half-an-hour only at Charlestown, Nevis, and then proceeded
to St. Christopher, a sister isle of greater size and scope.
At Antigua, there came aboard the "Rhine" a young man who implicitly
leads us to understand that he is the most important person in the West
Indies. He is the Governor of Antigua's own clerk, and is going to St.
Christopher with a portmanteau, some walking-sticks, and a despatch-box.
It appears that his significance is gigantic, and that, though the
nominal seat of government lies at Antigua, yet the real active centre
of political administration may be found immediately under the Panama
hat of the Governor's own clerk. This he takes the trouble to explain
to us. The Governor himself is a puppet, his trusted men of resource and
portfolio-holders are the veriest fantoccini; for the Governor's own
clerk pulls the strings, frames the foreign policy, conducts, controls,
adjusts difficulties, and maintains a right balance between the parties.
This he condescends to make clear to us.
[Illustration: "THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE WEST INDIES."]
I ventured to ask him how many of the more important nations were
involved with the matters at present in his despatch-box; and he said
lightly, as though the concern in hand was a mere bagatelle, that only
the United States, Great Britain and Germany were occupying his
attention at the moment.
The Model Man said:
"I suppose you'll soon knock off a flea-bite like that?"
And the Governor's own clerk answered:
"Yes, I fancy so, unless any unforeseen hitch happens. Negotiations are
pending."
I liked his last sentence particularly. It smacked so strongly of miles
of red tape and months of official delay.
When we reached St. Christopher, it was currently reported that the
Governor's own clerk had simply come to settle a dispute between two
negro landowners concerning a fragment of the island rather smaller than
a table-napkin; but personally I doubt not this was a blind, under cover
of which he secretly pushed forward those pending negotiations. He
certainly had fine diplomatic instincts, and a sound view, from a
political standpoint, of the value of veracity.
When we cast out anchor off Basseterre, St. Christopher, the Treasure
hurried to me in some sorrow. He had proposed going ashore, with his
Enchantress and her mother, to show them the sights, but now, to his
dismay, he found that unforeseen official duties would keep him on the
ship during our brief sojourn here. With anxiety almost pathetic,
therefore, he entrusted the Enchantress to me, and commended her mother
to the Doctor's care. I felt the compliment, and assured him that I
would simply devote myself to her--platonically withal; but the Doctor
was not quite so hearty about her mother. However, he must behave like
a gentleman, whether he felt inclined to do so or not, which the
Treasure knew, and, therefore, felt safe.
Our party of four started straightway for a ramble in St. Kitts (as St.
Christopher is more generally called), and, upon landing, we were
happily met by a middle-aged negro, who had evidently watched our boat
from afar. He tumbled off a pile of planks, where he had been basking in
the sun, girt his indifferent raiment about him, and then, by sheer
force of character, took complete command of our contemplated
expedition. It may have been hypnotism, or some kindred mystery, but we
were unresisting children in his hands. He said: "Follow me, gem'men: me
show you ebb'ryting for nuffing: de 'tanical Garns, de prison-house, de
public buildings, de church, an' all. Dis way, dis way, ladies. Don't
listen to dem niggers; dey nobody on dis island."
[Illustration: "'FOLLOW ME, GEM'MEN!'"]
The Doctor alone fought feebly, but it was useless, and, in two minutes,
our masterful Ethiop had led us all away to see the sights.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Jefferson, sar; ebb'rybody know Jefferson. Fus', we go to 'tanical
Garns. Here dey is."
The Botanical Gardens of Basseterre, St. Kitts, were handsome,
extensive, and well cared for. We wandered with pleasure down broad
walks, shaded by cabbage palms and palmettos, mahogany and tamarind
trees; we admired the fountain and varied foliage and blazing
flower-beds, streaked and splashed with many brilliant blossoms and
bright-leaved crotons.
"There," said the mother of the Enchantress, pointing to a handsome
lily, "is a specimen of Crinum Asiaticum."
The Doctor started as though she had used a bad word. He hates a woman
to know anything he does not, and this botanical display irritated him;
but our attention was instantly distracted by Jefferson, who, upon
hearing the lily admired, walked straight up to it and picked it.
[Illustration: "'THERE IS A SPECIMEN OF CRINUM ASIATICUM.'"]
I expostulated. I said:
"You mustn't go plucking curiosities here, Jefferson, or you will get us
all into hot water."
"Dat's right, massa," he replied. "Me an' de boss garner great ole
frens. De ladies jus' say what dey like, an' Jefferson pick him off for
dem."
He was as good as his word, and a fine theatrical display followed, as
our party grew gradually bolder and bolder, and our guide, evidently
upon his mettle, complied with each request in turn.
I will cast a fragment of the dialogue and action in dramatic form, so
that you may the better judge of and picture that wild scene.
THE ENCHANTRESS (_timidly_): Should you think we might have this tiny
flower?
JEFFERSON: I pick him, missy. (_Does so._)
THE DOCTOR: I wonder if they'd miss one of those red things? They've got
a good number. I believe they're medicinal. Should you think----?
(_Jefferson picks two of the flowers in question. The Doctor takes
heart._)
[Illustration: "'MIGHT WE HAVE THAT?'"]
THE MOTHER OF THE ENCHANTRESS: Dear me! Here's a singularly fine
specimen of the Somethingiensis. I wonder if you----?
(_Jefferson picks it._)
THE DOCTOR: We might have that big affair there, hidden away behind
those orange trees. Nobody will miss it. I should rather like it for my
own.
(_Jefferson wrestles with this concern, and the Doctor lends him a
knife._)
THE ENCHANTRESS: Oh, there's a sweet, sweet blossom! Might we have that,
and that bud, and that bunch of leaves next to them, Monsieur Jefferson?
(_Jefferson, evidently feeling he is in for a hard morning's work, makes
further onslaught upon the flora, and drags down three parts of an
entire tree._)
THE MOTHER OF THE ENCHANTRESS: When you're done there, I will ask you to
go into this fountain for one of those blue water-lilies.
(_Jefferson, getting rather sick of it, pretends he does not hear._)
THE DOCTOR (_speaking in loud tones which Jefferson cannot ignore_):
Pick that, please, and that, and those things half-way up that tree.
(_Jefferson begins to grow very hot and uneasy. He peeps about
nervously, probably with a view to dodging his old friend, the head
gardener._)
THE CHRONICLER (_feeling that his party is disgracing itself, and
desiring to reprove them in a parable_): I say, Jefferson, could you cut
down that palm--the biggest of those two--and have it sent along to the
ship? If the head gardener is here, he might help you.
JEFFERSON (_losing his temper, missing the parable, and turning upon the
Chronicler_): No, sar! You no hab no more. I'se dam near pulled off
ebb'ryting in de 'tanical Garns, an' I'se goin' right away now 'fore
anyfing's said!
(_Exit Jefferson rapidly, trying to conceal a mass of foliage under his
ragged coat. The party follows him in single file._)
[_Curtain._]
[Illustration: "'I'SE PULLED OFF EBB'RYTING IN THE 'TANICAL GARNS.'"]
I doubt not that, had we met the head gardener just then, our guide
would have lost a friend.
Henceforth, evidently feeling we were not wholly responsible in this
foreign atmosphere of wonders, Jefferson stuck to the streets, and took
us to churches and shops and other places where we had to control
ourselves and leave things alone.
On the way to a photographer's he cooled down and became instructive
again. He told us the name and address and bad actions of every white
person we met. Society at St. Kitts, from his point of view, appeared to
be in an utterly rotten condition. The most reputable clique was his
own. We met several of his personal friends. They were generally brown
or yellow, and he assured us that he had white blood in him too--a fact
we could not possibly have guessed. Presently he grew confidential, and
told us that his eldest son was a source of great discomfort to him. At
the age of fifteen Jefferson Junior had run away from home and left St.
Kitts to better himself at Barbados. Five years afterwards, however,
when he had almost passed out of his parents' memory, so Jefferson
declared, the young man returned, sick and penniless, to the home of his
birth. I said here:
"This is the Prodigal Son story over again, Jefferson. Did you kill the
fatted calf, I wonder, and make much of the lad?"
"No, sar," he answered; "didn't kill no fatted nuffing, but I precious
near kill de podigal son."
Concerning St. Christopher, we have direct authority, from the immortal
and ubiquitous Columbus himself, that it is an island of exceptional
advantages; for, delighted with its aspect in 1493, he bestowed his own
name upon it. Indeed, the place has a beautiful and imposing appearance.
Dark green forests and emerald tracts of sugar-cane now clothe its
plains and hills; and Mount Misery, the loftiest peak, rises to a height
of over four thousand feet. Caribs were the original inhabitants and
possessors of St. Kitts, but when England and France agreed to divide
this island between them in 1627, we find the local anthropophagi left
out in the cold as usual. After bickering for about sixty years, the
French enjoyed a temporary success, and slew their British brother
colonists pretty generally. Then Fortune's wheel took a turn, and under
the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, St. Kitts became our property from strand
to mountain-top.
[Illustration: "VOLCANIC INDICATIONS."]
There is only one road in this island, I am told, but that is thirty
miles long, and extends all round the place. Volcanic indications occur
freely on Mount Misery, and, as at Nevis, so here, the entire community
may, some day, find itself very uncomfortably situated. A feature of St.
Kitts is said to be monkeys, which occur in the woods. These, however,
like the deer at Tobago, are more frequently heard of than seen. People
were rather alarmed here, during our flying visit, by a form of
influenza which settled upon the town of Basseterre; but we, who had
only lately come from England, and were familiar with the revolting
lengths to which this malady will go in cold climes, reassured them, and
laughed their puny tropical species to scorn. Finally, of St. Kitts, I
would say: From information received in the first case, and from
personal experience in the second, that there you shall find sugar
culture in most approved and advanced perfection, and purchase
walking-sticks of bewildering variety and beauty.
[Illustration: "THE DOCTOR GREW DELIGHTED."]
The ladies of our party decreed they had no wish to visit the gaol--a
decision on their part which annoyed Jefferson considerably. He
explained that the St. Kitts prison-house was, perhaps, better worth
seeing than anything on the island; he also added that a book was kept
there in which we should be invited to write our names and make remarks.
They were proof, however, against even this inducement; and, having seen
the church--a very English building, with homely little square tower--we
left our Enchantress and her parent at the photographer's, to make such
purchases as seemed good to them, and await our return.
In this picture-shop, by the way, the Doctor grew almost boisterously
delighted over a deplorable representation of negro lepers. Young and
old, male and female, halt and maimed, the poor sufferers had been
photographed in a long row; and my brother secured the entire panorama
of them and whined for more. These lamentable representations of lepers
gave him keener pleasure than anything he had seen since we left the
Trinidad Hospital. In future, when we reached a new port, he would
always hurry off to photographers' shops, where they existed, and simply
clamour for lepers.
I asked Jefferson, as we proceeded to the prison, whether he thought we
should be allowed to peer about among the inner secrets of the place,
and he answered: "You see ebb'ryting, sar; de head p'liceman great ole
fren' of mine."
My brother said:
"You seem to know all the best people in St. Kitts, Jefferson."
And he admitted that it was so. He replied:
"Jefferson 'quainted wid ebb'rybody, an' ebb'rybody 'quainted wid
Jefferson."
Which put his position in a nutshell.
The prison was not very impressive viewed from outside, being but a mere
mean black and white building, with outer walls which experienced
criminals at home would have smiled at. We rang a noisy bell, and were
allowed to enter upon the demand of Jefferson.
Four sinners immediately met our gaze. They sat pensively breaking
stones in a wide courtyard. A building, with barred windows, threw black
shade upon the blazing white ground of this open space; and here,
shielded from the sun, the convicts reclined and made a show of work.
Jefferson, with rather a lack of delicate feeling, drew up before this
little stone-breaking party and beamed upon it. The Doctor and I walked
past and tried to look as though we saw nobody, but our guide did not
choose that we should miss the most interesting thing in the place thus.
"Look har, gem'men; see dese prisoners breakin' stones."
"All right, all right," answered my brother; "push on; don't stand
staring there. We haven't come to gloat over those poor devils."
But I really think the culprits were as disappointed as Jefferson. They
evidently felt that they were the most important part of the entire
spectacle, and rather resented being passed over.
"You won't see no more prisoners, if you don't look at dese, sar,"
answered Jefferson. "Dar's only terrible few convics in de gaol jus'
now."
"So much the better," answered the unsympathetic Doctor.
It certainly appeared to be a most lonely and languishing place of
incarceration. We inspected the cells, and observed in one of them a
peculiar handle fastened against the wall. This proved to be a West
Indian substitute for the treadmill. The turning of the handle can be
made easy or difficult by an arrangement of screws without the cell. The
affair is set for a certain number of revolutions, and a warder
explained to us that where hard labour has been meted to a prisoner, he
spends long, weary hours struggling with this apparatus and earning his
meals. When the necessary number of turns are completed, a bell rings,
and one can easily picture the relief in many an erring black man's
heart upon the sound of it. At another corner of the courtyard was piled
a great heap of cannon-balls. These were used for shot-drill--an arduous
form of exercise calculated to tame the wildest spirit and break the
strongest back. The whitewashed cells were wonderfully clean and
wholesome--more so, in fact, than most public apartments I saw elsewhere
in the West Indies. This effect may be produced in some measure by the
absolute lack of household goods and utensils, pictures or
_bric-à-brac_. In fact, the only piece of furniture I could find
anywhere was a massive wooden tripod, used for flogging prisoners upon.
[Illustration: "A CHAT WITH THE SUPERINTENDENT."]
Then we went in to have a chat with the Superintendent. He was rather
nervous and downcast, and apparently feared that we had formed a poor
opinion of his gaol. He apologised quite humbly for the paucity of
prisoners, and explained that times were bad, and there was little or
nothing doing in the criminal world of St. Kitts. He really did not know
what had come to the place lately. He perfectly remembered, in the good
old days, having had above fifty prisoners at a time in his hands. Why,
blacks had been hung there before now. But of late days business grew to
be a mere farce. If anybody did do anything of a capitally criminal
nature at St. Kitts, during the next twenty years or so, he very much
doubted if the authorities would permit him to carry the affair
through. His opinion was that an assassin would be taken away altogether
and bestowed upon Antigua. I asked him how he accounted for such a
stagnation in crime, and he answered, rather bitterly, that the churches
and chapels and Moravian missions had to be thanked for it. There were
far too many of them. Ordinary human instincts were frustrated at every
turn. Little paltry sects of nobodies filled their tin meeting-houses
Sunday after Sunday, and yet an important Government institution, like
the gaol, remained practically empty. He could not understand it. At the
rate things were going, it would be necessary to shut his prison up
altogether in a year's time. Certainly, one of his present charges--a
man he felt proud of in every way--was sentenced to penal servitude for
life, and had only lately made a determined attempt to escape. But he
could hardly expect the Government to keep up an entire gaol, with
warders and a Superintendent and everything, for one man, however wicked
he might be. I tried to cheer him up, and spoke hopefully about the
natural depravity of everything human. I said:
[Illustration: "FILLED HALF A PAGE WITH COMPLIMENTARY CRITICISM."]
"You must look forward. The Powers of Evil are by no means played out
yet. Black sheep occur in every fold. After periods of drought, seasons
of great plenty frequently ensue. There should be magnificent raw
material in this island, which will presently mature and keep you as
busy as a bee."
"Dar's my son, too," said Jefferson, encouragingly; "I'se pretty sure
you hab him 'fore long."
Then the man grew slightly more sanguine, and asked if we should care to
sign his book, and make a few remarks in it before departing.
"Of course I know it's only a small prison at best," he said,
deferentially.
"As to that," answered the Doctor, speaking for himself, "I have
certainly been in a great many bigger ones, but never in any house of
detention better conducted and cleaner kept than yours. You deserve
more ample recognition. I should judge you to be a man second to none in
your management of malefactors. For my part, I will assuredly write this
much in your book."
The volume was produced, and my brother sat down and expatiated about
the charms and advantages of St. Kitts prison-house. He filled half a
page with complimentary and irresponsible criticism; then he handed the
book to me. The Superintendent said that he should take it as
particularly kind if, in my remarks, I would insert a good word for the
drainage system. Advised by the Doctor that I might do so with truth and
justice, I wrote as follows:
[Illustration: "SALUTING HIS MANY FRIENDS."]
"A remarkably clean, ably-managed, and well-ordered establishment, with
an admirable staff of officials, a gratifying scarcity of evil-doers,
and particularly happy sanitary arrangements."
Then we went off to rejoin the Enchantress and her mother, and see
further sights during the brief time which now remained at our disposal.
The ladies had completed their purchases, and with them we now traversed
extended portions of the town, and visited a negro colony, where
thatched roofs peeped out from among tattered plantain leaves, and
rustic cottages hid in the shade of tamarind and orange, lime and
cocoanut. The lazy folks lounged about, chewing sugar-cane and munching
bananas, according to their pleasant custom. The men chattered, and the
women prattled and played with their yellow and ebony babies. One saw no
ambition, no proper pride, no obtrusive morality anywhere. Jefferson
appeared to be a personage in these parts. He marched along saluting his
many friends and smoking a cigar which the Doctor had given him. He
stopped occasionally to crack a joke or offer advice; and when we came
to any negro or negress whose history embraced a matter of interest,
Jefferson would stop and lecture upon the subject, while he or she stood
and grinned and admitted his remarks were unquestionably true. As a
rule, instead of grinning, they ought to have wept, for Jefferson's
anecdotes and scraps of private scandals led me to fear that about
ninety-nine in a hundred of his cronies ought to be under lock and key,
in spite of what the prison authorities had told us.
Then we came down through a slum and found ourselves by the sea, upon a
long, level beach of dark sand. The pier stood half-a-mile ahead, and we
now determined to proceed without further delay to the boats, return to
the "Rhine," and safely bestow our curiosities before she sailed.
Apprised of this intention, Jefferson prepared to take leave of our
party. He assured me that it had given him very considerable pleasure to
thus devote his morning hours to our service. He trusted that we were
satisfied with his efforts, and hinted that, though he should not dream
of levying any formal charge, yet some trifling and negotiable memento
of us would not be misunderstood or give him the least offence. We
rewarded him adequately, thanked him much for all his trouble, and hoped
that, when next we visited St. Kitts, his cheerful face might be the
first to meet us. He answered:
"Please God, gem'men, I be at de pier-head when next you come 'long.
Anyhow, you ask for Jefferson." Then, blessing us without stint, he
departed.
And here I am reluctantly compelled to reprove the white and
tawny-coloured inhabitants of St. Kitts for a breach of good manners.
Boat-loads of gentlemen from shore crowded the "Rhine," like locusts,
during her short stay at this island. They inundated the saloon bar,
scrambled for seats at the luncheon-table, and showed a wild eagerness
to eat and drink for nothing, which was most unseemly. One would have
imagined that these worthy folks only enjoyed a hearty meal upon the
occasional visits of a steamer; for after they had done with us they all
rowed off to a neighbouring vessel, and boarded her in like manner,
swarming up her sides to see what they could devour. That the
intelligent male population of an island should come off to the ships,
and chat with acquaintances and hear the latest news and enlarge its
mind, is rational enough; but that it should organise greedy raids upon
the provisions, and get in the way of the crew and passengers, and eat
up refreshments which it is not justified in even approaching, appears
to me unrefined, if not absolutely vulgar.
Leprosy and gluttony are the prevailing disorders at St. Kitts. The
first is, unfortunately, incurable, but the second might easily be
remedied, and should be. All that the white inhabitants need is a shade
more self-control in the matter of other people's food, then they will
be equal to the best of their brothers at home or abroad.
That afternoon the subject of influenza formed a principal theme in the
smoking-room of the "Rhine." Our Fourth Officer said:
"Probably I am better qualified to discuss it than any of you men; for,
two years ago, I had a most violent attack of Russian influenza _in_
Russia. Mere English, suburban influenza is child's-play by comparison.
I suffered at Odessa on the Black Sea, and my temperature went up to
just under two hundred, and I singed the bed-clothes. A friend of mine,
an old shipmate, had it at the same place; and his temperature went
considerably over two hundred, and he set his bed-clothes on fire and
was burnt to death, being too weak to escape."
This reminiscence would seem to show that our Fourth Officer has at last
exhausted his supplies of facts, and will now no doubt fall back on
reserves of fiction; which, judged from this sample, are probably very
extensive. Though few mariners turn novelists, yet it is significant, as
showing the great bond of union between seafaring life and pure
imagination, that those who have done so can point to most gratifying
results.
[Illustration: "'PROBABLY I AM BETTER QUALIFIED TO DISCUSS IT THAN ANY
OF YOU.'"]
[Illustration: I. ZANGWILL.]
_My First Book._
BY I. ZANGWILL.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEO. HUTCHINSON.
-----
As it is scarcely two years since my name (which, I hear, is a _nom de
plume_) appeared in print on the cover of a book, I may be suspected of
professional humour when I say I really do not know which was my first
book. Yet such is the fact. My literary career has been so queer that I
find it not easy to write my autobibliography.
"What is a pound?" asked Sir Robert Peel in an interrogative mood futile
as Pilate's. "What is a book?" I ask, and the dictionary answers with
its usual dogmatic air, "A collection of sheets of paper, or similar
material, blank, written, or printed, bound together." At this rate my
first book would be that romance of school life in two volumes, which,
written in a couple of exercise books, circulated gratuitously in the
schoolroom, and pleased our youthful imaginations with teacher-baiting
tricks we had not the pluck to carry out in the actual. I shall always
remember this story because, after making the tour of the class, it was
returned to me with thanks and a new first page from which all my graces
of style had evaporated. Indignant enquiry discovered the criminal--he
admitted he had lost the page, and had rewritten it from memory. He
pleaded that it was better written (which in one sense was true), and
that none of the facts had been omitted.
This ill-treated tale was "published" when I was ten, but an old
schoolfellow recently wrote to me reminding me of an earlier novel
written in an old account book. Of this I have no recollection, but, as
he says he wrote it day by day at my dictation, I suppose he ought to
know. I am glad to find I had so early achieved the distinction of
keeping an amanuensis.
The dignity of print I achieved not much later, contributing verses and
virtuous essays to various juvenile organs. But it was not till I was
eighteen that I achieved a printed first book. The story of this first
book is peculiar; and, to tell it in approved story form, I must request
the reader to come back two years with me.
[Illustration: "LOOKING FOR TOOLE."]
One fine day, when I was sixteen, I was wandering about the Ramsgate
sands looking for Toole. I did not really expect to see him, and I had
no reason to believe he was in Ramsgate, but I thought if providence
were kind to him it might throw him in my way. I wanted to do him a good
turn. I had written a three-act farcical comedy at the request of an
amateur dramatic club. I had written out all the parts, and I think
there were rehearsals. But the play was never produced. In the light of
after knowledge I suspect some of those actors must have been of quite
professional calibre. You understand, therefore, why my thoughts turned
to Toole. But I could not find Toole. Instead, I found on the sands a
page of a paper called _Society_. It is still running merrily at a
penny, but at that time it had also a Saturday edition at threepence. On
this page was a great prize-competition scheme, as well as details of a
regular weekly competition. The competitions in those days were always
literary and intellectual, but then popular education had not made such
strides as to-day.
I sat down on the spot, and wrote something which took a prize in the
weekly competition. This emboldened me to enter for the great stakes.
[Illustration: "I SAT DOWN AND WROTE SOMETHING."]
There were various events. I resolved to enter for two. One was a short
novel, and the other a comedietta. The "£5 humorous story" competition I
did not go in for; but when the last day of sending in MSS. for that
had passed, I reproached myself with not having despatched one of my
manuscripts. Modesty had prevented me sending in old work, as I felt
assured it would stand no chance, but when it was too late I was annoyed
with myself for having thrown away a possibility. After all I could have
lost nothing. Then I discovered that I had mistaken the last date, and
that there was still a day. In the joyful reaction I selected a story
called "Professor Grimmer," and sent it in. Judge of my amazement when
this got the prize (£5), and was published in serial form, running
through three numbers of _Society_. Last year, at a press dinner, I
found myself next to Mr. Arthur Goddard, who told me he had acted as
Competition Editor, and that quite a number of now well-known people had
taken part in these admirable competitions. My painfully laboured novel
only got honourable mention, and my comedietta was lost in the post.
[Illustration: Arthur Goddard.]
But I was now at the height of literary fame, and success stimulated me
to fresh work. I still marvel when I think of the amount of rubbish I
turned out in my seventeenth and eighteenth years, in the scanty leisure
of a harassed pupil-teacher at an elementary school, working hard in the
evenings for a degree at the London University to boot. There was a
fellow pupil-teacher (let us call him Y.) who believed in me, and who
had a little money with which to back his belief. I was for starting a
comic paper. The name was to be _Grimaldi_, and I was to write it all
every week.
"But don't you think your invention would give way ultimately?" asked Y.
It was the only time he ever doubted me.
"By that time I shall be able to afford a staff," I replied
triumphantly.
Y. was convinced. But before the comic paper was born, Y. had another
happy thought. He suggested that if I wrote a Jewish story, we might
make enough to finance the comic paper. I was quite willing. If he had
suggested an epic, I should have written it.
So I wrote the story in four evenings (I always write in spurts), and
within ten days from the inception of the idea the booklet was on sale
in a coverless pamphlet form. The printing cost ten pounds. I paid five
(the five I had won), Y. paid five, and we divided the profits. He has
since not become a publisher.
[Illustration: "IT WAS HAWKED ABOUT THE STREETS."]
My first book (price one penny nett) went well. It was loudly denounced
by Jews, and widely bought by them; it was hawked about the streets. One
little shop in Whitechapel sold four hundred copies. It was even on
Smith's book-stalls. There was great curiosity among Jews to know the
name of the writer. Owing to my anonymity, I was enabled to see those
enjoying its perusal, who were afterwards to explain to me their horror
and disgust at its illiteracy and vulgarity. By vulgarity vulgar Jews
mean the reproduction of the Hebrew words with which the poor and the
old-fashioned interlard their conversation. It is as if English-speaking
Scotchmen and Irishmen should object to "dialect" novels reproducing the
idiom of their "uncultured" countrymen. I do not possess a copy of my
first book, but somehow or other I discovered the MS. when writing
_Children of the Ghetto_. The description of market-day in Jewry was
transferred bodily from the MS. of my first book, and is now generally
admired.
What the profits were I never knew, for they were invested in the second
of our publications. Still jealously keeping the authorship secret, we
published a long comic ballad which I had written on the model of Bab.
With this we determined to launch out in style, and so we had gorgeous
advertisement posters printed in three colours, which were to be stuck
about London to beautify that great dreary city. Y. saw the back-hair of
Fortune almost within our grasp.
[Illustration: "A POLICEMAN TOLD HIM TO GET DOWN."]
One morning our headmaster walked into my room with a portentously
solemn air. I felt instinctively that the murder was out. But he only
said "Where is Y.?" though the mere coupling of our names was ominous,
for our publishing partnership was unknown. I replied, "How should I
know? In his room, I suppose."
He gave me a peculiar sceptical glance.
"When did you last see Y.?" he said.
"Yesterday afternoon," I replied wonderingly.
"And you don't know where he is now?"
"Haven't an idea--isn't he in school?"
"No," he replied in low, awful tones.
"Where then?" I murmured.
"_In prison!_"
"In prison," I gasped.
"In prison; I have just been to help bail him out."
It transpired that Y. had suddenly been taken with a further happy
thought. Contemplation of those gorgeous tricoloured posters had turned
his brain, and, armed with an amateur paste-pot and a ladder, he had
sallied forth at midnight to stick them about the silent streets, so as
to cut down the publishing expenses. A policeman, observing him at work,
had told him to get down, and Y., being legal-minded, had argued it out
with the policeman _de haut en bas_ from the top of his ladder. The
outraged majesty of the law thereupon haled Y. off to the cells.
Naturally the cat was now out of the bag, and the fat in the fire.
To explain away the poster was beyond the ingenuity of even a professed
fiction-monger.
Straightway the committee of the school was summoned in hot haste, and
held debate upon the scandal of a pupil-teacher being guilty of
originality. And one dread afternoon, when all Nature seemed to hold its
breath, I was called down to interview a member of the committee. In his
hand were copies of the obnoxious publications.
[Illustration: "'SUCH STUFF AS LITTLE BOYS SCRIBBLE UP ON WALLS.'"]
I approached the great person with beating heart. He had been kind to me
in the past, singling me out, on account of some scholastic successes,
for an annual vacation at the seaside. It has only just struck me, after
all these years, that, if he had not done so, I should not have found
the page of _Society_, and so not have perpetrated the deplorable
compositions.
In the course of a bad quarter of an hour, he told me that the ballad
was tolerable, though not to be endured; he admitted the metre was
perfect, and there wasn't a single false rhyme. But the prose novelette
was disgusting. "It is such stuff," said he, "as little boys scribble up
on walls."
I said I could not see anything objectionable in it.
"Come now, confess you are ashamed of it," he urged. "You only wrote it
to make money."
"If you mean that I deliberately wrote low stuff to make money," I
replied calmly, "it is untrue. There is nothing I am ashamed of. What
you object to is simply realism." I pointed out Bret Harte had been as
realistic, but they did not understand literature on that committee.
"Confess you are ashamed of yourself," he reiterated, "and we will look
over it."
"I am not," I persisted, though I foresaw only too clearly that my
summer's vacation was doomed if I told the truth. "What is the use of
saying I am?"
The headmaster uplifted his hands in horror. "How, after all your
kindness to him, he can contradict you----!" he cried.
"When I come to be your age," I conceded to the member of the committee,
"it is possible I may look back on it with shame. At present I feel
none."
In the end I was given the alternative of expulsion or of publishing
nothing which had not passed the censorship of the committee. After
considerable hesitation I chose the latter.
This was a blessing in disguise; for, as I have never been able to
endure the slightest arbitrary interference with my work, I simply
abstained from publishing. Thus, although I still wrote--mainly
sentimental verses--my nocturnal studies were less interrupted. Not till
I had graduated, and was of age, did I return to my inky vomit. Then
came my next first book--a real book at last.
In this also I had the collaboration of a fellow-teacher, Louis Cowen by
name. This time my colleague was part-author. It was only gradually that
I had been admitted to the privilege of communion with him, for he was
my senior by five or six years, and a man of brilliant parts who had
already won his spurs in journalism, and who enjoyed deservedly the
reputation of an Admirable Crichton. What drew me to him was his mordant
wit (to-day, alas! wasted on anonymous journalism! If he would only
reconsider his indetermination, the reading public would be the richer!)
Together we planned plays, novels, treatises on political economy, and
contributions to philosophy. Those were the days of dreams.
[Illustration: LIFE IN BETHNAL GREEN.]
One afternoon he came to me with quivering sides, and told me that an
idea for a little shilling book had occurred to him. It was that a
Radical Prime Minister and a Conservative working man should change into
each other by supernatural means, and the working man be confronted with
the problem of governing, while the Prime Minister should be as
comically out of place in the East End environment. He thought it would
make a funny "Arabian Nights" sort of burlesque. And so it would have
done; but, unfortunately, I saw subtler possibilities of political
satire in it. I insisted the story must be real, not supernatural, the
Prime Minister must be a Tory, weary of office, and it must be an
ultra-Radical atheistic artisan bearing a marvellous resemblance to him
who directs (and with complete success) the Conservative
Administration. To add to the mischief, owing to my collaborator's
evenings being largely taken up by other work, seven-eighths of the book
came to be written by me, though the leading ideas were, of course,
threshed out and the whole revised in common, and thus it became a
vent-hole for all the ferment of a youth of twenty-one, whose literary
faculty had furthermore been pent up for years by the potential
censorship of a committee. The book, instead of being a shilling skit,
grew to a ten-and-sixpenny (for that was the unfortunate price of
publication) political treatise of over sixty long chapters and 500
closely-printed pages. I drew all the characters as seriously and
complexly as if the fundamental conception were a matter of history; the
out-going Premier became an elaborate study of a nineteenth century
Hamlet; the Bethnal Green life amid which he came to live was presented
with photographic fulness and my old trick of realism; the governmental
manoeuvres were described with infinite detail; numerous real
personages were introduced under nominal disguises, and subsequent
history was curiously anticipated in some of the Female Franchise and
Home Rule episodes. Worst of all, so super-subtle was the satire, that
it was never actually stated straight out that the Premier had changed
places with the Radical working man, so that the door might be left open
for satirically suggested alternative explanations of the metamorphosis
in their characters; and as, moreover, the two men re-assumed their
original _rôles_ for one night only with infinitely complex effects,
many readers, otherwise unimpeachable, reached the end without any
suspicion of the actual plot--and yet (on their own confession) enjoyed
the book!
[Illustration: "HAD IT SENT ROUND."]
In contrast to all this elephantine waggery the half-a-dozen chapters
near the commencement, in which my collaborator sketched the first
adventures of the Radical working man in Downing Street, were light and
sparkling, and I feel sure the shilling skit he originally meditated
would have been a great success. We christened the book _The Premier and
the Painter_, ourselves J. Freeman Bell, had it type-written, and sent
it round to the publishers in two enormous quarto volumes. I had been
working at it for more than a year every evening after the hellish
torture of the day's teaching, and all day every holiday, but now I had
a good rest while it was playing its boomerang prank of returning to me
once a month. The only gleam of hope came from Bentleys, who wrote to
say that they could not make up their minds to reject it; but they
prevailed upon themselves to part with it at last, though not without
asking to see Mr. Bell's next book. At last it was accepted by Spencer
Blackett, and, though it had been refused by all the best houses, it
failed. Failed in a material sense, that is; for there was plenty of
praise in the papers, though at too long intervals to do us any good.
The _Athenæum_ has never spoken so well of anything I have done since.
The late James Runciman (I learnt after his death that it was he) raved
about it in various uninfluential organs. It even called forth a leader
in the _Family Herald (!)_, and there are odd people here and there, who
know the secret of J. Freeman Bell, who declare that I. Zangwill will
never do anything so good. There was some sort of a cheap edition, but
it did not sell much, and when, some years ago, Spencer Blackett went
out of business, I acquired the copyright and the remainder copies,
which are still lying about somewhere. And not only did _The Premier and
the Painter_ fail with the great public, it did not even help either of
us one step up the ladder; never got us a letter of encouragement nor a
stroke of work. I had to begin journalism at the very bottom and
entirely unassisted, narrowly escaping canvassing for advertisements,
for I had by this time thrown up my scholastic position, and had gone
forth into the world penniless and without even a "character," branded
as an Atheist (because I did not worship the Lord who presided over our
committee) and a Revolutionary (because I refused to break the law of
the land).
[Illustration: MR. ZANGWILL AT WORK.]
I should stop here if I were certain I had written the required article.
But as _The Premier and the Painter_ was not entirely _my_ first book, I
may perhaps be expected to say something of my third first book, and the
first to which I put my name--_The Bachelors' Club_. Years of literary
apathy succeeded the failure of _The Premier and the Painter_. All I did
was to publish a few serious poems (which, I hope, will survive _Time_),
a couple of pseudonymous stories signed "The Baroness Von S." (!), and a
long philosophical essay upon religion, and to lend a hand in the
writing of a few playlets. Becoming convinced of the irresponsible
mendacity of the dramatic profession, I gave up the stage, too, vowing
never to write except on commission, and sank entirely into the slough
of journalism (glad enough to get there), _inter alia_ editing a comic
paper (not _Grimaldi_, but _Ariel_) with a heavy heart. At last the long
apathy wore off, and I resolved to cultivate literature again in my
scraps of time. It is a mere accident that I wrote a pair of "funny"
books, or put serious criticism of contemporary manners into a shape not
understood in a country where only the dull are profound and only the
ponderous are earnest. _The Bachelors' Club_ was the result of a
whimsical remark made by my dear friend, Eder of Bartholomew's, with
whom I was then sharing rooms in Bernard Street, and who helped me
greatly with it, and its publication was equally accidental. One spring
day, in the year of grace 1891, having lived unsuccessfully for a score
of years and seven upon this absurd planet, I crossed Fleet Street and
stepped into what is called "success." It was like this. Mr. J. T.
Grein, now of the Independent Theatre, meditated a little monthly called
_The Playgoers' Review_, and he asked me to do an article for the first
number, on the strength of some speeches I had made at the Playgoers'
Club. When I got the proof it was marked "Please return at once to 6,
Bouverie Street." My office boy being out, and Bouverie Street being
only a few steps away, I took it over myself, and found myself, somewhat
to my surprise, in the office of Henry & Co., publishers, and in the
presence of Mr. J. Hannaford Bennett, an active partner in the firm. He
greeted me by name, also to my surprise, and told me he had heard me
speak at the Playgoers' Club. A little conversation ensued, and he
mentioned that his firm was going to bring out a Library of Wit and
Humour. I told him I had begun a book, avowedly humorous, and had
written two chapters of it, and he straightway came over to my office,
heard me read them, and immediately secured the book. (The then editor
ultimately refused to have it in the "Whitefriars' Library of Wit and
Humour," and so it was brought out separately.) Within three months,
working in odds and ends of time, I finished it, correcting the proofs
of the first chapters while I was writing the last; indeed, ever since
the day I read those two chapters to Mr. Hannaford Bennett I have never
written a line anywhere that has not been purchased before it was
written. For, to my undying astonishment, two average editions of my
real "First Book" were disposed of on the day of publication, to say
nothing of the sale in New York. Unless I had acquired a reputation of
which I was totally unconscious, it must have been the title that
"fetched" the trade. Or, perhaps, it was the illustrations by my friend,
Mr. George Hutchinson, whom I am proud to have discovered as a
cartoonist for _Ariel_.
[Illustration: "EDITING A COMIC PAPER."]
So here the story comes to a nice sensational climax. Re-reading it, I
feel dimly that there ought to be a moral in it somewhere for the
benefit of struggling fellow-scribblers. But the best I can find is
this: That if you are blessed with some talent, a great deal of
industry, and an amount of conceit mighty enough to enable you to
disregard superiors, equals and critics, as well as the fancied demands
of the public, it is possible, without friends, or introductions, or
bothering celebrities to read your manuscripts, or cultivating the camp
of the log-rollers, to attain, by dint of slaving day and night for
years during the flower of your youth, to a fame infinitely less
widespread than a prize-fighter's, and a pecuniary position which you
might with far less trouble have been born to.
[Illustration: "A FAME LESS WIDESPREAD THAN A PRIZE-FIGHTER'S."]
_By the Light of the Lamp._
BY HILDA NEWMAN.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY HAL HURST.
-----
A day in bed! Oh! the horror of it to a man who has never ailed anything
in his life! A day away from the excitement (pleasurable or otherwise)
of business, the moving throng of city streets, the anticipated chats
with business friends and casual acquaintances--the world of men.
Nothing to look upon but the four walls of the room, which, in spite of
its cosiness, he only associates with dreams, nightmares, and dull
memories of sleepless nights, and chilly mornings. Nothing to listen to
but the twittering of the canary downstairs, and the distant wrangling
of children in the nursery: no one to speak to but the harassed
housewife, wanted in a dozen places at once, and the pert housemaid,
whose noisiness is distracting. The man lay there, cursing his
helplessness. In spite of his iron will, the unseen enemy, who had
stolen in by night, conquered, holding him down with a hundred tingling
fingers when he attempted to rise, and drawing a misty veil over his
eyes when he tried to read, till at last he was forced to resign
himself, with closed eyes, and turn day into night. But the lowered
blind was a sorry substitute for the time of rest, and brought him no
light, refreshing sleep, so, in the spirit, he occupied his customary
chair at the office, writing and receiving cheques, drawing up new
circulars, and ordering the clerks about in the abrupt, peremptory
manner he thought proper to adopt towards subordinates--the wife
included.
He tortured himself by picturing the disorganisation of the staff in his
enforced absence--for he had grown to believe that nothing could prosper
without his personal supervision, though the head clerk had been ten
years in his employ. Then he remembered an important document, that
should have been signed before, and a foreign letter, which probably
awaited him, and fretted himself into a fever of impatience and
aggravation.
[Illustration: "RETURNING WITH A DAINTILY-SPREAD TRAY."]
Just at the climax of his reflections his wife entered the room. She was
a silent little woman, with weary eyes. Perhaps her burden of household
cares, and the complaints of an exacting husband, had made her
prematurely old, for there were already silver threads among the dark
brown coils of hair that were neatly twisted in a bygone fashion, though
she was young enough to have had a bright colour in her cheek, a merry
light in her dark eyes, and a smile on her lips. These, and a becoming
dress, would have made her a pretty woman; but a friendless, convent
girlhood, followed by an early marriage, and unswerving obedience to the
calls of a husband and family who demanded and accepted her unceasing
attention and the sacrifice of her youth, without a word of gratitude or
sympathy, had made her what she was--a plain, insignificant,
faded-looking creature, with unsatisfied yearnings, and heartaches that
she did not betray, fearing to be misunderstood or ridiculed.
[Illustration: "FAST ASLEEP IN THE LOW WICKER ARMCHAIR."]
She listened quietly to his complaints, and bore without reproach his
mocking answers to her offers of help. Then she softly drew up the
blind, and went downstairs, returning with a daintily-spread tray. But
the tempting oysters she had had such trouble to procure were pettishly
refused, and the tray was not even allowed to be in the room. The wife
sat down near the window, and took up a little garment she was
making--her face was flushed, and her lips trembled as she stitched and
folded--it seemed so hard that she could do nothing to please him,
knowing, as she did, that he considered hers an idle life, since they
kept servants to do the work of the house. He did not know of her
heart-breaking attempts to keep within the limits of her weekly
allowance, with unexpected calls from the nursery, and kitchen
breakages; he forgot that it would not go so far now that there were
more children to clothe and feed, and, when she gently hinted this, he
hurled the bitter taunt of extravagance at her, not dreaming that she
was really pinched for money, and stinting herself of a hundred and one
things necessary to her comfort and well-being for the sake of her
family. Indeed, it was part of his theory never to yield to requests of
this kind, since they were sure to be followed by others at no distant
date, and, besides, he greatly prided himself on firmness in domestic
matters.
She was very worried to-day; anxious about her husband's health, and
sorely grieved at the futility of all her efforts to interest or help
him. Great tears gathered in her eyes, and were ready to fall, but they
had to be forced back, for she was called out of the room again.
And so it went on throughout the afternoon--in and out--up and
down--never resting--never still--her thoughts always with the
discontented invalid, who fell asleep towards evening, after a
satisfactory meal, cooked and served by his patient helpmate, and eaten
in a desultory manner, as if its speedier consumption would imply too
much appreciation of her culinary kindness.
About midnight he awoke, refreshed in body and mind, and singularly
clear of brain.
His first feeling was one of intense relief, for he felt quite free from
pain, and to-morrow would find him in town, writing and scolding--in
short, himself again. He sat up in bed, and looked round. The gas was
turned low, but on a little table consecrated to his wants stood a
carefully-shaded lamp. By its soft light he discovered his wife, fast
asleep in the low, wicker armchair, whose gay chintz cover contrasted
strangely with her neat dark dress. She had evidently meant to sit up
all night in case he felt worse, but had succumbed from sheer weariness,
still grasping the tiny frock she had been mending. He noticed her
roughened forefinger, but excused it, when he saw the little, even
stitches. Finally, he decided not to disturb her, but, as he settled
down again on the comfortable pillow, he was haunted by the image of her
pale face, and, raising himself on his elbow, looked at her again,
reflectively. She was certainly very white.
He blamed the lamplight at first, but his conscience spoke clearly in
the dim silence, as he recalled her anxiety for him, and her gentle,
restless footsteps on the stairs, and, now that he began to think of it,
she had not eaten all day. He scolded her severely for it in his mind.
Was there not plenty for her if she wanted it?
But that inner self would not be silenced. "How about her idle life?" it
said--"has she had time to eat to-day?"
He could not answer.
She sighed in her sleep, and her lashes were wet as from recent tears.
For the first time he noticed the silver hairs, and the lines about her
eyes, and wondered at them.
[Illustration: "SOBBING OUT YEARS OF LONELINESS."]
And the still, small voice pierced his heart, saying, "Whose fault is
it?"
As he shut his eyes--vainly endeavouring to dismiss the unwelcome
thoughts that came crowding in upon his mind, and threatened to destroy
his belief in the perfect theory he loved to expound--a past day rose
before him. He held her hand, and, looking into her timid, girlish face,
said to himself, "I can mould her to my will." Then she came to him,
alone and friendless, with no one to help hide her inexperience and
nervousness.
He recalled the gentle questions he was always too busy to answer, till
they troubled him no more; and the silent reproach of her quivering lips
when he blamed her for some little household error. And, though he
believed that his training had made her useful and independent, he
remembered, with a pang of remorse, many occasions on which an
affectionate word of appreciation had hovered on his tongue, and
wondered what foolish pride or reserve had made him hesitate and choke
it down, when he knew what it meant to her. Birthdays, and all those
little anniversaries which stand out clearly on the calendar of a
woman's heart, he had forgotten, or remembered only when the time for
wishes and kisses was over. Yet he had never reproached himself for this
before. But to-day he had seen enough to understand something of the
responsibility that rested on her, the ignorance of the servants, the
healthy, clamouring children, who would only obey _her_, and the hundred
and one daily incidents that would have worried him into a frenzy, but
which only left her serene and patient, and anxious to do her duty. The
poor wan face had grown lovely to him, and the lines on her forehead
spoke with an eloquence beyond the most passionate appeal for sympathy
that she could have uttered--what would the house be without her? What
if he were going to lose her? His heart was shaken by a terrible fear as
he sat up with misty eyes, and, brokenly uttering her name, held out his
arms imploringly.
_Oh! God, if she should never wake again!_.... But she answered him,
breathlessly, waking from a wonderful dream, in which she saw him
wandering afar through a fragrant garden, that she longed to enter--then
as she wept, despairingly hiding her face in her hands, she heard him
calling her, first softly, then louder--and louder--
And the garden faded away.
But the dawn found her sobbing out years of loneliness on her husband's
breast.
_Memoirs of a Female Nihilist._
BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. ST. M. FITZ-GERALD.
-----
III.--ONE DAY.
[Illustration: "AT BREAKFAST."]
Eight o'clock in the morning. I am taking my tea while idly turning over
the leaves of a book, when the noise of an explosion causes me to
suddenly raise my head. Explosions are not of rare occurrence at the
fortress of X----, of which the outer wall encloses several hundred
barrack rooms and places where the garrison are exercised, and I am
quite accustomed to the noise of cannon and small arms. This solitary
explosion, however, seemed so close at hand, and has so strongly shaken
the prison, that, anxious to know what has happened, I rise and approach
the door and listen. A few moments of silence--then, suddenly, from
somewhere in the corridor, comes the jingle of spurs, the clash of
swords, and the sound of voices. At first, all this noise is stationary,
then gradually it grows and appears to spread on all sides. Something
extraordinary has surely happened behind this heavy door, something is
now happening which causes me anxiety. But what is it? Standing on
tip-toes, I try to look through the small square of glass covering the
wicket, but the outside shutter is closed, and in spite of the habit
which I and other prisoners have of finding some small aperture through
which a glimpse of the corridor may be obtained, to-day I can see
nothing. Only the noise of heavy and rapid footsteps, each moment
stronger and more distinct, comes to my ears. I seem to hear in the
distance the choked and panting voice of Captain W---- asking some
question, then another nearer and unknown voice replies--"Oh! yes,
killed! Killed outright!"
[Illustration: "BREAKING THE CELL DOORS."]
Killed? Who? How and why? Killed? My God! Have I heard aright? Killed!
No, no; it is impossible! Breathless, and with beating heart, I consider
for a moment in order to find some pretext for having this heavy door
opened. Shall I ask to see the director--or the doctor--or say I am
thirsty and have no water? The latter is the most simple, and, my jug
hastily emptied, I return to the wicket to knock. In ordinary times the
slightest blow struck on the little square of glass brings my "blue
angel," the warder. Now, I knock loudly, and again and again. The
intervals seem like an eternity, but the little shutter remains closed,
while the sound of spurs, swords, and voices cross each other in the
corridor, sometimes near, then dying away into the distance. A few
moments more of anxious waiting and agony almost insupportable, then I
raise my arm determined to break the window, when a new noise from the
outside causes a shudder to run through me.
Clear and sharp, the noise is that of windows broken in rapid
succession; it is the signal that the prisoners have revolted. Distant
at first, the noise approaches with lightning-like rapidity on the side
of the principal building of the prison, and as it approaches it is
accompanied by cries and loud questioning. Without knowing the cause of
the outbreak, I seize the first hard object that comes to my hand, a
dictionary, and with one bound I am on my table, and in my turn break
the glass of my window, the fragments of which ring gaily as they fall,
some into the court-yard, and the others on the stone floor of my cell.
As the window falls to pieces a flood of light invades my cell, and I
feel the warm air, and smell a perfume as of new-mown hay. For a moment
I am blinded, suffocated, then with both hands I seize the iron bars and
draw myself up to the narrow window ledge. A confused noise of breaking
glass gradually passing away in the distance, and the cracking of wood
fills the pure air of the glorious summer morning; while on all sides
are heard the voices of anxious men and women, all asking the same
questions, "What has happened? Why are we revolting?"
[Illustration: "SHOT HIM THROUGH THE HEAD."]
For a long time these questions remain unanswered, then at last a new
and distant voice--at times rendered inaudible by the wind--announces
that a warder, or a guard, has killed one of our comrades, the prisoner
Ivanoff, in his cell, and that the prisoners in the other buildings are
breaking the furniture and the cell doors.
This reply, which comrades transmit from window to window, petrifies me.
After hearing the explosion and the words spoken in the corridor; after
a long and anxious incertitude; after this announcement of a revolt in
which I myself am taking part--the reply is not unexpected. And yet I
understand nothing of the matter; I am thoroughly upset, and my brain
refuses to understand and believe. Killed? Ivanoff, the youth whom, by
the way, I do not know personally. Killed? But why? Without weapons and
under lock and key, what can he have done to deserve death? Has he
attempted to escape? But does one attempt such an enterprise in open
day and under the eyes of sentries and warders? Besides, Ivanoff had
committed no other crime than fetching from the post-office a letter
intended for one of his friends whose name he refused to give, while the
friend, arrested since, has assumed the responsibility of the
correspondence. Ivanoff was to have been liberated on bail in the course
of a few days, and do those in such a position attempt escape on the eve
of their release? But why, why has he been killed?
These questions I ask myself while the sound of breaking glass
continues. My neighbours appear to have been pursuing a train of thought
similar to mine, for I hear several of them calling to our informant,
and enquiring, "How and why was he killed?"
Then a long, long, anxious wait, and then the reply, "Yes, killed!" Not
by a warder, but by a sentry on guard in the court-yard, who, seeing
Ivanoff at his window, shot him through the head. The occupier of a
neighbouring cell, also at that moment at his window, saw the shot
fired. Others heard the fall of the body. Some have called to him, and
received no reply; therefore Ivanoff is dead. As to why he was
assassinated, nobody knows.
This recital, several times interrupted by noises and screams, is
nevertheless clear and precise. My neighbours, one after the other,
descend from their windows, and commence to break up furniture and
attack the doors. I follow their example, and recommence my work of
destruction. Water-bottle, glass, basin, the wicket in the door, and all
that is fragile in my cell flies to pieces, and, with the broken glass
from the window, covers the floor. In spite of the feverish haste with
which I accomplish this sad task, my heart is not in the work. All this
is so unexpected, so unreal, so violent, that it bewilders me. But
through the bewilderment the questions, "Is it possible? And why?"
continue to force their way. Then I say to myself, "If this man, this
soldier, has really killed Ivanoff, it was, perhaps, in a fit of
drunkenness; or, perhaps, his gun went off accidentally; or, perhaps,
seeing a prisoner at a window, he thought it an attempt at escape."
While these ideas, rapid and confused, rush through my brain, I continue
to break everything breakable that comes under my hands--because the
others are doing the same--because, for prisoners, it is the only means
of protest. The sentiment, however, which dominates me is not one of
rage, but of infinite sadness, which presses me down and renders weak my
trembling arms.
But now the uproar augments. Several prisoners have demolished their
beds, and with the broken parts are attacking the doors. The noise of
iron hurled with force against the oak panels dominates all others.
Through my broken wicket, I hear the voice of the Commandant ordering
the soldiers to fire on any prisoner leaving his cell, and to the
warders to manacle all those who are attempting to break down their
doors.
[Illustration: "NADINE'S DOOR FORCED."]
All these noises, blended with screams and imprecations, the jingle of
spurs, the clatter of sword-scabbards crossing and recrossing each
other, excite and intoxicate me. Wild at my lack of energy and strength,
I seize with both hands my stool. It is old and worm-eaten, and after I
have several times flung it on the floor, the joints give way, and it
falls to pieces. As I turn to find some other object for destruction, a
flushed and agitated face appears at the wicket, and a moment later the
door is partly opened, and a warder pushes with violence a woman into my
cell. So great is the force employed, and so rapid the movement, that I
have difficulty in seizing her in my arms to prevent her falling upon
the floor amongst the broken glass and _débris_ of furniture.
This unexpected visitor is one of my friends and fellow-captives, Nadine
B----. Surprised at this unexpected meeting, and the conditions under
which it takes place, we are for some instants speechless, but during
those few moments I again see all our past, and also note the changes
which ten months' imprisonment have wrought in my friend; then, very
pale, and trembling with nervous excitement, Nadine explains that her
door having been forced during a struggle in the corridor, an officer
ordered her to be removed and locked up with another female prisoner.
Her cell was in the same corridor as that of Ivanoff, and of the death
of the latter there is no doubt. Several comrades, her neighbours, have
seen the body taken away. As to the grounds for his assassination, she
heard a group of officers, before her door, conversing, and one said
that the Commandant, not satisfied with the manner in which the warders
in the corridors discharged their duties in watching the prisoners, gave
orders to the sentries to watch from the court-yard and to shoot any
prisoner who appeared at his window.
This, then, is the reason for this assassination, in open day, of a
defenceless prisoner! The penalty of death for disobedience to one of
the prison regulations. Is this, then, a caprice, or an access of
ill-temper, on the part of an officer who has no authority in this
matter, since prisoners awaiting trial are only responsible to the
representatives of our so-called justice? Like a thunderclap this
explanation drives away my hesitation and sadness, which are now
replaced by indignation and a limitless horror; and while Nadine, sick
and worn, throws herself upon my bed, I mount to my window in order to
communicate the news to my neighbours. The narrow court-yard, into which
the sunshine streams, is, as usual, empty, excepting for the sentry on
his eternal march. Above the wall I see a row of soldiers and
workwomen's faces, all pale, as they look at the prison and listen to
the noises. As I appear at the window a woman covers her face with her
hands and screams, and I recognise her as the wife of one of our
comrades, a workman. This cry, this gesture, the word "torture" that I
hear run along the crest of the wall--all this at first surprises me.
As, however, I follow the direction of the eyes of those gazing at me, I
discover the cause. My hands, by which I am holding myself to the window
bars, are covered with blood, the result of my recent work of
destruction of glass and woodwork. There is blood, too, on my
light-coloured dress. Poor woman! By voice and gesture I try to calm
her. But does she hear me down there? The sentry looks towards me. He is
young and very pale, and in his eyes, stupefied by what is going on
around him, there is a world of carelessness and passiveness, and as I
look into them a shudder of agony and despair passes through me.
The voice of Nadine calling brings me to her side. Partly unconscious,
she sobs in the commencement of a nervous crisis, and asks for water.
Water! I have none. Not a drop! What is to be done?
[Illustration: "A SOLDIER SEIZES THEM."]
And while I try to calm her with gentle words and caresses, and look
round in the vain hope that some few drops of the precious fluid may
have escaped my notice, the door of the cell is suddenly opened, and
several soldiers, drunk with the uproar and the fight, rush in. A cry of
horror escapes me, and instinctively I retreat behind my bed. The noise
of chains and the voice of the Commandant ordering that all prisoners be
immediately manacled, reassures me. Ah! the chains! Only the chains! I
do not intend to resist. All resistance on my part would be useless.
Besides, I am anxious to be rid of the presence of these soldiers, and
would willingly hold out to them my bleeding hands, if a confused idea
in my brain did not tell me that such an act would be one of cowardice.
And now a soldier seizes them, and drawing them behind my back, fastens
heavy iron manacles to my wrists. Another attempts a similar operation
upon Nadine, who, frightened, struggles and screams. Making an effort to
calm her, I try to approach, but a sudden jerk on the chain attached to
my manacles causes intense pain in my arms, and a rough voice cries
"Back." Back? Why? I do not want to abandon Nadine, and instinctively I
grasp the bed behind me. Another and a stronger jerk, I stumble, and a
piece of broken glass pierces my thin shoe, and cuts my foot, and I am
pulled backwards. I am now against that part of the wall where, at the
height of about three feet, there is an iron ring, and whilst one of the
soldiers attaches my chain to this ring Nadine is dragged towards the
opposite wall.
All this passes quickly in our cell, and the soldiers are soon gone and
the door closed and locked. But in other cells prisoners resist, and as
the struggle goes on and the noise increases so does the beating of my
heart, and to me the tumult takes the proportions of a thunderstorm,
and, broken down, I listen for some time without understanding the
reason for the uproar.
Slowly the noises die away. Nadine, either calmed or worn out, sobs
quietly, and in this relative peace, the first for several hours, my
mind becomes clearer, and I begin to have some idea of what is passing
in and around me.
My principal preoccupation is Nadine. She is pale, and appears to be so
exhausted that I momentarily expect her to faint and remain suspended by
the chains that rattle as she sobs. With a negative motion of her head
and a few words, she assures me that the crisis is passed, that her arms
pain her very much, and that she is very thirsty. Chained a few steps
away, I cannot render her the slightest aid, and the thought of my
helplessness is a cruel suffering. I, too, suffer in the arms. Heavy,
they feel as though overrun and stung by thousands of insects, and, when
I move, that sensation is changed to one of intense pain. My foot, too,
is very painful, and as the blood oozes from my shoe it forms a pool,
and I am very thirsty. All these sensations are lost in my extreme
nervous excitement and anxiety for the others, who are now quiet, and
for Nadine, from whom I instinctively turn my eyes.
It is very warm, and through the broken window I see a large patch of
sky, so transparent and luminous that my eyes, long accustomed to the
twilight of my cell, can hardly stand the brightness. There is light
everywhere. The walls, dry and white at this period of the year, are
flooded with light, and the sun's rays, as they fall on the broken glass
on the floor, produce thousands of bright star-like points, flashing and
filling the cell with iridescent stars.
[Illustration: "CHAINED AND THROWN FACE DOWNWARD."]
With all this light there is the perfume-laden air blowing in at the
window, and bringing the odours of the country in summer. Such is the
quiet reigning that I can hear the sound of a distant church bell, can
count the steps taken by the sentry in the court-yard below, and can
hear the rustle of leaves of an open book on the floor, turned over by
the gentle breeze.
But this silence is only intermittent. In one of the cells during the
struggle preceding the putting on of chains the soldiers threw a
prisoner on the ground, and, in order to keep him still, one of them
knelt upon his chest. Fainting, and with broken ribs, the unfortunate is
rapidly losing his life's blood. His brother, a youth, who has been
thrown into his cell as Nadine was into mine, grows frantic at the sight
of the blood pouring from the victim's mouth, and screams for help. In
another cell a prisoner who for a long time past has suffered from
melancholia, suddenly goes mad, and sings the "Marseillaise" at the top
of his voice, laughs wildly, and then shouts orders to imaginary
soldiers. Elsewhere, of two sisters who for a long time past have shared
the same cell, the eldest, chained to the wall, is shrieking to her
sister, who, owing to the rupture of a blood-vessel, has suddenly died.
At intervals she screams--"Comrades! Helena is dying--I think she is
dead." Below, beneath our feet, a prisoner, too tightly manacled, his
hands and feet pressed back and chained behind and thrown face downward,
after making desperate efforts to turn over or keep his head up, at last
gives up the struggle, and with his mouth against the cold stones and a
choking rattle in his throat, he at intervals moans, "Oh! oh!"
Each of these cries, accompanied by the strident clank of chains,
produces upon me the effect of a galvanic battery, and I am obliged to
put forth all that remains to me of moral strength to prevent myself
from screaming and moaning like the others. With my feet in blood and my
eyes burning with weeping, and the effect of the strong light, I try to
maintain my upright position by leaning against the wall. Then from the
depths of my heart something arises which causes it to throb as though
it would burst.
I have never hated! My participation in the revolutionary movement was
the outcome of my desire to soothe suffering and misery, and to see
realised the dream of a universal happiness and a universal brotherhood;
and even here in prison, even this morning, within a few steps of an
assassinated comrade, I sought explanations, that is to say, excuses; I
thought of an accident, of a misunderstanding. Now, I hate. I hate with
all the strength of my soul this stupid and ferocious _régime_ whose
arbitrary authority puts the lives of thousands of defenceless human
beings at the mercy of any one of its mercenaries. I hate it, because of
the sufferings and the tears it has caused; for the obstacles it throws
in the way of my country's development; for the chains which it places
on thousands of bodies and thousands of souls; because of this thirst
for blood which is growing within me. Yes! I hate it, and if it sufficed
to will--if this tension of my entire being could resolve itself into
action--oh! there would at this instant be many heads forming a
_cortège_ to the bloody head of the comrade who has been so cowardly and
ferociously assassinated.
* * *
[Illustration: "REMOVED BEFORE OUR CHAINS WERE TAKEN OFF."]
Eight o'clock at night. Nadine, very ill, sleeps upon my bed, groaning
plaintively each time that an unconscious movement causes her to touch
her arms, whilst I, like all the other prisoners not invalided, remain
at my window. In spite of the silence of several months which has
imposed upon us, the conversation flags. We are too tired, and there are
too many sick amongst us; there are also the dead. Where are they now?
Removed before our chains were taken off, they will this night be buried
with other corpses of political prisoners, secretly hid away to rest by
the police in order to avoid any public manifestation on the part of
friends, or remarks on the part of the local population. These thoughts,
at intervals, awaken our anger, and then murmurs are heard. As the night
grows deeper, and the sounds of evening are lost in the mists, covering
the country as with a veil, our sick nerves become calmer, and our
hatred gives place to an immense and tender sadness. Then we talk of our
mothers, of the mother of Helena Q----, and of Ivanoff's mother, both of
whom are probably still in ignorance of the death of their children, and
are still waiting and hoping. And then we talk of the impression made
upon our parents and friends when the echoes of this terrible day reach
their ears.
Just as the rattle of drums announces that the gates of the fortress are
about to be closed for the night, we hear the tramp of soldiers and the
jingle of sword-scabbards in the ground-floor corridor. It is a
detachment of soldiers, accompanied by their officers and Captain W----,
who have come to fetch away two of our comrades in order to escort them
to the military prison. Young and vigorous, these two prisoners fought
fiercely before they were overpowered and chained, and as the Commandant
of the fortress, impatient at the duration of the struggle, took part in
it, he was roughly handled. Blows struck at a superior officer
constitute a crime for which the offenders are to be tried by
court-martial. They know it, and we know it. But this haste on the part
of the Commandant to have them in his hands--this order to transfer them
at night--which is given by the Director in a trembling voice--is it a
provocation or a folly? The outer court-yard is gradually and silently
filling with moving shadows. Rifles, of which the barrels glitter in the
starlight, are pointed towards our windows. This mute menace of a
massacre in the darkness finds us indifferent, and not one of us leaves
his or her place at the window. But some are ill, and all wounded and
tired out by the emotions and struggles of the day, and having been
without food for over twenty-six hours; and can we revolt again? As
regards the court-martial, none fear, and all would be willing to be
tried by it. Its verdicts are pitiless, terrible; but they are verdicts,
and it is an end. To-morrow, one after the other, we shall go to the
Director's cabinet, and there sign a declaration of our entire
solidarity with those who are now being taken away, and that
declaration, every word of which will be an insult thrown in the face of
the Government, will terminate by a demand for trial by court-martial,
not only of ourselves, but also of the Commandant of the fortress. This
demand, as usual, will be supported by famine, by the absolute refusal
of all prisoners to take any nourishment whatsoever, a process which
kills the prisoners, but before which the Government, anxious to avoid
the disastrous impression which these numerous deaths produce, yields,
at least in appearance. Whilst we wait all is darkness, for the warders
have not lit the little lamps. Through the disordered cells run strange
murmurs, and passions are again aroused; while below, those who are
being taken away make hasty preparations for their short journey.
I do not know them. We are about a hundred prisoners, arrested in
different parts of the province at different times, and in spite of our
being described as "accomplices," many of us have never met or heard of
each other.
[Illustration: "TIRED OUT."]
A few days later, before the windows are replaced, and the dull grey
cloud again presses upon us, the desire to see and know each other
suggests an idea. Each prisoner, standing at the window, holds a mirror
which he or she passes outside the bars. Held at an angle these pieces
of glass throw back floating images of pale, phantom-like faces, many of
them unknown or unrecognisable. Those who are to-night leaving the
prison are, for me, not even phantoms, but only voices heard for the
first time this morning, and now so soon to be silenced, by the cord of
Troloff, or in some cell at Schlüsselbourg or the Cross.[11] And yet, as
I listen to these voices dying away in the dark distance, I again
experience all the despair and all the hate of the day, and my last
"adieu" is choked in a sob--and when, a few moments later, the heavy
outer door is closed, a great shudder as of death passes over the
prison.
(_To be continued._)
[11] Troloff--the Russian public executioner. Schlüsselbourg and the
Cross--names of central prisons where the prisoners, placed in small
cells, are always chained. Deprived of books or tools, not allowed to
see their friends, forbidden to write or receive letters, those subject
to the treatment, after a few months, become mad and die.
_A Slave of the Ring._
BY ALFRED BERLYN.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN GÜLICH.
-----
[Illustration: "A TROUBLED EXPRESSION ON HIS FACE."]
The Rev. Thomas Todd, curate of S. Athanasius, Great Wabbleton, sat at
the table in his little parlour with a local newspaper in his hand and a
troubled expression on his face. There was something incongruous in the
appearance of the deep frown that puckered the curate's brows; for his
countenance, in its normal aspect, was chubby and plump and bland, and
his little grey eyes were wont to shine with a benign and even a
humorous twinkle. He was not remarkably young, as curates go; but he was
quite young enough to be a subject of absorbing interest to the lady
members of the S. Athanasius congregation, and to find himself the
frequent recipient of those marks of feminine attention which are the
recognised perquisites of the junior assistant clergy.
Two or three times, the curate raised the paper from the table and
re-read the passage that was evidently troubling him; and each time he
did so the puckers deepened, and his expression became more and more
careworn. It would have been difficult enough for a stranger to find any
clue to the cause of his agitation in the portion of the _Wabbleton Post
and Grubley Advertiser_ which the clergyman held before him; and the
wonder would certainly have been increased by the discovery that the
passage to which the reverend gentleman's attention was directed was
nothing else than the following innocent little paragraph of news:--
"Grubley.--We are asked to state that Benotti's Original Circus,
one of the oldest established and most complete in the kingdom,
will give two performances daily at Bounders Green during the whole
of next week."
There seemed little enough in such an announcement to bring disquiet to
the curate's mind. Possibly, he cherished a conscientious objection to
circuses, and remembered that, as Grubley and Great Wabbleton were only
three miles apart, a section of the S. Athanasius flock might be allured
next week by the meretricious attraction at Bounders Green. Yet even
such solicitude for the welfare of the flock of which he was the
assistant shepherd seemed scarcely to account either for his obvious
distress, or for the fragments of soliloquy that escaped him at every
fresh study of the paper.
"Here, of all places in the world--absolute ruin--no, not on any
account!"
At length, throwing down the _Post_, the curate seized his hat, started
at a rapid pace for the Vicarage, and was soon seated _tête-à-tête_ with
his superior, an amiable old gentleman with a portly presence and an
abiding faith in his assistant's ability to do the whole work of the
parish unaided.
"Vicar, do you think you can spare me for the next week or so? The fact
is, I am feeling the want of a change badly, and should be glad of a few
days to run down to my people in Devonshire."
"My dear Todd, how unfortunate! I have just made arrangements to be away
myself next week--and--and the week following. I am going up to London
to stay with my old friend Canon Crozier. I was just coming to tell you
so when you called. If you don't mind waiting till I return, I've no
doubt we can manage to spare you for a day or two. Sorry you're not
feeling well. By-the-bye, has that tiresome woman Mrs. Dunderton been
worrying you? She came here yesterday about those candles, and
threatened to write to the Bishop and denounce us as Popish
conspirators. Couldn't you go and talk to her, and see if you can bring
her to a more reasonable frame of mind?"
The talk drifted to church and parish matters, and, as soon as he
decently could, the curate took his leave, looking very much more
depressed and anxious than ever. As he raised the latch of the Vicarage
gate, a voice, whose sound he knew only too well, called to him by name;
and, turning, he beheld Miss Caroline Cope, the Vicar's daughter,
pursuing him skittishly down the garden path. Miss Caroline was not
young, neither was she amiable, and her appearance was quite remarkably
unattractive. All this would have mattered little to the curate, but
for the fact that she had lately shown for him a marked partiality that
had inspired him with considerable uneasiness. At this moment, when his
mind was troubled with other matters, her unwelcome appearance aroused
in his breast a feeling of extreme irritation.
[Illustration: "DON'T RUN AWAY FROM ME."]
"Don't run away from me, you naughty, unfeeling man," she began, with an
elephantine attempt at archness. "I was going to ask you to take me down
to the schoolrooms, but I shall have to go alone if you fly away from me
like this."
Mr. Todd, fervently wishing that flying were just then among his
accomplishments, felt that now, while he was in the humour, was the
time to free himself, finally if possible, from these embarrassing
attentions.
"I am sorry I cannot give myself the pleasure of accompanying you, Miss
Cope. I have several sick persons and others to call upon in different
parts of the parish, and my duties will fully occupy the whole of my
morning. I'm afraid I don't happen to be going in the direction of the
schools, so I must say 'good morning' here."
And the curate raised his hat and passed on, fortifying himself with the
reflection that what might in an ordinary case have been rudeness was in
this instance the merest and most necessary self-defence.
[Illustration: "A VIPEROUS LOOK IN HER FACE."]
Miss Cope stood looking after his retreating figure with a viperous look
in her face, and with a feeling of intense rage, which she promised
herself to translate into action at the very earliest opportunity.
Early in the following week, the Vicar started for London, and his
curate was left in sole charge of the parish. That there was something
amiss with Mr. Todd was evident to all who came in contact with him,
both before and after the Vicar's departure. His former geniality seemed
to have quite deserted him, and he looked worried, anxious, and ill. The
ladies of S. Athanasius were greatly concerned at the change, and
speculated wildly as to its cause. There was one among them, however,
who made no comment upon the subject, and appeared, in fact, to ignore
the curate's existence altogether. Whatever might be the source of that
gentleman's troubles, he had, at any rate, freed himself from the
unwelcome advances of Miss Caroline Cope.
The third morning after the Vicar's departure, his assistant was sent
for to visit a sick parishioner who lived just outside Great Wabbleton,
on the high road to Grubley. The summons was an imperative one; but he
obeyed it with a curious and unwonted reluctance. As he reached the
outskirts of the town and struck into the Grubley road, his distaste
for his errand seemed to increase, and he looked uneasily from side to
side with a strange, furtive glance, in singular contrast to his usual
steady gaze and cheerful smile. He reached his destination, however,
without adventure, and remained for some time at the invalid's bedside.
His return journey was destined to be more eventful. He had not
proceeded far on his way back to Great Wabbleton, when a showily-dressed
woman, who was passing him on the road, stopped short and regarded him
with a prolonged and half-puzzled stare that ended in a sudden cry of
amazed recognition. "Well--I'm blest--it's Tommy!"
[Illustration: "IT'S TOMMY!"]
She was a buxom, and by no means unattractive, person of about
five-and-thirty, with an irresistibly "horsey" suggestion about her
appearance and gait. As the curate's eye met hers, he turned deadly
pale, and his knees trembled beneath him. That which he had dreaded for
days and nights had come to pass.
"Well, I'm blest!" said the lady again, "who'd have thought of meeting
you here after all these years--and in this make-up, too! But I should
have known you among a thousand, all the same. Why, Tommy, you don't
mean to say they've gone and made a parson of you?"
The curate was desperate. His first impulse was to deny all knowledge of
the woman who stood gazing into his face with a comical expression of
mingled amusement and surprise. But her next words showed him the
hopelessness of such a course.
"You're not going to say you don't know me, Tommy, though it _is_ nigh
twenty years since we were in the ring together, and you've got into a
black coat and a dog-collar. Fancy them making a parson of you; Lord,
who'd have thought it! Well, I've had a leg-up, too, since then. I'm
Madame Benotti now. The old lady died, and he made me missus of himself
and the show. He often talks about you, and wouldn't he stare, just, to
see you in this rig-out!"
By the time, the Rev. Thomas Todd had recovered himself sufficiently to
speak, and had decided that a bold course was the safest.
"I'm really glad to see you again," he said, with a shuddering thought
of the fate of Ananias; "it reminds me so of the old times. But, you
see, things are changed with me. You remember the old gentleman who
adopted me, and took me away from the circus? Well, he sent me to school
and college, and then set his heart on my becoming, as you say, a
parson. I haven't forgotten the old days, but--but you see, if the
people round here knew about my having been----"
"Lor' bless you, Tommy," broke in the good-natured _équestrienne_, "you
don't think I'd be so mean as to go and queer an old pal's pitch; you've
nothing to fear from me; don't be afraid, there's nobody coming"--for
the curate was looking distractedly round. "Well, I'm mighty glad to
have seen you again, even in this get-up, but I won't stop and talk to
you any longer, or one of your flock might come round the corner, and
then--O my! wouldn't there be a rumpus? Ha, ha, ha!"
She laughed loudly, and the clergyman looked round again in an agony.
"Now, Tommy, good-bye to you, and good luck. But look here, before you
go, just for the sake of the old times, when you were 'little Sandy,'
and I used to do the bare-backed business, you'll give us a kiss, won't
you, old man?"
And before the unhappy curate could prevent her, Madame Benotti had
flung her muscular arms round his neck, and imprinted two sounding
kisses on his cheeks.
At that fatal moment, a female figure came round the bend of the road,
and, to his indescribable horror, the curate recognised the dread form
of the Vicar's daughter. She had seen all--of that there could be no
doubt, but she came on, passed them, and continued on her way to Grubley
without the smallest sign of recognition.
"My goodness, Tommy, I hope that old cat wasn't one of your flock,"
remarked Madame Benotti, with real concern, as soon as she had passed.
"You look as scared as if you had seen a ghost; I hope I haven't----"
But the curate waited to hear no more. With a hurried "Good-bye" he tore
himself away, and made his way back to his apartments in a state
bordering on desperation.
[Illustration: "FLUNG HER MUSCULAR ARMS ROUND HIS NECK."]
Locking himself in, he paced the room for some time, groaning aloud in a
perfect frenzy of misery and apprehension. Then he flung himself into
his chair, buried his face in his hands, and tried to think what was
best to be done. After painful and intense thought, he decided that
there was nothing for it but to tell Miss Cope the whole story, and
appeal to her honour to keep it to herself. But how if she chose to
revenge herself upon him by refusing to believe the story, or by
declining to keep it secret? He could not conceal from himself that
either of these results was more than possible. In that case, there
remained only one resource; and it was of so terrible a nature that the
curate positively shuddered at its contemplation. But it might even come
to that; and better even _that_, he told himself, than the exposure, the
ridicule, and the professional ruin that must otherwise befall him.
Hour after hour passed, and he was still nerving himself for the coming
interview, when a tap came at the door, and a note, left by hand, was
brought in to him. He glanced at the address, and tore open the envelope
with trembling hand. It contained these few words, without any sort of
preliminary:--
"I think it right to give you warning that I shall take the
earliest opportunity of making known your disgraceful conduct
witnessed by me in the public streets this morning.
"CAROLINE COPE."
The Rev. Thomas Todd placed the letter in his pocket with an air of
desperate resolve, and started forth for the Vicarage without another
moment's delay. It was now or never--if he hesitated, even for an hour,
he might be irretrievably lost.
[Illustration: "MISS COPE WAS ENGAGED."]
The first answer brought to him by the servant who opened the Vicarage
door was not encouraging. "Miss Cope was engaged, and could not see Mr.
Todd." But the curate dared not allow himself to be put off so easily.
"Tell Miss Cope I _must_ see her on business of the most serious
importance," he said; and the message was duly carried to the Vicar's
daughter. That lady, after a moment's hesitation, felt herself unable
any longer to resist enjoying a foretaste of her coming triumph, and
ordered Mr. Todd to be admitted.
The interview that followed confirmed the curate's worst fears. He told
Miss Cope the whole story, and she flatly refused to believe a word of
it. He begged her to go herself to the circus proprietor and his wife
for proof of its truth, and she simply laughed in his face. He appealed
to her honour to keep the story secret, and she coldly reminded him of
the duty that devolved upon her, in her father's absence, of protecting
the morals of his congregation.
Then at last, beaten and baffled at all points, the unhappy curate
played his final card. He offered the Vicar's daughter the best possible
evidence of his sincerity by asking her to become his wife. The effect
was magical. It was the first chance of a husband that had ever come to
Caroline in her thirty-nine years of life, and she had an inward
conviction that it would be the last. The secret she had just learnt was
known to no one in the parish but herself, and so, after a brief
pretence of further parley to save appearances, she jumped at the offer,
and the curate left the Vicarage an engaged man. His last desperate
throw had succeeded. He had saved his position and his reputation; but
at what a cost he dared not even think.
[Illustration: "SOMETHING VERY SERIOUSLY WRONG."]
Within the next day or two, it became evident to all whom he met that
there was something very seriously wrong with the Rev. Thomas Todd. His
manner became first morose and abstracted, and then wild and eccentric.
He was seen very little in the town, and when he did appear, his haggard
face, his strange, absent air, and the unmistakable evidences of the
profound depression that possessed him, were the objects of general
remark. Some of the more charitable expressed a confident opinion that
the curate had committed a crime; others decided, with more penetration,
that he was going mad. From Miss Cope he kept carefully aloof. It had
been arranged at that fatal interview that their engagement should be
kept secret until the return of the Vicar, whose sanction must be
obtained before the affair could be made public. Miss Cope was aware
that the curate had two sermons to prepare in addition to his parish
duties--for he would have to preach twice on Sunday owing to her
father's absence; so she did not allow his non-appearance at the
Vicarage on Friday or Saturday to greatly surprise her.
If she could have seen the way in which the preparation of those sermons
was proceeding, she might have found more cause for anxiety. Shut up in
his room with some sheets of blank paper before him, the curate sat for
hours together, staring vacantly at the wall before him, and
occasionally giving vent to a loud, strange laugh. The evening of
Saturday passed into night, and still he sat on, looking before him
into the darkness with the same vacant stare, and uttering from time to
time the same wild, hoarse chuckle.
[Illustration: "THE REV. THOMAS TODD WAS STANDING ON HIS HEAD."]
The light of Sunday morning, streaming into the room, fell upon a weird,
dishevelled figure, that still stared fixedly at the wall, and every now
and then muttered strange and wholly unclerical words and phrases. Still
the hours wore on, until the sun rose high in the heavens, and the bells
began to ring for church. Then came a knock at the curate's door. His
landlady, surprised by his neglect of the breakfast hour, had been
positively alarmed when he showed no sign of heeding the approach of
church time. The knock was repeated; and then the clergyman sprang to
his feet and unlocked the door.
"Wait a moment," he cried, with a wild laugh. "_Now_ come in!"
The landlady put her head in at the door, and uttered a shriek of horror
and amazement. The Rev. Thomas Todd was standing on his head in the
middle of the hearthrug.
"God bless us and save us--the poor gentleman's gone clean out of his
wits!"
The curate's only reply was a shrill whoop, followed by an agile leap
into an upright position, and a wild grab at the terrified lady, whose
thirteen stone of solid matronhood he whirled round his head and tossed
across the room as if it had been a feather-weight. Then, hatless and
unkempt, he tore down stairs into the street, and started at a furious
pace in the direction of S. Athanasius.
It was three minutes to eleven, and the last stroke of the clanky
church-bell had just died away in a series of unmusical vibrations. The
townspeople, in all the added importance of Sunday clothes, gathered in
an ever-thickening knot about the gates, greeting one another before
they passed on into the church. At that moment, there floated towards
them on the breeze a sudden, sharp shout that rooted them to the spot in
positive consternation.
[Illustration: "SCATTERED THEM RIGHT AND LEFT."]
"Houp-la! Houp-la! Hey! Hey!! Hey!!!" And in another instant the
unfortunate curate, tearing down the road, had flung himself among them
and scattered them right and left by a series of vigorous and
splendidly-executed somersaults. With a well-directed leap, and a wild
cry of "Here we are again!" he vaulted lightly over the church gate, and
began to run up the path towards the door, until, at last, the horrified
onlookers awoke to the realities of the situation and half-a-dozen
sturdy townsmen rushed upon and seized the unhappy man. Then a woman's
piercing scream was heard, and the Vicar's daughter, who had just
arrived on the scene, fell fainting to the ground.
There was no service at S. Athanasius that morning, and the Rev. Thomas
Todd was later on conveyed, still shouting fragments of circus dialogue,
to the County Lunatic Asylum. The curate's mind had temporarily given
way beneath the strain of the position in which he had found himself
placed, and of the horrible future that lay before him, and his insanity
had taken the form of an imaginary return to the scenes of his early
life. When, some two years later, he was discharged cured, he attached
himself to a mission about to start for the South African Coast, and
left England without re-visiting Great Wabbleton.
Long afterwards, Miss Caroline Cope, in a burst of confidence, one day
related to her special friend, Miss Lavinia Murby, the doctor's
daughter, how the Rev. Thomas Todd had proposed to her a few days before
his melancholy seizure.
"Ah, my dear, you see he couldn't have been right, even then," was that
lady's sympathetic comment.
[Illustration: "'HE COULDN'T HAVE BEEN RIGHT, EVEN THEN.'"]
_People I Have Never Met._
BY SCOTT RANKIN.
-----
ZANGWILL.
[Illustration]
"I will show this Anglo-Jewish community that I am a man to be
reckoned with. I will crush it--not it me. Then some day it will
find out its mistake; and it will seize the hem of my coat, and
beseech me to be its Rabbi. Then, and only then, shall we have true
Judaism in London.
"The folk who compose our picture are children of the Ghetto. If
they are not the children, they are at least the grandchildren of
the Ghetto."
--"CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO."
[Illustration: THE IDLER'S CLUB
SUBJECT FOR DISCUSSION
"TIPPING."]
[Sidenote: Joseph Hatton on the art of tipping.]
Almost everything has been reduced to an art. You can learn journalism
outside a newspaper, playwriting by theory, French without a master. How
to succeed in literature and how not; both ways have been laid down for
the student. There is scarcely an art or a habit you cannot learn in
books. Etiquette, how to make up, stock-jobbing, acting, gardening, and
a host of intellectual pursuits, have their rules and regulations; but
the mysterious and delicate art of tipping as yet remains unexploited in
the social ethics of this much-taught generation. It is high time that
the proper method of giving tips should be defined, its laws codified,
its many possibilities of error guarded against, and some system set
forth whereby the tipper may give the greatest satisfaction to the
tipped at the most moderate, if not the least, outlay in current coin of
the realm. The art could be illustrated with many examples from the
earliest times. Pelagia's tip to Hypatia's father was the dancer's
cestus, which was jewelled with precious stones enough to stock the shop
of a Bond Street jeweller of our own time. According to the truthful
interpretation of the old English days which we find in the drama, the
most popular method of tipping was to present your gold in a long,
knitted purse, which you threw at the tippee's feet or slapped into the
palm of his hand; but this system seems to have lapsed; and no fresh
regulation has been established in the unwritten laws of the _douceur_,
which goes back even before the days when extravagant and unwilling tips
were often enforced with pincers, racks, and other imperative
inventions. Monte Cristo gave wonderful tips, and Monte Carlo is lavish
to this day. The genius that wrecked Panama has an open hand. Promoters
of London companies know how to be liberal. Not much art is required, I
believe, to distribute largess of this kind. Nor are certain classes of
American aldermen difficult to deal with. The art that should be made
most clear is how to pay your host's servants for your host's
hospitality; how to show your gratitude to a newspaper man without
hurting his _amour propre_; how to meet the requirements of the
middleman of life and labour without "giving yourself away"; how to tip
the parson when you are married; and, in this connection, one may remark
the consolation of dying; the tippee does not trouble you at your own
funeral.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: With reference to waiters, deans, and other public servants.]
The waiter at public dinners is a very considerate person. He assists
you in every possible way he can. With every dish he practically jogs
your memory; and, as an accompaniment to the dessert, he informs you
that he "must now leave"; is there "anything else he can do for you?" If
you are of a reflective nature you may, in a moment of abstraction, rise
from your seat and shake hands with him; but if, as a right-minded
citizen, you have constantly in view the universal claim upon your
purse, you will thank your friendly and condescending attendant, and pay
him for the services he has rendered to his employer. You may in your
thoughtlessness and abstraction have jeopardised the success of the
waiter's arrangements for carrying off a certain bottle of wine which he
had planted for convenient removal. How much you should give him is
considered to depend upon the quality of the wine which you have been
fully charged for with your ticket; and this question of cuisine and
wine still further complicates the difficult adjustment of the rightful
claims of the attendant and what is due to your own honour, not to
mention your reputation as a _gourmet_. An irreverent American, after a
first experience, I conclude, of English travel, said that you are safe
in tipping any Britisher below the dignity of a bishop; but a
fellow-countryman, guided by this opinion, felt very unhappy when,
after being shown over a famous cathedral by the dean, he slipped
half-a-sovereign into his very reverend guide's hand, and received, in
return, an intimation that the poor's box was in the porch. I remember
on one occasion, when I was investigating a question that called for
special courtesy on the part of a public official, I was disturbed
during my work with the question whether I might tip him, and, if so, to
what extent. The subject almost "got on my nerves" before the inquiry,
which lasted an hour or two, came to an end; at last I determined that
it was a case for a tip. I gave him ten shillings. For a moment I
thought I had offended him, and, remembering the dean and the poor box,
was about to say, "Give it to a charity," when the official plaintively
inquired if I couldn't "make it a sovereign?"
* * * * *
[Sidenote: He discourses concerning the ethics of tipping.]
Give up the idea that tipping will succumb to any agitation. So long as
commodities have to be paid for in cash, and not in fine words and sweet
smiles, tipping will exist. The moralist may rave against it, but ask
him in what way his gratitude manifests itself when a railway porter
politely relieves him of half-a-dozen bags, and deposits them in a snug
corner, whilst he has barely time to take his ticket at the
booking-office. It is surely impossible to abuse the same porter if, out
of a feeling of recognition for favours previously received, he leaves
the belated passenger to manage the best way he can under a cartload of
shawls, rugs, hat and bonnet-boxes, to attend again to your comforts.
You hardly sympathise with your fellow-traveller, although he may be
using very strong language against the identical porter, in whose
favour, for the second time, you part with a few coppers. It is the
desire to secure the comforts and commodities provided by the activity
of others that will perpetuate tipping. After all, this is not limited
to menials. It is given, and unscrupulously accepted by all grades of
society, and by all conditions of men. I have known a company director
give to a titled nobody a berth promised to someone else, because he had
been familiarly addressed by His Lordship in a public place, and had
been "honoured" by a few minutes' conversation. That was not, of course,
a tip in the ordinary sense of the word, but it amounted, however, to
the same thing. It secured a good berth to his "Excellency." And what
say you of the whiskies and waters, brandies and sodas, the champagne,
oysters, luncheons, and dinners to which our good city men generously
ask a would-be customer? That, I suppose, is called "paving the way to a
good business." I have not unfrequently heard people regret that they
were unable to refuse a favour in return for a civility. That civility
was most likely a dinner, or even something less. Kisses distributed by
ladies in hotly-contested constituencies, the promise of a Government
post, an invitation to a party, a mere familiar recognition, a penny,
are all varieties which make the thing so general.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: He believes the custom will die out with human nature.]
Wedding presents are not given without an _arrière pensée_, and at
Christmas our object is mostly to please the parents. Our indignation,
however, is not roused by this, because we are in the habit, I suppose,
of distributing and receiving such acknowledgments ourselves. We want to
suppress small tips; in fact, such as are most wanted by the recipient,
whose only source of revenue they constitute in many cases. We fail to
realise that, were servants well paid, "tipping" would not take the form
of an imposition. Employers, especially at hotels and restaurants,
either give ridiculously low wages, or suppress these altogether, and in
many establishments hire the tables to the waiters at so much a day or
week for the privilege of serving. At present this custom has become so
deeply rooted that it has given growth to a most perfect secret code of
signs and marks by which each class of servants is informed how much he
has to expect from the liberality of the inexperienced and unwary
stranger. This applies especially to hotel servants, and has become the
crying abuse against which we try to react. This code is not local, but
has acquired an internationality which professors of Volapuk would be
proud to claim for their language. I remember once an irascible old
gentleman complaining bitterly against the incivility of the hotel
servants, who never helped him with his traps. He found no exception to
the rule except when his wanderings took him to some remote part of
Scotland, where, he assured me, the "_braying of the socialist pedants
had not yet been heard_." I suspected that my friend was not
over-generous, and timidly sounded him on the point. His reply confirmed
my suspicion. I thereupon showed him the cause of the servants'
inattention, amounting sometimes even to rudeness--a _little chalk mark
on each bag_. I advised him to carefully wipe that off after leaving the
hotels. The effect was most satisfactory--my friend has had no reason
to complain since, at least when he got into a hotel. The position of
hotel labels also serves to indicate if anything can be expected from
the traveller. Of course, this is not countenanced by "mine host," who
dismisses the user of such messages, but as that man is generally a
wide-awake and useful rogue, there is little doubt but that he is
reinstated in his functions shortly after the traveller is gone. Beggars
and tramps have a similar system of conveying to their _confrères_
information as to the likely reception they may expect from the
occupants of the different residences on the road. They never fail to
warn them against dogs and other disagreeable surprise or dangers,
should they by some unaccountable absent-mindedness forget that there is
such a thing as the eighth commandment. In conclusion, _pourboire_,
_buona mancia_, _backshish_, tipping or bribery, was born with man, and
will only die out with him.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Giuseppe of the Cafe Doney, at Florence: his experience.]
Ah! Milor, what do I think of "teeping?" What would become of me without
it? In some forty or fifty years I shall be a rich man, and perhaps keep
a _café_ myself, thanks to the benevolence and generosity of the
American and English milors. At first I was a cabman, but in Italy no
one gives the cabman a _pourboire_; so my friends said, "Ah! Giuseppe,
you must make money somehow. Become a waiter, and you will grow rich."
So they took me to our padrone, and he made me a waiter, and I am
growing rich on "teeps." But it is not my own compatriots, Milor, who
make me rich. When I attend one of them, he will only give me ten
centimes (a penny), and if I attend two of them they will give me
fifteen centimes between them. But the English and Americans will
sometimes give me fifty or a hundred centimes at a time. But, alas! that
happens very seldom. When I am in luck I save two hundred centimes a day
(1s. 8d.), and shall, in a great many years, have a _café_ of my own.
Perhaps Milor will assist? _Grazie._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The head waiter at the ---- sets forth his views.]
Instead of complaining against tipping, the public should oblige the
employers to pay their servants more liberally. In modern
restaurants--and I suppose the custom has come from Paris--waiters have
to pay the employers sums varying from one to four shillings a day
according to the number and position of tables they serve. Their work
averages from fourteen to sixteen hours a day. It begins at eight, and
sometimes long after midnight they are still at work. Out of their
earnings they have to pay all breakages and washing, and, for the thirty
to thirty-five shillings they earn a week, they have to put up, from a
class of customers, with patience and a perpetual smile, more abuse than
one in any other ten men would stand. It not unfrequently happens that a
waiter would do without it rather than accept a tip which assumes the
form of an insult. We look upon it as a remuneration due to us, and,
after trying to satisfy the client, we do not see why he should think it
an unbearable nuisance, and treat the recipient with contempt. In many
cases, after exacting the most constant attention, and heaping unmerited
abuse on the irresponsible waiter, the client who has most likely spent
on himself enough to keep a family a whole week, grudges the sixpence he
has to give the attendant, and makes him feel it by throwing the coppers
down, accompanying the action by an insulting remark. Like all men whose
business it is to minister to the comfort of others, many among us are
very shrewd observers, and can tell at a glance what treatment we may
expect from certain customers, and we behave accordingly. We are seldom
mistaken in our judgment. Experience has taught us that the most
generous, and at the same time most gentlemanly, "tippers" are the
Israelitish Anglo-German financiers. There is a difference between them
and the young spendthrift who inconsiderately throws away his money. No,
sir, the Anglo-German banker, orders, goes carefully through the
account, and then gives his money liberally. After him comes the
Russian. The Englishman, who is next best, is closely followed by the
French and German.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: His opinion of Americans as tippers.]
The American is nowhere. It is a mistaken idea to believe that he is
generous. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but the majority
of them come out here just to see the sights, and talk about them on
their return. A certain sum is laid aside for the purpose, and I am sure
they contrive to make economies upon it. The Americans are, besides,
disagreeable to serve. They never lose the opportunity of making
disparaging comparisons between their country and the old world. Our
restaurants are country inns compared to theirs, their waiters are
smarter, their services of better class, our cooking is miles behind
theirs, and as to concoction of drinks, of course we have to take a
back seat. We are also very slow. A steak, in Chicago, for instance, is
cooked in about the fifteenth of the time required here. When it comes
to paying, the American finds that everything is also dearer over here;
gives very little or nothing to _that inattentive waiter_, threatens to
lodge a complaint against him, and goes away satisfied that everyone is
impressed by the grandeur of the Great Republic as represented by
himself, one of its worthy citizens.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Of Scotchmen and millionaires.]
In England, the Scotch are the least liberal. In Scotland, waiters and
hotel servants are paid. An attempt to introduce in Edinburgh the
continental system failed most ignominiously in 1886, and the
enterprising _restaurateur_ had to revert to the local system, and
replace all the former waiters, who ran back to London rather than be
reduced to the dire necessity of going into the workhouse. Young men, as
a rule, are more generous than elderly people, and the fair sex is, in
general, very stingy. A gentleman accompanied by a lady, if she is only
an acquaintance, is sure to tip generously, _pour la galerie_, although
he may look as if he wanted to accompany every penny by a kick. But when
the same person dines with his wife or sister, the remuneration is as
small as decency can permit. When a waiter spots such a relation between
a party of diners, he generally tries to escape the obligation of
offering them a table. At the large restaurants we gauge the diners'
liberality very frequently at one glance, and in any case form an
accurate opinion of him by the way he orders his _menu_. We know whether
we have to do with a gentleman or a cad, and whether his subsequent
parsimoniousness is caused by cussedness or simply ignorance of the
customs of such establishments, and we treat him in consequence. It is
pitiful sometimes to see all the ruses employed by well-meaning people,
unwilling to be thought unaccustomed to the life of a large restaurant,
and my advice to such persons would be to remain natural rather than
become ridiculous. The manner in which the tip is given varies according
to the nationality and character of the donor. The most ostentatious
among these is the South American millionaire, whose gift varies
according to the number of people present. As a rule, the wealthy man is
not generous.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A commissionnaire can tell people's dispositions at sight.]
I can say at first sight whether a person is of a kindly disposition,
for I would rather assist such a person and get nothing than one who
makes me feel the weight of his liberality. The amount a man may make
depends a great deal on his wits. To forestall a gentleman's wishes,
give him the necessary information, and to the point; to assist him when
assistance is most needed, and not before, is what is most appreciated.
When in a theatre I see a couple occupying a bad seat, when better ones
are vacant, I make the suggestion, and would certainly be astonished if
the gentleman did not acknowledge the hint. When the working classes do
not syndicate they have to accept wages so ridiculously low that they
are obliged to find some means of increasing their earnings. But will it
ever be possible to suppress the "evil"? Allow me to doubt it. The thing
is, therefore, to prevent tipping taking the form of an imposition. This
can only be done by paying good wages.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Barr gives the straight tip.]
A native of Cuba once said to me, with an air of proud superiority, "We
have the yellow fever _always_ in Havana." I was unable to make any such
boastful claim for North America, and so the Cuban rightly thought he
had the advantage of me. They think nothing of the yellow fever in
Havana, but when the malady is imported into Florida the people of that
peninsula become panic-stricken. The yellow fever in the Southern States
strikes terror. It seems to be worse in its effects when it enters the
States than it is where they always have it. So it is with tipping. It
is always present in Europe in a mild form, but periodically tipping
swoops down upon the United States, and its effects are dreadful to
contemplate. If tipping ever becomes epidemic in America, the
unfortunate citizens will have to leave, and seek a cheaper country, for
the haughty waiter in an American hotel scorns the humbler coins of the
realm, and accepts nothing less than half a dollar. Happily, tipping
has, up to date, been more or less of an exotic in America, but I have
grave fears that the Chicago Exhibition, attracting as it does so many
incurable tippers from Europe, will cause the disease to take firm root
in the States, and entail years of suffering hereafter.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Summing up.]
I do not agree with the member of the club who holds in one paragraph
that Scotsmen are mean in the giving of tips. Speaking as a Scotsman
myself, I admit that we like to go the whole distance from Liverpool
Street to Charing Cross for our penny. We desire to get the worth of
our bawbee. And it is a cold day when we don't. But it must be
remembered that a Scotsman is conscientious, and he knows that tipping
is an indefensible vice, so he discourages it as much as possible, being
compelled by custom to fall in with it. Then, again, the man who claims
that Americans are not liberal doesn't know what he is talking about.
The trouble with the American is that he does not know the exact amount
to give, and that bothers him, and causes him to curse the custom in
choice and varied language. Speaking now as an American, I will give a
tip right here. If Conan Doyle, or George Meredith, or some author in
whom Americans have confidence, would get out a book entitled, say, "The
Right Tip, or Tuppence on the Shilling," giving exactly the correct sum
to pay on all occasions, Americans would buy up the whole edition and
bless the author. I think Americans are altogether too lavish with their
tips, and thus make it difficult for us poorer people, whom nobody tips,
to get along. A friend of mine, on leaving one of the big London hotels,
changed several five pound notes into half-crowns, and distributed these
coins right and left all the way from his rooms to the carriage, giving
one or more to every person who looked as if he would accept. He met no
refusals, and departed amidst much _éclat_. He thought he had done the
square thing, as he expressed it, but I looked on the action as
corrupting and indefensible. He deserves to have his name blazoned here
as a warning, but I shall not mention it, merely contenting myself by
saying that he was formerly a United States senator, was at that time
Minister to Spain, and is at the present moment President of the World's
Fair.
* * * * *
The portrait of Mrs. Henniker, which appeared in _The Idler_ for
May--"LIONS IN THEIR DENS": V. THE LORD LIEUTENANT AT DUBLIN
CASTLE--was from a photograph taken by Messrs. WERNER AND SON, OF
DUBLIN.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July
1893, by Various
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