Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome: by Jerome K. Jerome.

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Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome:

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Delphi Classics

Published December 19th 2014

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CONTENTS:

The Novels

THREE MEN IN A BOAT (TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG)

THREE MEN ON THE BUMMEL

PAUL KELVER

TOMMY AND CO.

THEY AND I

ALL ROADS LEAD TO CALVARY

ANTHONY JOHN

The Short Story Collections

TOLD AFTER SUPPER

JOHN INGERFIELD AND OTHER STORIES

SKETCHES IN LAVENDER, BLUE AND GREEN

THE OBSERVATIONS OF HENRY

THE PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK, AND OTHER STORIES

THE ANGEL AND THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS

MALVINA OF BRITTANY

The Short Stories

LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

The Plays

FANNY AND THE SERVANT PROBLEM

THE MASTER OF MRS. CHILVERS

The Non-Fiction

IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW

ON THE STAGE AND OFF

STAGELAND

THE DIARY OF A PILGRIMAGE, AND SIX ESSAYS

NOVEL NOTES

SECOND THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW

TEA-TABLE TALK

IDLE IDEAS IN 1905

The Autobiography

MY LIFE AND TIMES

The Biography

JEROME K: JEROME: HIS LIFE AND WORKS by Alfred Moss

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The Novels

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THREE MEN IN A BOAT

(TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG)

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Three Men in a Boat:-

One of the most hilarious books one could find. The title mentioned here is incomplete, the real title is "Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing About the Dog".

The three friends start off on a boating trip for pleasure, and it is hilarious from the beginning. Packing, setting off, towing, locks, cooking, and anecdotes galore.
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Friday, September 12, 2008.
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THREE MEN ON THE BUMMEL

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Three Men on the Bummel:-

The three friends - encouraged by the boat excursion, though it hard to imagine why - decide to venture a bit farther afield and go to Germany, no less. So we hear about the German love of planning and obedience to state and arraging everything perfectly. We also hear about the guidebooks for foreigners in local languages sold everywhere in Europe and their efficacy tested by the three in London in English language version.

Hilarious. The walk up a mountain disdaining the ubiquitous German efficiency in having a restaurant on every mountain top and not finding one while standing right before it, the buying of a cushion, the tale about a condemned man being provided instructions about execution of his own sentence - everything.

In fact that is an understatement - when I read this it is hard not to laugh till it hurts physically, one just cannot help it, especially about the hats and the shoes, not that the taxi is not a good beginning. And the cushions and other incidents in Germany, and observations, just priceless.
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Monday, October 20, 2008.
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PAUL KELVER

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Paul Kelver

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Touching recount of a little boy growing up and his memories of his parents, by the man he grew up to be. The story is supposed to be his own, according to a comment before the book, and since the era was Victorian, the confusions of the little boy provide much opportunity for the author for humour, as do the situations such as the couple having to spring apart every time the door opened, and the boy's aunt coughing, singing and dropping spoons, apart from entering rooms backwards and closing doors noisily before turning.

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"“Tell me,” I say — for at such times all my stock of common sense is not sufficient to convince me that the old House is but clay. From its walls so full of voices, from its floors so thick with footsteps, surely it has learned to live; as a violin, long played on, comes to learn at last a music of its own. “Tell me, I was but a child to whom life speaks in a strange tongue, was there any truth in the story?”

"“Truth!” snaps out the old House; “just truth enough to plant a lie upon; and Lord knows not much ground is needed for that weed. I saw what I saw, and I know what I know. Your mother had a good man, and your father a true wife, but it was the old story: a man’s way is not a woman’s way, and a woman’s way is not a man’s way, so there lives ever doubt between them.”

"“But they came together in the end,” I say, remembering.

"“Aye, in the end,” answers the House. “That is when you begin to understand, you men and women, when you come to the end.”"

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"That night, when my mother came to kiss me good-night, I turned my face to the wall and pretended to be asleep, for children as well as grown-ups have their foolish moods; but when I felt the soft curls brush my cheek, my pride gave way, and clasping my arms about her neck, and drawing her face still closer down to mine; I voiced the question that all the evening had been knocking at my heart: “I suppose you couldn’t send me back now, could you? You see, you’ve had me so long.”

"“Send you back?”

"“Yes. I’d be too big for the stork to carry now, wouldn’t I?”"

"“I did not know you thought about such things,” she said; “we must be more together, you and I, Paul, and you shall tell me all you think, because nurse does not quite understand you. It is true what she said about the trouble; it came just at that time. But I could not have done without you. I was very unhappy, and you were sent to comfort me and help me to bear it.” I liked this explanation better."

"From that day my mother waxes in my memory; Mrs. Fursey, of the many promontories, waning. There were sunny mornings in the neglected garden, where the leaves played round us while we worked and read; twilight evenings in the window seat where, half hidden by the dark red curtains, we would talk in whispers, why I know not, of good men and noble women, ogres, fairies, saints and demons; they were pleasant days.

"Possibly our curriculum lacked method; maybe it was too varied and extensive for my age, in consequence of which chronology became confused within my brain, and fact and fiction more confounded than has usually been considered permissible, even in history. I saw Aphrodite, ready armed and risen from the sea, move with stately grace to meet King Canute, who, throned upon the sand, bade her come no further lest she should wet his feet. In forest glade I saw King Rufus fall from a poisoned arrow shot by Robin Hood; but thanks to sweet Queen Eleanor, who sucked the poison from his wound, I knew he lived. Oliver Cromwell, having killed King Charles, married his widow, and was in turn stabbed by Hamlet. Ulysses, in the Argo, it was fixed upon my mind, had discovered America. Romulus and Remus had slain the wolf and rescued Little Red Riding Hood. Good King Arthur, for letting the cakes burn, had been murdered by his uncle in the Tower of London. Prometheus, bound to the Rock, had been saved by good St. George. Paris had given the apple to William Tell. What matter! the information was there. It needed rearranging, that was all."

"Smaller and poorer the world has grown since then. Now, behind those hills lie naught but smoky towns and dingy villages; but then they screened a land of wonder where princesses dwelt in castles, where the cities were of gold. Now the ocean is but six days’ journey wide, ending at the New York Custom House. Then, had one set one’s sail upon it, one would have travelled far and far, beyond the golden moonlight, beyond the gate of clouds; to the magic land of the blood red shore, t’other side o’ the sun. I never dreamt in those days a world could be so small."

"We scrambled out of the carriage into a great echoing cave that might have been the dragon’s home, where, to my alarm, my mother was immediately swooped down upon by a strange man in grey.

"“Why’s he do that?” I asked of my aunt.

"“Because he’s a fool,” answered my aunt; “they all are.”

"He put my mother down and came towards us. He was a tall, thin man, with eyes one felt one would never be afraid of; and instinctively even then I associated him in my mind with windmills and a lank white horse.

"“Why, how he’s grown,” said the grey man, raising me in his arms until my mother beside me appeared to me in a new light as quite a little person; “and solid too.”"

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"I remember the one egg for breakfast, my mother arguing that my father should have it because he had his business to attend to; my father insisting that my mother should eat it, she having to go out shopping, a compromise being effected by their dividing it between them, each clamouring for the white as the most nourishing. And I know however little the meal looked upon the table when we started I always rose well satisfied. These are small things to speak of, but then you must bear in mind this is a story moving in narrow ways."

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"I wonder am I disloyal setting this down? Maybe to others it shows but a foolish man and woman, and that is far from my intention. I dwell upon such trifles because to me the memory of them is very tender. The virtues of our loved ones we admire, yet after all ’tis but what we expected of them: how could they do otherwise? Their failings we would forget; no one of us is perfect. But over their follies we love to linger, smiling."

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"The East India Dock Road is nowadays a busy, crowded thoroughfare. The jingle of the tram-bell and the rattle of the omnibus and cart mingle continuously with the rain of many feet, beating ceaselessly upon its pavements. But at the time of which I write it was an empty, voiceless way, bounded on the one side by the long, echoing wall of the docks and on the other by occasional small houses isolated amid market gardens, drying grounds and rubbish heaps. Only one thing remains — or did remain last time I passed along it, connecting it with its former self — and that is the one-storeyed brick cottage at the commencement of the bridge, and which was formerly the toll-house. I remember this toll-house so well because it was there that my childhood fell from me, and sad and frightened I saw the world beyond.

"I cannot explain it better. I had been that afternoon to Plaistow on a visit to the family dentist."

"Returning home on this particular day of days, I paused upon the bridge, and watched for awhile the lazy barges manoeuvring their way between the piers. It was one of those hushed summer evenings when the air even of grim cities is full of whispering voices; and as, turning away from the river, I passed through the white toll-gate, I had a sense of leaving myself behind me on the bridge. So vivid was the impression, that I looked back, half expecting to see myself still leaning over the iron parapet, looking down into the sunlit water.

"It sounds foolish, but I leave it standing, wondering if to others a like experience has ever come. The little chap never came back to me. He passed away from me as a man’s body may possibly pass away from him, leaving him only remembrance and regret. For a time I tried to play his games, to dream his dreams, but the substance was wanting. I was only a thin ghost, making believe."

"Then gradually, but very slowly, with the long months and years, came to me the consciousness of a new being, new pulsations, sensories, throbbings, rooted in but differing widely from the old; and little Paul, the Paul of whom I have hitherto spoken, faded from my life."

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"I think I cared for her in a way, yet she never entered into my day-dreams, which means that she existed for me only in the outer world of shadows that lay round about me and was not of my real life.

"Also, I think she was unwise, introducing me to the shop, for children and dogs — one seems unconsciously to bracket them in one’s thoughts — are snobbish little wretches."

"So gradually our meetings became less frequent, though I knew that every afternoon she waited in the quiet Stainsby Road, where dwelt in semi-detached, six-roomed villas the aristocracy of Poplar, and that after awhile, for arriving late at times I have been witness to the sad fact, tears would trace pathetic patterns upon her dust-besprinkled cheeks; and with the advent of the world-illuminating Barbara, to which event I am drawing near, they ceased altogether.

"So began and ended my first romance. One of these days — some quiet summer’s afternoon, when even the air of Pigott Street vibrates with tenderness beneath the whispered sighs of Memory, I shall walk into the little grocer’s shop and boldly ask to see her. So far have I already gone as to trace her, and often have I tried to catch sight of her through the glass door, but hitherto in vain. ... Yet under all the unrealities the clumsy-handed world has built about her, I shall see, I know, the lithesome little maid with fond, admiring eyes. What help they were to me I never knew till I had lost them. How hard to gain such eyes I have learned since."

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"Nor was the contemplation of heaven itself particularly attractive to me, for it was a foolish paradise these foolish voices had fashioned out of their folly. You stood about and sang hymns — for ever! I was assured that my fear of finding the programme monotonous was due only to my state of original sin, that when I got there I should discover I liked it. But I would have given much for the hope of avoiding both their heaven and their hell."

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"I suppose she must have been about fourteen, and I a little over ten, though tall for my age. Later I came to know she had that rare gold hair that holds the light, so that upon her face, which seemed of dainty porcelain, there ever fell a softened radiance as from some shining aureole; those blue eyes where dwell mysteries, shadow veiled. At the time I knew nothing, but that it seemed to me as though the fairy-tales had all come true.

"She smiled, understanding and well pleased with my confusion. Child though I was — little more than child though she was, it flattered her vanity.

"Fair and sweet, you had but that one fault. Would it had been another, less cruel to you yourself."

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"Only on one occasion do I remember his losing it. As a rule, tiresome questions, concerning past participles, square roots, or meridians never reached him, being snapped up in transit by arm-waving lovers of such trifles. The few that by chance trickled so far he took no notice of. They possessed no interest for him, and he never pretended that they did. But one day, taken off his guard, he gave voice quite unconsciously to a correct reply, with the immediate result of finding himself in an exposed position on the front bench. I had never seen Dan out of temper before, but that moment had any of us ventured upon a whispered congratulation we would have had our head punched, I feel confident.

"Old Waterhouse thought that here at last was reformation. “Come, Brian,” he cried, rubbing his long thin hands together with delight, “after all, you’re not such a fool as you pretend.”

"“Never said I was,” muttered Dan to himself, with a backward glance of regret towards his lost seclusion; and before the day was out he had worked his way back to it again.

"As we were going out together, old Waterhouse passed us on the stairs: “Haven’t you any sense of shame, my boy?” he asked sorrowfully, laying his hand kindly on Dan’s shoulder.

"“Yes, sir,” answered Dan, with his frank smile; “plenty. It isn’t yours, that’s all.”"

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"“You see, when I married your mother,” he went on, “I was a rich man. She had everything she wanted.”

"“But you will get it all back,” I cried.

"“I try to think so,” he answered. “I do think so — generally speaking. But there are times — you would not understand — they come to you.”

"“But she is happy,” I persisted; “we are all happy.”

"He shook his head. “I watch her,” he said. “Women suffer more than we do. They live more in the present. I see my hopes, but she — she sees only me, and I have always been a failure. She has lost faith in me.” I could say nothing. I understood but dimly.

"“That is why I want you to be an educated man, Paul,” he continued after a silence. “You can’t think what a help education is to a man. I don’t mean it helps you to get on in the world; I think for that it rather hampers you. But it helps you to bear adversity. To a man with a well-stored mind, life is interesting on a piece of bread and a cup of tea. I know. If it were not for you and your mother I should not trouble.”"

"It seemed to me as though some cruel, unseen thing had crept into the house to stand ever between them, so that they might never look into each other’s loving eyes but only into the eyes of this evil shadow. The idea grew upon me until at times I could almost detect its outline in the air, feel a chillness as it passed me. It trod silently through the pokey rooms, always alert to thrust its grinning face before them. Now beside my mother it would whisper in her ear; and the next moment, stealing across to my father, answer for him with his voice, but strangely different. I used to think I could hear it laughing to itself as it stepped back into enfolding space."

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"To do others, as it was his conviction, right or wrong, that they would do him if ever he gave them half a chance, was his notion of “business;” and in most of his transactions he was successful. “I play a game,” he would argue, “where cheating is the rule. Nine out of every ten men round the table are sharpers like myself, and the tenth man is a fool who has no business to be there. We prey upon each other, and the cutest of us is the winner.”"

"In the City, old Hasluck had a bad reputation and deserved it; in Stoke-Newington — then a green suburb, containing many fine old houses, standing in great wooded gardens — he was loved and respected. In his business, he was a man void of all moral sense, without bowels of compassion for any living thing; in retirement, a man with a strong sense of duty and a fine regard for the rights and feelings of others, never happier than when planning to help or give pleasure. In his office, he would have robbed his own mother. At home, he would have spent his last penny to add to her happiness or comfort. I make no attempt to explain. I only know that such men do exist, and that Hasluck was one of them. One avoids difficulties by dismissing them as a product of our curiously complex civilisation — a convenient phrase; let us hope the recording angel may be equally impressed by it."

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"The majority of his friends, his methods being somewhat forensic, would seek to discourage him, but my aunt was a never wearied listener, especially if the case were one involving suspicion of mystery and crime. When, during their very first conversation, he exclaimed: “Now why — why, after keeping away from his wife for nearly eighteen years, never even letting her know whether he was alive or dead, why this sudden resolve to return to her? That is what I want explained to me!” he paused, as was his wont, for sympathetic comment, my aunt, instead of answering as others, with a yawn: “Oh, I’m sure I don’t know. Felt he wanted to see her, I suppose,” replied with prompt intelligence:

"“To murder her — by slow poison.”

"“To murder her! But why?”

"“In order to marry the other woman.”

"“What other woman?”

"“The woman he had just met and fallen in love with. Before that it was immaterial to him what had become of his wife. This woman had said to him: ‘Come back to me a free man or never see my face again.’”

"“Dear me! Now that’s very curious.”

"“Nothing of the sort. Plain common sense.”

"“I mean, it’s curious because, as a matter of fact, his wife did die a little later, and he did marry again.”

"“Told you so,” remarked my aunt.

"In this way every case in the Stillwood annals was reviewed, and light thrown upon it by my aunt’s insight into the hidden springs of human action. Fortunate that the actors remained mere Mr. X. and Lady Y., for into the most innocent seeming behaviour my aunt read ever dark criminal intent.

"“I think you are a little too severe,” Mr. Gadley would now and then plead.

"“We’re all of us miserable sinners,” my aunt would cheerfully affirm; “only we don’t all get the same chances.”"

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"And warmed by appreciation, my aunt’s amiability took root and flourished, though assuming, as all growth developed late is apt to, fantastic shape.

"There came to her the idea, by no means ill-founded, that by flattery one can most readily render oneself agreeable; so conscientiously she set to work to flatter in season and out. I am sure she meant to give pleasure, but the effect produced was that of thinly veiled sarcasm."

"Persons have been known, I believe, whose vanity, not checked in time, has grown into a hopeless disease. But I am inclined to think that a dose of my aunt, about this period, would have cured the most obstinate case."

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"Thoughts do not come to us as we grow older. They are with us all our lives. We learn their language, that is all."

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Chapter IX describes the author, as Paul Kelver the protagonist, meeting Charles Dickens accidentally in a park at twilight, and having a conversation about the career of an author that Paul was looking forward to assume.

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"And indeed this I have learned, that the flag of Womanhood you shall ever find upheld by all true women, flouted only by the false. For a judge in petticoats is ever but a witness in a wig."

"“Now tell us, Mrs. Kelver, for our guidance, we two young bachelors, what must the lover of a young girl be?”

"Always very serious on this subject of love, my mother answered gravely: “She asks for the whole of a man, Hal, not merely for a sixth, nor any other part of him. She is a child asking for a lover to whom she can look up, who will teach her, guide her, protect her. She is a queen demanding homage, and yet he is her king whom it is her joy to serve. She asks to be his partner, his fellow-worker, his playmate, and at the same time she loves to think of him as her child, her big baby she must take care of. Whatever he has to give she has also to respond with. You need not marry six wives, Hal; you will find your six in one.

"“‘As the water to the vessel, woman shapes herself to man;’ an old heathen said that three thousand years ago, and others have repeated him; that is what you mean.”

"“I don’t like that way of putting it,” answered my mother. “I mean that as you say of man, so in every true woman is contained all women. But to know her completely you must love her with all love.”"

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"There is a higher generosity, it is said, that can receive with pleasure as well as bestow favour; but I have never felt it."

"“Don’t leave me to-day, Paul,” whispered my mother to me one morning. So I stayed, and in the evening my mother put her arms around my neck and I lay beside her, my head upon her breast, as I used to when a little boy. And when the morning came I was alone."

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Author begins Book II of Paul Kelver with a description of depressing lodgings for single gentlemen in his era, those he had to use, since solicitor Stillwood, his boss and his father's, had swindled them completely. Fortunately his mother had departed soon after Stillwood died and the swindle was discovered, and he was glad she didn't know about it.

It isn't just the lodgings, it's the whole life of those young gentlemen of limited means that he describes that is at once seen as small and depressing, although it is life of young, educated, white collar employed young single men.

"The hours were long — in fact, we had no office hours; we got away when we could, which was rarely before seven or eight — but my work was interesting. It consisted of buying for unfortunate clients in India or the Colonies anything they might happen to want, from a stage coach to a pot of marmalade; packing it and shipping it across to them. Our “commission” was anything they could be persuaded to pay over and above the value of the article. I was not much interfered with. There was that to be said for Lott & Co., so long as the work was done he was quite content to leave one to one’s own way of doing it. And hastening through the busy streets, bargaining in shop or warehouse, bustling important in and out the swarming docks, I often thanked my stars that I was not as some poor two-pound-a-week clerk chained to a dreary desk.

"The fifteen shillings a week was a tight fit; but that was not my trouble."

"Were it because of its mere material hardships that to this day I think of that period of my life with a shudder, I should not here confess to it. I was alone. I knew not a living soul to whom I dared to speak, who cared to speak to me. For those first twelve months after my mother’s death I lived alone, thought alone, felt alone. In the morning, during the busy day, it was possible to bear; but in the evenings the sense of desolation gripped me like a physical pain. The summer evenings came again, bringing with them the long, lingering light so laden with melancholy. I would walk into the Parks and, sitting there, watch with hungry eyes the men and women, boys and girls, moving all around me, talking, laughing, interested in one another; feeling myself some speechless ghost, seeing but not seen, crying to the living with a voice they heard not. Sometimes a solitary figure would pass by and glance back at me; some lonely creature like myself longing for human sympathy. In the teeming city must have been thousands such — young men and women to whom a friendly ear, a kindly voice, would have been as the water of life. Each imprisoned in his solitary cell of shyness, we looked at one another through the grating with condoling eyes; further than that was forbidden to us. Once, in Kensington Gardens, a woman turned, then slowly retracing her steps, sat down beside me on the bench. Neither of us spoke; had I done so she would have risen and moved away; yet there was understanding between us. To each of us it was some comfort to sit thus for a little while beside the other. Had she poured out her heart to me, she could have told me nothing more than I knew: “I, too, am lonely, friendless; I, too, long for the sound of a voice, the touch of a hand. It is hard for you, it is harder still for me, a girl; shut out from the bright world that laughs around me; denied the right of youth to joy and pleasure; denied the right of womanhood to love and tenderness.”

"The footsteps to and fro grew fewer. She moved to rise. Stirred by an impulse, I stretched out my hand, then seeing the flush upon her face, drew it back hastily. But the next moment, changing her mind, she held hers out to me, and I took it. It was the first clasp of a hand I had felt since six months before I had said good-bye to Hal. She turned and walked quickly away. I stood watching her; she never looked round, and I never saw her again."

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"London, with its million characters, grave and gay; its ten thousand romances, its mysteries, its pathos, and its humour, lay to my hand. It stretched before me, asking only intelligent observation, more or less truthful report. But that I could make a story out of the things I really knew never occurred to me. My tales were of cottage maidens, of bucolic yeomen. My scenes were laid in windmills, among mountains, or in moated granges. I fancy this phase of folly is common to most youthful fictionists."

"I scrupulously followed fashion. Generally speaking, to be a heroine of mine was fatal. However naturally her hair might curl — and curly hair, I believe, is the hall-mark of vitality; whatever other indications of vigorous health she might exhibit in the first chapter, such as “dancing eyes,” “colour that came and went,” “ringing laughter,” “fawn-like agility,” she was tolerably certain, poor girl, to end in an untimely grave."

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"I had noticed also that others, some of them grown men even, making wry faces, when drinking my mother’s claret, and had concluded therefrom that taste for strong liquor was an accomplishment less easily acquired than is generally supposed."

"Recently fashion has changed somewhat, but a quarter of a century ago a genius who did not smoke and drink — and that more than was good for him — would have been dismissed without further evidence as an impostor. About the genius I was hopeful, but at no time positively certain. As regarded the smoking and drinking, so much at least I could make sure of. I set to work methodically, conscientiously. Smoking, experience taught me, was better practised on Saturday nights, Sunday affording me the opportunity of walking off the effects. Patience and determination were eventually crowned with success: I learned to smoke a cigarette to all appearance as though I were enjoying it. Young men of less character might here have rested content, but attainment of the highest has always been with me a motive force. The cigarette conquered, I next proceeded to attack the cigar. My first one I remember well: most men do."

"Once, confusing bottles, I drank some hair oil in mistake for whiskey, and found it decidedly less nauseous. But twice a week I would force myself to swallow a glass of beer, standing over myself insisting on my draining it to the bitter dregs."

"“I’ve always noticed it,” Mrs. Peedles would explain; “it’s always the most deserving, those that try hardest, to whom trouble comes. I’m sure I don’t know why.”

"I was glad on the whole when that bottle of whiskey was finished. A second might have driven me to suicide."

Jerome K. Jerome proceeds to describe various inmates of the lodging house that Paul Kelver lived in, and after two or three, one comes across what suddenly seems like a caricature of Anna Karenina. Which probably was fresh literature when he was young. The chapter begins with pain description and ends up leaving the reader somewhere between chuckling and in danger of side splitting laughter, as the author often does.
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"So far as the stage I found my way in safety. Pausing for a moment and glancing round, my impression was not so much disillusionment concerning all things theatrical as realisation of my worst forebodings. In that one moment all glamour connected with the stage fell from me, nor has it since ever returned to me. From the tawdry decorations of the auditorium to the childish make-belief littered around on the stage, I saw the Theatre a painted thing of shreds and patches — the grown child’s doll’s-house."

"The rehearsal proceeded. In the last act it became necessary for me to kiss the thin lady.

"“I am very sorry,” said the thin lady, “but duty is duty. It has to be done.”

"Again I followed directions. The thin lady was good enough to congratulate me on my performance."

"About one thing, and about one thing, only, had the principals fallen into perfect agreement, and that was that the fishy-eyed young gentleman was out of place in a romantic opera. The tenor would be making impassioned love to the leading lady. Perception would come to both of them that, though they might be occupying geographically the centre of the stage, dramatically they were not. Without a shred of evidence, yet with perfect justice, they would unhesitatingly blame for this the fishy-eyed young man.

"“I wasn’t doing anything,” he would explain meekly. “I was only looking.” It was perfectly true; that was all he was doing.

"“Then don’t look,” would comment the tenor.

"The fishy-eyed young gentleman obediently would turn his face away from them; and in some mysterious manner the situation would thereupon become even yet more hopelessly ridiculous.

"“My scene, I think, sir!” would thunder our chief comedian, a little later on.

"“I am only doing what I was told to do,” answered the fishy-eyed young gentleman; and nobody could say that he was not.

"“Take a circus, and run him as a side-show,” counselled our comedian.

"“I am afraid he would never be any good as a side-show,” replied Mr. Hodgson, who was reading letters."

"The sound of the rapidly-filling house reached us, softened through the thick baize curtain, a dull, continuous droning, as of water pouring into some huge cistern. Suddenly there fell upon our ears a startling crash; the overture had commenced. The stage manager — more suggestive of a sheep-dog than ever, but lacking the calm dignity, the self-possession born of conscious capability distinctive of his prototype; a fussy, argumentative sheep-dog — rushed into the midst of us and worried us into our positions, where the more experienced continued to converse in whispers, the rest of us waiting nervously, trying to remember our words. The chorus master, taking his stand with his back to the proscenium, held his white-gloved hand in readiness. The curtain rushed up, the house, a nightmare of white faces, appearing to run towards us. The chorus-master’s white-gloved hand flung upward. A roar of voices struck upon my ear, but whether my own were of them I could not say; if I were singing at all it was unconsciously, mechanically."
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"Dan had gone to Cambridge; but two years later, in consequence of the death of his father, of a wound contracted in the Indian Mutiny and never cured, had been compelled to bring his college career to an untimely termination.

"“You might not have expected that to grieve me,” said Dan, with a smile, “but, as a matter of fact, it was a severe blow to me. At Cambridge I discovered that I was by temperament a scholar. The reason why at school I took no interest in learning was because learning was, of set purpose, made as uninteresting as possible. Like a Cook’s tourist party through a picture gallery, we were rushed through education; the object being not that we should see and understand, but that we should be able to say that we had done it. At college I chose my own subjects, studied them in my own way. I fed on knowledge, was not stuffed with it like a Strassburg goose.”"

"On the stage he had remained for another eighteen months; had played all roles, from “Romeo” to “Paul Pry,” had helped to paint the scenery, had assisted in the bill-posting. The latter, so he told me, he had found one of the most difficult of accomplishments, the paste-laden poster having an innate tendency to recoil upon the amateur’s own head, and to stick there."

"“You’ve been somewhat of a rolling stone hitherto,” I commented.

"He laughed. “From the stone’s point of view,” he answered, “I never could see the advantage of being smothered in moss. I should always prefer remaining the stone, unhidden, able to move and see about me. But now, to speak of other matters, what are your plans for the immediate future? Your opera, thanks to the gentlemen, the gods have dubbed ‘Goggles,’ will, I fancy, run through the winter. Are you getting any salary?”

"“Thirty shillings a week,” I explained to him, “with full salary for matinees.”

"“Say two pounds,” he replied. “With my three we could set up an establishment of our own. I have an idea that is original. Shall we work it out together?”

"I assured him with fervour that nothing would please me better."

"At the risk of offending an adorable but somewhat touchy sex, convinced that man, left to himself, is capable of little more than putting himself to bed, and that only in a rough-and-ready fashion, truth compels me to record the fact that without female assistance or supervision of any kind we passed through those two years, and yet exist to tell the tale. Dan had not idly boasted. Better plain cooking I never want to taste; so good a cup of coffee, omelette, or devilled kidney I rarely have tasted. Had he always confined his efforts within the boundaries of his abilities, there would be little to record beyond continuous and monotonous success. But stirred into dangerous ambition at the call of an occasional tea or supper party, lured out of his depths by the example of old Deleglise, our landlord — a man who for twenty years had made cooking his hobby — Dan would at intervals venture upon experiment. Pastry, it became evident, was a thing he should never have touched: his hand was heavy and his temperament too serious. There was a thing called lemon sponge, necessitating much beating of eggs. In the cookery-book — a remarkably fat volume, luscious with illustrations of highly-coloured food — it appeared an airy and graceful structure of dazzling whiteness. Served as Dan sent it to table, it suggested rather in form and colour a miniature earthquake. Spongy it undoubtedly was. One forced it apart with the assistance of one’s spoon and fork; it yielded with a gentle tearing sound. Another favourite dainty of his was manna-cake. Concerning it I would merely remark that if it in any way resembled anything the Children of Israel were compelled to eat, then there is explanation for that fretfulness and discontent for which they have been, perhaps, unjustly blamed — some excuse even for their backward-flung desires in the direction of the Egyptian fleshpots. Moses himself may have been blessed with exceptional digestion. It was substantial, one must say that for it. One slice of it — solid, firm, crusty on the outside, towards the centre marshy — satisfied most people to a sense of repletion. For supper parties Dan would essay trifles — by no means open to the criticism of being light as air — souffle’s that guests, in spite of my admonishing kicks, would persist in alluding to as pudding; and in winter-time, pancakes. Later, as regards these latter, he acquired some skill; but at first the difficulty was the tossing. I think myself a safer plan would have been to turn them by the aid of a knife and fork; it is less showy, but more sure. At least, you avoid all danger of catching the half-baked thing upon your head instead of in the pan, of dropping it into the fire, or among the cinders. But “Thorough” was always Dan’s motto; and after all, small particles of coal or a few hairs can always be detected by the careful feeder, and removed."

"Concerning our house-maid, I can speak in terms of unqualified praise. There are, alas, fussy house-maids — who has not known and suffered them? — who overdo the thing, have no repose, no instinct telling them when to ease up and let the place alone. ... Compromise is true statesmanship. There will come a day when you will be glad of an excuse for not doing something else that you ought to be doing. Then you can take up the mats and feel quite industrious, contemplating the amount of work that really must be done — some time or another."

"The opera, as Dan had predicted, ran far into the following year. When it was done with, another — in which “Goggles” appeared as one of the principals — took its place, and was even more successful. After the experience of Nelson Square, my present salary of thirty-five shillings, occasionally forty shillings, a week seemed to me princely. There floated before my eyes the possibility of my becoming a great opera singer. On six hundred pounds a week, I felt I could be content. But the O’Kelly set himself to dispel this dream.

"“Ye’d be making a mistake, me boy,” explained the O’Kelly. “Ye’d be just wasting ye’re time. I wouldn’t tell ye so if I weren’t convinced of it.”"

"I dreamt of becoming a second Kean, of taking Macready’s place. It need not interfere with my literary ambition. I could combine the two: fill Drury Lane in the evening, turn out epoch-making novels in the morning, write my own plays.

"Every day I studied in the reading-room of the British Museum. Wearying of success in Art, I might eventually go into Parliament: a Prime Minister with a thorough knowledge of history: why not? With Ollendorf for guide, I continued French and German. It might be the diplomatic service that would appeal to me in my old age. An ambassadorship! It would be a pleasant termination to a brilliant career."

................................................................................................

"There was excuse for my optimistic mood about this period. All things were going well with me. A story of mine had been accepted."

"No writer worth his salt was ever satisfied with anything he ever wrote, so I have been told, and so I try to believe. Evidently I am not worth my salt. ... But of this, my first-born, the harbinger of all my hopes, I am no judge. Touching the yellowing, badly-printed pages, I feel again the deep thrill of joy with which I first unfolded them and read. Again I am a youngster, and life opens out before me — inmeasurable, no goal too high. This child of my brain, my work: it shall spread my name throughout the world. It shall be a household world in lands that I shall never see. Friends whose voices I shall never hear will speak of me. I shall die, but it shall live, yield fresh seed, bear fruit I know not of. Generations yet unborn shall read it and remember me. My thoughts, my words, my spirit: in it I shall live again; it shall keep my memory green.

"The long, long thoughts of boyhood! We elders smile at them. The little world spins round; the little voices of an hour sink hushed. The crawling generations come and go. The solar system drops from space. The eternal mechanism reforms and shapes itself anew. Time, turning, ploughs another furrow. So, growing sleepy, we murmur with a yawn. Is it that we see clearer, or that our eyes are growing dim? Let the young men see their visions, dream their dreams, hug to themselves their hopes of enduring fame; so shall they serve the world better."

Paul went to meet his landlord and met his daughter.

"Deleglise himself was a handsome old fellow, then a man of about fifty-five. His massive, mobile face, illuminated by bright, restless eyes, was crowned with a lion-like mane of iron-grey hair. Till a few years ago he had been a painter of considerable note. But in questions of art his temper was short. Pre-Raphaelism had gone out of fashion for the time being; the tendency of the new age was towards impressionism, and in disgust old Deleglise had broken his palette across his knee, and swore never to paint again. Artistic work of some sort being necessary to his temperament, he contented himself now with engraving. At the moment he was engaged upon the reproduction of Memlinc’s Shrine of St. Ursula, with photographs of which he had just returned from Bruges."

................................................................................................

Paul met Barbara Hasluck, engaged to Count Huescar, obliging Hasluck in his social climbing..

"“Foreign Counts,” he grumbled to me laughingly, one day, “well, I hope they’re worth more in Society than they are in the City. A hundred guineas is their price there, and they’re not worth that. Who was that American girl that married a Russian Prince only last week? A million dollars was all she gave for him, and she a wholesale boot-maker’s daughter into the bargain! Our girls are not half as smart.”"

"But that was before he had seen his future son-in-law. After, he was content enough, and up to the day of the wedding, childishly elated. Under the Count’s tuition he studied with reverential awe the Huescar history. Princes, statesmen, warriors, glittered, golden apples, from the spreading branches of its genealogical tree. Why not again! its attenuated blue sap strengthened with the rich, red blood, brewed by toil and effort in the grim laboratories of the under world. In imagination, old Hasluck saw himself the grandfather of Chancellors, the great-grandfather of Kings.

"“I have laid the foundation, you shall raise the edifice,” so he told her one evening I was spending with them, caressing her golden hair with his blunt, fat fingers. “I am glad you were not a boy. A boy, in all probability, would have squandered the money, let the name sink back again into the gutter. And even had he been the other sort, he could only have been another business man, keeping where I had left him. You will call your first boy Hasluck, won’t you? It must always be the first-born’s name. It shall be famous in the world yet, and for something else than mere money.”

"I began to understand the influences that had gone towards the making — or marring — of Barbara’s character. I had never guessed he had cared for anything beyond money and the making of money.

"It was, of course, a wedding as ostentatious as possible. Old Hasluck knew how to advertise, and spared neither expense nor labour, with the result that it was the event of the season, at least according to the Society papers. Mrs. Hasluck was the type of woman to have escaped observation, even had the wedding been her own; that she was present at her daughter’s, “becomingly dressed in grey veiling spotted white, with an encrustation of mousseline de soie,” I learnt the next day from the Morning Post."

................................................................................................

From "The Song of the Wandering Aengus" by William Butler Yeats:

"I will find out where she has gone

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun."

................................................................................................

"“But is it worth it all?” I suggested. “Surely you have enough?”

"“It means power, Paul.” He slapped his trousers pocket, making the handful of gold and silver he always carried there jingle musically. “It is this that rules the world. My children shall be big pots, hobnob with kings and princes, slap them on the back and call them by their Christian names, be kings themselves — why not? It’s happened before. My children, the children of old Noel Hasluck, son of a Whitechapel butcher! Here’s my pedigree!” Again be slapped his tuneful pocket. “It’s an older one than theirs! It’s coming into its own at last! It’s money — we men of money — that are the true kings now. It’s our family that rules the world — the great money family; I mean to be its head.”"

"“You will be visiting them,” I suggested, “and they will be coming to stop with you.”

"He shook his head. “They won’t want me, and it isn’t my game to hamper them. I never mix out of my class. I’ve always had sense enough for that.”"

................................................................................................

"“But are you not sinning your mercies, you fellows?” Dan replied. “There is young Kelver here. At school it was always his trouble that he could give us a good time and make us laugh, which nobody else in the whole school could do. His ambition was to kick a ball as well as a hundred other fellows could kick it. He could tell us a good story now if he would only write what the Almighty intended him to write, instead of gloomy rigmaroles about suffering Princesses in Welsh caves. I don’t say it’s bad, but a hundred others could write the same sort of thing better.”"

................................................................................................

"So there came a morning when we said good-bye. Before Dan returned from the office I should be gone. They had been pleasant months that we had spent together in these pretty rooms. Though my life was calling to me full of hope, I felt the pain of leaving them. Two years is a long period in a young man’s life, when the sap is running swiftly. My affections had already taken root there. The green leaves in summer, in winter the bare branches of the square, the sparrows that chirped about the window-sills, the quiet peace of the great house, Dan, kindly old Deleglise: around them my fibres clung, closer than I had known. The Lady of the train: she managed it now less clumsily. Her hands and feet had grown smaller, her elbows rounder. I found myself smiling as I thought of her — one always did smile when one thought of Norah, everybody did; — of her tomboy ways, her ringing laugh — there were those who termed it noisy; her irrepressible frankness — there were times when it was inconvenient. Would she ever become lady-like, sedate, proper? One doubted it."

"I put a few things into a small bag and walked thirty miles that night into Belfast. Arrived in London, I took a lodging in Deptford, where I was least likely to come in contact with any face I had ever seen before. I maintained myself by giving singing lessons at sixpence the half-hour, evening lessons in French and German (the Lord forgive me!) to ambitious shop-boys at eighteen pence a week, making up tradesmen’s books. A few articles of jewellery I had retained enabled me to tide over bad periods. For some four months I existed there, never going outside the neighbourhood. Occasionally, wandering listlessly about the streets, some object, some vista, would strike me by reason of its familiarity. Then I would turn and hasten back into my grave of dim, weltering streets."

................................................................................................

"She looked at her watch. “I must be off.” She turned again. “There is something I was forgetting. B—” — she mentioned the name of the dramatist whose play Vane had stolen—”has been looking for you for the last three months. If you hadn’t been an idiot you might have saved yourself a good deal of trouble. He is quite certain it was Vane stole the manuscript. He asked the nurse to bring it to him an hour after Vane had left the house, and it couldn’t be found. Besides, the man’s character is well known. And so is yours. I won’t tell it you,” she laughed; “anyhow, it isn’t that of a knave.”

"She made a step towards me, then changed her mind. “No,” she said, “I shan’t shake hands with you till you have paid the last penny that you owe. Then I shall know that you are a man.”

"She did not look back. I watched her, till the sunlight, streaming in my eyes, raised a golden mist between us.

"Then I went to my work.

"It took me three years to win that handshake. For the first six months I remained in Deptford. There was excellent material to be found there for humorous articles, essays, stories; likewise for stories tragic and pathetic. But I owed a hundred and fifty pounds — a little over two hundred it reached to, I found, when I came to add up the actual figures. So I paid strict attention to business, left the tears to be garnered by others — better fitted maybe for the task; kept to my own patch, reaped and took to market only the laughter.

"At the beginning I sent each manuscript to Norah; she had it copied out, debited me with the cost received payment, and sent me the balance. At first my earnings were small; but Norah was an excellent agent; rapidly they increased. Dan grew quite cross with her, wrote in pained surprise at her greed. The “matter” was fair, but in no way remarkable. Any friend of hers, of course, he was anxious to assist; but business was business. In justice to his proprietors, he could not and would not pay more than the market value. Miss Deleglise, replying curtly in the third person, found herself in perfect accord with Mr. Brian as to business being business. If Mr. Brian could not afford to pay her price for material so excellent, other editors with whom Miss Deleglise was equally well acquainted could and would. Answer by return would greatly oblige, pending which the manuscript then in her hands she retained. Mr. Brian, understanding he had found his match, grumbled but paid. Whether he had any suspicion who “Jack Homer” might be, he never confessed; but he would have played the game, pulled his end of the rope, in either case. Nor was he allowed to decide the question for himself. Competition was introduced into the argument. Of purpose a certain proportion of my work my agent sent elsewhere. “Jack Homer” grew to be a commodity in demand. For, seated at my rickety table, I laughed as I wrote, the fourth wall of the dismal room fading before my eyes revealing vistas beyond."

"To my literary labours I found it necessary to add journalism."

................................................................................................

"“But, under the circumstances, would it not be better,” I suggested, “for her to obtain a divorce? Then you and the Signora could marry and there would be an end to the whole trouble.”

"“From a strictly worldly point of view,” replied the O’Kelly, “it certainly would be; but Mrs. O’Kelly” — his voice took to itself unconsciously a tone of reverence—”is not an ordinary woman. You can have no conception, my dear Kelver, of her goodness. I had a letter from her only two months ago, a few weeks after the — the last occurrence. Not one word of reproach, only that if I trespassed against her even unto seven times seven she would still consider it her duty to forgive me; that the ‘home’ would always be there for me to return to and repent.”

"A tear stood in the O’Kelly’s eye. “A beautiful nature,” he commented. “There are not many women like her.”

"“Not one in a million!” added the Signora, with enthusiasm.

"“Well, to me it seems like pure obstinacy,” I said.

"The O’Kelly spoke quite angrily. “Don’t ye say a word against her! I won’t listen to it. Ye don’t understand her. She never will despair of reforming me.”"

................................................................................................

"“Don’t leave him behind you,” he said; “the little boy Paul — Paul the dreamer.”

"I laughed. “Oh, he! He was only in my way.”

"“Yes, here,” answered Dan. “This is not his world. He is of no use to you here; won’t help you to bread and cheese — no, nor kisses either. But keep him near you. Later, you will find, perhaps, that all along he has been the real Paul — the living, growing Paul; the other — the active, worldly, pushful Paul, only the stuff that dreams are made of, his fretful life a troubled night rounded by a sleep.”

"“I have been driving him away,” I said. “He is so — so impracticable.”

"Dan shook his head gravely. “It is not his world,” he repeated. “We must eat, drink — be husbands, fathers. He does not understand. Here he is the child. Take care of him.”"

................................................................................................

"Slowly, surely, steadily I climbed, putting aside all dreams, paying strict attention to business. Often my other self, little Paul of the sad eyes, would seek to lure me from my work. But for my vehement determination never to rest for a moment till I had purchased back my honesty, my desire — growing day by day, till it became almost a physical hunger — to feel again the pressure of Norah’s strong white hand in mine, he might possibly have succeeded. Heaven only knows what then he might have made of me: politician, minor poet, more or less able editor, hampered by convictions — something most surely of but little service to myself. Now and again, with a week to spare — my humour making holiday, nothing to be done but await patiently its return — I would write stories for my own pleasure. They made no mark; but success in purposeful work is of slower growth. Had I persisted — but there was money to be earned. And by the time my debts were paid, I had established a reputation.

"“Madness!” argued practical friends. “You would be throwing away a certain fortune for, at the best, a doubtful competence. The one you know you can do, the other — it would be beginning your career all over again.”

"“You would find it almost impossible now,” explained those who spoke, I knew, words of wisdom, of experience. “The world would never listen to you. Once a humourist always a humourist. As well might a comic actor insist upon playing Hamlet. It might be the best Hamlet ever seen upon the stage; the audience would only laugh — or stop away.”"

................................................................................................

"The final dress rehearsal over, I took my leave of all concerned. The next morning I would pack a knapsack and start upon a walking tour through Holland. The English papers would not reach me. No human being should know my address. In a month or so I would return, the piece would have disappeared — would be forgotten. With courage, I might be able to forget it myself."

"But for a chance meeting with Wellbourne, Deleglise’s amateur caretaker of Gower Street fame, I should have delayed yet longer my return. It was in one of the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee."

"“What was the trouble?” I enquired.

"“Haven’t you heard?” he replied. “Tom died five weeks ago, quite suddenly, of syncope. We had none of us any idea.”

"So Norah was alone in the world. I rose to my feet. The slowly moving speck had grown into a thin, dark streak; minute by minute it took shape and form.

"“By the way, I have to congratulate you,” said Wellbourne. “Your opera looked like being a big thing when I left London. You didn’t sell outright, I hope?”"

................................................................................................

"We spoke of him, of his work, which since had come to be appraised at truer value, for it was out of fashion while he lived.

"“Was he a disappointed man, do you think?” I asked.

"“No,” answered Norah. “I am sure not. He was too fond of his work.”

"“But he dreamt of becoming a second Millet. He confessed it to me once. And he died an engraver.”

"“But they were good engravings,” smiled Norah.

"“I remember a favourite saying of his,” continued Norah, after a pause; “I do not know whether it was original or not. ‘The stars guide us. They are not our goal.’”

"“Ah, yes, we aim at the moon and — hit the currant bush.”

"“It is necessary always to allow for deflection,” laughed Norah. “Apparently it takes a would-be poet to write a successful comic opera.”"

"I looked into her sweet grey eyes.

"“You always help me,” I said.

"“Do I?” she answered. “I am so glad.”

"She put her firm white hand in mine."

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September 26, 2020 - October 06, 2020.

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................................................................................................

TOMMY AND CO.

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Tommy & Co.

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A story divided into a collection, or a collection of stories connected by the characters and events.

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STORY THE FIRST—Peter Hope plans his Prospectus

Promising beginning.

"“But, my good—” Mr. Peter Hope, checking himself, sought again the assistance of his glasses. The glasses being unable to decide the point, their owner had to put the question bluntly:

"“Are you a boy or a girl?”

"“I dunno.”

"“You don’t know!”

"“What’s the difference?”

"Mr. Peter Hope stood up, and taking the strange figure by the shoulders, turned it round slowly twice, apparently under the impression that the process might afford to him some clue. But it did not.

"“What is your name?”

"“Tommy.”

"“Tommy what?”

"“Anything you like. I dunno. I’ve had so many of ’em.”

"“What do you want? What have you come for?”

"“You’re Mr. Hope, ain’t you, second floor, 16, Gough Square?”

"“That is my name.”

"“You want somebody to do for you?”

"“You mean a housekeeper!”

"“Didn’t say anything about housekeeper. Said you wanted somebody to do for you—cook and clean the place up. Heard ’em talking about it in the shop this afternoon. Old lady in green bonnet was asking Mother Hammond if she knew of anyone.”"

"“I’d do for you all right,” persisted Tommy. “You give me my grub and a shake-down and, say, sixpence a week, and I’ll grumble less than most of ’em.”"

Quite a surprise, this first story, from this author - there is humour, of course, but only as a pinch of salt in a dish that isn't mainly salty, and has every other taste too. What's more, he doesn't ramble! Very unlike the Jerome K. Jerome one is used to!

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STORY THE SECOND—William Clodd appoints himself Managing Director

Mrs. Postwhistle features prominently in this one, she's a character from the first story. Perhaps he lodged with Mrs. Postwhistle? The latter might be true, but now the journalist Mr Peter Hope appears halfway through, so it'd seem that the stories are connected. This one is about a lodger whom Mrs Postwhistle got rid of, despite his paying regularly and not being trouble, and Mr Clodd took him in.

"“There’s no harm in him,” asserted Mr. Clodd, talking the matter over with one Mr. Peter Hope, journalist, of Gough Square. “He’s just a bit dotty, same as you or I might get with nothing to do and all day long to do it in. Kid’s play, that’s all it is. The best plan, I find, is to treat it as a game and take a hand in it. Last week he wanted to be a lion. I could see that was going to be awkward, he roaring for raw meat and thinking to prowl about the house at night. Well, I didn’t nag him—that’s no good. I just got a gun and shot him. He’s a duck now, and I’m trying to keep him one: sits for an hour beside his bath on three china eggs I’ve bought him. Wish some of the sane ones were as little trouble.”"

"“Clodd’s a good sort—a good sort,” said Peter Hope, who, having in his time lived much alone, had fallen into the habit of speaking his thoughts aloud; “but he’s not the man to waste his time. I wonder.”"

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STORY THE THIRD—Grindley Junior drops into the Position of Publisher

A rather fun love story between children who met young but separated because his father became rich and didn't wish to know hers, an old friend, any longer.

"A serious little virgin, Miss Appleyard’s ambition was to help the human race. What more useful work could have come to her hand than the raising of this poor but intelligent young grocer’s assistant unto the knowledge and the love of higher things. That Grindley junior happened to be an exceedingly good-looking and charming young grocer’s assistant had nothing to do with the matter, so Miss Appleyard would have informed you. In her own reasoning she was convinced that her interest in him would have been the same had he been the least attractive of his sex. That there could be danger in such relationship never occurred to her.

"Miss Appleyard, a convinced Radical, could not conceive the possibility of a grocer’s assistant regarding the daughter of a well-to-do printer in any other light than that of a graciously condescending patron. That there could be danger to herself! you would have been sorry you had suggested the idea. The expression of lofty scorn would have made you feel yourself contemptible."

Superb story, in very much Jerome K. Jerome oeuvre.

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STORY THE FOURTH—Miss Ramsbotham gives her Services

She was intelligent and had a career, and found it difficult to fall in love herself, until in her early thirties she fell for a selfish brute who was pretty, and he was tolerated because of her. He fell in love with a young pretty girl without education or sense, in turn, and was honest.

This story, Jerome K. Jerome reminds one of his somewhat contemporary W. Somerset Maugham, but is less worldly or cynical. It's about the human nature and unexpected turns that the similarity is fleetingly felt.

"“If you had fallen in love with the right man,” had said Susan Fossett, “those ideas would not have come to you.”

"“I know,” said Miss Ramsbotham. “He will have to like me thin and in these clothes, just because I am nice, and good company, and helpful. That is the man I am waiting for.”

"He never came along. A charming, bright-eyed, white-haired lady occupies alone a little flat in the Marylebone Road, looks in occasionally at the Writers’ Club. She is still Miss Ramsbotham."

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STORY THE FIFTH—Joey Loveredge agrees—on certain terms—to join the Company

Here it's reverse of the previous story, to begin with - Joey Loveredge is friendly with everyone, but seems unlikely to marry, until he suddenly does in his forties; but no one can meet his wife! Turns out it's because she's perfect except for her being snobbish and wishing to keep company only with those connected to titles. Then someone hits upon the idea of faking it, and Joey's set begins to be invited one by one, each pretending to be someone from the peerage! Only, Mrs Loveredge one day attends a garden party alone, meets Lady Mary Sutton and invites her!

The hilarious results couldn't have been left to a better author than Jerome K. Jerome.

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STORY THE SIXTH—“The Babe” applies for Shares

Good taste vs circulation, honesty vs profits from advertisements, ..... and although everyone agrees that a female might get through to get the advertisement, Tommy isn't allowed to do it! But there's an admirer who finds out, and being irritated about being not considered manly enough by males generally, has a brilliant idea!

The rest defies any possible anticipation by the reader, and is a story quite on par with the best of Jerome K. Jerome.

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STORY THE SEVENTH—Dick Danvers presents his Petition

The first couple of pages of dialogue between various older males debating about Tommy at eighteen, truly hilarious. As usual with this set, the story turns far more interesting. Lovely end.

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August 06, 2020 - August 09, 2020.

Transcribed from the

1904

Hutchinson and Co. edition

by David Price,

email ccx074@pglaf.org

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THEY AND I

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THEY AND I

Having just begun and read the first chapter, not only very hilarious but also very relaxing, as one proceeds to the next, one wonders suddenly if the BBC sitcom Outnumbered was inspired by this work of Jerome K. Jerome written close to a century before it aired. Not that it's a similarityof dialogues or situations or anything that literal, but it's the general theme of a parent dealing with children and not quite dominating or ordering them about, or even being master of the situation, and yet not feeling a failure, but quite human.

Soon, though, the doubt is dispelled - this isn't exactly about the theme familiar in Outnumbered, although the germ, or a seed, is there. One could say it's about the family shifting from very much city to quite country, but this book is really the quintessential Jerome K. Jerome as he wanders into whatever comes to mind, and is so hilarious that one can only split sides and relax before one knows it.

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The protagonist seems to be an author, and one wonders if this is autobiographical at all. He's just bought a house away from city, after having looked at several in various districts from Dorset to Essex, in vicinity of Bristol channel, and the older daughter Robina is enthusiastic about a country life for the three of them, herself and her siblings Dick and Veronica.

Off they go to begin the idyllic country life.

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"It was the cow that woke me the first morning. I did not know it was our cow—not at the time. I didn't know we had a cow. I looked at my watch; it was half-past two. ... "

" ... I was on the point of dozing off again when a pair of pigeons settled on the window-sill and began to coo. It is a pretty sound when you are in the mood for it. I wrote a poem once—a simple thing, but instinct with longing—while sitting under a tree and listening to the cooing of a pigeon. But that was in the afternoon. My only longing now was for a gun. Three times I got out of bed and "shoo'd" them away. The third time I remained by the window till I had got it firmly into their heads that I really did not want them. My behaviour on the former two occasions they had evidently judged to be mere playfulness. I had just got back to bed again when an owl began to screech. That is another sound I used to think attractive—so weird, so mysterious. It is Swinburne, I think, who says that you never get the desired one and the time and the place all right together. If the beloved one is with you, it is the wrong place or at the wrong time; and if the time and the place happen to be right, then it is the party that is wrong. The owl was all right: I like owls. The place was all right. He had struck the wrong time, that was all. Eleven o'clock at night, when you can't see him, and naturally feel that you want to, is the proper time for an owl. Perched on the roof of a cow-shed in the early dawn he looks silly. He clung there, flapping his wings and screeching at the top of his voice. What it was he wanted I am sure I don't know; and anyhow it didn't seem the way to get it. He came to this conclusion himself at the end of twenty minutes, and shut himself up and went home. I thought I was going to have at last some peace, when a corncrake—a creature upon whom Nature has bestowed a song like to the tearing of calico-sheets mingled with the sharpening of saws—settled somewhere in the garden and set to work to praise its Maker according to its lights. I have a friend, a poet, who lives just off the Strand, and spends his evenings at the Garrick Club. He writes occasional verse for the evening papers, and talks about the "silent country, drowsy with the weight of languors." One of these times I'll lure him down for a Saturday to Monday and let him find out what the country really is—let him hear it. He is becoming too much of a dreamer: it will do him good, wake him up a bit. The corncrake after awhile stopped quite suddenly with a jerk, and for quite five minutes there was silence.

""If this continues for another five," I said to myself, "I'll be asleep." I felt it coming over me. I had hardly murmured the words when the cow turned up again. I should say she had been somewhere and had had a drink. She was in better voice than ever.

"It occurred to me that this would be an opportunity to make a few notes on the sunrise. The literary man is looked to for occasional description of the sunrise. The earnest reader who has heard about this sunrise thirsts for full particulars. Myself, for purposes of observation, I have generally chosen December or the early part of January. But one never knows. Maybe one of these days I'll want a summer sunrise, with birds and dew-besprinkled flowers: it goes well with the rustic heroine, the miller's daughter, or the girl who brings up chickens and has dreams. I met a brother author once at seven o'clock in the morning in Kensington Gardens. He looked half asleep and so disagreeable that I hesitated for awhile to speak to him: he is a man that as a rule breakfasts at eleven. But I summoned my courage and accosted him.

""This is early for you," I said.

""It's early for anyone but a born fool," he answered.

""What's the matter?" I asked. "Can't you sleep?"

""Can't I sleep?" he retorted indignantly. "Why, I daren't sit down upon a seat, I daren't lean up against a tree. If I did I'd be asleep in half a second."

""What's the idea?" I persisted. "Been reading Smiles's 'Self Help and the Secret of Success'? Don't be absurd," I advised him. "You'll be going to Sunday school next and keeping a diary. You have left it too late: we don't reform at forty. Go home and go to bed." I could see he was doing himself no good.

""I'm going to bed," he answered, "I'm going to bed for a month when I've finished this confounded novel that I'm on. Take my advice," he said—he laid his hand upon my shoulder—"Never choose a colonial girl for your heroine. At our age it is simple madness.""

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"Young Bute told me that a friend of his, a well-to-do young fellow, who lived in Piccadilly, had had the whim to make his flat the reproduction of a Roman villa. There were of course no fires, the rooms were warmed by hot air from the kitchen. They had a cheerless aspect on a November afternoon, and nobody knew exactly where to sit. Light was obtained in the evening from Grecian lamps, which made it easy to understand why the ancient Athenians, as a rule, went to bed early. You dined sprawling on a couch. This was no doubt practicable when you took your plate into your hand and fed yourself with your fingers; but with a knife and fork the meal had all the advantages of a hot picnic. You did not feel luxurious or even wicked: you only felt nervous about your clothes. The thing lacked completeness. He could not expect his friends to come to him in Roman togas, and even his own man declined firmly to wear the costume of a Roman slave. The compromise was unsatisfactory, even from the purely pictorial point of view. You cannot be a Roman patrician of the time of Antoninus when you happen to live in Piccadilly at the opening of the twentieth century. All you can do is to make your friends uncomfortable and spoil their dinner for them. Young Bute said that, so far as he was concerned, he would always rather have spent the evening with his little nephews and nieces, playing at horses; it seemed to him a more sensible game."
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"Algy is four; till last year he was always called the baby. Now, of course, there is no excuse; but the name still clings to him in spite of his indignant protestations. Father called upstairs to him the other day: 'Baby, bring me down my gaiters.' He walked straight up to the cradle and woke up the baby. 'Get up,' I heard him say—I was just outside the door—'and take your father down his gaiters. Don't you hear him calling you?' He is a droll little fellow. Father took him to Oxford last Saturday. He is small for his age. The ticket- collector, quite contented, threw him a glance, and merely as a matter of form asked if he was under three. 'No,' he shouted before father could reply; 'I 'sists on being honest. I'se four.' It is father's pet phrase.""

"Father is trying. He loves experiments, and a woman hates experiments. Last year it was bare feet. I daresay it is healthier. But children who have been about in bare feet all the morning—well, it isn't pleasant when they sit down to lunch; I don't care what you say. You can't be always washing. He is so unpractical. He was quite angry with mother and myself because we wouldn't. And a man in bare feet looks so ridiculous. This summer it is short hair and no hats; and Sally had such pretty hair. Next year it will be sabots or turbans— something or other suggesting the idea that we've lately escaped from a fair. On Mondays and Thursdays we talk French. We have got a French nurse; and those are the only days in the week on which she doesn't understand a word that's said to her. We can none of us understand father, and that makes him furious. He won't say it in English; he makes a note of it, meaning to tell us on Tuesday or Friday, and then, of course, he forgets, and wonders why we haven't done it. He's the dearest fellow alive. When I think of him as a big boy, then he is charming, and if he really were only a big boy there are times when I would shake him and feel better for it.""
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Chapter VI begins lackadaisical and develops - rather, meanders a la Jerome K. Jerome - into bordering hilarious. Robins and Veronica say they've lunched, and there is only a little left for father and son, so the latter throws a fit, asking where it all went, since he'd seen the sisters deal with preparations. It's explained when Robina asks him to bring back half a dozen men of various trades to deal with the disaster in kitchen.

""He is going to turn over a new leaf;" said Robina:

""I am sure he will make an excellent farmer." "I did not want a farmer," I explained; "I wanted a Prime Minister. Children, Robina, are very disappointing. Veronica is all wrong. I like a mischievous child. I like reading stories of mischievous children: they amuse me. But not the child who puts a pound of gunpowder into a red-hot fire, and escapes with her life by a miracle.""

Next chapter or two keep the reader simmering at bordering hilarious. Robina convinced her father to go to town for a few days, and Veronica walked with him to the station.

"The trouble about arguing with children is that they will argue too."

Robina wrote:-

""Wildly exaggerated accounts of the affair are flying round the neighbourhood; and my chief fear is that Veronica may discover she is a local celebrity. Your sudden disappearance is supposed to have been heavenward. An old farm labourer who saw you pass on your way to the station speaks of you as 'the ghost of the poor gentleman himself;' and fragments of clothing found anywhere within a radius of two miles are being preserved, I am told, as specimens of your remains. Boots would appear to have been your chief apparel. Seven pairs have already been collected from the surrounding ditches. Among the more public-spirited there is talk of using you to start a local museum.""

The author uses Dick, the young son of the protagonist, though, for expounding his own views.

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"Of course we made the usual mistake: they talked to me about books and plays, and I gave them my views on agriculture and cub-hunting. I'm not quite sure what fool it was who described a bore as a man who talked about himself. As a matter of fact it is the only subject the average man knows sufficiently well to make interesting. There's a man I know; he makes a fortune out of a patent food for infants. He began life as a dairy farmer, and hit upon it quite by accident. When he talks about the humours of company promoting and the tricks of the advertising agent he is amusing. I have sat at his table, when he was a bachelor, and listened to him by the hour with enjoyment. The mistake he made was marrying a broad-minded, cultured woman, who ruined him— conversationally, I mean. He is now well-informed and tiresome on most topics. That is why actors and actresses are always such delightful company: they are not ashamed to talk about themselves. I remember a dinner-party once: our host was one of the best-known barristers in London. A famous lady novelist sat on his right, and a scientist of world-wide reputation had the place of honour next our hostess, who herself had written a history of the struggle for nationality in South America that serves as an authority to all the Foreign Offices in Europe. Among the remaining guests were a bishop, the editor-in-chief of a London daily newspaper, a man who knew the interior of China as well as most men know their own club, a Russian revolutionist just escaped from Siberia, a leading dramatist, a Cabinet Minister, and a poet whose name is a household word wherever the English tongue is spoken. And for two hours we sat and listened to a wicked-looking little woman who from the boards of a Bowery music-hall had worked her way up to the position of a star in musical comedy. Education, as she observed herself without regret, had not been compulsory throughout the waterside district of Chicago in her young days; and, compelled to earn her own living from the age of thirteen, opportunity for supplying the original deficiency had been wanting. But she knew her subject, which was Herself—her experiences, her reminiscences: and bad sense enough to stick to it. Until the moment when she took "the liberty of chipping in," to use her own expression, the amount of twaddle talked had been appalling. The bishop had told us all he had learnt about China during a visit to San Francisco, while the man who had spent the last twenty years of his life in the country was busy explaining his views on the subject of the English drama. Our hostess had been endeavouring to make the scientist feel at home by talking to him about radium. The dramatist had explained at some length his views of the crisis in Russia. The poet had quite spoilt his dinner trying to suggest to the Cabinet Minister new sources of taxation. The Russian revolutionist had told us what ought to have been a funny story about a duck; and the lady novelist and the Cabinet Minister had discussed Christian Science for a quarter of an hour, each under the mistaken impression that the other one was a believer in it. The editor had been explaining the attitude of the Church towards the New Theology; and our host, one of the wittiest men at the Bar, had been talking chiefly to the butler. The relief of listening to anybody talking about something they knew was like finding a match-box to a man who has been barking his shins in the dark. For the rest of the dinner we clung to her."

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Chapter X, the conversation between Robina and father, really good!

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The protagonist worries about his son Dick losing Janie, having until then worried about whom Dick would bring into the family, and recalls the women he had himself fortunately did lose.

"What is one to do? There are days in springtime when a young man ought not to be allowed outside the house. Thank Heaven and Convention it is not the girls who propose! Few women, who would choose the right moment to put their hands upon a young man's shoulders, and, looking into his eyes, ask him to marry them next week, would receive No for an answer. It is only our shyness that saves us."

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Nice finish.

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August 09, 2020 - August 17, 2020.

1909

Bernhard Tauchnitz edition.

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All Roads Lead to Calvary

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All Roads Lead to Calvary

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Very unlike, this, to his most other works, or at least the more famous or most read ones, where serious thought is of short visits if not fleeting or even elusive, this one makes one wonder after a chapter or two if Jerome K. Jerome challenged himself to compete with the serious authors of the day - say, George Bernard Shaw, or Upton Sinclair - or even whether the latter wrote it and they exchanged a pair of manuscripts for fun, just to see if anybody would catch on. But if one has read more than just the two most famous books by the author, one has an inkling that he was not so out of tune with his times and his contemporaries, and instead was not only quite aware of the world, especially Europe, but even prophetic, writing about war and Russian revolution in 1905.

The author in this work weaves together several serious themes, seamlessly, on various levels of personal, interpersonal, social, national and wider levels, with politics and social economic questions occupying as much importance as those of personal lives and careers, thinking as important as other aspects of people. Jerome K. Jerome brings together his quest of answers to problems of human misery in a combination of leftist thought and religion, with all sorts of philosophical discussions thrown in. Quite impressive, and wonder why it wasn't better known, and why the author not known for those of his writings such as this, instead of being known only or mostly for humour.

That he was not a gung-ho warmonger isn't the surprise, nor that he doesn't hate other nations of the continent - although there's slight disdain for, and horror at associating with, Russia - but the scene describing the treatment meted out to the gentle cousin Arthur by a Liverpool crowd, for his having turned conscientious objector after years of service in the war, is shocking in its unexpected horror.

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"She must have knelt and stood mechanically, for the service was ended. The pulpit was occupied by an elderly uninteresting-looking man with a troublesome cough. But one sentence he had let fall had gripped her attention. For a moment she could not remember it, and then it came to her: “All Roads lead to Calvary.” It struck her as rather good. Perhaps he was going to be worth listening to. “To all of us, sooner or later,” he was saying, “comes a choosing of two ways: either the road leading to success, the gratification of desires, the honour and approval of our fellow-men—or the path to Calvary.”

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"“Men stand more in awe of a well-dressed woman than they do even of a beautiful woman,” Madge was of opinion. “If you go into an office looking dowdy they’ll beat you down. Tell them the price they are offering you won’t keep you in gloves for a week and they’ll be ashamed of themselves. There’s nothing infra dig. in being mean to the poor; but not to sympathize with the rich stamps you as middle class.”"

"“The revolution that the world is waiting for,” was Flossie’s opinion, “is the providing of every man and woman with a hundred and fifty a year. Then we shall all be able to afford to be noble and high-minded. As it is, nine-tenths of the contemptible things we do comes from the necessity of our having to earn our living. A hundred and fifty a year would deliver us from evil.”

"“Would there not still be the diamond dog-collar and the motor car left to tempt us?” suggested Madge.

"“Only the really wicked,” contended Flossie. “It would classify us. We should know then which were the sheep and which the goats. At present we’re all jumbled together: the ungodly who sin out of mere greed and rapacity, and the just men compelled to sell their birthright of fine instincts for a mess of meat and potatoes.”

"“Yah, socialist,” commented Madge, who was busy with the tea things.

"Flossie seemed struck by an idea.

"“By Jove,” she exclaimed. “Why did I never think of it. With a red flag and my hair down, I’d be in all the illustrated papers. It would put up my price no end. And I’d be able to get out of this silly job of mine. I can’t go on much longer. I’m getting too well known. I do believe I’ll try it. The shouting’s easy enough.” She turned to Joan. “Are you going to take up socialism?” she demanded.

"“I may,” answered Joan. “Just to spank it, and put it down again. I’m rather a believer in temptation—the struggle for existence. I only want to make it a finer existence, more worth the struggle, in which the best man shall rise to the top. Your ‘universal security’—that will be the last act of the human drama, the cue for ringing down the curtain.”"

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"Mrs. Denton seemed to be reading her, and then still retaining Joan’s hand she turned to Madge with a smile.

"“So this is our new recruit,” she said. “She is come to bring healing to the sad, sick world—to right all the old, old wrongs.”

"She patted Joan’s hand and spoke gravely. “That is right, dear. That is youth’s métier; to take the banner from our failing hands, bear it still a little onward.” Her small gloved hand closed on Joan’s with a pressure that made Joan wince.

"“And you must not despair,” she continued; “because in the end it will seem to you that you have failed. It is the fallen that win the victories.”"

"“They talk about the editor’s opinions,” struck in a fiery little woman who was busy flinging crumbs out of the window to a crowd of noisy sparrows. “It’s the Advertiser edits half the papers. Write anything that three of them object to, and your proprietor tells you to change your convictions or go. Most of us change.” She jerked down the window with a slam.

"“It’s the syndicates that have done it,” was a Mrs. Elliot’s opinion. She wrote “Society Notes” for a Labour weekly. “When one man owned a paper he wanted it to express his views. A company is only out for profit. Your modern newspaper is just a shop. It’s only purpose is to attract customers. Look at the Methodist Herald, owned by the same syndicate of Jews that runs the Racing News. They work it as far as possible with the same staff.”"

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"Government by the people for the people! It must be made real. These silent, thoughtful-looking workers, hurrying homewards through the darkening streets; these patient, shrewd-planning housewives casting their shadows on the drawn-down blinds: it was they who should be shaping the world, not the journalists to whom all life was but so much “copy.” This monstrous conspiracy, once of the Sword, of the Church, now of the Press, that put all Government into the hands of a few stuffy old gentlemen, politicians, leader writers, without sympathy or understanding: it was time that it was swept away. She would raise a new standard. It should be, not “Listen to me, oh ye dumb,” but, “Speak to me. Tell me your hidden hopes, your fears, your dreams. Tell me your experience, your thoughts born of knowledge, of suffering.”"

"She would build again the Forum. The people’s business should no longer be settled for them behind lackey-guarded doors. The good of the farm labourer should be determined not exclusively by the squire and his relations. The man with the hoe, the man with the bent back and the patient ox-like eyes: he, too, should be invited to the Council board. Middle-class domestic problems should be solved not solely by fine gentlemen from Oxford; the wife of the little clerk should be allowed her say. War or peace, it should no longer be regarded as a question concerning only the aged rich. The common people—the cannon fodder, the men who would die, and the women who would weep: they should be given something more than the privilege of either cheering platform patriots or being summoned for interrupting public meetings."

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"“There was an old Egyptian chap,” he said, “a governor of one of their provinces, thousands of years before the Pharaohs were ever heard of. They dug up his tomb a little while ago. It bore this inscription: ‘In my time no man went hungry.’ I’d rather have that carved upon my gravestone than the boastings of all the robbers and the butchers of history. Think what it must have meant in that land of drought and famine: only a narrow strip of river bank where a grain of corn would grow; and that only when old Nile was kind. If not, your nearest supplies five hundred miles away across the desert, your only means of transport the slow-moving camel. Your convoy must be guarded against attack, provided with provisions and water for a two months’ journey. Yet he never failed his people. Fat year and lean year: ‘In my time no man went hungry.’ And here, to-day, with our steamships and our railways, with the granaries of the world filled to overflowing, one third of our population lives on the border line of want. In India they die by the roadside. What’s the good of it all: your science and your art and your religion! How can you help men’s souls if their bodies are starving? A hungry man’s a hungry beast.

"“I spent a week at Grimsby, some years ago, organizing a fisherman’s union. They used to throw the fish back into the sea, tons upon tons of it, that men had risked their lives to catch, that would have fed half London’s poor. There was a ‘glut’ of it, they said. The ‘market’ didn’t want it. Funny, isn’t it, a ‘glut’ of food: and the kiddies can’t learn their lessons for want of it. I was talking with a farmer down in Kent. The plums were rotting on his trees. There were too many of them: that was the trouble. The railway carriage alone would cost him more than he could get for them. They were too cheap. So nobody could have them."

"Suppose you tried to run an army with your men half starved while your officers had more than they could eat. It’s been tried and what’s been the result? See that your soldiers have their proper rations, and the General can sit down to his six-course dinner, if he will. They are not begrudging it to him.

"“A nation works on its stomach. Underfeed your rank and file, and what sort of a fight are you going to put up against your rivals. I want to see England going ahead. I want to see her workers properly fed. I want to see the corn upon her unused acres, the cattle grazing on her wasted pastures. I object to the food being thrown into the sea—left to rot upon the ground while men are hungry—side-tracked in Chicago, while the children grow up stunted. I want the commissariat properly organized.”"

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"“But they report his speeches. They are bound to,” explained Joan.

"“It doesn’t read quite the same,” he answered. “Phillips goes home under the impression that he has made a great success and has roused the country. He and millions of other readers learn from the next morning’s headlines that it was ‘A Tame Speech’ that he made. What sounded to him ‘Loud Cheers’ have sunk to mild ‘Hear, Hears.’ That five minutes’ hurricane of applause, during which wildly excited men and women leapt upon the benches and roared themselves hoarse, and which he felt had settled the whole question, he searches for in vain. A few silly interjections, probably pre-arranged by Carleton’s young lions, become ‘renewed interruptions.’ The report is strictly truthful; but the impression produced is that Robert Phillips has failed to carry even his own people with him. And then follow leaders in fourteen widely-circulated Dailies, stretching from the Clyde to the Severn, foretelling how Mr. Robert Phillips could regain his waning popularity by the simple process of adopting Tariff Reform: or whatever the pet panacea of Carleton and Co. may, at the moment, happen to be.”

"“Don’t make us out all alike,” pleaded his sister with a laugh. “There are still a few old-fashioned papers that do give their opponents fair play.”

"“They are not increasing in numbers,” he answered, “and the Carleton group is. There is no reason why in another ten years he should not control the entire popular press of the country. He’s got the genius and he’s got the means.”

"“The cleverest thing he has done,” he continued, turning to Joan, “is your Sunday Post. Up till then, the working classes had escaped him. With the Sunday Post, he has solved the problem. They open their mouths; and he gives them their politics wrapped up in pictures and gossipy pars.”

"Miss Greyson rose and put away her embroidery. “But what’s his object?” she said. “He must have more money than he can spend; and he works like a horse. I could understand it, if he had any beliefs.”

"“Oh, we can all persuade ourselves that we are the Heaven-ordained dictator of the human race,” he answered. “Love of power is at the bottom of it. Why do our Rockefellers and our Carnegies condemn themselves to the existence of galley slaves, ruining their digestions so that they never can enjoy a square meal. It isn’t the money; it’s the trouble of their lives how to get rid of that. It is the notoriety, the power that they are out for. In Carleton’s case, it is to feel himself the power behind the throne; to know that he can make and unmake statesmen; has the keys of peace and war in his pocket; is able to exclaim: Public opinion? It is I.”

"“It can be a respectable ambition,” suggested Joan.

"“It has been responsible for most of man’s miseries,” he answered. “Every world’s conqueror meant to make it happy after he had finished knocking it about. We are all born with it, thanks to the devil.” He shifted his position and regarded her with critical eyes. “You’ve got it badly,” he said. “I can see it in the tilt of your chin and the quivering of your nostrils. You beware of it.”"

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"“But he’s quite common, isn’t he?” he asked again. “I’ve only met him in public.”

"“No, that’s precisely what he isn’t,” answered Joan. “You feel that he belongs to no class, but his own. The class of the Abraham Lincolns, and the Dantons.”

"“England’s a different proposition,” he mused. “Society counts for so much with us. I doubt if we should accept even an Abraham Lincoln: unless in some supreme crisis. His wife rather handicaps him, too, doesn’t she?”

"“She wasn’t born to be the châtelaine of Downing Street,” Joan admitted. “But it’s not an official position.”"

“I’m not so sure that it isn’t,” he laughed. “It’s the dinner-table that rules in England. We settle everything round a dinner-table.”

"She was sitting in front of the fire in a high-backed chair. She never cared to loll, and the shaded light from the electric sconces upon the mantelpiece illumined her.

"“If the world were properly stage-managed, that’s what you ought to be,” he said, “the wife of a Prime Minister. I can see you giving such an excellent performance.”

"“I must talk to Mary,” he added, “see if we can’t get you off on some promising young Under Secretary.”

"“Don’t give me ideas above my station,” laughed Joan. “I’m a journalist.”

"“That’s the pity of it,” he said. “You’re wasting the most important thing about you, your personality. You would do more good in a drawing-room, influencing the rulers, than you will ever do hiding behind a pen. It was the drawing-room that made the French Revolution.”

"The firelight played about her hair. “I suppose every woman dreams of reviving the old French Salon,” she answered. “They must have been gloriously interesting.” He was leaning forward with clasped hands. “Why shouldn’t she?” he said. “The reason that our drawing-rooms have ceased to lead is that our beautiful women are generally frivolous and our clever women unfeminine. What we are waiting for is an English Madame Roland.”

"Joan laughed. “Perhaps I shall some day,” she answered."

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"She met Carleton by chance a day or two later, as she was entering the office. “I want to see you,” he said; and took her up with him into his room.

"“We must stir the people up about this food business,” he said, plunging at once into his subject. “Phillips is quite right. It overshadows everything. We must make the country self-supporting. It can be done and must. If a war were to be sprung upon us we could be starved out in a month. Our navy, in face of these new submarines, is no longer able to secure us. France is working day and night upon them. It may be a bogey, or it may not. If it isn’t, she would have us at her mercy; and it’s too big a risk to run. You live in the same house with him, don’t you? Do you often see him?”

"“Not often,” she answered.

"He was reading a letter. “You were dining there on Friday night, weren’t you?” he asked her, without looking up.

"Joan flushed. What did he mean by cross-examining her in this way? She was not at all used to impertinence from the opposite sex.

"“Your information is quite correct,” she answered.

"Her anger betrayed itself in her tone; and he shot a swift glance at her.

"“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said. “A mutual friend, a Mr. Airlie, happened to be of the party, and he mentioned you.”

"He threw aside the letter. “I’ll tell you what I want you to do,” he said. “It’s nothing to object to. Tell him that you’ve seen me and had a talk. I understand his scheme to be that the country should grow more and more food until it eventually becomes self-supporting; and that the Government should control the distribution. Tell him that with that I’m heart and soul in sympathy; and would like to help him.” He pushed aside a pile of papers and, leaning across the desk, spoke with studied deliberation. “If he can see his way to making his policy dependent upon Protection, we can work together.”

"“And if he can’t?” suggested Joan.

"He fixed his large, colourless eyes upon her. “That’s where you can help him,” he answered. “If he and I combine forces, we can pull this through in spite of the furious opposition that it is going to arouse. Without a good Press he is helpless; and where is he going to get his Press backing if he turns me down? From half a dozen Socialist papers whose support will do him more harm than good. If he will bring the working class over to Protection I will undertake that the Tariff Reformers and the Agricultural Interest shall accept his Socialism. It will be a victory for both of us."

"“I’ll give him your message,” said Joan. “But I don’t see him exchanging his principles even for your support. I admit it’s important.”

"“Talk it over with him,” he said. “And bear this in mind for your own guidance.” He took a step forward, which brought his face quite close to hers: “If he fails, and all his life’s work goes for nothing, I shall be sorry; but I shan’t break my heart. He will.”"

......................................................................................

"“The moment there is any threat of war, it becomes a point of honour with every nation to do nothing to avoid it. I remember my old duelling days. The quarrel may have been about the silliest trifle imaginable. A single word would have explained the whole thing away. But to utter it would have stamped one as a coward. This Egyptian Tra-la-la! It isn’t worth the bones of a single grenadier, as our friends across the Rhine would say. But I expect, before it’s settled, there will be men’s bones sufficient, bleaching on the desert, to build another Pyramid. It’s so easily started: that’s the devil of it. A mischievous boy can throw a lighted match into a powder magazine, and then it becomes every patriot’s business to see that it isn’t put out. I hate war. It accomplishes nothing, and leaves everything in a greater muddle than it was before. But if the idea ever catches fire, I shall have to do all I can to fan the conflagration. Unless I am prepared to be branded as a poltroon. Every professional soldier is supposed to welcome war. Most of us do: it’s our opportunity. There’s some excuse for us. But these men—Carleton and their lot: I regard them as nothing better than the Ménades of the Commune. They care nothing if the whole of Europe blazes. They cannot personally get harmed whatever happens. It’s fun to them.”

"“But the people who can get harmed,” argued Joan. “The men who will be dragged away from their work, from their business, used as ‘cannon fodder.’”

"He shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, they are always eager enough for it, at first,” he answered. “There is the excitement. The curiosity. You must remember that life is a monotonous affair to the great mass of the people. There’s the natural craving to escape from it; to court adventure. They are not so enthusiastic about it after they have tasted it. Modern warfare, they soon find, is about as dull a business as science ever invented.”

"There was only one hope that he could see: and that was to switch the people’s mind on to some other excitement. His advices from London told him that a parliamentary crisis was pending. Could not Mrs. Denton and her party do something to hasten it? He, on his side, would consult with the Socialist leaders, who might have something to suggest.

"He met Joan, radiant, a morning or two later. The English Government had resigned and preparations for a general election were already on foot.

"“And God has been good to us, also,” he explained.

"A well-known artist had been found murdered in his bed and grave suspicion attached to his beautiful young wife.

"“She deserves the Croix de Guerre, if it is proved that she did it,” he thought. “She will have saved many thousands of lives—for the present.”"

......................................................................................

"She dined with the Greysons the Sunday after, and mooted the question of the coming fight with Carleton. Greyson thought Phillips would find plenty of journalistic backing. The concentration of the Press into the hands of a few conscienceless schemers was threatening to reduce the journalist to a mere hireling, and the better-class men were becoming seriously alarmed. He found in his desk the report of a speech made by a well-known leader writer at a recent dinner of the Press Club. The man had risen to respond to the toast of his own health and had taken the opportunity to unpack his heart.

"“I am paid a thousand a year,” so Greyson read to them, “for keeping my own opinions out of my paper. Some of you, perhaps, earn more, and others less; but you’re getting it for writing what you’re told. If I were to be so foolish as to express my honest opinion, I’d be on the street, the next morning, looking for another job.”

"“The business of the journalist,” the man had continued, “is to destroy the truth, to lie, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, to sell his soul for his daily bread. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks. They pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, our lives are the property of other men.”

"“We tried to pretend it was only one of Jack’s little jokes,” explained Greyson as he folded up the cutting; “but it wouldn’t work. It was too near the truth.”"

......................................................................................

"Greyson did not so much mind there being a Devil’s market, provided he could be assured of an honest market alongside, so that a man could take his choice. What he feared was the Devil’s steady encroachment, that could only end by the closing of the independent market altogether. His remedy was the introduction of the American trust law, forbidding any one man being interested in more than a limited number of journals.

"“But what’s the difference,” demanded Joan, “between a man owning one paper with a circulation of, say, six millions; or owning six with a circulation of a million apiece? By concentrating all his energies on one, a man with Carleton’s organizing genius might easily establish a single journal that would cover the whole field.”

"“Just all the difference,” answered Greyson, “between Pooh Bah as Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Lord High Admiral, or Chief Executioner, whichever he preferred to be, and Pooh Bah as all the Officers of State rolled into one. Pooh Bah may be a very able statesman, entitled to exert his legitimate influence. But, after all, his opinion is only the opinion of one old gentleman, with possible prejudices and preconceived convictions. The Mikado—or the people, according to locality—would like to hear the views of others of his ministers. He finds that the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice and the Groom of the Bedchamber and the Attorney-General—the whole entire Cabinet, in short, are unanimously of the same opinion as Pooh Bah. He doesn’t know it’s only Pooh Bah speaking from different corners of the stage. The consensus of opinion convinces him. One statesman, however eminent, might err in judgment. But half a score of statesmen, all of one mind! One must accept their verdict.”

"Mary smiled. “But why shouldn’t the good newspaper proprietor hurry up and become a multi-proprietor?” she suggested. “Why don’t you persuade Lord Sutcliffe to buy up three or four papers, before they’re all gone?”

"“Because I don’t want the Devil to get hold of him,” answered Greyson.

"“You’ve got to face this unalterable law,” he continued. “That power derived from worldly sources can only be employed for worldly purposes. The power conferred by popularity, by wealth, by that ability to make use of other men that we term organization—sooner or later the man who wields that power becomes the Devil’s servant. So long as Kingship was merely a force struggling against anarchy, it was a holy weapon. As it grew in power so it degenerated into an instrument of tyranny. The Church, so long as it remained a scattered body of meek, lowly men, did the Lord’s work. Enthroned at Rome, it thundered its edicts against human thought. The Press is in danger of following precisely the same history. When it wrote in fear of the pillory and of the jail, it fought for Liberty. Now it has become the Fourth Estate, it fawns—as Jack Swinton said of it—at the feet of Mammon. My Proprietor, good fellow, allows me to cultivate my plot amid the wilderness for other purposes than those of quick returns. If he were to become a competitor with the Carletons and the Bloomfields, he would have to look upon it as a business proposition. The Devil would take him up on to the high mountain, and point out to him the kingdom of huge circulations and vast profits, whispering to him: ‘All this will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.’ I don’t want the dear good fellow to be tempted.”

"“Is it impossible, then, to combine duty and success?” questioned Joan.

"“The combination sometimes happens, by chance,” admitted Greyson. “But it’s dangerous to seek it. It is so easy to persuade ourselves that it’s our duty to succeed.”

"“But we must succeed to be of use,” urged Mary. “Must God’s servants always remain powerless?”

"“Powerless to rule. Powerful only to serve,” he answered. “Powerful as Christ was powerful; not as Caesar was powerful—powerful as those who have suffered and have failed, leaders of forlorn hopes—powerful as those who have struggled on, despised and vilified; not as those of whom all men speak well—powerful as those who have fought lone battles and have died, not knowing their own victory. It is those that serve, not those that rule, shall conquer.”

"Joan had never known him quite so serious. Generally there was a touch of irony in his talk, a suggestion of aloofness that had often irritated her.

"“I wish you would always be yourself, as you are now,” she said, “and never pose.”"
......................................................................................

"She had lost her faith in journalism as a drum for the rousing of the people against wrong. Its beat had led too often to the trickster’s booth, to the cheap-jack’s rostrum. It had lost its rallying power. The popular Press had made the newspaper a byword for falsehood. Even its supporters, while reading it because it pandered to their passions, tickled their vices, and flattered their ignorance, despised and disbelieved it. Here and there, an honest journal advocated a reform, pleaded for the sweeping away of an injustice. The public shrugged its shoulders. Another newspaper stunt! A bid for popularity, for notoriety: with its consequent financial kudos.

"She still continued to write for Greyson, but felt she was labouring for the doomed. Lord Sutcliffe had died suddenly and his holding in the Evening Gazette had passed to his nephew, a gentleman more interested in big game shooting than in politics. Greyson’s support of Phillips had brought him within the net of Carleton’s operations, and negotiations for purchase had already been commenced. She knew that, sooner or later, Greyson would be offered the alternative of either changing his opinions or of going. And she knew that he would go. Her work for Mrs. Denton was less likely to be interfered with. It appealed only to the few, and aimed at informing and explaining rather than directly converting. Useful enough work in its way, no doubt; but to put heart into it seemed to require longer views than is given to the eyes of youth."

......................................................................................

"They were to be found at every corner: the reformers who could not reform themselves. The believers in universal brotherhood who hated half the people. The denouncers of tyranny demanding lamp-posts for their opponents. The bloodthirsty preachers of peace. The moralists who had persuaded themselves that every wrong was justified provided one were fighting for the right. The deaf shouters for justice. The excellent intentioned men and women labouring for reforms that could only be hoped for when greed and prejudice had yielded place to reason, and who sought to bring about their ends by appeals to passion and self-interest."

"Beyond giving up her visits to the house, she had made no attempt to avoid meeting Phillips; and at public functions and at mutual friends they sometimes found themselves near to one another. It surprised her that she could see him, talk to him, and even be alone with him without its troubling her. He seemed to belong to a part of her that lay dead and buried—something belonging to her that she had thrust away with her own hands: that she knew would never come back to her.

"She was still interested in his work and keen to help him. It was going to be a stiff fight. He himself, in spite of Carleton’s opposition, had been returned with an increased majority; but the Party as a whole had suffered loss, especially in the counties. The struggle centred round the agricultural labourer. If he could be won over the Government would go ahead with Phillips’s scheme. Otherwise there was danger of its being shelved. The difficulty was the old problem of how to get at the men of the scattered villages, the lonely cottages. The only papers that they ever saw were those, chiefly of the Carleton group, that the farmers and the gentry took care should come within their reach; that were handed to them at the end of their day’s work as a kindly gift; given to the school children to take home with them; supplied in ample numbers to all the little inns and public-houses. In all these, Phillips was held up as their arch enemy, his proposal explained as a device to lower their wages, decrease their chances of employment, and rob them of the produce of their gardens and allotments. No arguments were used. A daily stream of abuse, misrepresentation and deliberate lies, set forth under flaming headlines, served their simple purpose. The one weekly paper that had got itself established among them, that their fathers had always taken, that dimly they had come to look upon as their one friend, Carleton had at last succeeded in purchasing. When that, too, pictured Phillips’s plan as a diabolical intent to take from them even the little that they had, and give it to the loafing socialist and the bloated foreigner, no room for doubt was left to them.

"He had organized volunteer cycle companies of speakers from the towns, young working-men and women and students, to go out on summer evenings and hold meetings on the village greens. They were winning their way. But it was slow work. And Carleton was countering their efforts by a hired opposition that followed them from place to place, and whose interruptions were made use of to represent the whole campaign as a fiasco.

"“He’s clever,” laughed Phillips. “I’d enjoy the fight, if I’d only myself to think of, and life wasn’t so short.”

"The laugh died away and a shadow fell upon his face.

"“If I could get a few of the big landlords to come in on my side,” he continued, “it would make all the difference in the world. They’re sensible men, some of them; and the whole thing could be carried out without injury to any legitimate interest. I could make them see that, if I could only get them quietly into a corner.”

"“But they’re frightened of me,” he added, with a shrug of his broad shoulders, “and I don’t seem to know how to tackle them.”"
......................................................................................

"The sale and purchase of the Evening Gazette had been completed a few days before. Greyson had been offered the alternative of gradually and gracefully changing his opinions, or getting out; and had, of course, chosen dismissal. He was taking a holiday, as Mary explained with a short laugh.

"“He had some shares in it himself, hadn’t he?” Joan asked.

"“Oh, just enough to be of no use,” Mary answered. “Carleton was rather decent, so far as that part of it was concerned, and insisted on paying him a fair price. The market value would have been much less; and he wanted to be out of it.”

"Joan remained silent. It made her mad, that a man could be suddenly robbed of fifteen years’ labour: the weapon that his heart and brain had made keen wrested from his hand by a legal process, and turned against the very principles for which all his life he had been fighting."

"He came in a little later and, seating himself between them, filled and lighted his pipe. Looking back, Joan remembered that curiously none of them had spoken. Mary had turned at the sound of his key in the door. She seemed to be watching him intently; but it was too dark to notice her expression. He pulled at his pipe till it was well alight and then removed it.

"“It’s war,” he said."

"Greyson spoke with an enthusiasm that was unusual to him. So many of our wars had been mean wars—wars for the wrong; sordid wars for territory, for gold mines; wars against the weak at the bidding of our traders, our financiers. “Shouldering the white man’s burden,” we called it. Wars for the right of selling opium; wars to perpetuate the vile rule of the Turk because it happened to serve our commercial interests. This time, we were out to play the knight; to save the smaller peoples; to rescue our once “sweet enemy,” fair France. Russia was the disturbing thought. It somewhat discounted the knight-errant idea, riding stirrup to stirrup beside that barbarian horseman. But there were possibilities about Russia. Idealism lay hid within that sleeping brain. It would be a holy war for the Kingdom of the Peoples. With Germany freed from the monster of blood and iron that was crushing out her soul, with Russia awakened to life, we would build the United States of Europe. Even his voice was changed. Joan could almost fancy it was some excited schoolboy that was talking."

......................................................................................

"“The great International Peace Congress at Paris,” explained Mrs. Denton; “just after the Crimean war. It made quite a stir at the time. The Emperor opened our proceedings in person, and the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury both sent us their blessing. We had a copy of the speeches presented to us on leaving, in every known language in Europe, bound in vellum. I’m hoping to find it. And the Press was enthusiastic. There were to be Acts of Parliament, Courts of Arbitration, International Laws, Diplomatic Treaties. A Sub-Committee was appointed to prepare a special set of prayers and a Palace of Peace was to be erected. There was only one thing we forgot, and that was the foundation.”

"“I may not be here,” she continued, “when the new plans are submitted. Tell them not to forget the foundation this time. Tell them to teach the children.”

"Joan dined at a popular restaurant that evening. She fancied it might cheer her up. But the noisy patriotism of the over-fed crowd only irritated her. These elderly, flabby men, these fleshy women, who would form the spectators, who would loll on their cushioned seats protected from the sun, munching contentedly from their well-provided baskets while listening to the dying groans rising upwards from the drenched arena. She glanced from one podgy thumb to another and a feeling of nausea crept over her."

"A figure was loitering the other side of the street when she reached home. She thought she somehow recognized it, and crossed over. It was McKean, smoking his everlasting pipe. Success having demanded some such change, he had migrated to “The Albany,” and she had not seen him for some time. He had come to have a last look at the house—in case it might happen to be the last. He was off to Scotland the next morning, where he intended to “join up.”

"“But are you sure it’s your particular duty?” suggested Joan. “I’m told you’ve become a household word both in Germany and France. If we really are out to end war and establish the brotherhood of nations, the work you are doing is of more importance than even the killing of Germans. It isn’t as if there wouldn’t be enough without you.”

"“To tell the truth,” he answered, “that’s exactly what I’ve been saying to myself. I shan’t be any good. I don’t see myself sticking a bayonet into even a German. Unless he happened to be abnormally clumsy. I tried to shoot a rabbit once. I might have done it if the little beggar, instead of running away, hadn’t turned and looked at me.”

"“I should keep out of it if I were you,” laughed Joan.

"“I can’t,” he answered. “I’m too great a coward.”

"“An odd reason for enlisting,” thought Joan.

"“I couldn’t face it,” he went on; “the way people would be looking at me in trains and omnibuses; the things people would say of me, the things I should imagine they were saying; what my valet would be thinking of me. Oh, I’m ashamed enough of myself. It’s the artistic temperament, I suppose. We must always be admired, praised. We’re not the stuff that martyrs are made of. We must for ever be kow-towing to the cackling geese around us. We’re so terrified lest they should hiss us.”

"The street was empty. They were pacing it slowly, up and down.

"“I’ve always been a coward,” he continued. “I fell in love with you the first day I met you on the stairs. But I dared not tell you.”

"“You didn’t give me that impression,” answered Joan.

"She had always found it difficult to know when to take him seriously and when not.

"“I was so afraid you would find it out,” he explained."

"He wrote her two days later from Ayr, giving her the name of his regiment, and again some six months later from Flanders. But there would have been no sense in her replying to that last."

"Mary Greyson called on her in the morning, while she was still at breakfast. She had come from seeing Francis off by an early train from Euston. He had sent Joan a ring.

"“He is so afraid you may not be able to wear it—that it will not fit you,” said Mary, “but I told him I was sure it would.”

"Joan held our her hand for the letter. “I was afraid he had forgotten it,” she answered, with a smile.

"She placed the ring on her finger and held out her hand. “I might have been measured for it,” she said. “I wonder how he knew.”

"“You left a glove behind you, the first day you ever came to our house,” Mary explained. “And I kept it.”

"She was following his wishes and going down into the country. They did not meet again until after the war."

......................................................................................

"Madge thought that England, in particular, had been too much given up to luxury and pleasure. There had been too much idleness and empty laughter: Hitchicoo dances and women undressing themselves upon the stage. Even the working classes seemed to think of nothing else but cinemas and beer. She dreamed of a United Kingdom purified by suffering, cleansed by tears; its people drawn together by memory of common sacrifice; class antagonism buried in the grave where Duke’s son and cook’s son would lie side by side: of a new-born Europe rising from the ashes of the old. With Germany beaten, her lust of war burnt out, her hideous doctrine of Force proved to be false, the world would breathe a freer air. Passion and hatred would fall from man’s eyes. The people would see one another and join hands.

"Flossie was sceptical. “Why hasn’t it done it before?” she wanted to know. “Good Lord! There’s been enough of it.”

"“Why didn’t we all kiss and be friends after the Napoleonic wars?” she demanded, “instead of getting up Peterloo massacres, and anti-Corn Law riots, and breaking the Duke of Wellington’s windows?”

"“All this talk of downing Militarism,” she continued. “It’s like trying to do away with the other sort of disorderly house. You don’t stamp out a vice by chivying it round the corner. When men and women have become decent there will be no more disorderly houses. But it won’t come before. Suppose we do knock Militarism out of Germany, like we did out of France, not so very long ago? It will only slip round the corner into Russia or Japan. Come and settle over here, as likely as not, especially if we have a few victories and get to fancy ourselves.”

"Madge was of opinion that the world would have had enough of war. Not armies but whole peoples would be involved this time. The lesson would be driven home.

"“Oh, yes, we shall have had enough of it,” agreed Flossie, “by the time we’ve paid up. There’s no doubt of that. What about our children? I’ve just left young Frank strutting all over the house and flourishing a paper knife. And the servants have had to bar the kitchen door to prevent his bursting in every five minutes and attacking them. What’s he going to say when I tell him, later on, that his father and myself have had all the war we want, and have decided there shall be no more? The old folks have had their fun. Why shouldn’t I have mine? That will be his argument.”

"“You can’t do it,” she concluded, “unless you are prepared to keep half the world’s literature away from the children, scrap half your music, edit your museums and your picture galleries; bowdlerize your Old Testament and rewrite your histories. And then you’ll have to be careful for twenty-four hours a day that they never see a dog-fight.”"

"Her little drummer played less and less frequently to her as the months passed by. It didn’t seem to be the war he had looked forward to. The illustrated papers continued to picture it as a sort of glorified picnic where smiling young men lolled luxuriously in cosy dug-outs, reading their favourite paper. By curious coincidence, it generally happened to be the journal publishing the photograph. Occasionally, it appeared, they came across the enemy, who then put up both hands and shouted “Kamerad.” But the weary, wounded men she talked to told another story.

"She grew impatient of the fighters with their mouths; the savage old baldheads heroically prepared to sacrifice the last young man; the sleek, purring women who talked childish nonsense about killing every man, woman and child in Germany, but quite meant it; the shrieking journalists who had decided that their place was the home front; the press-spurred mobs, the spy hunters, chasing terrified old men and sobbing children through the streets. It was a relief to enter the quiet ward and close the door behind her. The camp-followers: the traders and pedlars, the balladmongers, and the mountebanks, the ghoulish sightseers! War brought out all that was worst in them. But the givers of their blood, the lads who suffered, who had made the sacrifice: war had taught them chivalry, manhood. She heard no revilings of hatred and revenge from those drawn lips. Patience, humour, forgiveness, they had learnt from war. They told her kindly stories even of Hans and Fritz."

................................................................................................

"She ran against Phillips, the next day, at one of the big stores where she was shopping. He had obtained a commission early in the war and was now a captain. He had just come back from the front on leave. The alternative had not appealed to him, of being one of those responsible for sending other men to death while remaining himself in security and comfort.

"“It’s a matter of temperament,” he said. “Somebody’s got to stop behind and do the patriotic speechifying. I’m glad I didn’t. Especially after what I’ve seen.”

"He had lost interest in politics.

"“There’s something bigger coming,” he said. “Here everything seems to be going on much the same, but over there you feel it. Something growing silently out of all this blood and mud. I find myself wondering what the men are staring at, but when I look there’s nothing as far as my field-glasses will reach but waste and desolation. And it isn’t only on the faces of our own men. It’s in the eyes of the prisoners too. As if they saw something. A funny ending to the war, if the people began to think.”

"Mrs. Phillips was running a Convalescent Home in Folkestone, he told her; and had even made a speech. Hilda was doing relief work among the ruined villages of France.

"“It’s a new world we shall be called upon to build,” he said. “We must pay more heed to the foundation this time.”"

................................................................................................

"Joan had gone out in September, and for a while the weather was pleasant. The men, wrapped up in their great-coats, would sleep for preference under the great sycamore trees. Through open doorways she would catch glimpses of picturesque groups of eager card-players, crowded round a flickering candle. From the darkness there would steal the sound of flute or zither, of voices singing. Occasionally it would be some strident ditty of the Paris music-halls, but more often it was sad and plaintive. But early in October the rains commenced and the stream became a roaring torrent, and a clammy mist lay like a white river between the wooded hills.

"Mud! that seemed to be the one word with which to describe modern war. Mud everywhere! Mud ankle-deep upon the roads; mud into which you sank up to your knees the moment you stepped off it; tents and huts to which you waded through the mud, avoiding the slimy gangways on which you slipped and fell; mud-bespattered men, mud-bespattered horses, little donkeys, looking as if they had been sculptured out of mud, struggling up and down the light railways that every now and then would disappear and be lost beneath the mud; guns and wagons groaning through the mud; lorries and ambulances, that in the darkness had swerved from the straight course, overturned and lying abandoned in the mud, motor-cyclists ploughing swift furrows through the mud, rolling it back in liquid streams each side of them; staff cars rushing screaming through the mud, followed by a rushing fountain of mud; serried ranks of muddy men stamping through the mud with steady rhythm, moving through a rain of mud, rising upward from the ground; long lines of motor-buses filled with a mass of muddy humanity packed shoulder to shoulder, rumbling ever through the endless mud."

"Joan had found a liking gradually growing up in her for the quick-moving, curt-tongued doctor. She had dismissed him at first as a mere butcher: his brutal haste, his indifference apparently to the suffering he was causing, his great, strong, hairy hands, with their squat fingers, his cold grey eyes. But she learnt as time went by, that his callousness was a thing that he put on at the same time that he tied his white apron round his waist, and rolled up his sleeves."

"“So you wanted to see it with your own eyes,” he said. He laid his hand upon her shoulder, and she had some difficulty in not catching hold of him and clinging to him. She was feeling absurdly womanish just at that moment.

"“Yes,” she answered. “And I’m glad that I did it,” she added, defiantly.

"“So am I,” he said. “Tell your children what you have seen. Tell other women.”

"“It’s you women that make war,” he continued. “Oh, I don’t mean that you do it on purpose, but it’s in your blood. It comes from the days when to live it was needful to kill. When a man who was swift and strong to kill was the only thing that could save a woman and her brood. Every other man that crept towards them through the grass was an enemy, and her only hope was that her man might kill him, while she watched and waited. And later came the tribe; and instead of the one man creeping through the grass, the everlasting warfare was against all other tribes. So you loved only the men ever ready and willing to fight, lest you and your children should be carried into slavery: then it was the only way. You brought up your boys to be fighters. You told them stories of their gallant sires. You sang to them the songs of battle: the glory of killing and of conquering. You have never unlearnt the lesson. Man has learnt comradeship—would have travelled further but for you. But woman is still primitive. She would still have her man the hater and the killer. To the woman the world has never changed.”

"“Tell the other women,” he said. “Open their eyes. Tell them of their sons that you have seen dead and dying in the foolish quarrel for which there was no need. Tell them of the foulness, of the cruelty, of the senselessness of it all. Set the women against War. That is the only way to end it.”"

"There were many priests among the stretcher-bearers.

"Crouching close to the ground, behind the spreading roots of a giant oak, she raised her eyes. Before her lay a sea of smooth, soft mud nearly a mile wide. From the centre rose a solitary tree, from which all had been shot away but two bare branches like outstretched arms above the silence. Beyond, the hills rose again. There was something unearthly in the silence that seemed to brood above that sea of mud. The old priest told her of the living men, French and German, who had stood there day and night sunk in it up to their waists, screaming hour after hour, and waving their arms, sinking into it lower and lower, none able to help them: until at last only their screaming heads were left, and after a time these, too, would disappear: and the silence come again."

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August 05, 2020 - August 17, 2020 -

August 31, 2020 - September 09, 2020.

Transcribed from

the 1919 Hutchinson & Co. edition

by David Price,

email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

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ANTHONY JOHN

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Anthony John

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Reading this work reminds one of the times the author lived, and of his contemporaries. There is a touch of his quintessential humour, but much more of his characteristic dilemma, between need of faith versus a questioning mind that rejects blind following of dogma. Most famous contemporaries of the author rejected dogma outright and had their own thought to show them a path, but Jerome K. Jerome keeps a step short of quite cutting the cord, while straining against it often enough and straying far.

................................................................................................

"The Strong’nth’arms had once been prosperous yeomen and had hunted with the gentry. Rumour had it that scattered members of the family were even now doing well in the colonies, and both husband and wife still cherished the hope that some far-flung relation would providentially die and leave them a fortune. Otherwise the future promised little more than an everlasting struggle against starvation. He had started as a mechanical engineer in his own workshop. There were plenty of jobs for such in Millsborough, but John Strong’nth’arm seemed to be one of those born unfortunates doomed always to choose instinctively the wrong turning. An inventor of a kind. Some of his ideas had prospered — other people."

"Assured of a satisfactory income, a woman might have found him lovable, have been indulgent to his helplessness. But the poor have no use for weakness. They cannot afford it. The child instinctively knew that his mother despised this dreamy-eyed, loose-lipped man always full of fear; but though it was to his mother that he looked to answer his questions and supply his wants, it was his father he first learnt to love."

"“You didn’t notice, by any chance, where I put a little brass wheel yesterday — about so big?” would be the question. John, the man, would go on with his job; and a minute later Anthony, the child, would return with the lost wheel. Once the man had been out all the afternoon. On entering the workshop in the evening he stood and stared. The bench had been cleared and swept; and neatly arranged upon it were laid out all his tools. He was still staring at them when he heard the door softly opened and a little, grinning face was peering round the jar. The man burst into tears, and then, ashamed of himself, searched in vain for a handkerchief. The child slipped a piece of clean waste into his hand and laughed."

"But sometimes, on days when in the morning his father had cursed fate more than usual, had raised clenched hands towards the roof of the workshop more often than wont, his mother would disappear for many hours, returning with good things tied up in a brown-paper parcel. And in the evening Somebody who dwelt far away would be praised and blessed."

Little Anthony confused him with God, until his mother let him accompany her.

"They left the din and smoke of Millsborough behind them. They climbed by slow degrees to a wonderful country. The child longed to take it in his arms, it was so beautiful. The woman talked at intervals, but the child did not hear her. At the journey’s end the gate stood open and they passed in."

He remarked to his mother on the way back, about God being not all that glorious, and had his confusion cleared up.

"It was longer, the way home. He offered no protest at being sent to bed early. He dreamed he was wandering to and fro in a vast place, looking for God. Over and over again he thought he saw Him in the distance, but every time he got near to Him it turned out to be Sir William Coomber, who patted him on the head and gave him a shilling."

................................................................................................

He visited his uncle and aunt Newt and was told his uncle was going to hell; his aunt explained why.

"Earnest young ministers of all denominations generally commenced their career in Millsborough by attempting his conversion, much encouraged during the earlier stages of the contest by Mr. Newt’s predisposition in all matters towards what he called a “waiting game.” The “knock-out” blow had not yet been delivered. His wife had long since abandoned him to Satan. The only thing, as far as she could see, was to let him enjoy as much peace and comfort in this world as circumstances would permit. In Anthony John’s eyes the inevitable doom awaiting him gave to his uncle an interest and importance that Mr. Newt’s somewhat insignificant personality might otherwise have failed to inspire. The child had heard about hell. A most unpleasant place where wicked people went to when they died. But his uncle, with his twinkling eyes and his merry laugh, was not his idea of a bad man.

"“Is uncle very, very wicked?” he once demanded of his aunt.

"“No; he’s not wicked,” replied his aunt, assuming a judicial tone. “Better than nine men out of ten that I’ve ever come across.”

"“Then why has he got to go to hell?”

"“He needn’t, if he didn’t want to,” replied his aunt. “That’s the awful thing about it. If he’d only believe, he could be saved.”

"“Believe what?” inquired Anthony John.

"“Oh, I haven’t got time to go into all that now,” replied his aunt. She was having trouble with the kitchen stove. “Believe what he’s told.”

"“Who told him?” “Everybody,” explained his aunt. “I’ve told him myself till I’m sick and tired of it. Don’t ask so many questions. You’re getting as bad as he is.”

"It worried him, the thought of his uncle going to hell. Why couldn’t he believe this thing, whatever it was, that everybody else believed?"

He confronted his uncle.

"He insinuated his hand into his uncle’s grimy paw.

"“Why don’t you believe?” he asked.

"His uncle turned on him his little twinkling eyes.

"“Believe what?” he counter-questioned.

"“What everybody believes,” the child answered.

"The little man shook his head.

"“Don’t you believe them,” he answered. “They don’t believe any more than I believe. They just say it because they think they’re going to get something out of it.”"

................................................................................................

"It had been a slack year. Many of the mills had had to close down. Added to this there came a strike among the miners and distress grew daily. Mrs. Newt took the opportunity to buy a secondhand tombstone. It had been ordered by one of the pumpmen for his mother, but when the strike came the stonemason suggested payment on account, and as this was not forthcoming he had put the stone aside. Unfortunately for him he had already carved as far as “Sacred to the Memory of Mildred,” which was not a common name in Millsborough. It happened, however, to be Mrs. Newt’s, though on her conversion she had dropped it as savouring too much of worldliness, employing instead her second name, which was Emily. Hearing of the incident, Mrs. Newt called upon the stonemason and, taking full advantage of the man’s dilemma, had secured the stone for about one-third of its value. She had had the rest of the lettering completed, leaving to be filled in only the date of her death. It was an imposing-looking stone, and Mrs. Newt was proud of it. She would often go and gaze at it where it stood in an out-of-the-way corner of the stonemason’s yard; and one day she took Anthony to see it. Her only anxiety now was about her grave. There was one particular site near to a willow tree that she much desired. It belonged to a baker who had secured it some years before on learning that he was suffering from an intermittent heart. The unemployment among the weavers, added to the strike of the miners, was making it difficult for him to collect his money, and Mrs. Newt was hopeful that an offer of ready cash at the right moment might induce him to sell."

"It promised to be a hard winter for the poor of Millsborough. The coal strike had ended only to make way for trouble in the steel works. Somewhere the other side of the world the crops had failed. Bread rose in price each week; and there were pinched and savage faces in the streets."

Anthony asked his aunt.

"“Why doesn’t God stop it?” he demanded suddenly. His knowledge had advanced since the day he had thought Sir William Coomber was God.

"“Stop what?” inquired his aunt continuing her knitting.

"“The strike..Why doesn’t He put everything all right? Can’t He?”"

It led to Adam and Eve.

"“But why did God let the Devil tempt him — or her, whichever it was. Can’t God do everything? Why didn’t He kill the Devil?”"

"His aunt, though visiting was not much in her line, dropped in on his mother a day or two later. Mrs. Plumberry happened to have looked in for a gossip and a cup of tea the same afternoon. His aunt felt sure that Anthony John would be helpful to his father in the workshop.

"In the evening his mother informed him that she and his father had decided to give to him the opportunity of learning whatever there was to be learnt about such things as God and sin and the everlasting soul of man. She didn’t put it in these words, but that was the impression she conveyed. On the very next Sunday that was he should go to chapel; and there kind ladies and gentlemen who understood these matters, perhaps even better than his aunt herself, would answer all his questions and make all things plain to him.

"They were most kind and sympathetic to him at the Sunday school. His aunt had prepared them for him, and they welcomed him as promising material. There was one young man in particular with an aesthetic face and long black hair that he had a habit of combing with his hand; and a plain young woman with wonderfully kind eyes, who in the middle of a hymn suddenly caught him up and hugged him. But they didn’t really help him.

"They assured him God loved us and wanted us all to be good and happy. But they didn’t explain to him why God had overlooked the Devil. He had never said a word to Adam about the Devil — had never so much as warned him. It seemed to Anthony John that the serpent had taken God as much by surprise as he had Adam and Eve. It seemed unfair to Anthony John that the whole consequences of the unforeseen catastrophe should have been visited on Adam and Eve; and even more unfair that he himself, Anthony John, coming into the world thousands of years later, and who, as far as he could see, had had nothing whatever to do with the business, should be deemed, for all practical purposes, as an accomplice before the act."

"It was not that he argued it thus to himself. All he was conscious of was a vague resentful feeling that it wasn’t fair. When his mother had sent him out on his first errand she had warned him of bad boys who would try to take his money away from him, as a result of which he had kept a sharp lookout, and, seeing a couple of boys who looked as though they might be bad, he had taken the precaution of walking close behind a policeman. It seemed to him that Adam hadn’t been given a dog’s chance.

"They told him that, later on, God was sorry for us and had put things right by letting His only Son die for us. It was a beautiful story they told him about this Jesus, the Son of God. He wondered who had suggested the idea, and had decided that it must have been the little lad Jesus who had first thought of it and had persuaded God to let Him do it. Somehow he convinced himself that he would have done just the same. Looking down from heaven on the poor people below, and thinking of their all going to hell, he would have felt so sorry for them.

"But the more he thought about it all the more he couldn’t understand why God instead of merely turning Satan out of heaven, hadn’t finished him off then and there. He might have known he would be up to mischief.

"At first his teachers had encouraged him to ask them questions, but later on they changed their minds. They told him he would understand all these things better as he grew up. Meanwhile he mustn’t think, but listen and believe."

................................................................................................

"With improved financial outlook the Strong’nth’arms had entered the Church of England. When you were poor it didn’t matter; nobody minded what religion you belonged to; church or chapel, you crept into the free seats at the back and no one turned their eyes to look. But employers of labour who might even one day be gentlefolks! The question had to be considered from more points of view than one.

"Mr. Strong’nth’arm’s people had always been chapel folk; and as his wife had often bitterly remarked, much good it had done him. Her own inclination was towards the Established Church as being more respectable; and arguing that the rent of a side pew was now within their means, she had gained her point."

................................................................................................

"The period of prosperity following the visit of Wandering Peter had lasted all but two years. It came to an end with the death of his father. It was while working on his new invention that the accident had happened."

"Anthony was dubbed “Pauper,” “Charity boy.” On the bench the boys right and left of him would draw away so that they might not touch him. In the playground he was left severely to himself. That he was quick and clever at his lessons and that the masters liked him worked still further to his disadvantage. At first young Saunders stuck up for him, but finding this made him a sharer of Anthony’s unpopularity soon dropped him, throwing the blame upon Anthony.

"“You see it isn’t only your having come in on the ‘Foundation,’” he explained one day to Anthony, having beckoned him aside to a quiet corner behind a water-butt. “You ought to have told me your mother was a dressmaker.”

"“So is young Harringay’s mother,” argued Anthony.

"“Yes; but she keeps a big shop and employs girls to do the sewing,” explained Saunders. “Your mother lives in Snelling’s Row and works with her own hands. You ought to have told me. It wasn’t fair.”"

"The chorus of opinion afterwards was that it had been a pretty fight. That Norcop had done his best and that no disgrace attached to him. And that Strong’nth’arm was quite the best man for his years and weight that St. Aldys had produced so far back as the oldest boy could remember. The monitors shook hands with him, and the smaller fry crowded round him and contended for his notice. From ostracism he passed in half an hour to the leadership of the third class. It seemed a curious way of gaining honour and affection. Anthony made a note of it.

"This principle that if a thing had to be done no pains should be spared towards the doing of it well he applied with equal thoroughness to the playing of his games."

"But it was not for the sake of the game that he played. Through sport lay the quickest road to popularity. Class distinctions did not count. You made friends that might be useful. One never knew.

"His mother found it more and more difficult to make both ends meet. If she should fail before he was ready! Year by year Millsborough increased in numbers and in wealth. On the slopes above the town new, fine houses were being built. Her mill owners and her manufacturers, her coalmasters and her traders, with all their followers and their retainers, waxed richer and more prosperous. And along the low-lying land, beside the foul, black Wyndbeck, spread year by year new miles of mean, drab streets; and the life of her poor grew viler and more cursed."

"AN idea occurred to Anthony. The more he turned it over in his mind the more it promised. Young Tetteridge had entered upon his last term. The time would soon come for the carrying out of Anthony’s suggestion that in some mean street of Millsborough he should set up a school for the sons of the ambitious poor.

"Why should not one house do for them both? To Mr. Tetteridge for his classroom and study the ground floor; to his mother for her dressmaking and millinery the floor above; the three attics for bedrooms; in the basement the common diningroom and kitchen. There were whole streets of such houses, with steps up to the front door and a bow window. Mr. Tetteridge would want someone to look after him, to “do for” him. Whom more capable, more conscientious than Mrs. Strong’nth’arm? The gain would be mutual. His mother would be working for better-off customers. She could put up her prices. Mr. Tetteridge would save in rent and board.

"Mr. Tetteridge was quite carried away by the brilliance and simplicity of the proposal."

"A friendship had grown up between Anthony and young Mowbray. It had been chiefly of Edward Mowbray’s seeking, but Anthony had been attracted by Edward’s gentleness and kindness. Mowbray’s father had also taken a liking to him, and he came to be a frequent visitor at The Priory."

"It was by Edward and his sister that Anthony was introduced to politics. They were ardent reformers. They dreamed of a world in which there would be no more poor. They thought it might be brought about in their time, at least so far as England was concerned. Edward was the more impatient of the two. He thought it would have to come by revolution, Elizabeth (or Betty as she was generally called for short) had once been of the same opinion. But she was changing. She pointed out the futility of the French Revolution. And even had there been excuse for it the need no longer existed."

"They were tramping the moors. The wind had compelled her to take off her hat and carry it and had put colour into her cheeks. Anthony thought she looked very handsome with her fine eyes flashing beneath their level brows.

"In their talk they had lost their tracks and were making a bee line for the descent. A stream barred their way. It babbled over stones and round the roots of trees. Edward picked her up to carry her across, but at the margin hesitated, doubting his muscles.

"“You’ll be safer with Anthony,” he said, putting her down.

"“It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t mind getting my feet wet.” But Anthony had already lifted her in his arms.

"“You’re sure I’m not too heavy?” she asked.

"He laughed and stepped down with her into the stream.

"He carried her some distance beyond the bank, explaining that the ground was still marshy. He liked the pressure of her weight upon his breast."

................................................................................................

He met Miss Coomber.

"“You were born here, weren’t you?” she asked.

"“In the house adjoining, to be exact,” he answered with a laugh. “But this was my nursery. I used to sit on that very stool with my leg tucked underneath me watching my father work. I loved it when he blew the bellows and made the shadows dance. At least I expect it’s the same stool,” he added. “There was the figure of a gnome that a strange old fellow I once knew carved upon it.”

"She sprang to the ground and examined it. “Yes,” she said. “It is the same. He must have been quite clever.”

"She reseated herself upon it. Her feet just touched the ground.

"“I was born in Brazil,” she said. “Father had a ranch near Rio. But we left there before I was three. The first thing I can really remember is The Abbey. We must have come on a visit, I suppose, to Sir William. It was the long garden between the cloister walls that was my first nursery. I used to play there with the flowers and make them talk to me.”

"“I saw you there,” he said, “one afternoon.” She looked up at him. “When was that?” she asked.

"“Oh, one evening in September,” he said. “About two years ago.” He had spoken without premeditation and now felt himself flushing. He hoped she might think it only the glow from the furnace fire.

"“But we were in Florence,” she said.

"“I know,” he answered, flushing still deeper. “I asked old Wilkins when you had come back, and he thought I was mad.”

"“It is curious,” she answered gravely. “I dreamed one day that I was walking there and met your namesake, Anthony the Monk. He was standing by the wicket gate on the very spot where he was slain. He called to me, but I was frightened and hid myself among the flowers.”"

"IT came so suddenly that neither of them at first knew what had happened. A few meetings among the lonely byways of the moor that they had honestly persuaded themselves were by mere chance. A little walking side by side where the young leaves brushed their faces and the young ferns hid their feet. A little laughing, when the April showers would catch them lost in talk, and hand in hand they would race for the shelter of some overhanging bank and crouch close pressed against each other among the twisted roots of the stunted firs. A little lingering on the homeward way, watching the horned moon climb up above the woods, while the song of some late lark filled all the world around them. Until one evening, having said good-bye though standing with their hands still clasped, she had raised her face to his and he had drawn her to him and their lips had met.

"Neither had foreseen it nor intended it. It had been so spontaneous, so natural, that it seemed but the signing of a pact, the inevitable fulfilling of the law. Nothing had changed, except that now they knew.

"He turned his footsteps away from the town. A deep endless peace seemed to be around him. So this was what Edward had meant when he had written, so short a while before the end, that love was the great secret leading to God, that without it life was meaningless and void.

"It was for this that he had waited, like some blind chrysalis not knowing of the day when it should be born into the sunlight.

"He laughed, remembering what his dream had been: wealth, power, fame: the senseless dream of the miser starving beside his hoarded gold. These things he would strive for now with greater strength than ever — would win them, not for themselves, but for Love’s sake, as service, as sacrifice.

"He had no fear. Others had failed. It was not love, but passion that burns itself out. There was no alloy in his desire for her. She was beautiful he knew. But he was drawn by it as one is moved by the beauty of a summer’s night, the tenderness of spring, the mystery of flowers. There was no part of her that whispered to him. The thought of her hands, her feet, the little dimple in her chin; it brought no stirring of his blood. It was she herself, with all about her that was imperceptible, unexplainable, that he yearned for; not to possess, but to worship, to abide with."

................................................................................................

"Lady Coomber was a curiously shy, gentle lady, somewhat of an enigma to those who did not know her history; they included her two children. Her name had been Edith Trent. She came of old Virginia stock. Harry Coomber, then a clerk in the British Embassy, had met her in Washington, where she was living with friends, both her parents being dead. They had fallen in love with one another, and the marriage was within a day or two of taking place when the girl suddenly disappeared.

"Young Harry, making use of all the influence he could obtain, succeeded in tracing her. She was living in the negro quarter of New Orleans, earning her living as a school teacher. She had discovered on evidence that had seemed to her to admit of no doubt that her grandmother had been a slave. It was difficult to believe. She was a beautiful, olive-skinned girl with wavy, dark brown hair and finely chiselled features. Young Harry Coomber, madly in love with her, had tried to persuade her that even if true it need not separate them. Outside America it would not matter. He would take her abroad or return with her to England. His entreaties were unavailing. She regarded herself as unclean. She had been bred to all the Southern American’s hatred and horror of the negro race. Among her people the slightest taint of the “tar brush” was sufficient to condemn man or woman to lifelong ostracism. She would have inflicted the same fate upon another, and a sense of justice compelled her not to shirk the punishment in her own case.

"Five years later a circumstance came to light that proved the story false, and the long-delayed marriage took place quietly at the Sheriff’s office of a small town in Pennsylvania.

"But the memory of those five years of her life, passed in what to her had been a living grave, had changed her whole character. An outcast among outcasts, she had drunk to the dregs their cup of terror and humiliation. In that city of shame, out of which for five years she had never once emerged, she had met men and women like herself: refined, cultured, educated. She had shared their long-drawn martyrdom. For her, the veil had been lifted from their tortured souls."

...............................................................................................

"THEY were married abroad, as it happened. Jim had exchanged; but his regiment, before going on to India, had been appointed to the garrison at Malta. There the family had joined him for the winter.

"Fate had spared Sir Harry his last disappointment in life. Jim had not told him about Eleanor. There was no hurry. It could be done at any time. And he had died, after a few days’ illness, early in the spring. He had been busy, unknown to the others, fixing up with his sister Mary for Eleanor to come out in London during the season, and had built great hopes upon the result. Thus, so far as that matter was concerned, the poor old gentleman had died happy. Eleanor and her mother stopped on at a little place up in the hills. Anthony came out at the end of the summer; and they had been married in the English church. It was arranged that Lady Coomber should remain at Malta till Jim left for India; it might be the next year or the year after. Then she would come back to England and live with them at The Abbey. Anthony had not hoped to be able to take Eleanor back to The Abbey, but the summer had brought him unusual good fortune. As a matter of fact, everything seemed to be prospering with him just now. He was getting nervous about it, wondering how long it would last. He was glad that he had been able to pay Jim a good price for the place; beyond that, when everything was cleared up and Lady Coomber’s annuity provided for, there would not be much left."

"“I suppose it’s only my fancy,” said Mr. Mowbray, “but you seem to me to grow more like Ted every year. I don’t mean in appearance, though even there I often see a look in your eyes that reminds me of him. But in other ways. Sometimes I could almost think it was he speaking.”

"“I have changed,” said Anthony. “I feel it myself. His death made a great void in my life. I felt that I had been left with a wound that would never heal. And then one day the thought came to me — it can hardly be called a thought. I heard his very voice speaking to me, with just that little note of irritation in it that always came to him when he was arguing and got excited. ‘ I am not dead,’ he said. ‘How foolishly you are talking. How can I be dead while you are thinking of me — while you still love me and are wanting me. Who wants the dead? It is because you know I live, and that I love you, and always shall, that you want me. I am not dead. I am with you.’”

"“Yes,” said Mr. Mowbray after a little pause, “he loved you very dearly. I was puzzled at first, because I thought you so opposite to one another. But now I know that it was my mistake.”"

"Betty had been quite frank with him, or so he had thought.

"“It’s fortunate we didn’t marry,” she said. “What a muddle it would have ended in — or else a tragedy. Do you remember that talk we had one evening?”

"“Yes,” he answered. “You said that if you ever married it would be a man who would ‘like’ you — think of you as a friend, a comrade.”

"“I know,” she laughed. “To be candid, I had you in my mind at the moment. I thought that you would always be so sane — the sort of husband one could rely upon never to kick over the traces. Curious how little we know one another.”

"“Would you really have been satisfied?” he asked, “when it came to the point. Would not you have demanded love as your right?”

"“I don’t think so,” she answered, musing. “I suppose the explanation is that a woman’s love is maternal rather than sexual. It is the home she is thinking of more than the lover. Of course, I don’t mean in every case. There are women for whom there exists one particular He, or no other. But I fancy they are rare.”

"“I wonder sometimes,” he said, “what would have happened to me if I’d never met her? I suppose I should have gone on being quite happy and contented.”

"“There are finer things than happiness,” she answered."

................................................................................................

"They came together over John Anthony, the elder and the younger Mrs. Strong’nth’arm."

"LADY COOMBER joined them in the spring. ... She took more interest in the child than Eleanor had expected. She stole him away one morning, and was laughing when she brought him back. She had shown him to her birds and they had welcomed him with much chirruping and fluttering; and after that, whenever he saw her with her basket on her arm, he would stretch out his arms to her for her to take him with her.

"Another child was born to them in the winter. They called him after Eleanor’s brother Jim; and later came a girl. They called her Norah. And then Eleanor fell ill. Anthony was terror-stricken. ... He would set to work at once upon those model dwellings. It was always easy for him now to find financial backing for his plans. He remembered Betty’s argument: “I wouldn’t have anything started that couldn’t be made to pay its own way in the long run. If it can’t do that it isn’t real. It isn’t going to last.” She was right. As a sound business proposition, the thing would live and grow. It was justice not charity that the world stood most in need of. He worked it out. For the rent these slum landlords were exacting for insanitary hovels the workers could be housed in decent flats. Eleanor’s illness had been pronounced dangerous. No time was to be lost. The ground was bought and cleared. Landripp, the architect, threw himself into his labours with enthusiasm."

"Eleanor came back to him more beautiful, it seemed to him, than she had ever been. They walked together, hand in hand, on the moor. She wanted to show him how strong she was. And coming to the old white thorn at the parting of the ways, she had raised her face to his; and he had drawn her to him and their lips had met, as if it had been for the first time.

"She would be unable to bear more children, but that did not trouble them. Little Jim and Norah grew and waxed strong and healthy. Norah promised to be the living image of her mother. She had her mother’s faults and failings that Anthony so loved; her mother’s wilfulness with just that look of regal displeasure when anyone offended or opposed her. But also with suggestion of her mother’s graciousness and kindness.

"Jim, likewise, took after the Coomber family. He had his uncle’s laughing eyes and all his obstinacy, so Eleanor declared. He was full of mischief, but had coaxing ways and was the idol of the servants’ hall.

"John was more of the dreamer. Lady Coomber had taught him to read. She had grown strangely fond of the child. In summer time they would take their books into the garden. They had green hiding-places known only to themselves. And in winter they had their “cave” behind the great carved screen in the library.

"As time went by Eleanor inclined more towards the two younger children. They were full of life and frolic, and were always wanting to do things. But Anthony’s heart yearned more towards John, his first-born."

................................................................................................

"Landripp had been killed during the building of the model dwellings. It had been his own fault. For a stout, elderly gentleman to run up and down swaying ladders, to scramble round chimney stacks, and balance himself on bending planks a hundred feet above the ground was absurd. There were younger men who could have done all that, who warned Mr. Landripp of the risks that he was running. He had insisted on supervising everything himself. The work from its commencement had been to him a labour of love. He was fearful lest a brick should be ill-laid.

"Anthony had a curious feeling of annoyance as he looked upon the bruised and broken heap of rubbish that had once been his friend. Landripp had been dead when they picked him up. They had put him on a stretcher and carried him round to his office. Anthony had heard the news almost immediately, and had reached Bruton Square as the men were coming out. The body lay on the big table in the room where he and Anthony had had their last long talk. The face had not suffered and the eyes were open. There may have been a lingering consciousness still behind them, for it seemed to Anthony that for an instant they smiled at him. And then suddenly the light went out of them."

"Landripp had left his daughter a few thousands, and she had decided to open a school again at Bruton Square, in the rooms that her father had used for his offices. Inheriting his conscientiousness, she had entered a training college to qualify herself as a teacher. Towards the end quite a friendship had existed between Mrs. Strong’nth’arm and the Landripps. With leisure and freedom from everlasting worry her native peasant wit had blossomed forth and grown; and Landripp had found her a wise talker. She had become too feeble for the long walk up to The Abbey, but was frightened of the carriage with its prancing horses. So often Eleanor would send little John down to spend the afternoon with her. Old Mrs. Newt was dead, and, save for a little maid, she was alone in the house. She made no claim with regard to the two younger children. It was only about John she was jealous.

"One day she took the child to see the house in Platt’s Lane where his father had been born. Old Witlock had finished his tinkering. His halfwitted son Matthew lived there by himself. No one else ever entered it. Matthew cooked his own meals and kept the place scrupulously clean. Most of the twenty-four hours he spent in the workshop. His skill and honesty brought him more jobs than he needed, but he preferred to remain single-handed. The workshop door was never closed. All day, summer and winter, so long as Matthew was there working, it remained wide open. At night Matthew slept there in a corner sheltered from the wind, and then it would be kept halfclosed, but so that anyone who wished could enter. He would never answer questions as to this odd whim of his, and his neighbours had ceased thinking about it. They took a great fancy to one another, Matthew and the child. Old Mrs. Strong’nth’arm would sometimes leave him there, and his father would call for him on the way home. He had taken for his own the stool on which wandering Peter had many years ago carved the King of the Gnomes. And there he would sit by the hour swinging his little legs, discussing things in general with Matthew while he worked. At the child’s request Anthony had bought the house and workshop so that Matthew might never fear being turned out.

"There grew up in the child a strange liking for this dismal quarter, or rather three-quarters of the town of Millsborough that lay around Platt’s Lane. Often, when his father called for him of an afternoon at Bruton Square he would plead for a walk in their direction before going home. He liked the moorland, too, with its bird life and its little creeping things in brake and cover that crouched so still while one passed by. There he would shout and scamper; and when he was tired his father would carry him on his shoulder. But in the long, sad streets he was less talkative.

"One day, walking through them, Anthony told him how, long ago, before the mean streets came, there had been green fields and flowers, with a little river winding its way among the rocks and through deep woods."

"It had to be further explained to John that the riches of the valley did not belong to the people who lived and died in the valley, who dug the coal and iron or otherwise handled it. To be quite frank, these sad-eyed men and women who now dwelt beside the foul, black Wyndbeck were perhaps worse off than their forbears who had dwelt here when the Wyndbeck flowed through sunlit fields and shady woods, undreaming of the hidden wealth that lay beneath their careless feet. But to a few who lived in fine houses, more or less far away, in distant cities, in pleasant country places. It was these few who had been made well off and happy by the riches of the valley. The workers of the valley did not even know the names of these scattered masters of theirs."

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"There came a day when Betty returned to take up her residence at The Priory. Since her father’s death she had been travelling. At first she and Anthony had corresponded regularly. They had discussed religion, politics, the science of things in general; he telling her of changes and happenings at home, and she telling him of her discoveries abroad. She wanted to see everything there was to be seen for herself, and then seek to make use of her knowledge. She would, of course, write a book. But after his eldest son’s death, which had happened when the child was about eight years old, Anthony for a time had not cared to write. Added to which there were long periods during which Betty had disappeared into ways untrodden of the postman. Letters had passed between them at ever-lengthening intervals, dealing so far as Anthony was concerned chiefly with business matters. It seemed idle writing about himself, his monotonous prosperity and unclouded domestic happiness. There were times when he would have been glad of a friend to whom he could have trusted secrets, but the thread had been broken. Conscious of strange differences in himself, he could not be sure that Betty likewise had not altered. Her letters remained friendly, often affectionate, but he no longer felt he knew her. Indeed there came to him the doubt that he ever had.

"It was on a winter’s afternoon that Anthony, leaving his office, walked across to The Priory to see her. She had been back about a week, but Anthony had been away up north on business."

"He was looking up at her puzzled. “I’ve got it,” he said suddenly.

"“Got what?” she laughed.

"“The difference in you,” he answered. “You were the elder of us when I saw you last, and now you are the younger. I don’t mean merely in appearance.”

"“It’s a shame,” she answered gravely. “You’ve been making money for me to spend. It’s that has made you old. They’re all so old, the moneymakers. I’ve met so many of them. Haven’t you made enough?”

"“Oh, it isn’t that,” he answered. “It gets to be a habit. I shouldn’t know what else to do with myself now.”

"She made him talk about himself. It was difficult at first, there seemed so little to tell. Jim was at Rugby and was going into the Guards. His uncle, Sir James, had married, and had three children, a boy and two girls. But the boy had been thrown from his pony while learning to ride and was a cripple. So it was up to young Strong’nth’arm to take over the Coomber tradition. As he would have plenty of money all would be easy. His uncle was still in India, but was coming back in the spring. He had been appointed to Aldershot.

"Norah was at Cheltenham. The Coomber girls had always gone to Cheltenham. She had ideas of her own and was anxious herself to cut school life short and finish her education abroad in Vienna. One of the disadvantages of being rich was that it separated you from your children. But for that the boy could have gone to his old friend Tetteridge. So far as education was concerned, he would have done better. The girl could have gone to Miss Landripp’s at Bruton Square. They would have been all together and it would have been jolly.

"Eleanor was wonderful. Betty would find her looking hardly a day older than when she had last seen her.

"Betty laughed. “Good for you, lad,” she said. “It means you are still seeing her through lover’s eyes. It’s seventeen years ago, the date you are speaking of.”

"Anthony could hardly believe it at first, but had to yield to facts. He still maintained that Eleanor was marvellous. Most women in her position would have clamoured for fashion and society, would have filled The Abbey with her swell friends and acquaintances, among whom Anthony would always have felt himself an outsider; would have insisted on a town house and a London season, Homburg and the Riviera, all that sort of thing, leaving Anthony to grind away at the money mill in Millsborough. That was what his mother had always feared. His mother had changed her opinion about Eleanor long ago. She had come to love her. Of course, when Norah came home there would have to be changes. But by that time it would all fit in. He would be done with money-making. He had discovered — or, rather, Eleanor had discovered it for him — that he was a good speaker. She had had to bully him at first into making the attempt, and the result had surprised even her. He might go into Parliament. Not with any idea of a political career, but to advocate reforms that he had in his mind. Parliament gave one a platform. One spoke to the whole country.

"Tea had been brought. They were sitting opposite to one another at a small table near the fire.

"“It reminds one of old times,” said Betty. “Do you remember our long walks and talks together up on the moor, we three. We had to shout to drown the wind.”

"He did not answer immediately. He was looking at a reflection of himself in a small Venetian mirror on the opposite wall. It came back to him what old Mr. Mowbray had once said to him as to his growing likeness to Ted. There was a suggestion, he could see it himself, especially about the eyes.

"“Yes,” he answered. “I remember. Ted was the dreamer. He dreamed of a new world. You were for the practical. You wanted improvements made in the old.”

"“Yes,” she answered. “I thought it could be done.”

"He shook his head.

"“You were wrong,” he said. “We were the dreamers. It was Ted had all the common sense.”

"“Oh, yes, I go on,” he said in answer to her look. “What else is to be done. There used to be hope in the world. Now one has to pretend to hope. I hoped model dwellings were going to do away with the slums. There are miles more slums in Millsborough to-day than there were ten years ago; and myself, if I had to choose now I’d prefer the slums. I’d feel less like being in prison. But we did all we could. We put them in baths. It was a new idea in Millsborough. The local Press was shocked. ‘Pampering the Proletariat,’ was one of their headlines. They could have saved their ink. Our bath was used to keep the coals in. If they didn’t do that they emptied their slops into it. It saved them the trouble of walking to the sink. We gave them all the latest sanitary improvements, and they block the drains by turning the places into dustbins. And those that don’t, throw their muck out of window. They don’t want cleanliness and decency. They were born and bred in mud and the dirt sticks to them; and they bring up their children not to mind it. And so it will go on. Of course, there are the few. You will find a few neat homes in the filthiest of streets. But they are lost among the mass, just as they were before. It has made no permanent difference. Millsborough is blacker, fouler, viler than it was when we started in to clean it. Garden suburbs. We began one of those five years ago on the slopes above Leeford, and already it has its Alsatia where its disreputables gather together for mutual aid and comfort. What is it all but clearing a small space and planting a garden in the middle of a jungle. Sooner or later the jungle closes in again. Every wind blows in seeds."

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Betty told about travelling from San Francisco to Hong Kong and conversation with a Chinese gentleman.

" ... Suddenly I heard him say that the great stumbling-block in the way of man’s progress was God. Coming from anybody else the remark would have irritated me; but I knew he wasn’t trying to be clever; and as he went on to explain himself I found myself in agreement with him. Man’s idea of God is of some all-powerful Being who is going to do everything for him. Man has no need to exert himself. God, moving in mysterious ways, is labouring to make the world a paradise where man may dwell in peace and happiness. All man has to do is to trust in God and practise patience. Man, if he took the task in hand for himself could turn this world into a paradise to-morrow without waiting for God. But it would mean man giving up his greeds and passions. It is easier to watch and pray. God has promised man the millennium, in the dim and distant future. Men by agreeing together could have the millennium ready in time for their own children. ..."

"“God is within us. We are God. Man’s free will is boundless. His future is in his own hands. Man has only to control his evil instincts and heaven is here; Man can conquer himself. Of his own will, he does so every day. For the purposes of business, of pleasure, of social intercourse, he puts a curb upon his lusts and passions. It is only the savage, the criminal that lets them master him. Man is capable of putting greed and selfishness out of his life. History, a record of man’s sin and folly, is also a record of man’s power to overcome within himself the obstacles that stand in the way of his own progress.

"“Garibaldi called upon his volunteers to disregard all worldly allurements, to embrace suffering, wounds and death for the cause of Italian unity.

"And the young men flocked to his banners. Let the young men once grasp that not God but they themselves can win for all mankind freedom and joy, and an ever-increasing number of them will be willing to make the necessary sacrifice."

"Betty put in two or three years at The Priory on and off, occupying herself chiefly with writing. But the wanderlust had got into her blood, and her book finished she grew restless."

"She was going into central Russia. She had passed through there some years ago and had happened upon one of its ever recurring famines. There was talk of another in the coming winter.

"“The granary of Europe,” she continued. “I believe we import one-third of our grain from Russia. And every year the peasants die there of starvation by the thousand. That year I was there they reckoned a hundred thousand perished in one valley. They were eating the corpses of the children. And on my way to St. Petersburg I passed stations were the corn was rotting by the roadside. The price had fallen and it wasn’t worth transporting. The devil must get some fun looking down upon the world.”"

"There had followed a silence. How long it lasted neither could have told. The door opened and Eleanor entered.

"Betty explained that they might not be meeting again for some time. She was off to Russia. Eleanor was curious and Betty explained her plans.

"Eleanor was seated on the arm of Anthony’s chair.

"She jumped down from her perch, and taking Betty’s face in her hands kissed her.

"“How fine of you,” she said. “I rather envy you.”"

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"In the morning there had been the unveiling of the war memorial, the great granite cross with the four bronze guns at its base. It stood high up on the crest of the moor, for all the town to see, the sky for its background; and carved in golden letters round its pedestal, so that the cold grey cross seemed, as it were, to have grown out of their blood, the names of the young men who had given their lives that England might rejoice. His speech had been a supreme success. It had moved the people as such speeches rarely do, for with every word he uttered he had been thinking of himself.

"Even his two children, occasionally critical of him, had congratulated him. The boy had had tears in his eyes. He had looked very handsome in his weather-stained uniform, in spite of the angry scar across his cheek. He had taken things into his own hands at the beginning of the war, had enlisted as a private, and had won his commission on the field. For Norah, the war had happened at a providential moment. During the suffrage movement she had caused Eleanor many a sleepless night. The war had caught her up and directed her passions into orthodox channels. It had done even better for her. It had thrown her into the company of quite a nice boy, with only a consumptive cousin between him and an ancient peerage. To Anthony himself, the war had brought, without any effort of his own, increasing wealth and power. Millsborough had become a shining centre for the output of munitions. Anthony’s genius for organization had been the motive force behind. At the luncheon that had followed the unveiling of the memorial a Cabinet Minister had dropped hints. Eleanor’s prophecy of long ago that Anthony would become a millionaire with a seat in the House of Lords would all come true.

"In the evening the great new dining-room, fashioned out of the ruins of what had once been the monk’s refectory, had been thrown open for the first time. All their world and his wife had dined there; his fellow-townsmen who had grown up with him, who had watched, admired and envied his marvellous career; county folk from far and near; famous folk, humble folk. The Reverend Horace Pendergast, most eloquent of divines, and soon to be a bishop, had proposed the toast of “The uncrowned king of Millsborough,” his dear and well-beloved cousin Anthony Strong’nth’arm — had quoted scripture appropriate in speaking of one so evidently singled out for favour by the Lord. General Sir James Coomber, in a short, blunt speech, had seconded the toast, claiming merit for himself as having from the first, and against family opposition, encouraged his sister to stick to her guns and marry the man of her choice. Not that she had needed much encouragement, Jim had added amid laughter. She would have done it, was Jim’s opinion, if all the King’s horses and all the King’s men had tried to prevent her. And from Eleanor, seated at the other end of the long table, had come a distinct “Hear, hear,” followed by more laughter. Others, one after another, had risen spontaneously to add their testimony to the honour and affection with which he was regarded throughout Millsborough, and all round about."

"He had made his plans. He would rent a small house, next door to where his mother still lived in Bruton Square, and practise there as a solicitor. The old lady was still active and capable. If need be — if he had to go alone — she could keep house for him. He was keen on Bruton Square. It was where the mean part of the town began. It would not be too far for the poor to come to him. The little modest house would not frighten them with suggestion of charges beyond their means, of contemptuous indifference to their unprofitable bits of business. He would be able to help them, to keep them from falling into the hands of charlatans. They would come to trust him in their troubles. He might often be able to serve as mediator, as peacemaker between them. It would be a legitimate way of earning his living.

"It was essential that he should earn his living. That seemed to him of tremendous importance."

"HE had not asked her for an answer. She had promised to think it out. She might wish to talk it over with Jim. She and Jim had always been very near to one another. And there were the children to be consulted. She was to be quite free to choose. Everything would be arranged according to her decision. He had said nothing to persuade her — unless he had hoped that by explaining to her his own reasons he might influence her — and beyond a few questions she had remained a silent listener. It was shamefacedly, as one confessing a guilty secret, that he had told her. From the tones of his voice, the look in his eyes, she had read his unconscious pleading to her to come with him. But whether she went with him or stayed behind would make no difference to his going. It was that had hardened her.

"To a certain extent she had been prepared. Ever since the child John’s death she had felt the change that was taking place in him. There was an Anthony she did not know, dimly associated in her mind with that lover of her dream who standing by the latchet gate had beckoned to her, and from whom she had hidden herself, afraid. She had set herself to turn his thoughts aside towards social reform, philanthropy. It was with this idea she had urged him to throw himself into public affairs, to prepare for Parliament. She had hoped for that. There she could have helped him. It would have satisfied her own craving to be doing something herself.

"And then the war had engulfed them, obliterating all other horizons: it had left her nothing but her animal emotions. Her boy’s life! She could think of nothing else. Norah was in France; and she also was in the danger zone. The need of work — distraction obsessed her. She had found a rambling old house, far away upon the moors, and had converted it into a convalescent hospital.

"Labour was scarce and the entire management had fallen upon her own shoulders. Anthony’s duties had confined him to Millsborough. For years they had seen one another only for a few hours at a time. There had been no opportunity for intimate talk. It was not until her return home to The Abbey that her fear had come back to her. There was no definable reason. It was as if it had always been there — a presence, waiting its time. One evening, walking in the garden, she had seen him standing there by the latchet gate, and had crept back into the house. She had the feeling that it would be there, by the latchet gate, that he would tell her. So long as she could avoid meeting him there she could put it off, indefinitely. The surer she felt of it, the more important it seemed to her to put it off — for a little while longer."

"Why should it seem so impossible? Her present ordered existence, mapped out from year to year, calling for neither thought nor effort, admitting of neither hope nor fear, the sheltered life of a pampered child — had not that also its dullness, its monotony? Why did rich people rent sæters in Norway, live there for months at a time on hunter’s fare, doing their own cooking and cleaning — welcome the perils and hardships of mountain climbing; of big game shooting; of travels into unknown lands: choose danger, privation and toil, and call it a “holiday”? Had not she herself found the simple living and hard work of the hospital a welcome change from everlasting luxuriousness?"

" ... It came back to her, the memory of her girlhood’s days when they had lived in third-rate boarding-houses in Rome and Florence; rented small furnished appartements in French provincial towns; cheap lodgings in Dresden and Hanover. There had been no lack of fun and laughter in those days. Those musical evenings to which each student brought his own beer, and was mightily careful to take back with him the empty bottles, for which, otherwise, ten pfennigs would be charged. How busy she and her mother had been beforehand, cutting the sandwiches and how sparing of the butter. Some of the players had made world-famous names; and others had died or maybe still lived — unknown. One of them she had heard just recently, paying ten guineas for her box; but his music had sounded no sweeter than when she had listened to it sitting beside Jim on the uncarpeted floor, there not being chairs enough to go round. Where had she heard better talk than from the men with shiny coat sleeves and frayed trousers who had come to sup with her father off macaroni and chianti at two lire the flask? There might be clever, brilliant men and women even in Millsborough. So far as she could judge she had never succeeded in securing any of them for her great receptions at The Abbey. They might be less shy of dropping in at Bruton Square."

"Had she thought like that, during the war, of the men who had given money but who had shirked the mud and blood of the trenches — of the shouters who had pointed out to others the gate of service?

"Neither rich nor poor, neither great nor simple — only comrades. Would it ever be won, the war to end war — man’s victory over himself?"

"And suddenly it came to her that this was the Great Adventure of the World, calling to the brave and hopeful to follow, heedless, where God’s trumpet led. Somewhere — perhaps near, perhaps far — there lay the Promised Land. It might be theirs to find it — at least to see it from afar. If not — ! Their feet should help to mark the road.

"Yes, she too would give up her possessions; put fear behind her. Together, hand in hand, they would go forward, joyously."

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October 08, 2020 -

October 12, 2020 - October 13, 2020.

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The Short Story Collections

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TOLD AFTER SUPPER

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This certainly begins very promisingly, in the style known best to any reader familiar with the best of Jerome K. Jerome works.

"It was Christmas Eve.

"I begin this way because it is the proper, orthodox, respectable way to begin, and I have been brought up in a proper, orthodox, respectable way, and taught to always do the proper, orthodox, respectable thing; and the habit clings to me.

"Of course, as a mere matter of information it is quite unnecessary to mention the date at all. The experienced reader knows it was Christmas Eve, without my telling him. It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story,

"Christmas Eve is the ghosts' great gala night. On Christmas Eve they hold their annual fete. On Christmas Eve everybody in Ghostland who IS anybody—or rather, speaking of ghosts, one should say, I suppose, every nobody who IS any nobody—comes out to show himself or herself, to see and to be seen, to promenade about and display their winding-sheets and grave-clothes to each other, to criticise one another's style, and sneer at one another's complexion."

"Ghosts with no position to maintain—mere middle-class ghosts— occasionally, I believe, do a little haunting on off-nights: on All-hallows Eve, and at Midsummer; and some will even run up for a mere local event—to celebrate, for instance, the anniversary of the hanging of somebody's grandfather, or to prophesy a misfortune.

"He does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average British ghost. Send him out to prognosticate trouble to somebody, and he is happy. Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn the whole house upside down by foretelling a funeral, or predicting a bankruptcy, or hinting at a coming disgrace, or some other terrible disaster, about which nobody in their senses want to know sooner they could possibly help, and the prior knowledge of which can serve no useful purpose whatsoever, and he feels that he is combining duty with pleasure. He would never forgive himself if anybody in his family had a trouble and he had not been there for a couple of months beforehand, doing silly tricks on the lawn, or balancing himself on somebody's bed-rail.

"Then there are, besides, the very young, or very conscientious ghosts with a lost will or an undiscovered number weighing heavy on their minds, who will haunt steadily all the year round; and also the fussy ghost, who is indignant at having been buried in the dust-bin or in the village pond, and who never gives the parish a single night's quiet until somebody has paid for a first-class funeral for him.

"But these are the exceptions. As I have said, the average orthodox ghost does his one turn a year, on Christmas Eve, and is satisfied.

"Why on Christmas Eve, of all nights in the year, I never could myself understand. It is invariably one of the most dismal of nights to be out in—cold, muddy, and wet. And besides, at Christmas time, everybody has quite enough to put up with in the way of a houseful of living relations, without wanting the ghosts of any dead ones mooning about the place, I am sure.

"There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas—something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails.

"And not only do the ghosts themselves always walk on Christmas Eve, but live people always sit and talk about them on Christmas Eve. Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about spectres. It is a genial, festive season, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, and murders, and blood."

And the rest more than fulfills the promise - it's not just the author's comments, but even some of the stories are hilarious.

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August 06, 2020- August 06, 2020.

This etext was prepared

by David Price,

email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

from the 1891 Leadenhall Press edition

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JOHN INGERFIELD AND OTHER STORIES

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John Ingerfield, and Other Stories

Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) 1859-1927 Jerome

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"First published in 1893, this is a collection of stories that Jerome had originally composed for the periodical press. By this point, Jerome was becoming tired of being constantly seen as a writer purely of humorous stories — so much so that he felt moved to write a note to readers insisting that the at least three of the stories in this collection (“John Ingerfield”, “The Woman of the Sæter” and “Silhouettes”) were most emphatically not intended as comedies and were to be taken as seriously as any author’s work. Readers of these stories surely need no such warning, as they encounter grim and tragic subject matter, including financial ruin, unhappy marriages and untimely death, all of which are effectively and memorably portrayed."

"TO THE GENTLE READER; also TO THE GENTLE CRITIC.

"Once upon a time, I wrote a little story of a woman who was crushed to death by a python. A day or two after its publication, a friend stopped me in the street. “Charming little story of yours,” he said, “that about the woman and the snake; but it’s not as funny as some of your things!” The next week, a newspaper, referring to the tale, remarked, “We have heard the incident related before with infinitely greater humour.”

"With this — and many similar experiences — in mind, I wish distinctly to state that “John Ingerfield,” “The Woman of the Sæter,” and “Silhouettes,” are not intended to be amusing. The two other items—”Variety Patter,” and “The Lease of the Cross Keys” — I give over to the critics of the new humour to rend as they will; but “John Ingerfield,” “The Woman of the Sæter,” and “Silhouettes,” I repeat, I should be glad if they would judge from some other standpoint than that of humour, new or old."
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IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOHN INGERFIELD,

AND OF ANNE, HIS WIFE

A STORY OF OLD LONDON, IN TWO CHAPTERS

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"Peering through the railings on the side nearest the river, you will see beneath the shadow of the soot-grimed church’s soot-grimed porch — that is, if the sun happen, by rare chance, to be strong enough to cast any shadow at all in that region of grey light — a curiously high and narrow headstone that once was white and straight, not tottering and bent with age as it is now. There is upon this stone a carving in bas-relief, as you will see for yourself if you will make your way to it through the gateway on the opposite side of the square. It represents, so far as can be made out, for it is much worn by time and dirt, a figure lying on the ground with another figure bending over it, while at a little distance stands a third object. But this last is so indistinct that it might be almost anything, from an angel to a post.

"And below the carving are the words (already half obliterated) that I have used for the title of this story."

"But lest you do not choose to go to all this trouble, or lest the old men who could tell it you have grown tired of all talk, and are not to be roused ever again into the telling of tales, and you yet wish for the story, I will here set it down for you.

"But I cannot recount it to you as they told it to me, for to me it was only a tale that I heard and remembered, thinking to tell it again for profit, while to them it was a thing that had been, and the threads of it were interwoven with the woof of their own life."

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"Ingerfields, hard men and grasping men though they be — men caring more for the getting of money than for the getting of love — loving more the cold grip of gold than the grip of kith or kin, yet bear buried in their hearts the seeds of a nobler manhood, for which, however, the barren soil of their ambition affords scant nourishment.

"The John Ingerfield of this story is a man very typical of his race."

"Ingerfields have ever been good citizens, worthy heads of families, openhanded hosts, making a brave show among friends and neighbours."

"What shall she be?

"He is rich, and can afford a good article. She must be young and handsome, fit to grace the fine house he will take for her in fashionable Bloomsbury, far from the odour and touch of oil and tallow. She must be well bred, with a gracious, noble manner, that will charm his guests and reflect honour and credit upon himself; she must, above all, be of good family, with a genealogical tree sufficiently umbrageous to hide Lavender Wharf from the eyes of Society.

"What else she may or may not be he does not very much care. She will, of course, be virtuous and moderately pious, as it is fit and proper that women should be. It will also be well that her disposition be gentle and yielding, but that is of minor importance, at all events so far as he is concerned: the Ingerfield husbands are not the class of men upon whom wives vent their tempers.

"Having decided in his mind what she shall be, he proceeds to discuss with himself who she shall be."

He knew none, so he asked someone who owed him, to find one. He did.

"If all John Ingerfield requires for a wife is a beautiful social machine, surely here he has found his ideal. Anne Singleton, only daughter of that persistently unfortunate but most charming of baronets, Sir Harry Singleton (more charming, it is rumoured, outside his family circle than within it), is a stately graceful, high-bred woman. Her portrait, by Reynolds, still to be seen above the carved wainscoting of one of the old City halls, shows a wonderfully handsome and clever face, but at the same time a wonderfully cold and heartless one. It is the face of a woman half weary of, half sneering at the world. One reads in old family letters, whereof the ink is now very faded and the paper very yellow, long criticisms of this portrait. The writers complain that if the picture is at all like her she must have greatly changed since her girlhood, for they remember her then as having a laughing and winsome expression.

"They say — they who knew her in after-life — that this earlier face came back to her in the end, so that the many who remembered opening their eyes and seeing her bending down over them could never recognise the portrait of the beautiful sneering lady, even when they were told whom it represented.

"But at the time of John Ingerfield’s strange wooing she was the Anne Singleton of Sir Joshua’s portrait, and John Ingerfield liked her the better that she was.

"He had no feeling of sentiment in the matter himself, and it simplified the case that she had none either. He offered her a plain bargain, and she accepted it. For all he knew or cared, her attitude towards this subject of marriage was the usual one assumed by women. Very young girls had their heads full of romantic ideas. It was better for her and for him that she had got rid of them.

"“Ours will be a union founded on good sense,” said John Ingerfield.

"“Let us hope the experiment will succeed,” said Anne Singleton."

"John Ingerfield, when he asked Anne Singleton to be his wife, felt no more love for her than he felt for any of the other sumptuous household appointments he was purchasing about the same time, and made no pretence of doing so. Nor, had he done so, would she have believed him; for Anne Singleton has learned much in her twenty-two summers and winters, and knows that love is only a meteor in life’s sky, and that the true lodestar of this world is gold. Anne Singleton has had her romance and buried it deep down in her deep nature and over its grave, to keep its ghost from rising, has piled the stones of indifference and contempt, as many a woman has done before and since."

"Her part of the contract she faithfully fulfils, for the Singletons also have their code of honour. Her beauty, her tact, her charm, her influence, are devoted to his service — to the advancement of his position, the furtherance of his ambition. Doors that would otherwise remain closed she opens to him. Society, that would otherwise pass by with a sneer, sits round his table. His wishes and pleasures are hers. In all things she yields him wifely duty, seeks to render herself agreeable to him, suffers in silence his occasional caresses. Whatever was implied in the bargain, that she will perform to the letter.

"He, on his side, likewise performs his part with businesslike conscientiousness — nay, seeing that the pleasing of her brings no personal gratification to himself — not without generosity. He is ever thoughtful of and deferential to her, awarding her at all times an unvarying courteousness that is none the less sincere for being studied. Her every expressed want is gratified, her every known distaste respected. Conscious of his presence being an oppression to her, he is even careful not to intrude it upon her oftener than is necessary."

When typhus was detected, John told Anne to visit her father for the while; instead she joined John at his workplace to help the people, and it became a real partnership.

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"And then a few hundred yards farther on there occurs one of the most extraordinary events that has ever happened in that street before or since: John Ingerfield laughs.

"John Ingerfield, of Lavender Wharf, after walking two-thirds of Creek Lane, muttering to himself with his eyes on the ground, stops in the middle of the road and laughs; and one small boy, who tells the story to his dying day, sees him and hears him, and runs home at the top of his speed with the wonderful news, and is conscientiously slapped by his mother for telling lies.

"All that day Anne works like a heroine, John helping her, and occasionally getting in the way. By night she has her little hospital prepared and three beds already up and occupied; and, all now done that can be done, she and John go upstairs to his old rooms above the counting-house.

"John ushers her into them with some misgiving, for by contrast with the house at Bloomsbury they are poor and shabby. He places her in the arm-chair near the fire, begging her to rest quiet, and then assists his old housekeeper, whose wits, never of the strongest, have been scared by the day’s proceeding, to lay the meal.

"Anne’s eyes follow him as he moves about the room. Perhaps here, where all the real part of his life has been passed, he is more his true self than amid the unfamiliar surroundings of fashion; perhaps this simpler frame shows him to greater advantage; but Anne wonders how it is she has never noticed before that he is a well-set, handsome man. Nor, indeed, is he so very old-looking. Is it a trick of the dim light, or what? He looks almost young. But why should he not look young, seeing he is only thirty-six, and at thirty-six a man is in his prime? Anne wonders why she has always thought of him as an elderly person.

"A portrait of one of John’s ancestors hangs over the great mantelpiece — of that sturdy Captain Ingerfield who fought the King’s frigate rather than give up one of his people. Anne glances from the dead face to the living and notes the strong likeness between them. Through her half-closed eyes she sees the grim old captain hurling back his message of defiance, and his face is the face she saw a few hours ago, saying, “I mean to stop here with you and do what I can for you. None of my people shall want.”

"John is placing a chair for her at the table, and the light from the candles falls upon him. She steals another glance at his face — a strong, stern, handsome face, capable of becoming a noble face. Anne wonders if it has ever looked down tenderly at anyone; feels a sudden fierce pain at the thought; dismisses the thought as impossible; wonders, nevertheless, how tenderness would suit it; thinks she would like to see a look of tenderness upon it, simply out of curiosity; wonders if she ever will.

"She rouses herself from her reverie as John, with a smile, tells her supper is ready, and they seat themselves opposite each other, an odd air of embarrassment pervading.

"Day by day their work grows harder; day by day the foe grows stronger, fiercer, more all-conquering; and day by day, fighting side by side against it, John Ingerfield and Anne, his wife, draw closer to each other. On the battle-field of life we learn the worth of strength. Anne feels it good, when growing weary, to glance up and find him near her; feels it good, amid the troubled babel round her, to hear the deep, strong music of his voice.

"And John, watching Anne’s fair figure moving to and fro among the stricken and the mourning; watching her fair, fluttering hands, busy with their holy work, her deep, soul-haunting eyes, changeful with the light and shade of tenderness; listening to her sweet, clear voice, laughing with the joyous, comforting the comfortless, gently commanding, softly pleading, finds creeping into his brain strange new thoughts concerning women — concerning this one woman in particular."

It happened. They were in love, and found one another.

"With that kiss they enter a new life whereinto one may not follow them. One thinks it must have been a life made strangely beautiful by self-forgetfulness, strangely sweet by mutual devotion — a life too ideal, perhaps, to have remained for long undimmed by the mists of earth.

"They who remember them at that time speak of them in hushed tones, as one speaks of visions. It would almost seem as though from their faces in those days there shone a radiance, as though in their voices dwelt a tenderness beyond the tenderness of man.

"They seem never to rest, never to weary. Day and night, through that little stricken world, they come and go, bearing healing and peace, till at last the plague, like some gorged beast of prey, slinks slowly back towards its lair, and men raise their heads and breathe."

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But then he caught it, and attempted to save her by fleeing, sending a message he was going away on business and she was to go home. She found him, not believing the message, and tended to him till the end. She lasted only a few weeks longer.

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September 15, 2020 - September 16, 2020.

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THE WOMAN OF THE SÆTER..

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He begins about wild reindeer hunting in Norway, which he spells Norroway.

"For hour after hour you toil over the steep, stony ground, or wind through the pines, speaking in whispers, lest your voice reach the quick ears of your prey, that keeps its head ever pressed against the wind. Here and there, in the hollows of the hills lie wide fields of snow, over which you pick your steps thoughtfully, listening to the smothered thunder of the torrent, tunnelling its way beneath your feet, and wondering whether the frozen arch above it be at all points as firm as is desirable. Now and again, as in single file you walk cautiously along some jagged ridge, you catch glimpses of the green world, three thousand feet below you; though you gaze not long upon the view, for your attention is chiefly directed to watching the footprints of the guide, lest by deviating to the right or left you find yourself at one stride back in the valley — or, to be more correct, are found there.

"These things you do, and as exercise they are healthful and invigorating. But a reindeer you never see, and unless, overcoming the prejudices of your British-bred conscience, you care to take an occasional pop at a fox, you had better have left your rifle at the hut, and, instead, have brought a stick which would have been helpful. Notwithstanding which the guide continues sanguine, and in broken English, helped out by stirring gesture, tells of the terrible slaughter generally done by sportsmen under his superintendence, and of the vast herds that generally infest these fields; and when you grow sceptical upon the subject of Reins he whispers alluringly of Bears.

"Once in a way you will come across a track, and will follow it breathlessly for hours, and it will lead to a sheer precipice. Whether the explanation is suicide, or a reprehensible tendency on the part of the animal towards practical joking, you are left to decide for yourself. Then, with many rough miles between you and your rest, you abandon the chase.

"But I speak from personal experience merely."

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They found their way in dark to a hut where they found old letters, giving history of the hut.

"“The story is that the house was built by one Hund, ‘a maker of runes’ (one of the old saga writers, no doubt), who lived here with his young wife. All went peacefully until, unfortunately for him, a certain maiden stationed at a neighbouring sæter grew to love him.

"“Forgive me if I am telling you what you know, but a ‘sæter’ is the name given to the upland pastures to which, during the summer, are sent the cattle, generally under the charge of one or more of the maids. Here for three months these girls will live in their lonely huts, entirely shut off from the world. Customs change little in this land. Two or three such stations are within climbing distance of this house, at this day, looked after by the farmers’ daughters, as in the days of Hund, ‘maker of runes.’

"“Every night, by devious mountain paths, the woman would come and tap lightly at Hund’s door. Hund had built himself two cabins, one behind the other (these are now, as I think I have explained to you, connected by a passage); the smaller one was the homestead; in the other he carved and wrote, so that while the young wife slept the ‘maker of runes’ and the sæter woman sat whispering.

"“One night, however, the wife learnt all things, but said no word. Then, as now, the ravine in front of the enclosure was crossed by a slight bridge of planks, and over this bridge the woman of the sæter passed and repassed each night. On a day when Hund had gone down to fish in the fiord, the wife took an axe, and hacked and hewed at the bridge, yet it still looked firm and solid; and that night, as Hund sat waiting in his workshop, there struck upon his ears a piercing cry, and a crashing of logs and rolling rock, and then again the dull roaring of the torrent far below.

"“But the woman did not die unavenged; for that winter a man, skating far down the fiord, noticed a curious object embedded in the ice; and when, stooping, he looked closer, he saw two corpses, one gripping the other by the throat, and the bodies were the bodies of Hund and his young wife.

"“Since then, they say, the woman of the sæter haunts Hund’s house, and if she sees a light within she taps upon the door, and no man may keep her out. Many, at different times, have tried to occupy the house, but strange tales are told of them. ‘Men do not live at Hund’s sæter,’ said my old grey-haired friend, concluding his tale,—’they die there.’"

Further letters go on to describe a recreation of the story in life of the writer of the letters.

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"At the first streak of dawn we left the house, and, after much wandering, found our way back to the valley. But of our guide we heard no news. Whether he remained still upon the mountain, or whether by some false step he had perished upon that night, we never learnt."

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September 16, 2020 - September 16, 2020.

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VARIETY PATTER.

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"It was during the Christmas holidays, and my aunt had given me five shillings to go and see Phelps — I think it was Phelps — in Coriolanus — I think it was Coriolanus. Anyhow, it was to see a high-class and improving entertainment, I know.

"I suggested that I should induce young Skegson, who lived in our road, to go with me. Skegson is a barrister now, and could not tell you the difference between a knave of clubs and a club of knaves. A few years hence he will, if he works hard, be innocent enough for a judge."

"He came, and made a most favourable impression upon both my mother and my aunt. He had a way of talking about the advantages of application to study in early life, and the duties of youth towards those placed in authority over it, that won for him much esteem in grown-up circles. The spirit of the Bar had descended upon Skegson at a very early period of his career."

"Skegson was very silent during the journey. An idea was evidently maturing in his mind. At the Angel he stopped and said: “Look here, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Don’t let’s go and see that rot. Let’s go to a Music Hall.”"

"Skegson insisted that we should do the thing in style, so we stopped at a shop near the Agricultural Hall and purchased some big cigars. A huge card in the window claimed for these that they were “the most satisfactory twopenny smokes in London.” I smoked two of them during the evening, and never felt more satisfied — using the word in its true sense, as implying that a person has had enough of a thing, and does not desire any more of it, just then — in all my life. Where we went, and what we saw, my memory is not very clear upon. We sat at a little marble table. I know it was marble because it was so hard, and cool to the head. From out of the smoky mist a ponderous creature of strange, undefined shape floated heavily towards us, and deposited a squat tumbler in front of me containing a pale yellowish liquor, which subsequent investigation has led me to believe must have been Scotch whisky. It seemed to me then the most nauseous stuff I had ever swallowed. It is curious to look back and notice how one’s tastes change.

"I reached home very late and very sick. That was my first dissipation, and, as a lesson, it has been of more practical use to me than all the good books and sermons in the world could have been. I can remember to this day standing in the middle of the room in my night-shirt, trying to catch my bed as it came round.

"Next morning I confessed everything to my mother, and, for several months afterwards, was a reformed character. Indeed, the pendulum of my conscience swung too far the other way, and I grew exaggeratedly remorseful and unhealthily moral."

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"She did not waste time on the rest of the audience. She went direct for that coalheaver, and thereupon ensued a slanging match the memory of which sends a trill of admiration through me even to this day. It was a battle worthy of the gods. He was a heaver of coals, quick and ready beyond his kind. During many years sojourn East and South, in the course of many wanderings from Billingsgate to Limehouse Hole, from Petticoat Lane to Whitechapel Road; out of eel-pie shop and penny gaff; out of tavern and street, and court and doss-house, he had gathered together slang words and terms and phrases, and they came back to him now, and he stood up against her manfully.

"But as well might the lamb stand up against the eagle, when the shadow of its wings falls across the green pastures, and the wind flies before its dark oncoming. At the end of two minutes he lay gasping, dazed, and speechless.

"Then she began.

"She announced her intention of “wiping down the bloomin’ ‘all” with him, and making it respectable; and, metaphorically speaking, that is what she did. Her tongue hit him between the eyes, and knocked him down and trampled on him. It curled round and round him like a whip, and then it uncurled and wound the other way. It seized him by the scruff of his neck, and tossed him up into the air, and caught him as he descended, and flung him to the ground, and rolled him on it. It played around him like forked lightning, and blinded him. It danced and shrieked about him like a host of whirling fiends, and he tried to remember a prayer, and could not. It touched him lightly on the sole of his foot and the crown of his head, and his hair stood up straight, and his limbs grew stiff. The people sitting near him drew away, not feeling it safe to be near, and left him alone, surrounded by space, and language."

"Then she folded her arms, and stood silent; and the house, from floor to ceiling, rose and cheered her until there was no more breath left in its lungs.

"In that one night she stepped from oblivion into success. She is now a famous “artiste.”

"But she does not call herself Signora Ballatino, and she does not play upon the zithern. Her name has a homelier sound, and her speciality is the delineation of coster character."

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September 16, 2020 - September 16, 2020.

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SILHOUETTES.

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Collection of few vivid memories of a child, of frightening, unexplained sort.
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"In the far back days of the building of the world, a long, high ridge of stones had been reared up by the sea, dividing the swampy grassland from the sand. Some of these stones—”pebbles,” so they called them round about — were as big as a man, and many as big as a fair-sized house; and when the sea was angry — and very prone he was to anger by that lonely shore, and very quick to wrath; often have I known him sink to sleep with a peaceful smile on his rippling waves, to wake in fierce fury before the night was spent — he would snatch up giant handfuls of these pebbles and fling and toss them here and there, till the noise of their rolling and crashing could be heard by the watchers in the village afar off.

"“Old Nick’s playing at marbles to-night,” they would say to one another, pausing to listen. And then the women would close tight their doors, and try not to hear the sound."

What comes next, about this rocky shore, is, likely, a hint about a murder due to an affair.

Then there are a couple about another, unexplained, couple of memories, one about a mob seeking to lynch, another about a finality and a need to begin afresh.

Very vivid, and just as mysterious.

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September 16, 2020 - September 16, 2020.

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THE LEASE OF THE “CROSS KEYS.”

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Delightful story, about a reporter, mistaken for a bishop by the barkeeper.

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September 16, 2020 - September 16, 2020.

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September 15, 2020 - September 16, 2020.

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SKETCHES IN LAVENDER, BLUE AND GREEN

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Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green

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Reginald Blake, Financier and Cad

The story is far too similar to another one, but the end here is quite different, and the twist unexpected.
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An item of Fashionable Intelligence

Here the author tells about a Countess who manages the earl and his earldom, but wasn't born to the caste - was the youngest of a linen-draper's brood of seven sons and eight daughters, and serving at a bakery as a waitress when she was first seen by the future husband. He gave a false name and identity in courting her, fearing his family's displeasure, so she fell in love and got engaged without any inkling about his status. But she had the old Countess to deal with, and how she managed, is the story.
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Blasé Billy

This one, perhaps this author's finest, reminds one in the beginning of the famous story about Calvin Coolidge who responded, when a woman guest at dinner said she'd taken a bet she'd make him say more than two words, "you lose"! Here, the protagonist is all out to vex Billy at the club out of his cool reticence.

"I opined that conversation was not to his wish, but this only made me more determined to talk, and to talk to him above all others in London. The desire took hold of me to irritate him—to break down the imperturbable calm within which he moved and had his being; and I gathered myself together, and settled down to the task.

"“Interesting paper the Times,” I observed.
"“Very,” he replied, taking it from the floor and handing it to me. “Won’t you read it?”"
Billy, however, isn't to be manipulated.
"An ancient nurse of mine had always described me as the most “wearing” child she had ever come across. I prefer to speak of myself as persevering."
"“Tried Central Africa?” I inquired.
"“Once or twice,” he answered. “It always reminds me of Kew Gardens.”
"“China?” I hazarded.
"“Cross between a willow-pattern plate and a New York slum,” was his comment.
"“The North Pole?” I tried, thinking the third time might be lucky.
"“Never got quite up to it,” he returned. “Reached Cape Hakluyt once.”
"“How did that impress you?” I asked.
"“It didn’t impress me,” he replied."

And Billy is the delight of the story, to begin with. The twist is him falling in love, and being no longer quite so blasé. And, as this author does more than once, there are a couple of more twists. The story begins with great comic effect, but the twists bring it over love and cliff of tragedy where it simply takes flight.
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The Choice of Cyril Harjohn

About a man who loves a woman saintly without being cold, but is pulled by desire for another who'd marry him only for money he'd have to make for her; he travels half the world away to escape the latter, but it's of no avail.
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The Materialisation of Charles and Mivanway

The couple married young, quarrelled and was emotional without cool heads prevailing, separated, and his ship was reported sunk, his being alive not known. Their assuming one another dead, meeting one another in the same romantic spot and taking each other for ghosts, all very romantic. Then the classic added double twist - and he keeps the best one for last.
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Portrait of a Lady

An author, in need of quiet for working, travels to Yorkshire wolds and takes up a room in a cottage of a mother and daughter, and discovers history of an earlier occupant of the room. There is a diary written by a beautiful young woman whose portrait he sees, and it looks familiar. The artist had made her renounce him so he could marry another, and the diary ends abruptly, but through the letters of the artist the author discovers his name and realises he knows the man, his wife, his home - he's miserable, having married into society. And then, the authors twist, about the figure he'd seen in the window.
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The Man Who Would Manage

"No human being worked harder for the enjoyment of others, or produced more universal wretchedness."

"He never spared himself. It was always he who would volunteer to escort the old ladies to the station, and who would never leave them until he had seen them safely into the wrong train. He it was who would play “wild beasts” with the children, and frighten them into fits that would last all night.

"So far as intention went, he was the kindest man alive. He never visited poor sick persons without taking with him in his pocket some little delicacy calculated to disagree with them and make them worse. He arranged yachting excursions for bad sailors, entirely at his own expense, and seemed to regard their subsequent agonies as ingratitude."

Hilarious in the true form of this author.
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The Man Who Lived For Others

Again, hilarious in the true form of this author - this one is about an English man who goes to a great deal of trouble to do exactly what others expect, just so they won't be disappointed. A subtle sarcasm about most people, at that.

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A Man of Habit

It begins as a conversation on a passage, between the author and a man who forced himself to get used to cheaper cigars, cheaper claret, and so on, because expensive things are ruinous, and abstinence is unsociable. Then a third one tells a story, about a man of fixed habit so much they tell time by him - until he's required to relocate from Jefferson, U.S., to London and still does everything exactly on time, but not London time! He's unable to adjust to the six hour jet lag. So when he accidentally realised it, he changed his office hours and other routine timings to fit the Jefferson clock, instead.

"At ten he mounted his horse and went for a canter in the Row, and on very dark nights he carried a lantern. News of it got abroad, and crowds would assemble to see him ride past."
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The Absent-minded Man

It begins with description of a guy who, when invited Thursday for dinner, turns up Friday, half an hour before he has to board the express to Edinburgh; or invitesthree families to lunch on his boat, forgets all about it, and gives the boy a day off, with little food stocked on board.

"“Come with me if you want something to do,” said McQuae. “I’m going to drive Leena down to Richmond.” (“Leena” was the young lady he recollected being engaged to. It transpired afterwards that he was engaged to three girls at the time. The other two he had forgotten all about.)"

"Everybody said he never would get married; that it was absurd to suppose he ever would remember the day, the church, and the girl, all in one morning; that if he did get as far as the altar he would forget what he had come for, and would give the bride away to his own best man. Hallyard had an idea that he was already married, but that the fact had slipped his memory. I myself felt sure that if he did marry he would forget all about it the next day."

And it gets better.
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A Charming Woman

Satire about the society women who substitute charm for substance, thought, conviction or anything else, and mansge to convince most they meet of an understanding and sympathetic spirit, none of it with any reality.
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Whibley’s Spirit

"It came with a carved cabinet that Whibley had purchased in Wardour Street for old oak, but which, as a matter of fact, was chestnut wood, manufactured in Germany, and at first was harmless enough, saying nothing but “Yes!” or “No!” and that only when spoken to."

"Its idea of an evening’s conversation was to plump down a hundred or so vowels and consonants in front of you and leave you to make whatever sense out of them you could."

"The fame of Whibley’s Spirit became noised abroad, with the result that Whibley was able to command the willing service of more congenial assistants, and Jobstock and myself were dismissed. But we bore no malice.

"Under these more favourable conditions the Spirit plucked up wonderfully, and talked everybody’s head off."

And here on the story takes flight into the realm of humour that npbelongs to Jerome K. Jerome.
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The Man Who Went Wrong

About an outside bookie who's honest, generous to those in need, and willing to rough up a burly ruffian because hes hitting a woman and needs to be reminded it's wrong, and more. Then a young woman informs him he's going to hell, takes him to a revivalist meeting where they make him give up drinking and smoking and change his line of work; now he's a pawn broker, and his old parents are without fire on chilly afternoons.
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The Hobby Rider

About a genial young man who plays tennis ten hours a day ever day, and when he travels, he rates places by whether he could play tempnnis there - whether it's Tangiers or Zermat or Jungfrau!

"The next year he dropped tennis completely and became an ardent amateur photographer, whereupon all his friends implored him to return to tennis, and sought to interest him in talk about services and returns and volleys, and in anecdotes concerning Renshaw. But he would not heed them."

Most of the side splitting story is about his photography.

"It was in the early days of the photographic craze, and an inexperienced world was rather pleased with the idea of being taken on the cheap. The consequence was that nearly everyone for three miles round sat or stood or leant or laid to Begglely at one time or another, with the result that a less conceited parish than ours it would have been difficult to discover. No one who had once looked upon a photograph of himself taken by Begglely ever again felt any pride in his personal appearance. The picture was invariably a revelation to him."

A trip to Turkey cured him of photography, and he went on to golf, and thence to whist.
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The Man Who Did Not Believe In Luck

A man who can't catch a break, and has everything seemingly lucky go against him, including a gift of a goose by his boss on Christmas eve - and its hilarious until its suddenly grim.
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Dick Dunkerman’s Cat

People waxing eloquent about love or ideals until the cat arrives are suddenly sceptical or sane, simply because the cat is there, looking at one!

And their luck changes for the better, with prosperity, as the hypnotic influence of this cat is paid heed to!
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The Minor Poet’s Story

About how society is governed by waves of fashion, whether in couture or thought - and whether ideas really originate with a person, or are simply there, and caught by several minds.
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The Degeneration of Thomas Henry

"He was really a most gentlemanly cat. A friend of mine, who believes in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, was convinced that he was Lord Chesterfield."

"But every one has his price, and Thomas Henry’s price was roast duck. Thomas Henry’s attitude in the presence of roast duck came to me as a psychological revelation. It showed me at once the lower and more animal side of his nature. In the presence of roast duck Thomas Henry became simply and merely a cat, swayed by all the savage instincts of his race. His dignity fell from him as a cloak. He clawed for roast duck, he grovelled for it. I believe he would have sold himself to the devil for roast duck.

"We accordingly avoided that particular dish: it was painful to see a cat’s character so completely demoralised. Besides, his manners, when roast duck was on the table, afforded a bad example to the children."

The story is about the complete change when they took him with them to country.

"Poor Thomas Henry! It shows to one how a reputation for respectability may lie in the mere absence of temptation. Born and bred in the atmosphere of the Reform Club, what gentleman could go wrong? I was sorry for Thomas Henry, and I have never believed in the moral influence of the country since."
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The City of The Sea

Saxons massacred Danes invading East Anglia, before rising oceans covered their city on coast.
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Driftwood

About men and women, civilisation and knowledge, love and marriage.

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July 25, 2020 - July 27, 2020.

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THE OBSERVATIONS OF HENRY

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The author claims the stories were told him by Henry, a waiter, and he's only cleaned up the construction.

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THE GHOST OF THE MARCHIONESS OF APPLEFORD.

"For Henry tells me that at Capetown Captain Kit’s First-class Family and Commercial Hotel still runs, and that the landlady is still a beautiful woman with fine eyes and red hair, who might almost be taken for a duchess — until she opens her mouth, when her accent is found to be still slightly reminiscent of the Mile-End Road."

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September 16, 2020.

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THE USES AND ABUSES OF JOSEPH.

About a man who decided to be a burger because nothing else was worth doing, but became a missionary after he fell for a girl, and was offered the position in Africa by her master who understood him.

"“In the end, Joe took on the job, and went out with his wife. A better missionary that Society never had and never wanted. I read one of his early reports home; and if the others were anything like it his life must have been exciting enough, even for him. His station was a small island of civilisation, as one may say, in the middle of a sea of savages. Before he had been there a month the place had been attacked twice. On the first occasion Joe’s ‘flock’ had crowded into the Mission House, and commenced to pray, that having been the plan of defence adopted by his predecessor. Joe cut the prayer short, and preached to them from the text, ‘Heaven helps them as helps themselves’; after which he proceeded to deal out axes and old rifles. In his report he mentioned that he had taken a hand himself, merely as an example to the flock; I bet he had never enjoyed an evening more in all his life. The second fight began, as usual, round the Mission, but seems to have ended two miles off. In less than six months he had rebuilt the school-house, organised a police force, converted all that was left of one tribe, and started a tin church. He added (but I don’t think they read that part of his report aloud) that law and order was going to be respected, and life and property secure in his district so long as he had a bullet left.

"“Later on the Society sent him still further inland, to open up a fresh station; and there it was that, according to the newspapers, the cannibals got hold of him and ate him. As I said, personally I don’t believe it. One of these days he’ll turn up, sound and whole; he is that sort.”"

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September 17, 2020.

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THE SURPRISE OF MR. MILBERRY.

"“Who wouldn’t believe what?” I asked. He had a curious habit, had Henry, of commenting aloud upon his own unspoken thoughts, thereby bestowing upon his conversation much of the quality of the double acrostic. We had been discussing the question whether sardines served their purpose better as a hors d’œuvre or as a savoury; and I found myself wondering for the moment why sardines, above all other fish, should be of an unbelieving nature; while endeavouring to picture to myself the costume best adapted to display the somewhat difficult figure of a sardine. Henry put down his glass, and came to my rescue with the necessary explanation."

Henry opined that up to three months of age no one could tell one baby from another, except for colour and gender differences, and proceeded to tell his story about a mix up between a baby and a dog, packed in identical hampers.

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September 17, 2020.

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THE PROBATION OF JAMES WRENCH.

Henry tells about marriages, mistakes and redemptions.

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September 17, 2020.

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THE WOOING OF TOM SLEIGHT’S WIFE.

A very beautiful love story, about a young couple separated immediately after wedding by circumstances, and their finding one another back.

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September 17, 2020.

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September 16, 2020 - September 17, 2020.

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THE PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK,

AND OTHER STORIES

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Passing of the Third Floor Back:-

"Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square was coming to a very good opinion of itself: for the which not Bloomsbury Square so much as the stranger must be blamed. The stranger had arrived at Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square with the preconceived idea—where obtained from Heaven knows—that its seemingly commonplace, mean-minded, coarse-fibred occupants were in reality ladies and gentlemen of the first water; and time and observation had apparently only strengthened this absurd idea. The natural result was, Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square was coming round to the stranger's opinion of itself."

Other than this stranger addressing Miss Devine as "My child" during his last conversation with her before he leaves, there is no other clue to his identity; the author leaves it to the reader to infer or conclude this, during or after reading the short story.
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August 04, 2020- August 04, 2020.

New York
Dodd, Mead & Company 1909
Copyright, 1904, By Jerome K. Jerome
Copyright, 1908, By Dodd, Mead & Company
Published, September, 1908
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THE ANGEL AND THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS

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Another collection of musings by the author, around serious questions with unexpected humour resulting from the Frank admissions or disclosures most would refrain from making.

Jerome K Jerome was, it seems, very disturbed about women seeking equal footing in society, and is scathing in his caricatures thereof, while suggesting that the two separate spheres of activity aren't either lower than other. While the said separation belongs to the era when brawn was still overpowering brain and nature prevailed in reproduction area, he also fails to admit that, of the two spheres separated artificially by society, only one was rewarded with power and wealth by patriarchy, and this was far more so post industrial era when wealth changed its forms, and was numbers in an account that could be kept from being shared with the wife, thus fraud being committed against the wedding vows in church of endorsing her with all earthly goods. Hence the domestic slavery label, not because his work outside is better as the author interprets and easily refutes, but because he can run away with the money and leave her destitute with kids, no education and no well paid work. As was evident in U.S. post WWII.

Amazingly, he zaps one with a complete turnabout in the last chapter!

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"Really, seeing the amount we give in charity, the wonder is there are any poor left. It is a comfort that there are. What should we do without them? Our fur-clad little girls! our jolly, red-faced squires! we should never know how good they were, but for the poor? Without the poor how could we be virtuous? We should have to go about giving to each other. And friends expect such expensive presents, while a shilling here and there among the poor brings to us all the sensations of a good Samaritan. Providence has been very thoughtful in providing us with poor."

"Where the real poor creep I fear there is no room for Lady Bountiful’s fine coach. The ways are very narrow — wide enough only for little Sister Pity, stealing softly."

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"Our skins harden to the blows of Fate. I was lunching one Wednesday with a friend in the country. His son and heir, aged twelve, entered and took his seat at the table.

"“Well,” said his father, “and how did we get on at school to-day?”

"“Oh, all right,” answered the youngster, settling himself down to his dinner with evident appetite.

"“Nobody caned?” demanded his father, with — as I noticed — a sly twinkle in his eye.

"“No,” replied young hopeful, after reflection; “no, I don’t think so,” adding as an afterthought, as he tucked into beef and potatoes, “‘cepting, o’ course, me.”"

"It is a simple science, philosophy. The idea is that it never matters what happens to you provided you don’t mind it. The weak point in the argument is that nine times out of ten you can’t help minding it.

"“No misfortune can harm me,” says Marcus Aurelius, “without the consent of the dæmon within me.”

"The trouble is our dæmon cannot always be relied upon. So often he does not seem up to his work.

"“You’ve been a naughty boy, and I’m going to whip you,” said nurse to a four-year-old criminal.

"“You tant,” retorted the young ruffian, gripping with both hands the chair that he was occupying, “I’se sittin’ on it.” His dæmon was, no doubt, resolved that misfortune, as personified by nurse, should not hurt him.

"The misfortune, alas! proved stronger than the dæmon, and misfortune, he found did hurt him.

"The toothache cannot hurt us so long as the dæmon within us (that is to say, our will power) holds on to the chair and says it can’t. But, sooner or later, the dæmon lets go, and then we howl. One sees the idea: in theory it is excellent. One makes believe. Your bank has suddenly stopped payment. You say to yourself.

"“This does not really matter.”

"Your butcher and your baker say it does, and insist on making a row in the passage."

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"I confess that personally the terms “provincial” and “suburban,” as epithets of reproach, have always puzzled me. I never met anyone more severe on what she termed the “suburban note” in literature than a thin lady who lived in a semi-detached villa in a by-street of Hammersmith. Is Art merely a question of geography, and if so what is the exact limit? Is it the four-mile cab radius from Charing Cross? Is the cheesemonger of Tottenham Court Road of necessity a man of taste, and the Oxford professor of necessity a Philistine? I want to understand this thing. I once hazarded the direct question to a critical friend:

"“You say a book is suburban,” I put it to him, “and there is an end to the matter. But what do you mean by suburban?”

"“Well,” he replied, “I mean it is the sort of book likely to appeal to the class that inhabits the suburbs.” He lived himself in Chancery Lane."

"The modern novel takes care, however, to avoid all doubt upon the subject. Its personages, one and all, reside within the half-mile square lying between Bond Street and the Park — a neighbourhood that would appear to be somewhat densely populated. True, a year or two ago there appeared a fairly successful novel the heroine of which resided in Onslow Gardens. An eminent critic observed of it that: “It fell short only by a little way of being a serious contribution to English literature.” Consultation with the keeper of the cabman’s shelter at Hyde Park Corner suggested to me that the “little way” the critic had in mind measures exactly eleven hundred yards. When the nobility and gentry of the modern novel do leave London they do not go into the provinces: to do that would be vulgar. They make straight for “Barchester Towers,” or what the Duke calls “his little place up north” — localities, one presumes, suspended somewhere in mid-air."

"A modern nursery rhymester to succeed would have to write of Little Lord Jack and Lady Jill ascending one of the many beautiful eminences belonging to the ancestral estates of their parents, bearing between them, on a silver rod, an exquisitely painted Sèvres vase filled with ottar of roses.

"I take up my fourpenny-halfpenny magazine. The heroine is a youthful Duchess; her husband gambles with thousand-pound notes, with the result that they are reduced to living on the first floor of the Carlton Hotel. The villain is a Russian Prince. The Baronet of a simpler age has been unable, poor fellow, to keep pace with the times. What self-respecting heroine would abandon her husband and children for sin and a paltry five thousand a year? To the heroine of the past — to the clergyman’s daughter or the lady artist — he was dangerous. The modern heroine misbehaves herself with nothing below Cabinet rank."

"How can we lay bare the souls of Duchesses, explain the heart-throbs of peers of the realm? ... Those of us who are not Primrose Knights miss even this poor glimpse into the world above us. We know nothing, simply nothing, concerning the deeper feelings of the upper ten. Personally, I once received a letter from an Earl, but that was in connection with a dairy company of which his lordship was chairman, and spoke only of his lordship’s views concerning milk and the advantages of the cash system. Of what I really wished to know — his lordship’s passions, yearnings and general attitude to life — the circular said nothing."

"But, as I explain to them, it is the law of literature never to write except about what you really know. I want to mix with the aristocracy, study them, understand them; so that I may earn my living in the only way a literary man nowadays can earn his living, namely, by writing about the upper circles.

"I want to know how to get there."

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Chapter IV begins deceptively with

"There is one thing that the Anglo-Saxon does better than the “French, or Turk, or Rooshian,” to which add the German or the Belgian. When the Anglo-Saxon appoints an official, he appoints a servant: when the others put a man in uniform, they add to their long list of masters. If among your acquaintances you can discover an American, or Englishman, unfamiliar with the continental official, it is worth your while to accompany him, the first time he goes out to post a letter, say."

And then explodes in bubbles all around one as one reads on, of a laughter that threatens a reader familiar with the author's work that could turn into a side-splitting one.

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"The knowledge that insincerity is our universal garment has reduced all compliment to meaningless formula. A lady one evening at a party drew me aside. The chief guest — a famous writer — had just arrived.

“Tell me,” she said, “I have so little time for reading, what has he done?”

"I was on the point of replying when an inveterate wag, who had overheard her, interposed between us.

"“‘The Cloister and the Hearth,’” he told her, “and ‘Adam Bede.’”

"He happened to know the lady well. She has a good heart, but was ever muddle-headed. She thanked that wag with a smile, and I heard her later in the evening boring most evidently that literary lion with elongated praise of the “Cloister and the Hearth” and “Adam Bede.” They were among the few books she had ever read, and talking about them came easily to her. She told me afterwards that she had found that literary lion a charming man, but —

"“Well,” she laughed, “he has got a good opinion of himself. He told me he considered both books among the finest in the English language.”"

"A young friend of mine — a man of good family — contracted a mésalliance: that is, he married the daughter of a Canadian farmer, a frank, amiable girl, bewitchingly pretty, with more character in her little finger than some girls possess in their whole body. I met him one day, some three months after his return to London."

"“Well,” I asked him, “how is it shaping?”

"“She is the dearest girl in the world,” he answered. “She has only got one fault; she believes what people say.”"

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"They are odd folk, these foreigners. There are moments of despair when I almost give them up — feel I don’t care what becomes of them — feel as if I could let them muddle on in their own way — wash my hands of them, so to speak, and attend exclusively to my own business: we all have our days of feebleness. They will sit outside a café on a freezing night, with an east wind blowing, and play dominoes. They will stand outside a tramcar, rushing through the icy air at fifteen miles an hour, and refuse to go inside, even to oblige a lady. Yet in railway carriages, in which you could grill a bloater by the simple process of laying it underneath the seat, they will insist on the window being closed, light cigars to keep their noses warm, and sit with the collars of their fur coats buttoned up around their necks."

"In your own house you can, of course, open the windows, and thus defeat the foreign stove. The rest of the street thinks you mad, but then the Englishman is considered by all foreigners to be always mad. It is his privilege to be mad. The street thinks no worse of you than it did before, and you can breathe in comfort. But in the railway carriage they don’t allow you to be mad. In Europe, unless you are prepared to draw at sight upon the other passengers, throw the conductor out of the window, and take the train in by yourself, it is useless arguing the question of fresh air. The rule abroad is that if any one man objects to the window being open, the window remains closed. He does not quarrel with you: he rings the bell, and points out to the conductor that the temperature of the carriage has sunk to little more than ninety degrees, Fahrenheit. He thinks a window must be open."

"Unless you happen to be an American woman. Never did my heart go out more gladly to America as a nation than one spring day travelling from Berne to Vevey."

"The first thing that each woman did, the moment she could get her hands free, was to dash for the nearest window and haul it down."

"The carriage rose and cursed them in six languages. Bells were rung: conductors came flying in. It was all of no use. Those American ladies were cheerful but firm. They argued with volubility: they argued standing in the open doorway. The conductors, familiar, no doubt, with the American lady and her ways, shrugged their shoulders and retired. The other passengers undid their bags and bundles, and wrapped themselves up in shawls and Jaeger nightshirts.

"I met the ladies afterwards in Lausanne. They told me they had been condemned to a fine of forty francs apiece. They also explained to me that they had not the slightest intention of paying it."

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"The postcard craze is dying out in Germany — the land of its birth — I am told. In Germany they do things thoroughly, or not at all. The German when he took to sending postcards abandoned almost every other pursuit in life. The German tourist never knew where he had been until on reaching home again he asked some friend or relation to allow him to look over the postcards he had sent. Then it was he began to enjoy his trip."

"I often think it hard on girls that the artist so neglects the eternal male. Why should there not be portraits of young men in different hats; young men in big hats, young men in little hats, young men smiling archly, young men looking noble. Girls don’t want to decorate their rooms with pictures of other girls, they want rows of young men beaming down upon them."

"“Nature, in fashioning woman, has not yet crept up to the artistic ideal. The young man studies the picture on the postcard; on the coloured almanack given away at Christmas by the local grocer; on the advertisement of Jones’ soap, and thinks with discontent of Polly Perkins, who in a natural way is as pretty a girl as can be looked for in this imperfect world. Thus it is that woman has had to take to shorthand and typewriting. Modern woman is being ruined by the artist."

"Perhaps it is as well we men are not handicapped to the same extent. If every hoarding, if every picture shop window, if every illustrated journal teemed with illustrations of the ideal young man in perfect fitting trousers that never bagged at the knees! Maybe it would result in our cooking our own breakfasts and making our own beds to the end of our lives.

"The novelist and playwright, as it is, have made things difficult enough for us. In books and plays the young man makes love with a flow of language, a wealth of imagery, that must have taken him years to acquire. What does the novel-reading girl think, I wonder, when the real young man proposes to her! He has not called her anything in particular. Possibly he has got as far as suggesting she is a duck or a daisy, or hinting shyly that she is his bee or his honeysuckle: in his excitement he is not quite sure which. In the novel she has been reading the hero has likened the heroine to half the vegetable kingdom. Elementary astronomy has been exhausted in his attempt to describe to her the impression her appearance leaves on him. Bond Street has been sacked in his endeavour to get it clearly home to her what different parts of her are like — her eyes, her teeth, her heart, her hair, her ears. Delicacy alone prevents his extending the catalogue. A Fiji Island lover might possibly go further. We have not yet had the Fiji Island novel. By the time he is through with it she must have a somewhat confused notion of herself — a vague conviction that she is a sort of condensed South Kensington Museum."

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"That one fact in his favour she can never forget. Indeed she would not if she could. That one asset, for whatever it may be worth by the time the Day of Judgment arrives, he shall retain. It shall not be taken from him. “After all he was my father.” She admits it, with the accent on the “was.” That he is so no longer, he has only himself to blame. His subsequent behaviour has apparently rendered it necessary for her to sever the relationship."

That quote above is almost orthogonal to the rest of the diatribe in this first part of chapter VIII, rest being quite patriarchal in its tone of contempt for the stage heroine, including ending up in her having deserved a physical assault from the paterfamilias and being without virtue for want of it, a sentiment and view of the better half of humanity that goes well with the religious bent of the author who's very divided between his common sense and his need of abrahmic guilt to feel virtuous.

"Considered as a scapegoat, Fate, as compared with the father, has this advantage: it is always about: it cannot slip away and die before the real trouble begins: it cannot even plead a scientific head; it is there all the time. With care one can blame it for most everything. The vexing thing about it is, that it does not mind being blamed. One cannot make Fate feel small and mean. It affords no relief to our harrowed feelings to cry out indignantly to Fate: “look here, what you have done. Look at this sweet and well-proportioned lady, compelled to travel first-class, accompanied by an amount of luggage that must be a perpetual nightmare to her maid, from one fashionable European resort to another; forced to exist on a well-secured income of, apparently, five thousand a year, most of which has to go in clothes; beloved by only the best people in the play; talked about by everybody incessantly to the exclusion of everybody else — all the neighbours interested in her and in nobody else much; all the women envying her; all the men tumbling over one another after her — looks, in spite of all her worries, not a day older than twenty-three; and has discovered a dressmaker never yet known to have been an hour behind her promise! And all your fault, yours, Fate. Will nothing move you to shame?”"

Convenient, sarcasm, for someone with both a common sense and a deeply imbued abrahmic need of guilt and patriarchal mindset, to solve the question of who is to blame for the attractive young woman's lack of "virtue" as defined by patriarchy, since he couldn't possibly blame males, patriarchy, or society, much less his own religion! That a young woman is targeted by males, and without protection of her parents against them, is left by his society with not only lack of protection but also little to depend on in way of a respectable means of income to sustain herself, couldn't have occurred to him, one surmised - for he assumes charwomen are protected by being invisible, and other similiar workers by being unwashed in those times in England, presumably! For, much as he mentions washing, the one constant harassment experienced in that era by travellers from India, unless they were rich and thus not under domination of landlords, was being not allowed to bathe more than once a week, and if they bathed (as they were used to every day back home), being threatened by the landlady who spied.

"She is a careless woman. She is always mislaying that early husband. And she has an unfortunate knack of finding him at the wrong moment. Perhaps that is the Problem: What is a lady to do with a husband for whom she has no further use? If she gives him away he is sure to come back, like the clever dog that is sent in a hamper to the other end of the kingdom, and three days afterwards is found gasping on the doorstep. If she leaves him in the middle of South Africa, with most of the heavy baggage and all the debts, she may reckon it a certainty that on her return from her next honeymoon he will be the first to greet her."

"She is indignant at finding he is still alive, and lets him know it — tells him he is a beast for turning up at his sister’s party, and pleads to him for one last favour: that he will go away where neither she nor anybody else of any importance will ever see him or hear of him again. That’s all she asks of him. If he make a point of it she will — though her costume is ill adapted to the exercise — go down upon her knees to ask it of him.

"He brutally retorts that he doesn’t know where to “get.” The lady travels round a good deal and seems to be in most places. She accepts week-end invitations to the houses of his nearest relatives. She has married his first cousin, and is now getting up a bazaar with the help of his present wife. How he is to avoid her he does not quite see.

"Perhaps, by the by, that is really the Problem: where is the early husband to disappear to? Even if every time he saw her coming he were to duck under the table, somebody would be sure to notice it and make remarks. Ought he to take himself out one dark night, tie a brick round his neck, and throw himself into a pond?"

Where does Jerome K. Jerome find this stuff? Was stage in England really filled with this sort of thing in his times?

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"When a Palæolithic politician claimed to have “crushed his critic,” he meant that he had succeeded in dropping a tree or a ton of earth upon him. When it was said that one bright and intelligent member of that early sociology had “annihilated his opponent,” that opponent’s friends and relations took no further interest in him. It meant that he was actually annihilated. Bits of him might be found, but the most of him would be hopelessly scattered. When the adherents of any particular Cave Dweller remarked that their man was wiping the floor with his rival, it did not mean that he was talking himself red in the face to a bored audience of sixteen friends and a reporter. It meant that he was dragging that rival by the legs round the enclosure and making the place damp and untidy with him."

"Imagine some scientific inhabitant of one of the larger fixed stars examining us through a magnifying-glass as we examine ants. Our amusements would puzzle him. The ball of all sorts and sizes, from the marble to the pushball, would lead to endless scientific argument.

"“What is it? Why are these men and women always knocking it about, seizing it wherever and whenever they find it and worrying it?”

"The observer from that fixed star would argue that the Ball must be some malignant creature of fiendish power, the great enemy of the human race. Watching our cricket-fields, our tennis-courts, our golf links, he would conclude that a certain section of mankind had been told off to do battle with the “Ball” on behalf of mankind in general.

"“As a rule,” so he would report, “it is a superior class of insect to which this special duty has been assigned. They are a friskier, gaudier species than their fellows."

"“The singers have sung, and the builders have builded. The artists have fashioned their dreams of delight.” The martyrs for thought and freedom have died their death; knowledge has sprung from the bones of ignorance; civilization for ten thousand years has battled with brutality to this result — that a specimen gentleman of the Twentieth Century, the heir of all the ages, finds his greatest joy in life the striking of a ball with a chunk of wood!

"Human energy, human suffering, has been wasted. Such crown of happiness for a man might surely have been obtained earlier and at less cost. Was it intended? Are we on the right track? The child’s play is wiser. The battered doll is a princess. Within the sand castle dwells an ogre. It is with imagination that he plays. His games have some relation to life. It is the man only who is content with this everlasting knocking about of a ball. The majority of mankind is doomed to labour so constant, so exhausting, that no opportunity is given it to cultivate its brain. Civilization has arranged that a small privileged minority shall alone enjoy that leisure necessary to the development of thought. And what is the answer of this leisured class? It is:

"“We will do nothing for the world that feeds us, clothes us, keeps us in luxury. We will spend our whole existence knocking balls about, watching other people knocking balls about, arguing with one another as to the best means of knocking balls about.”"

"But maybe all this is mere jealousy. Myself, I have never been clever at knocking balls about."

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"To the English traveller, the foreign waiter in the earlier stages of his career is a burden and a trial. When he is complete — when he really can talk English I rejoice in him. When I object to him is when his English is worse than my French or German, and when he will, for his own educational purposes, insist, nevertheless, that the conversation shall be entirely in English. I would he came to me some other time. I would so much rather make it after dinner or, say, the next morning. I hate giving lessons during meal times."

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"It is the old fable reversed; man said woman had nothing to do all day but to enjoy herself. Making a potato pie! What sort of work was that? Making a potato pie was a lark; anybody could make a potato pie.

"So the woman said, “Try it,” and took the man’s spade and went out into the field, and left him at home to make that pie.

"The man discovered that potato pies took a bit more making than he had reckoned — found that running the house and looking after the children was not quite the merry pastime he had argued. Man was a fool."

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"If the hero of the popular novel swims at all, it is not like an ordinary human being that he does it. You never meet him in a swimming-bath; he never pays ninepence, like the rest of us, for a machine. He goes out at uncanny hours, generally accompanied by a lady friend, with whom the while swimming he talks poetry and cracks jokes. Some of us, when we try to talk in the sea, fill ourselves up with salt water. This chap lies on his back and carols, and the wild waves, seeing him, go round the other way."

"He does not have to get up early and worry dumb-bells in his nightshirt; he just lies on a sofa in an elegant attitude and muscle comes to him."

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"“It did not trouble me, Mrs. Wilkins,” I replied, “in this particular instance. It was my determination never to see that umbrella again. The young man behind the counter seemed suspicious, and asked where I got it from. I told him that a friend had given it to me.”

"“‘Did he know that he had given it to you?” demanded the young man.

"“Upon which I gave him a piece of my mind concerning the character of those who think evil of others, and he gave me five and six, and said he should know me again; and I purchased an umbrella suited to my rank and station, and as fine a haddock as I have ever tasted with the balance, which was sevenpence, for I was feeling hungry."

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"The late King of Saxony, did, I believe, on one occasion make a feeble protest at being asked to receive the daughter of a retail bootmaker. The young lady, nonplussed for the moment, telegraphed to her father in Detroit. The answer came back next morning: “Can’t call it selling — practically giving them away. See Advertisement.” The lady was presented as the daughter of an eminent philanthropist.

"It is due to her to admit that, taking her as a class, the American girl is a distinct gain to European Society. Her influence is against convention and in favour of simplicity. One of her greatest charms, in the eyes of the European man, is that she listens to him. I cannot say whether it does her any good. Maybe she does not remember it all, but while you are talking she does give you her attention. The English woman does not always. She greets you pleasantly enough:

"“I’ve so often wanted to meet you,” she says, “must you really go?”

"It strikes you as sudden: you had no intention of going for hours. But the hint is too plain to be ignored. You are preparing to agree that you really must when, looking round, you gather that the last remark was not addressed to you, but to another gentleman who is shaking hands with her:

"“Now, perhaps we shall be able to talk for five minutes,” she says. “I’ve so often wanted to say that I shall never forgive you. You have been simply horrid.”

"Again you are confused, until you jump to the conclusion that the latter portion of the speech is probably intended for quite another party with whom, at the moment, her back towards you, she is engaged in a whispered conversation. When he is gone she turns again to you. But the varied expressions that pass across her face while you are discussing with her the disadvantages of Protection, bewilder you. When, explaining your own difficulty in arriving at a conclusion, you remark that Great Britain is an island, she roguishly shakes her head. It is not that she has forgotten her geography, it is that she is conducting a conversation by signs with a lady at the other end of the room. When you observe that the working classes must be fed, she smiles archly while murmuring:

"“Oh, do you really think so?”

"You are about to say something strong on the subject of dumping. Apparently she has disappeared. You find that she is reaching round behind you to tap a new arrival with her fan.

"Now, the American girl looks at you, and just listens to you with her eyes fixed on you all the time. You gather that, as far as she is concerned, the rest of the company are passing shadows. She wants to hear what you have to say about Bi-metallism: her trouble is lest she may miss a word of it. From a talk with an American girl one comes away with the conviction that one is a brilliant conversationalist, who can hold a charming woman spell-bound. This may not be good for one: but while it lasts, the sensation is pleasant."

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"A clergyman friend of mine told me of a German Kurhaus to which he was sent for his sins and his health. It was a resort, for some reason, specially patronized by the more elderly section of the higher English middle class. Bishops were there, suffering from fatty degeneration of the heart caused by too close application to study; ancient spinsters of good family subject to spasms; gouty retired generals. Can anybody tell me how many men in the British Army go to a general? Somebody once assured me it was five thousand, but that is absurd, on the face of it. The British Army, in that case, would have to be counted by millions. There are a goodish few American colonels still knocking about. The American colonel is still to be met with here and there by the curious traveller, but compared with the retired British general he is an extinct species. In Cheltenham and Brighton and other favoured towns there are streets of nothing but retired British generals — squares of retired British generals — whole crescents of British generals. Abroad there are pensions with a special scale of charges for British generals. In Switzerland there has even been talk of reserving railway compartments “For British Generals Only.” In Germany, when you do not say distinctly and emphatically on being introduced that you are not a British general, you are assumed, as a matter of course, to be a British general. During the Boer War, when I was residing in a small garrison town on the Rhine, German military men would draw me aside and ask of me my own private personal views as to the conduct of the campaign. I would give them my views freely, explain to them how I would finish the whole thing in a week.

"“But how in the face of the enemy’s tactics—” one of them would begin.

"“Bother the enemy’s tactics,” I would reply. “Who cares for tactics?”

"“But surely a British general—” they would persist. “Who’s a British general?” I would retort, “I am talking to you merely as a plain commonsense man, with a head on my shoulders.”

"They would apologize for their mistake.

"My clergyman friend found life there dull. The generals and the spinsters left to themselves might have played cards, but they thought of the poor bishops who would have had to look on envious. The bishops and the spinsters might have sung ballads, but the British general after dinner does not care for ballads, and had mentioned it. The bishops and the generals might have told each other stories, but could not before the ladies."

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"There have been evenings when I have sung “God save the Queen” six times. Another season of it, and I should have become a Republican."

"This world is much too small for me. Up to a century or two ago the intellectual young man found it sufficient for his purposes. It still contained the unknown — the possible — within its boundaries. New continents were still to be discovered: we dreamt of giants, Liliputians, desert-fenced Utopias. We set our sail, and Wonderland lay ever just beyond our horizon. To-day the world is small, the light railway runs through the desert, the coasting steamer calls at the Islands of the Blessed, the last mystery has been unveiled, the fairies are dead, the talking birds are silent. Our baffled curiosity turns for relief outwards."

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"There is nothing the parent can do right. You would think that now and then he might, if only by mere accident, blunder into sense. But, no, there seems to be a law against it. He brings home woolly rabbits and indiarubber elephants, and expects the Child to be contented “forsooth” with suchlike aids to its education. As a matter of fact, the Child is content: it bangs its own head with the woolly rabbit and does itself no harm; it tries to swallow the indiarubber elephant; it does not succeed, but continues to hope. With that woolly rabbit and that indiarubber elephant it would be as happy as the day is long if only the young gentleman from Cambridge would leave it alone, and not put new ideas into its head. But the gentleman from Cambridge and the maiden lady Understander are convinced that the future of the race depends upon leaving the Child untrammelled to select its own amusements. A friend of mine, during his wife’s absence once on a visit to her mother, tried the experiment.

"The Child selected a frying-pan. How it got the frying-pan remains to this day a mystery. The cook said “frying-pans don’t walk upstairs.” The nurse said she should be sorry to call anyone a liar, but that there was commonsense in everything. The scullery-maid said that if everybody did their own work other people would not be driven beyond the limits of human endurance; and the housekeeper said that she was sick and tired of life. My friend said it did not matter. The Child clung to the frying-pan with passion. The book my friend was reading said that was how the human mind was formed: the Child’s instinct prompted it to seize upon objects tending to develop its brain faculty. What the parent had got to do was to stand aside and watch events.

"The Child proceeded to black everything about the nursery with the bottom of the frying-pan. It then set to work to lick the frying-pan clean. The nurse, a woman of narrow ideas, had a presentiment that later on it would be ill. My friend explained to her the error the world had hitherto committed: it had imagined that the parent knew a thing or two that the Child didn’t. In future the Children were to do their bringing up themselves. In the house of the future the parents would be allotted the attics where they would be out of the way. They might occasionally be allowed down to dinner, say, on Sundays.

"The Child, having exhausted all the nourishment the frying-pan contained, sought to develop its brain faculty by thumping itself over the head with the flat of the thing. With the selfishness of the average parent — thinking chiefly of what the Coroner might say, and indifferent to the future of humanity, my friend insisted upon changing the game."

" ... Tell me how to talk to my baby, and I am willing to try. It is not as if I took a personal pride in the phrase: “Did ums.” I did not even invent it. I found it, so to speak, when I got here, and my experience is that it soothes the Child. When he is howling, and I say “Did ums” with sympathetic intonation, he stops crying. Possibly enough it is astonishment at the ineptitude of the remark that silences him. Maybe it is that minor troubles are lost sight of face to face with the reflection that this is the sort of father with which fate has provided him. But may not even this be useful to him? He has got to meet with stupid people in the world. Let him begin by contemplating me. It will make things easier for him later on."

" ... The young gentleman from Cambridge thinks, when we call up the stairs to say that if we hear another sound from the nursery during the next two hours we will come up and do things to that Child the mere thought of which should appal it, that is silencing the Child. It does not occur to him that two minutes later that Child is yelling again at the top of its voice, having forgotten all we ever said."

" ... The dear Child is not going to be overworked: he is seeing to that."

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"Marriages are made in heaven—”but solely,” it has been added by a cynical writer, “for export.”"

"Civilization lays her laws upon us; they are the laws of gods — of the men that one day, perhaps, shall come. But the primeval creature of the cave still cries within us."

" ... Passion is the seed. Love grows from it, a tender sapling, beautiful to look upon, but wondrous frail, easily broken, easily trampled on during those first years of wedded life. Only by much nursing, by long caring-for, watered with tears, shall it grow into a sturdy tree, defiant of the winds, ‘neath which Darby and Joan shall sit sheltered in old age."

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"The modern writer goes to work scientifically. He tells us that the creature wore a made-up tie. From that we know he was not a gentleman; it follows as the night the day. The fashionable novelist notices the young man’s socks. It reveals to us whether the marriage would have been successful or a failure. It is necessary to convince us that the hero is a perfect gentleman: the author gives him a gold cigarette case."

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"“Be not the first by whom the new is tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside,” is a safe rule for those who would always retain the good opinion of that all-powerful, but somewhat unintelligent, incubus, “the average person,” but the pioneer, the guide, is necessary. That is, if the world is to move forward.

"The freedom-loving girl of to-day, who can enjoy a walk by herself without losing her reputation, who can ride down the street on her “bike” without being hooted at, who can play a mixed double at tennis without being compelled by public opinion to marry her partner, who can, in short, lead a human creature’s life, and not that of a lap-dog led about at the end of a string, might pause to think what she owes to the “unsexed creatures” who fought her battle for her fifty years ago."

"Can the working woman of to-day, who may earn her own living, if she will, without loss of the elementary rights of womanhood, think of the bachelor girl of a short generation ago without admiration of her pluck? There were ladies in those day too “unwomanly” to remain helpless burdens on overworked fathers and mothers, too “unsexed” to marry the first man that came along for the sake of their bread and butter. They fought their way into journalism, into the office, into the shop. The reformer is not always the pleasantest man to invite to a tea-party. Maybe these women who went forward with the flag were not the most charming of their sex. The “Dora Copperfield” type will for some time remain the young man’s ideal, the model the young girl puts before herself. Myself, I think Dora Copperfield charming, but a world of Dora Copperfields!

"The working woman is a new development in sociology. She has many lessons to learn, but one has hopes of her. It is said that she is unfitting herself to be a wife and mother. If the ideal helpmeet for a man be an animated Dresden china shepherdess — something that looks pretty on the table, something to be shown round to one’s friends, something that can be locked up safely in a cupboard, that asks no questions, and, therefore, need be told no lies — then a woman who has learnt something of the world, who has formed ideas of her own, will not be the ideal wife."

"Maybe the working woman, looking for a husband, and not merely a livelihood, may end by formulating standards of her own. She may end by demanding the manly man and moving about the world, knowing something of life, may arrive at the conclusion that something more is needed than the smoking of pipes and the drinking of whiskies and sodas. We must be prepared for this. The sheltered woman who learnt her life from fairy stories is a dream of the past. Woman has escaped from her “shelter” — she is on the loose. For the future we men have got to accept the emancipated woman as an accomplished fact."

"Speaking as a lover, I welcome the openings that are being given to women to earn their own livelihood. I can conceive of no more degrading profession for a woman — no profession more calculated to unfit her for being that wife and mother we talk so much about than the profession that up to a few years ago was the only one open to her — the profession of husband-hunting.

"As a man, I object to being regarded as woman’s last refuge, her one and only alternative to the workhouse. I cannot myself see why the woman who has faced the difficulties of existence, learnt the lesson of life, should not make as good a wife and mother as the ignorant girl taken direct, one might almost say, from the nursery, and, without the slightest preparation, put in a position of responsibility that to a thinking person must be almost appalling.

"It has been said that the difference between men and women is this: That the man goes about the world making it ready for the children, that the woman stops at home making the children ready for the world. Will not she do it much better for knowing something of the world, for knowing something of the temptations, the difficulties, her own children will have to face, for having learnt by her own experience to sympathize with the struggles, the sordid heart-breaking cares that man has daily to contend with?"

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September 17, 2020 - September 20, 2020.

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MALVINA OF BRITTANY

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Malvina of Brittany
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Malvina of Brittany (1916)

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Malvina of Brittany
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This collection of separate stories, published under two separate names - either as THE FAWN GLOVES, or, alternately, as MALVINA OF BRITTANY - is startling indeed if one has begun reading Jerome K. Jerome with the three men duo of hilarious adventures that leave one helpless with laughter. One scarcely expects so much sensitivity, such delicacy, albeit reading this one knows the other two were in every way just as delicate, however funny they were. And here lies the greatest success of the author - his profundity and his sensitivity and his delicacy is not of the tom-tommed variety, but rather something pervading his work as naturally as a gentleman of his time and place would carry his suit, his hat and his folded umbrella, without himself being conscious or making the viewer - in this case reader - aware of it.

Generally, the common thread in this collection of stories seems to be mystery, involving in each story a mysterious woman or a woman - or a female figure - of mystery.

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MALVINA OF BRITTANY.

Malvina of Brittany, the first in the volume that comprises of several different and separate stories, is a fairy tale from prehistoric times, written collected by the protagonist via the village legend, and it's interpretation, suitable for this time of scepticism, by a doctor and a professor who discuss it with the protagonist or author.

"It commenced, so I calculate, about the year 2000 B.C., or, to be more precise—for figures are not the strong point of the old chroniclers—when King Heremon ruled over Ireland and Harbundia was Queen of the White Ladies of Brittany, the fairy Malvina being her favourite attendant."

" ... The White Ladies of Brittany, it must be remembered, were not fairies pure and simple. Under certain conditions they were capable of becoming women, and this fact, one takes it, must have exerted a disturbing influence upon their relationships with eligible male mortals. ..."

Malvina was cast out by the Queen, for refusing to restore the Prince to his form, which malvina had changed on his wedding day.

"From that night the fairy Malvina disappears from the book of the chroniclers of the White Ladies of Brittany, from legend and from folklore whatsoever. She does not appear again in history till the year A.D. 1914."

She was found by Flight Commander Raffleton of RAF, and she flew back to England with him. He left her with his cousin Christopher, a professor at Oxford who knew about her history, and said hed come back for her.

"It was on the uplands between dawn and sunrise that Malvina made the acquaintance of the Arlington twins."

The story has to be read to fully get a glimpse of the awesomeness. One has to wonder if this is a legend thst the author collected as he writes, or did he create it, from a painting he saw thst he describes.

July 23, 2020. - July 24, 2020.

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THE STREET OF THE BLANK WALL.

This one is another mystery story that begins with a man slightly lost off Edgware Road, and having taken in, a mysterious woman and a murder story involving her, along the way, ends with a double twist, one foreseen by the reader and another - or two - not at all.

July 24, 2020.

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HIS EVENING OUT.

It seems to be about a gentleman meeting a young woman in a park, dining out and taking her dancing, and after getting into a brawl, giving the name of a lawyer or a QC of his instead, and then going off on his routine vacation, but taking his cook with him this time!

Here, the mystery is not just the story, but the way its written, and even a bit of a puzzle as to why - quite an exercise for brain, this one. And this one, Jerome K. Jerome turns to his forte familiar to his readers, bringing in humour, but quite differently here, like a subtle infusion that explodes faintly.

July 24, 2020.

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THE LESSON.

Here the author diverges from the until now common thread in this collection, and there is no mysterious woman, or even a fairy, although he gives the impression in the beginning there is one. This one is about the author meeting a man who has dalliance with memories of past lives, and their encounters over the years. It ends abruptly, unexpectedly, but quite well.

July 24, 2020.

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SYLVIA OF THE LETTERS.

Wonder if this is the original story of two people who know one another personally as opponents thst are always at loggerheads, and through correspondence via different names as inspiration, sustenance and support for spirit, until they meet and realise who they've been!

The film adaptations do not deal with the long history of acquaintance and growth from childhood, but then that wouldn't fit a film. This one isn't as easy a romance as the films, but the thrill is a long undercurrent, not a sudden shock.

July 24, 2020 - July 25, 2020.
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THE FAWN GLOVES

The short story that gives a collection of stories the name is about the fawn gloves that the gentle and sensitive man sees every day as he goes for his regular evening walk, and he begins to see her after he has passed, never talked or looked or met her gaze - which again is more sensitive than his own, her whole demeanour giving him courage to be the man and the strong one of the two, unlike the normal women he has avoided.

This is a courtship that belongs to the era that is gone perhaps - they sit together on a public bench or chairs in a garden, speak tentatively, exchange life stories in not much detail, but don't know each other's addresses and even names, height of sensitivity on part of both. Yet they know they are connected. Ultimate closeness, he goes on a knee and kisses a glove - she is always wearing the said fawn gloves, and reminds him of a fawn herself, shy and easily startled.

The daintiness of her attire and accessories is noticed by the protagonist, indeed of immense importance to the relationship, and is mentioned and described with matching daintiness by the author. Her fawn gloves seem merely a part of the whole picture of the dainty woman that reminds the protagonist of a fawn, until suddenly it is like a veil removed and the reason for the title clear.

Neither of them is rich, and this turns the story startlingly, albeit it is not an obvious factor mentioned - sensitivity of the author - when one day the protagonist asks the beloved fawn of a young woman to remove her gloves.

In the era when one was reticent rather than brazen, names and addresses not exchanged, and people not only sensitive but able to appreciate that quality in another, a relationship that seems to begin with a spring fragrance of tulips is just as delicately rendered into a gossamer veil of a tragedy - and one wishes the man were more sensible.

But there precisely is the point the author makes with his usual delicacy - the sensitivity of the protagonist is about his own sensibilities, and selfish, not extending to the woman he fell in love with for being so fawn-like. When it comes to it he shudders and goes away leaving her alone because he cannot stand anything painful, rather than realising what and how much she needs and spreading his caring and love to soothe and heal her.

He returns because he is unable to forget her, and has cornered a doctor he happens to meet to ask about the problem and whether it is possible to correct it - but he has left it too late, and she has vanished. If then he suffers, it is merely deserved, but one is left with the figure of the fawn woman in her dainty figure and sensitive, fleeting impression just as he is, long past her having gone from his life for ever. He cannot forget her and one does not know if one will.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014.
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Tuesday, May 13, 2014.

July 23, 2020. - July 24, 2020.
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The Short Stories

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LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

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LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

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OUR GHOST PARTY

HOW THE STORIES CAME TO BE TOLD

TEDDY BIFFLES’ STORY

JOHNSON AND EMILY, OR THE FAITHFUL GHOST

INTERLUDE — THE DOCTOR’S STORY

THE HAUNTED MILL, OR THE RUINED HOME

INTERLUDE

THE GHOST OF THE BLUE CHAMBER

A PERSONAL EXPLANATION

MY OWN STORY

IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOHN INGERFIELD, AND OF ANNE, HIS WIFE A STORY OF OLD LONDON, IN TWO CHAPTERS

THE WOMAN OF THE SÆTER.

VARIETY PATTER.

SILHOUETTES.

THE LEASE OF THE “CROSS KEYS.”

REGINALD BLAKE, FINANCIER AND CAD

AN ITEM OF FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE

BLASÉ BILLY

THE CHOICE OF CYRIL HARJOHN

THE MATERIALISATION OF CHARLES AND MIVANWAY

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

THE MAN WHO WOULD MANAGE

THE MAN WHO LIVED FOR OTHERS

A MAN OF HABIT

THE ABSENT-MINDED MAN

A CHARMING WOMAN

WHIBLEY’S SPIRIT

THE MAN WHO WENT WRONG

THE HOBBY RIDER

THE MAN WHO DID NOT BELIEVE IN LUCK

DICK DUNKERMAN’S CAT

THE MINOR POET’S STORY

THE DEGENERATION OF THOMAS HENRY

THE CITY OF THE SEA

DRIFTWOOD

THE GHOST OF THE MARCHIONESS OF APPLEFORD.

THE USES AND ABUSES OF JOSEPH.

THE SURPRISE OF MR. MILBERRY.

THE PROBATION OF JAMES WRENCH.

THE WOOING OF TOM SLEIGHT’S WIFE.

PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK

THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOKE

THE SOUL OF NICHOLAS SNYDERS, OR THE MISER OF ZANDAM

MRS. KORNER SINS HER MERCIES

THE COST OF KINDNESS

THE LOVE OF ULRICH NEBENDAHL

THE ANGEL AND THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS

MALVINA OF BRITTANY.

THE STREET OF THE BLANK WALL.

HIS EVENING OUT.

THE LESSON.

SYLVIA OF THE LETTERS.

THE FAWN GLOVES.

DREAMS

CLOCKS

EVERGREENS

TEA-KETTLES

A PATHETIC STORY

THE NEW UTOPIA

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LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

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LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

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A CHARMING WOMAN

A MAN OF HABIT

A PATHETIC STORY

A PERSONAL EXPLANATION

AN ITEM OF FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE

BLASÉ BILLY

CLOCKS

DICK DUNKERMAN’S CAT

DREAMS

DRIFTWOOD

EVERGREENS

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HIS EVENING OUT.

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HOW THE STORIES CAME TO BE TOLD

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IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOHN INGERFIELD, AND OF ANNE,

HIS WIFE A STORY OF OLD LONDON, IN TWO CHAPTERS

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INTERLUDE

INTERLUDE — THE DOCTOR’S STORY

JOHNSON AND EMILY, OR THE FAITHFUL GHOST

MALVINA OF BRITTANY.

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MRS. KORNER SINS HER MERCIES

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Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies

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Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies:-

Superb and hilarious in the true Jerome K. Jerome style.
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Mrs Korner would like her husband to be less civilised, less amiable and courteous, than he is; she goes so far as to suggest she'd prefer it if he swore, threw temper tantrums, and was drunken out of control, occasionally. She certainly attempts, within first couple of pages, to provoke and pick a fight.

"The domestic staff at Acacia Villa, Ravenscourt Park, lived in a state of indignation. It could be heard of mornings and evenings saying its prayers indignantly."

""You've only got ten minutes," his wife reminded him. "Do get on with your breakfast."

""I should like," said Mr. Korner, "to finish a speech occasionally."

""You never would," asserted Mrs. Korner.

""I should like to try," sighed Mr. Korner, "one of these days—""

""I do mean it," repeated Mrs. Korner, for the third time, reseating herself a minute later at the table. "I would give anything—anything," reiterated the lady recklessly, "to see Christopher more like the ordinary sort of man."

""But he has always been the sort—the sort of man he is," her bosom friend reminded her.

""Oh, during the engagement, of course, one expects a man to be perfect. I didn't think he was going to keep it up.""

But no one could have been more shocked than Mrs Korner when soon she got her wish.

""We had one bottle of claret between us," Mr. Korner would often recall to his mind, "of which he drank the greater part. And then he brought out the little green flask. He said it was made from pears—that in Peru they kept it specially for Children's parties. Of course, that may have been his joke; but in any case I cannot see how just one glass—I wonder could I have taken more than one glass while he was talking." It was a point that worried Mr. Korner."

"He" was a distant cousin whom Mr Korner met by chance at the docks, his ship was leaving next morning for Southern hemisphere across Atlantic ocean, and they spent the evening together, the cousin speaking of his wide experiences. Mr Korner came home aggrieved his wife wasnt as appreciative of him as women were of lesser men, and so she got her wish.

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August 05, 2020- August 05, 2020.
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MY OWN STORY

OUR GHOST PARTY

PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

REGINALD BLAKE, FINANCIER AND CAD

SILHOUETTES.

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SYLVIA OF THE LETTERS.

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July 24, 2020 - July 25, 2020..
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TEA-KETTLES

TEDDY BIFFLES’ STORY THE ABSENT-MINDED MAN

THE ANGEL AND THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS

THE CHOICE OF CYRIL HARJOHN

THE CITY OF THE SEA

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THE COST OF KINDNESS

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The Cost of Kindness

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The Cost of Kindness

Hilarious, truly hilarious, despite being short.

"The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe would be quitting Wychwood-on-the-Heath the following Monday, never to set foot—so the Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe himself and every single member of his congregation hoped sincerely—in the neighbourhood again. Hitherto no pains had been taken on either side to disguise the mutual joy with which the parting was looked forward to. The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe, M.A., might possibly have been of service to his Church in, say, some East-end parish of unsavoury reputation, some mission station far advanced amid the hordes of heathendom. There his inborn instinct of antagonism to everybody and everything surrounding him, his unconquerable disregard for other people's views and feelings, his inspired conviction that everybody but himself was bound to be always wrong about everything, combined with determination to act and speak fearlessly in such belief, might have found their uses. In picturesque little Wychwood-on-the-Heath, among the Kentish hills, retreat beloved of the retired tradesman, the spinster of moderate means, the reformed Bohemian developing latent instincts towards respectability, these qualities made only for scandal and disunion.

"For the past two years the Rev. Cracklethorpe's parishioners, assisted by such other of the inhabitants of Wychwood-on-the-Heath as had happened to come into personal contact with the reverend gentleman, had sought to impress upon him, by hints and innuendoes difficult to misunderstand, their cordial and daily-increasing dislike of him, both as a parson and a man. Matters had come to a head by the determination officially announced to him that, failing other alternatives, a deputation of his leading parishioners would wait upon his bishop. This it was that had brought it home to the Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe that, as the spiritual guide and comforter of Wychwood-on-the Heath, he had proved a failure. The Rev. Augustus had sought and secured the care of other souls. The following Sunday morning he had arranged to preach his farewell sermon, and the occasion promised to be a success from every point of view. Churchgoers who had not visited St. Jude's for months had promised themselves the luxury of feeling they were listening to the Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe for the last time. The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe had prepared a sermon that for plain speaking and directness was likely to leave an impression. The parishioners of St. Jude's, Wychwood-on-the-Heath, had their failings, as we all have. The Rev. Augustus flattered himself that he had not missed out a single one, and was looking forward with pleasurable anticipation to the sensation that his remarks, from his "firstly" to his "sixthly and lastly," were likely to create."

But a couple from his parish visit him and wish to admonish him about forgiveness and spirit thereof, and he misunderstands this as their really liking and reversing him.

"The Rev. Augustus, with pardonable pride, repeated some of the things that Mrs. Pennycoop had said to him. Mrs. Pennycoop was not to imagine herself the only person in Wychwood-on-the-Heath capable of generosity that cost nothing. Other ladies could say graceful nothings—could say them even better. Husbands dressed in their best clothes and carefully rehearsed were brought in to grace the almost endless procession of disconsolate parishioners hammering at the door of St. Jude's parsonage. Between Thursday morning and Saturday night the Rev. Augustus, much to his own astonishment, had been forced to the conclusion that five-sixths of his parishioners had loved him from the first without hitherto having had opportunity of expressing their real feelings."

"Not till he entered the vestry at five minutes to eleven did recollection of his farewell sermon come to him. It haunted him throughout the service. To deliver it after the revelations of the last three days would be impossible. It was the sermon that Moses might have preached to Pharaoh the Sunday prior to the exodus. To crush with it this congregation of broken-hearted adorers sorrowing for his departure would be inhuman. The Rev. Augustus tried to think of passages that might be selected, altered. There were none. From beginning to end it contained not a single sentence capable of being made to sound pleasant by any ingenuity whatsoever."

And so instead of chastising them in farewell, declares he wouldn't leave!

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THE DEGENERATION OF THOMAS HENRY

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THE FAWN GLOVES.

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This collection of separate stories is startling indeed if one has begun reading Jerome K. Jerome with the three men duo of hilarious adventures that leave one helpless with laughter. One scarcely expects so much sensitivity, such delicacy, albeit reading this one knows the other two were in every way just as delicate, however funny they were. And here lies the greatest success of the author - his profundity and his sensitivity and his delicacy is not of the tom-tommed variety, but rather something pervading his work as naturally as a gentleman of his time and place would carry his suit, his hat and his folded umbrella, without himself being conscious or making the viewer - in this case reader - aware of it.

Generally, the common thread in thus collection of stories seems to be mystery, involving in each story a mysterious woman or a woman - or a female figure - of mystery.
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The short story that gives a collection of stories the name is about the fawn gloves that the gentle and sensitive man sees every day as he goes for his regular evening walk, and he begins to see her after he has passed, never talked or looked or met her gaze - which again is more sensitive than his own, her whole demeanour giving him courage to be the man and the strong one of the two, unlike the normal women he has avoided.

This is a courtship that belongs to the era that is gone perhaps - they sit together on a public bench or chairs in a garden, speak tentatively, exchange life stories in not much detail, but don't know each other's addresses and even names, height of sensitivity on part of both. Yet they know they are connected. Ultimate closeness, he goes on a knee and kisses a glove - she is always wearing the said fawn gloves, and reminds him of a fawn herself, shy and easily startled.

The daintiness of her attire and accessories is noticed by the protagonist, indeed of immense importance to the relationship, and is mentioned and described with matching daintiness by the author. Her fawn gloves seem merely a part of the whole picture of the dainty woman that reminds the protagonist of a fawn, until suddenly it is like a veil removed and the reason for the title clear.

Neither of them is rich, and this turns the story startlingly, albeit it is not an obvious factor mentioned - sensitivity of the author - when one day the protagonist asks the beloved fawn of a young woman to remove her gloves.

In the era when one was reticent rather than brazen, names and addresses not exchanged, and people not only sensitive but able to appreciate that quality in another, a relationship that seems to begin with a spring fragrance of tulips is just as delicately rendered into a gossamer veil of a tragedy - and one wishes the man were more sensible.

But there precisely is the point the author makes with his usual delicacy - the sensitivity of the protagonist is about his own sensibilities, and selfish, not extending to the woman he fell in love with for being so fawn-like. When it comes to it he shudders and goes away leaving her alone because he cannot stand anything painful, rather than realising what and how much she needs and spreading his caring and love to soothe and heal her.

He returns because he is unable to forget her, and has cornered a doctor he happens to meet to ask about the problem and whether it is possible to correct it - but he has left it too late, and she has vanished. If then he suffers, it is merely deserved, but one is left with the figure of the fawn woman in her dainty figure and sensitive, fleeting impression just as he is, long past her having gone from his life for ever. He cannot forget her and one does not know if one will.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014.
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THE GHOST OF THE BLUE CHAMBER

THE GHOST OF THE MARCHIONESS OF APPLEFORD.

THE HAUNTED MILL, OR THE RUINED HOME

THE HOBBY RIDER

THE LEASE OF THE “CROSS KEYS.”

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THE LESSON.

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THE LOVE OF ULRICH NEBENDAHL

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THE LOVE OF ULRICH NEBENDAHL

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This is the most unexpected of all works of Jerome K. Jerome, and not because it's not comic. A more touching, romantic story is hard to imagine, and if it wasn't a real story he heard somewhere and wrote down, it's a sudden rare insight into the author!

An aside, one notices over and over about the author's love for all things German, and not quite so much for other parts of the continent, especially France. One has to remember that mist of his writings were much before WWI, which wasn't blamed on Germany or German people as much as it was on Kaiser Wilhelm II, even though the anti German wave of feeling in England had the royals not only severing their ties with the German part of the clan, however intimate the blood ties, but also change their name, from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to a much more English Windsor.

Also, this period had been post several turmoil on continent following that in France, what with the revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic wars, eventually put down beginning the retreat from Moscow and finally at Waterloo.

But the love in England, of everything German, and exaltation thereof, at the time of Jerome K Jerome writing this, was perhaps more general, even a wave, that was forgotten post commencement of WWI, definitely that of WWII, even though to some extent it was responsible for the rise of the megalomaniac Nazi ideology in Germany.

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"“Now, how does a man know when he is in love?” asked Ulrich of the Pastor who, having been married twice, should surely be experienced upon the point. “How should he be sure that it is this woman and no other to whom his heart has gone out?”

"A commonplace-looking man was the Herr Pastor, short and fat and bald. But there had been other days, and these had left to him a voice that still was young; and the evening twilight screening the seared face, Ulrich heard but the pastor’s voice, which was the voice of a boy.

"“She will be dearer to you than yourself. Thinking of her, all else will be as nothing. For her you would lay down your life.”"

"All that afternoon Ulrich communed with himself, tried to understand himself, and could not. For Elsa and Margot and Hedwig were not the only ones by a long way. What girl in the village did he not love, if it came to that: Liesel, who worked so hard and lived so poorly, bullied by her cross-grained granddam. Susanna, plain and a little crotchety, who had never had a sweetheart to coax the thin lips into smiles. The little ones — for so they seemed to long, lanky Ulrich, with their pleasant ways — Ulrich smiled as he thought of them — how should a man love one more than another?

"The Herr Pfarrer shook his head and sighed. “That is not love. Gott in Himmel! think what it would lead to? The good God never would have arranged things so. You love one; she is the only woman in the world for you.”

"“But you, yourself, Herr Pastor, you have twice been married,” suggested the puzzled wheelwright.

"“But one at a time, Ulrich — one at a time. That is a very different thing.”"

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But war came, Ulrich went to join, and instead was caught into a life of stealthy tending to the wounded. He eventually came to woods near his village, keeping out of site in the forest.

"There had been trouble since Ulrich’s departure. A French corps of observation had been camped upon the hill, and twice within the month had a French soldier been found murdered in the woods. Heavy had been the penalties exacted from the village, and terrible had been the Colonel’s threats of vengeance. Now, for a third time, a soldier stabbed in the back had been borne into camp by his raging comrades, and this very afternoon the Colonel had sworn that if the murderer were not handed over to him within an hour from dawn, when the camp was to break up, he would before marching burn the village to the ground. The Herr Pfarrer was on his way back from the camp where he had been to plead for mercy, but it had been in vain.

"“Such are foul deeds!” said Ulrich.

"“The people are mad with hatred of the French,” answered the Herr Pastor. “It may be one, it may be a dozen who have taken vengeance into their own hands. May God forgive them.”

"“They will not come forward — not to save the village?”

"“Can you expect it of them! There is no hope for us; the village will burn as a hundred others have burned.”"

"Ulrich stood alone, looking down upon Alt Waldnitz bathed in moonlight. And there came to him the words of the old pastor: “She will be dearer to you than yourself. For her you would lay down your life.” And Ulrich knew that his love was the village of Alt Waldnitz, where dwelt his people, the old and wrinkled, the laughing “little ones,” where dwelt the helpless dumb things with their deep pathetic eyes, where the bees hummed drowsily, and the thousand tiny creatures of the day."

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"They hanged him high upon a withered elm, with his face towards Alt Waldnitz, that all the village, old and young, might see; and then to the beat of drum and scream of fife they marched away; and forest-hidden Waldnitz gathered up once more its many threads of quiet life and wove them into homely pattern.

"They talked and argued many a time, and some there were who praised and some who blamed. But the Herr Pfarrer could not understand.

"Until years later a dying man unburdened his soul so that the truth became known.

"Then they raised Ulrich’s coffin reverently, and the young men carried it into the village and laid it in the churchyard that it might always be among them. They reared above him what in their eyes was a grand monument, and carved upon it:

"“Greater love hath no man than this.”"

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September 20, 2020 - September 20, 2020.

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THE MAN WHO DID NOT BELIEVE IN LUCK

THE MAN WHO LIVED FOR OTHERS

THE MAN WHO WENT WRONG

THE MAN WHO WOULD MANAGE

THE MATERIALISATION OF CHARLES AND MIVANWAY

THE MINOR POET’S STORY

THE NEW UTOPIA

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THE NEW UTOPIA

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About someone who sleeps through the "GREAT SOCIAL REVOLUTION OF 1899.", for ten years before being discovered and thence left in a museum as an experiment, and wakes up in the new utopia of equality.

Turns out it was only a nightmare. But quite a horror, at that.

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"1891 - I had spent an extremely interesting evening. I had dined with some very "advanced" friends of mine at the "National Socialist Club". We had had an excellent dinner: the pheasant, stuffed with truffles, was a poem; and when I say that the '49 Chateau Lafitte was worth the price we had to pay for it, I do not see what more I can add in its favour."

Notice the name of the club. Is it only the name that's connecting it with the then unimaginable future, now infamous past, party?

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"I listened very attentively while my friends explained how, for the thousands of centuries during which it had existed before they came, the world had been going on all wrong, and how, in the course of the next few years or so, they meant to put it right.

"Equality of all mankind was their watchword--perfect equality in all things--equality in possessions, and equality in position and influence, and equality in duties, resulting in equality in happiness and contentment.

"The world belonged to all alike, and must be equally divided. Each man's labour was the property, not of himself, but of the State which fed and clothed him, and must be applied, not to his own aggrandisement, but to the enrichment of the race.

"Individual wealth--the social chain with which the few had bound the many, the bandit's pistol by which a small gang of rob- bers had thieved--must be taken from the hands that too long had held it.

"Social distinctions--the barriers by which the rising tide of humanity had hitherto been fretted and restrained--must be for ever swept aside. The human race must press onward to its destiny (whatever that might be), not as at present, a scattered horde, scrambling, each man for himself, over the broken ground of un- equal birth and fortune--the soft sward reserved for the feet of the pampered, the cruel stones reserved for the feet of the cursed,--but an ordered army, marching side by side over the level plain of equity and equality.

"The great bosom of our Mother Earth should nourish all her children, like and like; none should be hungry, none should have too much. The strong man should not grasp more than the weak; the clever should not scheme to seize more than the simple. The earth was man's, and the fulness thereof; and among all mankind it should be portioned out in even shares. All men were equal by the laws of man.

"With inequality comes misery, crime, sin, selfishness, arrogance, hypocrisy. In a world in which all men were equal, there would exist no temptation to evil, and our natural nobility would assert itself."

"We raised our glasses and drank to EQUALITY, sacred EQUALITY; and then ordered the waiter to bring us Green Char- treuse and more cigars."

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""What's the matter?" he asked; "anything disturbed you?"

""No," I said; "I always wake up like this, when I feel I've had enough sleep. What century is this?"

""This," he said, "is the twenty-ninth century. You have been asleep for just one thousand years."

""Ah! well, I feel all the better for it," I replied, getting down off the table. "There's nothing like having one's sleep out."

""I take it you are going to do the usual thing." said the old gentleman to me, as I proceeded to put on my clothes, which had been lying beside me in the case. "You'll want me to walk round the city with you, and explain all the changes to you, while you ask questions and make silly remarks?"

""Yes," I replied, "I suppose that's what I ought to do.""

"Everyone was dressed, as was also my guide, in a pair of grey trousers, and a grey tunic, buttoning tight round the neck and fastened round the waist by a belt. Each man was clean shaven, and each man had black hair.

"I said:

""Are all men twins?"

""Twins! Good gracious, no!" answered my guide. "Whatever made you fancy that?"

""Why, they all look so much alike," I replied; "and they've all got black hair!"

""Oh; that's the regulation colour for hair," explained my companion: "we've all got black hair. If a man's hair is not black naturally, he has to have it dyed black."

""Why?" I asked. "Why!" retorted the old gentleman, somewhat irritably.

""Why, I thought you understood that all men were now equal. What would become of our equality if one man or woman were allowed to swagger about in golden hair, while another had to put up with carrots?"

"He said that they had found they could not maintain their equality when people were allowed to wash themselves. Some people washed three or four times a day, while others never touched soap and water from one year's end to the other, and in consquence there got to be two distinct classes, the Clean and the Dirty. All the old class prejudices began to be revived. The clean despised the dirty, and the dirty hated the clean. So, to end dissension, the State decided to do the washing itself, and each citizen was now washed twice a day by government-appointed officials; and private washing was prohibited."

Further descriptions of living arrangements are so like what one yt video showed about a factory in China, it's not as funny as the author thought, if he did.

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For that matter, further description is all horror - abolishing not only marriage but love, breeding of humans no different from that of cattle, children taken at birth by state and brought up until they finish their state selected training at twenty, country all market garden with rectangular roads and canals, world all one language and no variety, anyone better has an arm or a leg or head to lose! No literature and no art, either. No sports, of course.

"I looked at the faces of the men and women that were passing. There was a patient, almost pathetic, expression upon them all. I wondered where I had seen that look before; it seemed familiar to me.

"All at once I remembered. It was just the quiet, troubled, wondering expression that I had always noticed upon the faces of the horses and oxen that we used to breed and keep in the old world."

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September 21, 2020 - September 21, 2020.

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THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOKE

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The Philosopher's Joke (1909)

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Delightful in what seems a merger of two very distinct and quintessential Jerome K. Jerome styles.

The philosopher of the title is Emmanuel Kant, and the story is of events involving three couples who happen to be together once where he lived, worked, and is buried across from; the joke, presumably, involves his philosophy, with an experiment involving three couples drinking a potion meted out by him in a crystal goblet of German manufacture, resulting in their returning to their youth while retaining knowledge of the future.

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"Myself, I do not believe this story. Six persons are persuaded of its truth; and the hope of these six is to convince themselves it was an hallucination. Their difficulty is there are six of them. Each one alone perceives clearly that it never could have been. Unfortunately, they are close friends, and cannot get away from one another; and when they meet and look into each other’s eyes the thing takes shape again."

The two or three paragraphs following this introduction, even apart from prolonging the anticipation, are pure Jerome K. Jerome delight, humour that keeps a reader simmering between a relaxed smile and a bubbling chuckle.

"The one who told it to me, and who immediately wished he had not, was Armitage. He told it to me one night when he and I were the only occupants of the Club smoking-room. His telling me — as he explained afterwards — was an impulse of the moment. Sense of the thing had been pressing upon him all that day with unusual persistence; and the idea had occurred to him, on my entering the room, that the flippant scepticism with which an essentially commonplace mind like my own — he used the words in no offensive sense — would be sure to regard the affair might help to direct his own attention to its more absurd aspect. I am inclined to think it did. He thanked me for dismissing his entire narrative as the delusion of a disordered brain, and begged me not to mention the matter to another living soul. I promised; and I may as well here observe that I do not call this mentioning the matter. Armitage is not the man’s real name; it does not even begin with an A. You might read this story and dine next to him the same evening: you would know nothing.

"Also, of course, I did not consider myself debarred from speaking about it, discreetly, to Mrs. Armitage, a charming woman. She burst into tears at the first mention of the thing. It took me all I knew to tranquillize her. She said that when she did not think about the thing she could be happy. She and Armitage never spoke of it to one another; and left to themselves her opinion was that eventually they might put remembrance behind them. She wished they were not quite so friendly with the Everetts. Mr. and Mrs. Everett had both dreamt precisely the same dream; that is, assuming it was a dream. Mr. Everett was not the sort of person that a clergyman ought, perhaps, to know; but as Armitage would always argue: for a teacher of Christianity to withdraw his friendship from a man because that man was somewhat of a sinner would be inconsistent. Rather should he remain his friend and seek to influence him. They dined with the Everetts regularly on Tuesdays, and sitting opposite the Everetts, it seemed impossible to accept as a fact that all four of them at the same time and in the same manner had fallen victims to the same illusion. I think I succeeded in leaving her more hopeful. She acknowledged that the story, looked at from the point of common sense, did sound ridiculous; and threatened me that if I ever breathed a word of it to anyone, she never would speak to me again. She is a charming woman, as I have already mentioned.

"By a curious coincidence I happened at the time to be one of Everett’s directors on a Company he had just promoted for taking over and developing the Red Sea Coasting trade. I lunched with him the following Sunday. He is an interesting talker, and curiosity to discover how so shrewd a man would account for his connection with so insane — so impossible a fancy, prompted me to hint my knowledge of the story. The manner both of him and of his wife changed suddenly. They wanted to know who it was had told me. I refused the information, because it was evident they would have been angry with him. Everett’s theory was that one of them had dreamt it — probably Camelford — and by hypnotic suggestion had conveyed to the rest of them the impression that they had dreamt it also. He added that but for one slight incident he should have ridiculed from the very beginning the argument that it could have been anything else than a dream. But what that incident was he would not tell me. His object, as he explained, was not to dwell upon the business, but to try and forget it. Speaking as a friend, he advised me, likewise, not to cackle about the matter any more than I could help, lest trouble should arise with regard to my director’s fees. His way of putting things is occasionally blunt.

"It was at the Everetts’, later on, that I met Mrs. Camelford, one of the handsomest women I have ever set eyes upon. It was foolish of me, but my memory for names is weak. I forgot that Mr. and Mrs. Camelford were the other two concerned, and mentioned the story as a curious tale I had read years ago in an old Miscellany. I had reckoned on it to lead me into a discussion with her on platonic friendship. She jumped up from her chair and gave me a look. I remembered then, and could have bitten out my tongue. ... She supposed it was her husband who had been my informant: he was just that sort of ass. She did not say it unkindly. She said when she was first married, ten years ago, few people had a more irritating effect upon her than had Camelford; but that since she had seen more of other men she had come to respect him. I like to hear a woman speak well of her husband. It is a departure which, in my opinion, should be more encouraged than it is. I assured her Camelford was not the culprit; and on the understanding that I might come to see her — not too often — on her Thursdays, I agreed with her that the best thing I could do would be to dismiss the subject from my mind and occupy myself instead with questions that concerned myself."

"I had never talked much with Camelford before that time, though I had often seen him at the Club. He is a strange man, of whom many stories are told. He writes journalism for a living, and poetry, which he publishes at his own expense, apparently for recreation. ... He confessed frankly that to him it was still a mystery. He could easily regard it as chimera, but for one slight incident. He would not for a long while say what that was, but there is such a thing as perseverance, and in the end I dragged it out of him. This is what he told me."

"I have put the story together as it seems to me it must have happened. The incidents, at all events, are facts. Things have since occurred to those concerned affording me hope that they will never read it. I should not have troubled to tell it at all, but that it has a moral.

"Six persons sat round the great oak table in the wainscoted Speise Saal of that cosy hostelry, the Kneiper Hof at Konigsberg."

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"“Judging from your talk this evening,” continued the peak-faced little gentleman, “you should welcome my offer. You appear to me to be one and all of exceptional intelligence. You perceive the mistakes that you have made: you understand the causes. The future veiled, you could not help yourselves. What I propose to do is to put you back twenty years. You will be boys and girls again, but with this difference: that the knowledge of the future, so far as it relates to yourselves, will remain with you."

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"What they had not foreseen was that knowledge of the future in no way affected their emotions of the present. Nathaniel Armitage grew day by day more hopelessly in love with bewitching Alice Blatchley. The thought of her marrying anyone else — the long-haired, priggish Camelford in particular — sent the blood boiling through his veins; added to which sweet Alice, with her arms about his neck, would confess to him that life without him would be a misery hardly to be endured, that the thought of him as the husband of another woman — of Nellie Fanshawe in particular — was madness to her. It was right perhaps, knowing what they did, that they should say good-bye to one another. She would bring sorrow into his life. Better far that he should put her away from him, that she should die of a broken heart, as she felt sure she would. How could he, a fond lover, inflict this suffering upon her? He ought of course to marry Nellie Fanshawe, but he could not bear the girl. Would it not be the height of absurdity to marry a girl he strongly disliked because twenty years hence she might be more suitable to him than the woman he now loved and who loved him?

"Nor could Nellie Fanshawe bring herself to discuss without laughter the suggestion of marrying on a hundred-and-fifty a year a curate that she positively hated. There would come a time when wealth would be indifferent to her, when her exalted spirit would ask but for the satisfaction of self-sacrifice. But that time had not arrived. The emotions it would bring with it she could not in her present state even imagine. Her whole present being craved for the things of this world, the things that were within her grasp. To ask her to forego them now because later on she would not care for them! it was like telling a schoolboy to avoid the tuck-shop because, when a man, the thought of stick-jaw would be nauseous to him. If her capacity for enjoyment was to be short-lived, all the more reason for grasping joy quickly."

"What would be the sense — even if they all agreed — in the three of them making themselves miserable for all their youth that they might be contented in their old age? Let age fend for itself and leave youth to its own instincts. Let elderly saints suffer — it was their metier — and youth drink the cup of life. It was a pity Dick was the only “catch” available, but he was young and handsome. Other girls had to put up with sixty and the gout."

"Everett was a man of practical ideas. It was he who took the matter in hand. The refreshment contractor admitted that curious goblets of German glass occasionally crept into their stock. One of the waiters, on the understanding that in no case should he be called upon to pay for them, admitted having broken more than one wine-glass on that particular evening: thought it not unlikely he might have attempted to hide the fragments under a convenient palm. The whole thing evidently was a dream. So youth decided at the time, and the three marriages took place within three months of one another.

"It was some ten years later that Armitage told me the story that night in the Club smoking-room. Mrs. Everett had just recovered from a severe attack of rheumatic fever, contracted the spring before in Paris. Mrs. Camelford, whom previously I had not met, certainly seemed to me one of the handsomest women I have ever seen. Mrs. Armitage — I knew her when she was Alice Blatchley — I found more charming as a woman than she had been as a girl. What she could have seen in Armitage I never could understand. Camelford made his mark some ten years later: poor fellow, he did not live long to enjoy his fame. Dick Everett has still another six years to work off; but he is well behaved, and there is talk of a petition."

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"It is a curious story altogether, I admit. As I said at the beginning, I do not myself believe it."

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October 06, 2020 - October 06, 2020.

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THE PROBATION OF JAMES WRENCH.

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THE SOUL OF NICHOLAS SNYDERS, OR THE MISER OF ZANDAM

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THE SOUL OF NICHOLAS SNYDERS,

THE MISER OF ZANDAM

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Here again, as he did in The Philosopher's Joke, Jerome K. Jerome uses glass of wine shared between people to bring into effect another occult phenomena that he thinks is interesting to explore - exchange of souls. But he doesn't quite understand the very terms.

What he does achieve, or write about, is exchange of personality, nature, character of the persons, while retaining their own minds and memories in the same bodies they abide in; that, is decidedly not, exchange of souls.

The author sets up the question midway - would the young orphan choose the old man with a new young soul, or the other way? But again, it's unfair, for the young girl to love a young man would only be natural. She might come to love the old man, but seeing him as the mate wouldn't be the same.

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"He lived in the old windmill which still is standing on the quay, with only little Christina to wait upon him and keep house for him. Christina was an orphan whose parents had died in debt. Nicholas, to Christina’s everlasting gratitude, had cleared their memory — it cost but a few hundred florins — in consideration that Christina should work for him without wages. Christina formed his entire household, and only one willing visitor ever darkened his door, the widow Toelast. Dame Toelast was rich and almost as great a miser as Nicholas himself. “Why should not we two marry?” Nicholas had once croaked to the widow Toelast. “Together we should be masters of all Zandam.” Dame Toelast had answered with a cackling laugh; but Nicholas was never in haste.

"One afternoon Nicholas Snyders sat alone at his desk in the centre of the great semi-circular room that took up half the ground floor of the windmill, and that served him for an office, and there came a knocking at the outer door.

"“Come in!” cried Nicholas Snyders. He spoke in a tone quite kind for Nicholas Snyders. He felt so sure it was Jan knocking at the door — Jan Van der Voort, the young sailor, now master of his own ship, come to demand of him the hand of little Christina. In anticipation, Nicholas Snyders tasted the joy of dashing Jan’s hopes to the ground; of hearing him plead, then rave; of watching the growing pallor that would overspread Jan’s handsome face as Nicholas would, point by point, explain to him the consequences of defiance — how, firstly, Jan’s old mother should be turned out of her home, his old father put into prison for debt; how, secondly, Jan himself should be pursued without remorse, his ship be bought over his head before he could complete the purchase. The interview would afford to Nicholas Snyders sport after his own soul. Since Jan’s return the day before, he had been looking forward to it. Therefore, feeling sure it was Jan, he cried “Come in!” quite cheerily.

"But it was not Jan. It was somebody Nicholas Snyders had never set eyes on before. And neither, after that one visit, did Nicholas Snyders ever set eyes upon him again."

"“Wouldn’t you like a soul, Nicholas Snyders?” he asked."

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"A strange world lay before him, a new world of lights and shadows, that wooed him with their beauty — a world of low, soft voices that called to him. There came to him again that bitter sense of having been robbed.

"“I could have been so happy all these years,” murmured old Nicholas to himself. “It is just the little town I could have loved — so quaint, so quiet, so homelike. I might have had friends, old cronies, children of my own maybe—”

"A vision of the sleeping Christina flashed before his eyes. She had come to him a child, feeling only gratitude towards him. Had he had eyes with which to see her, all things might have been different.

"Was it too late? He is not so old — not so very old. New life is in his veins. She still loves Jan, but that was the Jan of yesterday. In the future, Jan’s every word and deed will be prompted by the evil soul that was once the soul of Nicholas Snyders — that Nicholas Snyders remembers well. Can any woman love that, let the case be as handsome as you will?

"Ought he, as an honest man, to keep the soul he had won from Jan by what might be called a trick? Yes, it had been a fair bargain, and Jan had taken his price. Besides, it was not as if Jan had fashioned his own soul; these things are chance. Why should one man be given gold, and another be given parched peas? He has as much right to Jan’s soul as Jan ever had. He is wiser, he can do more good with it. It was Jan’s soul that loved Christina; let Jan’s soul win her if it can. And Jan’s soul, listening to the argument, could not think of a word to offer in opposition."

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"“I cannot understand,” she said. “I think sometimes that you and he must have changed souls. He is hard and mean and cruel, as you used to be.” She laughed, and the arms around him tightened for a moment. “And now you are kind and tender and great, as once he was. It is as if the good God had taken away my lover from me to give to me a father.”

"“Listen to me, Christina,” he said. “It is the soul that is the man, not the body. Could you not love me for my new soul?”

"“But I do love you,” answered Christina, smiling through her tears.

"“Could you as a husband?” The firelight fell upon her face. Nicholas, holding it between his withered hands, looked into it long and hard; and reading what he read there, laid it back against his breast and soothed it with his withered hand.

"“I was jesting, little one,” he said. “Girls for boys, and old women for old men. And so, in spite of all, you still love Jan?”

"“I love him,” answered Christina. “I cannot help it.”

"“And if he would, you would marry him, let his soul be what it may?”

"“I love him,” answered Christina. “I cannot help it.”"

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"Old Nicholas had foreseen the trouble he would have. Jan was content, had no desire to be again a sentimental young fool, eager to saddle himself with a penniless wife. Jan had other dreams.

"“Drink, man, drink!” cried Nicholas impatiently, “before I am tempted to change my mind. Christina, provided you marry her, is the richest bride in Zandam. There is the deed; read it; and read quickly.”

"Then Jan consented, and the two men drank. And there passed a breath between them as before; and Jan with his hands covered his eyes a moment.

"It was a pity, perhaps, that he did so, for in that moment Nicholas snatched at the deed that lay beside Jan on the desk. The next instant it was blazing in the fire."

"Jan did not tell Christina. In spite of all Jan could say, she would go back. Nicholas Snyders drove her from the door with curses. She could not understand. The only thing clear was that Jan had come back to her."

"Long after, Jan told Christina the whole story, but it sounded very improbable, and Christina — though, of course, she did not say so — did not quite believe it, but thought Jan was trying to explain away that strange month of his life during which he had wooed Dame Toelast. Yet it certainly was strange that Nicholas, for the same short month, had been so different from his usual self.

"“Perhaps,” thought Christina, “if I had not told him I loved Jan, he would not have gone back to his old ways. Poor old gentleman! No doubt it was despair.”"

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October 06, 2020 - October 06, 2020.

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THE STREET OF THE BLANK WALL.

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THE SURPRISE OF MR. MILBERRY.

THE USES AND ABUSES OF JOSEPH.

THE WOMAN OF THE SÆTER.

THE WOOING OF TOM SLEIGHT’S WIFE.

VARIETY PATTER.

WHIBLEY’S SPIRIT

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The Plays

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FANNY AND THE SERVANT PROBLEM

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Fanny and the Servant Problem:-

First and foremost, it is a delightful surprise to find out that there is more to Jerome K. Jerome than humour, although one loves the Three Men series - no matter how often one has read them, one still cannot help laughing so much it hurts. This play is far from devoid of humour, but is rather serious in more than one way - a veiled indictment of the European caste system that is never called so but understood as the way decent people live, while love is paid lip service to but really means one arranges one's own marital affairs with help of the whole society, keeping the caste and other suitability criteria always in mind.

Shortly after beginning to read this, it dawns on one that this is familiar, and one has loved the film version based on this; but as one goes on it is quite apparent that the film version is much more of a glitter and this rather prosaic one far more real - although people enamoured by the corporate misogynistic glamour might think the opposite way.

Fanny is a stage artist, with music and performance to her credit, and fame and name to boot, who happens to see someone she likes and he is in love with her for herself. Nevertheless he makes discreet enquiries re her family connections and is not too bright so makes it off her own agent, so is given some half truths and some not quite so true details; if the boy were not in love, he could easily check out the details not being true, but he is merely looking for something to tell his social connections. And so they marry and arrive at his home, she completely in dark about his aristocracy and he unaware that the pack of servants at his residence for several generations who are all from a family are in fact her close relatives.

To add to it all the butler, her uncle, and most of the family is rather strict re propriety, so much so they leave scripture quotes in the bedroom chosen for her by her aunts in law before she arrives, everyone being apprehensive about a stage artist - this was probably before films were quite so common and had eclipsed stage rendering it a poor second, except in a few, very few metropolitan cities - so imagince their shock when they realise it is the daughter of the sister who ran off to marry a musician, and that too an Irishman!

Unlike the film version this one is resolved much more satisfactorily, and one must thank the author.

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Friday, May 9, 2014.
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THE MASTER OF MRS. CHILVERS

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The Master Of Mrs. Chilvers

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Amazing, especially for its times.

Introduction to the play, a description of characters, is quite illuminating, about not only the general idea of the play but also the author and his times.

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GEOFFREY CHILVERS, M.P. [President Men’s League for the Extension of the Franchise to Women] A loving husband, and (would-be) affectionate father. Like many other good men, he is in sympathy with the Woman’s Movement: “not thinking it is coming in his time.”

ANNYS CHILVERS [nee Mogton, Hon. Sec. Women’s Parliamentary Franchise League] A loving wife, and (would-be) affection mother. Many thousands of years have gone to her making. A generation ago, she would have been the ideal woman: the ideal helpmeet. But new ideas are stirring in her blood, a new ideal of womanhood is forcing itself upon her.

LADY MOGTON [President W.P.F.L.] She knows she would be of more use in Parliament than many of the men who are there; is naturally annoyed at the Law’s stupidity in keeping her out.

PHOEBE MOGTON [Org. Sec. W.P.F.L.] The new girl, thinking more of politics than of boys. But that will probably pass.

JANET BLAKE [Jt. Org. Sec. W.P.F.L.] She dreams of a new heaven and a new earth when woman has the vote.

MRS. MOUNTCALM VILLIERS [Vice-President W.P.F.L.] She was getting tired of flirting. The Woman’s Movement has arrived just at the right moment.

ELIZABETH SPENDER [Hons. Treas. W.P.F.L.] She sees woman everywhere the slave of man: now pampered, now beaten, but ever the slave. She can see no hope of freedom but through warfare.

MRS. CHINN A mother. JAWBONES A bill-poster. Movements that do not fit in with the essentials of life on thirty shillings a week have no message so far as Jawbones is concerned.

GINGER Whose proper name is Rose Merton, and who has to reconcile herself to the fact that so far as her class is concerned the primaeval laws still run.

DORIAN ST. HERBERT [Hon. Sec. M.L.E.F.W.] He is interested in all things, the Woman’s Movement included.

BEN LAMB, M.P. As a student of woman, he admits to being in the infants’ class. SIGSBY An Election Agent. He thinks the modern woman suffers from over-indulgence. He would recommend to her the teachings of St. Paul.

HAKE A butler. He does not see how to avoid his wife being practically a domestic servant without wages.

A DEPUTATION It consists of two men and three women. Superior people would call them Cranks. But Cranks have been of some service to the world, and the use of superior people is still to be discovered.

................................................................................................

"ANNYS [To ELIZABETH.] I so want you to meet Geoffrey. He’ll alter your opinion of men.

"ELIZABETH My opinion of men has been altered once or twice — each time for the worse.

"ANNYS Why do you dislike men?

"ELIZABETH [With a short laugh.] Why does the slave dislike the slave-owner?

"PHOEBE Oh, come off the perch. You spend five thousand a year provided for you by a husband that you only see on Sundays. We’d all be slaves at that price.

"ELIZABETH The chains have always been stretched for the few. My sympathies are with my class.

"ANNYS But men like Geoffrey — men who are devoting their whole time and energy to furthering our cause; what can you have to say against them?

"ELIZABETH Simply that they don’t know what they’re doing. The French Revolution was nursed in the salons of the French nobility. When the true meaning of the woman’s movement is understood we shall have to get on without the male sympathiser."

................................................................................................

"ST. HERBERT Deplorable; but of course not your fault. I mention it because of its importance to the present matter. Under Clause A of the Act for the Better Regulation, &c., &c., all persons “mentally deficient” are debarred from becoming members of Parliament. The classification has been held to include idiots, infants, and women."

"ST. HERBERT A leader of the Orange Party was opposed by a Nationalist, and the proceedings promised to be lively. They promised for a while to be still livelier, owing to the nomination at the last moment of the local lunatic.

"PHOEBE [To ANNYS.] This is where we come in.

"ST. HERBERT There is always a local lunatic, who, if harmless, is generally a popular character. James Washington McCaw appears to have been a particularly cheerful specimen. One of his eccentricities was to always have a skipping-rope in his pocket; wherever the traffic allowed it, he would go through the streets skipping. He said it kept him warm. Another of his tricks was to let off fireworks from the roof of his house whenever he heard of the death of anybody of importance. The Returning Officer refused his nomination — which, so far as his nominators were concerned, was intended only as a joke — on the grounds of his being by common report a person of unsound mind. And there, so far as South-west Belfast was concerned, the matter ended.

"PHOEBE Pity.

"ST. HERBERT But not so far as the Returning Officer was concerned. McCaw appears to have been a lunatic possessed of means, imbued with all an Irishman’s love of litigation. He at once brought an action against the Returning Officer, his contention being that his mental state was a private matter, of which the Returning Officer was not the person to judge.

"PHOEBE He wasn’t a lunatic all over.

"ST. HERBERT We none of us are. The case went from court to court. In every instance the decision was in favour of the Returning Officer. Until it reached the House of Lords. The decision was given yesterday afternoon — in favour of the man McCaw.

"ELIZABETH Then lunatics, at all events, are not debarred from going to the poll."

................................................................................................

"PHOEBE It’s awfully rough on you, Geoffrey. I can see it from your point of view. But one can’t help remembering the things that you yourself have said.

"GEOFFREY I know; I know. I’ve been going up and down the country, excusing even your excesses on the ground that no movement can force its way to the front without treading on innumerable toes. For me, now, to cry halt merely because it happens to be my own toes that are in the way would be — ridiculous — absurd — would be monstrous. [Nobody contradicts him.] You are perfectly justified- -if this case means what you say it does — in putting up a candidate against me for East Poplar. Only, naturally, it cannot be Annys. [He reaches out his hand to where ANNYS stands a little behind him, takes her hand.] Annys and I have fought more than one election. It has been side by side.

"ELIZABETH The lady a little behind.

"GEOFFREY [He moves away with an expression of deep annoyance.]

"JANET [She comes forward. She holds forth her hands with a half- appealing, half-commanding gesture. She almost seems inspired.] Would it not be so much better if, in this first political contest between man and woman, the opponents were two people honouring one another, loving one another? Would it not show to all the world that man and woman may meet — contend in public life without anger, without scorn? [There is a pause. They stand listening.] I do not know, but it seems to me that if Mr. Chilvers could bring himself to do this it would be such a big thing — perhaps the most chivalrous thing that a man has ever done to help women. If he would put aside, quite voluntarily, all the man’s privilege — just say to the people, “Now choose — one of us two to serve you. We stand before you, equal, my wife and I.” I don’t know how to put it, but I feel that by merely doing that one thing Mr. Chilvers would solve the whole problem. It would prove that good men are ready to give us of their free accord all that we claim. We should gain our rights, not by warfare, but through love and understanding. Wouldn’t that be — so much better? [She looks — her hands still appealing — from one to the other.]"

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"ANNYS Do you know how long we have been married? Eight years. And do you know, sir, that all that time we have never had a difference? Don’t you think it will be good for you?

"GEOFFREY Do you know WHY we have never had a difference? Because you have always had your own way.

"ANNYS Oh!

"GEOFFREY You have got so used to it, you don’t notice it.

"ANNYS Then it will be good for me. I must learn to suffer opposition. [She laughs.]

"GEOFFREY You won’t like it.

"ANNYS Do you know, I’m not at all sure that I shan’t. [Unconsciously they let loose of one another.] You see, I shall have the right of hitting back. [Again she laughs.]

"GEOFFREY [Also laughingly.] Is woman going to develop the fighting instinct?

"ANNYS I wonder. [A moment’s silence.]

"GEOFFREY The difficulty in our case is there seems nothing to fight about.

"ANNYS We must think of something. [Laughs.]

"GEOFFREY What line are you going to take — what is your argument: why they should vote for you in preference to me?

"ANNYS Simply that I am a woman.

"GEOFFREY My dear child, that won’t be enough. Why should they vote for you merely because you’re a woman?

"ANNYS [Slightly astonished.] Because — because women are wanted in public life.

"GEOFFREY Who wants them?

"ANNYS [More astonished.] Who? Why — [it doesn’t seem too clear.] Why, all of us — you, yourself!

"GEOFFREY I’m not East Poplar. ANNYS [Is puzzled a moment, then valiantly.] I shall ask them to send me to Parliament to represent the interests of their women — and therefore of themselves — the interests of their children.

"GEOFFREY Children! What do you know about children? [Another silence.]

"ANNYS Personally — no. We have had no children of our own, of course. But [hopefully] it is a woman’s instinct.

"GEOFFREY Oh, Lord! That’s what the lady said who had buried seven.

"ANNYS [Her mouth is growing hard.] Don’t you believe in the right of women to share in the government of the country? GEOFFREY Some women. Yes. I can see some capable -

"ANNYS [Winces.]

"GEOFFREY — elderly, motherly woman who has brought up a dozen children of her own — who knows the world, being of some real use.

"ANNYS If it comes to that, there must be — I don’t say more “capable,” but more experienced, more fatherly men than yourself. [He turns, they look at one another. His tone almost touched contempt — hers was veiled anger.]

"GEOFFREY THAT’S the danger. It may come to a real fight."

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"GINGER Was talking to old Dot-and-carry-one the other d’y. You know who I mean — chap with the wooden leg as ‘as ‘is pitch outside the “George.” “Wot do you wimmen want worrying yourselves about things outside the ‘ome?” ‘e says to me. “You’ve got the children,” ‘e says. “Oh,” I says, “and whose fault’s that, I’d like to know? You wait till we’ve got the vote,” I says, “we’ll soon show you—”"

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"SIGSBY Look here. What I want to know is this: am I being asked to regard Lady Mogton as my opponent’s election agent, or as my principal’s mother-in-law? That point’s got to be settled. [His vehemence deepens.] Look at all these posters. Not to be used, for fear the other side mayn’t like them. Now Lady Mogton writes me that my candidate’s supporters are not to employ a certain argument she disapproves of: because, if they do, she’ll tell his wife. Is this an election, or is it a family jar?"

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"SIGSBY What have you been doing?

"JAWBONES Clinging to a roof for the last three hours.

"SIGSBY Clinging to a roof! What for?

"JAWBONES [He boils over.] Wot for? ‘Cos I didn’t want to fall off! Wot do you think: ‘cos I was fond of it?

"SIGSBY I don’t understand -

"JAWBONES You find yourself ‘alf way up a ladder, posting bills as the other side ‘as took objection to — with a crowd of girls from Pink’s jam factory waiting for you at the bottom with a barrel of treacle, and you WILL understand. Nothing else for me to do, o’ course, but to go up. Then they took the ladder away.

"SIGSBY Where are the bills?

"JAWBONES Last I see of them was their being put into a ‘earse on its way to Ilford Cemetery.

"SIGSBY This has got to be seen into. This sort of thing can’t be allowed to go on. [He snatches up his hat.]

"JAWBONES There’s another suggestion I’d like to make.

"SIGSBY [Pauses.]

"JAWBONES That is, if this election is going to be fought fairly, that our side should be provided with ‘at-pins."

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"GEOFFREY [He leans back in his chair.] Do you remember Tommy the Terrier, as they used to call him in the House — was always preaching Socialism?

"ST. HERBERT Quite the most amusing man I ever met!

"GEOFFREY And not afraid of being honest. Do you remember his answer when somebody asked him what he would do if Socialism, by any chance, really became established in England? He had just married an American heiress. He said he should emigrate. I am still convinced that woman is entitled to equal political rights with man. I didn’t think it was coming in my time. There are points in the problem remaining to be settled before we can arrive at a working solution. This is one of them. [He takes up the letter and reads.] “Are you prepared to have as your representative a person who for six months out of every year may be incapacitated from serving you?” It’s easy enough to say I oughtn’t to allow my supporters to drag in the personal element. I like it even less myself. But what’s the answer?"

"ST. HERBERT The answer, I should say, would be that the majority of women will continue to find something better to do. The women who will throw themselves into politics will be the unattached women, the childless women. [In an instant he sees his mistake, but it is too late.]

"GEOFFREY [He rises, crosses to the desk, throws into a waste- paper-basket a piece of crumpled paper that was in his hand; then turns. The personal note has entered into the discussion.] The women who WANT to be childless — what about them?

"ST. HERBERT [He shrugs his shoulders.] Are there any such?

"GEOFFREY There are women who talk openly of woman’s share in the general scheme being a “burden” on her — an “incubus.”

"ST. HERBERT A handful of cranks. To the normal woman motherhood has always been the one supreme desire.

"GEOFFREY Because children crowned her with honour. The barren woman was despised. All that is changing. This movement is adding impulse to it.

"ST. HERBERT Movements do not alter instincts.

"GEOFFREY But they do. Ever since man emerged from the jungle he has been shedding his instincts — shaping them to new desires. Where do you find this all-prevailing instinct towards maternity? Among the women of society, who sacrifice it without a moment’s hesitation to their vanity — to their mere pleasures? The middle- class woman — she, too, is demanding “freedom.” Children, servants, the home! — they are too much for her “nerves.” And now there comes this new development, appealing to the intellectual woman. Is there not danger of her preferring political ambition, the excitement of public life, to what has come to be regarded as the “drudgery” of turning four walls into a home, of peopling the silence with the voices of the children? [He crosses to the table- -lays his hand again upon the open letter.] How do you know that this may not be her answer—”I have no children. I never mean to have children”?"

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"MR. PEEKIN We propose, Mr. Chilvers, to come to the point at once. [He is all smiles, caressing gestures.]

"GEOFFREY Excellent.

"PEEKIN If I left a baby at your door, what would you do with it?

"GEOFFREY [For a moment he is taken aback, recovers himself.] Are you thinking of doing so?

"PEEKIN It’s not impossible.

"GEOFFREY Well, it sounds perhaps inhospitable, but do you know I really think I should ask you to take it away again.

"PEEKIN Yes, but by the time you find it there, I shall have disappeared — skedaddled.

"HOPPER Good. [He rubs his hands. Smiles at the others.]

"GEOFFREY In that case I warn you that I shall hand it over to the police.

"PEEKIN [He turns to the others.] I don’t myself see what else Mr. Chilvers could be expected to do.

"MISS BORLASSE He’d be a fool not to.

"GEOFFREY Thank you. So far we seem to be in agreement. And now may I ask to what all this is leading?

"PEEKIN [He changes from the debonnair to the dramatic.] How many men, Mr. Chilvers, leave their babies every year at the door of poverty-stricken women? What are they expected to do with them?

"[A moment. The DEPUTATION murmur approval.]

"GEOFFREY I see. But is there no difference between the two doors? I am not an accomplice.

"PEEKIN An accomplice! Is the ignorant servant-girl — first lured into the public-house, cajoled, tricked, deceived by false promises — the half-starved shop-girl in the hands of the practised libertine — is she an accomplice?

"MRS. PEEKIN [A dowdily-dressed, untidy woman, but the face is sweet and tender.] Ah, Mr. Chilvers, if you could only hear the stories that I have heard from dying lips.

"GEOFFREY Very pitiful, my dear lady. And, alas, only too old. But there are others. It would not be fair to blame always the man.

"ANNYS [Unnoticed, drawn by the subject, she has risen and come down.] Perhaps not. But the punishment always falls on the woman. Is THAT quite fair?

"GEOFFREY [He is irritated at ANNYS’S incursion into the discussion.] My dear Annys, that is Nature’s law, not man’s. All man can do is to mitigate it.

"PEEKIN That is all we ask. The suffering, the shame, must always be the woman’s. Surely that is sufficient.

"GEOFFREY What do you propose?

"MISS BORLASSE [In her deep, fierce tones.] That all children born out of wedlock should be a charge upon the rates.

"MISS RICKETTS [A slight, fair, middle-aged woman, with a nervous hesitating manner.] Of course, only if the mother wishes it.

"GEOFFREY [The proposal staggers him. But the next moment it inspires him with mingled anger and amusement.] My dear, good people, have you stopped for one moment to consider what the result of your proposal would be?

"PEEKIN For one thing, Mr. Chilvers, the adding to the populace of healthy children in place of the stunted and diseased abortions that is all that these poor women, out of their scanty earnings, can afford to present to the State.

"GEOFFREY Humph! That incidentally it would undermine the whole institution of marriage, let loose the flood-gates that at present hold immorality in check, doesn’t appear to trouble you. That the law must be altered to press less heavily upon the woman — that the man must be made an equal sharer in the penalty — all that goes without saying. The remedy you propose would be a thousand times worse than the disease.

"ANNYS And meanwhile? Until you have devised this scheme [there is a note of contempt in her voice] under which escape for the man will be impossible?

"GEOFFREY The evil must continue. As other evils have to until the true remedy is found.

"PEEKIN [He has hurriedly consulted with the others. All have risen — he turns to GEOFFREY.] You will not support our demand?

"GEOFFREY Support it! Do you mean that you cannot yourselves see that you are holding out an indemnity to every profligate, male and female, throughout the land — that you would be handicapping, in the struggle for existence, every honest man and woman desirous of bringing up their children in honour and in love? Your suggestion is monstrous!

"PEEKIN [The little man is not without his dignity.] We apologise, Mr. Chilvers, for having taken up your time.

"GEOFFREY I am sorry the matter was one offering so little chance of agreement.

"PEEKIN We will make only one slight further trespass on your kindness. Mrs. Chilvers, if one may judge, would seem to be more in sympathy with our views. Might we — it would be a saving of time and shoe leather [he smiles] — might we take this opportunity of laying our case before her?

"GEOFFREY It would be useless.

"[A short silence. ANNYS, with ELIZABETH and PHOEBE a little behind her, stands right. LAMB, SIGSBY, and ST. HERBERT are behind GEOFFREY centre. The DEPUTATION is left.]

"HOPPER Do we gather that in this election you speak for both candidates?

"GEOFFREY In matters of common decency, yes. My wife does not associate herself with movements for the encouragement of vice. [There is another moment’s silence.]

"ANNYS But, Geoffrey, dear — we should not be encouraging the evil. We should still seek to find the man, to punish him. The woman would still suffer -

"GEOFFREY My dear Annys, this is neither the time nor place for you and me to argue out the matter. I must ask you to trust to my judgment.

"ANNYS I can understand your refusing, but why do you object to my -

"GEOFFREY Because I do not choose for my wife’s name to be linked with a movement that I regard as criminal. I forbid it.

"[It was the moment that was bound to come. The man’s instincts, training, have involuntarily asserted themselves. Shall the woman yield? If so, then down goes the whole movement — her claim to freedom of judgment, of action, in all things. All watch the struggle with breathless interest.]

"ANNYS [She speaks very slowly, very quietly, but with a new note in her voice.] I am sorry, but I have given much thought to this matter, and — I do not agree with you.

"MRS. PEEKIN You will help us?

"ANNYS I will do what I can.

"PEEKIN [He takes from his pocket a folded paper.] It is always so much more satisfactory when these things are in writing. Candidates, with the best intentions in the world, are apt to forget. [He has spread the paper on a corner of the table. He has in his hand his fountain-pen.]

"ANNYS [With a smile.] I am not likely to forget, but if you wish it — [She approaches the table.]

"GEOFFREY [He interposes. His voice is very low, almost a whisper.] My wife will not sign.

"ANNYS [She also speaks low, but there is no yielding in her voice.] I am not only your wife. I have a duty also to others."

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"GEOFFREY [He is writing.] Sigsby.

"SIGSBY Hallo!

"GEOFFREY That poster I told young Gordon I wouldn’t sanction, “The Woman spouting politics, the Man returning to a slattern’s home.”

"[SIGSBY enters.]

"SIGSBY I have countermanded them.

"GEOFFREY Countermand them again. We shall want a thousand.

"SIGSBY [Can hardly believe his ears.]

"GEOFFREY [With a gesture round the room.] All of them. “A Man for Men!” “Save the Children!” “Guard your Homes!” All the damned collection. Order as many as you want.

"SIGSBY [His excitement rising.] I can go ahead. You mean it?

"GEOFFREY [He looks at him.] It’s got to be a fight! [A moment. He returns to his writing.] Telephone Hake that I shall be dining at the Reform Club."

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"LADY MOGTON I am sorry.

"SIGSBY [He snarls.] “The Mother’s Hand shall Help Us!” One of your posters, I think.

"LADY MOGTON You shouldn’t have insulted them — calling them old washerwomen!

"SIGSBY Insult! Can’t one indulge in a harmless jeu d’esprit — [he pronounces it according to his own ideas] — without having one’s clothes torn off one’s back? [Fiercely.] What do you mean by it — disgracing your sex?

"LADY MOGTON Are you addressing me?

"SIGSBY All of you. Upsetting the foundations upon which society has been reared — the natural and lawful subjection of the woman to the man. Why don’t you read St. Paul?

"LADY MOGTON St. Paul was addressing Christians. When men behave like Christians there will be no need of Votes for Women. You read St. Paul on men. [To JANET.] I shall want you!"

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"GEOFFREY So this is only the beginning? You have decided to devote yourself to a political career?

"ANNYS Why not?

"GEOFFREY If I were to ask you to abandon it, to come back to your place at my side — helping me, strengthening me?

"ANNYS You mean you would have me abandon my own task — merge myself in you?

"GEOFFREY Be my wife.

"ANNYS It would not be right. I, too, have my work.

"GEOFFREY If it takes you away from me?

"ANNYS Why need it take me away from you? Why cannot we work together for common ends, each in our own way?

"GEOFFREY We talked like that before we tried it. Marriage is not a partnership; it is a leadership.

"ANNYS [She looks at him.] You mean — an ownership.

"GEOFFREY Perhaps you’re right. I didn’t make it. I’m only — beginning to understand it.

"ANNYS And I too. It is not what I want.

"GEOFFREY You mean its duties have become irksome to you.

"ANNYS I mean I want to be the judge myself of what are my duties.

"GEOFFREY I no longer count. You will go your way without me?

"ANNYS I must go the way I think right.

"GEOFFREY [He flings away.] If you win to-night you will do well to make the most of it. Take my advice and claim the seat.

"ANNYS [Looks at him puzzled.]

"ELIZABETH Why?

"GEOFFREY Because [with a short, ugly laugh] the Lord only knows when you’ll get another opportunity.

"ELIZABETH You are going to stop us?

"GEOFFREY To stop women from going to the poll. The Bill will be introduced on Monday. Carried through all its stages the same week.

"ELIZABETH You think it will pass?

"GEOFFREY The Whips assure me that it will. ANNYS But they cannot, they dare not, without your assent. The — [The light breaks in upon her.] Who is bringing it in?

"GEOFFREY I am.

"ANNYS [Is going to speak.]

"GEOFFREY [He stops her.] Oh, I’m prepared for all that — ridicule, abuse. “Chilvers’s Bill for the Better Regulation of Mrs. Chilvers,” they’ll call it. I can hear their laughter. Yours won’t be among it.

"ANNYS But, Geoffrey! What is the meaning? Merely to spite me, are you going to betray a cause that you have professed belief in — that you have fought for?

"GEOFFREY Yes — if it is going to take you away from me. I want you. No, I don’t want a friend—”a fellow-worker” — some interesting rival in well doing. I can get all that outside my home. I want a wife. I want the woman I love to belong to me — to be mine. I am not troubling about being up to date; I’m talking what I feel — what every male creature must have felt since the protoplasmic cell developed instincts. I want a woman to love — a woman to work for — a woman to fight for — a woman to be a slave to. But mine — mine, and nothing else. All the rest [he makes a gesture] is talk. [He closes the window, shutting out the hubbub of the crowd.]

"ANNYS [A strange, new light has stolen in. She is bewildered, groping.] But — all this is new between us. You have not talked like this for — not since — We were just good friends — comrades.

"GEOFFREY And might have remained so, God knows! I suppose we’re made like that. So long as there was no danger passion slept. I cannot explain it. I only know that now, beside the thought of losing you, all else in the world seems meaningless. The Woman’s Movement! [He makes a gesture of contempt.] Men have wrecked kingdoms for a woman before now — and will again. I want you! [He comes to her.] Won’t you come back to me, that we may build up the home we used to dream of? Wasn’t the old love good? What has this new love to give you? Work that man can do better. The cause of the women — the children! Has woman loved woman better than man? Will the world be better for the children, man and woman contending? Come back to me. Help me. Help me to fight for all good women. Teach me how I may make the world better — for our children.

"ANNYS [The light is in her eyes. She stands a moment. Her hands are going out to him.]

:ELIZABETH [She comes between them.] Yes, go to him. He will be very good to you. Good men are kind to women, kind even to their dogs. You will be among the pampered few! You will be happy. And the others! What does it matter?

"[They draw apart. She stands between them, the incarnation of the spirit of sex war.]

"The women that have not kind owners — the dogs that have not kind masters — the dumb women, chained to their endless, unpaid drudgery! Let them be content. What are they but man’s chattel? To be honoured if it pleases him, or to be cast into the dust. Man’s pauper! Bound by his laws, subject to his whim; her every hope, her every aspiration, owed to his charity. She toils for him without ceasing: it should be her “pleasure.” She bears him children, when he chooses to desire them. They are his to do as he will by. Why seek to change it? Our man is kind. What have they to do with us: the women beaten, driven, overtasked — the women without hope or joy, the livers of grey lives that men may laugh and spend — the women degraded lower than the beasts to pander to the beast in man — the women outraged and abandoned, bearing to the grave the burden of man’s lust? Let them go their way. They are but our sisters of sorrow. And we who could help them — we to whom God has given the weapons: the brain, and the courage — we make answer: “I have married a husband, and I cannot come.” [A silence.]

"GEOFFREY Well, you have heard. [He makes a gesture.] What is your answer?

"ANNYS [She comes to him.] Don’t you love me enough to humour me a little — to put up with my vexing ways? I so want to help, to feel I am doing just a little, to make the world kinder. I know you can do it better, but I want so to be “in it.” [She laughs.] Let us forget all this. Wake up to-morrow morning with fresh hearts. You will be Member for East Poplar. And then you shall help me to win Manchester. [She puts her hands upon his breast: she would have him take her in his arms.] I am not strong enough to fight alone.

"GEOFFREY I want you. Let Manchester find some one else.

"ANNYS [She draws away from him.] And if I cannot — will not?

"GEOFFREY I bring in my Bill on Monday. We’ll be quite frank about it. That is my price — you. I want you!"

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The two were reunited despite her win, partly because her news of expecting changed him, but the more fundamental change was due to his beginning of comprehension due to his talk with his office cook who was a widow, of what women go through as mothers, often supporting large number of children alone.

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September 20, 2020 - September 21, 2020.

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The Non-Fiction

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IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW

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Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow:-

"What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a change."

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ON BEING IDLE.

Author clarifies the difference between idle, lazy, and plain unoccupied - with much that's familiar to most people.

"Idling always has been my strong point. I take no credit to myself in the matter—it is a gift. Few possess it."

"It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen."

"Tobacco has been a blessing to us idlers. What the civil-service clerk before Sir Walter's time found to occupy their minds with it is hard to imagine. I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want of the soothing weed. They had no work to do and could not smoke, and the consequence was they were forever fighting and rowing. If, by any extraordinary chance, there was no war going, then they got up a deadly family feud with the next-door neighbor, and if, in spite of this, they still had a few spare moments on their hands, they occupied them with discussions as to whose sweetheart was the best looking, the arguments employed on both sides being battle-axes, clubs, etc. Questions of taste were soon decided in those days. When a twelfth-century youth fell in love he did not take three paces backward, gaze into her eyes, and tell her she was too beautiful to live. He said he would step outside and see about it. And if, when he got out, he met a man and broke his head—the other man's head, I mean—then that proved that his—the first fellow's—girl was a pretty girl.

"Nowadays we light a pipe and let the girls fight it out among themselves."
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ON BEING IN LOVE.

"And oh, how beautiful she was, how wondrous beautiful! It was as some angel entering the room, and all else became plain and earthly. She was too sacred to be touched. It seemed almost presumption to gaze at her. You would as soon have thought of kissing her as of singing comic songs in a cathedral. It was desecration enough to kneel and timidly raise the gracious little hand to your lips.

"Ah, those foolish days, those foolish days when we were unselfish and pure-minded; those foolish days when our simple hearts were full of truth, and faith, and reverence! Ah, those foolish days of noble longings and of noble strivings!"
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ON BEING IN THE BLUES.

"I can enjoy feeling melancholy, and there is a good deal of satisfaction about being thoroughly miserable; but nobody likes a fit of the blues."
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ON BEING HARD UP.

"There have been a good many funny things said and written about hardupishness, but the reality is not funny, for all that. It is not funny to have to haggle over pennies. It isn't funny to be thought mean and stingy."
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ON VANITY AND VANITIES.

"There she goes, now, gazing rapturously at her own toes and murmuring "pittie"—two-foot-ten of conceit and vanity, to say nothing of other wickednesses."

"We wish to become rich men, not in order to enjoy ease and comfort—all that any one man can taste of those may be purchased anywhere for 200 pounds per annum—but that our houses may be bigger and more gaudily furnished than our neighbors'; that our horses and servants may be more numerous; that we may dress our wives and daughters in absurd but expensive clothes; and that we may give costly dinners of which we ourselves individually do not eat a shilling's worth."
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ON GETTING ON IN THE WORLD.

"Man is not given that godlike unselfishness that thinks only of others' good. But in working for themselves they are working for us all. We are so bound together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf helps to mold the universe. The stream in struggling onward turns the mill-wheel; the coral insect, fashioning its tiny cell, joins continents to one another; and the ambitious man, building a pedestal for himself, leaves a monument to posterity. .... "

"Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before. I have not a word to say against contented people so long as they keep quiet. But do not, for goodness' sake, let them go strutting about, as they are so fond of doing, crying out that they are the true models for the whole species. Why, they are the deadheads, the drones in the great hive, the street crowds that lounge about, gaping at those who are working."
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ON THE WEATHER.

Amazing finale to a diatribe about weather being always unpleasant in cities, as he concludes about how it's the opposite when in country, communing with nature.

"We see but dimly through the mists that roll around our time-girt isle of life, and only hear the distant surging of the great sea beyond."
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ON CATS AND DOGS.

"They are always glad to see us. They are with us in all our humors. They are merry when we are glad, sober when we feel solemn, and sad when we are sorrowful."
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ON BEING SHY.

"All great literary men are shy. I am myself, though I am told it is hardly noticeable.

"I am glad it is not. It used to be extremely prominent at one time, and was the cause of much misery to myself and discomfort to every one about me—my lady friends especially complained most bitterly about it."

"Conceit, indeed, is the quickest cure for it. When it once begins to dawn upon you that you are a good deal cleverer than any one else in this world, bashfulness becomes shocked and leaves you. When you can look round a roomful of people and think that each one is a mere child in intellect compared with yourself you feel no more shy of them than you would of a select company of magpies or orang-outangs."

"Genuine conceit does not make a man objectionable. On the contrary, it tends to make him genial, kind-hearted, and simple. He has no need of affectation—he is far too well satisfied with his own character; and his pride is too deep-seated to appear at all on the outside. Careless alike of praise or blame, he can afford to be truthful. Too far, in fancy, above the rest of mankind to trouble about their petty distinctions, he is equally at home with duke or costermonger. And valuing no one's standard but his own, he is never tempted to practice that miserable pretense that less self-reliant people offer up as an hourly sacrifice to the god of their neighbor's opinion.

"The shy man, on the other hand, is humble—modest of his own judgment and over-anxious concerning that of others. But this in the case of a young man is surely right enough. His character is unformed. It is slowly evolving itself out of a chaos of doubt and disbelief. Before the growing insight and experience the diffidence recedes. ... "
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ON BABIES.

"Oh, yes, I do—I know a lot about 'em. I was one myself once, though not long—not so long as my clothes. They were very long, I recollect, and always in my way when I wanted to kick."

"It is only the first baby that takes up the whole of a woman's time. Five or six do not require nearly so much attention as one."

"Poor little feet, just commencing the stony journey! We old travelers, far down the road, can only pause to wave a hand to you. You come out of the dark mist, and we, looking back, see you, so tiny in the distance, standing on the brow of the hill, your arms stretched out toward us. God speed you! We would stay and take your little hands in ours, but the murmur of the great sea is in our ears and we may not linger. We must hasten down, for the shadowy ships are waiting to spread their sable sails."
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ON EATING AND DRINKING.

"My poor, dear mother used to say she liked to see me eat, and it has always been a pleasant reflection to me since that I must have given her much gratification in that direction. A growing, healthy lad, taking plenty of exercise and careful to restrain himself from indulging in too much study, can generally satisfy the most exacting expectations as regards his feeding powers."

"By the way, we never eat anybody's health, always drink it. Why should we not stand up now and then and eat a tart to somebody's success?"

"Ah! we may talk sentiment as much as we like, but the stomach is the real seat of happiness in this world. The kitchen is the chief temple wherein we worship, its roaring fire is our vestal flame, and the cook is our great high-priest. He is a mighty magician and a kindly one. He soothes away all sorrow and care. He drives forth all enmity, gladdens all love. Our God is great and the cook is his prophet. Let us eat, drink, and be merry."

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ON FURNISHED APARTMENTS.

"Curious, that in lodgings the rule of life is reversed. The higher you get up in the world the lower you come down in your lodgings. On the lodging-house ladder the poor man is at the top, the rich man underneath. You start in the attic and work your way down to the first floor."

"Haydn grew up in an attic and Chatterton starved in one. Addison and Goldsmith wrote in garrets. Faraday and De Quincey knew them well. Dr. Johnson camped cheerfully in them, sleeping soundly—too soundly sometimes—upon their trundle-beds, like the sturdy old soldier of fortune that he was, inured to hardship and all careless of himself. Dickens spent his youth among them, Morland his old age—alas! a drunken, premature old age. Hans Andersen, the fairy king, dreamed his sweet fancies beneath their sloping roofs. Poor, wayward-hearted Collins leaned his head upon their crazy tables; priggish Benjamin Franklin; Savage, the wrong-headed, much troubled when he could afford any softer bed than a doorstep; young Bloomfield, "Bobby" Burns, Hogarth, Watts the engineer—the roll is endless. Ever since the habitations of men were reared two stories high has the garret been the nursery of genius."

" ... If all the wisdom of the world and all its art—all the spoils that it has won from nature, all the fire that it has snatched from heaven—were gathered together and divided into heaps, and we could point and say, for instance, these mighty truths were flashed forth in the brilliant salon amid the ripple of light laughter and the sparkle of bright eyes; and this deep knowledge was dug up in the quiet study, where the bust of Pallas looks serenely down on the leather-scented shelves; and this heap belongs to the crowded street; and that to the daisied field—the heap that would tower up high above the rest as a mountain above hills would be the one at which we should look up and say: this noblest pile of all—these glorious paintings and this wondrous music, these trumpet words, these solemn thoughts, these daring deeds, they were forged and fashioned amid misery and pain in the sordid squalor of the city garret. There, from their eyries, while the world heaved and throbbed below, the kings of men sent forth their eagle thoughts to wing their flight through the ages. There, where the sunlight streaming through the broken panes fell on rotting boards and crumbling walls; there, from their lofty thrones, those rag-clothed Joves have hurled their thunderbolts and shaken, before now, the earth to its foundations."
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ON DRESS AND DEPORTMENT.

Good.
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ON MEMORY.

"I am alone and the road is very dark. I stumble on, I know not how nor care, for the way seems leading nowhere, and there is no light to guide.

"But at last the morning comes, and I find that I have grown into myself."

Lovely.

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July 27, 2020 - July 29, 2020.

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ON THE STAGE AND OFF

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ON THE STAGE AND OFF

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The title of one of the editions of the book says

"On the Stage-And Off the Berif Career of a Would-Be Actor

by Jerome K Jermoe"

And it's a paperback, too, not kindle edition.

"Paperback, 178 pages

Published February 26th 2019 by Wentworth Press"

Did no one notice yet?

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Jerome K. Jerome takes off with a flying leap in his style that, if he were a performer in ballet instead of an author, and the leap were literal rather than humour in writing, would do credit to Paris or Kirov or Bolshoi.

"THERE comes a time in every one’s life when he feels he was born to be an actor. Something within him tells him that he is the coming man, and that one day he will electrify the world. Then he burns with a desire to show them how the thing’s done, and to draw a salary of three hundred a week.

"This sort of thing generally takes a man when he is about nineteen, and lasts till he is nearly twenty. But he doesn’t know this at the time. He thinks he has got hold of an inspiration all to himself — a kind of solemn “call,” which it would be wicked to disregard; and when he finds that there are obstacles in the way of his immediate appearance as Hamlet at a leading West-end theater, he is blighted.

"I myself caught it in the usual course. I was at the theater one evening to see Romeo and Juliet played, when it suddenly flashed across me that that was my vocation. I thought all acting was making love in tights to pretty women, and I determined to devote my life to it. When I communicated my heroic resolution to my friends, they reasoned with me. That is, they called me a fool; and then said that they had always thought me a sensible fellow, though that was the first I had ever heard of it.

"But I was not to be turned from my purpose.

"I commenced operations by studying the great British dramatists. I was practical enough to know that some sort of preparation was necessary, and I thought that, for a beginning, I could not do better than this. Accordingly, I read through every word of Shakespeare, — with notes, which made it still more unintelligible, — Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Sheridan, Goldsmith, and Lord Lytton. This brought me into a state of mind bordering on insanity. Another standard dramatist, and I should have gone raving mad: of that I feel sure. Thinking that a change would do me good, I went in for farces and burlesques, but found them more depressing than the tragedies, and the idea then began to force itself upon me that, taking one consideration with another, an actor’s lot would not be a happy one. Just when I was getting most despondent, however, I came across a little book on the art of “making-up,” and this resuscitated me.

"I suppose the love of “making-up” is inherent in the human race. I remember belonging, when a boy, to “The West London United Concert and Entertainment Association.” We used to meet once a week for the purpose of regaling our relations with original songs and concertina solos, and on these occasions we regularly burnt-corked our hands and faces. There was no earthly reason for doing so, and I am even inclined to think we should have made our friends less unhappy if we had spared them this extra attraction. None of our songs had the slightest reference to Dinah. We didn’t even ask each other conundrums; while, as for the jokes, they all came from the audience. And yet we daubed ourselves black with as much scrupulousness as if it had been some indispensable religious rite. It could only have been vanity."

"“Making-up” certainly assists the actor to a very great degree. At least, I found it so in my case. ... My fiercest scowl was a milk-and-watery accompaniment to my bloodthirsty speeches; and, when I tried to smile sardonically, I merely looked imbecile.

"But crape hair and the rouge pot changed all this. The character of Hamlet stood revealed to me the moment that I put on false eyebrows, and made my cheeks look hollow. With a sallow complexion, dark eyes, and long hair, I was Romeo, and, until I washed my face, loved Juliet to the exclusion of all my female cousins. Humor came quite natural when I had a red nose; and, with a scrubby black beard, I felt fit for any amount of crime."

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"For the next week, therefore, I was nothing; after that, I was an Actor!!!

"(My friends deny this. They say I never became an actor. I say I did, and I think I ought to know.)"

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"It may be that, in the course of my comments, I shall think it necessary to make a few more or less sensible and original remarks; to tell actors and actresses what they ought to do, and what they ought not to do; to explain to managers how they ought to manage their own business; and to give good advice generally all round. Therefore, at the outset, I wish to be clearly understood that, when so doing, I have in mind only that part of the theatrical world with which I am acquainted. As regards such theaters as, for example, the Lyceum or the St. James’s, they are managed quite as well, perhaps, as I could manage them myself, and I have no fault to find with them. Even if I had, I should not do so here, for in these reminiscences I intend to talk only about what I understand — an eccentric resolution for an author, I admit; but no matter, I like to be original now and then."

"Of course, I had assumed a stage name. They all do it. Heaven only knows why; I am sure they don’t. While in the profession, I met a young fellow whose real name happened to be the very one that I had assumed, while he had taken my real name for his assumed one. We were both happy and contented enough, until we met; but afterward we took a sadder view of life, with all its shams and vanities."

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"Then, after a short interval, a lady — an old queer-looking little lady, who walked with a stick, and complained of rheumatism, and who, as soon as she reached the stage, plumped herself down on the thick end of a mossy bank, from which nothing would induce her to rise until she got up to go home. She was our “old woman.” She did the doting mothers and the comic old maids. She had played everything in her time, and could play anything still.

"She would have taken Juliet, or Juliet’s nurse, whichever you liked, and have done both of them well. She would have been ten minutes making up for Juliet, and then, sitting in the middle of the pit, you would have put her down for twenty!"

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"As everybody was very glad indeed to see her and welcomed her with what seemed to be irrepressible joy, even the stage manager being civil, I naturally concluded that she was the embodiment of all the virtues known to human kind. The whispered remarks that I overheard, however, did not quite support this view, and I was at a loss to reconcile matters, until I learned that she was the manager’s wife. She was the leading lady, and the characters she particularly affected, and in which she was affected, were the girlish heroines, and the children who die young and go to heaven."

"The play was one of the regular old-fashioned melodramas, and the orchestra had all its work cut out to keep up with it. Nearly all the performers had a bar of music to bring them on each time, and another to take them off; a bar when they sat down, and a bar when they got up again; while it took a small overture to get them across the stage. As for the leading lady, every mortal thing she did or said, from remarking that the snow was cold, in the first act, to fancying she saw her mother and then dying, in the last, was preceded by a regular concert. I firmly believe that if, while on the stage, she had shown signs of wanting to sneeze, the band would at once have struck up quick music. I began to think, after a while, that it must be an opera, and to be afraid that I should have to sing my part."

"Then, reading from our parts, we commenced. The speeches, with the exception of the very short ones, were not given at full length. The last two or three words, forming the cues, were clearly spoken, but the rest was, as a rule, mumbled through, skipped altogether, or else represented by a droning “er, er, er,” interspersed with occasional disjointed phrases. A scene of any length, between only two or three of the characters, — and there were many such, — was cut out entirely, and gone through apart by the people concerned. Thus, while the main rehearsal was proceeding in the center of the stage, a minor one was generally going on at the same time in some quiet corner — two men fighting a duel with walking sticks; a father denouncing his son, and turning him out of doors; or some dashing young gallant, in a big check ulster, making love to some sweet young damsel, whose little boy, aged seven, was sitting on her lap."

"Any one never having attempted to speak in a large public building would hardly imagine how weak and insignificant the ordinary conversational tones are, even at their loudest. To make your voice “carry,” you have to throw it out, instead of letting it crawl out when you open your mouth. The art is easily acquired, and, by it, you are able to make your very whispers heard."

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"WE had five rehearsals for this play.

"“What the dickens do they want with so many?” was the indignant comment of the First Old Woman. “Why, they’ll rehearse it more times than they’ll play it.”

"I thought five a ridiculously small number at the time, especially when I remembered my amateur days, and the thirty or so rehearsals, nearly all full-dressed ones, required for a short farce; but there came a time when I looked upon two as betokening extraordinary anxiety about a production. In the provinces, I have known a three-act comedy put on without any rehearsal at all, and with half the people not even knowing the patter. “Business” was arranged in whispered consultations, while the play was proceeding, and when things got into a more than usually glorious muddle, one or other of the characters would come off the stage and have a look at the book. As for the prompter, after vainly struggling to keep them to one act at a time, and to dissuade the hero from making love to the wrong girl, he came to the conclusion that he was only in the way, and so went and had a quiet pipe at the stage-door, and refrained from worrying himself further.

"The rehearsals got more ship-shape as we went on. At the fourth every one was supposed to be “letter perfect,” and “parts” were tabooed. On this occasion, the piece was played straight through with nothing omitted, and the orchestra (two fiddles, a bass-viol, cornet, and drum) appeared in full force. For the last rehearsal, props and scenery were called. We had an exciting time with Jim, over the scenery, as might be expected. He had a row with everybody, and enjoyed himself immensely.

"I saw our scene painter then for the first time. He was a jolly little fellow, and as full of cheery contrivance as a Mark Tapley. No difficulties seemed to daunt him. If a court of justice were wanted for the following night, and the nearest thing he had to it were a bar parlor, he was not in the least dismayed. He would have the bar parlor down; paint in a bit here; paint out a bit there; touch up a bit somewhere else — there was your court of justice! Half an hour was quite long enough for him to turn a hay-field into a church-yard, or a prison into a bedroom.

"There was only one want, in the present case, that he didn’t supply, and that was cottages. All the virtuous people in the play lived in cottages. I never saw such a run on cottages. There were plenty of other residences to which they would have been welcome — halls, palaces, and dungeons the saloon cabin of a P. and O. steamer, drawingroom of No. 200 Belgrave Square (a really magnificent apartment this, with a clock on the mantelpiece). But no, they would all of them live in cottages. It would not pay to alter three or four different scenes, and turn them all into cottages, especially as they might, likely enough, be wanted for something else in a week’s time; so our one cottage interior had to accommodate about four distinct families. To keep up appearances, however, it was called by a different name on each occasion. With a round table and a candle, it was a widow’s cottage. With two candles and a gun, it was a blacksmith’s house. A square table instead of a round one—” Daddy Soloman’s home on the road to London. ‘Home, sweet home.’” Put a spade in the corner, and hang a coat behind the door, and you had the old mill on the Yorkshire moors.

"It was all no use though. The audience, on the opening night, greeted its second appearance with cries of kindly recognition, and at once entered into the humor of the thing. A Surreyside Saturday-night audience are generally inclined to be cheerful, and, if the fun on the stage doesn’t satisfy them, they rely on their own resources. After one or two more appearances, the cottage became an established favorite with the gallery. So much so, indeed, that when two scenes passed without it being let down, there were many and anxious inquiries after it, and an earnest hope expressed that nothing serious had happened to it. Its reappearance in the next act (as something entirely new) was greeted with a round of applause, and a triumphant demand to know, “Who said it was lost?”"

"The soldiers, who came under the command of their sergeant, were by far the best thing in the play. They gave an air of reality to all the scenes in which they appeared. They were soldiers, and went about their business on the stage with the same calm precision that they would have displayed in the drill yard, and with as much seriousness as if they had been in actual earnest. When the order was given to “fix bayonets and charge,” they did so with such grim determination, that there was no necessity at all to direct the stage mob to “feign fear and rush off L. 1. E.” They went as one man, in a hurry. There was no trouble, either, about rehearsing the soldiers — no cursing and swearing required, which, in itself, was an immense saving of time. The stage manager told the sergeant what was wanted. That gruff-voiced officer passed the order on to his men (first translating it into his own unintelligible lingo), and the thing was done."

"They are soldier-like in everything they do. You may dress them up in what you choose; and call them what you will, but they will never be anything else but soldiers. On one occasion, our manager tried them as a rabble. They were carefully instructed how to behave. They were told how to rush wildly on with a fierce, tumultuous yell; how to crowd together at the back of the stage, and, standing there, surging backward and forward like an angry sea, brandish their weapons, and scowl menacingly upon the opposing myrmidons of the law, until, at length, their sullen murmurs deepening into a roar of savage hate, they would break upon the wall of steel before them, and sweep it from their path, as pent-up waters, bursting their bonds, bear down some puny barrier.

"That was the theory of the thing. That is how a stage mob ought to behave itself. How it really does behave itself is pretty generally known. It comes in with a jog-trot, every member of it prodding the man in front of him in the small of his back. It spreads itself out in a line across the stage, and grins. When the signal is given for the rush, each man — still grinning — walks up to the soldier nearest to him, and lays hold of that warrior’s gun. The two men then proceed to heave the murderous weapon slowly up and down, as if it were a pump handle. This they continue to do with steady perseverance, until the soldier, apparently from a fit of apoplexy — for there is no outward and visible cause whatever to account for it — suddenly collapses, when the conquering rioter takes the gun away from him, and entangles himself in it.

"This is funny enough, but our soldiers made it funnier still. One might just as well have tried to get a modern House of Commons to represent a disorderly rabble. They simply couldn’t do it. They went on in single file at the double quick, formed themselves into a hollow square in the center of the stage, and then gave three distinct cheers, taking time from the sergeant. That was their notion of a rabble."

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"In the provinces, where every article necessary for either a classical tragedy or a pantomime has often to be found by the actor himself, I have seen some very remarkable wardrobe effects. A costume play, under these circumstances, rivaled a fancy dress ball in variety. It was considered nothing out of the way for a father, belonging to the time of George III, to have a son who, evidently from his dress, flourished in the reign of Charles II. As for the supers, when there were any, they were attired in the first thing that came to hand, and always wore their own boots."

"Picturesqueness was the great thing. Even now, and at some of the big London houses, this often does duty for congruity and common sense. The tendency to regard all female foreigners as Italian peasant girls, and to suppose that all agricultural laborers wear red waistcoats embroidered with yellow, still lingers on the stage."

"The supply of toilet requisites in hand, too, seemed to be rather limited, but great care and ingenuity had been displayed in their distribution. There not being enough basins and jugs to go all around, these had been divided. Some rooms had a jug but no basin, while others had a basin but no jug, either circumstance being a capital excuse for leaving them without any water. Where there was neither basin nor jug, you could safely reckon on a soap-dish. We were supplied with towels, the allowance being one a fortnight — a small thin one with a big hole in the middle — among six, but we brought our own soap: at least some of us did, and the others, without a moment’s hesitation, appropriated it."

"The truth is that where a green room was originally provided, it has been taken by the star or the manager, as his or her private room, and the rest of the company are left to spend their off time either in their own dressing-rooms, where they are always in each other’s way, or at the wings, where they catch cold, and are hustled by the scene-shifters."

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"In thinking about it beforehand, I had been very much afraid lest I should be nervous; but strange to say, I never experienced stage-fright at any time. I say strange, because, at that period of my life at all events, I was — as true greatness generally is — of a modest and retiring disposition. In my very early youth, I believe, I was not so. I am told that in my frock and pinafore days, I used to stand upon the table, and recite poetry, to the intense gratification of my elderly relatives (ah, the old folks knew how to enjoy themselves, when I was a boy!); and an old nurse of mine always insisted that on one occasion I collected half a crown in an omnibus by my spirited rendering of “Baa, baa, black sheep.” I have no recollection of this performance myself though, and, if it really did take place, where’s the money? This part of the question has never, to my mind, been satisfactorily cleared up.

"But however self-possessed I may have been at eight, I was anything but so at eighteen. Even now, I would not act to a drawing-room full of people for a thousand pounds — supposing the company considered the effort worth that sum. But before a public audience, I was all right, and entirely free from that shyness about which, in private life, my lady friends so bitterly complain. I could not see the people for one thing — at all events, not those beyond the third row of stalls. The blaze of light surrounding one on the stage, and the dimness of the rest of the house, give the audience a shadowy and ghost-like appearance, and make it impossible to see more than a general mass of white faces. As I never noticed the “hundreds upon hundreds of glaring eyes,” they did not trouble me, and I let ’em glare. The most withering glance in the world won’t crush a blind man.

"If I had been nervous on the first night, I think I should have had a good excuse for it, knowing, as I did, that a select party of my most particular friends, including a few medical students and clergymen’s sons, were somewhere in the theater; ‘having come down in a body with the intention of giving me a fair start, as they said. They had insisted on coming. I had begged them not to trouble themselves on my account, but they wouldn’t hear of it. They said it would be such a comfort to me to know that they were there. That was their thoughtful kindness. It touched me.

"I said: “Look here, you know, if you fellows are going to play the fool, I’ll chuck the whole blessed thing up.”

"They said they were not going to play the fool; they were coming to see me. I raised no further objections.

"But I checkmated them. I lied to those confiding young men with such an air of simple truthfulness, that they believed me, though they had known me for years. Even now, after all this time, I feel a glow of pride when I think how consummately I deceived them. They knew nothing of the theaters or actors over the water so I just gave them the name of our first old man, and told them that that was the name I had taken. I exaggerated the effect of making-up, and impressed upon them the idea that I should be so changed that they would never believe it was I; and I requested them especially to note my assumed voice. I did not say what character I was going to play, but I let slip a word now and then implying that my mind was running on gray hairs and long-lost children, and I bought a stick exactly similar to the one the poor old gentleman was going to use in the part, and let it lie about.

"So far as I was concerned, the plan was a glorious success, but the effect upon the old man was remarkable. He was too deaf to hear exactly what was going on, but he gathered enough to be aware that he was the object of a certain amount of attention, and that he was evidently giving great satisfaction to a portion of the audience; which latter circumstance apparently surprised him. The dear fellows gave him a splendid reception when he first appeared. They applauded everything he said or did throughout the play, and called for him after every act. They encored his defiance of the villain, and, when he came on without his hat in a snow scene, they all pulled out their pocket handkerchiefs and sobbed aloud. At the end they sent a message round to tell him to hurry up, as they were waiting for him at the stage door, an announcement that had the effect of sending him out by the front way in wonderfully quick time."

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"It was a genial, jovial company — a “Here you are, my boy; just in time for a pull” sort of company — a “Hail fellow well met” with everybody else sort of company. Among players, there are none of those caste distinctions such as put an insurmountable barrier between the man who sells coal by the ton and the man who sells it by the hundredweight. “The Profession” is a Republic. Lead and Utility walk about arm-in-arm, and the Star and the Singing Chambermaid drink out of the same pewter. We were all as friendly and sociable together as brothers and sisters — perhaps even more so — and the evening spent in those bare dressing-rooms was the pleasantest part of the day. There was never a dull moment, but always plenty of bustle and fun, plenty of anecdotes, plenty of good stories — ah, they could tell ‘em! — plenty of flirting, and talking, and joking, and laughing."

"I was not so contented at first as I might have been. I expected about three pounds a week salary after giving my one month gratis, and I did not get it. My agreement, it may be remembered, stipulated that I should receive a “salary according to ability” at the end of that time, but the manager said he did not think there would ever be enough money in the house to pay me at that scale and suggested nine shillings a week instead, generously giving me the option of either taking it or leaving it. I took it.

"I took it because I saw plainly enough that if I didn’t I should get nothing, that he could find twenty other young fellows as good as I to come without any salary at all, and that the agreement was not worth the paper it was written on. I was wroth at the time, but, seeing that the nine shillings was soon raised to twelve, and afterward to fifteen and eighteen, I had really, taking things as they were, nothing to grumble at; and, when I came to know a little more about professional salaries, and learnt what even the old hands were glad to get, I was very well satisfied.

"The company was engaged at summer prices, which are a good deal less than winter ones, and these latter average something less than the wages of an industrious sweep. The public, who read of this actor receiving a hundred and twenty pounds a night, of that actress making eight hundred pounds a week, of a low comedian’s yearly income being somewhere about six thousand pounds, and of a London manager who has actually paid his rates and taxes (so he says), can scarcely have any idea of what existence at the bottom of the stage ladder is like. It is a long ladder, and there are very few who possess a personal experience of both ends. Those who do, however, must appreciate the contrast. Mr. Henry Irving, speaking somewhere of his early days, mentions his weekly salary, I think, as having been twenty-five shillings; and no doubt, at the time, he thought that very good, and can most likely remember when he got less. In the provinces, thirty shillings is a high figure for a good all-round “responsibles,” and for that amount he is expected to be equal to Othello or Sir Peter Teazle at a moment’s notice, and to find his own dress. A “lead” may get three pounds in the winter, and a young”utility” thinks himself very well off indeed on a guinea. Now and again, the latter will get twenty-two or three shillings, but this only leads him into habits of extravagance, and he suffers for it afterward. At the minor London theaters, there being no expenses connected with traveling, etc., the salaries are even less, and from eighteen shillings to two pounds are about the sums promised."

"The pleasure and surprise of getting any money at all was so great that the trouble of getting it was forgotten. They were too used to being robbed of all their earnings to mind being defrauded of only a part. An absconding manager was so common a thing that he did not even excite remark. He was regarded as something in the ordinary way of business, and his victims only sighed, when he was gone, and proceeded to look out for somebody else to cheat them.

"And such another was by no means difficult to find in my time: the roll of theatrical managers teemed with thieves. It seemed to me that whenever a man got kicked out of everything else, he engaged as big a blackguard as himself for his acting manager and started a show. It must have been a profitable game, that played by these swindling managers, and there was no risk of any kind attending it. Nobody ever thought of interfering with them. If, by any clumsy accident on their own part, they did get within the clutches of the law, no harm came to them. County Court judges appeared to regard their frauds as mere practical jokes, and the worst they had to fear was a playful admonition of the “Ah well, you mustn’t do it again, you know,” kind.

"In the profession itself, they were received with respect, as men of decided talent in their way. Even the most notorious of them were treated with civility, and care was taken never to mention before them such subjects as dishonesty and knavery, for fear of hurting their feelings. When actors and actresses went from London to Aberdeen to join Mr. Smith’s company, and found on arriving that Mr. Smith was the same man who had already swindled them under half a dozen different names at half a dozen different times and places, what do you think they did? Shook hands cordially with the gentleman, made some pleasant observations about having met before, and hoped, in whispers among themselves, that he would not serve them the same this time! Of course, on the first Saturday night, while they were on the stage, he would run off with all the week’s takings, go to the next town, and advertise for another company under the name of Jones.

"It was no light matter for a man — and worse still for a poor girl — to be left without a penny or a friend in a strange town hundreds of miles from home. The poor players helped each other as well as they could, but provincial Pros, are — or, at least, were — not a wealthy class, and, after having paid their fares down, and kept themselves for a week or a fortnight, the most bloated capitalists among them rarely had more than a few shillings remaining in their pockets. Wardrobes had to be left as security with irate landladies, and, until they were redeemed or replaced, no other engagement was possible. Friends, poor enough themselves, goodness knows, had to be begged of. Every kind of valuable, even the wedding ring, had to be pawned, and the return home ‘ was made with troubled faces and empty hands.

"The misery caused by these scoundrels makes one’s blood boil to think of. I have known men and women forced to tramp home again half across the kingdom, seeking shelter in casual wards when the nights were too cold or wet to sleep under a haystack. I have known actors and actresses obliged to sell the clothes off their backs in order to get fresh stage wardrobes. I have known whole families, after having scraped together every penny they could get, so as to be able to join one of these companies, come back again a few days afterward, utterly destitute, and compelled to sell the few sticks of furniture they had about the place before making another start. I knew one poor fellow, left penniless in Glasgow, with a delicate young wife near her confinement, and they had to come back to London by boat — steerage passage — for, after pledging everything, that was all they had money enough for. It was fearful weather in the middle of January, and the vessel tossed about in the Channel for over a week, landing them just in time for the woman to die at home.

"Some managers saved themselves the trouble of running away, and attempted to throw an air of respectability over the proceeding, by paying their company about one-and-sixpence apiece on treasury day, stating that they were very sorry, but that the thing had been a failure; that the houses had been all paper, the expenses unusually heavy, or any other of the stock lies always on hand. And he would think to comfort them by telling them that he himself had lost money, as though that were an unanswerable reason for their losing all theirs!

"As to these men losing money of their own, that was impossible. They had not any to lose. Whatever they lost was somebody else’s; of that you may be sure. They were men without any capital whatever, and they made use of actors merely as cat’s paws in a speculation where all the risks were with the company, and all the advantages with themselves.

"The “share” system was worse even than this. It meant, in plain language, that, if the undertaking failed, the actors shared the losses amongst them, and, if it succeeded, the manager pocketed the profits.

"As a matter of fact, actors were then the least considered, and the most imposed upon of any people connected with the stage."

"I remember an actor summoning a manager who had cheated him out of seven pounds, and, after spending about ten pounds in costs, he got an order for payment by monthly instalments of ten shillings, not one of which, of course, he ever saw. After that, it was next to impossible for him to get a shop (this expression is not slang, it is a bit of local color). No manager who had heard of the affair would engage him.

"“A pretty pass the stage will come to,” said they, “if this sort of thing is to become common.”

"And the newspapers observed, it was a pity that he (the actor) should wash his dirty linen in public."

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"I was to join the company a week before Christmas, at a town in the west of England ...

"I picked up a good many odds and ends of costume in Petticoat Lane one Sunday morning. ... I determined to get one big traveling basket to hold everything, and have done with it.

"I did get a big one. I’ve got it now. It’s downstairs in the washhouse. I’ve never been able to get rid of it from that day to this. I’ve tried leaving it behind when removing into new lodgings, but it has always been sent on after me, generally in a wagon with a couple of men, who, evidently imagining they were restoring me a treasured heirloom, have been disappointed at my complete absence of enthusiasm. I have lured stray boys into the house, and offered them half a crown to take it away and lose it, but they have become frightened, and gone home and told their mothers, and, after that, it has got about in the neighborhood that I have committed a murder. It isn’t the sort of thing you can take out with you on a dark night, and drop down somebody else’s area.

"When I used it, I had to do all my packing in the hall, for it was impossible to get the thing up and down stairs. It always stood just behind the front door, which left about six inches of space for people to squeeze past, and every one that came in got more or less injured. The owner of the house, returning home late at night, would pitch head foremost over it, and begin yelling murder and police, under the impression it was burglars. The girl, coming in with the beer, would bang up against it, and upset the jug over it, when the whole contents would become saturated, and smell like a public-house.

"The language used in connection with that basket was simply appalling. It roused railway porters and cabmen to madness, and the savage way in which they rushed upon it used to make my blood run cold. Landladies, who upon my first call had welcomed me with effusion, grew cool and distant when the basket arrived. Nobody had a good word for it. Everywhere, it was hated and despised. I even feared that some day its victims would rise up and sweep it from the face of the earth. But no, it has survived both curses and kicks, and feeling it is hopeless ever to expect to get rid of it, I have made up my mind to be buried in it.

"Faithful old basket! it is a good many years since you and I started on our travels that snowy seventeenth of December, and what a row we had with the cabman, ah me!"

"“We (the basket and I) had a terribly cold journey down. Lost the basket at Bristol and had to telegraph after it. That basket will be the death of me, I know. There is one advantage, though; it stamps you as an actor at once, and the porters don’t expect any gratuities. Got jolly lodgings here. Nice, big bedroom, use of sitting-room, full attendance, and cooking for four bob a week. Pleasant, homely people, everything as clean as a new pin, and daughter rather pretty."

"You should hear the supers dance: you can do so easily a mile off. They shake the whole building. Both they and the ballet are drawn from the fishing population of the town, and this is their first appearance on any stage. The ballet consists of eight at present, but that is only for the first go off, we shall reduce it to six in a little while. We have also got about a dozen children to do a May-pole dance. It’s a treat to see them. They are paid threepence a night, but they get three shillings’ worth of enjoyment out of it for themselves. There is one little girl with the face of an angel — I honestly confess I’ve never seen an angel’s face, and don’t suppose I ever shall till I die, but I think it is that sort of face. She is dressed by seven every evening, and, from then, till she goes on the stage at ten, she is dancing and singing on her own account all over the place. When the May-pole is at last set up, she stands and gazes at it open-mouthed, and laughs to herself with glee. In her excitement, she always dances round the wrong way, and with the wrong boy — but it’s always the same wrong boy, that is what makes it extraordinary. Happy wrong boy, only he doesn’t know he’s happy; he is so small. After the dance, the little boys kiss the little girls. You ought to see this little fairy turn aside and giggle, and push her little lover away. The boys are awfully shy over the business, but the little girls don’t seem a bit afraid. Such is the superiority of woman over man?"

"I’ve two songs in one of my parts, and one in the other. I suppose singing is easy enough when you are used to it. It is the orchestra that puts me out, though. I should feel much freer without the music."

"Our leading man has never turned up, so his part has been cut out, and this has not improved the plot. I play a lazy clerk in the opening (it’s like going back to the old Civil Service days), and also prime minister of Tittattoo; having only three minutes for change. ...I fell on my head the other night (lucky it wasn’t any other part of me), and broke a chair in the course of this struggle. I got an encore for that, but didn’t take it."

"“I have tasted fame and don’t like it. I have been recognized in the street, and followed by a small crowd of children. They evidently expected me to stop at some corner and sing."

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"I always do better in low comedy than in anything else, and everybody tells me I ought to stick to it. But that is just what I don’t want to do. It is high tragedy that I want to shine in. I don’t like low comedy at all. I would rather make the people cry than laugh.

"“There is one little difficulty that I have to contend with at present in playing comedy, and that is a tendency to laugh myself when I hear the house laughing. I suppose I shall get over this in time, but now, if I succeed in being at all comical, it tickles me as much as it does the audience, and, although I could keep grave enough if they didn’t laugh, the moment they start I want to join in. But it is not only at my own doings that I am inclined to laugh. Anything funny on the stage amuses me, and being mixed up in it makes no difference. I played Frank to our Low Comedian’s Major de Boots the other night. He was in extra good form and very droll, and I could hardly go on with my part for laughing at him. Of course, when a piece is played often, one soon ceases to be amused; but here, where each production enjoys a run of one consecutive night only, the joke does not pall."

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"I got him to lie down on the bed just as he was, and covered him with the old rags that were on it. He lay still for a few minutes, then he looked up and said:

"“I won’t forget you, L — , when I’m well off.

"You’ve been friendly to me when I was poor: I shan’t forget it, my boy. My opportunity will soon come now — very soon, and then—”

"He didn’t finish the sentence, but began to murmur bits of the part to himself, and in a little while he dropped asleep. I stole softly out, and went in search of a doctor. I got hold of one at last, and returned with him to Mat’s attic. He was still asleep, and after arranging matters as well as I could with the doctor, I left, for I had to be on my way early in the morning.

"I never expected to see Mat again, and I never did. People who have lived for any length of time on six shillings a week don’t take long to die when they set about it, and two days after I had seen him, Mad Mat’s opportunity came, and he took it."

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"I must have been singularly fortunate in regard to landladies, or else they are a very much maligned class. I have had a good deal to do with them, and, on the whole, I have found them kind, obliging, and the very reverse of extortionate. With country landladies, especially, I have ever been most comfortable, and even among London ones, who, as a class, are not so pleasant as their provincial sisters, I have never, as yet, come across a single specimen of that terrible she-dragon about which I have heard so much. To champion the cause of landladies is rather an extraordinary proceeding, but, as so much is said against them, I think it only fair to state my own experience. They have their faults. They bully the slavey (but then the slavey sauces them, so perhaps it is only tit for tat), they will fry chops, and they talk enough for an Irish M. P. They persist in telling you all their troubles, and they keep you waiting for your breakfast while they do it. They never tire of recounting to you all they have done for some ungrateful relative, and they bring down a drawerful of letters on the subject, which they would like you to cast your eye through. They bore you to death every day, too, with a complete record of the sayings and doings of some immaculate young man lodger they once had. This young man appears to have been quite overweighted with a crushing sense of the goodness of the landlady in question. Many and many a time has he said to her, with tears in his eyes: “Ah, Mrs. So-and-so, you have been more than a mother to me”; and then he has pressed her hand, and felt he could never repay her kindness. Which seems to have been the fact, for he has generally gone off, in the end, owing a pretty considerable sum."

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"Especially to a man with a conscience — an article which, in those early days, I was unfortunate enough to possess. A conscience is a disagreeable sort of thing to have with one at any time. It has a nasty disposition — a cantankerous, fault-finding, interfering disposition. There is nothing sociable about it. It seems to take a pleasure in making itself objectionable, and in rendering its owner as uncomfortable as possible. During these Sunday journeys, it used to vex me by every means in its power. If any mild old gentleman, sitting opposite me in the carriage, raised his eyes and looked at me, I immediately fancied he was silently reproaching me, and I felt ashamed and miserable. It never occurred to me at the time that he was every bit as bad as I was, and that I had as much right to be shocked at him as he to be horrified at me. Then I used to ask myself what my poor aunt would say if she could see me. Not that it was of the slightest consequence what the old lady would have said, but the question was just one of those petty annoyances in which a mean-spirited conscience delights. I was firmly convinced that everybody was pointing the finger of scorn at me. I don’t know which particular finger is the finger of scorn: whichever it is, that, I felt, was the one that was pointed at me. At every station, my exasperating inward monitor would whisper to me: “But for such abandoned wretches as you, all those porters and guards would be sleeping peacefully in the village church.” When the whistle sounded, my tormentor would add; “But for you and other such despicable scoundrels, that grimy, toil-stained engine-driver would be dressed in his best clothes, lounging up against a post at his own street corner.” Such thoughts maddened me."

"But it is not only to people with consciences that Sunday traveling presents vexations. Even you, my dear reader, would find it unpleasant. ... When you arrive at your destination, you seem to have come to a city of the dead. You pass through deserted streets to your hotel. Nobody is about. You go into the coffee-room and sit down there by yourself. ... You go out for a walk. The streets are dark and silent, and you come back more miserable than you started."

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"“What a nuisance firearms are on the stage! I thought I was blinded the other night, and my eyes are painful even now. The fellow should have fired up in the air. It is the only safe rule on a small stage, though it does look highly ridiculous to see a man drop down dead because another man fires a pistol at the moon. But there is always some mishap with them.- They either don’t go off at all, or else they go off in the wrong place, and, when they do go off, there is generally an accident. They can never be depended upon. You rush on to the stage, present a pistol at somebody’s head, and say, ‘Die!’ but the pistol only goes click, and the man doesn’t know whether to die or not. He waits while you have another try at him, and the thing clicks again; and then you find out that the property man hasn’t put a cap on it, and you turn round to get one. But the other man, thinking it is all over, makes up his mind to die at once from nothing else but fright, and, when you come back to kill him for the last time, you find he's already dead."

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"It was about the end of October when I found myself once more in London. The first thing I then did was to go to my old shop on the Surreyside. Another company and another manager were there, but the latter knew me, and, as I owned a dress suit, engaged me at a salary of twelve shillings weekly to play the part of a swell. When I had been there just one week, he closed. Whether it was paying me that twelve shillings that broke him, I cannot say; but on Monday morning some men came and cut the gas off, and then he said he shouldn’t go on any longer, and that we must all do the best we could for ourselves.

"I, with two or three others, thereupon started off for a theater at the East End, which was about to be opened for a limited number of nights by some great world-renowned actor. This was about the fortieth world-renowned party I had heard of for the first time within the last twelvemonth. My education in the matter of world-renowned people had evidently been shamefully neglected.

"The theater was cunningly contrived, so that one had to pass through the bar of the adjoining public-house — to the landlord of which it belonged — to get to the stage. Our little party was saved from temptation, however, for I don’t think we could have mustered a shilling among the lot of us that morning. I was getting most seriously hard up at this time. The few pounds I had had left, after purchasing my wardrobe and paying my railway fares, etc., had now dwindled down to shillings, and, unless things mended, I felt I should have to throw up the sponge and retire from the stage. I was determined not to do this though, till the very last, for I dreaded the chorus of “I told you so’s,” and “I knew very well how ’twould be’s,” and such like well-known and exasperating crows of triumph, with which, in these cases, our delighted friends glorify themselves and crush us."

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"My stay in London had not been very profitable to me, but it had given my friends a treat, as they had been able to come and see me act again. At least, I suppose it was a treat to them, though they did not say so. My friends are always most careful never to overdo the thing in the matter of praise. I cannot accuse them of sycophancy. They scorn to say pleasant things that they don’t mean. They prefer saying unpleasant things that they do mean. There’s no humbug about them; they never hesitate to tell me just exactly what they think of me. This is good of them. I respect them for saying what they think; but if they would think a little differently, I should respect them still more. I wonder if everybody’s friends are as conscientious? I’ve heard of people having “admiring friends,” and “flattering friends,” and “over-indulgent friends,” but I’ve never had any of that sort myself. I’ve often thought I should rather like to, though, and if any gentleman has more friends of that kind than he wants, and would care to have a few of the opposite stamp, I am quite ready to swop with him. I can warrant mine never to admire or flatter under any circumstances whatsoever; neither will he find them over-indulgent. To a man who really wishes to be told of his faults, they would be invaluable; on this point, they are candor itself. A conceited man would also derive much benefit from their society. I have myself."

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"“A very sad thing happened here last week. Our leading man died suddenly from heart disease leaving his wife and two children totally destitute. If he had been a big London actor, for half his life in receipt of a salary of, say, three thousand a year, the theatrical press would have teemed with piteous appeals to the public, all his friends would have written to the papers generously offering to receive subscriptions on his behalf, and all the theaters would have given performances at double prices to help pay his debts and funeral expenses. As, however, he had never earned anything higher than about two pounds a week, Charity could hardly be expected to interest herself about the case; and so the wife supports herself and her children by taking in washing. Not that I believe she would ask for alms, even were there any chance of her getting them, for, when the idea was only suggested to her, she quite fired up, and talked some absurd nonsense about having too much respect for her husband’s profession to degrade it into a mere excuse for begging..."

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"So in the evening, when the performance was over, we all assembled on the stage, and waited. We waited about ten minutes, and then our Heavy Man, who had gone across the way to get a glass before they shut up, came back with a scared face to say that he’d just seen the booking clerk from the station, who had told him that the “Captain” had left for London by an early train that morning. And no sooner had the Heavy Man made this announcement, than it occurred to the call boy that he had seen the courteous acting manager leave the theater immediately after the play had begun, carrying a small black bag.

"I went back to the dressing-room, gathered my things into a bundle, and came down again with it. The others were standing about the stage, talking low, with a weary, listless air. I passed through them without a word, and reached the stage door. It was one of those doors that shut with a spring. I pulled it open, and held it back with my foot, while I stood there on the threshold for a moment, looking out at the night. Then I turned my coat collar up, and stepped into the street: the stage door closed behind me with a bang and a click, and I have never opened another one since."

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October 13, 2020 - October 15, 2020.

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STAGELAND

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STAGE-LAND

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Jerome K. Jerome in his element, from the word go!

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"TO THAT HIGHLY RESPECTABLE BUT UNNECESSARILY RETIRING INDIVIDUAL, OF WHOM WE HEAR SO MUCH BUT SEE SO LITTLE, “THE EARNEST STUDENT OF THE DRAMA,” THIS (COMPARATIVELY) TRUTHFUL LITTLE BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED."

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THE HERO.

"His name is George, generally speaking. “Call me George!” he says to the heroine. She calls him George (in a very low voice, because she is so young and timid). Then he is happy.

"The stage hero never has any work to do. He is always hanging about and getting into trouble. His chief aim in life is to be accused of crimes he has never committed, and if he can muddle things up with a corpse in some complicated way so as to get himself reasonably mistaken for the murderer, he feels his day has not been wasted.

"He has a wonderful gift of speech and a flow of language calculated to strike terror to the bravest heart. It is a grand thing to hear him bullyragging the villain.

"The stage hero is always entitled to “estates,” chiefly remarkable for their high state of cultivation and for the eccentric ground plan of the “manor house” upon them. The house is never more than one story high, but it makes up in green stuff over the porch what it lacks in size and convenience.

"The chief drawback in connection with it, to our eyes, is that all the inhabitants of the neighboring village appear to live in the front garden, but the hero evidently thinks it rather nice of them, as it enables him to make speeches to them from the front doorstep — his favorite recreation."

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THE VILLAIN.

"He wears a clean collar and smokes a cigarette; that is how we know he is a villain. In real life it is often difficult to tell a villain from an honest man, and this gives rise to mistakes; but on the stage, as we have said villains wear clean collars and smoke cigarettes, and thus all fear of blunder is avoided."

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THE HEROINE.

"She is always in trouble — and don’t she let you know it, too! Her life is undeniably a hard one. Nothing goes right with her. We all have our troubles, but the stage heroine never has anything else. If she only got one afternoon a week off from trouble or had her Sundays free it would be something. But no; misfortune stalks beside her from week’s beginning to week’s end."

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THE COMIC MAN.

"He follows the hero all over the world. This is rough on the hero.

"What makes him so gone on the hero is that when they were boys together the hero used to knock him down and kick him. The comic man remembers this with a glow of pride when he is grown up, and it makes him love the hero and determine to devote his life to him."

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THE LAWYER.

"He is very old, and very long, and very thin. He has white hair. He dresses in the costume of the last generation but seven. He has bushy eyebrows and is clean shaven. His chin itches considerably, so that he has to be always scratching it. His favorite remark is “Ah!”

"In real life we have heard of young solicitors, of foppish solicitors, of short solicitors; but on the stage they are always very thin and very old. The youngest stage solicitor we ever remember to have seen looked about sixty — the oldest about a hundred and forty-five.

"By the bye, it is never very safe to judge people’s ages on the stage by their personal appearance. We have known old ladies who looked seventy, if they were a day, turn out to be the mothers of boys of fourteen, while the middle-aged husband of the young wife generally gives one the idea of ninety."

"On the other hand, ladies with the complexion of eighteen are, you learn as the story progresses, quite elderly women, the mothers of middle-aged heroes."

"The good stage lawyer is never by any chance a married man. (Few good men are, so we gather from our married lady friends.) He loved in early life the heroine’s mother. That “sainted woman” (tear and nose business) died and is now among the angels — the gentleman who did marry her, by the bye, is not quite so sure about this latter point, but the lawyer is fixed on the idea.

"In stage literature of a frivolous nature the lawyer is a very different individual. In comedy he is young, he possesses chambers, and he is married (there is no doubt about this latter fact); and his wife and his mother-in-law spend most of the day in his office and make the dull old place quite lively for him."

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THE ADVENTURESS.

"She sits on a table and smokes a cigarette. A cigarette on the stage is always the badge of infamy."

"The adventuress is generally of foreign extraction. They do not make bad women in England — the article is entirely of continental manufacture and has to be imported. She speaks English with a charming little French accent, and she makes up for this by speaking French with a good sound English one."

"She is by no means a bad woman. There is much good in her. This is more than proved by the fact that she learns to love the hero before she dies; for no one but a really good woman capable of extraordinary patience and gentleness could ever, we are convinced, grow to feel any other sentiment for that irritating ass, than a desire to throw bricks at him."

"No stage adventuress can be good while the heroine is about. The sight of the heroine rouses every bad feeling in her breast.

"We can sympathize with her in this respect. The heroine often affects ourselves in precisely the same way."

"She is not always being shocked or insulted by people telling her that they love her; she does not seem to mind it if they do. She is not always fainting, and crying, and sobbing, and wailing, and moaning, like the good people in the play are."

"We sometimes think it would be a fortunate thing — for him — if they allowed her to marry and settle down quietly with the hero. She might make a man of him in time."

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THE SERVANT-GIRL.

"Sometimes the servant-girl is good and faithful, and then she is Irish. All good servant-girls on the stage are Irish."

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THE CHILD.

"The stage child is much superior to the live infant in every way. The stage child does not go rampaging about a house and screeching and yelling till nobody knows whether they are on their heads or their heels. A stage child does not get up at five o’clock in the morning to practice playing on a penny whistle. A stage child never wants a bicycle and drives you mad about it.

"A stage child does not ask twenty complicated questions a minute about things that you don’t understand, and then wind up by asking why you don’t seem to know anything, and why wouldn’t anybody teach you anything when you were a little boy."

"We ourselves had a friend once who suffered from this misfortune. He was a married man, and Providence had been very gracious, very good to him: he had been blessed with eleven children, and they were all growing up well and strong.

"The “baby” was eleven weeks old, and then came the twins, who were getting on for fifteen months and were cutting their double teeth nicely. The youngest girl was three; there were five boys aged seven, eight, nine, ten, and twelve respectively — good enough lads, but — well, there, boys will be boys, you know; we were just the same ourselves when we were young. The two eldest were both very pleasant girls, as their mother said; the only pity was that they would quarrel so with each other.

"We never knew a healthier set of boys and girls. They were so full of energy and dash."

"His wife said she could not see what he had to complain of. She was sure better-hearted children no man could have.

"Our friend said he didn’t care a straw about their hearts. It was their legs and arms and lungs that were driving him crazy."

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THE COMIC LOVERS.

"They are always very rude to each other, the comic lovers. Everybody is more or less rude and insulting to every body else on the stage; they call it repartee there! We tried the effect of a little stage “repartee” once upon some people in real life, and we wished we hadn’t afterward. It was too subtle for them. They summoned us before a magistrate for “using language calculated to cause a breach of the peace.” We were fined 2 pounds and costs!"

"It is very curious, by the bye, how deserted all public places become whenever a stage character is about. It would seem as though ordinary citizens sought to avoid them. We have known a couple of stage villains to have Waterloo Bridge, Lancaster Place, and a bit of the Strand entirely to themselves for nearly a quarter of an hour on a summer’s afternoon while they plotted a most diabolical outrage.

"As for Trafalgar Square, the hero always chooses that spot when he wants to get away from the busy crowd and commune in solitude with his own bitter thoughts; and the good old lawyer leaves his office and goes there to discuss any very delicate business over which he particularly does not wish to be disturbed.

"And they all make speeches there to an extent sufficient to have turned the hair of the late lamented Sir Charles Warren White with horror. But it is all right, because there is nobody near to hear them. As far as the eye can reach, not a living thing is to be seen. Northumberland Avenue, the Strand, and St. Martin’s Lane are simply a wilderness. The only sign of life about is a ‘bus at the top of Whitehall, and it appears to be blocked.

"How it has managed to get blocked we cannot say. It has the whole road to itself, and is, in fact, itself the only traffic for miles round. Yet there it sticks for hours. The police make no attempt to move it on and the passengers seem quite contented."

"The comic lovers do not have the facilities for love-making that the hero and heroine do. The hero and heroine have big rooms to make love in, with a fire and plenty of easy-chairs, so that they can sit about in picturesque attitudes and do it comfortably. Or if they want to do it out of doors they have a ruined abbey, with a big stone seat in the center, and moonlight.

"The comic lovers, on the other hand, have to do it standing up all the time, in busy streets, or in cheerless-looking and curiously narrow rooms in which there is no furniture whatever and no fire."

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THE PEASANTS.

"They are so clean. We have seen peasantry off the stage, and it has presented an untidy — occasionally a disreputable and unwashed — appearance; but the stage peasant seems to spend all his wages on soap and hair-oil.

"They are always round the corner — or rather round the two corners — and they come on in a couple of streams and meet in the center; and when they are in their proper position they smile.

"There is nothing like the stage peasants’ smile in this world — nothing so perfectly inane, so calmly imbecile.

"They are so happy. They don’t look it, but we know they are because they say so. If you don’t believe them, they dance three steps to the right and three steps to the left back again. They can’t help it. It is because they are so happy.

"When they are more than usually rollicking they stand in a semicircle, with their hands on each other’s shoulders, and sway from side to side, trying to make themselves sick. But this is only when they are simply bursting with joy.

"Stage peasants never have any work to do.

"Sometimes we see them going to work, sometimes coming home from work, but nobody has ever seen them actually at work. They could not afford to work — it would spoil their clothes."

"What particularly rouses them is the heroine’s love affairs. They could listen to them all day."

"When the stage peasantry do talk, however, they soon make up for lost time. They start off all together with a suddenness that nearly knocks you over.

"They all talk. Nobody listens. Watch any two of them. They are both talking as hard as they can go. They have been listening quite enough to other people: you can’t expect them to listen to each other. But the conversation under such conditions must be very trying.

"And then they flirt so sweetly! so idyllicly!

"It has been our privilege to see real peasantry flirt, and it has always struck us as a singularly solid and substantial affair — makes one think, somehow, of a steam-roller flirting with a cow — but on the stage it is so sylph-like. She has short skirts, and her stockings are so much tidier and better fitting than these things are in real peasant life, and she is arch and coy. She turns away from him and laughs — such a silvery laugh. And he is ruddy and curly haired and has on such a beautiful waistcoat! how can she help but love him? And he is so tender and devoted and holds her by the waist; and she slips round and comes up the other side. Oh, it is so bewitching!

"The stage peasantry like to do their love-making as much in public as possible. Some people fancy a place all to themselves for this sort of thing — where nobody else is about. We ourselves do. But the stage peasant is more sociably inclined. Give him the village green, just outside the public-house, or the square on market-day to do his spooning in."

"There are no married people in stage villages and no children (consequently, of course-happy village! oh, to discover it and spend a month there!). There are just the same number of men as there are women in all stage villages, and they are all about the same age and each young man loves some young woman. But they never marry.

"They talk a lot about it, but they never do it. The artful beggars! They see too much what it’s like among the principals."

"He has a keen sense of humor and is easily amused. There is something almost pathetic about the way he goes into convulsions of laughter over such very small jokes. How a man like that would enjoy a real joke! One day he will perhaps hear a real joke. Who knows? It will, however, probably kill him."

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THE GOOD OLD MAN.

"The people on the stage think very highly of the good old man, but they don’t encourage him much after the first act. He generally dies in the first act.

"If he does not seem likely to die they murder him."

"His particular firm is always on the verge of bankruptcy. We have only to be told that he has put all his savings into a company — no matter how sound and promising an affair it may always have been and may still seem — to know that that company is a “goner.”

"No power on earth can save it after once the good old man has become a shareholder."

"No one, we are sure, could be more ready and willing to make amends (when found out); and to put matters right he will cheerfully sacrifice his daughter’s happiness and marry her to the villain.

"The villain, by the way, has never a penny to bless himself with, and cannot even pay his own debts, let alone helping anybody else out of a scrape. But the good old man does not think of this."

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THE IRISHMAN.

"He says “Shure” and “Bedad” and in moments of exultation “Beghorra.” That is all the Irish he knows.

"He is very poor, but scrupulously honest. His great ambition is to pay his rent, and he is devoted to his landlord.

"He is always cheerful and always good. We never knew a bad Irishman on the stage. Sometimes a stage Irishman seems to be a bad man — such as the “agent” or the “informer” — but in these cases it invariably turns out in the end that this man was all along a Scotchman, and thus what had been a mystery becomes clear and explicable."

"The stage Irishman has also an original taste in hats. He always wears a hat without a crown; whether to keep his head cool or with any political significance we cannot say."

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THE DETECTIVE.

"He is the only man in the play who does not swallow all the villain tells him and believe it, and come up with his mouth open for more. He is the only man who can see through the disguise of an overcoat and a new hat.

"There is something very wonderful about the disguising power of cloaks and hats upon the stage. This comes from the habit people on the stage have of recognizing their friends, not by their faces and voices, but by their cloaks and hats.

"A married man on the stage knows his wife, because he knows she wears a blue ulster and a red bonnet. The moment she leaves off that blue ulster and red bonnet he is lost and does not know where she is.

"She puts on a yellow cloak and a green hat, and coming in at another door says she is a lady from the country, and does he want a housekeeper?

"Having lost his beloved wife, and feeling that there is no one now to keep the children quiet, he engages her. She puzzles him a good deal, this new housekeeper. There is something about her that strangely reminds him of his darling Nell — maybe her boots and dress, which she has not had time to change."

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THE SAILOR.

"Sailors in real life do not have nearly so much trouble with their trousers as sailors on the stage do. Why is this? We have seen a good deal of sailors in real life, but on only one occasion, that we can remember, did we ever see a real sailor pull his trousers up."

"The thing that the stage sailor most craves in this life is that somebody should shiver his timbers.

"“Shiver my timbers!” is the request he makes to every one he meets. But nobody ever does it."

"The stage sailor is good to his mother and dances the hornpipe beautifully. We have never found a real sailor who could dance a hornpipe, though we have made extensive inquiries throughout the profession. We were introduced to a ship’s steward who offered to do us a cellar-flap for a pot of four-half, but that was not what we wanted."

"By the way, speaking of the sea, few things are more remarkable in their behavior than a stage sea. It must be difficult to navigate in a stage sea, the currents are so confusing."

"A wreck at (stage) sea is a truly awful sight. The thunder and lightning never leave off for an instant; the crew run round and round the mast and scream; the heroine, carrying the stage child in her arms and with her back hair down, rushes about and gets in everybody’s way. The comic man alone is calm!"

"The way small boats are managed at (stage) sea is even more wonderful than the way in which ships are sailed.

"To begin with, everybody sits sideways along the middle of the boat, all facing the starboard. They do not attempt to row. One man does all the work with one scull. This scull he puts down through the water till it touches the bed of the ocean, and then he shoves.

"“Deep-sea punting” would be the technical term for the method, we presume."

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October 06, 2020 - October 08, 2020.

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THE DIARY OF A PILGRIMAGE, AND SIX ESSAYS

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Diary of a Pilgrimage

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This promises, at the outset, to be a true blue Jerome K. Jerome work of the sort familiar to most readers. It fits in neatly with the Three Men books.

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"Said a friend of mine to me some months ago: “Well now, why don’t you write a sensible book? I should like to see you make people think.”

"“Do you believe it can be done, then?” I asked.

"“Well, try,” he replied.

"Accordingly, I have tried. This is a sensible book. I want you to understand that. This is a book to improve your mind. In this book I tell you all about Germany—at all events, all I know about Germany—and the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play. I also tell you about other things. I do not tell you all I know about all these other things, because I do not want to swamp you with knowledge. I wish to lead you gradually. When you have learnt this book, you can come again, and I will tell you some more. I should only be defeating my own object did I, by making you think too much at first, give you a perhaps, lasting dislike to the exercise. I have purposely put the matter in a light and attractive form, so that I may secure the attention of the young and the frivolous. I do not want them to notice, as they go on, that they are being instructed; and I have, therefore, endeavoured to disguise from them, so far as is practicable, that this is either an exceptionally clever or an exceptionally useful work. I want to do them good without their knowing it. I want to do you all good—to improve your minds and to make you think, if I can.

"What you will think after you have read the book, I do not want to know; indeed, I would rather not know. It will be sufficient reward for me to feel that I have done my duty, and to receive a percentage on the gross sales.

"London, March, 1891."

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"Society has no notion of paying all men equally. Her great object is to encourage brain. The man who merely works by his muscles she regards as very little superior to the horse or the ox, and provides for him just a little better. But the moment he begins to use his head, and from the labourer rises to the artisan, she begins to raise his wages.

"Of course hers is a very imperfect method of encouraging thought. She is of the world, and takes a worldly standard of cleverness. To the shallow, showy writer, I fear, she generally pays far more than to the deep and brilliant thinker; and clever roguery seems often more to her liking than honest worth. But her scheme is a right and sound one; her aims and intentions are clear; her methods, on the whole, work fairly well; and every year she grows in judgment.

"One day she will arrive at perfect wisdom, and will pay each man according to his deserts.

"But do not be alarmed. This will not happen in our time."

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"If it had not been that I had paid for saloon, I should have gone fore. It was much fresher there, and I should have been much happier there altogether. But I was not going to pay for first-class and then ride third—that was not business. No, I would stick to the swagger part of the ship, and feel aristocratic and sick.

"A mate, or a boatswain, or an admiral, or one of those sort of people—I could not be sure, in the darkness, which it was—came up to me as I was leaning with my head against the paddle-box, and asked me what I thought of the ship. He said she was a new boat, and that this was her first voyage.

"I said I hoped she would get a bit steadier as she grew older.

"He replied: “Yes, she is a bit skittish to-night.”

"What it seemed to me was, that the ship would try to lie down and go to sleep on her right side; and then, before she had given that position a fair trial, would suddenly change her mind, and think she could do it better on her left. At the moment the man came up to me she was trying to stand on her head; and before he had finished speaking she had given up this attempt, in which, however, she had very nearly succeeded, and had, apparently, decided to now play at getting out of the water altogether."

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"Five minutes before the train started, the rightful owners of the carriage came up and crowded in. They seemed surprised at finding only five vacant seats available between seven of them, and commenced to quarrel vigorously among themselves.

"B. and I and the unjust man in the corner tried to calm them, but passion ran too high at first for the voice of Reason to be heard. Each combination of five, possible among them, accused each remaining two of endeavouring to obtain seats by fraud, and each one more than hinted that the other six were liars.

"What annoyed me was that they quarrelled in English. They all had languages of their own,—there were four Belgians, two Frenchmen, and a German,—but no language was good enough for them to insult each other in but English.

"Finding that there seemed to be no chance of their ever agreeing among themselves, they appealed to us. We unhesitatingly decided in favour of the five thinnest, who, thereupon, evidently regarding the matter as finally settled, sat down, and told the other two to get out.

"These two stout ones, however—the German and one of the Belgians—seemed inclined to dispute the award, and called up the station-master.

"The station-master did not wait to listen to what they had to say, but at once began abusing them for being in the carriage at all. He told them they ought to be ashamed of themselves for forcing their way into a compartment that was already more than full, and inconveniencing the people already there.

"He also used English to explain this to them, and they got out on the platform and answered him back in English.

"English seems to be the popular language for quarrelling in, among foreigners. I suppose they find it more expressive.

"We all watched the group from the window. We were amused and interested. In the middle of the argument an early gendarme arrived on the scene. The gendarme naturally supported the station-master. One man in uniform always supports another man in uniform, no matter what the row is about, or who may be in the right—that does not trouble him. It is a fixed tenet of belief among uniform circles that a uniform can do no wrong. If burglars wore uniform, the police would be instructed to render them every assistance in their power, and to take into custody any householder attempting to interfere with them in the execution of their business. The gendarme assisted the station-master to abuse the two stout passengers, and he also abused them in English. It was not good English in any sense of the word. The man would probably have been able to give his feelings much greater variety and play in French or Flemish, but that was not his object. His ambition, like every other foreigner’s, was to become an accomplished English quarreller, and this was practice for him.

"A Customs House clerk came out and joined in the babel. He took the part of the passengers, and abused the station-master and the gendarme, and he abused them in English.

"B. said he thought it very pleasant here, far from our native shores, in the land of the stranger, to come across a little homely English row like this."

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"Whenever a German railway-guard feels lonesome, and does not know what else to do with himself, he takes a walk round the train, and gets the passengers to show him their tickets, after which he returns to his box cheered and refreshed. Some people rave about sunsets and mountains and old masters; but to the German railway-guard the world can show nothing more satisfying, more inspiring, than the sight of a railway-ticket.

"Nearly all the German railway officials have this same craving for tickets. If only they get somebody to show them a railway-ticket, they are happy. It seemed a harmless weakness of theirs, and B. and I decided that it would be only kind to humour them in it during our stay.

"Accordingly, whenever we saw a German railway official standing about, looking sad and weary, we went up to him and showed him our tickets. The sight was like a ray of sunshine to him; and all his care was immediately forgotten. If we had not a ticket with us at the time, we went and bought one. A mere single third to the next station would gladden him sufficiently in most cases; but if the poor fellow appeared very woe-begone, and as if he wanted more than ordinary cheering up, we got him a second-class return.

"For the purpose of our journey to Ober-Ammergau and back, we each carried with us a folio containing some ten or twelve first-class tickets between different towns, covering in all a distance of some thousand miles; and one afternoon, at Munich, seeing a railway official, a cloak-room keeper, who they told us had lately lost his aunt, and who looked exceptionally dejected, I proposed to B. that we should take this man into a quiet corner, and both of us show him all our tickets at once—the whole twenty or twenty-four of them—and let him take them in his hand and look at them for as long as he liked. I wanted to comfort him.

"B., however, advised against the suggestion. He said that even if it did not turn the man’s head (and it was more than probable that it would), so much jealousy would be created against him among the other railway people throughout Germany, that his life would be made a misery to him.

"So we bought and showed him a first-class return to the next station but one; and it was quite pathetic to watch the poor fellow’s face brighten up at the sight, and to see the faint smile creep back to the lips from which it had so long been absent.

"But at times, one wishes that the German railway official would control his passion for tickets—or, at least, keep it within due bounds.

"Even the most kindly-hearted man grows tired of showing his ticket all day and night long, and the middle of a wearisome journey is not the proper time for a man to come to the carriage-window and clamour to see your “billet.”

"You are weary and sleepy. You do not know where your ticket is. You are not quite sure that you have got a ticket; or if you ever had one, somebody has taken it away from you. You have put it by very carefully, thinking that it would not be wanted for hours, and have forgotten where.

"There are eleven pockets in the suit you have on, and five more in the overcoat on the rack. Maybe, it is in one of those pockets. If not, it is possibly in one of the bags—somewhere, or in your pocket-book, if you only knew where that was, or your purse."

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"To pass away the time, we strolled about the city. Munich is a fine, handsome, open town, full of noble streets and splendid buildings; but in spite of this and of its hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants, an atmosphere of quiet and provincialism hovers over it. There is but little traffic on ordinary occasions along its broad ways, and customers in its well-stocked shops are few and far between. This day being Sunday, it was busier than usual, and its promenades were thronged with citizens and country folk in holiday attire, among whom the Southern peasants, wearing their quaint, centuries-old costume, stood out in picturesque relief. Fashion, in its world-wide crusade against variety and its bitter contest with form and colour, has recoiled, defeated for the present from the mountain fastnesses of Bavaria."

"Munich and the country round about it make a great exchange of peoples every Sunday. In the morning, trainload after trainload of villagers and mountaineers pour into the town, and trainload after trainload of good and other citizens steam out to spend the day in wood and valley, and upon lake and mountain-side."

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"I mention that we had dinner, not because I think that the information will prove exciting to the reader, but because I wish to warn my countrymen, travelling in Germany, against undue indulgence in Liptauer cheese.

"I am fond of cheese, and of trying new varieties of cheese; so that when I looked down the cheese department of the bill of fare, and came across “liptauer garnit,” an article of diet I had never before heard of, I determined to sample it.

"It was not a tempting-looking cheese. It was an unhealthy, sad-looking cheese. It looked like a cheese that had seen trouble. In appearance it resembled putty more than anything else. It even tasted like putty—at least, like I should imagine putty would taste. To this hour I am not positive that it was not putty. The garnishing was even more remarkable than the cheese. All the way round the plate were piled articles that I had never before seen at a dinner, and that I do not ever want to see there again."

"I felt very sad after dinner. All the things I have done in my life that I should not have done recurred to me with painful vividness. (There seemed to be a goodish number of them, too.) I thought of all the disappointments and reverses I had experienced during my career; of all the injustice that I had suffered, and of all the unkind things that had been said and done to me. I thought of all the people I had known who were now dead, and whom I should never see again, of all the girls that I had loved, who were now married to other fellows, while I did not even know their present addresses. I pondered upon our earthly existence, upon how hollow, false, and transient it is, and how full of sorrow. I mused upon the wickedness of the world and of everybody in it, and the general cussedness of all things.

"I thought how foolish it was for B. and myself to be wasting our time, gadding about Europe in this silly way. What earthly enjoyment was there in travelling—being jolted about in stuffy trains, and overcharged at uncomfortable hotels?

"B. was cheerful and frivolously inclined at the beginning of our walk (we were strolling down the Maximilian Strasse, after dinner); but as I talked to him, I was glad to notice that he gradually grew more serious and subdued. He is not really bad, you know, only thoughtless.

"B. bought some cigars and offered me one. I did not want to smoke. Smoking seemed to me, just then, a foolish waste of time and money. As I said to B.:

"“In a few more years, perhaps before this very month is gone, we shall be lying in the silent tomb, with the worms feeding on us. Of what advantage will it be to us then that we smoked these cigars to-day?”

"B. said: “Well, the advantage it will be to me now is, that if you have a cigar in your mouth I shan’t get quite so much of your chatty conversation. Take one, for my sake.”

"To humour him, I lit up.

"I do not admire the German cigar. B. says that when you consider they only cost a penny, you cannot grumble. But what I say is, that when you consider they are dear at six a half-penny, you can grumble. Well boiled, they might serve for greens; but as smoking material they are not worth the match with which you light them, especially not if the match be a German one. The German match is quite a high art work. It has a yellow head and a magenta or green stem, and can certainly lay claim to being the handsomest match in Europe.

"We smoked a good many penny cigars during our stay in Germany, and that we were none the worse for doing so I consider as proof of our splendid physique and constitution. I think the German cigar test might, with reason, be adopted by life insurance offices.—Question: “Are you at present, and have you always been, of robust health?” Answer: “I have smoked a German cigar, and still live.” Life accepted."

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"We were fortunate enough to find our land-lord, a worthy farmer, waiting for us with a tumble-down conveyance, in appearance something between a circus-chariot and a bath-chair, drawn by a couple of powerful-looking horses; and in this, after a spirited skirmish between our driver and a mob of twenty or so tourists, who pretended to mistake the affair for an omnibus, and who would have clambered into it and swamped it, we drove away.

"Higher and higher we climbed, and grander and grander towered the frowning moon-bathed mountains round us, and chillier and chillier grew the air. For most of the way we crawled along, the horses tugging us from side to side of the steep road; but, wherever our coachman could vary the monotony of the pace by a stretch-gallop—as, for instance, down the precipitous descents that occasionally followed upon some extra long and toilsome ascent—he thoughtfully did so. At such times the drive became really quite exciting, and all our weariness was forgotten.

"The steeper the descent, the faster, of course, we could go. The rougher the road, the more anxious the horses seemed to be to get over it quickly. During the gallop, B. and I enjoyed, in a condensed form, all the advantages usually derived from crossing the Channel on a stormy day, riding on a switchback railway, and being tossed in a blanket—a hard, nobbly blanket, full of nasty corners and sharp edges. I should never have thought that so many different sensations could have been obtained from one machine!

"About half-way up we passed Ettal, at the entrance to the Valley of the Ammer. The great white temple, standing, surrounded by its little village, high up amid the mountain solitudes, is a famous place of pilgrimage among devout Catholics. Many hundreds of years ago, one of the early Bavarian kings built here a monastery as a shrine for a miraculous image of the Virgin that had been sent down to him from Heaven to help him when, in a foreign land, he had stood sore in need, encompassed by his enemies. Maybe the stout arms and hearts of his Bavarian friends were of some service in the crisis also; but the living helpers were forgotten. The old church and monastery, which latter was a sort of ancient Chelsea Hospital for decayed knights, was destroyed one terrible night some hundred and fifty years ago by a flash of lightning; but the wonder-working image was rescued unhurt, and may still be seen and worshipped beneath the dome of the present much less imposing church which has been reared upon the ruins of its ancestor.

"The monastery, which was also rebuilt at the same time, now serves the more useful purpose of a brewery."

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"We ourselves saw the play yesterday, and we are now discussing it. I am explaining to B. the difficulty I experience in writing an account of it for my diary. I tell him that I really do not know what to say about it.

"He smokes for a while in silence, and then, taking the pipe from his lips, he says:

"“Does it matter very much what you say about it?”

"I find much relief in that thought. It at once lifts from my shoulders the oppressive feeling of responsibility that was weighing me down. After all, what does it matter what I say? What does it matter what any of us says about anything? Nobody takes much notice of it, luckily for everybody. This reflection must be of great comfort to editors and critics. A conscientious man who really felt that his words would carry weight and influence with them would be almost afraid to speak at all. It is the man who knows that it will not make an ounce of difference to anyone what he says, that can grow eloquent and vehement and positive. It will not make any difference to anybody or anything what I say about the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play. So I shall just say what I want to.

"But what do I want to say? What can I say that has not been said, and said much better, already? (An author must always pretend to think that every other author writes better than he himself does. He does not really think so, you know, but it looks well to talk as though he did.) What can I say that the reader does not know, or that, not knowing, he cares to know? It is easy enough to talk about nothing, like I have been doing in this diary hitherto. It is when one is confronted with the task of writing about something, that one wishes one were a respectable well-to-do sweep—a sweep with a comfortable business of his own, and a pony—instead of an author.

"B. says:

"“Well, why not begin by describing Ober-Ammergau.”

"I say it has been described so often."

"“Explain how all the houses are numbered according to the date they were built, so that number sixteen comes next to number forty-seven, and there is no number one because it has been pulled down. Tell how unsophisticated visitors, informed that their lodgings are at number fifty-three, go wandering for days and days round fifty-two, under the not unreasonable impression that their house must be next door, though, as a matter of fact, it is half a mile off at the other end of the village, and are discovered one sunny morning, sitting on the doorstep of number eighteen, singing pathetic snatches of nursery rhymes, and trying to plat their toes into door-mats, and are taken up and carried away screaming, to end their lives in the madhouse at Munich.

"“Talk about the weather. People who have stayed here for any length of time tell me that it rains at Ober-Ammergau three days out of every four, the reason that it does not rain on the fourth day being that every fourth day is set apart for a deluge. They tell me, also, that while it will be pouring with rain just in the village the sun will be shining brightly all round about, and that the villagers, when the water begins to come in through their roofs, snatch up their children and hurry off to the nearest field, where they sit and wait until the storm is over.”

"“Do you believe them—the persons that you say tell you these tales?” I ask.

"“Personally I do not,” he replies. “I think people exaggerate to me because I look young and innocent, but no doubt there is a ground-work of truth in their statements. I have myself left Ober-Ammergau under a steady drenching rain, and found a cloudless sky the other side of the Kofel."

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"It seems to be a habit of Munich trains to start off in this purposeless way. Apparently, their sole object is to get away from the town. They don’t care where they go to; they don’t care what becomes of them, so long as they escape from Munich.

"“For heaven’s sake,” they say to themselves, “let us get away from this place. Don’t let us bother about where we shall go; we can decide that when we are once fairly outside. Let’s get out of Munich; that’s the great thing.”

"B. begins to grow quite frightened. He says:

"“We shall never be able to leave this city. There are no trains out of Munich at all. It’s a plot to keep us here, that’s what it is. We shall never be able to get away. We shall never see dear old England again!”

"I try to cheer him up by suggesting that perhaps it is the custom in Bavaria to leave the destination of the train to the taste and fancy of the passengers. The railway authorities provide a train, and start it off at 2.15. It is immaterial to them where it goes to. That is a question for the passengers to decide among themselves. The passengers hire the train and take it away, and there is an end of the matter, so far as the railway people are concerned. If there is any difference of opinion between the passengers, owing to some of them wishing to go to Spain, while others want to get home to Russia, they, no doubt, settle the matter by tossing up."

"B.’s intellect generally gives way about this point, and he becomes simply drivelling. He discovers trains that run from Munich to Heidelberg in fourteen minutes, by way of Venice and Geneva, with half-an-hour’s interval for breakfast at Rome. He rushes up and down the book in pursuit of demon expresses that arrive at their destinations forty-seven minutes before they start, and leave again before they get there. He finds out, all by himself, that the only way to get from South Germany to Paris is to go to Calais, and then take the boat to Moscow. Before he has done with the timetable, he doesn’t know whether he is in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, nor where he wants to get to, nor why he wants to go there."

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September 09, 2020 - September 12, 2020.

Transcribed from the

1919 J. W. Arrowsmith Ltd. edition

by David Price,

email ccx074@pglaf.org.

Proofed by Andrew Wallace,

andy@linxit.demon.co.uk.

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Six Essays

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DREAMS

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Dreams
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Delightful, right off the bat.

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"The most extraordinary dream I ever had was one in which I fancied that, as I was going into a theater, the cloak-room attendant stopped me in the lobby and insisted on my leaving my legs behind me.

"I was not surprised; indeed, my acquaintanceship with theater harpies would prevent my feeling any surprise at such a demand, even in my waking moments; but I was, I must honestly confess, considerably annoyed. It was not the payment of the cloak-room fee that I so much minded--I offered to give that to the man then and there. It was the parting with my legs that I objected to.

"I said I had never heard of such a rule being attempted to be put in force at any respectable theater before, and that I considered it a most absurd and vexatious regulation. I also said I should write to The Times about it.

"The man replied that he was very sorry, but that those were his instructions. People complained that they could not get to and from their seats comfortably, because other people's legs were always in the way; and it had, therefore, been decided that, in future, everybody should leave their legs outside.

"It seemed to me that the management, in making this order, had clearly gone beyond their legal right; and, under ordinary circumstances, I should have disputed it. Being present, however, more in the character of a guest than in that of a patron, I hardly like to make a disturbance; and so I sat down and meekly prepared to comply with the demand.

"I had never before known that the human leg did unscrew. I had always thought it was a fixture. But the man showed me how to undo them, and I found that they came off quite easily.

"The discovery did not surprise me any more than the original request that I should take them off had done. Nothing does surprise one in a dream."

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"I dreamed once that I was going to be hanged; but I was not at all surprised about it. Nobody was. My relations came to see me off, I thought, and to wish me "Good-by!" They all came, and were all very pleasant; but they were not in the least astonished--not one of them. Everybody appeared to regard the coming tragedy as one of the most-naturally-to-be-expected things in the world.

"They bore the calamity, besides, with an amount of stoicism that would have done credit to a Spartan father. There was no fuss, no scene. On the contrary, an atmosphere of mild cheerfulness prevailed.

"Yet they were very kind. Somebody--an uncle, I think--left me a packet of sandwiches and a little something in a flask, in case, as he said, I should feel peckish on the scaffold."

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"The number of so called imaginative writers who visit the moon is legion, and for all the novelty that they find, when they get there, they might just as well have gone to Putney. Others are continually drawing for us visions of the world one hundred or one thousand years hence. There is always a depressing absence of human nature about the place; so much so, that one feels great consolation in the thought, while reading, that we ourselves shall be comfortably dead and buried before the picture can be realized. In these prophesied Utopias everybody is painfully good and clean and happy, and all the work is done by electricity."

Apart from that last, one has to wonder if he read a contemporary George Bernard Shaw, and if so, did he envy, or even comprehend, the stature. Then again, Jerome K. Jerome was far too immersed in his religion to be able to appreciate anything slightly outside it's bounds, so it's unlikely he understood Shaw.

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He begins thus with the familiar side splitting, humour of his, to begin with.

But soon enough, the author turns to his yearning, to serious thought. In this, he was not quite so successful, though it might not have been evident in his time. His disdain for electricity, for example, was out of place, as we know now well over a century later.

And, too, his imagery about human thought being a slow growing tree, not fireworks, is yet quite incorrect. We know now how soon after he wrote this it came about like a series of thunderbolts when relativity, atom structure and splitting, radium and more revolutionised the world of thought, as much as flights and phones and computers did everyday lives.

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September 14, 2020 - September 14, 2020.
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CLOCKS

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Clocks:-

Small and very very readable, and everything one expects of the author after reading the three men adventures - although in this only the protagonist figures along with his social interactions generally as necessary.

The chief interaction is with the clocks in general and a large grandfather clock in particular, which was bought because the wife admired one bought by a friend of the husband and wished they could have one - and who has not experienced this, having seen a beautiful clock in someone's home, remembering one that actually did belong to one's grandfather (but one was too young then and not stable enough to have a home to house such a clock, so he did not leave it for one to inherit after all!) - so one connects with this immediately, even in this era of various far more advanced clocks - digital clocks and watches, computers and laptops and phones, almost everything everywhere with its own clock and that too either atomic or gps or better, with possibilities of two or more clocks display according to one's needs or fancy.

Still, one hankers after such clocks for home, a large grandfather clock and - if one has seen them - a cuckoo clock too if one can have them. And then one reads this, and one's tiredness of work vanishes and one laughs out loud never mind how late one lay oneself in bed and expected to read only a page before falling asleep. One cannot put this one down and is sorry he did not write more about his fights and coming to understandings with his other clocks.

In one word?

Superb!

Tuesday, May 13, 2014.
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April 26, 2020.
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EVERGREENS

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Evergreens
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At first, one might get the impression that he's waxing eloquent and poetic about nature, and one might be surprised if one is used to this author, thinking he keeps surprising one, and too, one wonders why he's so unappreciative of beauty of evergreens! He seems to not see their beauty even in winter, when they alone lend beauty to otherwise bare Nordic latitudes, whether covered in snow or otherwise.

Then soon enough it's clear why. He's chosen an inappropriate simile, and is talking of humans.

"There are evergreen men and women in the world, praise be to God! Not many of them, but a few. They are not the showy folk; they are not the clever, attractive folk. (Nature is an old-fashioned shopkeeper; she never puts her best goods in the window.) They are only the quiet, strong folk; they are stronger than the world, stronger than life or death, stronger than Fate. The storms of life sweep over them, and the rains beat down upon them, and the biting frosts creep round them; but the winds and the rains and the frosts pass away, and they are still standing, green and straight. They love the sunshine of life in their undemonstrative way—its pleasures, its joys. But calamity cannot bow them, sorrow and affliction bring not despair to their serene faces, only a little tightening of the lips; the sun of our prosperity makes the green of their friendship no brighter, the frost of our adversity kills not the leaves of their affection."

In short, if one recalls Jane Austen's Sense And Sensibility, he's comparing the two lovers of Marianne, really, and soon enough comes precisely to that, without, of course, naming or mentioning them, or the book or the author.

A better example would have been stone castles of gray-brown drab hue, that couldn't be whitewashed or painted gay, or decorated as other cottages or mansions can, but have strength and permanence.

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Funnily enough, he is fair enough to do the same with genders turned, even though he's been emphatic about loving Dora and finding Agnes both unbelievable and unattractive, a bore, in his favourite work by his favourite author Charles Dickens - David Copperfield. Here he's not naming them, again, but basically lashing at silly youth for preference of the attractive.

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It's startling when he shifts slightly, and writes about the then present society.

"We have no school for the turning-out of stanch men in this nineteenth century. In the old, earnest times, war made men stanch and true to each other. We have learned up a good many glib phrases about the wickedness of war, and we thank God that we live in these peaceful, trading times, wherein we can—and do—devote the whole of our thoughts and energies to robbing and cheating and swindling one another—to "doing" our friends, and overcoming our enemies by trickery and lies—wherein, undisturbed by the wicked ways of fighting-men, we can cultivate to better perfection the "smartness," the craft, and the cunning, and all the other "business-like" virtues on which we so pride ourselves, and which were so neglected and treated with so little respect in the bad old age of violence, when men chose lions and eagles for their symbols rather than foxes.

"There is a good deal to be said against war. I am not prepared to maintain that war did not bring with it disadvantages, but there can be no doubt that, for the noblest work of Nature—the making of men—it was a splendid manufactory. It taught men courage. It trained them in promptness and determination, in strength of brain and strength of hand. From its stern lessons they learned fortitude in suffering, coolness in danger, cheerfulness under reverses. Chivalry, Reverence, and Loyalty are the beautiful children of ugly War. But, above all gifts, the greatest gift it gave to men was stanchness."

One has to recall he was writing at the zenith of British Empire era, before WWI. The Russian revolution was looming, expected, according to his writing in 1905, but still a way off, and as for the war that came. he certainly was neither expecting nor could he have known the ghastliness of it before it was on them.

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Suddenly then he writes about bulldogs, about encountering one as a boy, and its the familiar Jerome K. Jerome.

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August 05, 2020- August 05, 2020.
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TEA-KETTLES

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TEA-KETTLES

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Jerome K. Jerome begins with a theory, presumably experimented during his time, about holding a hot tea kettle on the pam of hand, and other such theories, for instance lying flat on water on one's back, subduing an animal with power of gaze, and thence - from humour, so far - goes on to seriously discourse to futility of humans preaching to other humans.

"I was walking up and down the garden, following out this very idea — namely, of the childishness of our trying to teach one another in matters that we know so little of ourselves — when, on passing the summer-house, I overheard my argument being amusingly illustrated by my eldest niece, aged seven, who was sitting very upright in a very big chair, giving information to her younger sister, aged five, on the subject of “Babies: their origin, discovery, and use.

"“You know, babies,” she was remarking in conclusion, “ain’t like dollies. Babies is ‘live. Nobody gives you babies till you’re growed up. An’ they’re very improper. We’re not s’posed to talk ‘bout such things — we was babies once.”

"She is a very thoughtful child, is my eldest niece. Her thirst for knowledge is a most praise-worthy trait in her character, but has rather an exhausting effect upon the rest of the family. We limit her now to seven hundred questions a day. After she has asked seven hundred questions, and we have answered them, or, rather, as many as we are able, we boycott her; and she retires to bed, indignant, asking:

"“Why only seven hundred? Why not eight?”

"Nor is her range of inquiry what you would call narrow or circumscribed at all. It embraces most subjects that are known as yet to civilisation, from abstract theology to cats; from the failure of marriage to chocolate, and why you must not take it out and look at it when you have once put it inside your mouth.

"She has her own opinion, too, about most of these matters, and expresses it with a freedom which is apt to shock respectably-brought-up folk. I am not over-orthodox myself, but she staggers even me at times. Her theories are too advanced for me at present."

He describes further conversation between himself and the little niece.

"Confound the child! I can’t make out where children get their notions from, confounded little nuisances!

"Let me see, what was I writing about? Oh! I know, “Tea-kettles.” Yes, it ought to be rather an interesting subject, “Tea-kettles.” I should think a man might write a very good article on “Tea-kettles.” I must have a try at it one of these days!"

Nice illustrations.

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October 08, 2020 - October 08, 2020.

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A PATHETIC STORY

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"“OH! I WANT YOU TO WRITE the pathetic story for the Christmas number, if you will, old man,” said the editor of the —— Weekly Journal to me, as I poked my head into his den one sunny July morning, some years ago. “Thomas is anxious to have the comic sketch. He said he overheard a joke last week, that he thinks he can work up. I expect I shall have to do the cheerful love story about the man that everybody thinks is dead, and that turns up on Christmas eve and marries the girl, myself. I was hoping to get out of it this time, but I’m afraid I can’t. Then I shall get Miggs to do the charitable appeal business. I think he’s the most experienced man we have now for that; and Skittles can run off the cynical column, about the Christmas bills, and the indigestion: he’s always very good in a cynical article. Skittles is; he’s got just the correct don’t-know-what-he-means-himself sort of touch for it, if you understand.”"

Unable to come into a mood to write the pathetic story, he consulted a successful author, who talked about the artist who grows with noble aspirations, but then falls for temptations of worldly success.

"“And the spirit of the artist that is handmaiden to the spirit of the prophet departed from him, and he grew into the clever huckster, the smart tradesman, whose only desire was to discover the public taste that he might pander to it."

"It was a very sad story, but not exactly the sort of sad story, I felt, that the public wants in a Christmas number. So I had to fall back upon the broken-hearted maiden, after all!"