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A commentary, (1900), by John Galsworthy.
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Most of these pieces are a social commentary. Hence the title.
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CONTENTS
A COMMENTARY
THE LOST DOG
DEMOS
OLD AGE
THE CAREFUL MAN
FEAR
FASHION
SPORT
MONEY
PROGRESS
HOLIDAY
FACTS
POWER
THE HOUSE OF SILENCE
ORDER
THE MOTHER
COMFORT
A CHILD JUSTICE
HOPE
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A COMMENTARY
"See the way the poor live — like pigs, crowded all together; to any one who knows, it’s awful! An’ morals — something dreadful! How can you have morals when you’ve got to live like that — let alone humanity? You can’t, it stands to reason. Talk about democracy — government by the people? There’s no sense in it; the people’s kept like pigs; all they’ve got’s like pig-wash thrown ‘em. They know there’s no hope for them. Why, when all’s done, a workingman can’t save enough to keep ‘imself in his old age. Look at me! I’ve lost my arm, all my savin’s was spent when I was gettin’ well; I’ve got this job now, an’ very glad to get it — but the time’ll come when I’ll be too old to stand about all weathers; what’ll happen? I’ll either ‘ave to starve or go into the ‘Ouse — well, that’s a miserable ending for a man. But then you say, what can you do? That’s just it — what can you do? Where’s the money to come from? People say Parliament ought to find it, but I’ve not much ‘opes of them; they’re very slow. All my life I’ve noticed that. Very slow! Them fellers in Parliament, they’ve got their positions and one thing and another to consider, the same as any other people; they’re bound to be cautious, they don’t want to take no risks, it stands to reason."
"“Look at all this class of comfortable people. They don’t see things the same as I do, an’ I don’t know why they should. They’re comfortable themselves. It stands to reason they’re not goin’ to think about such things. They’ve been brought up to believe the world was made for them. They never see no other people but their own sort; same as workin’ people never see no other but workin’ people."
June 23, 2021 - June 23, 2021.
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THE LOST DOG
" ... Turning to me he said: “Can you give me a job, sir? I don’t mind what I do.”
"His face was in mourning for a shave, his clothes were very ragged, and he was so thin that there seemed hardly any man behind those ragged clothes. He smelt, not indeed of whiskey, but as though bereaved of it; and his blue and watery eyes were like those of a lost dog."
"“I am a lost dog.”
"“Ah! but I am told daily by the just, the orderly, the practical, who have never been lost or hungry, that I must not give to casuals. You know yourself it would be pure sentiment; you know yourself it would be mere luxury. I wonder you can ask me!”
"“I am a lost dog.”"
June 23, 2021 - June 23, 2021.
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DEMOS
"“Well, she’s my wife, ain’t she?” He put his hands on the handles of his barrow as though to take it away from one who could not see his point of view, wheeled it two yards, and stopped.
"“It’s no matter what I done to her. Look ‘ere!” He turned his fish-white face, and his dead eyes came suddenly to life, with a murky, yellow glare, as though letting escape the fumes within his soul. “I ought to ha’ put her to bed with a shovel long ago; and I will, too, first chance I get.”"
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OLD AGE
Heartbreaking story of starvation due to poverty in old age, of a couple in England, having raised six children and hence no savings.
June 23, 2021 - June 23, 2021.
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THE CAREFUL MAN
" ... When asked at lunch of which sweet he would partake, he would answer: “A little of both, thanks”; for nothing seemed to him in life so great a pity as to take one thing to the exclusion of another. ... "
"His feeling about money was that he ought to have enough, in order to have no feeling about money; and, to attain this vacuum, he mechanically restrained his wants, still more his wife’s — for, not being so beautifully adjusted as himself, when she wanted things, she wanted them."
"Dogma of any sort, of course, he found offensive — you were committed by it, and to be committed was both repulsive and absurd."
" ... But, having a regard, a veneration, for the figure of John Bull — that myth who never modified his views, but held on fast to his ideals in spite of all the dogs of war — he preferred, whenever he was forced to act, to say that he had acted on his principles — and so, in truth, he had, for the deepest of his principles was the intimate belief that there was no such thing as principle.
"This it was that gave him his pre-eminence in politics, for, seated in the very centre of the seesaw, being the first to feel and answer to, he was the least affected by, its motion. By shifting just a little, and instinctively, he kept the whole machine together, having all the time a quiet contempt for the two ends that would keep swinging to the skies or bumping on the ground. Nothing could be done without him in that House, because he was so plentiful; and very little with him."
"Take him for all in all, he was not original in mind, and yet he was no flunkey, serving mortal masters; he served a nobler one than they — the great god Opportunity. But it was not safe to tell him this, for though there was no reason in the world why he should dislike its being known that he acted in accordance with his nature, somehow he did not like it. This was, no doubt, an instance of his care."
" ... They appreciated, too, his sterling worth — without him they felt the country would improve too fast."
June 23, 2021 - June 24, 2021.
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FEAR
"“I suppose it’s human nature not to take me on, seein’ the state I’m in,” the little baker said. “I don’t want to be a trouble to no one, I’m sure; I’ve always kept myself, ever since I was that high,” he put his hand out level with his waist; “and now I can’t keep myself, let alone the wife and child. It’s the coming to the end of everything — it’s the seeing of it coming. Fear — that’s what it is! But I suppose I’m not the only one.”
"And for that moment he seemed comforted by this thought that there were thousands of other working creatures, on whose shoulders sat the grinning cat of mortal illness, all staring with him at utter emptiness — thousands of other working creatures who were dying because fear had made them work too long. ... "
June 24, 2021 - June 24, 2021.
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FASHION
"Resented while you gathered being; brought into the world with the most distinguished skill; remembered by your mother when the whim came to her; taught to believe that life consists in caring for your clean, well-nourished body, and your manner that nothing usual can disturb; taught to regard Society as the little ring of men and women that you see, and to feel your only business is to know the next thing that you want and get it given you — You have never had a chance!"
June 24, 2021 - June 24, 2021.
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SPORT
"Sometimes we did not shoot at such small stuff, but waited for the roedeer. These dun familiars of the wood were very shy, clinging to the deepest thickets, treading with gentle steps, invisible as spirits, and ever trying to break back. Now and then, leaping forward with hindquarters higher than its shoulders, one of them would face the line of beaters, and then would arise the strangest noises above the customary sounds and tappings — cries of fierce resentment that such fine ‘‘game” should thus escape the guns. When the creature crossed the line these cries swelled into a long, continuous, excited shriek; and, as the yells died out in muttering, I used to feel a hollow sense of disappointment."
"It was but the finish of the hunt, the hunt that we had started, one or other of us, some fine day, the sun shining and the blood hot, wishing no harm to any one, but just a little sport."
June 24, 2021 - June 24, 2021.
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MONEY
"His fears went deeper than mere facts; they were religious, as it were, and founded in an innermost belief that, by money only, Nature could be held at bay."
June 24, 2021 - June 24, 2021.
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PROGRESS
"“I was married at twenty, on eight shillin’ a week; you won’t find them doing such a thing as that these days — they want their comforts now. There’s not the spirit of content about of forty or fifty years agone. All’s for movin’ away an’ goin’ to the towns; an’ when they get there, from what I’ve heard, they wish as they was back; but they don’t never come.”"
June 24, 2021 - June 24, 2021.
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HOLIDAY
"Fill every cranny of your houses so that no moment of silence or of solitude can come to any one of you. And if, by unhappy chance, in their parks you find yourself alone, lie neither on your back, for then you will see the quiet sunlight on the leaves, the quiet clouds, and birds with solitude within their wings; nor on your face, or you will catch the savour of the earth, and a faint hum, and for a minute live the life of tiny things that straddle in the trodden grasses. Fly from such sights and scents and sounds, for fear lest terror for your fate should visit you; fly to the streets; fly to your neighbours’ houses; talk, and be brave! ... "
June 24, 2021 - June 24, 2021.
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FACTS
"He took care that this reading should not stimulate his thoughts. He wanted facts, and the fact that the day’s facts were swallowed by the morrow’s did not disturb him, for the more facts he read the better he was pleased."
"Two days before the 12th of August he would take his guns and wife to Scotland, where he rented annually a piece of ground inhabited by grouse."
"Any particularly fine creature that he shot he would have stuffed, so that the fact might be remarked for ever.
"Once, or perhaps twice, each year, malaise would come on him, a feeling that his life was not quite all he wished, a desire for something that he could not shape in words, a conviction that there were facts which he was missing. At these times he was almost irritable, and would say: “Mistake for a man to marry, depend on it — narrows his life.” And suddenly one day he would know what he wanted, and, under pretext perhaps of two days’ sport, would go to Paris. The fact accomplished, of irregularity, that he would not have committed in England for the world — was of advantage to his soul, and he would return, more regular than ever."
June 25, 2021 - June 25, 2021.
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POWER
"Well aware that his was an occupation tending to the constriction of the mind, he had early made a practice of keeping it elastic by reading, argument, and a habit of presenting every case in every light, before pronouncing judgment; indeed, he would often take another person’s point of view, and, having improved on it, show that it was not really what the person thought it. Only when he was contradicted did a somewhat ugly look come into his eyes, and a peculiar smile contract his straight lips between his little fair moustache and his little, carefully kept, fair beard. At such moments he would raise his hands — red, and shapely, though rather large — as though about to press them on the head or shoulders of the presumptuous person. For, certain as he was that he always took all points of view before deciding any matter, he knew he must be right. But he was careful not to domineer in any way, recognising that to domineer was peculiarly unbecoming in a bureaucrat."
June 25, 2021 - June 25, 2021.
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THE HOUSE OF SILENCE
" ... Above his mug and plate of shining tin, his stiff, black-bristled brush and a piece of soap, is raised a little pyramid of godly books; no sound or scent, no living thing, no spider even, only his sense of humour comes between him and his God. But nothing whatever comes between him and his walking up and down, his listening for sound, his lying with his face pressed to the floor; till darkness falls, that he may stare at it, and beg for sleep, the only friend of prisoners, to touch him with her wings. ... "
June 25, 2021 - June 25, 2021.
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ORDER
"“Do you flog much?”
"He stared. You are lacking — he seemed to say — in delicacy.
"“Very little,” he answered, “only when it’s necessary.” And unconscious that he had proclaimed the spirit of the system that he served, the spirit of all systems, he drew his heels together, as though saluting discipline."
June 25, 2021 - June 25, 2021.
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THE MOTHER
"Though not yet nine o’clock, she had already done the work of her two rooms, lighted the fire, washed the youngest boys, given the four at home their breakfast, swept, made one bed — in the other her husband was still lying — and to that husband she had served his tea. She had cut the mid-day ration of the two eldest boys, and, wrapping it in paper, had placed it on the window-sill in readiness for them to take to school; had portioned out the firing for the day, given the eldest boy the pence to buy the daily screws of tea and sugar, washed some ragged cloths, mended a little pair of trousers, put on her hat without consulting the cracked looking-glass, and hurried forth. And, since a penny was important to her, she had walked."
" ... And while on her knees she scrubbed and polished, a certain sense of pleasurable rest would come to her; gazing into the depths of brass that she had made to shine, she thought of nothing. On some mornings she worked a little stiffly. This was when her husband, returning from late discussion at his public-house, had struck her with his belt, to show he was her master. On such mornings she was longer polishing the brass, often forced to clean it twice, having put her eyes too close to it. And she would think, over and over again: “He didn’t ought to hit me, he didn’t ought to treat me like he does, and me the mother of his children.” Thus far her thoughts would carry her, but — she was a simple soul — they carried her no further; nor did it ever penetrate her mind that her sons, born to and brought up by a drunken father, would some day carry on the glorious traditions of his life. ... "
" ... And yet, all those hours, while her sons were sleeping, there was at work a strange poison in her soul, a dull fever of revolt, in preparation for the blows that would be given her if he came in drunk — a sort of perverse spirit, vouchsafed by Providence, bringing those blows nearer, almost inviting them, yet keeping her alive beneath them. ... "
June 25, 2021 - June 25, 2021.
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COMFORT
"THEY lived in a flat on the fifth floor, facing a park on one side, and, on the other, through the branches of an elm tree, another block of flats as lofty as their own. It was very pleasant living up so high, where they were not disturbed by noises, scents, or the sight of other people — except such people as themselves. For, quite unconsciously, they had long found out that it was best not to be obliged to see, or hear, or smell anything that made them feel uncomfortable. ... "
June 25, 2021 - June 25, 2021.
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A CHILD
"Down in the grass the tiniest green flames were burning, a sign of the fire of flowers that would leap up if the sun would feed them.
"And on a seat there sat a child.
"He sat between his father and his mother, looking straight before him. It was plain that the reason why he looked so straight before him was that he really had not strength to care to look to right or left — so white his face was, so puny were his limbs. His clothes had evidently been designed for others, and this was fortunate, for they prevented the actual size of him from being seen. He was not, however, what is called neglected; his face was clean, and the utmost of protection that Fate and the condition of his parents had vouchsafed was evidently lavished on him, for round his neck there was a little bit of draggled fur which should have been round the neck of her against whose thin and shabby side he leaned. This mother of his was looking at the ground; and from the expression of her face she seemed to think that looking at the ground was all life had to offer."
June 25, 2021 - June 25, 2021.
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JUSTICE
"“For this is what I want you to fully understand: A man of means may drive his wife to loathe him, provided he stop short of certain definite things — for the Law does not allow him to be ‘cruel’ to her; he may entertain himself with other women provided that she does not know, for the Law does not allow him to be ‘faithless’; he may be, in fact, at heart a ruffian or a rascal, but — having means — if she leave him for another, he can, unless he has bad luck, be sure of his decree. Thus, it did not really matter whether you were false to her, so long as she did not know; it was almost superfluous to be so kind; what really mattered was that, either, as a working man with thirty shillings a week, you had sixty to a hundred pounds — or, as a penniless pauper, you had seven to fifteen."
"‘ ... If all the clerks and working men, and all those wives of clerks and working men — to whom, like you, divorce was due by almost general consent, and was indeed by almost general consent deemed of a desperate importance — were enabled to obtain it at a price within their means, several thousand more divorces would each year be granted in this country. This would have a disastrous effect upon the statistics of the marriage tie. Public Opinion, formed, you must remember, exclusively amongst your betters (for on such subjects working men are, and always have been, dumb), formed exclusively by such as can afford to pay for their decrees — this great Public Opinion would feel that a backward step was being taken on the path of moral rectitude. It would feel that, in granting what you, the People, in your dumbness and short sight might be tempted to think was common justice, it would be sacrificing the substance of morals to the shadow. The immorality to which you and your like under the present law are, and ever will be, forced, need never lie open to the light of day, never become a matter of statistics, and offend the Public Eye. What is not a matter of statistics can do no damage to the country’s morals or the country’s name. Public Opinion is itself secure in the enjoyment of the rights and privileges granted by the law, and it has decided by a simple sacrifice to conserve the moral fame of all. There must — it reasons — be a sacrifice; then let us sacrifice those without the means to pay! It is an accident that they, in their thousands, are not included in ourselves; some must suffer that we may all be moral!’"
June 25, 2021 - June 25, 2021.
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HOPE
"“An ‘ard life!” he had been heard to say when groundsel was scarce, customers scarcer, and the damp had struck up into his shrivelled leg. This, stated as a matter of fact, was the extent of his general complaint, though he would not unwillingly descant on the failings of his groundsel, his customers, and leg, to the few who could appreciate such things. But, as a rule, he stood or sat, silent, watching the world go by, as in old days he had watched the waves drift against his anchored fishing-smack; and the look of those blurred-blue, far-gazing eyes of his, in their extraordinary patience, was like a constant declaration of the simple and unconscious creed of man: “I hold on till I drop.”"
"In the crowded highway, beside his basket, he stood, leaning on his twisted stick, with his tired, steadfast face — a ragged statue to the great, unconscious human virtue, the most hopeful and inspiring of all things on earth: Courage without Hope!"
June 25, 2021 - June 25, 2021.
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June 23, 2021 - June 25, 2021.
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