:>£W SFRCSS ' A <>
LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, 50A ALBBMARLE STBHBT, W.I.
[All rigkte, including the rig\t ofpullithinff Trantlationt tf Artitln in thi« 3taga»ine, are reserved.]
FOR TBAfflMIUIOK TO OAHABA AITB KlWV«Y5Dia5» ft UA»AEISK FotT,
BY SPECIAL
APPOINTMENT
To THEIR MAJESTIES THE KING AND QUEEN AND H.M. QOBBN ALEXANDRA.
WINSOR & NEWTON, LTD.
MANUFACTURERS OF PERMANENT OIL AND WATER COLOURS AND ALL ARTISTS' SUNDRIES.
W. & N. have in stock a large assortment of the nev
A. C. M.
English Hand-made Water-Colour Paper.
Great care and thought has been bestowed in the preparation of this, and it can be recommended to Water-Colour Artists with every confidence.
It is a most reliable paper and can be supplied in the usual Hot-pressed, Not, and Rough surfaces,
Pleasant and agreeable in working.
Full detailed list on application to the leading Artists' Colourmen throughout the Country or from
RATHBONE PLACE, W. 1. Established nearly a Centuty.
Founded I8S6.
Patrons — THE KING AND QUEEN.
Remember the Sailors whose undaunted heroism, during the Submarine peril, saved us from Starvation.
The Missions to Seamen is the greatest agency in the World ministering to the spiritual and Social needs of our
BRITISH SEAMEN
in all the PRINCIPAL PORTS at HOME AND ABROA]
FUNDS are urgent y needed for extensions, especially
in the great Continental Ports, e g Antwerp, Rotterdam,
Dunkerque, Marseilles, and in South America.
The loss on Exchange in many Co -nines and the great rise in prices have thrown a heavy burden on the Society.
Please send a Gift as a
THANKOFFERIMG for VICTORY and PEACE.
STUART C. KNOX, M.A., Secretary.
THE MISSIONS TO SEAMEN, 11 Buckingham St.. Strand, London, W.C.2
THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE ADVERTISER, MAR. 1920.
Office for Advertisements: 16 Regent Street, London, 8.W 1
REQUIRES NO HEAT. WARRANTED INDELIBLE
NICKEL. LINEN STRETCHER WITH EACH I/- S I Z E OF ALL STATIONERS CHEMISTS & STORES OR POST FREE FOR la STAMPS FROM THE INVENTORS.
WALKDEN f?
" Old Reliability.
SOLD BY STATIONERS AND JEWELLERS.
MABIE, TODD & Co., Ltd., Swan House, 133-135 Oxford St., London, W. i.
London Branches : 79 & 80 High Holborn, W.C. 1 ; 97 Ctieapside, E.C. 2; 204 & 95a Regent Street, W. 1 ; and at 3 Exchange Street. Manchester. Paris, Brussels, Zurich, Sydney, Toro to and Cape Town. Factories : London, Liverpool, New Yo.k and Toronto.
SWAN VESTAS
THE SMOKER'S MATCH.
THE LEADING LIGHT OF THE SMOKERS' WORLD.
BRYANT & MAY, Ltd.
SHAVING IS A PLEASURE
to the man who regularly uses Wright's Shaving Soap. He looks forward to his morning shave as a pleasant part of the day's routine, because
WRIGHT'S
COAL TAR
SHAVING SOAP
gives a creamy, lasting lather, has an agree- able perfume, protects from infection, and ensures an easy com- fortable and healthful shave every time.
A daily joy to the man who shaves."
Price 1/3 per stick or tablet.
If any dif cutty in obtaining, write to
WRIGHT, LAYMAN & UMNEY, LTD., Southwark, London, S.E. I.
BJ
Jn the Shadort of<S*F>aLik
for Floor
Ludgate HilL/^ Carpets" • _ r
TRELOAR.
Call and Inspect or write for Patterns and Prices
68-69 7O, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON. E.C4 TelephoneNos-CENTRAL (lit !
KING'S HEAD
Tobacco
A right rich tobacco — cool and fragrant.
IHREEMUNS
— a milder blend.
Both are sold everywhere at the same price 1-oz. packets lljd Tins : 2-oz. 1/11— 4-oz. 3/10
"Three Nuns" Cigarettes
In
10's
20*s
50's
100's
lld 2/2* 4/3 1/2 2/11 5/10
Stephen Mitchell & Son, Branch of the Imperial Tobacco
Company (of Gt. Britain & Ireland) Ltd., 36 St. Andrew
Square, Glasgow (667)
By Rear-Admiral
R. A. HOPWOOD, C.B.
THE OLD WAY
and other Poems. 3rd Impression.
THE NEW NAVY
and other Poems. THE
SECRET OF THE SHIPS
and other Poems.
4s. 6d. net each.
" It is the jolly, breezy, ringing quality of his lyrics which has made Rear-Admiral Ronald A. Hopwood the chosen Laureate of the Fleet. The Admiral has the right spirit, and the jolly, haunting melody of the 'chantey.' He never strikes a false note, nor pipes a ditty out of tune."
Daily Telegraph.
LONDON : JOHN MURRAY
ERNEST WEEKLEY
M.A., Professor of French, University College, Nottingham.
THE
ROMANCE OF WORDS
" A book of extraordinary interest ; everyone interested in words should immediately obtain a copy." — Spectator.
. THIRD EDITION, 5s. net. THE
ROMANCE OF NAMES
" Under Professor Weekley's guidance a study of the origin and significance of sur- names becomes full of fascination for the general reader." — Truth.
SECOND EDITION, 5», net.
SURNAMES
" Mr. Weekley inspires confidence by his scholarly method of handling a subject which has been left, for the most part, to the amateur or the crank " — Spectator.
SECOND EDITICN, 6s. net.
LONDON : JOHN MURRAY
THE BEST INVESTMENT.
Actual Result of a Sun Life of Canada 2O-year Investment Policy Matured in 1919.
Twenty years ago Mr. H. H., then 31 years of age, entered into an agreement which has turned out to be the best investment he has ever made. As the result of the transaction he has just received the sum of £1,385.
Now to secure this welcome addition to his Capital, Mr. H. H. simply had to deposit each year for twenty years, with the Sun Life of Canada, £50 19s. On this sum he saved, each year, a proportion of his Income Tax. If this had been on present rate, the saving would have been no less than £7 10s. yearly, reducing annual deposit to £43 9s.
Altogether the Investor deposited £1,019 less tax saved (on present rate, £150 or £869 net) and received £1,385. So the trans- action shows a profit of £516, to which must be added a very con- siderable advantage, that of a free Insurance Policy for £1,000, plus half of any Deposits that have been made. This free Insurance is probably the chief factor in inducing thoughtful and far-seeing people to take up this particular form of Investment. From the moment the first Deposit is made the investor's life is insured for the Capital sum agreed upon, plus 50 per cent, of all Deposits. What other investment protects the interest of dependants so fully ? Fortunately the dependants of Mr. H. H. did not have occasion to take advantage of this arrangement, but the protection was there all the time, and things might have turned out otherwise. As it was Mr. H. H. could himself benefit by the result of his thrift, and he is to-day firmly convinced that the transaction has been a most profitable one.
He could, had he so desired, have taken instead of cash, a Life Policy of £2,630, payable at death without any further Deposits being made, or an Annuity for Life of £112 per annum. Other options were also offered him.
The Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, which specialises in Investment-Insurance and Annuities, has plans which will appeal to almost every Investor and prove equally profitable to the one outlined. Its assets are over £20,000,000, the Investor's interest are protected in every way, not only by the Company's sound finance, but by strict Government supervision.
Anyone interested should write at once for further particulars, giving his or her own age and the amount he would be prepared to invest yearly. Communications, which will be treated in confidence, should be sent to J. F. Junkin (Manager), Sun Life of Canada, 100 Canada House, Norfolk Street, London, W.C. 2.
Choose your nib now
Gillott's sample box of pens enables you to choose your own nib for any writing purpose. Contains a large assortment of styles — hard points, soft points, broad and fine points — and every hand can be exactly suited.
Get a Gi lott sample box from your Stationer to-day. 6d. a box or post free for 7d. m sta i ps.
JOSEPH
GILLOTT'S
PENS
JOSEPH GILLOTT
& SONS,
6 Thavies Inn, Holborn, LONDON, E.C. i.
MEMORIALS:^
BRONZE, BRASS, MARBLE. ~ LECTERN S.V CROSSES. EUCHARISTIC : VESSELS.
HART, SON, PEARD&8I
LONDON. COMMERCE HOUSE, - 72, OXFORD STREET, W.I. BIRMINGHAM. GROSVENOR ST WESI
DELICIOUS FRENCH COFFEE,
RED WHITE *BLUE
FOP Breakfast it after Dinner.
Announcement cf the METROPOLITAN COLLEGE, the 'Varsity of Secretarial and Accountcno Training.
Why not spend a cosy half-hour in scanning the "Students' Guide"? The "Open Sesame (!)" to success in
ACCOUNTANCYiSECRETARYSHIP
The sine qua non of
SUCCESS
in the vast sphere of
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
is a competent knowledge of
ACCOUNTANCY
and/or
SECRETARYSHIP;
the most essential of all qualifications
for those desirous to rise to and retain
managerial or other responsible status
in any description of business.
SPECIALISED POSTAL TRAINING- TAKEN AT HOME, IN SPARE TIME
In return for a moderate fee— which may be made by instalments if preferred — and leisure time study in the quiet comfort of your own home, YOU can multiply your present business value many times over, so paving the way to Prosperity.
Every day you grow older. Don't delay! Send
to-day for the " Students' Guide," and learn bow
to fortify your future.
METROPOLITAN COLLEGE
Dept. 47, ST. ALBANS.
illllilllliill
— The Pen for busy men.
Read this —
gth November, 1919. Gentlemen,
EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO I BOUGHT ONE OF your Water- man's Ideal Pens and have had it in constant use since. To-day it is as good and as serviceable as when I first had it, and during the whole of that time has not given the slightest trouble.
Yours faithfully,
W. P. ALLEN.
No. 12 "Regular" at 12/6; No. 42 " Safety " Also Presentation Pens in Silver and Gold,
at 17/6 ; No. 52 " Self-Filling " at 17/6. Also Nibs to suit all hands (exchanged gratis if not
see No. 54 " Self-Filling," with extra large nib, right). Of Stationers and Jewellers everywhere,
at 22/6. Large variety of sizes and styles. Write for Illustrated List to—
L.G.Sloan, Ltd., ChelJeti<£oriter,Kingsway, London, W C 2.
"The Sister of Literature-Tobacco"
PtoF. SirVVkllerRaieiqh in theTimes'
'A pipe.1" It is a great soother a pleasant comforter. Blue devils Fly before it's honest breath. It ripens the brain, it opens the heart; and the man who smokes thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan"
CORD LYTTON
PLAYER'S
IN THREE STRENGTHS
MIXTURE
Pipe Perfect
PLAYER'S NAVY MIXTURE is everything that a tobacco can be. It is cool and even burning, with a bouquet as distinct and delicate as that of some rare vintage wine.
JOHN PLAYER & SONS, NOTTINGHAM.
P.830
Branch of The imperial Tobacco Co. (of Great Britain and Ireland), Ltd.
Barr's Vegetable Seeds.
The excellence and purity of our strains of Vegetable
Seeds have been recognised by the following Awards —
Five Cold Medals and Four Silver Gilt Medals
by the Royal Horticultural Society, London.
Three Cold Medals by the National Vegetable Society, and
Two Silver Gilt Medals at Shrewsbury.
BARR'S SEED GUIDE (free) contains a list of the best Vegetable and Flower Seeds of finest selected Strains and Tested Growth.
BARR & SONS, 11, 12 & 13 King St., Covent Garden, London, W.C. 2.
By HENRY SETON MERRIMAN
Fourteen Volumes, with a Biographical Introduction in the First Volume by E.F.S. and S.G.T.
Bound in cloth, 4s. net each ; or in leather, 5s. net each. The 14 Vols. in gold lettered
case, cloth, 63s. net ; leather, 84s. net
i. The Slave of the 5. The Grey Lady.
Lamp.
2. The Sowers.
3. From one Genera- tion to Another.
4. With Edged Tools.
6. Flotsam.
7. In Kedar's Tents.
8. Roden's Corner.
9. The Isle of Unrest. 10. The Velvet Glove.
1 1 . The Vultures.
12. Barlasch of the Guard.
13. Tomaso's Fortune, and other Stories.
14. The Last Hope.
JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street, LONDON, W.I.
THE PRICE OF GAS
is conditioned by
The Cost of Labour and the Cost of Material
Here are some straightforward facts. Since 1914
Labour has on the average increased 300%
Coal — the chief raw material . . . 150%
Oil — largely used in manufacture . 300%
Machinery and other plant . . . 200%
The aver age price of gas has increased less than 100%
THE BRITISH ^jp*""^ 47 VICTORIA STREET COMMERCIAL jjVcSl WESTMINSTER GAS ASSOCIATION |BME^lgl LONDON, S.W.I
THERE IS MUCH SUFFERING
among the very Poor, including numbers of men who have
FOUGHT FOR THEIR KING AND COUNTRY,
THE CHURCH ARMY
relieves it, by sympathetic, common-sense, and non- pauperising methods.
FOR EX-SERVICE MEN. — Employment
Bureau, with Welfare Branch ; Farm Training ;
Hostels for Limbless ; Friends of Shell Shocked ;
care of Motherless Children, &c., &c.
FOR TROOPS STILL SERVING.— Huts
on the Rhine and in France and Belgium, &c., &c.
FUNDS ARE URGENTLY NEEDED. Cheques crossed « Barclays',
a/c Church Army," payable to Prebendary Carlile,D.D., Hon. Chief Secretary,
Headquarters, Bryanston Street, Marble Arch, W. i.
t« learn. The complete theory can be acquired in 24 hours, after which practice only is necessary to reach 120 to 200 words per minute. The recent High Court case {Dutton v. Pitman) proved that members of Government Services had wholly acquired the system after 24 hours study and had become fully qualified stenographers in 4 to 6 weeks. A 19 year old DUTTON writer was tested in open court and reached a speed of 150 words per minute. Send 2 stamps for 20-page Illustrated booklet, " All about Dutton's Shorthand," containing specimen lesson, comparison with other systems, and details of the Correspondence and Personal courses of tuition.
Also Specialited Rapid Postal and Oral Courses in Book-
keeping, Typewriting, Commercial Correspondence
mnd Esperanto \Tht International Auxiliary Language.)
DUTTON'SBUSINESS COLLEGE (Desk 99) SKEGNES8.
(London Branch : 92 & 03 Great Russell Street, W.C. i.)
(Manchester Branch: Victoria Buildings, Manchester.)
j F<rr denning Silver, fikctro Plate &c
Goddard's
Plate Powder
Sold everywhere €d V- 2c &4'c. •
GODDARD &SO1VS, Station Street, Leicester.
ALL APPLICATIONS FOR ADVERTISEMENTS IN
Mr. JOHN MURRAY'S PUBLICATIONS
TO BE MADE TO
Advertisement Offices: 16 REGENT ST., LONDON, S.W. I.
QUARTERLY REVIEW. CORNHILL MAGAZINE. DISCOVERY. BULLETIN OF THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE. PUBLICATIONS OF THE CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION,
ETC.
9
THE
PRICE OF FISH
J7OR more than four years our deep sea fishermen confronted perils which brought out the high courage for which they are famous. They won the admiration of the whole country, and they are entitled to its gratitude. That gratitude can best be shown by practical help, and such assistance can best be administered by a long established society whose sole work is amongst our splendid toilers of the deep. That organisation is The Royal National Mission to Deep Soa Fishermen which ceaselessly attends to the spiritual and physical needs of our fishermen, afloat and ashore, and has done much for their widows and orphans and depen- dents. Fish is dear in these days — the con- sumer pays a heavy price ; but ^he fisherman pays a far heavier one in toll of life and limb and property, and on his behalf the Council of the Mission earnestly appeals for help.
All contributions will be promptly and grate- fully acknowledged by the Secretary,
FRANCIS H. WOOD,
Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, 181 Queen Victoria Street, London, E.C. 4.
10
DISCOVERY
A MONTHLY POPULAR JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE.
Edited by A. S. RUSSELL, M.C., D.Sc. 6d. net.
Trustees— Sir J. J. THOMSON, O.M., P.R.S. j Sir F. G. KENYON, K.C.B., P.B.A.,
Prof. A. C. SEWARD, Sc.D., F.R.S. j Prof. R. S. CONWAY, Litt.D., F.B.A.
Chairman of Committee— THE REV. CANON W. TEMPLE, D.Litt.
DISCOVERY has for its aim a popular description of the advance made in subjects in which investigations are being actively pursued.
The articles, singly or in a series, deal with their subjects in such a way as to make clear the interesting features in the discoveries with which they deal, and are written in plain language by contributors who can speak with authority, so that the teacher or general reader who has no time to pursue specialised study — or, if he has, can do so in only one subject — will be able to obtain at first hand an account which he can understand of the chief things which experts have done, or are doing, in all the principal branches of knowledge.
The first large edition of No. i was exhausted -immediately after publication, and two further printings were needed. In order to secure a copy of No. 2 without delay, it is advisable to order at once.
No. 2, FEBRUARY. CONTENTS. 6d. net.
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE (Illustrated) . . . PROF. W. L. BRAGG.
THB WARS OF GREEK HISTORY . . . PROF. W. R. HALLIDAY.
THE NUMBER OF THE ELEUENTS . . . . . C. G. DARWIN.
ENGLAND AND GERMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES . DR. L. A. WILLOUGHBY.
GRAVITATION AND LIGHT (Illustrated) . . . H. SPENCER JONES.
THE STAMP ACT C. H. K. MARTEN.
ROMAN TRADE SOCIETIES PROF. E. V. ARNOLD.
INDUSTRIAL GASES DR. A. S. RUSSELL.
CORRESPONDENCE. REVIEWS OF BOOKS.
DISCOVERY can be ordered through all newsagents and booksellers, Annual Subscription, Qs.; by post, ls.§d. Single Numbers ,6d. net ; by post,1\d.
JOHN MURRAY. Albemarle Street, LONDON, W. 1.
11
MR. MURRAY'S NEW BOOKS. THE HERON OF CASTLE CREEK
AND OTHER SKETCHES OF BIRD LIFE. By ALFRED WELLESLEY REES, Author of " lanto the Fisherman," etc. With a Memoir of the Author by J. K. HUDSON. Mr. Rees' previous volumes of Nature Studies won him a place which was all his own in the great succession ot writers who have made Nature their theme. This book consists of a series of studies of Bird Life, and also chapters on Bird Watching and Animal Life in Winter. With Portrait. 7s. 6d. net.
TKK
NATIONALIST MOVEMENT m INDIA
A HISTORY OF. By SIR VERNEY LOVETT, K.C.S.I., late Indian Civil Service. A history of the origin, causes and progress of the Nationalist movement in India from its commence- ment up to the end of April, 1919, by one who has for many years enjoyed special opportunities of observing and studying Indian affairs, and was a member of the Rowlatt Commission. 12s. net.
FROM FRIEND TO FRIEND
By LADY RITCHIE. Edited by her Sister-in-Law, Miss EMILY RITCHIE. " A fragrant potpourri of memories of the 'fifties and 'sixties, gentle talks — gossip is too coarse a word — about Tennyson or Thackeray, Mrs. Sartoris, the Kembles, the Brownings, and other famous people of the period." — Evening Standard. 6s. net.
{Second Impression.
RED TERROR AND GREEN
By RICHARD DAWSON. The author brings out many startling facts of the alliance between Sinn Fein and Germany, and of the close connection of the Irish Revolutionaries with the Bolsheviki of Russia and Great Britain. He relies throughout on the words of the revolutionary leaders, and avoids speculative theories of his own. 6s. net.
A LOST LOVE
By ASHFORD OWEN. This story on its first publication in 1854 gained for its author the personal friendship of Browning and Swinburne, and received warm praise from many of the highest literary authorities of that day. It possesses a charm that has successfully defied the influence of time. Third Edition. 3s. 6d. net.
JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street, LONDON, W.I.
12
By ROBERT W. MACKENNA,M.A., M.D.
THROUGH A TENT DOOR 2nd Impression, 8S. net. Here are recorded many " peeps at life,'' transferred to paper in "odd and broken moments." Diverse in kind and qualities, they have one thing in common : they are impressions of vivid life and patient suffering, of bodily and spiritual effort in the daily round or great emergency. The Daily News : — " Dr. Mackenna has written an attractive book of thoughts and things seen. ... A friendly book."
THE ADVENTURE OF DEATH 4th Impression, 6s. net An uplifting and strengthening book, free from gloom, and written with literary charm.
Mr. A. C BENSON in The Church Family Newspaper says : — " I have been reading a thoughtful and sympathetic book which will, I am sure, interest many readers, and do something more than interest them."
THE ADVENTURE OF LIFE 6s.net
This book is frankly optimistic. It is designed to prove that the goal of Nature is Life ; the aim of Life is the development of Intelligence, and the object of Intelligence is a knowledge of God.
The Times : " Eloquent and popular talks such as have been commended to many readers by Dr. Mackenna's ' Adventure of Death.'"
JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street, LONDON, W. I.
Amongst other Articles the April
"CORNHILL"
will contain
The Fourth Dimension. Ch. IV.
By Horace Annesley Vachell.
Wealth and Workers, II. Further conversations
at the * Welfare ' Club. By Major E. de Stein.
The Old Parish Schools of Scotland.
e By the Rev. Alexander Macrae.
Wordsworthiana : New Notes from the Poet's
Childhood. By Gordon Wordsworth.
(April 7th is the i5Oth Anniversary of the birth of William Wordsworth.)
The March of the Ragged Noblemen : an epic of Russia to-day.
By Major Robert Davis, American Red Cross.
Madame Gilbert's Cannibal. By Bennet Coppiestone.
The opening episode of a series grouped around a personality familiar to readers of "The Lost Naval Papers."
13
BECAUSE the Bible conveys the Message of God's redeeming1 Love.
BECAUSE I am bound to hand on this universal Message to those who do not possess it.
BECAUSE the Bible Society has helped to send out the Gospel in 517 different languages.
BECAUSE it publishes its editions at prices which the poorest people can afford to pay.
BECAUSE it provides nearly all our Foreign Missions with editions of the Scriptures in all the languages which they need, and because it does this practically without cost to the Missions themselves.
BECAUSE missionaries in every field agree with Bishop Steere in his confession — "All our work is unsound aparc from a vernacular Bible."
BECAUSE the Society is continually aiding the Scrip- tures to speak in new languages, and publishes the Gospel in a fresh tongue (on an average) once every seven weeks.
BECAUSE it employs 1,000 colporteurs to sell cheap copies of God's Book in the remotest corners of the earth.
BECAUSE its editions penetrate into countries where no missionary can enter.
BECAUSE it is (as Mr. Spurgeon declared) itself "a Missionary Society of the first water."
BECAUSE the Society is managed by a committee of laymen, and worked on thoroughly economical lines.
BECAUSE to produce its popular editions is costing the Society two or three times as much as they cost before the war.
Gifts may be sent to the Secretaries, British and Foreign Bible Society, 146, Queen Victoria Street, London, B.C. 4.
14
THE
OOENHILL MAGAZINE.
EDITED BY LEONARD HUXLEY.
Published Monthly, price Is. 6d. net. Annual Subscription, 20s. 6d. post free
to any address in the Postal Union. The Annual Subscription to Canada and
Newfoundland is 20s., post free.
MARCH 1920.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. CH. III. By HORACE ANNESLEY
VACHELL . . . 257
WEALTH AND WORKERS. CONVERSATIONS AT THE
"GOODWILL" CLUB. — I. By MAJOR E. DE STEIN . 280
A STORY FROM REAL LIFE. By JANE WELSH CARLTLE.
CONTRIBUTED BY A. CARLYLE 296
THE CHELTENHAM WATERS. By THE REV. P. H.
DITCHFIELD, M.A., F.S.A. . ..... 305
"ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS": A TRIBUTE. By JEFFERY E. JEFFERY ; . 313
ON SURREY FARMERS ^ . 330
THE LOVER. By V. H. FRIEDLAENDER .... 344 THE NORTHERN SLAVE. By A. F. T 356
THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR : A COMPARISON. By N. S.
PEROIVAL . ~. 360
TYROL REVISITED. By WILLIAM A. BAILLIE-GROHMAN 368 POETRY AND THE MODE. By MAURICE HEWLETT . . 378
NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.
Communications to the Editor should be addressed to the care of JOHN MURBAY, 50A Albemarle Street, W. 1.
All Contributions are attentively considered, and unaccepted MSS. are returned ^vhen accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope ; but- the Editor cannot hold himself responsible for any accidental loss. MSS. cannot be delivered on personal application. Articles of a political nature are not accepted.
Every Contribution should be type-written on one side of each leaf only, and ehould bear the Name and Address of the Sender; a preliminary letter is not desired.
LONDON :
JOHN MURRAY, 50A ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1.
is
INCORPORATED A.D. 1720.
BICENTENARY A.D. 1920.
ROYAL EXCHANGE ASSURANCE
FIRE, LIFE, • SEA,
ACCIDENT, MOTOR CAR, PLATE GLASS, BURGLARY, EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY,
The Corporation will act as
EXECUTOR OF WILLS,
TRUSTEE OF WILLS AND SETTLEMENTS.
LIVE STOCK,
THIRD PARTY,
LIFT, BOILER,
MACHINERY,
ANNUITIES,
FIDELITY
GUARANTEE.
Prospectus and all information may be obtained on application to the Secretary.,
Head Office— ROYAL EXCHANGE, LONDON, E.C. 3.
West End Office-44 PALL MALL, LONDON, S.W. i.
p
Under Contract with His Majesty's Government.
and British India
Mail, Passenger and Freight Services.
TICKETS INTERCHANGEABLE.
PENINSULAR and ORIENTAL Sailings :-
From London and Marseilles to Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, Aden and Bombay; to Colombo, Straits, China, Japan and Australasia. From London to Calcutta.
P. & 0. Australian Tickets interchangeable one way by New Zealand Shipping Company (via Panama) or by Orient Line.
BRITISH INDIA Sailings :-
From London (R.A. Dock). To Calcutta, via Suez, Colombo and Madras, with connections : Bed Sea Ports, via Aden ; Mauritius and Malabar Coast, via Colombo ; Northern Coast Ports, Rangoon, Penang, Malay Ports and Singapore, via Madras; Arracan Ports, Rangoon, Moulmein and Straits, via Calcutta. To Brisbane, via Colombo and Torres Straits. To Karachi, Bombay and Persian Gulf. To East Africa, via Suez, Port Sudan, Aden, Mombasa and Zanzibar.
For particulars of Sailings apply P. & O. or BRITISH INDIA PASSENGER or FREIGHT DEPT., 122, Leadenhall Street, London, E.G. 3; or P. & O. House, Cockspur Street, b.W. 1.
BRITISH INDIA COMPANY.— For general information apply to the B.I. Agents, GRAY, DAWES <t Co., 122, Leadenhall Street, London, E.C. 3.
1C
THE
CORNHILL MAGAZINE;
MARCH 1920.
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. BY HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
CHAPTER III.
ME. YEO PUTS DOWN A HEAVY FOOT. I.
CHEBBINGTON felt rather unhappy after the first performance of his play. Not so the more sanguine Pell, ever distrustful of the premiere. He rushed about, saying : ' Pace — pace — we want pace ! ' The Duchess had not got her laughs. But Pell explained this. ' Your own people won't accept you as a coster girl.' Jess, alone in her virginal bower, dropped a few tears. No triumph had been vouch- safed her. Apparently, a stolid audience, bewildered by the irony of the comedy, saw nothing funny in her performance. In three words, she failed ' to get over.' Mrs. Tryon, however, was ' accepted.'
Crewe happened to be in London, but he returned next day. He told Jess to cheer up, saying :
* Call it a dress rehearsal. I have been in despair at my dress rehearsals. If they go well, I expect disaster to follow. Most managers will confirm what is a sort of superstition to us. To-night, you will have the right audience, and all will be well.'
He predicted truly.
Nothing is so boring as the description of a performance in- tended, primarily, to appeal to the eye. That is why so few people read notices of plays. In this narrative we are concerned rather with the effect of the play on others. And probably, with the exception of Crewe, Cherrington, and Pell, nobody present realised the excellence of Jess's work. She enjoyed the immense satisfaction of knowing that with them she had surpassed expectation. More, VOL. XLVIII.— NO. 285, N.S. 17
258 THE FOURTH DIMENSION.
apart from them, she had her tiny triumph. When her illuminating smile broke upon her face, the house roared with laughter. The Duchess admitted gaily that Jess captured the big laugh of the night.
But the Yeo family were not impressed. Throughout the per- formance, Mr. Yeo nursed a grievance. Jess had spent Christmas away from home. Gloom settled upon the late Commissioner of Burrahbugpore. Doubtless the six-shillings-in-the-pound in^ome- tax darkened present and future. And the Christmas bills . . . !
Mrs. Yeo sat beside him, austerely critical of the Duchess as Saucy Sal. In Giggles, however, she recognised a Cockney nurse- maid beloved by Jess when the child was nine years old. When she shared this astounding discovery with Mr. Yeo, he whispered testily : ' You ought never to have engaged that gutter-snipe.' It didn't occur to either of these good worthy people that Jess's reproduction of the gutter-snipe's accent, gestures, and grimaces constituted a sort of record. The conviction rooted itself that parents can't be too careful in their choice of nursery-maids.
Between the first and second acts, mother and daughter met and embraced fondly. Jess, naturally enough, dwelt perhaps too insistently upon her ' lovely time ' at the Castle, and the kindness of everybody ; but the expected word, the word that would fall like balm upon Mrs. Yeo's tissues, was not forthcoming ; and without that word, how could Mrs. Yeo return to Mr. Yeo and the por- tentous ' Well, my dear,' which would exact the categoric answer ? At the very last moment, the mother whispered excitedly, ' Was I right, darling \ ' Hope foundered when the artless young woman replied, ' What about, mummy ? ' But maternal anxiety routed discretion. Mrs. Yeo said sharply :
' Was I right about Mr. Egerton Pell ? '
' You mean . . . ? '
' You know what I mean, child. Has he . . . ? '
' No, he hasn't. Such an idea never entered his head or mine.'
With that assurance the unhappy Mrs. Yeo returned to her lord. And he, when he learnt the devastating truth, didn't spare her. To both of them the rest of the play was leather and prunella. Supper, however, with plenty of champagne, had a soothing effect upon Mr. Yeo. And the Duke was civil, uncommonly civil. The Duchess, too, wonderful bird of passage, flitted up to Mrs. Yeo and twittered sweetly :
* We are delighted with your girl. If Peace is signed, and we have a season, you must let me have her at Sloden House. I'll look after her.'
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 259
Mrs. Yeo smiled graciously, but she thought : ' I wonder who looks after you ? ' Possibly she did her hostess the injustice of believing that the invitation was not sincere, which it was. Fortunately, Mrs. Apperton happened to be standing next to Mrs. Yeo. The Squire's wife could be trusted to repeat what was said with embellishments of her own. This reflection sustained Mrs. Yeo during the drive home.
II.
Next day, Jess returned to The Cedars.
Before leaving, something remotely approximating to a love scene took place between herself and Cherrington. The adverb is used advisedly, inasmuch as Jess herself was unable to determine whether or not Cupid assisted as producer. Cherry bubbled over with excitement. Sir Felix Crewe meant ' business.' Nothing had been signed, but a contract impended. If he got his contract, would Jess play Giggles ? As an added inducement, he held out the lure of a ' written-up ' part. Crewe had suggested that. Immediately, ' What will father say ? ' became the unanswerable question. The valiant Cherry offered to ' work the old man/ Jess declined this offer.
' You don't know father.'
' I take it there is something of you in him, some peg on which I might hang my hat ? '
' If you are looking for that, bring a microscope with you.'
Nothing daunted, Cherry plunged into the future.
' Crewe can get Miss Oldacre to play mother on and off the stage.'
' Miss Oldacre . . . ! '
The famous name, so intimately connected with the later Victorian stage, electrified Jess. Cherry expatiated upon the privilege ''of working with and under the wonderful old lady, quite as charming as ever, although she forgot her lines. And if the play ' went ' in the provinces, a London engagement would follow. At this moment, Cupid, cunningly disguised, may have coached Mr. Cherrington. He concluded on a high note :
' I'm mad keen to get you, Jess.'
This was the first time he had called her ' Jess,' and the sibilant name fell softly from his lips.
'Why?'
' Because you're a topper. I can make a real pal of you. I've
260 THE FOURTH DIMENSION.
got a whacking idea for a new play. I shall talk it over with you. We'll have rare larks together, little luncheons — dinners — suppers.'
Jess sighed. The prospect was alluring, a mirage in the desert of Sloden-Pauncefort. Cherry went on :
' You and I and Pellie and Nan.'
' Nan ? '
* Miss Oldacre. Everybody calls her Nan. She'll be your Nannie in two jiffs.'
All this and much more percolated through Jess's brain-cells. The lamentable parting followed. Pellie kissed her. He kissed every pretty girl in public — the precious privilege of the elderly producer. Cherry contented himself with squeezing her hand. The Duke presented her with a tiny watch set in crystal. Jess hoped that he, too, would kiss her, but he didn't.
III.
Safe and sound at home, Jess marked a change in the family barometer. She was not encouraged to prattle about the gay doings at the Castle. When she left on her plate at luncheon half of a large helping of cold mutton, Mr. Yeo growled. The fry indulged in cheap chaff, addressing Jess as ' Your Grace.' Jess smiled at them. Nobody could rob her of an enchanting memory. Alone in her room, she may have gloated over it. Each night, Ibsen, read in bed, lulled her to sleep. Cherry had prescribed a course of Ibsen, and lent her 'Peer Gynt.' Pellie, observing that young palates must smother powder in jam, had given her 'The Importance of being Earnest.' Mrs. Yeo wondered vaguely why dear Jess ' retired ' so early. When she missed family prayers, suspicion was aroused, ripening into conviction and a sentence.
' Your father won't have reading in bed. It's ruin to the eyes, and the house might be burnt down.'
There were moments when Jess wondered whether her parents took note of the flight of time. On occasion she was] treated as if she were fifteen.
At the end of ten days a letter came from Cherry.
The contract had been signed !
More, rehearsals would begin at Manchester as soon as possible. He was authorised, with the sanction of Sir Felix, to offer the part of Giggles to Miss Yeo. She would receive the same salary that was set apart for a certain actress if she (Jess) were unable to play. Would she play ? A definite answer must be given in twenty-four hours.
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 261
Jess went to her mother.
Mrs. Yeo was fond of saying that nothing surprised her. And in little matters this was perfectly true. She bore with Christian resignation her own troubles and the troubles of others, having indeed, the philosophical mind and temperament. At the moment, the world appeared to her to be upside down. Mr. Yeo shared this opinion, thanking Omnipotence that he had been born seventy years before Bolshevism convulsed society. Bolshevism, to this particular pair, stood for everything to which they were unaccus- tomed, for everybody who left the appointed grooves of convention. Deep down in some unexplored zone of sub-consciousness, they regarded the Duchess of Sloden as Bolshevik, because she had played Saucy Sal in a Whitechapel comedy.
Mrs. Yeo read Cherrington's letter. Then she said emphatically :
' Burn it ! Don't let your father see it ! I can't have him upset.'
' But the answer, mother ? '
Mrs. Yeo stared at her daughter.
' There can be but one answer.'
' That is just how I feel.'
' You are my own dear little girl.'
' I mean — er — the answer ought to be " Yes."
1 What . . . ? '
' I feel that I must accept. It's a wonderful chance.'
Mrs. Yeo kept her temper. We have her own word for this. More, she listened to an impassioned appeal from Jess, a cry from the heart, the importunate cry of the prisoner demanding freedom from bondage. All that Jess had suppressed burst from her in a torrent of words. And Mrs. Yeo was not unmoved. When Jess finished, her hand was patted maternally. Jess realised that her mother was looking down upon her, as if from an apex of a pyramid of mothers, pityingly and tenderly.
' Yes, yes, darling, you don't mean all you say, but I understand.'
* You don't,' groaned Jess.
' I do. I have been young. I have been through this phase. Most girls have this craving to leave the nest. And I make great allowances for you, because this cruel war robbed you of your coming out. Let us talk this over as friends — without friction, or — or tears.'
' Can we ? '
' Of course we can. Now be sensible. Let's admit that you are a wee bit stage-struck. I am not a fool. I have seen all our
262 THE FOURTH DIMENSION.
best actors and actresses. Don't be offended if I ask you frankly why you think you can compete against trained people who have served a long apprenticeship.'
Jess answered truthfully :
' That's a mystery, mother. I can only suppose that there is something, I don't know what, that accounts for this offer.'
And then, unfortunately, she blushed, for she remembered Cherry's words, * I can make a real pal of you.' Mrs. Yeo beheld that blush and placed upon it her own construction.
' If you look in the glass, my dear, the apparent mystery will explain itself.'
As the blush faded, Jess dismissed from her mind the words that had provoked it.
' I blushed,' she said candidly, * like an idiot, and you drew a wrong inference. Sir Felix Crewe is financing this show. He wants me. Why ? Not for my looks, such as they are — and he could find dozens of better-looking girls — not to oblige the author and producer, but quite simply because he believes in that little something which you don't see in me and which I can't show you.'
Mrs. Yeo, being an honest woman, had to admit that this line of argument was sound, so far as it went. She contended, however, that Sir Felix, where a small part were concerned, might have yielded to pressure from author and producer. Then she concluded majestically :
' It comes to this, child, you can't do this against your dear father's wishes. I prevailed upon him with great difficulty to allow you to play at the Castle. He objected, because he foresaw what has happened. The mere suggestion of Manchester will give him a fit. Spare him and me the pain of any further talk on the subject.'
IV.
No more was said, because mother and daughter happened to be interrupted. And, in any case, Jess recognised the futility of argument.
She wrote that afternoon to Cherry — accepting his offer grate- fully. Upon a certain date — so it had been arranged by Sir Felix — she would meet Miss Oldacre in London and travel down to Manchester with her.
Having crossed the Kubicon, Jess calmly surveyed the situation. She was twenty-two, and not absolutely dependent upon her father. A god-mother had left her a thousand pounds. When she was
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 263
twenty-one, Jess remembered signing some papers in the presence of Mr. Yeo's solicitor, and he had said, ' This money is yours abso- lutely, Miss Yeo.' By that time the original thousand had swelled into some thirteen hundred pounds, and the interest of this was sent to Jess, who, at her father's desire, opened a small banking account.
Jess examined her bank-book with satisfaction. She had fifty- five pounds to her credit, and the January dividend was due.
Accustomed to travel comfortably along lines of least resistance, Jess contemplated a secret flight from the nest. Her father would be furious, but his fury would evaporate in a vacuum.
Afterwards, Jess wondered whether she could have carried this plan to a successful issue. It was burked, shortly after its inception, by Mr. Yeo. What Mrs. Yeo may have said to him will never be known. It may be surmised that she hinted to her lord something concerning a daughter's unrest ; she may have touched upon the expediency of being more than usually kind and forbearing to their firstborn. Throughout his married life, Mr. Yeo had taken advantage of such hints, when they were dropped at a seasonable time. Much to Jess's confounding, he stopped growling and cooed at her, like any sucking dove. She became ' My little Jess ' again, and — signal honour — was invited to sort papers in the den.
' I can't bolt in secret,' was her ever-recurring reflection.
After a sleepless night or two, she screwed up her courage to the bursting point of speech. Father and daughter were alone, and Mr. Yeo was about to impress his customary pecking kiss upon her cheek, when she withdrew abruptly from his encircling arm.
' Don't kiss me ! '
* Why ever not ? Have you a cold ? '
* For three days, father, I have been getting kisses from you and pleasant words under false pretences.'
4 What on earth do you mean ? '
Jess smiled faintly.
' I mean that if you knew what I want to do, I should be taking my meals, so to speak, at the side-table.'
The expression of blank surprise upon her father's face confirmed Jess in the conviction that Mrs. Yeo had not run the risk of pro- voking a ' fit.'
That risk, in a pathological sense, was negligible. Mr. Yeo drew himself up, and assumed his magisterial air, frowning and pursing up his firm lips :
' Tell me as briefly as possible what you want to do.'
264 THE FOURTH DIMENSION.
Now Jess had rehearsed more than one speech in the privacy of her room, and she knew, from long experience, that passive resis- tance was a trusty weapon, the Excalibur of all women more or less under the heel of autocracy. Nevertheless, at this sore pinch, she threw from her that shining brand, and became as curt and direct as her father.
* I want to go on the stage.'
* I thought as much.'
This was not strictly true. We know that the possibility of his little Jess being stage-struck had occurred to Mr. Yeo. But he had dismissed it impatiently. And now, as impatiently, he said trenchantly :
'What you may want to do, and what you can do are very different things.'
' In this case,' Jess replied calmly, ' what I want to do I can do. I have been offered a part and a salary.'
* A salary ? How much ? Thirty shillings a week ? ' ' It works out at about three hundred a year.'
' Really ? You have been offered a year's engagement ? '
Jess realised that she had blundered.
' My engagement is for the run of the piece. We expect that it will run for six months in the provinces and then go to London.'
Mr. Yeo assimilated this. Possibly his judicial manner beguiled Jess into hoping and believing that the matter might be discussed temperately — upon what her father was fond of terming ' business lines.'
' And if it doesn't run, what then ? '
Jess having no adequate reply pat to her lips, shrugged her slender shoulders. Mr. Yeo pursued his slight advantage.
' What do you propose to do, if this piece fails and you find yourself stranded in the provinces ? '
' I suppose in that case, I should try to get another engage- ment.'
' Hawk yourself about to Tom, Dick and Harry ? Hang about agents' offices ? Eat humble pie ? Join the out-at-elbows army of understudies ? Somehow, I don't see my daughter doing this.'
' ' U that, father, is on the knees of the gods.'
'I ask you these questions, Jessica, because I am trying to find out exactly what is in your mind. Before 1 deal with this astounding proposition, perhaps you will be kind enough to give me details.'
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 265
Jess did so. In less than five minutes, Mr. Yeo was in full possession of the facts. Unlike Mrs. Yeo, he pigeon-holed the question of aptitudes. Indeed, he took for granted that Sir Felix Crewe was not a philanthropist. And he grasped firmly the nettle. Jess was of age, and the possessor of thirteen hundred pounds. She could pack her boxes and march out of his house at a minute's notice. Obviously, she intended to do this. How could he prevent such a catastrophe ? He began again — for him, mildly :
' Are you unhappy at home ? '
'No.'
' Merely restless ? '
' I want to paddle my own canoe, father.'
' With or without my consent ? '
' Of course, I want your consent.'
' And if I refuse my consent on grounds which to me are ample, although they may not appear so to an inexperienced young woman, what then ? '
Jess answered valiantly :
' I suppose I must take the consequences, father.'
* Tell me what you think those consequences might be.'
The unhappy Jess wriggled, impaled upon a barbed question. So far, Mr. Yeo was having the best of the encounter. Sooner or later, he would abandon his suave, ironical methods, and become the dictator. Woman's wit came to the rescue.
' I am sure you wouldn't do anything cruel.'
Mr. Yeo was * touched,' as fencers put it. He acknowledged the riposte with a grim smile.
' What I might do would probably seem cruel to you. Children think dentists cruel. It comes to this — you want to cut loose from my house and authority. All over this unhappy country, thousands of girls are feeling as you feel. It is one of the most significant signs of the times — unrest. I think I can read you ;' correct me if I am wrong. You regard this as an experiment. If it succeeds, all is well for you ; if it fails, you can return here and take up again a life which you admit is not unhappy.'
This was exactly what Jess had thought. Put baldly, it seemed rather one-sided — a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose, proposi- tion. Mr. Yeo marked her troubled eyes and continued quietly as before :
' As you don't correct me, I assume that I have read you fairly accurately. It may not be so easy for you to read me. Rightly
266 THE FOURTH DIMENSION.
or wrongly, I have a prejudice against the stage. We need not go into that. I consider the British drama to be at a low ebb, possibly at its lowest after the War. To know that my daughter was constantly subject to what I hold to be lowering influences and tendencies would be a great grief to me and a bitter disappoint- ment. I am well aware that the stage has its distinguished orna- ments. I speak of the many, not of the few. Sir Felix Crewe and Miss Oldacre, in your case, seem to have promised their protection. Do they assume full responsibility ? '
' I don't know.'
' I can assure you they don't. How could they ? Their responsibility ceases when this particular play comes to an end. Then you will be thrown upon your own resources, to sink or swim. If you are sinking, I, as your father, throw a rope and drag you ashore.'
Jess remained silent, unable to envisage herself sinking. Inexorably, Mr. Yeo delivered his verdict :
* What will be your condition then ? I have other children at an impressionable age. I must consider them. How do I know that you will return to us as you left us ? '
' I hoped that you had more confidence in me.'
' I have confidence in you as you are. What you might become, what anybody might become under conditions fundamentally different from what obtains here, is beyond my cognisance. I am not going to threaten you.'
' Thanks.'
' What I say is a solemn warning. If you elect to leave this house, I can't prevent you. For all our sakes, I must avoid any scandal, any gossip. But don't count on coming back as a certainty. You can't have it both ways. We have tried to protect you not only against others, but against some of the more subversive tendencies and temptations of youth. In the fullness of time we hoped that you would marry the right sort of man, and start a happy little home of your own. This step into the unknown imperils all that. You can leave me now. Think over what I have said.'
With dignity, he dismissed her. Jess had expected violence. Her father's quiet strength impressed her. But she knew that he would never retreat from what he held to be an impregnable position. He had dictated his terms.
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 267
V.
Mrs. Yeo tried other methods. Indeed, the Yeo family com- bined, as a unit of national life, against Jess. They coaxed and cajoled ; they fulminated ; they sulked. All in vain. Something that Jess couldn't define urged her along an appointed path.
Sloden-Pauncefort, up to the last moment, remained in happy ignorance of what was happening at The Cedars. When the truth became known, the village for at least a week resolved itself into a debating society. The Stage, as a profession for young ladies. 'pro and con, was the only theme at tea-parties.
Meanwhile, Jess had reached Manchester.
And she had met Miss Nancy Oldacre.
That gracious lady soon put to flight the girl's misgivings and prickings of conscience. Miss Oldacre's philosophy had never varied since she was old enough to think. All was for the best in the best of worlds. This agreeable attitude towards life informed her work, and accounted partly for her triumphs. Joy in life radiated from her. It ' got over ' before she opened her mouth. No living woman could walk on the stage with her irresistible, incomparable assurance. Because of that she was almost, not quite, devoid of professional jealousy. But she admitted, with the gayest laugh, that in her youth she had been jealous.
' We all are, my dear.'
Cherrington, Pell, and even Sir Felix, were at her feet. A suite of rooms was provided — two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a parlour. Miss Oldacre called it a parlour, because as the name signified, people talked in parlours.
' I'm a talker,' Miss Oldacre informed Jess. * I talk in my sleep.'
' My mother is a great talker,' said Jess, ' but she talks people to sleep.'
' If I did that I should commit suicide.'
Gorgeous flowers were sent to the parlour.
' They haven't forgotten me, my dear.'
' Forget you ? I wonder if anybody could ! '
It will be seen that the young lady had surrendered uncon- ditionally. The parlour became a radiating centre of light and heat. Miss Oldacre, at tea-time, was at home to new friends and old friends. She poured out tea and conversation, both of excellent quality. But the talk, wherever it might wander, almost invariably
268 THE FOURTH DIMENSION.
began and ended with the Stage. The wonderful old lady was an ' Enquire Within,' if any information whatever were wanted upon any play produced in her time. With such a memory for detail, it was difficult to believe that Miss Oldacre forgot her lines. Perhaps, so Jess thought, there was no room for the new in a mind that retained all that was old.
Rehearsals began at once. The company met at eleven and worked till five, with an hour off for luncheon. Some rehearsing had been done already in London, but, with the exception of Miss Oldacre, there were no London stars in the cast. The leading man and the leading lady, as Pellie informed Jess, were favourites in the provinces. They lacked the polish of the metropolis. Cher- rington said that they ' ladled out the good old stuff with a spoon.' This meant, in plain English, a dramatic delivery, a slight over- emphasis of lines and gestures. No restraint. This last word was on every lip. Miss Oldacre made fun of it.
' I don't believe, my dear, in restraint. I let myself go for all I'm worth. " Play up " is my motto. Get all the colour you can into your part.'
At first the company sniffed at the amateur. Frowns were her portion if she moved an inch beyond the fixed positions. Eyebrows were raised superciliously if she altered the pitch of her voice. The question that became insistently exasperating was, ' Can't you give me something, dear ? ' The ' something ' might be anything from a smile to a frown. And once given it must be stereotyped. Very soon, however, the pros became more friendly. Pellie as producer, with Sir Felix as final arbiter, surpassed himself in tact and patience. Small scenes were rehearsed again and again till Jess ached with fatigue. She was astonished to discover that initiative was not demanded of the performers. The leading man expected to be ' produced.' Pellie said to Jess, ' I tell him when to blow his nose.'
She made great friends with the girl who played Saucy Sal. The Duchess, with all her cleverness, was too old for the part. Sir Felix had discovered Miss Osborne (her stage name) understudying a Cockney part in a blood-and-thunder drama. Her real pa- tronymic was Toop — Florrie Toop. Mrs. Toop, her mother, who accompanied Florrie wherever she went, belonged to the profession, or, as she called it, ' the profesh.' Florrie, as a child, had played in ' panto,' and anything afterwards that offered. But this Manchester production was her first great opportunity.
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 269
' Gawd lias been good to me,' she kept on repeating. ' I was understudying Miss Biffen, dear. Flu' downed her, and I hopped on. What happened ? Gawd sent Tommy Pumford to look at our show. He saw me, and told Sir Felix. That's that. Muds thinks I shall make a hit.'
Muds was a nom de caresse for Mrs. Toop, who had a familiar spirit— brandy. Brandy, however, was not easily obtainable, and sold at an almost prohibitive price. Florrie made no secret of her mother's infirmity.
' Muds can't do without her tiddley.'
Mrs. Toop, it must be added, kept within the bounds of sobriety, as that word is understood in the ' profesh.' And she was certainly a devoted mother and watch-dog, keeping enterprising youths * in hand,' and ' on the string.' Florrie accepted flowers, compliments, good food and drink, and inexpensive jewellery. The youths, in return, received Florrie's conversation, Mrs. Toop's advice, and many autographed postcards.
From these two persons Jess learned much concerning the seamy side of the stage. Mrs. Toop was born, so to speak, in the green- room— that now mythical place which no longer exists except in fiction.
' Muds dropped like an angel from the sky, when grandma was on tour. Grandma went on inside of a fortnight. Muds has played leading boy all over the shop, but never at the Lane.'
This was Mrs. Toop's undying grievance. She had never appeared at Drury Lane.
Two other persons challenged the interest and attention of Jess — Tommy Pumford, Sir Felix Crewe's faithful general manager, better known as ' Pummy,' and the stage manager of the company, Owbridge. Pummy had been with Sir Felix for five-and-twenty years. He was round and rosy, blessed with a disarming smile that was worth a thousand a year to Sir Felix. Pummy dealt drastically 'with authors' representatives and everybody connected with the business ' end.' Sir Felix was notoriously generous ; Pummy was admittedly a cheese-parer : a happy combination of give and take. His first interview with Jess demonstrated this : ' Your salary, Miss Yeo, is ridiculous, it is indeed.' ' Is it, Mr. Pumford ? I am quite content, no complaints.' Pummy exploded.
' No complaints . . . ! That's a good 'un. We're over-paying you.'
270 THE FOURTH DIMENSION.
' Oh-h-h ! '
' Fact ! Governor's orders. Somebody got at him. Well, it's up to you to earn it. My job is to keep down the salary list in the interests of all. Wearin' work— simply heartbreakin' for a man of my generous disposition.'
' I'm sure it must be.'
Thereupon Pummy winked and chuckled. His disarming smile appeared, as he observed smartly :
' Buck up, dear, and make good.'
Owbridge was a gentleman of another kidney. Lean, pallid, with a lugubrious expression that provoked roars of laughter from the pit and gallery. Besides his onerous duties as stage manager, which include everything connected with the stage — properties, lighting, and so forth — he generally played some small character part to perfection. Pummy and the Owl had accompanied Sir Felix when he made his famous tour of the world. They remained with him now that he had let his West End theatre. Pummy sang the praises of his chief, regardless of time and place. The Owl was not a songster ; he confined himself to one remark :
' Governor's a bit of all right.'
And this, so Jess soon discovered, was the unanimous opinion of the company. Miss Oldacre summed up Sir Felix without fear or favour :
' He's sound to the core, a King Pippin. Not superlatively great, like my dear father, not an overwhelming personality like Henry Irving, but always a tryer, and always honest. Modest, too ! And such a fine face. I love him, and I'm horribly worried about him.'
' He looks so tired.'
' He is tired. He oughtn't to be here at all. But he can't let go. None of us can. We go till we drop, and why not ? My father died in his dressing-room. There are worse places. Felix is running this show strictly against his doctor's orders. It's not a question of money ; he has pots and pots ; but he believes in this play. And he backs his beliefs. He's backing you.'
' I know — I know. I ought to be grinding away in some dramatic school.'
* Rubbish ! Purge your mind of that ! In my day, we had no dramatic academies. We went on. Look at the kiddies ! If it's in them they take to the business as ducklings do to water. They get their lines long before we do ; they drop, somehow, into the
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 271
right positions. You're a kid at the game; but it's in you to make a player.'
' If you say that . . . ! '
' What is wanted ? Who can answer that question ? Not I — for one. What is it that gets over ? '
' Personality . . . ? '
fpl ' Too vague. Driving power, perhaps ; the will to win which won this War. And charm. Felix has charm. He hypnotises his audience. I have seen him play awful parts full of stilted impossible lines, full of unconvincing situations, but he got there all the same.'
' Mr. Cherrington says that he is a subjective actor.'
' So he is. So artful that you can't twig his art. Nobody has worked harder. Other things being equal, work does it ; but not overwork. I'm afraid that dear Felix will never play again.'
VI.
| By this time Jess was heels over head in love with her job, and as happy as a healthy girl can be. Cherry assured her that ' her stock was booming.' Bit by bit he added to her original part, not without protest from some lady members of the company. Florrie said, with a toss of her pert little head : r ' We know he's your boy.'
Jess knew nothing of the sort, and said so with a tincture of acidity. Florrie laughed.
' I've watched him. So has Muds. She had " two " this morning. Brisked her up amazing. We all wondered why you was dug out o' the potato-patch. You ain't bad, not too bad. I'll say that. But, Lord love a duck ! there's others. Proper bit of luck, I call it. But Muds called me down with one of her particular winks. " Ask the author," she says.'
' And did you ? '
* Not me. I want to play in his next piece. I watched him. He gives himself dead away whenever you're on. This morning you were rotten.'
1 Was I ? '
' You bet ! In a dream like, thinking of HIM, may be.'
' 1 wasn't ! '
* Don't get the needle ! My mistake. He was thinking of you — never strafed you ; sat through it with a silly smile on his face.
272 THE FOURTH DIMENSION.
You've got him for keeps, if you want him. 'Nother bit of luck. He's a winner. Muds says so. He can write plays for you ; boom you sky-high. Well, where was I at ? Yes ; Mr. Pell was on to you. I saw him wigglin'. In two twos you'd have got it to rights. I saw him turn to Mr. Cherrington, and then he saw what I saw — that silly smile. And it crumpled him up.'
At this moment Owbridge's voice was heard :
' Miss Osborne.'
' Here ! '
Florrie skipped on to the stage. As she did so, Owbridge's penetrating comment reached the wings :
* We're not over-paying you, me girl, to miss your cue, and hang up scenes.'
Florrie replied cheerfully, ' Pardon ! '
Jess remained alone, covered with confusion and abjectly miserable. She recalled her mother's hints, and Pummy's remark about Sir Felix and her salary, ' Somebody got at him.' She pieced together a dozen sly innuendoes from members of the company. It was quite intolerable to think that she was not playing ' Giggles ' on her merits, but merely because the author of the comedy was ' silly ' about her. Pellie, however, was not ' silly ' in that sense. Engrossed in such unhappy speculations, she heard her name :
' Miss Yeo . . . ! '
She had missed her cue.
Pellie, who was in the stalls of the theatre, jumped up.
' This won't do ! What's happened to you girls ? Are you sleepy ? Damn it all, you're not here for fun.'
Jess nearly shed tears. Then she heard Cherrington's voice from the back of the house :
* It's all right, Miss Yeo. You haven't missed many cues. Buck up ! '
Florrie, in the middle of the stage, winked impudently, and stuck her tongue into her cheek. Pellie said testily : ' Am I running this show or not ? Get on with it ! ' After the rehearsal, Cherrington walked back with Jess to the hotel. Being a good fellow, and seeing that Jess was in distress — for her cheeks displayed, in vivid pink, an S 0 S signal — he said pleasantly :
* Are you vexed at being strafed ? ' ' Not a little bit. I deserved it.'
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 273
' Something is worrying you. Tell me.'
His voice was soft and persuasive. He slipped his arm into hers. The friendly pressure reassured her.
' I am worrying a little.'
' What about ? '
' My — my luck. You said the other day that my stock was booming. What have I done to make it boom ? Mr. Pumford says I'm overpaid.'
' Mr. Pumford ... be blowed ! '
Jess was not much comforted. She said nervously :
' Did you say anything to Sir Felix about my salary ? '
Cherry replied airily :
' Of course, the question of salaries came up between us, when we were casting the play.'
' I mean, did you suggest that I should be paid as ... as generously ? Florrie says that dozens of clever amateurs are ready to pay a premium to walk on.'
Cherry tackled the last half of the sentence.
' And I'd pay 'em a premium to walk off again. Now, look here, you stop worrying. Worry will react on your work. Crewe wanted you ; and so did I ; and so did Pellie.'
' That is nice to hear, but you evade my question. You have no idea how obstinate I am. I get that from father. Who settled my salary ? '
* I admit that I said something to Crewe about it.'
* What did you say ? '
' You do stick like a leech to your objectives. Well, my beloved Jess, I pointed out to Crewe that yours was rather an exceptional case, involving possible ructions. Mind you, I repeat, he wanted you. We agreed that a decent salary would cut a lot of family ice. It disposed of one iceberg, at any rate. Your father had to admit, I take it, that good salaries are never paid by famous actor-managers to indifferent performers. To adopt another metaphor, we wanted to soap the ways a bit, so that you might slide from Sloden-Pauncefort to Manchester without taking a toss.'
He spoke so sincerely that Jess was profoundly touched. She said meekly : ' That was sweet of you.'
She wanted to say more, but words stuck in her throat. Cherry dropped the subject, and began to talk about his new play.
VOL. XLVIII.— NO. 285, N.S. 18
274 THE FOURTH DIMENSION.
VII.
After many ponderings, Jess came to the conclusion that Florrie and Muds were mistaken. Friendship, not love, had brought her luck. It was a tremendous thing to be lucky. Already, she had fallen a victim to the superstitions of the stage. At the first rehearsal, the black theatre cat had rubbed itself against her, purring softly. The leading man had tried to beguile pussy from Jess, but the wise beast had resisted his blandishments, and later he had remarked with odd petulance to Jess :
* That cat went for you.'
The call-boy, who happened to be a call-girl, was immensely impressed.
One thing was certain : Cherry did not * give himself away ' to the person most concerned — herself. Several young men had made love to Jess. Their technique was much the same. It included five-finger exercises, diminuendos, crescendos, ending with the ' con fuoco- ' passage and the retirement of the virtuoso. None of them, with the exception of George Apperton, had evoked any response from Jess. And now, looking back, it was difficult to decide whether or not she had been in love with George. Anyway, she told herself decidedly that she was not in love with Cherry. She liked him immensely, admired his pluck and cleverness, and applauded with both hands his determination to ' win out.' The same vaulting ambition obsessed her. The Yeo family, from Triton to Minnow, must be forced to admit that she had chosen the right path, justified the flight from the nest. They would make this admission, more or less grudgingly, when the public ' accepted her.'
Next morning, Mr. Pumford was at the theatre, in his office. Jess asked to see him. Pummy, the sly rogue, kept her waiting —-an obvious trick to enhance his self-importance. But he smiled genially when she came in.
' And what can I do for you, Miss Yeo ? '
' I am not quite satisfied with my salary, Mr. Pumford.'
Pummy nearly jumped out of his chair.
' Now, Miss Yeo, that won't wash, believe me. I told you we were overpaying you.'
4 Yes, you did — that's why I'm here. I'm prepared to take much less.'
Pummy stared at her. This was a new experience for him. He didn't quite know how to meet it.
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 275
' Are you ? This is an eye-opener. Take much less, hay ? ' ' ' I want what I'm worth — not a penny more, not a penny less.'
Pummy chewed the end of his pen — a habit which indicated perplexity. If he cut down this particular salary, Sir Felix would ask questions. If it leaked out that he, the business-manager, was the exciting cause of this amazing request, Sir Felix might be angry. Pinching instincts had landed Pummy in trouble more than once. He laughed at the solemn face in front of him.
' Like to pay down something, perhaps, for the start we're giving you? '
Jess said earnestly :
' I'm ready to do that, if it ought to be done.'
' Little ray of sunshine you are. Now, Miss Yeo, don't waste my time. You take what you can get. If you feel you're overpaid, why, dammy, you ain't. I can't bother Sir Felix about this. If you go to him, he'll tell you not to be a goose.'
' Please tell me what I'm worth.'
' At the end of the first week, I will.'
' Is that a promise ? '
' Yes.'
With that, Jess retired. But she was quite unaware of the impression she had made upon the plastic mind of Mr. Pumford. In his desk lay a small leather-bound book, the vade-mecum of the business manager. It contained names and addresses of actors and actresses, with a space left for comments. Mr. Pumford opened the book and turned the pages till he came to ' Y.'
'Jessica Yeo (Miss), The Cedars, Sloden-Pauncefort, Melshire.'
Against this entry Mr. Pumford made another — ' Straight.'
Jess, in spite of Pummy's warning, might have gone to Sir Felix, but he had returned to London. It was doubtful whether he would be seen before the first night. His absence indicated complete confidence in Mr. Pell. It indicated, also, the great man's generosity. On the big posters appeared Sir Felix's name as ' presenting ' the comedy to Manchester. Mr. Pell's name, in smaller script, was announced as that of the producer. Jess passed many pleasant minutes staring at these posters.
' Giggles . . . Miss Jessica Yeo.'
She had refused to adopt a stage name. Mrs. Yeo had pro- tested. But Miss Oldacre waived aside that protest with an inimitable gesture :
J* Sail under your own flag, my^dear. We have always done so.'
276 THE FOURTH DIMENSION.
The royal ' we ' might be taken as singular or plural.
' That is good enough for me,' said Jess.
Cherry applauded this prompt decision.
' Tell your people to order ahead the 1921 edition of " Who's Who." We'll be in it, you and I. Then the great panjandrums at The Laurels and The Cedars will tumble off their perches.'
' Aren't you in " Who's Who " ? '
* To the everlasting disgrace of the editor, I'm not. I refuse to buy the book on that account. But my autobiographical notice is ready for insertion. Some are screams. One fellow sets down under " Recreation " the illuminating word — " Self-advertisement." Honest chap, that ! By the way, when you become a star, don't, please, tell a wondering world that you " create " parts. That makes us poor dramatists very sick. By this time you've seen enough of production to find out who does the " creating." When the happy day dawns, I'll do your notice — a corker. What shall I put under " Recreation ? "
Jess smiled.
' Can't you guess ? ' she asked demurely.
'No.'
' Listening to Mr. Cherrington.'
' I hope he'll be listening to you from the author's box.'
This trivial talk is set down to show the intimacy that had established itself between these two. Pellie devoted himself to Miss Oldacre. He told her, that, as a youth, he slept with her photograph under his pillow. The sprightly Nan was delighted, but, under cross-examination, he had to admit that Miss Kate Vaughan and Miss Nellie Farren shared the same honour and place.
' A polygamist at eighteen ! ' observed Miss Oldacre.
When she and Pellie played 'Patience' together, after dinner, Jess and Cherry sat upon the parlour sofa, whence they swooped on easy pinions into the roseate future. Jess duly noted in a retentive memory that these aerial excursions on the part of the dramatist always included herself as compagnon de voyage. But she knew that after the premiere, very soon after, he would return to London.
When this lamentable fact obtruded itself, he asked smilingly :
' Will you miss me, Jess ? '
' A teeny-weeny bit, perhaps.'
But, unlike other courtiers, he never followed up such easy openings. Possibly he disdained them. She was well aware by
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 277
this time that his income was modest and precarious. He had a tiny flat in West Kensington, and belonged to a famous club — The Buskin. And he knew the right people, using Mrs. Grundy's adjective. He knew also a number of quiet little restaurants wherein he hoped to entertain Jess when she came to town. She beheld Bohemia through his eyes, and longed to enter that paradise so dear to the young. She had a glimpse of it even in Manchester. Indeed, Miss Oldacre's parlour became a sort of Mount Nebo, from which she looked down upon the Promised Land.
VIII.
The fateful night drew near.
Jess was essentially modest; but only a fool could have ignored the conviction that she had ' come on ' tremendously ; the unaccountable plasticity of the child actress seemed to be an inalienable possession. She obtained her effects unconsciously. That sedulous little ape, Florrie, was her antithesis. Florrie knew*— none better — how and when and where to make the most of herself. She never tired of rehearsing grimaces before the devoted Muds. Good-nature prompted her to ' school ' Jess.
' If you ain't careful, you'll be snowed in, dear. I could queer you as easy as lickin' oysters off the shell. Wait until you come up against the devils in the profesh. My ! You'll have to fight for your laughs then. Some of 'em can steal the fat out of another's part, and you see it meltin' in their mouths. Crool ! I've been ridden on to the rails many a time. A jockey boy o' mine taught me that expression. He'd been there himself. Well, you ain't the blightin' amateur I took you for.'
At the last dress rehearsal, word came that Sir Felix was unable to leave London. Miss Oldacre was very unhappy. She inferred that he must be ill. The papers, however, had not been informed of this. Pumford, however, could be trusted to withhold dis- concerting news from the pressmen — and from everybody else, as Miss Oldacre observed.
' Does it make much difference ? ' Jess asked.
' His being here ? Of course it does. He has been extra- ordinarily successful in his productions. And he is so popular. A mere sight of his face in a box kindles enthusiasm. The fact that he is not here will be taken by ill-natured persons to mean that he is not sure of the goods to be delivered. And he knows this.
278 THE FOURTH DIMENSION.
When he said good-bye to me, he promised to turn up. This is our first bit of bad luck.'
Upon the same afternoon, Jess was interviewed. A lady in spectacles, note-book in hand, presented herself. Jess never discovered till long afterwards who had arranged this exciting surprise. Was it Cherry ? Obviously somebody wished to give her a ' boost ' (as Florrie put it) up the ladder of Fame.
Jess blushed, you may be sure, when the spectacled lady asked for ' copy.' Was this a first appearance ? Yes. Did Miss Yeo feel nervous ? What did she think of Manchester ? Jess answered the questions stumblingly, but the spectacled lady lent a helping hand. Then Jess became the interlocutrix. Why had this honour been conferred upon her ?
' Oh, we like to chronicle first impressions. Sir Felix engaging an amateur to play an important part has aroused much curiosity.'
' But the part isn't important.'
' We confidently expect that you will make it so.'
Left alone, Jess experienced dismal qualms, physical flutterings of heart and pulse. Next day, the interview was printed under the caption : ' A Virgin Page.' Cherry read it aloud ; everybody chaffed her. Florrie said, with another toss of her head :
' Your boy worked that.'
' He didn't. I asked him.'
As a matter of fact, Pummy had pulled the little string, not altogether for business ends. Jess had captured his cheese-paring mind. And her increasing aptitudes almost reconciled him to the overpaid salary. He rushed about, saying : ' She's a winner. I have a nose for 'em. All you doubters can wait and see.'
Her dresser was among the doubters. But most dressers are pessimistic about untried plays. They have witnessed so many failures. Jess shared her dresser and her dressing-room with Miss Osborne. Muds sat in a corner hoping for the best, and loud in her praise of Mr. Pumford because he had thoughtfully provided wine and cigars for the gentlemen of the Press. Jess divined that Muds on first nights was unable to slake her thirst with ' two.'
Bunches of roses arrived with the author's card attached. Florrie had many flowers, and half a dozen telegrams. She sat in front of her glass, making up. Upon the table were framed photographs, picture postcards, and many souvenirs, including programmes autographed by the cast. Jess envied her the programmes. . . .
THE FOURTH DIMENSION. 279
' Beginners.'
The call-girl summoned Florrie to the stage. She was on before Jess. Cherry came in.
* Packed house,' he announced. ' And lots of money in it. Pummy is pleased.'
Jess thanked him for her flowers. She could see that he was on edge with excitement. She held out both her hands.
' Good luck ! And thank you again and again for all your kindness.'
To her amazement, before the dresser, and without warning, he placed his hands upon her shoulders and kissed her.
' Good luck to you, my dear little Jess.'
He rushed away to take his seat before the curtain went up.
* Quite the gentleman,' remarked the dresser.
Jess was wondering whether blushes showed through grease- paint.
In the distance, she could hear the band playing a jolly tune. The dresser opened the door. An odd silence followed, and then a dull roar of applause as Miss Oldacre was discovered alone on the stage. Jess thought to herself, { I believe I'm going to faint.'
' Shush-h-h ! ' enjoined the dresser, although Jess had said nothing.
' Why ? '
' I want to hear the first laugh.'
It came presently, a faint trickle of laughter, swelling into the real right thing. That laugh was Florrie's. Muds had gone to the foot of the stairs with Florrie for no other purpose than to wallow in that laugh. How Giggles envied Saucy Sal . . . ! Another laugh, and another. . . .
' Florrie's got over all right,' said the dresser.
Jess heard the patter of nimble feet along the passage.
' Miss Yeo.'
Jess rose tremblingly from her chair. Was she going to sink or swim ?
(To be continued.)
280
WEALTH AND WORKERS.— I. CONVERSATIONS AT THE 'GOODWILL' CLUB.
INTRODUCTION.
THE Club was formed just before the war. Its members were drawn from all classes of the community. There were no regular debates, but ' conversations ' were held once a week, and it was the duty of the President, when any point was made with which all members present were in agreement, to stop the conversation and record the point in a book kept for the purpose.
The following are summaries of conversations which took place at meetings of the Club held immediately after the conclusion of hostilities — meetings having been discontinued during the war.
I.
THE PRESIDENT. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we meet again after five years of war, and the first thing we have got to do is to find out who has survived. I am glad to see the Banker looking very fit, and I notice that he has become stouter, notwithstanding the strain of the last few years. The Manufacturer, too, is looking pretty prosperous. I perceive that he has got a new gold watch- chain !
MANUFACTURER. Yes. That is a present from my youngest daughter. She gave it me out of her allowance. She can afford it, too !
THE PRESIDENT. H'm. That sounds as if you haven't been doing so badly. How's our friend the Merchant ?
MERCHANT. Oh ! right as rain, thanks. Just bought a place in the country. May get a title, you know, and one must be prepared with a name for it !
Enter SKILLED LABOURER and CASUAL LABOURER. Sorry we're late. We've just come from the theatre. The third time this week, too.
PRESIDENT. Well — you all sound extraordinarily flush. There seems to be plenty of money about.
BANKER. Yes, there is. But we shall want all we've got. The Country is spending every seven weeks what it spent in a whole year before the war, although the war is over.
WEALTH AND WORKERS. 281
PRESIDENT. Do you mean that that is what the State is spending to govern the country ?
BANKER. Yes. And in addition the State has piled up war debts of thousands of millions, a great deal of which is owed to America. That money, or at any rate the interest on it, has got to be found somehow.
MERCHANT. And yet everybody seems so rich !
WIDOW. My income is half what it was, and everything costs me double !
DISCHARGED SOLDIER. And I've got no job at present and can't get one, and there are thousands like me — and everything is so expensive that my unemployment allowance doesn't go very far.
SKILLED WORKMAN. Yes. Even our high wages don't help much. I get about one and three-quarter times what I got before the war, and the prices of most things I want are more than double what they were, so that I am really worse off than I was before, because with my higher wages I cannot buy as much now as I could with lower wages before the war, and yet I seem to have a lot of money to spend. I get three pounds a week now, and it costs me that to buy food and clothes and pay rent. Before the war I only got two pounds a week, but my expenses only came to about one pound fifteen. So before the war I could cave five shillings a week for luxuries, and now I can't save anything.
MANUFACTURER. Yes. It's the same thing with our profits.
PRESIDENT-. Stop ! Here, it seems, is a point upon which we are all agreed. We are not better off because we get more money every year if everything costs more still to buy. If things cost less to buy, then the same wages would be worth more.
ALL. Yes.
PRESIDENT. In other words, the value of wages and profits does not depend upon the amount of money they are represented by, but rather upon their relation to the cost of living.
ALL. -'Yes.
PRESIDENT. Mr. Secretary, put that down in the book.
WIDOW. Yes. I remember before the war you could live as comfortably in Brussels on £500 a year as you could in England on £800.
SKILLED LABOURER. Why ?
WIDOW. Because everything was so much cheaper in Brussels.
MERCHANT. Yes ; but I would rather live in England than in Brussels all the same.
282 WEALTH AND WORKERS.
UNSKILLED LABOURER. Well, it seems to me that high prices don't matter so much to the rich. MERCHANT. Why ?
UNSKILLED LABOURER. Because they don't spend all their income, probably ; and, in any case, they don't have to spend the same proportion of it on necessities. Nearly all the poor man's income goes on necessities, and it is almost impossible for him to save anything if prices rise higher in proportion than his wages.
MERCHANT. Yes, I suppose that is true. PRESIDENT. Does everybody agree on that ? ALL. Yes.
PRESIDENT. Mr. Secretary, write down the following : ' High prices hit the poor harder than they hit the rich.'
MANUFACTURER. Then the question is — how are we going to lower prices ?
SKILLED LABOURER. Or raise wages.
PRESIDENT. Well, the cost of articles depends to a great extent on the rate of wages ; we agree that it is no use raising wages if we thereby raise the cost of living in the same proportion. The real question is — how are we going to lower the cost of living in proportion to the rate of wages ; for this affects the poor more than the rich.
SKILLED LABOURER. By forcing capital to be content with less profits.
MERCHANT. No.
PRESIDENT. But how are you going to do that ? SKILLED LABOURER. It seems to me quite simple. I simply strike for more wages, which the manufacturer is forced to pay.
WIDOW. And the manufacturer simply adds it on to the cost of the article he is producing.
BANKER. And then workers in other trades strike and the prices of those articles go up, and the first striker is still as badly off as he was before.
SKILLED LABOURER. Not if you force capital to make less profits.
MANUFACTURER. That would be useless, impossible, and fatal to the prosperity of the country.
PRESIDENT. We seem to be getting rather heated. Let us cool ourselves out of doors and defer the discussion to our next meeting.
WEALTH AND WORKERS. 283
II.
PRESIDENT. Ladies and gentlemen, before beginning our conversation to-day, I am delighted to welcome back Managing Director and Doctor, and for their benefit I will repeat the points upon which we were in agreement at our last meeting. We agreed that wages and profits depend not on the amount of money they are represented by, but rather upon their relation to the cost of living. And we also agreed that high prices hit the poor more than the rich. So that the question we were faced with was, how to lower the cost of living in relation to wages.
MERCHANT. And profits.
SKILLED LABOURER. No. Capital gets quite enough as it is in proportion to labour.
WIDOW. The question is, what is capital ?
MANUFACTURER. Well, if I want -to start a factory I have first of all got to buy or build my factory and purchase and put up machinery. Then I have got to pay managers their salaries and workmen their wages for some considerable time before I can produce and sell my product and make back something out of what I have spent. If I do not get more for my goods than I spend in wages and salaries, then I make no profits and my machinery is wasted, and I have lost most of my money.
WIDOW. Then capital is money ?
MANUFACTURER. No ; for money may represent income or profits. My capital was what I originally risked to start the business, my income is what I get for selling my goods. But some of that money will have to be set aside to replace or renew my machinery, otherwise when it gets worn out I should not be able to go on manufacturing ; and any balance that remains over after paying the expenses of the business forms my profits.
WTIDOW. Then capital is money spent in starting a business.
MANUFACTURER. Well, something like that — spent directly or indirectly in the production of wealth.
WIDOW. But everybody cannot start a business. I couldn't, although I have a certain sum of money left to me by my husband.
BANKER. What did you do with that money ? Did you spend it on buying food and clothes ?
WIDOW. No. I invested part of it and I deposited some with a bank, and I live on the interest.
284 WEALTH AND WORKERS.
BANKER. What did you invest it in ?
WIDOW. Part in buying Victory Loan, part in buying shares in a railway company, and part in buying shares in a business, and the rest — as I say — I deposited in a bank.
BANKER. Then you were really lending your money to the State to carry on the business of government, and to a railway company to be used for carrying goods and passengers, and to business men to enable them to carry on their business, and to a bank to enable it to lend it out again to other business men.
PRESIDENT. But in the case of the railway company the Widow only bought shares from some shareholder. That is hardly lending money to the railway company.
BANKER. Oh yes it is, really. For she enabled the share- holder from whom she bought the shares to take his capital out and use it in some other business, and she lent her money in his place.
MANUFACTURER. Then capital is money used in the production of wealth.
BANKER. Well, it is often represented by money ; but, at any rate, it is wealth which has been saved and applied to the production of wealth.
PRESIDENT. It seems to me that there are two points here upon which we can all agree. First, that capital is wealth applied to the production of wealth, and necessary to the production of wealth ; and secondly, that it is the result of saving.
UNSKILLED LABOURER. I don't see how you make that out.
PRESIDENT. Well, if the manufacturer had simply used his money to buy a yacht to sail round the world in, his factory would never have been started, his machinery would not have been used, and his workpeople would not have been paid. If everybody with money spent it all in eating and drinking and going to the theatre, there would be nobody to build factories or pay labour or produce new wealth by risking their capital ; for don't forget what Manu- facturer told us — you have got to pay for your machinery and for your labour and management be/ore you get any returns from your expenditure. If the Widow, too, had kept her money in a stocking and then taken it out to spend on food and clothes when she wanted them, instead of lending it to the State, the railway company, and the business, and living on the interest, then the State would not have been helped to carry on the work of govern- ment and so make it possible for people to live in security and produce wealth, the shareholder in the railway company would
WEALTH AND WORKERS. 285
not have had his money released to use like the manufacturer in the production of more wealth, and the business to which she lent her money would not have been helped to start.
UNSKILLED LABOURER. Yes, that's true.
PRESIDENT. So we are agreed, are we not, that Capital is wealth applied to the production of wealth, and necessary to the pro- duction of wealth ?
ALL. Yes.
PRESIDENT. Mr. Secretary, write that down. — Are we not also agreed that it is the result of saving ?
SKILLED LABOURER. I don't quite see why.
PRESIDENT. Well, if the manufacturer had spent his money on that yacht he could not have started his business. If out of the profits of his business he saves some more money, he can buy more machinery, produce more, and pay more managers and workpeople. If the Widow's husband had not saved his money, the Widow would have had none to lend to the State, the railway company, or the business ; instead, she would have had to go into the workhouse, and the State would have had to pay to keep her. Even you and Unskilled Labourer, who told us you had just come from the theatre at our first meeting, if you had managed to save some of your, wages you might have started a shop and been capitalists, even though only in a small way. Anyway, if you wanted to start a shop you must have some money to start on, and you must either have saved that money or borrow it from some one who has saved it.
UNSKILLED LABOURER. Well, surely you don't expect us to have no pleasures in life ?
PRESIDENT. No. I don't suggest that, of course. All I mean to show is that capital is always originally caused by some one having saved their money and not having spent it on unprofitable things. If nobody saved their money to risk it in carrying on business, who is going to pay labour ?
f BANKER. Yes. Capital is savings applied to the production oj wealth.
PRESIDENT. Do all agree ?
ALL. Yes.
PRESIDENT. Mr. Secretary, write that down.
SKILLED LABOURER. I don't see how my shop would produce wealth — it does not make anything.
MERCHANT. No ; but it takes things from where they are not
286 WEALTH AND WORKERS.
wanted and puts them where they are, and so makes them more valuable. That is why the shopkeeper and the merchant may be said to produce wealth.
UNSKILLED LABOURER. I don't quite see that.
MERCHANT. Well : there is far more corn grown in Canada than Canada wants for its own consumption, and there is far less corn grown in England than is required to feed the population. If all the corn were left in Canada, a lot of it would rot and England would starve. All that rotting corn would be worth nothing, but when the corn merchant brings it over to England, it at once becomes valuable ; so he, too, has created wealth. So too the grocer who sells sugar in a town in England where it is wanted. He buys it from the merchant who has shipped it from Demarara, where there is much more sugar than is wanted by the inhabitants.
DOCTOR. Then the merchant and the shopkeeper help to produce wealth, both as capitalists and as workers. How do I come in ?
SKILLED LABOURER. You earn much more than any labourer I have ever met.
DOCTOR. Yes ; because I am a successful doctor. But lots of my friends earn hardly enough to live on. It is a great risk and a great expense.
SKILLED LABOURER. How an expense ?
DOCTOR. Well, my education and training cost a tremendous amount, and my father had to save up for years to give me the chance of learning to be a doctor.
BANKER. Then your knowledge and skill are also due to the application of capital, for your father had to save up his wealth to provide you with your technical knowledge, and that technical knowledge helps people to keep well, and so helps to create wealth.
MANAGING DIRECTOR. And what about management ?
MANUFACTURER. You are the most important person of all in the production of wealth, for upon you depends the whole success of a business. Good businesses are often ruined by bad manage- ment, and businesses that are not succeeding are made prosperous by good management. Without good managers neither capital nor labour would get employment.
SKILLED LABOURER. They get paid very high salaries.
MANUFACTURER. Not always. Only those in responsible positions. Besides, good managers are very hard to find, and in nine cases out of ten they rise from the ranks on their own merits.
WEALTH AND WORKERS. 287
PEESIDENT. Well, it is at any rate clear that the labourer, the manager, the professional man, the merchant, and the shop- keeper all help to produce wealth.
SKILLED LABOURER. Then the labourer, too, helps to produce wealth.
PRESIDENT. Of course he does.
SKILLED LABOURER. Then he ought to get a bigger share of it.
MANUFACTURER. Not above the economic limit.
SKILLED LABOURER. There you are — you never get any help from that quarter. For years we have had to fight because we never get any help except through fighting.
PRESIDENT. I am afraid that has been largely true in the past.
MANUFACTURER. But you don't understand
SKILLED LABOURER. And you don't help.
MANUFACTURER. I think we have learned our lesson in the past. We want to help now, but it is not so easy as it seems.
SKILLED LABOURER. Well, we shall go on striking.
MANUFACTURER. And it will do you no good, and will ruin us all.
SKILLED LABOURER. Oh ! We have heard that before. We
PRESIDENT. We are getting warm again. The night air will cool us, and we will continue the conversation next week.
III.
PRESIDENT. Ladies and gentlemen, if I remember right, at our first meeting we agreed that we are not better oS because we get higher wages if the cost of living rises higher in proportion to our wages, and we also agreed that high prices hit the poor more than they hit the rich. We have not yet discovered how to lower the cost of living in proportion to wages. At our second meeting we agreed that capital is necessary to the production of wealth because workmen have to be paid before their products can be sold, and that saving is necessary to the production of capital. It was also pointed out that labour, too, helps to produce wealth, and it was suggested that labour ought to force capital to part with more of the profits earned by their united efforts.
MANUFACTURER. Not above the economic limit.
PRESIDENT. Now, if capital is necessary to the production
288 WEALTH AND WORKERS.
of wealth and saving is necessary to the production of capital, then does it not follow that the more saving there is the more capital will be produced, and the more capital is produced the more wealth will be created ?
BANKER. Provided capital is properly applied.
MANUFACTURER. Yes. And does it not follow that everything should therefore be done to encourage saving and the creation of capital ?
SKILLED LABOURER. Not above the economic limit.
PRESIDENT (laughing). That is one for you, Manufacturer. But the question is, ' What is the economic limit ? '
MANUFACTURER. Well, as far as I am concerned, it is no use paying such high wages that I cannot make any profit without raising the price of the article I am producing.
SKILLED LABOURER. Well, we are no worse off, even if you do raise prices.
MANUFACTURER. Yes, you are ; because the higher prices are, the fewer people will buy my products, and therefore I shall have to produce a smaller output and give employment to less labour.
SKILLED LABOURER. No. Because if our wages go up in the same proportion we can all afford to buy your products still.
MANUFACTURER. But there are a large number of people whose income will not have increased, professional men for instance, and people who live on a fixed income from invest- ments ; and, above all, there are the foreign markets to be considered.
SKILLED LABOURER. What do you mean by that ?
MANUFACTURER. An enormous quantity of our goods are shipped abroad and bought by people in other countries. The more goods we ship abroad, the more money is brought into this country to pay for them, and the more employment is given to our own workpeople. We also buy goods made in other countries. The more goods we have to buy from other countries, the more money goes out of this country and the more employment is given to people in other countries. Now, if we produce goods cheaper than other countries, foreigners will buy our goods. If they can produce cheaper than us, we shall have to buy their goods and not be able to sell our goods, and our own industries will be ruined.
Again, we do not and cannot produce enough food to feed ourselves. Therefore we have to buy food from abroad, or we shall
WEALTH AND WORKERS. 289
starve. This food lias to be paid for, and money is continually going out of the country to buy this food. We cannot go on always sending money out of the country to buy food unless we also get money into this country from abroad, otherwise there would soon be no money left in this country. So we must be able to produce goods which foreigners will buy and pay for in order to get money into the country. The more goods we can produce which foreigners will buy, the more money we shall receive, and the more will be available for us to buy food and goods grown abroad which we cannot produce ourselves. Also, the more employment will be given to our own people.
SKILLED LABOURER. Yes, I see that.
PRESIDENT. Then it is obviously to the advantage of both labour and capital — is it not ? — that the largest amount of goods should be produced as cheaply as possible.
WIDOW. I don't quite see why.
PRESIDENT. Because, firstly, the more goods you can produce by means of a given amount of labour and a given amount of capital, the less those goods will cost, and the cheaper they will be for everybody to buy. Secondly, because the cheaper they are to buy the more people abroad will want to buy them, and therefore our trade will expand, more money will come into the country, and more employment will be given to our own people.
WIDOW. Yes, I see.
SKILLED LABOURER. But if we were only to work three days a week, the manufacturers will have to employ twice as many people.
MANUFACTURER. No. I should only produce half as much. For if I had to employ workmen who only worked three days a week I could not compete with foreign firms whose workmen worked five and a-half days a week, and I could not sell my goods abroad.
MERCHANT. Yes. It is the same with my ships. If it costs twice as much to unload a ship at Liverpool as it does at Antwerp, more ships will go to Antwerp and less to Liverpool.
SKILLED LABOURER. But if all the workmen in the world agreed only to work three days a week ?
BANKER. Well, I am sure German workmen would never agree to that, and besides we can't afford to be the first to start and risk all our trade.
SKILLED LABOURER. But suppose they did ?
BANKER. Then only half the present quantity of goods would
VOL. XLVIIL— NO. 285, N.S. 19
290 WEALTH AND WORKERS.
be produced in the world, and since there would be the same number of people in the world wanting these goods, prices would rise higher and higher, and we should be worse off than before.
PRESIDENT. What it comes to, then, is this : the more goods we can produce with the capital and labour available in this country, the less they will cost us. The less they cost us, the more we can sell in the markets of the world. The more we can sell in the markets of the world, the more wealth will be available to distribute amongst capital and labour. In other words, we are agreed that the more goods we produce and the tnore cheaply we produce them, the more wealth will "be created for distribution between labour and capital.
ALL. Yes.
PRESIDENT. Mr. Secretary, write that down.
BANKER. And does it not follow that the larger the markets for our goods, the more labour will be required ?
PRESIDENT. Yes, I think so.
BANKER. And the more wealth will be produced ?
PRESIDENT. Yes.
BANKER. Then if more wealth is produced and more labour is required, the more will employers not only be able to afford to pay labour, but the more will they have to pay labour, for there will be a greater demand for labour.
MANUFACTURER. Yes, I think that is true, and at the same time goods will remain cheaper.
PRESIDENT. In other words, higher production means higher wages in proportion to the cost oj living.— Secretary, write that down. — So that we seem to have solved our problem, namely, how to lower the cost of living in proportion to wages.
UNSKILLED LABOURER. No, I am not convinced of that. I can see that if labour and capital both combine to produce the maximum, things will be cheaper, and I can see that there will be more profits available ; but I am not at all sure that those extra profits will be divided with labour.
MERCHANT. But if more labour is wanted than there are labourers available, employers will have to pay more to get labour.
SKILLED LABOURER. No, they will combine against us and force down wages.
(y MANUFACTURER. And labour will combine against us and strike for higher wages, dislocate trade, and then go on striking again till they have forced wages up so high that we shall find
WEALTH AND WORKERS. 291
ourselves again unable to compete with foreign manufacturers, and prices will once more rise, and we shall all be where we were before.
SKILLED LABOUKER. And if we don't strike, you will keep all the extra profits for yourselves and we shall be no better off than we were before.
MANUFACTURER. You won't trust us.
SKILLED LABOURER. We have never found that we could.
MANUFACTURER. If we give you an inch you want an ell. You don't understand anything about economics and you at once become unreasonable.
SKILLED LABOURER. That is because you have never taught us to understand anything. Besides, you don't understand, us.
PRESIDENT. Gentlemen, it is time we closed the discussion. We are getting warm again. Let us meet next week and see if we can't come to understand each other after all.
IV.
PRESIDENT. Ladies and gentlemen, there were quite a lot of points upon which we were in agreement at our previous three meetings. Let me remind you of them. We first of all agreed that it is no use raising wages if we raise the cost of living equally. What we want to do is to lower the cost of living in proportion to wages. We also agreed that high prices hit the poor more than they hit the rich. Then we agreed that capital is savings applied to the production of wealth, and we saw that the capitalist, the manager, the merchant, the professional man, and the labourer help in the production of wealth. Finally, we agreed that the more goods we produce and the cheaper we produce them, the more wealth will be available for distribution between labour and capital. Then, is it not quite clear that in order to reduce the cost of living, the first thing we have to do is to get our industries going in full swing again ?
SKILLED LABOURER. But have they not been going in full swing during the war ? Look at the fortunes the profiteers have been making !
BANKER. Yes, it is true that in certain industries large fortunes have been made by certain people during the war — and that was very wrong. In the same way labour, in certain cases, was able to command enormously increased wages, But that
292 WEALTH AND WORKERS.
was only because of the special conditions created by the war. There was very little foreign competition, and certain goods and materials were wanted in large quantities for war purposes. But that was all artificial. Now foreign competition is starting again, and the State is no longer a purchaser of war material on a large scale. Large numbers of men are being released from the services, and labour is also being released from munition and other war work. So that for the moment everything is disorganised. At the same time countries like America and Japan have become very rich during the war, and are trying to produce as fast as possible, so as to capture the world markets.
UNSKILLED LABOURER. But there is plenty of money about in England, too.
PRESIDENT, Yes, there seems to be ; but don't forget what we agreed at our first meeting, Everything costs so much more to buy that we are no richer, really ; in fact, we are ever so much poorer, because we have had to spend thousands of millions of pounds to carry on the war, and all the war has given us in exchange is Victory. Victory doesn't mean wealth, it only means an escape from disaster. For Germany is ruined and cannot possibly pay us more than a small portion of what the war has cost. The whole world is poorer by all the thousands of millions it has wasted on the war.
WIDOW. Then the war hasn't done us much good.
PRESIDENT. No wars can bring anything but loss to the world. We were forced to fight this one to save ourselves from becoming a prey to the mad policy of Germany.
WIDOW. It seems so tragic and almost absurd.
PRESIDENT. Yes ; and does not the present industrial war seem almost as tragic and almost as certain to lead to ruin and disaster ? Labour trying to get all it can out of capital, and capital trying to get all it can out of labour, with the result that just when we ought to try to produce our maximum so as to lower the cost of living, we find our industries continually dislocated or stopped by quarrels and disputes.
BANKER. Yes. We call ourselves the ' Goodwill Club,' but I notice that while we all agree on the necessity of producing our maximum so as to lower the cost of living, we always begin to quarrel when it comes to the question of how to divide the wealth we propose to create by our joint efforts.
PRESIDENT. If only people would see that both unreasonable
WEALTH AND WORKERS. 293
profiteering and unreasonable strikes are equally fatal to the prosperity of every one !
SKILLED LABOURER. How do you make that out ?
MANUFACTURER. How do you make that out ? PRESIDENT. Well, take unreasonable profiteering first. By that I mean taking advantage of temporary conditions to raise prices unreasonably and make large profits out of special circum- stances. What is the result to the manufacturer ? First, he encourages new manufacturers to come in and compete against him. Next, he restricts his markets, for not so many people can afford to buy his goods when they are expensive as when they are cheap. Then he lets the foreign manufacturer come in and compete. Finally, he makes labour discontented and he has to pay higher wages. Then when conditions become normal again he finds prices fall : by that time his new competitors are in full swing, he has lost his foreign markets, and finally he can no longer afford to pay the same high wages, and there is trouble at once. So that besides being wrong, unreasonable profiteering is also foolish. Of course large profits can be made reasonably, too, by special skill in manage- ment, for instance, or they may be the result of capital taking a great risk, as in oil production, for example, where hundreds of thousands of pounds have to be spent before any oil is found, and with the risk that none will be found in paying quantities. If there were no prospect of making big profits, no one would risk their capital to find oil. But unreasonable profiteering, which takes advantage of special circumstances like the war, and which raises prices unreasonably, is, as we have seen, both wrong and foolish.
MANUFACTURER. Yes, I see that.
PRESIDENT. In the same way unreasonable strikes are equally wrong and foolish. By an unreasonable strike I mean one which tries to make use of special circumstances to raise wages unduly. For what is the result ? The employer ceases to have to pay wages, so his loss is lessened by that much, at any rate, and he can often afford simply to wait. But in the meanwhile labour loses its wages, production ceases, and foreign competitors get their chance. Then labour in other industries is tempted to strike, and more production ceases. Then all the industries which depend on the materials produced by the first strikers are crippled and may have to shut down, and a large amount of unemployment is caused. Then credit is hopelessly impaired.
SKILLED LABOURER. What do you mean by that ?
294 WEALTH AND WORKERS.
PRESIDENT. Well, owing to industrial troubles, banks will refuse to lend money to manufacturers to help them produce larger quantities of goods, and so if they can't borrow they will have to produce less. Then manufacturers will not be able to quote fixed prices for goods because of the uncertainty of what wages will be from one day to another, and so foreign buyers will not buy because they will not know what they may have to pay when the goods are delivered.
Finally, prices will begin to rise again all round because less goods are being produced and unemployment will increase. In the end the strikers will be little better off than they were before, even if they obtain a rise in wages. Unfortunately, strikes have sometimes been necessary and right where labour has been unfairly treated and every other method has failed, and where employers have not tried to act fairly by labour. But when they are unreasonable they are both foolish and wrong, just like unreasonable profiteering.
WIDOW. Then labour can be guilty of profiteering as well as capital ?
PRESIDENT. Yes, if it is unreasonable. We have got to produce as much as we can in order to lower the cost of living, and both labour and capital have got to pull together hard to do it. We tax capital very heavily in income tax, super tax, excess profits, and death duties ; but we must never forget that without capital there will be no industries, for it is capital that bears the risk in the first place. So it is to the interest of labour that capital should be encouraged, and to the interest of capital also that labour should be encouraged.
¥' WIDOW. But how are capital and labour encouraged ? \T$ PRESIDENT. Capital is encouraged by fair play on the part of labour and steady industrial conditions, and labour is encouraged by being made healthy, happy, and interested in the results of their work.
SKILLED LABOURER. Yes, I think if we were better educated to understand the things we have been talking about we should not be led away on wrong tracks, and we should better be able to claim our rights when we have real grievances.
MANUFACTURER. I am bound to say, my education never taught me anything about economics, and certainly nothing about the history of industrial troubles. That's why I, too, have so often been in the wrong.
WEALTH AND WORKERS. 295
PRESIDENT. Yes ; education is the first and most important of all things. But above all we must have goodwill. If there had been goodwill between nations there need never have been this war, and I am sure that with these two things, knowledge and goodwill, we should soon find all classes pulling together once more to restore the prosperity of the country.
ALL. Yes, we agree.
PRESIDENT. Mr. Secretary, write that down. It only remains for us to discuss some method of securing the better distribu- tion of wealth. Perhaps we may discover this at oar future meetings.
MANUFACTURER. I wonder !
E. DE STEIN.
296
A STORY FROM REAL LIFE. BY JANE WELSH CARLYLE.
THE following characteristic and clever little story was written by Mrs. Carlyle towards the end of the year 1853. It has never before been published, having presumably been mislaid or over- looked when Carlyle was collecting and annotating the ' Letters and Memorials ' of his Wife. The MS. of the story was discovered lately, and few will doubt that its intrinsic merits entitle it to a place among her memorials. It is on record that the ' noble lady ' (Mrs. Basil Montagu) told Mrs. Carlyle that her forte lay in writing 'little notes ' ; but the talent displayed in this story proves that she could have written ' little stories ' equally well, and that if her inclination had lain in this direction, and she had practised the art a little more, she might have become as distinguished for her stories as she is for her letters.
Of the poor jilted heroine of this story, or of the false lover, nothing more is known than Mrs. Carlyle tells us here ; but of Fanny Jenkins, whose peculiarities of diction are reported with all the art of a Dickens, there is frequent mention made in the letters of the time. She was engaged to enter on service at Cheyne Row on the 27th of August, 1852 : not as a regular servant, but as a learner and help to Mrs. Carlyle, then engaged in superintending a ' thorough repair ' of her house. On the 2nd of September following, Mrs. Carlyle writes to her Husband (then absent on his first tour to Germany) : ' Fanny is charming, — so good-natured and stirring ' ; then a few days later, ' Fanny is the best comfort I have had, so willing to fly over the moon for me, and always making light of her discomforts ' ; again, on the 12th of September, ' She is really a nice servant ; a dash of Irish " rough and ready " in her, but a good cleaner and a good cook and a perfect incarnation of " the willing mind." Very tidy, too, in her person, under all circumstances.' On the 6th of October, she still continues to give satisfaction to her mistress, who writes of her to Carlyle: ' She is the best-tempered of creatures, and her health keeps pretty good thro' all the mess ; so that decidedly one may hope she will be equal to our needs in the normal state of things.' Nine months later, Carlyle, too, has a good word to say of Fanny — he writes to Mrs. Carlyle on the 3rd of July, 1853 (she being away on holiday in the north) : ' Fanny (for an irrational creature) is really very good ; all smiles, promptitude, and serviceability.' But
A STORY FROM REAL LIFE. 297
after Mrs. Carlyle's return home, Fanny seems to have deteriorated rapidly, until the climax came a few weeks later, when the building of the soundproof room began (August 1853), which ultimately brought about her complete downfall. For among the workmen employed on the job there was a countryman of her own (a young Irishman, name unknown), who fell desperately in love with her, and presumably she with him, and before very long these two ' ran away,' as Carlyle says, ' into matrimony of a kind,' and Fanny Jenkins was never more heard of at Cheyne Row.
A. CARLYLE.
I LEARNT the other day the catastrophe of a George-Sand novel in real life — a love-and-madness affair, quite after ' the general reader's ' own heart, and also ' to me ' (as Mr. Carlyle might say), ' significant of much.' So I will give myself the trouble of com- mitting it to writing, while the facts are still fresh in my remembrance. It was communicated to me, in separate acts, as it proceeded, by an eyewitness of the little drama from beginning to end — no less obscure an authority than the sister of my maid-servant, Fanny ; but, for the rest, a matter-of-fact, few- worded girl, whose incapacity for inventing or colouring may be relied on.
One evening, some two months ago, the said Fanny came upstairs to me, ' in such a way ' ; she had been ' quite crying,' and was still ' ready to sink ' : indeed, for that matter, no day passes over Fanny in which she has not ' quite cried,' and been ' ready to sink,' at some mishap — her own or another's — which she details, will one listen, in the same woeful recitative ; whether it amount to ' our cat ' having broken a three-halfpenny plate, or to some- body having broken somebody's heart. Offcenest, I make short work with her misereres ; reminding her more or less indelicately that, as ' good plain cook in a genteel family,' it is not required of her to excel in ' the finer sensibilities,' nor yet to develop herself in narration, for which she has, besides, no more human talent than the weak-minded magpie ; but now and then, in moments of inanity, to which we women, still kept out of our rights, are all liable, I will hear her to the end of her — breath, ' just to give myself a melancholy distraction,' — as Mr. Carlyle accounted for his having eaten three unripe pears at a dull dinner-party. Thus, the evening in question, when she broke in upon me with the usual, * Oh, I am in such a way ! ' not only did I put no conclusion to her, but even asked with a certain grim satisfaction, ' What's happened
298 A STORY FROM REAL LIFE.
now ? ' ' Oh, it's my sister's mistress ! I'm sure her marriage has gone back ! My sister has just been, and says her mistress is quite another woman — so cross all the week, and strange, and takes no pleasure in her victuals. And she hardly speaks to my sister that she was so dottedly (dotingly ?) fond of. And I am so sorry. It was such a nice comfortable place for my sister, while her mistress made it her study to please her. But now my sister is just worriting herself to death, and thinks nothing but that the marriage has gone back.'
' Perhaps,' said I brutally, ' her mistress's stomach is out of order.'
Fanny was struck dumb, and lapsed into thought ; at least, with her head leant, first a little on one side, then a little on the other, and her eyes rolling under their half-closed lids, she gave herself exactly that queer little air of thought, minus the brain for thinking with, peculiar to birds. Indeed, for one's purposes of inanity, Fanny Jenkins, take her all in all, is as good as a parrot in the room.
' Has your sister,' said I, to recall her from her bird reverie, ' no reason for supposing the marriage gone back besides her mistress's bad spirits and loss of appetite ? Does the lover come as usual ? '
' Oh, that is just what worrits my sister more than anything ; he hasn't been these three weeks. He had to go in the country on business, he gave out ; but he has been back a week anyhow, for my sister saw him last Friday in Oxford Street, where she had gone for a packet of black-lead. And to think that he hasn't come near her mistress once ! Her mistress, that used to be always in the work-room, just stays upstairs and looks horrid. And one day she wrote at a letter four hours ! and my sister was rung upon for brown paper ; and when she went back, soon after — with the scuttle it was — she saw her mistress making the shawl he gave her into a paper parcel. And she went out, her mistress did, with the letter and parcel, herself, and at her homecoming, an hour after, instead of sitting down, comfortable, to the nice pork-chop my sister had readied for her, she went right upstairs to bed. — Oh, it is such a pity ! Since my sister has been, and told me, nobody knows how unsettled I feel ! I am just ready to sink through the earth, on my sister's account, for if there is to be no marriage after all, and her mistress to go on being miserable, the place will be quite spoiled for my poor sister, who is young, you know, and full
A STORY FROM REAL LIFE. 299
of life. Then I know what it will all come to ! — to my having no end of trouble in finding another situation for her ! '
Aye, there was the rub ! Fanny will do the impossible to feel for others ; is ready to ' cry ' and ' sink ' for them ; as if hired to do all the crying and sinking of the family ; but nobody is more averse to take trouble for others, even for ' my sister,' and I doubt if she would forgo her least perquisite to console the whole human race ! Indeed, Fanny Jenkins, in her humble sphere, is as perfect a type of the Woman of Sensibility, as one could wish not to see.
' Meanwhile, I will thank you to bring tea up,' I said, provoked by the Fannyism of her last words ; and so terminated her un- Arabian Nights' Entertainment for that evening. But enough had been told to inspire me with a — what shall I say ? — esprit de corps in ' my sister's mistress,' whom, for the rest, I had never set eyes on, nor heard tell of by other name. In her quality of ' my sister's mistress,' however, I had heard much to her advantage : she was ' so engaging and considerate for my sister — never tiresome, like some mistresses ' — (did Mrs. Fanny mean to insinuate ?) — she was ' such a one for giving to my sister ! Ob, caps, collars, a whole lot of things ! ' In short, she ' made it her study to please my sister, and my sister would live and die with her mistress.' — ' Unless something very particular occurred to prevent it,' as the tragedian said of virtue being its own reward. And now it would seem this ' something very particular ' had occurred. What was it ? I found myself wondering in my vacant mood.
A few weeks back, the ever-agitated Fanny had watched her opportunity for confiding to me that her sister's mistress was to be married on New-year's Day to ' a fine appearance of a man, with a good run of business ' ; had even with pompous fatuity offered to my inspection a pattern-snip of the wedding gown (un- exceptionable white glace), which I quickly dismissed with that half-compassionate, half-impatient feeling that always seizes me at sight of wedding finery, wedding favours, and all that sort of ostentatious thing wherewith your couple of poor mortals give themselves the air of conquerors in the very doubtfullest moment of their lives. Yes, supposing even the couple to love one another — as happens seldom — and to know one another — as happens still seldomer, and to have money-basis and all that makes ' a suitable match,' surely it is a tempting of Providence this triumphal entry into the married state, while the victory is still all to try for ! . I remember seeing, one day, in Piccadilly, with a
300 A STORY 7ROM REAL LIFE.
murky November day overhead, a stylishly turned out bridal party, all fluttering with the usual white knots, drive past a grandly performed funeral, all nodding with the usual black plumes, and being seriously unable to answer myself, which of the two pageants were the grosser outrage on sense and decency — the more impious blasphemy against Nature— whether the living pair, starting on their solemn life-venture, at best so arduous and doubtful, with this impertinent parade of achievement, or the dead one trundled to his long rest with this brutal mummery of woe, were the likelier sight under the sun to make angels weep ? — if angels there be, of the weeping nature we ascribe to them.3
But to return to ' my sister's mistress ' : this, then, had been her position a few weeks back ; engaged to ' a fine appearance of a man, with a good run of business ' — the wedding to come off on January 1 ; the wedding gown successfully bought, and — oh, crowning joy ! — ' my sister to stay on with a pound more wages and the same comforts ! ' Now, however, a change had come over the spirit of that dream : the ' fine appearance of a man ' was keeping aloof, ' my sister's mistress ' abandoning herself to crying and letter- writing, and ' my sister worriting to death ! ' Not a doubt of it, the Devil had been busy in this household — what doing ? I wished I knew. For the Devil, abuse him as one may, and ought to, does render whatever he meddles with so ' interest- ing,' has such an unrivalled talent for ' making the pulse beat,' that one will find a — -what shall I say ? — ' melancholy distraction ' in his doings, when all others' doings leave one cold. Thus with the loves of ' my sister's mistress ' — -serenely progressing towards lawful marriage — they had taken no more hold of me than the
1 Mrs. Carlyle's dislike of ostentatious displays at weddings and funerals, though such have been customary from time immemorial, is certainly well founded. What a needless waste of money, often by poor people, were there nothing more against it, at a time too when it would be most serviceable ! Her own marriage was of the simplest possible kind ; and in this Carlyle undoubtedly agreed with her. Goethe, too, was of the same opinion ; for he says in Wilhelm Meister, ' Festivities are fit for what is happily concluded : at the commencement, they but waste the force and zeal which should inspire us in the struggle, and support us through a long-continued labour. Of all festivities, the marriage-festival appears the most unsuitable ; calmness, humility, and silent hope befit no ceremony more than this.' Probably Mrs. Carlyle had this passage in mind when writing the above ; for Meister (in Carlyle's translation) was one of her very special favourites. She wrote to her husband, in 1831 : ' Since five o'clock this morning I have been reading Meitter, the only book besides Teufelsdrdckh and the Bible, I mean to keep always by me.'
A STORY FROM REAL LIFE. 301
loves of a plant or triangle ; but now that the Devil seemed driving them towards breach of promise, and ' all that sort of thing,3 the interest was saved ! It was most cheerfully, then, that two or three days after, I acceded to Fanny's humble request that I ' would please cast a look into my sister's throat, who was below, and say if I thought it worth taking to a doctor ; it had been sort of swelled for some time back, and my sister was so intoxicated about doctors.' For her (Fanny), she ' thought they knew little more than oneself did, and only picked one's pocket.' ' Quite right,' I said ; ' send your sister here ' (promising myself the same gratification from the interview as from the continuation of a magazine tale). But it was not till the throat had received due examination, and even been prescribed for, better or worse, that I put the question : ' What of your mistress's marriage ? ' The girl looked grave, shook her head, and said bluntly, ' It's a black job ! ' — •' How do you mean ? ' — ' I mean he's deceiving her.' — • ' In what way ? ' — ' Oh, just making a stoopid of her.' But it were too slow to follow the dialogue between Sarah Jenkins and me through its whole string of questions and answers ; for the younger Jenkins has none of the elder one's glibness — is, in fact, ' terribly af! for a langage,' as the Scotch pedlar said of the English generally. So here, done into rapid narration, is what I patiently elicited about the ' gone back ' marriage, by a categorical process not unlike squeezing an unripe orange.
The courtship had proceeded without visible cloud, till the lover's departure for the country. He had business there, he told the mistress, and should be gone a fortnight. The mistress ' looked kind of put out about his going ; but not as if there were dis- agreeableness between them ' ; bought, in fact, ' two more gowns for her outfit,' after that, and was ' as full-like of her marriage ' as before. It was not till the last evening but one of the fortnight, when ' a gentleman,' the lover's ' intimate friend,' came to tea, that ' signs of misdoubting ' showed themselves. The girl being ' about in the room,' heard her mistress say to this gentleman, ' N. (the lover) comes back to-morrow.' — •' To-morrow ? ' says the gentleman ; ' why, he's been back these three days. Haven't you seen him, then ? ' The mistress went as red as fire, and said she wondered he hadn't been, and that his business was to have taken a fortnight. ' Oh, hang his business ! ' says the gentleman, ' he had no more business down there than you had.' The girl ' having to clear away, overheard no more at that time ' ; but later
302 A STORY FROM REAL LIFE.
when ' rung on ' to light the gentleman down, she perceived that her mistress had been crying, and heard the gentleman's last words, ' You're a d — d deal too good for him ! '— a trait of intimate friend- ship almost leading one to believe that intimate friends in the shopkeeper circle have no better manners and customs than in the higher ones ; where it is as often your intimate friend as your enemy that, ' while you sleep, sows tares in your wheat.'
From that evening, the mistress had been ' unaccountable ' ; upstairs whole days in her room, taking no charge of the business, and it (baby-linen, &c., supplied to families) ' getting all of a muddle ' ; indeed, ' what with customers sending for their things and them not ready, and the mistress ill of the headache and not to be spoken to, the workers were all like frenzied and didn't know how to turn.' For the mistress's self, she was ' oftener on the bed than off it, and cried a deal, one could tell by her eyes ' ; but for the rest, she was very ' tenacious of her trouble, laying all her unaccountableness to the headache.'
It was the second day after the tares had got sown, her intended having neither come nor sent, that the mistress had written that letter which ' took her four hours ' (admirable precision of how to observe !), and ' done up the shawl she had of him in brown paper,' and gone out with both letter and parcel ' on her own feet.' Next
morning, a letter did come for the mistress, by post, with Mr. N 's
handwriting on the back (the girl ' could always tell his hand- writings ' — by her own sharpness) ; and the mistress in taking the letter ' looked deathly,' and said nothing at all, nor opened it while the girl staid. Poor mistress ! one might see she was doing the impossible there, to keep down the lid on her trouble, of whatsoever nature it might be. In her career of supplying baby -linen to families, a hundred to one she had never heard of ' silence is golden,' ' consume your own smoke,' and ' all that sort of thing ' ; but she had evidently at least an instinct thereof, and was pursuing it, too, under difficulties.
It was at this stage of the business that the younger Jenkins had come, for the first time, to pour her worritment into the elder Jenkins's ear ; her mistress, though no longer ' making it her study to please her,' not yet objecting, it appeared, to her pleasing herself.
On her return that evening, she (the younger Jenkins) was told * by one of the young* ladies ' (young needlewomen, accurately speaking) that the gentleman (the intimate friend) had again been and seen the mistress upstairs. Sowing more tares perhaps ?
A STORY FROM REAL LIFE. 303
Bad luck to him, at all events ; the mistress was now ' stranger than ever in her goings on/ and looked so ' gashful (ghastly?) bad ' next morning, that the girl was for her seeing a doctor ; but the mistress just said, ' To please let her alone, and get her a cup of tea.' After, in the forenoon, the mistress came several times to the kitchen, like wanting something, but wouldn't say what she wanted till far in the day, when she asked the girl for the loan of her best bonnet and shawl, and bade her put on her wearing ones ; they had to go somewhere, she said, where none must know of her, and where she scrupled to go alone. ' Was it far they were going ? ' the girl asked ; but the mistress gave her no answer ; so the girl just did as she had been told, not liking to be bothersome. And when the Sunday things and the wearing ones had been respectively put on, the mistress having also a black veil over her face, they both went softly out together at the street door, and walked up B Street at a great pace and along Oxford Street, to a cab- stand ; — the mistress, as heretofore, keeping her mind to herself, and the girl, for her part, ' without a notion.' When, however,
the mistress called a cab and told it ' D Street, Commercial
Road,' then the girl felt sure they must be going after Mr. N ,
who had both his house of business and own house thereabout. In the cab it went no better in regard to speech, the mistress leaning herself back quite lost like, and the girl scarce daring to breathe ; so that the ride wasn't the least of a pleasure — oh, anything but !
At the place specified, they took leave of the cab and went up D
Street on foot, to opposite the house of business, sure enough with
Mr. N. 's name on it, quite large. And then they walked
backwards and forwards for at least a good half-hour (a bad half- hour it must have been for the bedeviled mistress), till at last they
had the pleasure, such as it was, of seeing Mr. N come out,
stand an instant looking up the street, and then cut off quite brisk, — mistress ,and maid following him, on the opposite side of the street. But that, alas ! was not all they had ' come out for to see.'
Just imagine ! Mr. N hadn't gone a hundred yards before a
lady met him, in front, and put her arm through his quite friendly, and the two walked on together, talking into each other's faces. The girl ' saw the lady quite plain, so plain that she could draw her picture, and she was a beautiful lady, a head taller than the mistress, with a fine high colour and black braids, and dressed — oh, so splendid ! — more like a carriage-lady than anything else ! ' And now the strange party, two on one side and two on the other,
304 A STORY FROM REAL LIFE.
traversed together the street or streets between the house of business and the dwelling-house ; on arriving at which last, Mr.
N drew out his latch-key and let himself in, and, oh, Heavens !
not himself only, but the quasi-carriage-lady along with him. ' And then the door was banged to ' — their further proceedings, to be only divined from the opposite pavement, not described — ' our wishes ' being all too feebly * presentiments of our powers,' in the matter at least of seeing through stone walls. But already the mistress had seen enough, one may presume, for both practical and unpractical purposes, as she immediately turned away quite pleased like, saying, ' Now we'll go home ' ; no other word having
crossed her lips till then, except that when Mr. N and the
lady met one another, she had seized the girl by her upper arm and said, ' There ! there ! D'you see ? ' And having ' pleased herself all of a moment ' thus miraculously, the mistress didn't lapse into silence again, but was pretty sociable in the home- coming— all in the way of good advice, and such like ; for as to
N , she never named him more than if he hadn't been.
There was no fire when they came in, except in the kitchen ; so the mistress said, ' Make me a cup of tea, the first thing, and I will drink it by the kitchen iire.' ' She was shivering with cold, the mistress was, and could eat nothing with her tea ; but I believe she was none the worse for what she had gone and seen. Indeed, she said over and over again in the kitchen, that " she was thankful to have her health again " ; that she " had been dreadfully ill with her head all the week, and had got no sleep for something on her mind."
A. CABLYLE.
305
THE CHELTENHAM WATERS. BY THE REV. P. H. DITCHFIELD, M.A., F.S.A.
A PROLONGED study of the art and poesy of dining and a steady application to a course of gargantuan feastings, in times that now seem somewhat remote, entailed upon their votaries a visit to Homburg or other German health-resorts for a cure. It may be safely conjectured that no Englishman will, for several genera- tions at least, set his foot on the soil of the pestilential Fatherland if he can by any means avoid it. Possibly, as we never dine now, but only partake of severely-rationed ' repasts,' we shall never again require such drastic remedies. If, however, the ills that flesh is heir to should necessitate a visit to a Spa, it might be possible to discover an English watering-place that would satisfy our needs, and thus to escape the infliction and awful penalty of associating with the Hun. In the presence of his bishop a rector was over- heard saying ' Yes, I have been in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, and I know not where to go for a holiday.'
4 Try your own parish, Mr. Jones,' said the stern voice of Bishop Selwyn from across the dinner-table.
So we will try our own country, and what more inviting English Spa can we find than the fair old town of Cheltenham that lies at the foot of the Cotswolds and that may now renew its youthful vigour and become once more fashionable and prosperous ? We will visit it not in the days of the dull and sober present, but in its palmy times when, nigh a century ago, it had ' stripped Bath of its gaudy day ' and obtained pre-eminence over its rivals —
' not only on account of its salubrious rides and walks, or its bold Cotswold air, but mainly by reason of its moral as much as of its
natural advantages.'
>
Such is the charming language and literary style of Cheltenham's fashionable physician, Dr. Fosbroke. It seems to have been the common practice of the doctors at these watering-places to write a book on the excellence of the waters and their superiority over all others— of the wonderful cures wrought by them and the treatment to be adopted. In spite of the advice of an old stager at Bath to a young friend who was about to settle in the City of the Springs, • Whatever you do, my dear fellow, do not begin by writing a book on the Bath waters ' — in spite of Dr. Fosbroke's abuse of such works as — •
VOL. XLVIIL— NO. 285, N.S. 20
306 THE CHELTENHAM WATERS.
' mere enfants perdus of literature, scrimble-scramble bathetic compositions that serve no other purpose than to support the first strokes of a weak swimmer in the vortex,'
he did not fail to copy the example of his confreres. Nay, he went one better. He persuaded his learned father, the Rev. T. D. Fosbroke, M.A., F.A.S., Honorary Associate of the Royal Society of Literature, Hon. Member of the Bristol Philosophical Institution, and the author of many goodly volumes, to write ' A Picturesque and Topographical Account of Cheltenham' as an introduction to his own medical history of the waters. Nor did the father fail to give a nice little ' pufE ' to his son, of whom he wrote :
' The Essay on the Waters by the Author's son will, he hopes, evince his application to the science of his profession and good taste in literature.'
It is all very nice and proper and useful to the resident surgeon at Cheltenham, and it will also be useful to us who desire to know something of the fashionable life of the place when it was in the vogue and of the habits and customs of the good folk who thronged the Wells.
We shall not be deterred from visiting the town by the scurrilous and objectionable epitaph :
* Here I lie and my two daughters ; We died from drinking Cheltenham waters.'
In all probability the epitaph, like many others, lied. The rhyme was current in 1824, but no such inscription to the memory of the unhappy drinkers was then known to exist. It was doubtless the invention of some miserable practitioner of Bath or Leamington who was jealous of the fame of the Cheltenham Spa — this ' fount of Hygeia,' as Dr. Fosbroke calls it, where so many flocked ' to quaff the springs which the earth here so bountifully affords.'
^ Assuming the personality of my grandsire, I set out on the box seat of the ' Veteran,' which started from the ' Bull and Mouth ' Inn in London at 8 o'clock one bright morning in June and travelled through Wycombe, accomplishing the journey in eleven hours. I might have gone by the ' Royal ' or the ' Magneb,' starting daily from the Gloucester Coffee House in Piccadilly, passing through Henley ; but I preferred the other route. Cheltenham was alive with coaches. ' The York House ' conveyed passengers to Bath and the ' Alert ' and the ' Paragon ' to Malvern. I took up my quarters at the ' George ' Inn, whence a string of well-horsed coaches,
THE CHELTENHAM WATERS. 307
including the ' Royal Veteran,' the ' White Hart,' the ' Phoenix/ ' Hibernia ' and ' Columbia ' offered to convey me to Leamington, Warwick and Stratford, and to bring me back the same evening. So if the place wearied me I found it would not be difficult bo escape from it.
But how could anyone weary of Cheltenham, which furnished such attractions as balls, routs, theatres, library-lounges, shopping and promenading ? The landlord of the ' George ' informed me that it was a poor little place before the discovery of the Waters. This happened in 1718, when a Mr. Mason bought the ground which contained the original spring. He observed that flocks of pigeons regularly frequented the spot to feed on the saline particles and that frost never affected its flow. He made inquiries, and then built a small thatched shed over the spring, the water of which began to be used as medicine. From this lowly beginning the Great Temple of Health grew. Mason's son-in-law, Captain Skillicorne — whose many virtues, including * undeviating sobriety,' are recorded on the walls of St. Mary's Church in, perhaps, the longest epitaph in existence — built a pump-room and reared a square brick building over the spring, paved the court and laid out the grounds with trees and upper and lower walks. The fame of the Waters soon began to attract visitors ; but the great event which set its seal to the town's prosperity was the visit of King George III., Queen Charlotte and their buxom daughters in 1788. They resided at Fauconberg House. His Majesty's servants played at cricket, the King having sent to London for bats and balls, lest they should sicken for want of exercise. The Highman Palatine, a noted conjurer, performed before the Royal Family. He requested the King to cut out a bit of silk from the Queen's gown, and the juggler in an instant replaced it. The Morning Post waxed eloquent on —
' the summer village of all that is fashionable and all that is dig- nified, the residence of the royal family being a thing quite new so far from the metropolis.'
That was the psychological moment — the real starting-point in Cheltenham history.
The landlord had preserved some cuttings of old newspapers, and therein I read :
' Already we hear nothing but Cheltenham modes, the Chelten- ham cap, the Cheltenham bonnet, the Cheltenham button, the
308 THE CHELTENHAM WATERS.
Cheltenham buckle ; in short all the fashions are completely Cheltenhamized throughout Great Britain.'
Some other extracts are not so flattering. There are grumbling letters from irate valetudinarians with regard to the scarcity and badness of lodgings and of the exorbitant charges and dishonesty of their keepers. One censorious gentleman declared that—
' the Cheltonians seem displeased that chance should ever have brought them to pubh'c notice by their constant opposition to every improvement for the convenience and accommodation of those who visit them. Emerging as they are from a state of ob- scurity, did they possess the understanding of rational creatures, one might expect to see attention, assiduity and care to deserve the favours of the public.'
A second critic suggested that a coffee-house and some good boarding-houses were needed ; while the fact that neither of the two Sedan chairs could be hired under a shilling outraged the feelings of a third.
But all these miserable deficiencies, and many others that I have no space to record, had disappeared before my advent. I found no" fewer than five Spas and Pump Rooms. There was the Royal Old Well, a grand establishment with its Well Walk. ' Betti- son's Guide ' informed me that —
the unexampled beauty of this noble vista is allowed to excel any other in the world, shaded by an uniform plantation of aspiring elms, preventing any inconvenience from the sun in the hottest weather.'
A short distance from this stands the renowned and far-famed structure called the Montpellier Pump Room, the Sherborne Pump Room, Barrett's Chalybeate Spa and Fowler's Chalybeate Spa at the bottom of Cambray Street.
Early hours are kept at Cheltenham, and I sallied forth to see the early morning parade at the Montpellier Pump Room. A band was discoursing sweet music, and this is what I saw :
' No sooner has the sun begun to absorb the cool dews and the whole sky to be animated with its warmth and influence — no sooner has the lark ceased his first morning carol, and the general choir of birds succeeded, than the busy hum commences at the Wells. Between six and seven the walks begin to be filled and from seven to nine they are crowded. Here may be seen a galaxy of beauty which overpowers even Aurora herself. Here
THE CHELTENHAM WATERS. 309
the sparkling eye, the bewitching mien, the elegant costume which fascinated all beholders at the evening ball, assumes an altered character. The warm glow of the midnight dance is ex- changed for the fresh tint of the morning. The brilliant robe, the necklace, the ear-drop, and the head-dress, are transformed into an easier, a simpler and more becoming attire.'
When the day began with such a rare display of beauty and fashion, such sweet sights and sounds, surely life could never be dull in this enchanting town. So I return in high spirits to mine inn for breakfast. From ten to eleven the doctors see their patients, of whom happily I am not of the number. But I observe that there are at least thirty medical men in the town ; three ' enjoy the distinction of being Physicians Extraordinary to the King. Sir A. Faulkner does the like service to H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex, and Dr. Gibney has amongst his patients the Duke of Cumberland. But the greatest of all is Dr. Jenner, the dis- coverer of vaccination, who received £30,000 from Parliament for his discovery, and in spite of his success he remained the simple kindly-hearted doctor who could not be tempted to wander further than Cheltenham from his * dear blackbirds at Berkeley.' In the charmingly sublime language of the period in which we are revelling we are told :
* He might have spread his pinions upon the favouring gales of popularity, and built his aerie in the lofty cliffs of ambition ; but he preferred the amiable tranquillity of the retired songsters of the grove, and made his nest with the dove. He delighted in home, and home among persons of such habits as his were, is commonly a temple of virtue, sentiment and reason. Luxuries and frivolities were not to him Lares and Penates, indispensable household gods to whom an idolatrous service is paid.' x
Avoiding the doctors, I betake myself to the auctions at the Rooms, where I find a large and varied assortment of books, Colebrook-Dale ware, paintings, ladies' apparel and jewellery, dis- played for sale. This not proving sufficiently attractive, and being somewhat of a literary turn of mind, I betake me to Bettison's Library in the High Street. It is a marvellous place. The pro- prietor informs me that this Library has lately received an accession of several thousand volumes of scarce works collected by himself, and that he has also exerted his taste in the embellishment of its interior. Its situation is most eligible ; its accommodations are superior, and its various stores of learning exhaustless. Whether
1 * Masonic Jeunerian Sermon,' by the Rev. T, D. Fosbroke.
310 THE CHELTENHAM WATERS.
it is the sublime labour of divinity, tlie steady works of philosophy, the true portraiture of history, the poetical effusions of imagination, or the fancy-fraught productions of romance, here is the chaste receptacle of ancient and modern genius. The unwearied assiduity and skill of the proprietor in collecting select works and miscellanies, cause a variety of volumes in every language to excite the curiosity of the connoisseur, or impart instruction. The reading-room, which is eighty feet in length and supported by Doric pillars, is terminated by a shrubbery, which tends to produce that serenity of mind so adapted to contemplation — -indeed everything that constitutes the comfort of a library is here concentrated. Upwards of one hundred London, Irish, Welsh and provincial papers are taken in weekly, which, with the most esteemed and popular publica- tions, are continually on the table for the subscribers' inspection. The most strict attention is proffered, whilst fashion and polite manners impose the greatest silence. The spirited proprietor has established a series of musical entertainments, assisted by able professors, when the gardens are brilliantly lighted with gas, and occasionally a grand display of fireworks /
Illuminations and fireworks ! Who could resist the attractions of Mr. Bettison's bookshop ? Nor is it quite singular. I understand that a band plays at Mr. William 5 's Library twice a week, and that Dufneld and Weller's Literary Saloon has a series of soirees musicales. With such attractions who would not be a bibliophil ?
In the afternoon the habitue seems to spend his time playing billiards or ' tooling nymphs of fashion ' over the stones, or in a drag, from a Stanhope to a four-in-hand, up and down the High Street — a singularly dull proceeding. At six he dines. The evening amusements are diversified. The Assembly Rooms, erected in 1816 under the patronage of the Duke of Wellington to commemorate the glorious battle of Waterloo, are the rendezvous of fashion. Balls, cards, and the theatre follow each other on successive evenings. The Beau Brummell of Cheltenham is one Marshall, a very lordly and despotic gentleman, who succeeded a Frenchman, Simeon Moreau. I find a line in the Cheltenham Mail Bag, f marshalled in Fashion's proud array,' with the author's note :
' I can scarcely think the crude Acerbus given to punning, or I should imagine this was a play upon the name of the worthy and assiduous Master of Ceremonies.'
THE CHELTENHAM WATERS. 311
The theatre is in ' the focus of the metropolitan circle/ and first- rate performers appear there. The divine Sarah, Mrs. Siddons, won her earliest triumphs on the Cheltenham stage, and hither she came after her retirement for serenity and healing ; and here the great Macready spent the evening of his life.
After the play I am invited to a rout. Do you know what that is ? It may thus be described :
' A singing lady at a corner of a room, an array of standing or seated listeners ; two or three card-tables ; tea and coffee ; perhaps quadrilles ; silence broken by the footman bawling at the door the names of every party as they arrive ; flirting and ogling ; wine, cakes, ices, confectionery, etc., and off ! '
Miss Dorothy Sketch, in the Cheltenham Mail Bag, describes Mr. Thingummie's rout in apt verse :
' Sure all the world, love, was there, So crowded you scarce can imagine, my dear ; The grave and sedate at whist, commerce or loo, Were fixt in their chairs — and the fair De Lihu Was warbling those strains of enchantment and joy That thrill every bosom and brighten each eye ; Preparing the soul — says some learned physician — For the fever of love by a predisposition.'
I soon wearied of the crush ; so I left the rout and walked across the gardens to the Rooms, where certain fascinating games were being played, e.g. hazard, 1'ecarte, blind-hookey, etc. Sharks, I soon found, were plentiful, showing much prowling activity and much eagerness in their designs upon other people's pockets.
I may not tell you of all the excitements of the place. The race- week was extraordinarily busy, and vast crowds assembled. Every hotel was crammed, and balls and plays occupied the evening hours. Sedan chairs were in constant use, and the chairmen were authorised to charge you sixpence for carrying you 250 yards, or two shillings for a mile. But they were a troublesome lot, these chairmen, and the rules were strict, and so were the fines. Of the fair dames they carried I know little. I think I saw Becky Sharp ; and I certainly met that most jovial and hospitable of old vestals, Miss Crawley, after a somewhat reckless London season. I have derived some amusement and much information from a study of the Cheltenham Mail Bag, which records under a thin disguise the names of the most distinguished visitors. It tells you of the beauties and attractions of the town, where —
312 THE CHELTENHAM WATERS.
* We'll show you the Lions and fete you and all From day-break at the Wells to midnight at the Ball, Since for walks and for waters, for beaux and for belles There's nothing in nature to rival our Wells.'
Before leaving Cheltenham, where the poet pours forth such melodious lays, and the flowers of oratory spring up by the Chelt's fair stream, I must bid an affectionate farewell to Dr. Fosbroke, whose portly form haunts the place and fills it with his immortal genius ! He wrote his Guide —
' rather for the amusement and peace which pursuits of a calm and retiring nature produces (sic), than for any fame or high employment which they can bring.'
Not for him is 'the dry and barren style,' considered by some inferior minds as most suited for medical tradition. Are not the coarsest weeds floriferous, and is the aloe less medicinal for bearing a blossom ? He has collected these —
' fugitive observations, fixt with a Cretan note, in such hours as could be consecrated to the Egerian Grotto of thought,'
and they form —
' a kind of foliage which springs at such times from the prolific budding and shooting of the mind.'
No desire of popularity prompted him to write this book — no wish to bring more patients to his door. Birds of carrion care not for the perfumes of literature. In every country and in every profession the authors have been the greatest men. Other professional men, who have not written books, are like certain predatory animals which return nothing to the soil whence they derive nurture. Bravo, most learned doctor !
' At all events the time has not arrived when intelligence will suffer itself to be smothered up from the light by the base con- tagious clouds of invidious censoriousness.'
With these admirable sentiments we will take leave of our guide and of ' the present Baioe of Great Britain,' echoing the wish so admirably expressed by this most grandiloquent doctor :
* Long may it flourish, ere like the luxurious retirement of the ancient masters of the world, it become a pile of mutilated ruins.'
313 'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.'
A TRIBUTE, BY JEFFERY E. JEFFERY.
THIS is a true story. It is so true and in parts so intimate and personal that I hesitate to write it down. But a force stronger than myself compels me. For in a little town in the north of France there lives a woman to whom I owe my life — and some- thing more. I cannot repay her, but I can at least record what she did for me physically, and a little too, perhaps, of what she has done for me morally. I can attempt, however feebly, to portray the manner of woman she is.
In August 1914, when the invading grey tide was sweeping for- ward towards Paris, I was left stranded, severely wounded in the face, in a French Red Cross Hospital at Bavay. There I remained until I was taken away in the middle of October — a convalescent en route for a German prison. My repatriation and subsequent doings for the four years which followed do not concern this story. While I was in the hospital I kept a diary, and just before I left, knowing that I should be searched sooner or later, I handed it over to be hidden. After Bavay was retaken in November 1918 this diary was unearthed and forwarded to me : it lies upon my table now. Under the date 25th August I find I wrote :
' After this I can make no particular account of days. I just lay in a state of coma drinking milk or coffee and swallowing with difficulty. I found my salvation in one of the nurses (Madame Angele Dusart), who took me under her special charge and did absolutely everything for me.'
This matter-of-fact statement is no more than the literal truth. At the time I had neither the strength nor the energy to make an elaborate record of all she did, and besides there was no need : I knew that the memory of those days was to remain with me for life. I can close my eyes as I sit here now and see the ward and every detail of its interior ; the long room (it was the Salle des Fetes of a college and had a stage at one end), the high windows, the pictures, the triple row of beds, the burly French doctor dressing wounds, an old nun bending over that baby-faced lancer whom they used to call ' le petit Joseph? I can see Angele herself enter- ing each morning on the stroke of six. I can hear her clear voice
3H 'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.'
greeting us. I can feel her hands, those supremely gentle hands, adjusting my bandages.
' Occupy yourself with that one,' had been the doctor's instruc- tions when first I was brought in, plastered with blood and filth and barely able to stand. She took an hour to clean me, though she could, by hurting me horribly, have done so in a quarter of the time. With infinite care she sponged and sponged until at last my face and hair and neck were clean. Then, with bits of cotton- wool wrapped round the end of a little stick, she cleared from my nostrils the congealed blood which choked them. I lay still and stared up at her.
' £ a vous fait mal ? " she kept asking anxiously.
I shook my head. I was, I suppose, feverish and only half conscious, but I can remember thinking of her then as an angel sent from Heaven for the relief of pain.
Pain ! We felt and heard and saw our full share of it there. The stock of chloroform was low, and therefore minor operations were performed without it. Behind the lowered curtain of the stage we could hear the sudden shriek of some poor devil as the knife cut into an abscess or grated against a broken bone. Through sleepless nights we could watch dimly-seen forms twisting and tossing, see the night-nurse glide softly across to some groaning patient to proffer a cup of milk or to re-arrange a tumbled pillow, feel the throbbing of wounds which would give no rest, no moment's ease.
The hospital people were wonderful. Though German columns were pouring through the town (for days the rumble of their trans- port and the sound of their marching-songs scarcely ceased), though the guns besieging Maubeuge thundered day and night, though the Allied armies were being pushed back and back and it was freely rumoured that Paris had fallen ; yet one and all — the doctor who worked fourteen hours a day at full stretch, the nurses (amateurs unused to the horrors they were witnessing), the gentle old nuns, the very peasant girl who swabbed the stone floors — one and all retained their dignity, their faith, their courage.
' It is bad, for the moment/ they would say with brave smiles ; ' but it is not for long.'
And of them all there was none to equal Angele. She was in and out of the ward from six in the morning till eight at night. No task, however unpleasant, seemed distasteful to her. She would assist at an operation, help to dress agonidng wounds, carry away slops or amputated limbs or piles of blood-stained
'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.' 315
rags, tempt exhausted men to eat and drink, chat with the slightly wounded or soothe the delirious with an apparently infallible instinct for what was required of her. It was a delight to watch her smiling face, her trim figure, her movements, neat, precise, and swift, a comfort to hear her whispering ' Qa va un pen mieux, n'est-ce pas ? ' to look into her grey eyes, so full of sympathy and under- standing, to know that it was she who was smoothing one's pillow or tucking in the rumpled sheets. For she possessed the supreme quality of the born nurse — that of anticipating wants. I have seen men, English, French, yes and German too, men so wounded that hardly anything mattered to them, follow her up and down the ward with then eyes, turning their heads slowly so as to be able to see her sll the time
It must have been that she inspired us with confidence — in her, in ourselves, in our ultimate cure and release. The example of her courageous and unfailing optimism shining before us week after week for fourteen hours a day, kept us hopeful and, in" the main, cheerful. It was she who uplifted our drooping spirits when rumour after rumour of an Allied advance proved false, she who discounted all tales of further defeats, who laughed to scorn the announcement of the German ' governor ' of the town that he expected to stay for some months, perhaps even for a year. Nothing apparently could alarm her, nothing could turn her from the belief that all was well, and that it was only a question of time and patience. Never once was her bearing aught but that of absolute faith in the future.
Never ? Yes, once, by accident, I had a glimpse of what lay behind the veil of her composure. It happened at a time when I was nearer death than I knew. I could get no sleep and I was coughing and spitting pus continually. An abscess was forming in my neck, and there was (1 learnt afterwards) a danger of septic pneumonia.' It was Angele who made and placed in position the hot compresses which were necessary every two hours or so.
' Encore une compresse ! ' she would* say, wrapping the pad of steaming cotton-wool round my swollen throat. Thus it was that ' Madame la Compresse " became our nickname for her later on.
For two nights and the day in between she scarcely left my bedside. She fed herself somehow, I suppose, but she was certainly never away for more than five minutes at a time. On the second of these nights I began to cry madly for morphia. But the doctor, for a very good reason, had forbidden it. Angele sat by my bed and held my hand.
316 'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.'
' Give me some morphia ! ' I implored.
For the twentieth time she explained soothingly that I would be better without it. For the two hundredth time (or thereabouts) she held a cup of disinfectant to my lips and let me rinse my mouth. In spite of an inadequate number of pillows to prop me I was sitting up in bed : this, I had discovered, was the least painful position.
' Oh God ! if I could only rest' I grumbled in my own language. She looked at me inquiringly : she knew no word of English.
I stammered out the French equivalent — or something like it. She sighed, and a look of transcendent pity came into her face. In the dim light she was almost Madonna-like. Then she pulled away the two useless pillows, sat down on the bed behind me, and very, very gently drew me back until my head rested on her breast. Her arm supported me.
* Try to sleep a little,' she whispered. . . .
I must have remained in that position for hours. Occasionally her free hand held up the bowl for me to spit ; but soon I no longer continually tasted pus and gradually the paroxysms of retching ceased. I felt easier and I think I must have dozed.
Often and often since I have wondered whether it was sheer coincidence that the turning point came just then, or whether it was her will-power which transmitted to me by physical contact some- thing of her own health and vigour. The fact remains that when I opened my eyes again just as it was beginning to grow light, the crisis had definitely passed.
Her head was bowed over mine but she was awake, and I saw that she was crying : I could feel a little quiver with each rise and fall of her breast. A tear dropped on to my forehead. Vaguely disturbed I tried to raise myself.
' What is it ? ' I asked. But she held me back.
* It is nothing. Lie still,' she answered.
The sick are apt to be selfish. I was weary, exhausted with pain, and at the moment was more comfortable than I had been for days. I scarcely thought of her, never remembered that she had been without sleep for thirty-six hours, and now was sitting bolt upright, supporting the weight of my head and shoulders. If I had been myself, moreover, I should have known at once that there was something abnormal about her tears : for no ordi- nary physical fatigue would have made her cry. As it was — I dozed again.
'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS/ SIT
When they came into the ward at six o'clock they found me asleep in her arms. She was still in the same cramped position, and so stiff that she could hardly move. The doctor ordered her to go away at once and rest. Under protest she went. It was only then that I began to realise that she had saved my life. . . .
One sunny afternoon, about a week afterwards, I was sitting out in the courtyard for the first time. Soon after four o'clock Angele appeared with a little tray on which were some biscuits and a glass of tea. She set the tray down beside me and produced from the pocket of her overall a packet of Felix Potin chocolate. This latter was very much a treat.
' To celebrate your first day out,' she remarked as she gave it to me. ' It's almost the last in the town.'
She stood beside me, smiling because her gift had pleased me. ' Madame la Compresse,' I said, looking up. ' There's some- thing I want to ask you.' ' Eh, Uen ? '
' That night when I was so ill — you saved me, and I can never thank you enough — though I've tried. But . . . why were you crying ? It wasn't just fatigue, you wouldn't^cry for that.' ' I was just stupid, I suppose.'
But something wistful in her voice made me press her further. * No, no. Tell me the real reason,' I urged. ' You wish to know ? Then I will tell you. But it is for you only, you understand. I thought you were asleep, that night : I thought no one would know. It is thus with me — if I am occupied I can pretend to be cheerful, but if I have nothing to keep me busy I begin to think. And that night I had only to hold you still. I was weak — I let myself think. . . . Mon Dieu ! is it nothing, this ? The war goes badly in spite of all we say. Maubeuge has fallen, the Germans are at the gates of Paris, we are cut off here and } cannot hope to get news of my husband ; perhaps he too is lying in some hospital as near to death as you were that night.
Perhaps ... ah ! it is terrible to have no news. And then '
Suddenly she stood erect : her cheeks were flushed, her hands clenched tight, her shining eyes had hardened to a steel-blue of fierce resentment.
' And then,' she repeated, ' the Boches are here, in our town, in our very houses. I am a Frenchwoman and proud. Is it nothing "to me, do you think, to see these barbarians desecrating the soil of France ? But that is not all. It is this life, here in the
318 'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.'
hospital, which is driving me mad. Except for that once, I have succeeded in hiding what I feel. But I cannot do so 'for ever. I tell you that I can scarcely bear the sight and thought of all this suffering — the wounded, the dying, the dead. " Why ? To what purpose ? " I keep asking myself. That men should suffer so is vile and wicked — and unnecessary too. I shudder inwardly when I see bloody rags and severed limbs. An operation is a dreaded ordeal for me. I have to trace myself each time I enter the ward. Sometimes I can only just refrain from running out to beat my head against the wall in misery and horror. And then . . . that night I was weak and tired, and I thought, M. Geoffroi, that you were going to die, you who had suffered so much for France.'
I met her eyes and saw that all the softness had returned to them. She was again a Goddess of Human Kindliness. As such I worshipped her from that moment.
' I should have died,' I said slowly, ' if it had not been for you.'
She shrugged her shoulders and stooped to pick up the tray.
' It was nothing — no more than my duty as a Frenchwoman,' she answered. ' But promise me, you will tell no one what I have been saying. One must keep cheerful, one owes that, at least, to the wounded. I shall not be weak again.'
I laid my hand on hers for the fraction of a second.
' I promise you,' I said ; and thus, with the sharing of a secret, our real intimacy began.
For long after she had gone in I sat there trying to accustom my mind to the reality of what she had told me. Easy enough to understand her hatred of the invading Germans, easier still to appreciate her desperate anxiety for news of her husband ; but that the hospital work was repugnant to her, that her cheerful- ness, her practical, matter-of-fact, efficient way of tending us were no more than a veil behind which was a brain in torture, a mass of jarred and aching nerves, was almost incredible.
Yet it was so. There was no questioning her absolute sincerity. In a moment of expansion, alone with me, she had shown me something of the truth. The strength of character, the amazing courage of the woman began to force itself upon my consciousness. She hated the very thought of suffering, her whole nature revolted from the common sights and sounds of the hospital ; the pain of every wound was her pain, every groan wrung from the1 lips of some being in agony found an echo in her heart. And so, too
'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.' 319
sensitive to steel herself to callousness, she could gain no respite from her ceaseless struggle for self-control. Only by an immense exertion of will-power could she assume and maintain continually that mien of stoic optimism which had deceived us all. Not one human being in ten thousand could have done it. By chance alone I discovered her secret, but ever afterwards she has represented in my mind an unexpressed ideal which has allowed me to face the future undismayed. There is hope, I have always felt, in a world which contains such spirits as hers. And even the events o'f the last four years have not shaken that belief.
Our life in the hospital when once we were convalescent was on the whole a happy one. We were among friends, in spite of the fact that we were prisoners in the sense that the enemy was all round us. Moreover we lived on Hope. It was as well that we were so ill-supplied with authentic news, for then perhaps the rumours would have been disregarded. The amazing things that we believed ! That the French had retaken Valenciennes ; that Francis Joseph had been assassinated ; that English troops had requisitioned bread at Dour (eight miles north of us) ; that revolu- tion had broken out in Germany ; that the Eussiaus had reached Berlin ; anything, everything hopeful. Once we saw it definitely stated in a French paper (smuggled in from Lille, I think) that 100,000 Japanese had landed at Ostend. But this in mid-September 1914 was too much even for our powers of absorption : as some one said, ' They must have started before the flag fell, then ! '
Looking back on it since I realise that I was happier then than I knew. I had food and rest in plenty. I had exercise (twelve laps round the courtyard was a mile, and one could always find some patient to stand at the main gates and watch for approaching Germans), I was recovering strength daily. To my optimistic ears the sound of the guns seemed to get nearer and nearer, and there was therefore always the hope that the Allies would come close enough to make a dash for freedom feasible. I had occupation — for several hours a day I worked at French. I even had some English books. For companionship I had the other convalescents and the hospital staff, each member of which strove to outdo the others in kindness ; the doctor, rough and ready in his methods perhaps, but sparing himself nothing for our sakes ; the ' President,' as they called the matron, a stern-faced old lady who talked faster than any one I have ever known ; ' Madame la Creme,' who earned her nickname by bringing us custards and souffles from her own
320 'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.'
house, and who lent me piles of books ; Mademoiselle * Precieuse,' whose twinkling eye and sense of humour were a tonic ; ' M. le Cordonnier,' who shaved us and whom we always greeted with the words, ' Eh bien ! quoi de nouveau ? ' because his stock of rumours, fantastic or otherwise, was inexhaustible ; the old nuns who brought us our meals ; ' M. le Superieur ' (the headmaster of the college in which we were), to whose evening tour of the ward and good-night blessing we looked forward ; and, of course, Angele.
She and I became very intimate as the weeks slipped by. Often at quiet times she would sit by my bed or by my chair in the court- yard and talk to me for half an hour or so. During those talks I learnt much : above all I learnt to appreciate how pre-eminently simple was her nature. She was thirty-three then (though she did not look it) and had been married fourteen years. To her sorrow she was childless : that, I think, had been her only complaint in life before the war.
' We are not rich, you understand,' she told me once, ' but we were able to live comfortably. And we were happy in our little home until the war came. Now it will be necessary to begin all over again.'
Owing to my imperfect French it was she who did most of the talking. But I found little difficulty in understanding her. To me she spoke clearly and never fast. I could say just enough to draw her out, and by degrees I learnt her views on most of the things that matter. ' Live and let live ' was her creed — political, social, moral. In a simple way that had harmed no one she had been happy. She saw no reason why the whole world should not live likewise. For wealth and rank and power she had no use. She was not sure that she did not hate them too, being dimly conscious that in their wake came poverty and helplessness and suffering. Yet she was no socialist. She had never studied, let alone devised, schemes for the betterment of the human race. She dreamt no Utopian dreams. For her the established order existed and should continue to exist. To alter it meant the employ- ment of force — and force was abhorrent to her. The war she regarded as a monstrous crime, for which no people, as such, was responsible. Even in those early days she would say with that shrug of the shoulders I remember so well, ' It is useless — no good can come of it.' And when I argued as to how inevitable it had been she would sigh and answer, ' I suppose so.'
These good times ended abruptly on October 5. A * Governor '
'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.' 321
of Bavay arrived, and with him a company of Landsturm soldiers and a secretary — an under-omcer who spoke both French and English. This for us was the beginning of the end. Sentries were posted at the gates, and even the hospital staff had to produce passes to go in and out. German doctors constantly visited the hospital, and all the patients were examined and docketed as ' evacuable ' or otherwise. We had to bar exercise as being too dangerous, for our only remaining asset was to assume helplessness. We scarcely dared leave our beds for fear of being caught ' up ' and therefore convalescent. Angele increased the size of my bandages and persuaded me to give up shaving.
' With a beard,' she observed sagely, ' it is easier to look sick.'
The next week was a great trial. Inwardly we knew that there was no hope — yet we made ourselves hope still. We strained our ears for the sound of the guns and swore that they were certainly closer. We stayed in bed all day and took infinite pains to look ill and feeble when there were Germans in the room. At night we lay and listened to the tramp of the two sentries who had been posted in the courtyard itself — and cursed our fate. At this time I personally had not been classified as ' evacuable.' There had been quite a long consultation over my c se : the French, as far as I could understand them, told quite a harrowing tale of my past sufferings and of my present weakness, and caused the German doctors to hesitate. It was Angele who supplied the finishing touch.
' II va mieux' I heard her say, as I lay there gazing at the ceiling with eyes which I hoped were sufficiently vacant to suggest utter exhaustion. ' Enfin il commence d manger un peu.' This of me, who was eating everything that any one would bring me ! But it sounded so genuine that the doctors passed on.
Nevertheless I knew that unless relief came quickly it was only a question of time. Actually the end came on the 15th, when it was discdvered that some bold spirit had slipped off in the night in the hope of making his way through. The ' Governor ' was angry, very angry. But since his own sentries were obviously responsible he could not with justice blame the hospital staff. Nor did he, I have heard subsequently. But what he did do forth- with was to order every soul who could crawl to be ready to leave in an hour's time.
It was a bad hour, that, for all of us : yet in a way I was glad that, having to go, we had such short notice. To have known
VOL. XLVIIL— NO. 285, N-S- 21
322 'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS/
our definite fate a day beforehand would have been much worse. As it was there was barely time to wash and dress and eat a meal. The last moments were sadder than any I had ever known. The refectory in which we stood to eat our last dejeuner was crowded. The escort, stolid German privates commanded by a sergeant, remained by the door, aloof and silent. But the doctor, the nuns, the ' superieur,' and all the nurses mingled with us. They implored us to eat all we could, they pressed packets of food into our pockets and our haversacks, they kept taking our hands and saying, ' You won't forget us, will you ? '
Forget them ! Forget those anxious, simple faces, forget the kindest set of people that ever nursed a dull foreigner from sickness back to health again, forget the thousand and one things that had endeared them to me for all time ! ' No,' I thought, ' not if I survive this war and live to be a hundred, will I ever forget.'
Till almost the last moment Angele remained her normal ' hospital ' self. Then, quite suddenly, the tears came, and with them one silent sob that shook her whole frame.
' You'll come back — afterwards ? ' she pleaded. Holding her hands I stood looking at her for^what seemed an age.
' I promise you,' I said — for the second time. And added, in English, ' May God reward you, Angele ! '
' A bientot, mon cher,' she whispered, as a German soldier pulled me aside and pointed to the door.
Then — the sunlit street, the rough pave, the long road that was to lead eventually to Germany and prison. It was over.
In October 1918 the division to which I then belonged held the ridge east of the River Selle, and was astride the high road that runs straight as a ruler from Le Gateau to Bavay. I could scarcely take my eyes ofi the big map that hung on the wall of my office. Almost I began to hope that by astonishing luck we were destined to be the first British troops to re-enter Bavay. This hope, as events turned out, was not fulfilled. But in the meanwhile the unexpected really did happen — I succumbed to influenza. In hospital I read and re-read the accounts of the advance. The German line, it may be remembered, held more or less firm for several days in the neighbourhood of Bavay, and the bulletins spoke of severe fighting there. I pictured the town slowly crumbling under a heavy bombardment, and the inhabitants scattering as homeless refugees among the villages further east, and I was
'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.' 323
miserably afraid. Then the line moved forward again and Bavay was re-occupied five days before the end.
I was in England when I got the first authentic details. A friend of mine had been over and wrote at once to tell me of his visit. My diary was enclosed in the letter. ' Madame la Compresse ' had kept it for me, together with every other article that I had left behind except my sword. For that M. le Superieur had made himself responsible.
' She seems a nice woman,' commented the writer, ' and it certainly was very patriotic of her to keep your things. We are arranging for her to be presented with the Divisional Certificate for Meritorious Conduct — there's going to.be a regular ceremony over it. Her husband is all right, by the way, and expects to be demobilised soon.'
' A nice woman ' — She ! How little did they understand !
For four years I had treasured the memories of my seven weeks at Bavay. Even with the lapse of time my main impressions had remained unblurred. But now, sitting at home and turning over the pages of that diary, I was able to live the whole time over again. The mention of dates and names and the record of many a trivial incident brought back to me a mass of half -forgotten details. Everything tended but to throw into still further relief the central figure of those days. My mental portrait of Angele I had pre- served intact : it was only the background which had faded. And now, as I read on, it was as though the background was being painted in again.
A fortnight afterwards I was back in France. Two days later I borrowed a car and set out for Bavay. As we hummed along through the cold December air I sat back and made a mental list of all the people I intended to visit. Would I find them changed, I wondered. But the thought of Angele reassured me. She, at least, cquld never change.
' Nach Bavay.' The big German signpost at a cross-roads in the forest was a reminder in passing that these people had been prisoners in their own country for more than four years, Have they changed much, I wondered next ? Then we left the brown woods and dipped into a valley. At the top of the slope beyond I saw the spire and houses of the little town.
* Drive slowly,' I said. It was not that I wanted to take in every detail of a well-remembered view, for I had been marched away to prison by another road. It was just that the sight of
324 'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.'
those plain slate roofs moved me profoundly. Here for fifty weary months had lived and toiled and hoped some of the kindliest people on earth, people whose goodness to me was beyond all payment : here too I was to meet Her again.
Slowly we climbed the hill and turned into the main street. She lived, I had been told, next door to the Mairie. The car pulled up at a modest little house set back a yard or two from its neigh- bours, but before I could knock the door was flung open. She had seen me from the window and was standing in the hall. She held out both her hands.
' Ah, M. Geoffroi ! ' she cried.
And I ? I just stood there — a tongue-tied, awkward fool. How could I hope to express, and in French too, the emotion of that moment ? Moreover, I was astounded at her changed appearance. This was not the Angele whose portrait had been engraved on my memory for so long.
' Madame la Compresse ! ' I stammered at last and took her hands.
She drew me into her kitchen and almost pushed me into a chair.
' Que je suis contente de vous revoir ! ' she kept saying, as she took me in from head to foot. She was solicitous for my comfort. Was I hungry ? Was I cold after the drive ? Would I like a cup of coffee ' bien sucre ' ? Magically she bridged the gap of the past years. It was as though I was again the patient upon whom she had lavished so much care.
As she moved about the room preparing the coffee I answered her flow of questions as best I could and at the same time absorbed each detail of her altered appearance. I noted the same deft, precise movements that I had watched so often in the old days. She flashed the same swift, infectious smile at me, was as eager as ever to anticipate my wants. But physically she was a different woman. When I had seen her last she was plump and very trim- looking in her nurse's white overall with its flowing cap and neat little Red Cross. No wrinkle marred her skin, her hands were white and soft. And now — her cheeks were hollow and lined, there were dark circles under her eyes, above her black cotton bodice her neck and chest showed thin and sallow, her hands were coarsened with housework, her skirt was threadbare, her boots worn and uncleaned. I noted grey hairs even among her mass of brown. Only her eyes were the same. No privations, no humiliation, no
' ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS/ 325
years of uncertainty and soul-racking anxiety could suppress the calmness, the truthfulness, the courage that shone from them now as always. But to see her thus, a cruel caricature of her former self, was pitiable. When I had left her she had looked no more than twenty-five : now, with the passage of but four years, she might have been nearing fifty.
I managed at last to check her persistent questions as to my own doings.
' But you,' I said. ' Tell me of yourself.' You have suffered much ? '
She bent forward and clutched my arm. ' Ah-h ! '
No eloquence could have expressed more completely the misery and the horror of the past than did that one long-drawn-out ex- clamation of bitter remembrance. Bit by bit I pieced together her story. The hospital had been converted into a German one in February 1915. Since then she had lived in her own house. She nursed her mother, who became a bed-ridden invalid, for two years. When the latter died, she was left with a dog as her sole companion save for the Germans who were constantly billeted on her. These, with a dignity I can well imagine, she utterly ignored. It happened once that one insulted her. (He was the only one, it is fair to say.) Him she defied with such passionate fury that he left the house at once and, not daring to return and face her, sent his servant for his baggage ! Requisition after requisition was made upon the town ; food got scarcer and scarcer because farm produce was seized by the authorities for the German troops. She sold her clothes, her husband's clothes, her linen (such of it as had not been taken) in order to live. For her savings were disappearing and soon she had little money left. She shared her scanty supplies with passing British prisoners — and risked heavy punishment for doing sp. She organised a Relief House for refugees from the battlefields and tended their sick. Quite early on she had been obliged to dispense with her servant and undertake all the house- work herself. But with all her activities she could not fill her time as the months crawled slowly by. She was alone, alone without papers, without books, without news of the outside world except as it was retailed by the Germans. She was forbidden to leave the town, forbidden to leave the house after dark. (Imagine what the winter evenings must have been !) There hung over her always the threat of deportation for some trivial offence against
326 'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.'
the regulations. And throughout all this time she had heard not one word of the husband who had left her to mobilise in August 1914. It is as well that we should realise these things, we who have grumbled about prices and queues and profiteering. It is well that we should remember too that with all our trials and sacrifices, real as they have often been, we have been spared the degradation of living under enemy rule week after week for four long weary years.
' Didn't you despair sometimes ? ' I asked her.
She turned from the table and faced me, proudly erect.
' Never ! ' she declared. ' I always knew that there could be only one end ! '
Then her shoulders drooped again and her features relaxed into that expression of fatigue which was so strange and so pitiful to see. ' But it has been long/ she added with a sigh.
She insisted on my having the mid-day meal with her.
' Afterwards/ she said, ' we will pay some visits together/
Our conversation consisted largely of questions beginning with the words ' Do you remember ? ' And we found that we remembered very well. We laughed again over little incidents that had amused us at the time, laughed now too at events that had once seemed tragic — the arrival of the ' Governor ' with his English-speaking secretary (an odious little man), the posting of the sentries at the gates and in the courtyard, the hurried, unhappy departure on the last morning.
Placing the big bowl of soup on the table she said, in something of her old manner — affectionately mocking :
' Placez-vous a table, mon commandant ! '
' I'm not a major to you/ I protested, laughing. ' I'm still your patient — your disobedient patient, who would smoke even just after he'd had chloroform. Do you remember ? '
Of course she did. She had forgotten nothing, no single incident of all those seven weeks.
It was very intimate sitting there enjoying the simple meal ' sans ceremonie,' as she put it. The circumstances, somehow, were so entirely different from those that I had often pictured. I had expected to come back months after the war was over and to be received a little stiffly, by a family party assembled for the occasion. Sometimes I had even allowed myself to wonder whether perhaps I should be disappointed in her — just because I had so revered the memory of what she had been to me. True she was
'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS/ 32?
changed outwardly. Privation, anxiety, work had left their marks. But spiritually she was the same. My idea of her, conceived when she had first shown me something of her inner self, the idea which had comforted me ever since — in prison, in battle, in the soul-destroying monotony of nearly three years on the western front — was a true one. She was then and had remained a Goddess of Kindliness, but she was a goddess more essentially human than I had ever realised.
The meal over, she showed me just where she had hidden my diary ; under the cobble-stones of the back yard.
' And the Boches used to walk over it every day,' she remarked, with a mischievous smile. * The rest of your things were here — quite safe. They never thought of looking/ She opened the bottom door of the kitchen stove and showed me a separate com- partment, intended, I suppose, for warming plates.
' And the penalty, if they'd been found ? ' I asked.
She gave a little shrug.
' Six months in Germany, perhaps. More than you had, mon commandant ! '
Then, when she had tidied herself, we set out to pay visits. In the course of the afternoon we saw almost every one whom I had previously known. Their welcome to me pleased me beyond measure, for they received me not as an ally towards whom polite- ness should be shown but as a personal friend. And they were the same ; in spite of all their sufferings, heroically the same. In every house we visited I found myself back in the atmosphere of those hospital days. ' Quoi de nouveau ? ' I cried to ' M. le Cordonnier/ as he wrung my hand for half a minute on end : and instantly, through his laughter, he recounted a rumour that French troops were coming to Bavay on the following day. ' La Precieuse ' reminded me that the doctor had once called her ' I'infirmiet'e morale ' because of her irrepressible sense of humour, and then threw back her head and laughed just as I had seen her do hundreds of times. It was indeed good to be amongst them again if only for an hour or two, good to go across to the college and stand in the dismantled salle desjetes looking at the spot where once my bed had been, best of all, perhaps, to meet ' M. le Superieur ' and the nuns. The old man was a little greyer, his face a little more lined and careworn, but his saintly expression was unaltered. His was a nature incapable, I think, of hatred or malice. ' Forgive them, they know not what they do/ must often have been his prayer
328 'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.'
since I had seen him last. He made nought of having hidden my sword.
' But it was at the risk of your life ! ' I persisted.
' Only if the Good God willed it so/ was his quiet answer.
The Sister Superior held both my hands folded in hers and peered up at me through her gold-rimmed spectacles. Tears rilled her aged eyes.
' I shall embrace you,' she announced at last. And when she did I almost cried myself.
The cynical and unemotional will think perhaps that I recount these things as evidence of the impression my personality had made. It is not so. I was received thus with joyful affection because to these people I represented in my person an idea. I was a foreigner, hardly able to utter three consecutive grammatical sentences in their language. I had come amongst them grievously wounded and they had tended me and saved me. Then I had been taken away, for all they knew to further suffering. They had made me their friend ; they knew that I had loved them and they felt, I think, a sense of responsibility for my welfare. They looked upon my return to them, in good health and safe from the dangers of war, as a manifestation, as it were, of the truth of their unshaken faith that kindliness transcends all other virtues whatsoever.
With Angele it was different. She held to the same faith — held to it as the strongest conviction of her simple nature. But there was between us something more tangible, a bond that was personal and intimate. It was not love, not love, that is, in the accepted sense of passion. Yet it was more, much more, than mere friendship. It was as though the unspoken thought possessed us both that in another and less sordid world we might have been lovers, and that even now we were vaguely conscious of a happiness which we might make for each other in some region we were unable to explore.
The time came for me to leave.
' I can never thank you enough,' I said. ' I can never, never, in this life, repay you.'
' Speak not ever again of debt between us,' she cried. ' I did my little best. It was for you ! '
Then suddenly, as we stood looking into each other's eyes, she put her hands on my shoulders and bent forward and kissed me.
* A bientot,' we said together and thus parted. . . .
'ANGELE, GODDESS OF KINDLINESS.' 329
It was a clear night and for once the road was dry. I had left her and was speeding back to the monotonous routine of our life during the Armistice. And yet . . . and yet I was strangely elated. Four years ago in that little insignificant town of Northern France, at a time when a great darkness of lies and hypocrisy and passion and hate was descending upon the world, one of the torches of Truth was lit for me by the woman I have called a Goddess of Kindliness. By the light of her torch I read that humanity is holy. And now after many wanderings I had returned to find the light undimmed, its guardian still undaunted at her post. Fifty months of exile, of misery and want, fifty months of humiliation and uncertainty had failed to break her faith. The flame burnt brighter even than before.
' Surely, surely,' I reflected, ' it is but one of many. Out of the darkness in which for so long we have been blindly groping to kill each other, a thousand, ten thousand beams must even now be shining. Their number will grow and grow until at last they light the world — a new world where Human Kindliness reigns supreme.'
330
ON SURREY. FARMERS.
No county in England is so well known to so many people un- connected with it as Surrey. Nor in any other do so many live, whose connection with the soil is fortuitous. It is practically a vast suburb of London, and none the less so that large tracts have at first sight the appearance of a normal Arcady, in addition to being often of more than average natural beauty. Why Surrey is the popular playground of London, and the favourite residence of the well-to-do who have to be near or want to be near it, is too obvious to call for remark. Enough that it is so, and that the fact gives it a peculiar character even among those other counties which have been encroached upon by outer London. Kent and Essex outside these intrusions have retained a good measure of individuality. Middlesex does not count, and Herts, in spite of much recent exploitation, and a two-century-old attraction for city magnates, still retains much of its agricultural atmosphere.
But then these other counties have lacked panegyrists, while Surrey, day-in and day-out, from the Spectator to the halfpenny press, from the Times to the picture magazines, has been written all over from end to end by pens innumerable, and with no little exuberance of treatment. This last is perhaps excusable, seeing the legion of articulate souls collected on its edge, for whom Surrey represents the only type of rural England familiar to them, or at least fresh in their minds. Scenery, archaeology, fauna, flora, Surrey villas where famous men are dwelling or have dwelt, Surrey gardens, Surrey commons, Surrey cottages, where popular actresses cultivate roses or pet dogs — all this sort of thing is part of the stock-in-trade of ephemeral literature. So much so, indeed, that Surrey as an agricultural county, a land of farmers and labourers, occupying the larger portion of its surface and concerned with the world's basic industry, has dropped altogether out of sight in the popular conception of its make-up. It is quite true that the class who represent, though rarely in a literal sense, the sons of the soil are in a minority, and that they have been numerically overwhelmed by the residential element, which with its following has taken possession of the county within the last half century and to a lesser extent for far longer. It is also true that this same colonisation constitutes its leading industry, and further that
ON SURREY FARMERS. 331
residential Surrey, whether clustering in its outer suburbs or in its scattered mansions and villas, amid more rural scenery and remoter villages, is for the most part utterly absent-minded regarding agricultural Surrey. To most of these people it is altogether an unknown world.
Not long ago two popular novelists who had settled, the one in Surrey, the other in Essex, discussed their respective choices with some acerbity in print. ' Surrey,' said the Essex man, ' might be more picturesque, but then it wasn't a " county " at all.' We needn't labour the justice of this retort, for it is sufficiently obvious in the sense here implied. Now Essex is undoubtedly ' a county.' Once away from its depressing suburbs, its people, gentle and simple, are in the main Essex folk with East Anglian traditions, while the lower orders talk the indigenous dialect that is said to be the root tongue of Cockneydom. Surrey, on the other hand, talks Cockney through and through, as an imported tongue. Indeed it has so nearly lost its original South-Saxon, that when a labourer near the Sussex border is convicted of it he is quite likely to find himself figuring in print as ' a bit of old Surrey.' But it is not only in the adoption of an alien tongue, and that a deplorable one, that Surrey has ceased to be ' a county ' ; nor altogether because it is overwhelmed with fortuitous residents who draw their maintenance from London and a thousand other sources. For most of the landlords and even of the farmers them- selves are by birth or heredity aliens. As for the labourers and more rural proletariat, I flinch from touching so involved a subject.
Yet this heterogeneous origin in no way prevents agricultural circles from being as active and compact and absorbed in their common interest as those of Northumberland or Herefordshire, and of being as much sons, if mainly adopted ones, of the soil. But the popular conception of Surrey presents so persistently only one side of the picture, that it seems quite curious to find oneself for a season associated wholly with the other side — and a class that cares nothing for these other things ; neither for the sumptuous mansions, nor the homes of past or present celebrities, nor for the bowery abodes of artists, actresses or writers, so liberally sprinkled around them, unless indeed to grumble at the drain they cause upon the local labour market. A world which lives quite outside this other rather shifting element in its midst, which seldom goes to town, thinks along lines of crops and stock and soils, of wages, rents and local markets, and worships quite other
332 ON SURREY FARMERS.
gods with names unknown upon the surrounding golf links and tennis courts and in the London press.
Some of my readers may perchance have noticed the striking configuration of Surrey. Allowing for some ragged fringes it forms a fairly perfect parallelogram, extended from west to east, rather beyond the square, while following the same course, right through its centre runs a high chalk range only negotiable by serious traffic at a few narrow passes through it. In a normal county such a barrier would have divided north from south by a hardy crop of immemorial prejudices and conflicting customs and even dialects. If there ever was any such cleavage before railroads swamped the county with an exotic population, there is little left of it.1 Furthermore, as one stands on the summit of the chalk range, at Box Hill, for instance, above Dorking, the heart of Surrey, and looks southward towards the Sussex border, it will be seen at once how naturally the southern half re-divides itself into two equal portions, forming respectively the south-east and south- west quarters of the county. The latter or right hand one will appear as largely occupied by those broken woody sandstone ranges, with their flankers from Leith Hill to Hindhead, that make this by far the most beautiful section of Surrey ; the strip of level clay country beyond them to the south comprising its smaller portion. To the left, however, the south-east quarter, all visible from this same central perch, displays itself as a virtually unbroken well-wooded plain right through to Sussex on the south, and Kent upon the east. This quarter, from the very foot of the steep chalk slope, mainly consists of the fearsome Weald clay, the most refractory in England. The other, more inspiring quarter is mainly light and sandy, till the Weald clay, as already noted, drives its low-lying wedge along the Sussex border.
Facing northward, the line of the River Mole — whose deep valley forms here one of the chief passes through the range — trailing towards the Thames, may be envisaged as roughly dividing the northern half of the county into two more or less equal and again differing portions. For the north-eastern quarter of Surrey, as thus broadly defined, is in the main frankly suburban, despite the number of both large and small farms that intersect it. The north-western quarter, on the other hand, from the chalk downs to the Thames, is mainly rural in the modified sense of the term
1 In Wat Tyler's rebellion only the portion north of the Downs participated. The southern half of the county was quite untouched by it.
ON SURREY FARMERS. 333
here applicable. It is distinguished too by its great areas of barren or pine-clad heaths, whether under tribute to the military, the golfer, or the builder, or even yet virgin. A still sharper contrast is shown in the matter of soils. For while most of the more suburban quarter rests on London clay, a very different article from that of the Weald, much of the other consists of that light, sandy, thin stuff known as ' Bagshot beds.' I would avoid technicalities so far as possible, but as a further instance of how sharply Surrey divides itself into north and south, it may be noted that neither the light nor the clay lands, nor their less frequent intermediaries on the south side of the chalk range, correspond in quality with their nominal equivalents upon the north side. The chalk again defines its situation with singular clarity. It not merely runs conspicuous through the whole length of the county like a backbone, but is almost continually precipitous on the south side, dropping sharply on to clay or sand beneath, while upon the other it slopes for the most part so gradually to the plain, as to carry a whole chain of large farms upon its broad chalky flanks. A narrow ridge at the Hogsback, it begins to expand coach-horn like after letting through the Wey at Guildford, till after crossing the Mole at Dorking and Leatherhead, it spreads out into a broad rolling plateau some five hundred feet above sea level and half a dozen miles in width, and carrying uplifted farms, mansions, and villages till it strikes the Kent border. This is in truth a fifth division of the county, and so much so in feature and character that, despite the apparent paradox — being itself a chief dividing factor, it in no sense interferes with the four-quarter picture I have ventured to suggest to such readers as Surrey concerns.
Almost everybody, as I have said, is familiar with residential Surrey on its social or picturesque side. But what of the farmers and labourers and incidentally the agricultural landlords ?
As to the latter, there is naturally little left of the old hereditary squirearchy, of which the Evelyns of Wootton and the Brays of Shere are the most notable survivals. Under the Hogs- back a family of Dutch name have been seated on their estate since the time of William III, with whom their ancestor came over, while two more instances of hereditary squires still in situ occur to me. This brief list is probably not exhaustive, but I feel pretty sure that the experts in this branch of local history could not stretch it to double figures. Then, again, there are a certain number of estates that are associated with noble and historic
334 ON SURREY FARMERS.
families, generally portions of wider domains scattered about Great Britain. But the new landlord, the successful business man and the like, is by far the largest owner of agricultural land in the county, and as a rule is able to do the greatest justice to his property. He is not necessarily a Londoner, but may derive from any part of Britain, nay of the Empire.
Another not infrequent type is one that both owns and seriously farms from 500 to 1000 acres ; well-to-do outsiders and more or less amateurs, keen on farming, who do their land well, more often, no doubt, to the benefit of their country than their pocket, which perhaps is generally deep enough to stand an adverse balance- sheet^ without dismay. But the tenant farmers after all are far the largest and most interesting class upon the land in Surrey. As already hinted, but a minority of them are Surrey -born men, and I fancy a still smaller fraction are the sons of such. As a matter of fact, the present tenantry of the county come from all parts, but Devonshire and the Scottish lowlands stand out as the most conspicuous contributors. The Devonians bear a good name, though they come-r-and I say it with bated breath — from one of the worst-farmed counties in England. Official statistics tell no lies, and Devon generally foots the list of counties (Wales included) in the yield per acre of grain, and Devon sows a good deal of it : she isn't wholly given over to dairying, as the public is apt to fancy, because she scalds her milk so deliciously. More- over she is apt in many regions to let down the grade of her equally famous red cattle, as is generally the way when breeding is largely in th" hands of small men. She sends good specimens of her sons to Surrey at any rate, or maybe the lighter air braces them up to more strenuous endeavours. They have the name of being hard workers and otherwise desirable settlers, though with some reputation for employing as little labour as possible, which is natural to men with the small-farming tradition behind them. Some, however, are of a more broad-acred type, and have achieved distinction in dairying, to which these West-country men mostly lean. They come from all parts of their county — from the Exeter and Plymouth districts, from the ' South-Hams ' and from ' the North West,' as that aloof, unvisited, lumpy country between the Torridge and the Cornish border is locally styled, where no gentry of any kind but socially stranded parsons are to be found, and nonconformist radicals ^flourish on 50- and 100-acre farms, which of late they have frequently purchased. Curiously enough, few
ON SURREY FARMERS. 335
or no Cornishmen, so familiar as colonists in many counties, are to be found in Surrey, nor yet many Welshmen, who swarm in Northamptonshire .
One might ask perhaps why aliens, whether West countrymen or Scotsmen, of whom a word presently, elect to farm in what is perhaps the poorest county in England. The clays of the Weald, though tolerable when left in grass at low rents, are mostly heart- breaking to the cultivator. The light lands south of the N. Downs, save in favoured patches, are both hungry and thirsty, and south- eastern England suffers much from spring and early summer droughts, though there is constantly too much rain in the preceding months for reducing the Weald clays to a workable condition. North of the Downs, to be sure., the average fertility, outside the heath lands, is higher. The stiff clay is less refractory. The chalk farms have the characteristics normal to their kind, and there is a fair amount of free-working, sandy loam on the clay besides the gravels near the Thames, and some other areas very amenable to good cultivation. But to dispense with further technicalities, five-sixths probably of agricultural Surrey is below average, and much of this offers a most doubtful experiment to skill and capital, even when such is present. But rent is every- where low — -a pound an acre outside the suburban districts would approximately spell the average. The London and suburban market, particularly for milkers, with the further facilities for getting fertilisers, both dung and other kinds, from the metropolis, is probably the greatest attraction to the immigrants ; for low rents, qua such, are often a theoretical rather than practical advantage. Certainly it is London that mainly attracts the Scotsmen, and they are the cream of agricultural Surrey.
Now I have a suspicion that many South countrymen are apt to visualise a Scottish farmer as a laborious, porridge-con- suming, thrifty wight who toils in the field while his wife and daughters 'toil in kitchen and dairy. There are, no doubt, plenty of such small men in parts of Scotland as elsewhere, but they do not stand for Scottish agriculture. That is quite another thing. The typical Scottish farmer is a big man with big ideas, lavish and fearless by tradition in his treatment of land, and generally justified by the results achieved. He has furthermore a deep-seated scorn of Southern agriculture, but does not tell everybody so — a reticence which is a minor factor in the Scot's success as a colonist over- seas. The Scotland which counts — not that from which tourists
336 ON SURREY FARMERS.
and sportsmen for the most part derive their impressions — is a land of large holdings, highly rented and highly farmed by men of capital, clever at their trade. The Scottish settlers in Surrey are mostly of this breed, and will be found in almost all parts of the county, except perhaps on the Weald clays of the south. Some milk on a large scale, others on big mixed farms specialise in potatoes, and though no amount of manuring in Surrey will give the yield of Lincolnshire or the Lothians, short freights and a greater freedom from disease offer compensations.
Around Guildford and Godalming, on the chalk above Dorking and Leatherhead, or along the northern foot of the Epsom and Banstead Downs, the skill of the Scot is frankly and ungrudgingly recognised by his Southern neighbours, and there are some good farmers among these too. What is more, they are personally liked, take an active part in Agricultural Societies, and identify themselves thoroughly with their adopted county. Some have been there as much as forty years, and their farms are beautiful to look at in a county of indifferent soil, cultivated but in average Southern fashion. Others have arrived within the last decade or two. Most are from the more westerly counties of Southern Scotland, the Lothians and Fife being slenderly represented. Here and there are young Scotsmen born in Surrey, occupying farms in their father's neighbourhood, following in the footsteps of their sire, but talking with a different tongue. For often enough you may hear the Doric at the head and foot of the paternal board, answered from right or left in the flat, modified, Cockney strains of middle-class Surrey, and a sharper contrast does not exist within the wide range of the English tongue even as here in its more educated form. Ask these youngsters whether they con- sider themselves Scottish or English, and they will stoutly assert the claims of blood in the purest suburban English, which is quite edifying and also commendably patriotic.
Most North countrymen profess insensibility to the gentle and trammelled charms of Southern scenery. Many of these Surrey Scots, however, seem quite alive to its attraction, and particularly to the bowery and picturesque old Surrey homesteads which have fallen to their lot. The stone ' Farm Place ' of Scotland is generally capacious and solid, and often commands most noble prospects, but it is rarely alluring in itself, nor does the clean, spacious Scot- tish agriculture make for bowery and luxuriant foregrounds. One lady, to be sure, in admitting that the view from her Surrey drawing-
ON SURREY FARMERS. 337
room window was undoubtedly pretty, added a significant rider in a gentle, plaintive West Scottish voice, ' But then, you see, we come from the Kyles of Bute ! '
The heterogeneous origin of the Surrey farmers makes for a curious divergence such as I fancy exist in no other county in the minor details of farm life, in the method of paying wages, in harvest money, nature of allowances, division of hours and so forth. Trifles in themselves, but farmers are conservative and bring their own customs with them from all parts of the country, while the Surrey labourer, being as a rule less indigenous to the soil than elsewhere, is more amenable to what a Wiltshireman would regard as an intolerable innovation, even if it mattered nothing. But the Surrey farm labourer himself is altogether too complex a subject for these pages. In some parts their mixed origin is con- spicuous ; in remoter parishes they naturally approximate more nearly in this respect to the normal standard of the home counties. Nowhere else in rural England, however, do the young men have such temptations to forsake the plough or yield to them more readily, and nowhere probably is to be seen, in normal times, so large a population of old and middle-aged men upon the land. It is the common complaint of the Surrey farmer, and the cause of it is too obvious to waste a word over. It remains to be seen if the new minimum wage will retain upon the soil the type of man who alone, it is to be feared, will be deemed worth it, or whether the efforts made in the last four years to cultivate poor land will be once more abandoned for pasture when prices slump again, as slump they must if the demands of non-agricultural labour prevail. A big Scottish farmer in the Epsom country told me that at one time, despairing of active young men, he used to import Scottish ploughmen and pay them the higher wages that they were well worth. He spoke of the contrast between the traditional rapidity with which these Lowland hinds would get their plough horses out of the stable, leap on their backs, and be away to the field, and the lumbering slowness of the Surrey men over the same operation. The Scotsmen, too, would always plough a quarter of an acre more in the day. But in a couple of years or so London or the suburbs proved too much for even these brisk lads, and they were away to ' better themselves.' Everywhere in Surrey, whether in farm labour or in proposed village industries or in anything that tends to localise life, is the same cry, ' London is too near/ And it is not only the mileage from the metropolis, but
VOL. XLVin.— NO. 285, N.S. 22
338 ON SURREY :FARMERS.
the residential element, so thick everywhere, or nearly everywhere, that helps to bring London to the village.
The Southern clay belt, the Weald, is naturally somewhat freer from all this, though even here are plenty of more or less exotic residents in new mansions, villas/ or restored manor-houses. Indeed there is nothing the matter with the country if you have not got to plough it ! Roses grow admirably, there are fine stretches of woodland, and the scenery is pleasing, if not exactly stimulating. But agriculture languishes with the bona fide tenant farmer. The native wise men of the village, overseers, registrars, tax collectors, and the like, who hold the secrets of the neighbourhood and of the past, and know everything there is to be known about these things, allude to this region despondingly as ' a derelict country.' The great auctioneers and big land-agents and the ' all-wise ' men in Surrey agriculture generally, refer to the Weald in their con- fidential moments in terms of contumely, and to its tenants as little better than lost souls. And if they are humorists, as these gentlemen often are, tell tall stories about the conflicts of struggling farmers with its fearsome clays. In truth, a four-horse plough and its company in all the agonies of a baked and weedy fallow in a spring drought on an ordinary Weald farm is a moving spectacle. Smallish farmers, hundred-and-odd acre men, chiefly prevail upon the Weald all the way from Chiddingfold to the Kent border. Hand-to-mouth men, living for the most part ' on the edge ' of solvency. Exceptions of course there are, zealous amateurs to whom the country is in debt, with a big ' milker ' here and there, who, let us hope, profits himself as well as his country. For it may be said at once that the Surrey Weald is a fair hay country and moderate as pasture, save for the wet and ' poachy ' nature of its clay, and the ready flooding of the Upper Wey and Mole and their tributaries, brooks which are quite incapable of carrying off the surplus water of wet seasons in their narrow bounds.
But exceptions do not concern us in these brief pages, which can only deal with the general conditions that they* proverbially emphasise. It may be said, however, that there are alternating patches of more kindly soil even on the Surrey Weald. The normal farmer keeps a few milk cows, but getting the milk away is often a difficulty for the smaller man. Once in about three years he grows what in these parts is reckoned a good crop of wheat, i.e. four quarters to the acre. The disastrous slump of the 'eighties seems to have broken the heart of the Weald. It seems never to
ON SURREY FARMERS. 339
have recovered. Old men talk vaguely of heavy crops in the days of old, and point a moral in the derelict lime-kilns still extant. But that is as may be ! Surrey is not a sheep country in the accepted sense of the word. But thousands of lambs come up in October from the great Kent marshes, particularly that of Romney, and are distributed in small bunches throughout the northern belt of Sussex, and an appreciable number find their way over into the Surrey Weald, where they are pastured at so much a head, getting hay only in hard weather. It is a sight to see them coming back with the drovers on to the coast in April as ' tegs,' and not always a very cheerful one. A few C.C. small-holders are grouped about through the county, and neither their condition nor their prospects are enviable. The labourers, even with the old wage, profess compassion for them. They are saddled, too, with a double farm-rent, for their twenty or thirty acres, to liquidate the cost of the rather spacious buildings erected thereon, and farm rents in the Weald run from 10s. to £1 an acre.
I am endeavouring in this brief picture of Surrey to eliminate altogether the last four chaotic years, in the first two of which every farmer, according to his scale and merits, made money. He could not help it ; while in the last two seasons of struggle, with immense difficulties of every kind and restricted prices, there has been as much loss as gain. Incidentally, too, the com- pulsory ploughing-up of land in a poor county like Surrey was nearly always against the farmer. This could not be helped, and he bore it bravely. But the four -year break in the normal life of this curiously constituted county is beside the mark here, and so are any forecasts as to the effects of the war on its future condition. We may fairly assume that Surrey will always be the playground of London, and if its residential life be conducted on a less sumptuous scale for some time to come, that again is neither here nor there. Serious agriculturists in Surrey indulge in a good deal of trenchant criticism of the waste of land occasioned by the unfarmed, or ill-farmed demesnes of wealthy residents, including game preserves, rabbit-warrens, and the like. But this after all is retrospective, and in view of what has happened it may seem heretical to have doubts whether a few thousand acres of mostly poor land, which served in a seDse for the recreation of, often hard working, if affluent men, counted for much in a country so enormously wealthy as the war proved this to have been. Nor must one forget that the pre-war opinions of most people
340 ON SURREY FARMERS.
would have scouted the notion of their importance when weighed against their aesthetic and recreative values. A more reasonable complaint is that farms have been recklessly let by some land- lords not bred to the business, and financially independent of rents, to ex-servants and the like, without either experience or sufficient capital, both of which are more than usually essential in a poor county like Surrey.
Now it might almost be taken for granted that fruit-farming would flourish in a county at the very gates of the world's greatest market ! Curiously enough, there are not half a dozen fruit-farms worthy of the name outside the suburbs, and the Farnham- Aldershot neighbourhood, of which last a word presently. There is, of course, a great deal of domestically grown fruit, and a certain amount of surplus produce from such sources, but that is another matter, Thames Ditton, Sutton, and Mitcham roughly mark the boundary of the serious fruit and truck growing districts, while peaceful elm-fringed dairy farms and large mixed farms run up curiously close to London, pressing past Epsom and Cheam to Ewell, Surbiton, and Croydon.
About and within these limits the garden stuff and fruit grower, generally holding quite a large acreage, pushes right up to Ham, Mortlake, and Richmond, till encompassed upon all sides by for- bidding brick and slate he still contrives to keep the rather sordid little streets at bay and preserve his rus in urbe as if the clanging, noisy town about him had never arrived.
There are few small growers of this kind of produce in the Surrey suburbs. The large acreage devoted to it is in the hands of men or firms employing anything from fifty to three hundred hands apiece. A dozen such known to me would cover, I think, the greater part of the ground under standard fruit, small fruit, and vegetables, though the outside farmers bordering on these districts often have a field or two in market stuff. Many of these big growers are related or inter-married. They are plain sort of folk, despite their large operations ; pre-eminently ' hustlers/ with few of those easy-going amenities which make the farmer in his own home, upon the whole, the most attractive type of Englishman. r. The market gardener is a harassed and hard-driven wight, as must inevitably be the case, when there are twenty different products jto care for and ship in parcels almost every day and nightt in the year, a hundred or more hands of all ages and both sexes,' regular and irregular, doing piece-work to be calculated and
ON SURREY FARMERS. 341
paid for each night. And when the long day's work is over he as often as not goes home to a number in a suburban terrace, where no doubt he is extremely comfortable, and, like his next-door neighbour with a London season-ticket, eats his dinner to the accompaniment of jangling street cars and the shrill cries of the evening paper vendor. There is little in common between the life of this Surrey agriculturist and that of our five-hundred- acre friend in his quiet leafy old homestead under the Hogsback or Leith Hill. Probably the former, with all its harassing details, is the more profitable. It ought to be I
Plums are the chief orchard fruit of the Surrey suburbs. Other standard fruits are secondary and doubtless for good reasons. Labour in these big market gardens, till the temporary disloca- tion of war, was always abundant, and the continuity of service, both with the regular staff and the irregular day and piece workers, was, under some employers, quite remarkable. Good wages were earned even under the old scale, besides allowing for the house rents of eight to ten shillings a week, whereas cottage rents paid by the farm labourer throughout rural Surrey averages only from three shillings to four shillings. These last are kept artificially low by the labour requirements of farmers and landlords, and not seldom on philanthropic accounts. Otherwise there is hardly a decent cottage in Surrey that could not be let to a non-agricultural tenant or a modest ' week-ender ' from town for ten shillings a week. This complicates not a little the new minimum wage regulation, which only allows three shillings a week in the estimated wage of the hundreds of regular hands who get their cottage free. Nowhere else probably is a farm labourer's wage so freely supple- mented by the earnings of his women folk — not on the land, for in normal times this is a negligible factor, but in the manifold domestic services rendered to the ubiquitous ' resident/ If the women w,ere more energetic, a larger contribution than the very general ten or fifteen shillings a week from, say, two of the family, could no doubt be readily made. Nor do they as a rule work much in their gardens, leaving this to the men-folk in their spare hours, which seems wrong. But when a very modest standard, of living is assured, ambition dies in the breast, both of the labourer and his women-folk. Overtime and extra pay cease to attract. Despite all plausible theorising to the contrary, everybody conversant with rural economics knows this to be the case. I am not criticising this attitude, but merely stating it. Even the well-paid industrial
342 ON SURREY FARMERS.
worker seems to have a good share of this philosophy. But then he has gross and carnal appetites to satisfy and grotesque extrava- gances to be wallowed in, of which the rustic, happily for himself, knows nothing. But he knows a great many more useful things of which the industrial worker is profoundly ignorant.
The women workers on the market gardens are roughly of two types, the wives and daughters of the male employees and the ' casuals.' The former are of normal type, but are despised for their fairly profitable occupation by the other suburban ladies of their class — of course ! The other type, the ' casuals,' as usually understood by the term, are hardly calculated to command the respect of their sex. They are a caste to themselves, and a pretty low one, though highly skilled at their work and commanding good money, which seems, however, to have no effect in ameliorating their deplorable indifference to the elementary graces of life. I remember finding a big market gardener near Sutton scratching his head one morning over a letter from a War Labour Organisa- tion in London, which had offered to send him down a company of amateur pickers. He said he could do with them nicely, but, ' Good Lord, sir,' pointing to a gang of twenty ' casuals ' picking peas, ' an old-fashioned London cabby isn't in it for the language those women habitually use. You couldn't ask decent females to work in the same field with them ! '
Another class of ' casuals ' are the hoeing men, who perambulate the country in gangs. Beginning usually in Essex, they work round the large farms, fringing the outer suburbs of Surrey, pushing farther on as their own needs or local demand requires. They are regular annual visitants, and are well known personally to all the farmers on their wide beat who employ them. They, too, are a caste apart, though not especially distinguished like the ladies above-mentioned for unparliamentary language and even worse failings. They are usually middle-aged or elderly men, who, adopting this nomadic existence, abjure life's domestic side entirely, and are for the most part untrammelled with wives and families, having either outlived or parted with both. Bread, meat, beer, and tobacco are the four essentials they demand. Nothing else much matters. They sleep in outhouses, cook their own food and wash their own clothes, which are limited to those they work in. They are of course skilful hands, and easily earn by day or piece work enough to secure all that their souls seem to desire. Any balance for extra work goes in extra beer, which means days off,
ON SURREY FARMERS. 343
so experienced employers, in a hurry, have to contrive that while kept reasonably industrious they shall not be pressed to too great endeavours, lest the end desired be defeated. They are quite contented with their existence — ' once a casual,' it is said, ' always a casual.' Something of the tramp fascination no doubt attaches to their trade, though a far more commendable one. One or two conscientious farmers known to me have made futile endeavours to persuade them into a more civilised style of life. What they do in their winter lairs, or precisely where these are, nobody seems quite to know. They are not bad company when smoking their noonday pipe under a hedge, though their talk is strictly professional and often reminiscent, ranging over farms, farmers, and crops, past and present, from Ongar or Epping to Epsom and Leather- head ; no bad subject either, and doubtless the prevailing one of most of their social hours, when sober.
In more rural Surrey, the gypsies are another useful force of the gang kind to be counted upon. Some farmers like and get on with them, others won't employ them at any price. Their chief headquarters is just over the Hampshire border, and more than half the community were absorbed into war work.
As a last word, the district adjoining Farnham and the great Aldershot camps must be mentioned as differing industrially from any part of the county. For here, besides a few big men, you have a large number of small growers of garden stuff, either renting or owning holdings of a few acres. Men and women are here brought up to the business, and owe their skill and prosperity in it to a permanent and inexhaustible market at their doors, and to great facilities for distribution which are no little aided by the Military Providers themselves. It is needless to add there are no eight-hour-day ideas among these people. None know better that neither in this nor any country can farming be run by the clock, tfyan men who work their own land with their own hands, whether it is five acres or two hundred. Suggest to an Ontario or Pennsylvania farmer that he and his sons or his hired men should quit work every summer afternoon at 4.30, and he would take you for a lunatic. And I do not know that he would be far wrong ! If a labourer has not the interest of the farm at heart he is sure to be inefficient, and no one knows better that in the prolonged contest with elemental Nature, which farming means, you cannot afford to throw away the opportunities she gives you.
344
THE LOVER.
THERE was only a remote strain of gipsy blood in William Merritt, but it should have been enough to warn him not to marry Sarah Cole, who came of a long line of impeccable pillars of the Budmarsh Baptist chapel. And in the ordinary way it would have been more than enough, for there was obviously no affinity between the boisterous, rather devil-may-care and still young man of thirty- six and the placid, staid woman who, although his contemporary, had long since accepted without resistance middle age.
But when Sarah Cole's father died, leaving her in undisputed possession of his prosperous grocery business (his younger daughter Lyddy received her share in house property), William Merritt suc- cumbed to a sudden temptation of his inherent love of grandeur. For he, too, was in the grocery trade in Budmarsh, though on a much humbler scale ; and imagination presented him with the attractive picture of his name above the Cole establishment, of himself in command at the dignified old shop over the late Mr. Cole's two men and a boy, and, in the privacies and sanctities of the region behind and above the shop, in command over that admirable cook and housekeeper, Sarah.
It turned out otherwise. His material position, indeed, was bettered, for Sarah married him, and without demanding of him either falsities of sentiment or an outspoken confession of the real reasons governing his proposal — although, he felt, she recognised these as cogent and practical and eminently sensible. But, beyond that, nothing came up to his imagined picture of it. He never got even as far as his name above the shop (Sarah was able to bring unanswerable business arguments against that) ; and, as for the two men and the boy, he came to be thankful if they would accord him, not superiority, but even a semblance of equality with Sarah in matters relating to the business. In his dreams, too, he had seen himself raised to being at least co-arbiter over Sarah's monetary inheritance, but such an idea had so clearly never entered Sarah's mind that he found himself unable even to voice it.
Nor were matters remoulded nearer to his heart's desire in their home life. Instead of his relieving, as he had anticipated, the Cole decorousness with whiffs of a hearty, breezy masculinity, it was he who was irresistibly absorbed into the Cole atmosphere ;
THE LOVER. 345
Sarah exercised the slow, steady, ceaseless pressure of tradition, of lifelong conviction and routine on one who had hitherto bowed to caprice and served various masters in the matter of convictions.
At first he struggled against that absorption. He did defiant, outrageous things — smoked in the parlour and sat up reading till midnight and went to Socialist meetings and bicycled ten miles to the sea at dawn for a swim and shot gay and gallant glances at the prettier of the Budmarsh girls — things that he had done habitually and with some renown in the days of his bachelor- hood, and which had earned him the name of ' Wild Willie.' But his wife's grave, calm disapproval of all these proceedings was too much for him. He began to obey his impulses spasmodically and tentatively ; he went on to curb them ; he ended by losing them. His spirits were naturally buoyant, but it was with the lightness of effervescence ; it had no staying-power. And there was just a touch of the artist in him, so that he craved to live in an atmosphere of approval, even of applause, and came half un- consciously to foster in himself those gifts that alone could now evoke it.
His voice, for instance. The full-blooded baritone that had been the pride of the Budmarsh Men's Club as a vehicle for arch love-ditties and rollicking sea-chanties, was gradually persuaded (by attacks upon his vanity from Sarah's chapel friends) to raise itself at Baptist concert and treat ; and from that to becoming leader of the Baptist choir was only a step. But it is impossible to lead a choir without actual bodily presence ; so that in a sur- prisingly short time the sight of Mr. and Mrs. Merritt on their way to chapel on Wednesday and Friday evenings as well as three times every Sunday was one so familiar to Budmarsh as to be no longer available as a subject for conversation or even for jest.
Recantation could go no further. The strain of wildness that was in William Merritt's blood betrayed itself at last in nothing except a jaunty carriage of head and shoulders, and the zestful whistle of physical vigour with which he bicycled about Budmarsh booking grocery orders. His wings were kept so tidily clipped by the force of habit and example that the bird of gipsydom in him seemed dead.
It was not dead. It came to life, with a vivid excitement that was like pain, twelve years later when Sarah died. And it was all the more like pain because, of course, all his hardly-acquired laws of decency and propriety demanded that he should conceal it.
346 THE LOVER.
Death seized upon Sarah suddenly. With characteristic fortitude she had ignored a chill until its grip upon her chest blenched and sagged her usually firm, comely cheeks, and then it was too late. Within forty-eight hours of her surrender to illness she was dead, but even in that time she had been able to make all arrangements against unseemly disorder — had sent for her sister Lyddy and her aunt Mason, and had managed to convey to her husband, with one of her latest speaking breaths, that she had left him all her money. After that her large eyes followed him about, making him feel uncomfortable. Sarah's eyes were black and had always been bright, but it was with the surface brightness of a well-polished shoe rather than with feeling. Now, he fancied there was some feeling there, too — even some uncanny prescience, as though she were looking into the future. But he did not want her to look into the future — above all, into his future. Already he felt instinctively that it would not bear looking into. He made some excuse to Lyddy for leaving the room, and when he returned Sarah's eyes were closed. Nor did they open again.
It was late that night when he first felt the stir of his forgotten wings. Sarah was dead, and all had been done that could be done before the morning. Overhead he could hear the murmur of voices and an occasional footfall — Lyddy and her Aunt Mason smoothing away the last traces of death's chaotic entrance.
He was alone in the comfortable little sitting-room-office behind the shop, and his head was nodding for weariness. Yet he did not make a move. After awhile a door shut upstairs, and after that there was silence ; the women, he realised, had finished and gone to bed. Yet still he lingered, awaiting a familiar summons. For twelve years, whenever he had sat up a little later than usual, he had presently heard at the head of the stairs Sarah's calm voice with its faint inflection of patient but immovable purpose : ' Ain't you coming up, Mr. Merritt ? '
Now, he suddenly grasped, he had heard it for the last time ; he was free again. And before he knew what was happening the bird of freedom had spread its wings and made of! into the future. He saw himself released, the shop sold, money in his pocket, Budmarsh left behind. After that a roving life — his fill of wandering and seeing, of tasting, testing, experiencing. He was forty-eight, but he felt life still at the full in him. Later on, when he was ready, he would marry again — and for choice this time. Some pretty,
THE LOVER. 347
slender, supple thing she should be, who for very youth should joyously share his love of adventure. . . .
With a start he dragged the bird of freedom back into his breast, put out the light and went to bed, weighed down by a guilty sense of outrage upon decorum.
But the bird had known freedom once more ; it would not lie still. In the days and weeks after Sarah's death it escaped again and again, and in the end he ceased to be troubled by its flights ; he came to enjoy them.
Poor Sarah ! He thought of her already with half contemptuous pity. She had never lived, and for twelve years she had managed to paralyse life in him. But now, as soon as decency allowed, he would make a clean cut with everything in Budmarsh, and be off for ever. Very soon after that, he knew, he would feel as if Sarah had never existed, even as she had never lived. He would forget her easily, because she had been not a woman, but only a very efficient machine. And machines, when they cease to be efficient, are not remembered but scrapped.
At the end of a month this process of oblivion was well on its way. He found it disagreeable, therefore, to be reminded by Lyddy of a duty to Sarah still unfulfilled.
' Ain't you ever going to set Sarah's desk to rights, Mr. Merritt ? ' Lyddy inquired after tea on the last day of her stay. She had installed the new housekeeper and done all other things proper to her position as the dead woman's nearest relative, and in the morning she was going.
William Merritt was glad she was going. She was altogether too much like Sarah for comfort— a smaller, sharpened edition of her, with a quicker tongue and a more openly critical manner towards himself. But it struck him that, as she was still here, he might as well make what use he could of her.
' You ;do it, Lyddy, won't you ? ' he begged. ' I don't seem somehow as if I could.' The implication, of course, was that he would find it too heartbreaking, but he dared not state it more openly ; he was afraid of Lyddy 's rather venomous intelligence.
' 'Twouldn't be proper,' declared Lyddy frigidly, ignoring implications. ' And I misdoubt if Sarah would like it. But it had ought to be done.' She pondered. ' I'm willing to set at your side, Mr. Merritt/ she offered primly, ' and be what help I can.'
He accepted the offer as better than nothing, and opened
348 THE LOVER.
Sarah's desk. As he had expected, its contents were unwelcome reminders of the dead woman whom he had been happily for- getting. Account books, Sunday school lessons, hymn lists, letters — all were neatly sorted and arranged by the calm, cold, methodical personality that had been Sarah. The ' setting to rights ' suggested by Lyddy, could be only an empty ceremony ; there was nothing for anyone to do, unless perhaps to give away as mementoes the one or two trifles of any value — Sarah's seal, penknife, silver pencil. With his hand on the packet in the last pigeon-hole William Merritt, grateful for Lyddy :s support, offered her her choice of these.
She did not make it. A look of keen and hostile interest over- spread her face, and, looking for its cause, his eyes travelled to the packet in his hand. It was marked, in Sarah's clear, large writing : ' William's Letters.'
' She kept 'em safe, then,' remarked Lyddy with curiosity, and gave a sniff that added, as plainly as words, ' Little though you deserve it.'
William's stupefaction, however, was not concerned with the question of safe-keeping. ' But I — I never wrote her any letters ! ' he cried.
For a moment Lyddy was impressed by that. Then she laughed unpleasantly. ' I'd trust Sarah's memory against yours any day, Mr. Merritt ! ' she observed dryly.
There was no injustice in the reflection. Indeed, so much did he trust Sarah's memory himself, that he untied the packet now with a feeling that a glance at its contents would remind him of the letters in question.
But it did not. There were from thirty to forty letters, all typewritten except for the signatures, which consisted of the word * William ' written in a rather dashing, masculine hand. It was a signature, however, entirely unlike William Merritt's,
and as for the contents ! But of those astounding contents
he assimilated only the flash of a phrase or sentence as he turned the pages.
' Your lover, William ' . . . ' Sarah, my heart's desire ' . . . * Your husband hasn't eyes to see you, my Dear '. . . ' Good night ; I kiss your hands. Do you know what beautiful hands you have ? — large and shapely, white, firm and strong — strong against the day of adversity !'...' Sarah, mother of men I For that's what you should be, my love — my love ! You are like
THE LOVER. 349
the pictures of those splendid Koman women — tall and proud, stately as a fair ship in sail, and there should be little hands clinging to your flowing skirts ' . . . ' Your smooth black hair, like velvet in the sun ' . . . And again and again, at the end of every letter, ' Your lover, William ' . . . ' Your lover, William.'
William Merritt came out of his first stupor to see Lyddy shame- lessly and voraciously devouring the letters over his shoulder. He withdrew them sharply. ' So that's your sister Sarah ! ' he said with cutting emphasis, and rejoiced to see Lyddy wince. At least she would never be able to put on condescending airs again, making him feel himself an adventurer for having married into the superior Cole family.
He stood up, clutching the letters. ' I'll go through them alone upstairs,' he announced severely, and left her cowed.
Upstairs his first concern was to find out whether Sarah had yielded to her lover. It was plain, by the last letter, that she had not, and, relieved of this fear, he could give free rein to his feelings.
He found that these were of the liveliest interest and excitement — and of a new admiration for Sarah. At first, indeed, he spent himself vainly in efforts to establish the identity of her lover. But he could not. Williams there were in plenty, of course, in Budmarsh ; but the signature was like none that he could re- member, and the typescript told nothing. Besides, there was a touch of vehemence and abandonment, almost of poetry in the letters that he felt Budmarsh could never have supplied. Why, he reflected, admiring them, they were almost the sort of letter he might have written himself ! — to a woman with whom he was in love.
Well, no matter about their author. Sarah had been true to him, her husband — but she had had a lover. Because of that rejected lover he felt her value to himself enormously enhanced. He might leave Budmarsh ; he might do all that he had planned, even down to marrying again eventually ; but now he would not forget Sarah ; he would neither be able to nor want to. She had become a different being ; he was intrigued by her, interested in her. She was dead, yet only now had she come alive.
The reproach levelled at him by her lover — that he had not seen Sarah — was perfectly justified, he admitted to himself. He had not : but now, through her lover's eyes, he did. For the things that the lover had said of^Sarah were true ; a little idealised
350 THE LOVER.
by love, maybe, yet essentially true. He tested and acknowledged them one by one. Sarah had had beautiful hands ; her black hair was like velvet in the sun ; she had looked to the day of her death like a Roman woman, and Nature had intended her for a mother of men. He felt suddenly and for the first time proud of having been Sarah's husband. . . .
Downstairs Lyddy continued to sit as he had left her — appalled and crushed. She tried to remember some of the things she had read over his shoulder, but they all ran into each other in a dark blur of iniquity. The only thing that stood out sharply was the monstrous phrase, recurring at the foot of every other page or so — ' Your lover, Wittiam.'
It was, however, more than enough. Impossible to doubt the genuineness of William Merritt's denial of authorship ; doubly impossible in view of the unfamiliar signature. Sarah, then, un- known to all of them and actually since her marriage (for did not the miscreant refer to her husband ?) had had a lover. The edifice of the Cole respectability toppled about Lyddy's ears, and she sat in hopeless fury amid its ruins. Sarah ! — who had been regarded as the very flower of the Cole connection ! It was unbelievable — and it had to be believed.
She glanced with revulsion at Sarah's open desk, which, from being a monument to the Cole virtues of piety, thrift, and order- liness had become a whited sepulchre. And there in the end pigeon-hole, from which William Merritt had withdrawn the fatal letters, Lyddy perceived yet another envelope.
She pounced upon it savagely. Now, freed from the dis- traction and humiliation of her brother-in-law's presence, she would read this one letter with microscopic care ; she would tear the heart out of Sarah's shameful mystery if the thing were humanly possible.
But, as she looked at the envelope, a hard red dye of shame suddenly stained her cheeks. For it was as if the dead woman had stretched out a hand to save her from the vindictiveness, the desecration she contemplated : the letter was addressed to herself.
Clumsy with agitation, she broke the flap of the envelope, and read. And, reading, stillness fell upon her like a trance.
' If you ever see this letter, Lyddy,' Sarah had written, ' I shall be gone, and gone before William, my husband. At first I had no mind to bring a third person into what lies between him and me ;
THE LOVER. 351
but I have come to see that it cannot be helped. William will tell you of a certain matter, according to his lights, whether I tell you or not ; and, since you are to know something of it, it had best be the truth ; for in the truth there is nothing to hurt our good name, sister — though maybe you will call me a foolish, weak creature, and be in the right of it. I say William will tell you, and you may marvel to hear me speak so positively of what will be after my death, if at all. But he will be powerfully moved, Lyddy, and will feel the need to tell someone ; and you are the only one, being in, the family, as wouldn't care to let it get about afterwards. William will not want it to get about, for his own sake, being a vain man. So he will tell you and you only.
' You never really wondered why I married William, did you, Lyddy, even though you cast scorn on him as being beneath us ? You thought it natural enough I should take any chance that offered at that age, for the sake of having a man in the business, and being a married woman at long last, and maybe for the hope of a child of my own. But you were wrong. I married William because I loved him. Neither he nor anyone else ever knew it, and I am wishful that none but you should know it now.
' It began when we were boy and girl going to Sunday school together. As we came out of school one summer afternoon, William ran and put his arms round me and kissed me. He only did it for mischief, picking the one that looked the primmest and soberest for playing his trick on, but I never thought of that till I was older. Father saw him do it, as it chanced, and when we got home he questioned me ; but I was obstinate and wouldn't tell the rights of it, being willing it should look more than it was. So then he gave me the soundest whipping that ever I had in my life, for my flightiness (as he thought it) in carrying on with the boys. Do you remember all that, Lyddy, I wonder ? But I didn't mind the pain for the pleasure, and that's the truth. It was my first kiss, and William was never the same as any other boy to me after that, though he didn't take a mite of notice of me again — not even when we were grown maids, as you well know. There was never a lad that did saving Herbert Meadows.
' I was three-and-twenty when Herbert courted me, and I came near to wedding him though I had no love for him. My mind was sorely troubled in the matter, and I had no answer to prayer. And then, one night as I was making ready for bed, a strange question came into my head. I said to myself, " Sarah Cole, if you wed Herbert, and then William should ever come to care for you, what would you do ? " I couldn't answer it, and I was fairly scared. It was no use to tell myself William would
352 THE LOVER.
never give me a thought. That wasn't enough. I had to know what I would do, supposing he should. Well, I didn't know ; but from that I fell to thinking what it would be like to have William courting me, and maybe writing me letters.
' Before God, Lyddy, I don't know what came over me then, but like in a dream I had pencil and paper before me, and I couldn't write fast enough the words that flowed into my mind. Night after night I did it, though it seems strange now to say "I," for I never did any suchlike thing before or since, nor could I. But it was like as if I was possessed — possessed with the mind and the thoughts and the words of William, because of my great love for him ; so that I could see him as my lover, and know what his love would have given him to say to me.
* If William shows you those letters, Lyddy, you will laugh, maybe, at the conceit and wicked pride of me. But a woman's lover sees her good points — and makes them better by praise of them. It would have been so with William — if he had ever been my lover. As he wasn't, I made shift, in those letters, to be my own. Maybe I never was what the letters say. But as God is my judge, Lyddy, I might have been — if William had been my lover.
* The madness lasted a matter of three or four weeks, and then I wrote no more. In the letters William had tempted me to leave my husband, and I had stood firm. The very last that ever I wrote was William's farewell after I had refused his desire. But it was no use. As I wrote the last word I knew that it was no use. If it should ever really happen as I had written, I knew that, when I got that last letter from William, I should leave all and go to him.
' So then I saw plainly what I must do, and I sent Herbert Meadows about his business, and stayed single, for I never had another ofier, as you know.
' Well, for long enough I locked those letters up. I never thought to make any use of them, but I couldn't bring myself to let them go into the fire. They were all I had to show of my flowering time, though it was only to myself. So I kept them. Even when William married me at last, for the sake of the business, I kept them. But it is not above a year or two back that I made up my mind to leave them behind me for William to find, supposing I should be taken first. That is what I now intend, and that is why I write you this letter, sister.
' For I am a weak woman at bottom, it seems. As long as I live I am William's wife and daily companion, and my love makes shift to do with that, for my pride will never let me show that I have wanted more. But I find I cannot bear the thought of what
THE LOVER. 353
will be when I am gone. William will forget me as if I had never been. He will marry again, of course ; for that I am prepared ; but I want him to remember me sometimes, and to remember me with pleasure as a woman such as he is partial to — a woman that will be a bit of a mystery to him as long as he lives. So I have hit upon this plan. I have had those old letters typewritten at a place far enough off, and I practised copying a gentleman's signature that I found in a book till I could write ' William ' much the same, and then I put it at the bottom of every letter, so that William, my husband, shall think I had a lover after he married me. It is a sin and a lie, but I have done it.
' Do not tell William the truth, Lyddy ; I know what I am about. You will be glad to have this testimony that it is a lie, but I have not studied William all my life for nothing. He values what others value. He will not think the less but the more of me for fancying some other man has loved his wife. If Herbert Meadows had been courting me at the same time as William instead of thirteen years earlier — why, William might have married me even then for love. Love breeds love in a man like William. I don't mean a woman's love for himself, but another man's love for the woman he thinks of taking. I do not quarrel with it, Lyddy. William is weak and nighty, unstable by nature, a reed shaken by the wind ; he will forget the decent, sober living to which I have partly led him. But he is as God made him, and I love the man. And so I pray you to keep my counsel.
' Your sister,
' SARAH.'
The intense quiet of the house in that evening hour after the shop was closed broke at last.
Lyddy raised her head to listen : it was William Merritt descend- ing the staks. Her sharp little eyes blinked away a mist that lay before them, and she swallowed convulsively. Something enormous, something strange to her and elemental, something rather terrify- ing but at the same time exhilarating was, at the sound of William Merritt's approach, swelling in her narrow bosom and driving her whither it would. Sex loyalty . . . though she was incapable of giving it a name. But it drove her to thrust the sheaf of papers beneath the cushion of her chair, and to reassume her attitude of humility and dejection before the fire.
William Merritt entered the room.
' Come, come, Lyddy,' he said kindly, ' don't you take on so. I spoke in the heat of the moment — I admit it. Your sister was
VOL. XLVHI.— NO. 285, N.S. 23
354 THE LOVER.
a good woman, even though a man not her husband did love her. The letters prove it.'
Lyddy allowed herself the appearance of relaxing very slightly with relief and gratitude.
' I suppose,' went on William Merritt, with but badly concealed animation, ' you don't chance to know who this here William was, Lyddy ? '
* No, Mr. Merritt, I do not,' lied Lyddy, with an intense inward satisfaction and an outward air of straitlaced self-righteousness that her brother-in-law found odious. ' I'm only thankful to have your word for it that my sister behaved herself as she should.'
' She did — she did,' reaffirmed William Merritt, but he wandered about the room unhappily. This was not at all what he wanted. ' I'm saying not a word against her, mind you, Lyddy,' he tried again. ' The man couldn't help himself, 'tis plain.'
' I'm sure it does you credit to take it so large-minded as you do,' declared Lyddy humbly, ' and as Sarah's sister, and speaking for the family, you might say, I'm obliged to you.'
' Not at all— not at all,' he returned, still unsatisfied and restless. ' And as for your family, Lyddy, let me say at once there's no need to bring them into it. The matter may well rest between you and me — you and me.' He waited anxiously for her assent, and it was meekly given. Then he took a seat beside her, and began to speak with eagerness of what was really filling his thoughts. ' Did you never notice, Lyddy, what a beauty Sarah's hair was to her ? Why, it used to shine like velvet in the sun. Many's the time I've noticed it. And her hands, now— wonderfully shapely they were, if you recall ? She was a fine figure of a woman, too ; stately, like one of them Roman matrons you see in pictures ; and 'tis small wonder the man, whoever he was, couldn't look on all that unmoved. I should be the last to blame him, seeing his taste was mine, and I bore off the prize. 'Tis a miracle Sarah showed herself so little uplifted over her many advantages as a female.'
Lyddy remained prim and unresponsive. ' Her thoughts were set on higher matters, Mr. Merritt.'
* Yes — yes, no doubt,' he agreed absently. ' But still '
He rose, sighing. There was no comfort to be got out of Lyddy. He had buried Sarah a month ago, but now he wanted to praise her — to praise and appraise her as he had never dreamed of doing when she was alive. And Lyddy was no more use as a confidante than a broomstick : Lyddy had never had a lover. All his old,
THE LOVER. 355
easy contempt for Sarah was suddenly transferred to her sister, as he thrilled anew to the thought of Sarah's mysterious, lyrical lover. Absorbed and delighted, he drifted from the room that held Lyddy, to seek the greater sympathy of solitude.
Lyddy waited until it was quite certain that he would not return. Then her expression kindled and softened extraordinarily ; she drew Sarah's letter from under her.
For an instant she hesitated, but ended by doing a thing entirely outside the Cole tradition : she pressed with passion a kiss on the crumpled sheets. Then she sat on until the fire had consumed them utterly.
V. H. FRIEDLAENDER.
356
THE NORTHERN SLAVE.
MY father's palace has been set
Against the mountains violet;
Like pearls the out-post towers shine
That keep the far horizon line;
And thrice-a-hundred warriors stand
Hawk-eyed, to guard the sunburnt land.
My sixteen summers have I spent Within its courts ; unless I went, Veiled, to the anchorage below, Where freighted vessels come and go, And sailors spread their skin-wrapped bales, And dry their tanned and purple sails.
The King, my father, in his hall,
Has pictures carved along the wall;
Great sculptured vines that twist and clamber
From floor to roof, with fruits of amber;
And for the door-posts they have made,
Two giant guards with eyes of jade.
Couches there are of cedar wood, And where the silver brazier stood, For ever on a scented pyre, Burnt costly incense shipped from Tyre, Resins like gems, in packets tied, Upon whose quest brave men have died.
Women from early and from late
Are ever there to watch and wait ;
And slaves from many a distant sea,
And craftsmen in captivity,
Who do the King, my father's, pleasure,
And fill his house with wondrous treasure.
THE NORTHERN SLAVE. 357
And young and straight and very tall Was one who served without the hall, In broidered raiment strangely wrought ; A prisoner that the ships had brought, When the great fleet came sailing in, Back from the misty Isles of Tin.
The old sea captains at their trade Cunningly marked the things he made ; Lured him with ivory and gold And leopard skins, within the hold ; Drowsed him with wine, and as he slept, Hoisted their sails and outward swept.
My maidens as they sat to sew Told me the things I longed to know. How he near died of grief and passion, And yet what jewels he could fashion ! And how he strove to speak our tongue. They pitied him, he was so young.
Perhaps his father was a God,
He bore himself so nobly, trod
With such proud footfall, his rare laughter
Was like none else before or after,
And his clear eyes like agates shone . . .
I thought of them when he was gone.
Now since he had a master's skill, It was the King, my father's will He should inlay with patines fine The place where princes sit at wine ; Where the great arches open wide, And the rock cistus blooms outside.
Colours he worked with, gold, and red
To lay beneath the gold ... I said
' To learn his craft would be great gain,'
And it is true that I was fain
To learn his craft. But most that he
Might take some chance to speak to me.
358 THE NORTHERN SLAVE.
And so I watched him all the day; But never one word did he say, Or ever raise his serious eyes From the gold patines and the dyes, Azure and scarlet, stirred within The molten waxes, hot and thin.
Then I spoke out ... I wished to see His workmanship more perfectly, And how he cut the gold and fixed it, And warmed each colour as he mixed it. So I moved slowly from the gloom Of my silk-curtained inner room,
And met his serious eyes at last
That looked in mine and held them fast,
As hesitating and uncertain
He stepped towards my silken curtain.
And when I beckoned, bent his knee,
Holding the colours up to me.
And then — 0 Gods — a gust of wind, Eddying through the arch behind, Athwart the glowing brazier came Blowing a lambent tongue of flame, That passed his tunic, scorched and singed, To fire my garments, many fringed.
He shouted, tore the curtain down,
And flung it round my flaming gown.
And when my maidens came and found me,
His strong young arms were wrapped around me,
Me who half died with joy to know
That once his arms might hold me so.
The palace guardians tied his hands, And bound his mouth with linen bands, So that he could not speak at all When he was sentenced in the hall. (The King my father being away, They would not wait another day.)
THE NORTHERN SLAVE. 359
The King my father has not said Once that the northern slave is dead. When I had told him what befell, The little that there was to tell, He sat and frowned within his chair, Where the unfinished carvings were.
He sat and frowned, and said no word, And not one whisper have I heard. My maidens only smile and say ' A slave might perish any day.'
A. F. T.
360
THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR : A COMPARISON.
THERE is a natural tendency to draw comparisons between striking events of -the present and of the past, and the late war has been compared with other great struggles in history. Of all the many hundreds of wars of the past, there seem to be three especially to which it seems natural to compare it, these being the Napoleonic War, the war between Rome and Carthage, and the Peloponnesian War.
In each of these wars there was a long and bitter struggle, with varying fortunes between two evenly-matched antagonists, ending in the complete defeat of one of them ; in each case one was a maritime and the other a land power ; and in each case one at least of the antagonists was striving for world supremacy. It may seem a hard saying to some that a struggle between two Greek cities should be a world struggle, but it was a struggle for supremacy in the Hellenic world, which stood then for the highest civilisation in the world, a height that perhaps has not been attained since. So that the war between Athens and Sparta may rank with the other two. It is true that as far as the numbers involved go, a thousand men stood for nearly as much as a million men in the late war, but even in the Napoleonic wars the numbers were insig- nificant compared with our time, and in the Carthaginian War more so still, but no one would deny that these were world struggles.
Now, in point of resemblance to the late war the Napoleonic War, it must be admitted, had some marked characteristics. In one respect Napoleon's wars differ from any of the others, in that on one side was a man, rather than a nation ; the driving power on Napoleon's side came from the man himself ; it was he and he practically alone who schemed against England, but the subtlety, the persistence and, one may say, the malevolence with which he worked were paralleled by the Prussian organisation in the late war. It cannot be doubted that the Kaiser and his gang of advisers had Napoleon much in their mind, and made a conscious attempt to improve on him.
If the Germans in some way recall Napoleon's unscrupulous energy, they also had many points in common with the Romans, e.g. their materialism, their lack of humour, their methodical habits, their militarism and brutality. Who can read of the
THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR : A COMPARISON. 361
Romans capturing a Carthaginian ship, building an exact imitation of it, and training men to row it on dry land, without thinking of Germany ? Where in history is there a parallel to Cato's ' Delenda est Carthago,' with which he ended every speech he made, till the Germans took to writing ' Gott strafe England ' on every letter ?
Then take the enemy's view of us. Napoleon's gibes at ' Perfide Albion ' and ' the nation of shopkeepers ' represent just the attitude that Livy took to Carthage or the Kaiser to us. Even Kipling refers to Carthage as a ' nigger Manchester.'
However, I would not labour the resemblance to Rome and Carthage, which is, after all, very small indeed, but a most remark- able parallel there is between England and Germany on the one hand and Athens and Sparta on the other, yet a parallel that seems to have obtained very little attention. Reference has been made to it, certainly, but I do not think there has been a detailed analysis showing the striking resemblance between many of the most notable incidents and many of the leading men in both wars.
Professor Gilbert Murray in his Creighton Lecture on ' Aristo- phanes and the War Party ' called attention to some points in which the state of Athens during their war resembled the state of England during ours, and his references to the ' hidden hand ' in Athens are certainly very interesting.
As to what Athens stood for in the war, none can do better than quote the noble words used by Pericles, the great Liberal Imperialist statesman of Athens, at the commencement of the Peloponnesian War — words that might well have been used without alteration, save for the word ' England ' instead of ' Athens,' by a statesman such as Sir Edward Grey in August 1914. Alas ! some of the things he says are less true of us at the present time than then.
Pericles said (I quote from the translation in Professor Bury's ' History/ of Greece ') :
' There is no exclusiveness in our public life, and in our private intercourse. We are not suspicious of one another, nor angry with our neighbour ; if he does what he likes we do not put on sour looks at him, which though harmless, are not pleasant. And we have not forgotten to provide for our weary spirits many relaxa- tions from toil ; [we have regular games and sacrifices throughout the year ; at home the style of our life is refined and the delight which we daily feel in all these things helps to balance melancholy. Because of the greatness of our city the fruits of the whole earth
362 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR: A COMPARISON.
flow in upon us, so that we enjoy the goods of other countries as freely as our own. Then again our military training is in many respects superior to that of our adversaries. Our city is thrown open to the world and we never expel a foreigner or prevent him from seeing or learning anything of which the secret, if revealed to an enemy, might profit him. We rely not upon management or trickery, but upon our own hands and hearts. And in the matter of education, whereas they from early youth are always undergoing laborious exercises which are to make them brave, we live at ease and yet are equally ready to face the perils which they face. If we prefer to meet danger with a light heart without laborious training and with a courage which is gained by habit and not enforced by law, are we not greatly the gainers ? Since we do not anticipate the pain, although when the hour comes we can be as brave as those who never allow themselves to rest ; and thus, too, our city is equally admirable in peace and war.
*****
' I would have you, every one of you, day by day fix your eyes upon the greatness of Athens until you become filled with the love of her, and when you are impressed by the spectacle of her glory, reflect that this empire has been acquired by men who knew their duty and had the courage to do it, who in the hour of conflict had the fear of dishonour always present to them, and who, if ever they failed in an enterprise, would not allow their virtues to be lost to their country but freely gave their lives to her as the fairest offering they could present to her feast. The sacrifices which they collectively made were individually repaid to them ; for they received again and again, each one for himself, a praise which grows not old and the noblest of all sepulchres — I speak not of that in which their remains are laid, but of that in which their glory survives and is proclaimed always and on every fitting occasion both in word and deed. For the whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men. Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men. Make them your examplas.'
It will be noted that one portion of the speech is omitted. This contains Pericles' claims for the Athenians a love of beautiful things, which I fear no speaker could seriously claim for us.
If such were the ideals of Athens, what were those of Sparta ? These can be summed up in two words — warlike efficiency. Probably there is no other instance in history, till the time of Prussia, of a civilised nation so glorifying war and so devoting its energy
THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR : A COMPARISON. 363
to obtaining efficiency in war. The Spartans were trained from their youth up with the one end in view ; gymnastic exercises and iron discipline formed an important part of their training, the object of which was to encourage bravery of mind and hardiness of body. Everyone knows stories of Spartan courage and discipline. One cannot read of Sparta without thinking of Prussian duels and militarism and Bernhardi. The Spartans were recognised as the leading military nation of Greece, just as Germany was of Europe before the war, but they were not popular with the other nations. They were overbearing and domineering — in a word, typically Prussian. It is true they had many allies in the war who, like the Spartans themselves, were jealous of the growing power of Athens, but, as in the case of Germany's allies, it was self-interest, not love, that joined them.
The causes of the two wars were very similar. On the one side we have a small nation with a great colonial empire, great trade and wealth, supreme upon the sea ; on the other a nation with a military machine that has been the result of years of building up, confident of its invincibility, despising its adversary and jealous of her prosperity. Can one wonder that there is conflict ?
To compare the forces on either side, Sparta had the advantage in the possession of allies, though these, like Germany's, were far inferior to her in military ability. Athens had none of great importance ; here comes the great difference between her and us. She had no France to wage the struggle on land. True there were the Thracian hordes of Sitacles who correspond to Russia in that the Athenians placed great hopes in them not destined to be realised. Across the ocean, too, there was a country of boundless resources who, though courted by both sides, remained neutral till near the end, when she threw herself into the scale on the winning side and helped to finish the war.
Considering that Athens had no hope of defeating her adversary on land, nor apparently of starving her, it is rather hard to see on what grounds Pericles was justified in expecting to win, though historians, such as Professors Bury and Oman, seem to think he was. His policy was to wear the enemy out, not to fight on land with him or to engage in great expeditions, as was done by Athens after he died, but it does not seem possible that he could have won till he beat the enemy on land ; we could not defeat Napoleon or Germany till we had beaten them on land as well as sea, neither could Rome beat Carthage, nor indeed Sparta beat Athens, till
364 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR : A COMPARISON.
they had won on sea as well as land. Victory on both elements has proved necessary in each case before the adversary could be completely crushed.
Another important disadvantage suffered by Athens, as com- pared with us, was that she was not an island, and the enemy could and did ravage her territory. It is true that the walls of Athens to some extent took the place of the sea round England. Secure behind these, she watched her unfortunate allies, such as Platea, being laid waste.
The case of Platea forms a remarkable parallel to Belgium. Here was a small State, which stood in the invaders' path, and which all sides were solemnly pledged to leave neutral. Sparta, like Germany, started by accusing the little State of breaking her neutrality, and followed it up by a suggestion that she should occupy the territory of Platea, promising to hand it back intact at the end of the war. Platea, relying on help from Athens, refused, but the help was inadequate ; she was overwhelmed and treated with the utmost brutality by her conquerors.
Sparta, though victorious on land, did not attempt much at sea, save small engagements which might be likened to the Falkland Islands Battle ; in these the Athenians were mostly successful. And there was the sea raid on Salamis, comparable to Scarborough.
One of the features common to the two wars was that, besides being a struggle between a democracy and a military oligarchy, there existed in many States an aristocratic party which favoured the oligarchy, and a democratic party which favoured the democracy. In the case of Corcyra, where the aristocracy seized the power and were afterwards overthrown by the pro- Athenian democracy, we may see a parallel to the course of events in modern Greece.
Sparta too, like Germany, relied on the Athenian colonies revolting, but in this she was mostly disappointed, but the easily suppressed rebellion of Mitylene may be likened to the abortive rebellion in South Africa.
A parallel to the submarine campaign of Germany was also afforded by the Spartans. To quote Grote :
' Though the Peloponnesians were too inferior in maritime force to undertake formal war at sea against Athens, their single privateers were active in injuring her commerce, and not merely the commerce of Athens but also that of other neutral Greeks without scruple or discrimination. Several merchant and fishing
THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR: A COMPARISON. 365
vessels with a considerable number of prisoners were captured. Such prisoners as fell into the hands of the Lacedaemonians, the neutral Greeks as well as Athenians, were all put to death and their bodies cast into clefts in the mountains. In regard to neutrals this cap'ture was piratical and the slaughter unwarrantably cruel judged even by the received practice of the Greeks, deficient as that was on the score of humanity. But to dismiss the neutral prisoners or to sell them as slaves would have given publicity to a piratical capture and provoked the neutral towns, so that prisoners were probably slain as the best way of getting rid of them, and thus suppressing evidence.'
' Spurlos versenken ! ' was their motto too, like the ' sinking without trace ' of Argentine vessels.
Another naval incident where history repeated itself was the fact that when, after their success at Sphacteria the Athenians granted the Spartans an armistice, one of the chief conditions was the surrender of their fleet.
Next comes that episode of the Peloponnesian War which bears the most striking resemblance to one in the late war : the expedition to Syracuse matching the expedition to the Dardanelles. Let it be admitted at once that our resources were not mortgaged in the Dardanelles to the extent that the Athenians mortgaged theirs at Syracuse, so that our failure did not have such disastrous results ; still, allowing for this, the resemblance is close.
But before entering into closer details of the two campaigns, it is worth while to point out the resemblance between some of the noted Athenians and our leaders. First of all Cleon and Mr. Lloyd George — Cleon the leather seller and Lloyd George the boot- maker's nephew. The comparison is made in no disparagement of Mr. Lloyd George, as was done by the ' peace party ' during the war when, in attacking the so-called ' knock-out blow ' policy, they compared Mr. Lloyd George to Cleon the demagogue, who kept the war going and refused a reasonable peace. When we speak of Cleon it must be borne in mind that our account of him comes from his political opponents, Thucydides and Aristophanes, who were, in addition, personal enemies. It is as if a portrait of Mr. Lloyd George should go down to posterity as portrayed, say, by The Daily Telegraph in his Limehouse days, and The Daily News during the war. Whatever his faults, there seems no reason to suppose that Cleon was other than a sincere patriot, and, though an opponent of Pericles, it was the war policy of Pericles he carried
366 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR : A COMPARISON.
on. Whether his policy or that of his opponents in the ' peace party ' was right, is hard to say, but the historian may point out that when, after his death, an inconclusive peace was made, it only lasted a very short time. In any case he was the first and greatest ' man of the people ' who rose to power because, as Thucy- dides says, he was ' the most violent of the citizens, and at that time most persuasive to the multitude.' His popularity was largely due to the fact that he carried on and enlarged Pericles' policy of doles to the populace from the public purse, and it is quite possible that he may at some time have offered ninepence for f ourpence ! But it is for his advocacy of a vigorous prosecution of the war that his renown is greatest.
If Mr. Lloyd George is Cleon, Mr. Winston Churchill is Alcibiades, a man of erratic genius, of restless energy and ambition : a man by birth an aristocrat who left his party and became one of the most ardent democrats and who was chiefly instrumental in getting his country to undertake the disastrous expedition to Sicily. The other two leaders of the expedition were Nicias, the exponent of ' wait and see,' and Lamachus, the plain, blunt, but skilful soldier whose early death was so unfortunate for his country : — a curious parallel to the three who conducted our war policy in the first year of the war, Asquith, Kitchener and Churchill.
Like the Dardanelles, the expedition to Syracuse was against a distant and famous city, the capture of which would impress people's imagination, while there was also the question of corn, large supplies of which came from Sicily. Athens also placed a mistaken reliance on help from the neighbouring towns of Segesta and Rhegium, especially in the way of cavalry, just as we looked for help from Greece. The Athenians, like us, began the attack with a half-hearted assault by the fleet, and withdrew, giving the enemy time to make preparations. The Syracusans also got assistance from Sparta in the shape of a General Gylippus (compare General Liman von Sanders), who made such a good defence that, in spite of sending big reinforcements the Athenians, after much desperate fighting, decided that the only thing to do was to retire, which (here happily our parallel breaks down) they were unable to do. The power of Athens was so much weakened by this failure that when the Lacedaemonian fleet did dare to give battle at Aegos Potami, they were more successful than the Germans at Jutland.
There is one more incident during the war at Athens that might
THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR: A COMPARISON. 367
be paralleled, and that was the trial that arose in consequence of the mutilation of the Hermae, when accusations of all kinds were levelled against many of the leading citizens.
To conclude. Though the incidents in the two wars were often so alike, the result was utterly different. The Athenians, once their fleet was beaten, were in a hopeless position, liable to starvation and to surrender. Reference has already been made to one or two respects in which Athens was less favourably situated than we were, but there also existed causes due to the policy of Athens herself which led to her defeat. One was her habit of giving the command of her armies to politicians. We have been accused of letting our politicians interfere too much with our Generals, but the Athenians went far beyond that ; when Mr. Winston Churchill went to the front there was some criticism because he rose so rapidly to the rank of colonel, but in Athens he might have been put to supersede General Haig. Another point where the Athenians scarcely showed the political wisdom of which Pericles boasts was in the treatment of their Generals and leaders. Failure was punished with harsh and pitiless severity, and even success was no protection to a General accused of any misdeed. In some respects this spirit is to be admired, and it is to be feared that we err too much in the opposite direction now, but on more than one occasion it proved disastrous to Athens, more especially in the case of Alcibiades. But of all the most eminent Athenians, Themistocles, Aristides, Pericles, and Socrates, there was not one that did not have cause to feel the ingratitude of Athens.
N. S. PERCIVAL.
368
TYROL REVISITED.
A six months' stay at the present distressing juncture, in one ol the unhappiest remnants of the old Austrian Empire, provides one with pathetic experiences, many of which are of a harrowing nature. Mine were gathered chiefly in Tyrol, that once happy holiday ground where so many of us who love the mountains used to spend pleasant days ; its sporting attractions being, in my own case, sufficiently strong to make it my summer home for nigh upon half a century. And while the latter circumstance brought me into close touch with the inner life of the people, it also con- vinced me that the Tyrolese peasantry was from the outset against the War. Interned by the Austrians during the first nine months of the great struggle, I had every opportunity of gauging their real feelings.
A brief account of some of the experiences on returning to my mountain home after the Armistice will give English readers, seated at well-provided tables in warm rooms, some idea of the heart-rending privations to which the War's cruel aftermath has condemned a little peasant people, whose sterling qualities have in past times gained the good-will of many of us.
When I reached Tyrol in the early part of last summer, the loss of its richest and most populous section, of which, to use Lord Bryce's words, it was being robbed in a most unjust and harsh manner, was only beginning to be felt north of the Brenner. Tyrol, in its old shape, was a country which was more or less self- sustaining, while its fine scenery annually produced a rich revenue. To-day the gaunt ghost of famine is stalking through its valleys, taking a heavy toll of children and old folk. The country's position politically and financially, as well as economically, is simply deplorable.
Tyrol's pastoral resources, its absolutely limitless water power, its great forest and mineral wealth, had under the old regime of bureaucratic obstruction been ever kept dormant, and the few existing factories and mills, worked by electric power, of which latter unlimited supplies rush past each village, have, since the outbreak of the War, come to a standstill, not only owing to the lack of raw material, but also in consequence of the almost in- credible depreciation of the Austrian currency. Last June a
TYROL REVISITED. 369
krone, which in normal times was worth rather more than a Swiss or French franc (10d.), fetched fifteen centimes or about three pence. When I left Tyrol the other day, the krone was down to 2£ centimes, or less than a halfpenny, and now one gets 1100 kr. for the pound sterling, in spite of the somewhat alarming depreciation of our own money in Switzerland and other neutral countries. In a land absolutely lacking wealthy classes, where quite small incomes are the rule, where a court councillor or a pensioned general was deemed rich with an income of 6000 kr. per annum, the tremendous rise in all necessaries of life meant starvation by slow stages. For how could families of five or six people afford 35 or 40 kr. for a pound of butter, 3 or 4 kr. for an egg, or 25 kr. for a pound of sugar or a loaf of bread ? In consequence a regular system of barter sprang up, the local press doing a roaring business by advertising ex- changes, say of ' a well-preserved winter overcoat, fitting a man of medium size, for 15 pounds of sugar or two sacks of potatoes ' ; or ' a lady's silk skirt, worn only a few times, for a barrowful of firewood ' ; or ' a baby's pram for a pair of shoes, size 41 ' ; or ' a set of lady's underwear for five pounds of candles,' and hundreds of similar exchanges. Speaking of the last-mentioned commodity reminds me of a little incident which victimised six tall wax candles which had been used at my Italian grandmother's christening in the year 1777. In Tyrol there are nowadays few dwellings that are not lighted by electricity, which is extraordinarily cheap (for the lighting of my place, with dozens of rooms, the annual cost is 160 kronen, which at the present rate is exactly two shillings of our money) ; but as accidents will happen even in the best regulated works, last November the whole country-side was steeped for some days in utter darkness. The supply of petroleum and of candles had long ago become exhausted, and thus it happened that my ancestor's yard-long baptismal tapers, after a retirement of nearly, a century and a-half in a dusty corner of the castle archives, came to serve a really useful purpose when cut up into candles of ordinary length.
The less honest classes of the population, chiefly composed of degraded Galician and Polish Jews, who had immigrated in large numbers to Tyrol when their own countries fell into enemy hands, made nefarious use of Tyrol's plight by exporting, in wholesale manner, cattle and home-produced provisions, such as cheese, butter, flour and even the silver currency that had long been replaced by paper money, but which is now being bought
VOL. XLVHI — NO. 285, N.S. 24
370 TYROL REVISITED.
up from the peasants who had hidden it away. These wares they take over the snowy passes into Switzerland and Italy, ob- taining there money worth from ten to thirty times more than their own paper rags. As this wholesale smuggling was rapidly draining the country of all its essential food products, the Govern- ment soon issued strict injunctions against this illegal trading, known locally as Schkichhandel. By posting well-armed forces along the extended frontiers, the authorities tried to put a stop to it. But even these measures were unable to enforce the laws ; regular battles, with numerous dead and wounded, ensued almost daily, and as evil communications corrupt good manners, some of the peasants have become imbued with the dangerous example set by these wily Galician Jews. Corruption among the official classes, once probably the most honest if slowest and most 4 red-tapy ' bureaucracy in continental Europe, is also increasing, and officials whose duty it should be to prevent by every possible means this suicidal export of the essentials of life, are practically forced to abet this trading to save their own families from starving.
In other respects, too, this illicit trading led to catastrophes. Carrying in mid-winter heavy weights across high passes, which even in summer can be crossed only in fine weather, is gambling with grim death, and scores upon scores of fine young fellows have lost their lives by avalanches, snow storms, and sheer ex- haustion, overtaking underfed men in inhospitable wilds, where the snow lies to the depth of several yards. In several instances men with loads weighing a hundredweight or more, in some cases consisting of silver coins destined for Italy, were found frozen to death where they had sunk down exhausted on one or other of the high passes of the main chain. In one sad case even a more horrible fate overwhelmed a large number of these smugglers. It occurred not in Tyrol but in Austrian Silesia, where a whole train-load of men and women, engaged in a highly profitable Schleichhandel with spirits distilled from potatoes, happened to be wrecked. Fire spread among the wreckage and as the spirit was carried in tin cases, fitted to the individual's chest and back underneath their clothes, many of the victims, unable to rid them- selves quickly of their burdens, were burned to death. No fewer than 134 casualties were reported in the local press. But even this terrible lesson did not put a stop to it, for within a week a police raid in force revealed the continued prevalence of this trade.
TYROL REVISITED. 371
As the present winter set in very early and with unprecedented severity, the complete lack of coal, in consequence of the utterly selfish and revengeful policy pursued by the Czechs — practically all the coal used in Tyrol came from the Bohemian and Silesian coal-fields — spelt disaster in the case of the railways and of towns- people whose heating apparatuses were arranged for that type of fuel, and who, consequently, could not use wood. The Czechs, notwithstanding the Entente's peremptory orders to supply coal to Austria and especially to Tyrol, settled old grudges by not carrying out these injunctions from Paris, there being no lack of handy subterfuges, such as want of transport, labour difficulties, elementary causes, or direct refusal to supply coal until certain counter claims had been settled. Thus it came to pass that all the distressful consequences of a lack of railway transportation were added to foodlessness. Trains were cut down to one a week, and no goods could be sent by rail. I happened to visit the country's capital, Innsbruck, towards the end of November, foolishly omitting to provide myself with food. After a hungry day's shopping, I had to sit from 6 P.M. until midnight in a pitch-dark, unheated railway carriage with the thermometer far below zero, on my return journey of twenty-five miles, which in pre-war days one covered in an hour.
To realise Tyrol's present plight we must remember that the Entente did not permit it to form itself into a separate republic after the break-up of the empire. It therefore still forms part of the Republic of Austria, a country reduced to one-eighth of its former dimensions, with six millions of inhabitants,who are burdened not only with an incalculably huge war debt, but also with a capital city of over two millions of an unproductive population, which has to be fed by the peasantry of Tyrol, Salzburg, Upper and Lower Austria and Styria. It is not surprising, therefore, that the cry Los von Wien ! (' Away from Vienna ! '}, with whose Socialistic government the peasantry is not in sympathy, is heard more and more frequently.
Shorn of more than half of its million of inhabitants, Tyrol is reduced to what is practically one long valley lying at the northern base of the main chain with the small enclaves of Kitzbiihel at one end, and Vorarlberg at the other.
When, last summer, Viscount Bryce and a number of well- known people made a generous appeal to the world for a more just delimitation of Tyrol's boundary towards Italy than" was accorded to it by the strict interpretation of the Austrian peace
372 TYROL REVISITED.
treaty, the world was too busily engaged to pay attention to the affairs of such a small people. Perhaps it may find more time in future, when the League of Nations comes into force. What Italy claimed — and also obtained — under the Pact of London, com- prised practically the whole of South Tyrol. For present purposes, the latter must be divided into two parts : the Trentino, inhabited by Italian-speaking people, and the German South Tyrol, a very clearly defined Sprachgrenze, separating the two in lingual respects as well as in others. This dividing line crosses the country horizontally, starting from the Ortler and ending at the Mar- molata, two grand corner-stones well known to every visitor to that interesting region. Those who do not know the Trentino intimately generally suppose that its population, because it is Italian-speaking, is entirely Italian in its sympathies. This is, I think, a wrong impression, and option as to their nationality should have been left to a referendum. As to German South Tyrol, the case is very different. According to the last census of 1910 not quite three per cent, of its population were Italian- speaking. Against its 219,466 Germans there were but 5766 Italians, and some ten or fifteen thousand of Ladins, who formed separate little communities of which the principal one is in the Groden valley, interesting on account of its talented wood-carvers. Taken as a whole, these Ladins sympathise with and want to belong to German South Tyrol. The Italians in German South Tyrol belong almost exclusively to the labouring classes. They are masons, road-makers, wood-cutters, or engaged in the vineyards. Their frugal ways, alertness, and natural handiness have long made them successful rivals of the heavy-handed, slow-moving Teutons. They congregated mostly in towns, and altogether failed to gain a footing in many of the rural parts. Thus in the district of Schlanders there were 12,293 Germans and only 40 Italians, in Glurns 9600 Germans and 4 Italians, in Taufers 8716 Germans and 7 Italians, while in and around the flourishing town of Botzen there were 40,211 Germans and 2100 Italians, and in beautiful Meran 32,224 Germans and 429 Italians.
Historically, Italy's claim to German South Tyrol is even weaker than ethnographically. Since the sixth century it has been, with the exception of four or five years during the Napoleonic period, in unbroken possession of Teutonic peoples, and the victor's claim that it was Germanised only in the last century is quite unsupported by facts. In manners, morals, customs, ideals, and to a certain extent also in the manner in which religion is regarded, the two
TYROL REVISITED. 373
races north and south of the lingual boundary are as different and antagonistic to each other as they well can be. For these reasons no unprejudiced observer can fail to subscribe to Viscount Bryce's appeal, that to hand over a quarter of a million of Tyrolese to a much-detested alien rule amounts to a flagrant disregard of the principles of self-determination so persistently proclaimed by the Powers at Paris, and also individually by the leaders. If in one detail I venture to differ from an opinion expressed by Lord Bryce, I do so on the strength of my long acquaintance with Tyrol. He has expressed the view that the Italians, if -they press their strategic argument, would do better to ask for a frontier at the gorge at Klausen, rather than at the Brenner Pass. I think the dividing line should be some twenty-five miles farther south at Salurn, at which point the political frontier would corre- spond with the lingual line of demarkation. Those who know the country east and west of the two places will, I feel confident, support my contention that the Salurn line is not only a fair, but also a better strategical frontier for Italy than the far less defined ridges which extend in both directions from the Klausen gorge. From my mountaineering and chamois-shooting days I know, so to speak, every inch of the regions in question ; hence I have no hesitation in saying that, looking at the two from an Italian strategist's point of view, the Salurn line would be the better and more easily defended against attacks from the north. From it Italy's guns would command not only the whole of the Vintschgau, but also the basins of Botzen and Meran, the only places where a modern army could concentrate. Besides, what an impossible zigzag the Klausen line would have to run, if the just-mentioned German towns are to be retained by the Tyrolese. If Tyrol is really fated to lose the whole of South Tyrol it cannot possibly continue, for economic reasons, to exist as a separate entity. Vorarlberg will join Switzerland, while the rest will inevitably turn to Bavaria or the German Reich, thus not only increasing Germany's popu- lation by tens of thousands of first-class fighters, but do away with the possibility of creating a buffer state between the latter and Italy on the same sound political lines which gave Poland its ancient boundaries.
As the peasants of Tyrol are one of, if not the most freedom- loving people history tells of, Lord Bryce's warning as to the con- sequences of creating, in lieu of an Italia Irredenta, an ' Unredeemed Tyrol,' should be taken to heart by everyone desirous of supporting the cause of peace, if not the League of Nations.
374 TYROL REVISITED.
An amusing- -and probably in its way unique — -illustration of the aggressive and thoroughgoing manner in which Pan-Germanic propaganda was conducted by the Germans in ante-bellum days, even in the countries of their allies, is disclosed by certain happenings at a famous old Tyrolese castle in the Trentino. In this part of the terra irredenta the Pan-Germanists had for some years carried on an energetic underground crusade to stay the northward advance of the Italian language and Italian element — the Welsckes Wesen, as they called it. Vereine, or associations, were founded with this object, and statistics galore to prove the danger of Italian machinations were embodied in freely -distributed pamphlets. Decidedly the most novel of these Vereine was the one established in the year 1909, for the purpose of purchasing the fine old strong- hold of Pergine in the beautiful Val Sugana, and to found there, as a Teuton counter-demonstration to irredentism, an island of Germanism amid a purely Italian-speaking population.
Pergine was once, as the summer seat of the powerful Bishops of Trent, one of South Tyrol's most important feudal strongholds, and though it had fallen on evil days, and was a mere shell with only a few of its numerous chambers inhabitable, its glorious position, crowning the top of an isolated crag rising to some seven hundred feet over the broad Val Sugana, lent it importance. At its feet nestles the small typically Italian town of the same name, with its 5000 inhabitants.
With the exception of sundry Austrian officials, and the troops that formed the garrison of several well-concealed forts command- ing the valley, the population of Val Sugana is entirely Italian- speaking, and the peasant class were in those days, as they are still, more in favour of Austria than of Italy, but withal hostile to the North Germans. So when they heard that their old castle had been purchased for a few thousand kronen by Prussians, angry demonstrations followed, more particularly when the purchasers proclaimed that their old castle would be rechristened, and would in future be called ' Burg Per sen,' and was to be made a German Sprachinsel, or refuge of the German language and German kultur. Demonstrations finally grew so threatening that the Austrian Government (who had so far kept in the background) had to make efforts to calm the population's anger. But the Prussians resented any interference with their meddling propaganda, though, obviously, they had as little right to concern themselves — in time of peace, mind you — with the internal affairs of Tyrol, as they had to encourage the Irish ' Rebellion.'
TYROL REVISITED. 375
To put the finishing touch, a largely advertised and widely attended fete was given in picnic fashion in the old castle to cele- brate its acquisition and the rechristening of it. At the end of the banquet, which was held in the big vaulted central hall, a ' hot air ' telegram was dispatched to the German Emperor, acquainting him with the fait accompli and cringingly praying the All Highest to graciously extend his powerful protection to Burg Persen, from the embattled walls of which war would be waged against the encroachment of the Italian element and tongue ! A suitable reply from the august protector was duly received, and hangs, beautifully framed, in the main hall of the castle.
We now reach the really amusing part of the story. As the objects of the Verein — it was practically a limited liability com- pany— were political and not money-making ones, the share- holders were mostly men of some means. But, as was soon discovered, some of them had more personal ends in view. These were none else than to use the company's funds in restoring the castle and to make it a sort of joint home or summer residence, where the favoured members of the syndicate could spend their summer holidays inexpensively amid romantic surroundings, in one of the most beautiful districts of Europe, and by doing so acquire very cheaply the further glory of assisting, as good patriots should, in the defence of Germanism. Whether, in addition, a ' Crown ' or ' Eagle ' Order hung on the horizon of some of these patriots, history does not disclose. The one obvious difficulty that obstructed the smooth working of the scheme, was how harmony was to be preserved among a score or so of cantankerous Prussian Generals, domineering Saxon Excellencies, autocratic Berlin professors or arrogant artists — all individually part pro- prietors of the venerable old pile. Impossible as it seemed, the Teuton genius of organisation triumphed, at any rate at the outset, oy adopting the following rather novel device.
Burg Persen, it must be mentioned, was a wide-spreading collection of mediaeval buildings, some of two, others of three and four storeys, with a huge central tower. These rambling structures were surrounded by an outside bailey or wall, which followed the edge of the level space on top of the crag ; every hundred feet or so watch-towers rose above the wall, and of these there were quite a number. It was they that helped to solve the problem ! Briefly put, the scheme was worked out in this way. While the chief part of the syndicate's funds was to be spent in essential general repairs, and in constructing a carriage-road up the least
376 TYROL REVISITED.
steep declivity by means of numerous hair-pin windings, in putting in a large central kitchen, and in obtaining a water supply, it was to be left to the individual to restore and make habitable, each for himself, one of the towers, or a separate flat in the widespread main buildings. He could furnish his rooms in any style he liked, fill them with imitation rococo or with faked Gothic bedsteads, hutches and tables ; or he could have the contents of his lumber- room in his city dwelling transported bodily to the old Burg, or use any other cast-off monstrosities to furnish the vaulted chambers, with their deep window-recesses and marble door-casings, on which were displayed the carved armorial bearings of some proud old Bishop of Trent. He could, as many actually did, replace the diamond window-panes or the yet older bulls'-eyes with plate-glass, finished off with vivid, stained-glass atrocities, or commit any other outrage, such as only the inherent tastelessness of the average German could achieve. And this, alas ! many of the generals, councillors, and professors, contrived to accomplish, though in one or two cases good taste, and knowledge of mediaeval art, did succeed in creating interiors that were in keeping with their highly pic- turesque setting. On the whole, however, Burg Persen presented to its amused Italian neighbours the picture of chaos ; for, in the course of a couple of years, angry dissensions among the heterogeneous inmates had turned it into a regular bear-garden, and had not the World's War broken out, and put a dramatically sudden end to its internecine squabbles, it would have become the scene of miniature warfare, to the ill-concealed amusement of the onlookers, who, though Austrian by nationality, never felt any sympathy or liking for the North Germans — feelings which the disastrous results of the great struggle have turned into outspoken resentment.
To strike a more personal note, I should like to say that the reception my wife and I met on returning to Tyrol was as friendly and warm as it could well be on the part of our former acquaintances. Servants, as they kissed our hands, had tears in their eyes as they welcomed us back. The only sign of a less friendly feeling came from Germans settled in Tyrol. Pleasing, too, were the unanimous praises of the English forces quartered in Tyrol after the Armistice, and the general regret when they departed after a few months of occupation. The French and Italian garrisons (the latter are still quartered at Innsbruck) were far less sympathetic to the natives.
The confidence that the Tyrolese have in the power and capacity of the British people is surprising and touching. Many times
TYROL REVISITED. 377
leading men have expressed to me their belief that the English, if they would only occupy the country, could put all their affairs in order, reorganise finance and commerce, and ' run them ' as a going concern. ' Why can't the English,' they said, ' treat us and govern us as one of their cplonies until we have paid off our debts ? ' Men, especially of the better classes, are longing to work, and would all willingly co-operate. The present Socialist government has lost popularity, even with its warmest supporters. One of its leaders, who lately called on me quite spontaneously, confessed that his party had lost the confidence of the people because they could not bring about the Utopia which was to be the result of their coming into power. ' Our schemes are not workable, and I see no escape but by joining Germany ' — a view that is daily voiced by the Government press. It can be seen, therefore, that if this is to be prevented, Bolshevism kept from again spreading westwards, and the debtor states be enabled, by resumption of work, to pay off gradually their crushing debts, the Entente Powers must come to their assistance, not only financially but by inaugurating administrative reforms.
In conclusion, let me add a note of warning to those who may be obliged to visit Germany on business. If the railway conditions in Tyrol and Austria generally are bad, they are in some respects far worse in the Reich. On leaving Tyrol I crossed Germany from Kufstein to Cologne, and, while there are more trains in Germany, and the through expresses are heated, the conditions of travel are more chaotic than in the more easygoing Tyrol. For half a day fourteen people — all third- and fourth-class passengers — crowded into our small first-class compartment, and people climbed in by the windows as the corridors were filled by standing crowds. To see a frowzy, fat German being pushed head foremost through the window into a compartment was more amusing to watch than to have it happen to one's own carriage. Luggage is pilfered or is lost, and we had to spend five days in Cologne on that account. The trains run quite irregularly and we had to pass three nights in indescribable quarters, one being a fourth-class waiting-room where we had to sleep on narrow wooden benches, taking turns in watching our hand luggage, for barefaced robberies are the rule of the day. This in a country which was once a pattern for the world in the way of organisation and orderly conduct.
WILLIAM A. BAILLIE-GROHMAN.
378
POETRY AND THE MODE. BY MAURIC£ HEWLETT,
A GOOD friend of mine, poet and scholar, was recently approached by the president, or other kind of head of a Working Men's Association, for a paper. A party of them was to visit Oxford where, after an inspection, there should be a feast, and after the feast, it was hoped, a paper from my friend — upon Addison. The occasion was not to be denied : I don't doubt that he was equal to it. I wish that I had heard him ; I wish also that I had seen him ; for he had determined on a happy way of illustrating and pointing his discourse. He had the notion of providing himself with a full-bottomed wig, a Ramillies ; at the right moment he was to clothe the head of the president with it ; and — Bless thee, Bottom, how art thou translated ! In that woolly panoply, if one could not allow for Cato and the balanced antitheses of the grand manner, or condone rhetoric infinitely remote from life past, present or to come — well, one would never understand Addison, or forgive him. This, for instance :
CATO (loq.} Thus am I doubly arm'd ; my death and life, My bane and antidote are both before me : This in a moment brings me to an end ; But this informs me I shall never die. The soul, secured in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger. . . .
Ten pages more sententious and leisurely comment ; then : Oh! (dies)
There is much to be said for it, in a Ramillies wig. It is stately, it is dignified, it is perhaps noble. If, as I say, it is not very much like life, neither are you who enact it. But be sure that out of sight or remembrance of the wig such a tragedy were not to be endured.
That is very well. The wig serves its turn, lending inspiration to what without it would be intolerable. I am sure my friend had no trouble in accounting for Addison in full dress and his learned sock. Nor need he have had with Addison the urbane, Addison of the Spectator condescending to Sir Roger de Coverley and Will Honeycomb. There is in that, the very best gentlemanly him our our literature possesses, nothing inconsistent with the full-bottomed
POETRY AND THE MODE. 379
wig and an elbow-chair. But when the right honourable gentleman set himself to compose Rosamond : an Opera, and disported himself thus :
PAGE : Behold on yonder rising ground
The bower, that wanders
In meanders
Ever bending,
Never ending,
Glades on glades,
Shades in shades,
Running an eternal round.
QUEEN : In such an endless maze I rove, Lost in labyrinths of love. My breast with hoarded vengeance burns, While fear and rage With hope engage, And rule my wav'ring soul by turns —
then I do not see how the wig can have been useful. I feel that Addison must have left it on the bedpost, and tied up his bald pate in a tricky bandanna after the fashion of Mr. Prior or Mr. Gay, one of whom, if I remember rightly, did not disdain to sit for his picture in that frolic guise. The wig, which adds age and ensures dignity, would have been out of place there ; nor is it possible that The Beggar's Opera owes anything to it. To explain the Addison of Rosamond or The Drummer my friend would have had to shave the head of his victim and clap a nightcap upon it.
The device was ingenious and happy. You yoke one art to serve another. It can be extended in either direction, working backwards from the Ramillies, or forwards, as I propose to show. Skip for a moment the Restoration and the peruke, skip the cropped polls of the Roundheads ; with this you are in full Charles I.
Go, lovely Rose !
Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
What vision of what singer does that evoke ? What other than of a young gallant in a lace collar, with love-locks over his shoulders, pointed Vandyke fingers, possibly a peaked chin-beard ? There is accomplishment enough, beauty enough, God knows ; but there is impertinence too ; it is de haut en bos —
Tell her that wastes her time and me !
380 POETRY AND THE MODE.
Love-locks and pointed fingers all over it. It is witty, but does not bite. If you bite you are serious, if you bite you are in love ; but that is elegant make-believe. He will take himself off next minute, and encountering a friend, hear himself rallied :
Quit, quit, for shame ! This will not move,
This cannot take her ;
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her :
The D— 1 take her !
Laughter and a shrug are the end of it. With the Carolines it was not music that was the food of love, but love that was a staple food of music. A man who lets his hair down over his shoulders may be as sentimental as you please, or as impudent. He cannot nourish both a passion and a head of hair.
There, then, again, is a clear congruity established between your versifying and your clothes ; they will both be in the mode, and the mode the same. One feels about the Cavalier fashion that it was not serious either one way or the other. It had not the Elizabethan swagger ; it had not the Kestoration cynicism ; it had not the Augustan urbanity. Go back now to the Elizabethan, and avoiding Shakespeare as a law unto himself, which is the right of genius — for the sonnets have wit as well as passion (but a mordant wit), everything that real love-poetry must have, and much that no poetry but Shakespeare's could possibly survive — ; avoiding Shakespeare, I say, take two snatches in order. Take first : —
Thou art not fair, for all thy red and white, For all those rosy ornaments in thee, — • Thou art not sweet, though made of mere delight, Nor fair, nor sweet — unless thou pity me !
That first ; and then this :
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain —
and consider them for what they are : unapproachably beautiful, passionate, serious, on the edge of cynicism but never over it. There you have the love of a young age of the world, when young men, hard hit, could be sharp-tongued, bitter, and often (though not in those two) too much in earnest not to be shameless. Agree with
POETRY AND THE MODE. 381
me, and see the men who sang and the women they sang of in preposterous stuffed and starched clothes which made them un- approachable except at the finger-tips, and yet burning so for each other that by words alone and the music in them they could rend all the buckram and whalebone, and make such armour vain ! You may see in Elizabethan dress a return to Art, as in Elizabethan poetry you see a return to Learning ; but neither was designed to prevent a return to Nature ; rather indeed to stimulate it. And so you come back to this :
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed, A chamber deaf of noise and blind of light, A rosy garland and a weary head. . . .
which is the perfectly-clothed utterance of an Elizabethan longing to be rid of his clothes.
I don't propose to linger over the peruke. The Kestoration was a time of carnival when, if the men over-dressed, the ladies under-dressed ; and the peruke was a part of the masquerade. In such a figurehead you could be as licentious as you chose — and you were ; you could only be serious in satire. The peruke accounts for Dryden and his learned pomp, for Kochester and Sedley, and for Congreve, who told Voltaire that he desired to be considered as gentleman rather than poet, and was with a shrug accepted on that valuation : it accounts for Timotheus crying Revenge, and not meaning it, or anything else except display ; it accounts for Pepys thinking King Lear ridiculous. Let me go on rather to the day of the tie-wig, of Pope's Achilles and Diomede in powder ; of Gray awaking the purple year ; of Kitty beautiful and young ; of Sir Plume and his clouded cane ; of Mason and Horace Walpole. When ladies were painted and their lovers in powder, poetry would be painted too. It would be either for the boudoir, or the alcove. I don't call' to mind a single genuine love-song in all that century among those who dressed d la mode. There were, however, some who did not so dress.
Gray was not one. Whether in the country churchyard, or by the grave of Horace Walpole's favourite cat, he never lost hold of himself, never let heart take whip and reins, never drowned the scholar in the poet, never, in fact, showed himself in his shirt-sleeves. But before he was dead the hearts of men began to cry again. Forty years before Gray died Cowper was born ; fourteen years before he died Blake was born ; twelve years before he died, Burns. It is strange to contrast the Elegy with The Poplar Field :
382 POETRY AND THE MODE.
My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.
Put beside that melodious jingle the ordered diction and ordered sentiment of one of the best-known and most elegant poems in our tongue. They were written within fifteen years of each other. Within the same space of time, or near about it, there came this spontaneous utterance of simplicity, tragedy and hopeless sorrow :
Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride ; But saving a croun he had naething else beside : To make the croun a pund young Jamie gaed to sea ; And the croun and the pund they were baith for me.
The authoress of that was born twenty-one years before Gray died. I speak perhaps only for myself when I say that reading that, or the like of that in Burns or in Blake, my heart becomes as water, and I feel that I would lose if necessary all of Milton, all of Shake- speare but a song or two, much of Dante and some of Homer, to be secured in it for ever. My friend (of the Ramillies) and I were disputing about a phrase I had applied to lyric poetry as the in- fallible test of its merit. I asked for ' the lyric cry,' and he scorned me. I could find a better phrase with time ; but the quatrain just quoted makes it unmistakeable, as I think. Anyhow, it will be conceded that there was some putting off of the tie-wig, the hoop and the red-heeled shoe about 1770.
In the time of Reform, say from 1795 to 1830, you could do much as you pleased, and dress according to your fancy. You could smother your neck in a stock, wear a high-waisted swallow-tail coat, kerseymere continuations and silk stockings. So sat Southey for his portrait, and so did Rogers continually. Or you could wear a curly toupe with Tom Moore and the Prince Regent, be as rough as a dalesman with Wordsworth or as sleek as a dissenting minister with Coleridge, an open-throated pirate with Byron, or a seraph with Shelley. If the rules lingered, they were relaxed. I think there were none. Individuality was in the air ; schools were closing down. For the first time since the spacious days men sang as they pleased, and some sang as they felt and were, but with this difference added, that you would no longer identify the age with the utterance. There were many survivals : most of Coleridge, all of Rogers, much of Byron, some of Wordsworth (Laodamia) is eighteenth century*; and then, for the first time, you could archaise, or walk in Wardour
POETRY AND1THE MODE. 383
Street — Macpherson had taught us that, and Bishop Percy. But all of Shelley and Keats, the best of Coleridge and Wordsworth belong to no age.
The pale stars are gone !
For the sun, their swift shepherd,
To their folds them compelling,
In the depths of the dawn,
Hastes in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee
Beyond his blue dwelling,
As fawns flee the leopard.
But where are ye ?
That is like nothing on earth : music and diction are stark new. And that was the way of it for a forty years of freedom.
Then came a reaction. With Queen Victoria we all went to church again in our Sunday clothes. You cannot date Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth by the fashions ; but you can date Tenny- son assuredly. He belongs to the top-hat and the crinoline ; to Friends in Council and ' nice feelings.' True, there was nothing dressy about Tennyson himself. I doubt if he ever wore a top-hat. But is not The Gardener's Daughter in ringlets ? Did not Aunt Elizabeth and Sister Lilia wear crinolines ? And as for Maud —
Look, a horse at the door, And little King Charley snarling :
Go back, my lord, across the moor, You are not her darling.
That settles it. ' Little King Charley's ' name would have been Gyp. I yield to no man in my admiration of In Memoriam ; but when one compares it with Adonais it is impossible not to allocate the one and salute the other as for all time :
When in the down I sink my head, Sleep, Death's twin-brother, times my breath ; Sleep, Death's twin-brother, knows not Death,
Nor can I dream of thee as dead.
And then :
He lives, he wakes— 'tis Death is dead, not he ; Mourn not for Adonais. Thou young Dawn, Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee The spirit thou lamentest is not gone.
No : In Memoriam is a beautiful poem, and technically a much better one than Adonais. But the spirit is different ; narrower,
384 POETRY AND THE MODE.
more circumscribed ; in a word, it dates, like the top-hat and the crinoline.
In our day, clothes have lost touch with mankind, they cover the body but do not express the soul. With the vogue of the short coat, short skirt, slouch hat, and brown boots, style has gone out and ease come in ; and with ease, it would seem, easy, not to say free-and-easy, manners. I speak not of the ' nineties ' when a young degenerate could lightly say,
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion,
and be praised for it, but rather of the Georgians, of whom a golden lad, who happily lived long enough to do better, wrote thus of a lady of his love :
And I shall find some girl perhaps, And a better one than you, With eyes as wise, but kindlier, And lips as soft, but true. And I daresay she will do.
If that is not slouch-hat and brown boots, I don't know what to call it. For that golden lad I think A Shropshire Lad must answer. And if that is to be the way of it, we should do well to go back to Lovelace or Waller, and make believe with a difference. I shall find myself watching the sunny side of Bond Street for a revival — because while one does not ask for passion, or even object to the tart flavours of satiety, I feel that there is a standard some- where, and a line to be drawn. Taste draws it. I trouble myself very little with the morals of the matter, yet must think manners very nearly half of the conduct of life. And the manners which are expressed in clothes are those which are instilled in art. They are symptomatic alike and correlated. There is nothing sur- prising about it, or even curious. It would be so, and it is so. If Milton had not on a prim white collar and a doctor's gown I misread Paradise Lost, and Lycidas too.
Printed by SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE 6- Co. LTD. Colchester, London &• Eton, England
BOOK - NOTES
DISCOVERY, the new popular monthly journal of knowledge, has made a most successful start. That there would be a large demand for the first number was anticipated, and prepared for; not only was this edition sold out immediately after publication, but two further printings were also needed. No. 2, for February (6d. net), is now ready. DISCOVERY aims at presenting in popular form an account of what the experts are doing in all the chief branches of knowledge. The articles are written by authorities, but they write ' not in the language of their specialism, but in the simpler tongue which we plain men do understand — namely English.' DISCOVERY has come — to stay.
Mr. A. W. Rees has already published two successful volumes of Nature Studies — IANTO THE FISHERMAN and CREATURES OF THE NIGHT, and now comes a third — alas, a posthumous — volume, THE HERON OF CASTLE CREEK (75. 6d. net), consisting of a series of studies of Bird Life, with chapters on Bird Watching and Animal Life in Winter. Mr. Rees possessed an instinctive love of literature, especially of clear-balanced and euphonious prose, and gradually developed in his own work a style that won him a place unquestionably his own among the great succession of writers who have made nature their theme. Included in the book is a Memoir of the Author by his friend Mr. J. K. Hudson.
Sir Verney Lovett, K. C.S.I., late of the Indian Civil Service, and a member of the Rowlatt Commission, has written a history of the origin, causes, and progress of the Nationalist Movement in India from its com- mencement to the end of April 1919. Having completed thirty-five years of service passed in direct contact with Indians of all classes, Sir Verney Lovett has enjoyed special opportunities for observing and study- ing Indian affairs. A HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NATIONALIST MOVEMENT (125. net) is founded largely upon native authorities, and aims at explain- ing the motives and objects of Indian Nationalists as expressed in their own words. The author's object has been to throw a light on the present situation in India, and also to expose some of the slanders and misrepre- sentations through which British rule in India has of late years been assailed, both there and here, as well as in other countries.
B 17
BOOK-NOTES
During the past ten years Indian Art has obtained a wider recognition and a fuller understanding. It is now more or less respectfully treated by our national museums; several able Indian writers have made valuable contributions to it, and European art critics, who before gave it scant consideration, have become its appreciative exponents. There can be little doubt that one factor in bringing about this change has been the various works on the subject written by Mr. E. B. Havell, who formerly filled the offices of Principal of the Government School of Art, and Keeper of the Art Gallery, .Calcutta. One of his books, THE IDEALS OF INDIAN ART (215. net), has for some time been unobtainable, but a new edition is now ready. It is a comprehensive analysis of Indian esthetic ideals, and is illustrated with the finest photographs of Buddhist and Hindu sculpture.
Few topics have occupied more space and attention in the press recently than that of the rate of Foreign Exchanges. The mysteries of this interesting and important subject are lucidly explained by Mr. Hartley Withers, Editor of The Economist, in MONEY CHANGING : AN INTRODUCTION TO FOREIGN EXCHANGE (6s. net), of which another impression has just been issued. Mr. Withers, says The Times, writes with ' a happy touch of literary simplicity and wit combined with expert knowledge,' so that a very technical subject in this case does obtain right and helpful treatment.
Mr. Churchill's announcement of the Government's proposal for the new Territorial system has again attracted attention to the question of Army reform. It is a question of urgent importance, that needs, and will receive, ample and considered attention. Sir John Keir, K.C.B., has a chapter fall of practical suggestions on the subject in his recent book, A ' SOLDIER'S EYE VIEW ' OF OUR ARMIES (6s. net). Sir John speaks with experience. Included in his forty years of Army service was the command for two years, 1911-1913, of a T.F. Division. In September 1914 he took the 6th Division to France, and subsequently became chief of the 6th Army Corps. His suggestions for the creation of a National Army, and the permanent welding together of our Imperial Forces, are carefully thought out and ably set forth in a manner which shows him to be no militarist, but a broad-minded soldier free from 'officialism.'
The latest addition to Mr. Murray's popular series of 2s. net novels is THE WAGES OF VIRTUE, by Captain P. C. Wren. It is a vivid picture of life in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria before the war. The sayings, the doings, and adventures of those reckless, daring soldiers make it not only a romance but a vivid instalment of reality. 18
BOOK NOTES
The Irish question has ever been a cause of bitter prejudice, and it is unlikely that so forthright 'and revealing a work as M. Escouflaire's IRELAND : AN ENEMY OF THE ALLIES? (6s. net) should not be assailed with venom. Some of the attack has been on the author himself. For instance, 'C.K.S.' in The Sphere say: 'I don't believe that the author is a Frenchman. .• . . I think his name of " Escouflaire " should read "Camouflage,"' and Everyman: 'We do not know indeed, whether M. Escouflaire is a real person or merely the pseudonym of some ingenious Unionist propagandist.' M. Escouflaire is a patriotic Frenchman, an established writer, publicist, barrister, and student of affairs. For years he has been closely studying the question and watching the course of events « in Ireland. The patent fact that in the Great War, which jeopardised the ideals and very existence of France, her Allies and of Civilisation generally, Ireland, as a unit of nationality, not only held aloof but hurt the Allied cause through her Sinn Fein activities and the outbreak of rebellion at Easter in 1916, caused M. Escodflaire to write his work.
Sir A. D. Hall, K.C.B., F.R.S., formerly Principal of the famous Rotham- sted Experimental Station, and one of the leading authorities on agriculture, more particularly on its scientific side, has prepared a new edition of "his standard work, THE SOIL : AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THE GROWTH OF CROPS (75. 6d. net). Since the last revised edition was issued investigations have made it necessary to record additional knowledge or to modify some point of view in the book, and so thoroughly has the book been brought up to date that it has been necessary to have it re-set.
These books are published by MR. MURRAY, who will be glad to send his QUARTERLY LIST OF NEW BOOKS to any reader of THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE on request being made to 5OA Albemarle Street, London, W. i.
19
MR. MURRAY'S NEW BOOKS.
HENRY FOX, 1st LORD HOLLAND,
HIS FAMILY AND RELATIONS. By the EARL OF ILCHESTER. "The book is well written and well arranged The writer knows his subject and his period, and can use his knowledge effectively. He has had access to a great deal of material which has never been used before." — The Times. With Illustrations. In two volumes. 32s. net.
SCIENCE AND LIFE
By FREDERICK SODDY, M.A., F.R.S., Dr. Lee's Prof, of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry in the University of Oxford. " The book is full of surprises in its disclosure of the way in whieh, as the Professor puts it, ' fundamentally and beyond the possibility of escape, our knowledge and control of the inanimate world under- lies and determines the development of all the potentialities of life.' . . . His views on radio-activity will, perhaps, make the strongest appeal to the imagination ... It is a wonderful book."- Westminster Gazette. 10s. 6(1. net.
SPRINGTIME, AND OTHER ESSAYS
By SIR FRANCIS DARWIN, F.R.S. "Sir Francis Darwin has a gift almost amounting to genius, for what may, perhaps, be called the informative essay — i.e. the dissertation which lures the reader on by exhibiting curious treasures of remembrance and observation. . . . It is a book full of fine confused reading, with something in it to intrigue all tastes." — The Morning Post. With Illustrations.
7s. 6d. net
TANKS IN THE GREAT WAR, 1914-18
By BREVET-COLONEL J. F. C. FULLER, D.S.O. Colonel Fuller's position as Chief General Staff Officer of the Tanks Corps from December 1916 to August 1918 entitles him to write with exceptional authority. His account of the wonderful work accomplished by tanks during the war is based on the official records of the British, French, American, and German Armies, and the reports of eye- witnesses. Illustrated. 2ls. net.
RUSSIA IN RULE AND MISRULE
By BRIGADIER-GENERAL C. R. BALLARD, C.B., C.M.G. With a Foreword by GENERAL SIR WM. ROBERTSON, Bt., G.C.B., K.C.V.O. Sir Wm. Robertson says: "The author has attempted, successfully I think, to present in a handy form the salient points in the history of Russia from early times to the present day. It is a precis written in a lucid and interesting manner, which will help the reader to understand more clearly the meaning of the events that are passing day by day in Russia." 6s. net.
JOHN MURRAY, Aibemarle Street, LONDON, W.I.
~20
MicauoleT : — " Copperfield, yon •re a true friend, but, when the worst comes to the worst, no man is without a friend who is possessed of shaving materials.'
ROYAL VINOLIA SHAVING STICK
EVERY man who uses a Royal Vinolia Shaving Stick finds that, like Mr. Micawber, he possesses a friend of the most sterling qualities. Its profuse and lasting lather quickly softens the beard, makes it easy for the razor, and enables one to enjoy a luxurious shave in the shortest possible time.
Those who are troubled with tender skin may use Royal Vinolia Shaving Stick with every confidence, for its emollient properties soothe the skin and leave it soft and smooth after shaving. Royal Vinolia Shaving Stick never fails to bring perfect shaving comfort and satisfaction.
Price 1/-& 1/4
For the man who prefers a Shaving Powder, Royal Vinolia Shaving Powder will be found equally pleasant and satisfactory. Tint, 9d. & 1/3.
VINOLIA COMPANY L.TP LONDON.
A Unique and Complete Food!
for
Invalids, Dyspeptics and the Aged.
For Insomnia The * ALLENBURYS/ Diet taken last thing at night promotes quiet and refreshing sleep and digestive rest.
ALLEN & HANBURYS Ltd., 37 Lombard St., London, E.G. 3
ESTABLISHED 1715.
The ' ALLENBURYS' DIET
is a concentrated nutrient of exceptional merit that can he taken for prolonged periods without any distaste arising. It is composed of pure, rich, full-cream milk and whole wheat in a partially predi- gestedforni. Unlike theusual invalids food it does not re- quire cow's milk to be used in its preparation being in- stantly made ready for use by the simple addition of boiling water only.
THE BEST WAY to Invest Your Dividends.
Jl Business JXCan's Opinion of the Finest Investment Obtainable.
" When I receive my dividend warrants
I allocate the amounts to a fund for
premiums for an Endowment Assurance
Policy.
"After very careful consideration I am
satisfied there is no other form of invest- ment combining so many advantages with such absolute security. " Offers of new Companies' shares do not tempt me. I want my interest money to go where I knoiv it is safe, and to build up a reserve for the future.
Send a postcard to-day for particulars of this sound
aud attractive method of investment and insurance.
Address: LIFE DEPARTMENT—
" I've effected a pretty big Endowment Assurance Policy because it ensures that I do not waste the money that I receive as interest. Not absolutely needing it now, 1 have the satisfaction of knowing that it is accumulating for the time when I shall need it. It is my duty to build up a fund for my
"In addition, it provides me with all the benefits of life assurance — extra provision for my family in case of my death -and other advantages which every business man will appreciate. " It is without doubt the safest, easiest way of accumulating a capital sum for future use. The principle is absolutely sound— interest is continu- ously accumulating — and — there's no ritk. That's how all my interest money is re-i > vesting itself; and I've yet to learn of a better way."
Branches and Agents
throughout the United Kingdom.
Head Offlca: British Dominions
House, Royal Exchanjf*
Avenue, London, E.C, 8,
32, MOORQATE STREET, LONDON, E.O. 2.
ASSETS EXCEED £17,000,000.
fyottissmovde, liallcmtyne if Co, Ltd., Printeri, Colchetter, London, and, Eton.
•
.
•
.
•*
11
mm