The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow:-
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ON THE ART OF MAKING UP ONE'S MIND
From the topic to dressing up to fashionable Byronic gloom and melancholy, to uncertainty about self, author wanders. ......................................................................................
ON THE DISADVANTAGE OF NOT GETTING WHAT ONE WANTS
The author seems to write down the title ironically, and fight angels, fairies, and even Cinderella, before he makes his meaning clear - having a wish fulfilled isn't necessarily going to bring happiness or contentment, nor is wealth or fame.
"We want everything. All the happiness that earth and heaven are capable of bestowing. Creature comforts, and heart and soul comforts also; and, proud-spirited beings that we are, we will not be put off with a part. Give us only everything, and we will be content."
"So, perhaps the world is wise in promising us the circus. We believe her at first. But after a while, I fear, we grow discouraged." ......................................................................................
ON THE EXCEPTIONAL MERIT ATTACHING TO THE THINGS WE MEANT TO DO
He begins by expounding on home furniture made from beer barrels and egg-boxes, and proceeds to discuss virtue.
"I can imagine the oyster lecturing a lion on the subject of morality."
But next, the story of a boy and his fireworks, is quite lovely, although the author fails to give a satisfactory explanation, and instead generalised it to categories of other failures generally experienced by most, in public speaking or similar fields.
He turns next to ghosts, legendary or otherwise, and wonders if intimacy with them would do away with fear. Final touch is, though, pure Jerome K. Jerome.
"You, dull old fellow, looking out at me from the glass at which I shave, why do you haunt me? You are the ghost of a bright lad I once knew well. He might have done much, had he lived. I always had faith in him. Why do you haunt me? I would rather think of him as I remember him. I never imagined he would make such a poor ghost."
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ON THE PREPARATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF LOVE PHILTRES
"May I not admire the daring tulip, because I love also the modest lily? May I not press a kiss upon the sweet violet, because the scent of the queenly rose is precious to me?"
"It is a useful philtre, the juice of that small western flower, that Oberon drops upon our eyelids as we sleep."
His exhortations to the perfect housewife to care about herself are very good points; he hasn't thought of mentioning the other way round. ......................................................................................
ON THE DELIGHTS AND BENEFITS OF SLAVERY
It begins seemingly beautifully.
"My study window looks down upon Hyde Park, and often, to quote the familiar promise of each new magazine, it amuses and instructs me to watch from my tower the epitome of human life that passes to and fro beneath."
But what follows immediately is a bitter description of the hateful picture he sees thereby of humanity - apparently the opposite was either visible only in later hours, afternoon and evening promenades, theatregoing and partying and dining out, or in country. He describes them, too, but the bitterness is all there, only worse, steeped in tones despising them.
"So we labour, driven by the whip of necessity, an army of slaves. If we do not our work, the whip descends upon us; only the pain we feel in our stomach instead of on our back. And because of that, we call ourselves free men."
Next he descends on the telephone as it was during his time, with the operator needed to connect the number one wished to call. It's not unfamiliar to readers who experienced calling long distance without direct dialling, but the author is talking about calling a block away. It would be hilarious if it weren't infuriating, and memory of those experiences isn't likely to be funny at any time soon.
"But the question still remains: for what purpose is it all?"
"Civilizations, built up with infinite care, swept aside and lost. Beliefs for which men lived and died, proved to be mockeries. Greek Art crushed to the dust by Gothic bludgeons. ... But there comes a day when the lad understands why he learnt grammar and geography, when even dates have a meaning for him. But this is not until he has left school, and gone out into the wider world. So, perhaps, when we are a little more grown up, we too may begin to understand the reason for our living." ......................................................................................
ON THE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF WOMEN
He asked a woman how long a honeymoon should be, a month as it was supposed to be, or a weekend as it was then fashionable.
"A woman takes life too seriously. It is a serious affair to most of us, the Lord knows. That is why it is well not to take it more seriously than need be."
" ... In old strong days men faced real dangers, real troubles every hour; they had no time to cry. Death and disaster stood ever at the door. Men were contemptuous of them. Now in each snug protected villa we set to work to make wounds out of scratches. Every head-ache becomes an agony, every heart-ache a tragedy. It took a murdered father, a drowned sweetheart, a dishonoured mother, a ghost, and a slaughtered Prime Minister to produce the emotions in Hamlet that a modern minor poet obtains from a chorus girl's frown, or a temporary slump on the Stock Exchange. ... "
He asked a man the same question about the ideal duration of a honeymoon.
""My dear boy," he replied; "take my advice, if ever you get married, arrange it so that the honeymoon shall only last a week, and let it be a bustling week into the bargain. Take a Cook's circular tour. Get married on the Saturday morning, cut the breakfast and all that foolishness, and catch the eleven-ten from Charing Cross to Paris. Take her up the Eiffel Tower on Sunday. Lunch at Fontainebleau. Dine at the Maison Doree, and show her the Moulin Rouge in the evening. Take the night train for Lucerne. Devote Monday and Tuesday to doing Switzerland, and get into Rome by Thursday morning, taking the Italian lakes en route. On Friday cross to Marseilles, and from there push along to Monte Carlo. Let her have a flutter at the tables. Start early Saturday morning for Spain, cross the Pyrenees on mules, and rest at Bordeaux on Sunday. Get back to Paris on Monday (Monday is always a good day for the opera), and on Tuesday evening you will be at home, and glad to get there. Don't give her time to criticize you until she has got used to you. No man will bear unprotected exposure to a young girl's eyes. The honeymoon is the matrimonial microscope. Wobble it. Confuse it with many objects. Cloud it with other interests. Don't sit still to be examined. Besides, remember that a man always appears at his best when active, and a woman at her worst. Bustle her, my dear boy, bustle her: I don't care who she may be. Give her plenty of luggage to look after; make her catch trains. Let her see the average husband sprawling comfortably over the railway cushions, while his wife has to sit bolt upright in the corner left to her. Let her hear how other men swear. Let her smell other men's tobacco. Hurry up, and get her accustomed quickly to the sight of mankind. Then she will be less surprised and shocked as she grows to know you. One of the best fellows I ever knew spoilt his married life beyond repair by a long quiet honeymoon. ... After the first day or two he grew tired of talking nonsense, and she of listening to it (it sounded nonsense now they could speak it aloud; they had fancied it poetry when they had had to whisper it); and having no other subject, as yet, of common interest, they would sit and stare in front of them in silence. ... " ......................................................................................
ON THE MINDING OF OTHER PEOPLE'S BUSINESS
"I believe all the shop-keepers in London save their old stock to palm it off on me at Christmas time."
"Ah, me! how charming and how beautiful "artistes" were in those golden days! Whence have they vanished? Ladies in blue tights and flaxen hair dance before my eyes to-day, but move me not, unless it be towards boredom."
"We abolished, I remember, capital punishment and war; we were excellent young men at heart. Christmas we reformed altogether, along with Bank Holidays, by a majority of twelve. I never recollect any proposal to abolish anything ever being lost when put to the vote. There were few things that we "Stormy Petrels" did not abolish."
Trust the author to give, after all the stories about troubles and irritation caused by Xmas, one about why the festival is needed for human hearts - and he does it twice! ......................................................................................
ON THE TIME WASTED IN LOOKING BEFORE ONE LEAPS
His descriptions about women finding their money seem based on an entirely forgotten era of women putting purses, and much more, not only in skirt pockets, but the pockets being not only hard to locate, and behind, so they sat on them!
"But it was the thought of more serious matters that lured me into reflections concerning the over-carefulness of women. It is a theory of mine—wrong possibly; indeed I have so been informed—that we pick our way through life with too much care. We are for ever looking down upon the ground. Maybe, we do avoid a stumble or two over a stone or a brier, but also we miss the blue of the sky, the glory of the hills. These books that good men write, telling us that what they call "success" in life depends on our flinging aside our youth and wasting our manhood in order that we may have the means when we are eighty of spending a rollicking old age, annoy me. We save all our lives to invest in a South Sea Bubble; and in skimping and scheming, we have grown mean, and narrow, and hard. We will put off the gathering of the roses till tomorrow, to-day it shall be all work, all bargain-driving, all plotting. Lo, when to-morrow comes, the roses are blown; nor do we care for roses, idle things of small marketable value; cabbages are more to our fancy by the time to-morrow comes."
"I have been told of a young man, who chose his wife with excellent care. Said he to himself, very wisely, "In the selection of a wife a man cannot be too circumspect." He convinced himself that the girl was everything a helpmate should be. She had every virtue that could be expected in a woman, no faults, but such as are inseparable from a woman. Speaking practically, she was perfection. He married her, and found she was all he had thought her. Only one thing could he urge against her—that he did not like her. And that, of course, was not her fault." ......................................................................................
ON THE NOBILITY OF OURSELVES
"Few things had more terrors for me, when a child, than Heaven—as pictured for me by certain of the good folks round about me. I was told that if I were a good lad, kept my hair tidy, and did not tease the cat, I would probably, when I died, go to a place where all day long I would sit still and sing hymns. (Think of it! as reward to a healthy boy for being good.)"
When he says " ... your culture quite Bostonian", which Boston dies the author refer to, or is it The Bostonians he alludes to? ......................................................................................
ON THE MOTHERLINESS OF MAN
About rookeries, society and society events.
"The tree withers and you clear the ground, thankful if out of its dead limbs you can make good firewood; but its spirit, its life, is in fifty saplings. The tree dies not, it changes."
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ON THE INADVISABILITY OF FOLLOWING ADVICE
"I've seen a drunken woman, and they're worse. But a drunken Welsh pony I never want to have anything more to do with so long as I live."
And the author tells you why, in detail.
"It would be the best of all possible worlds if everybody would only follow our advice."
Hilarious recounting about theatre and audience of yore.
"I recollect witnessing the production of a very blood-curdling melodrama at, I think, the old Queen's Theatre. The heroine had been given by the author a quite unnecessary amount of conversation, so we considered. The woman, whenever she appeared on the stage, talked by the yard; she could not do a simple little thing like cursing the Villain under about twenty lines. When the hero asked her if she loved him she stood up and made a speech about it that lasted three minutes by the watch. One dreaded to see her open her mouth. In the Third Act, somebody got hold of her and shut her up in a dungeon. He was not a nice man, speaking generally, but we felt he was the man for the situation, and the house cheered him to the echo. We flattered ourselves we had got rid of her for the rest of the evening. Then some fool of a turnkey came along, and she appealed to him, through the grating, to let her out for a few minutes. The turnkey, a good but soft-hearted man, hesitated.
""Don't you do it," shouted one earnest Student of the Drama, from the Gallery; "she's all right. Keep her there!"
"The old idiot paid no attention to our advice; he argued the matter to himself. "'Tis but a trifling request," he remarked; "and it will make her happy."
""Yes, but what about us?" replied the same voice from the Gallery. "You don't know her. You've only just come on; we've been listening to her all the evening. She's quiet now, you let her be."
""Oh, let me out, if only for one moment!" shrieked the poor woman. "I have something that I must say to my child."
""Write it on a bit of paper, and pass it out," suggested a voice from the Pit. "We'll see that he gets it."
""Shall I keep a mother from her dying child?" mused the turnkey. "No, it would be inhuman."
""No, it wouldn't," persisted the voice of the Pit; "not in this instance. It's too much talk that has made the poor child ill."
"The turnkey would not be guided by us. He opened the cell door amidst the execrations of the whole house. She talked to her child for about five minutes, at the end of which time it died.
""Ah, he is dead!" shrieked the distressed parent.
""Lucky beggar!" was the unsympathetic rejoinder of the house."
Summary:-
"Is real wealth so unevenly distributed as we think?"
"What IS success in life?"
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ON THE PLAYING OF MARCHES AT THE FUNERALS OF MARIONETTES
Eulogy for a child's doll, torn by a dog.
"What grand acting parts they are, these characters we write for ourselves alone in our dressing-rooms. We are always brave and noble—wicked sometimes, but if so, in a great, high-minded way; never in a mean or little way." .....................................................................................
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July 29, 2020 - August 02, 2020
1899 Hurst and Blackett edition
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