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I CAN remember –
but then I
can remember a long time ago. You, gentle Reader, just
entering upon the prime
of life, that age by thoughtless youth called middle, I cannot, of
course, expect
to follow me when there was in great demand a certain periodical
ycleped The
Amateur. Its aim was
noble. It sought to teach the beautiful lesson of
independence, to inculcate the fine doctrine of self-help. One chapter
explained to a man how he might make flower-pots out of Australian
meat-cans; another
how he might turn butter-tubs into music-stools; a third how he might
utilise
old bonnet-boxes for Venetian blinds: that was the
principle of the whole
scheme, – you made everything from something not
intended for it, and as ill
suited to the purpose as possible.
Two pages, I distinctly
recollect, were devoted to the encouragement of the
manufacture of umbrella-stands
out of old gas-piping. Anything less adapted to the receipt of hats and
umbrellas than gas-piping I cannot myself conceive; had there
been, I feel
sure the author would have thought of it, and would have recommended it.
Picture-frames you fashioned
out of ginger-beer corks. You saved your ginger-beer corks, you found a
picture
– and the thing was complete. How much ginger-beer it would
be necessary to
drink, preparatory to the making of each frame, and the effect of it
upon the frame-maker's
physical, mental, and moral well-being, did not concern The
Amateur.
I calculate that for a fair-sized picture sixteen
dozen bottles might suffice. Whether, after sixteen dozen of
ginger-beer, a man
would take any interest in framing a picture – whether he
would retain any
pride in the picture itself – is doubtful. But this of course
was not the point.
One young gentleman of my
acquaintance – the son of the gardener of my sister, as
friend Ollendorff would
have described him – did succeed in getting through
sufficient ginger-beer to
frame his grandfather, but the result was not encouraging. Indeed, the
gardener's wife herself was but ill satisfied.
"What's all them corks
round father?" was her first question.
"Can't you see?"
was the somewhat indignant reply; "that's the frame."
"Oh! but why corks?"
"Well, the book said
corks."
Still the old lady remained
unimpressed.
"Somehow it don't look
like father now," she sighed.
Her eldest-born grew
irritable: none of us appreciate criticism!
"What does it look
like, then?" he growled.
"Well, I dunno. Seems
to me to look like nothing but corks."
The old lady's view was
correct. Certain schools of art possibly lend themselves to this method
of
framing. I myself have seen a funeral card improved by it; but,
generally
speaking, the consequence was a predominance of frame at the expense of
the
thing framed. The more honest and tasteful of the frame-makers would
admit as
much themselves.
"Yes, it is ugly when
you look at it," said one to me, as we stood surveying it from the
centre
of the room. "But what one feels about it is that one has done it
oneself."
Which
reflection, I have noticed, reconciles us to
many other things beside cork frames.
Another young gentleman
friend of mine – for I am bound to admit it was youth that
profited most by the
advice and counsel of
The Amateur: I
suppose as one gets older one gets less daring, less industrious made a
rocking-chair,
according to the
instructions of this book, out of a couple of
beer barrels. From every
practical point of view it was a bad rocking-chair.
It rocked too much, and it
rocked in too many directions at one and the
same time. I take it, a man sitting on a rocking-chair
does not want to be
continually rocking. There comes a time when he says to
himself, "Now I
have rocked sufficiently for the present; now I will sit still for a
while,
lest a worse thing befall me." But this was one of those headstrong rocking-chairs
that are a danger to
humanity and a nuisance to themselves.
Its notion was that it was
made to rock, and that when it was not
rocking, it was wasting its time. Once started, nothing could
stop it, nothing
ever did stop it, until it found itself topsy-turvy on its own
occupant. That
was the only thing that ever sobered it.
I had called, and. had been
shown into the empty drawing-room. The rockingchair nodded
invitingly at me. I
never guessed it was an amateur rocking-chair.
I was young in those days,
with faith in human nature, and I imagined that whatever else
a man might
attempt without knowledge or experience, no one would be fool enough to
experiment upon a rockingchair.
I threw myself into it
lightly and carelessly. I immediately noticed the ceiling. I
made an
instinctive movement forward. The window and a momentary glimpse of the
wooded
hills beyond shot upwards and disappeared. The carpet flashed across my
eyes,
and I caught sight of my own boots vanishing beneath me at the rate of
about
two hundred miles an hour. I made a convulsive effort to
recover
them. I suppose I overdid it. I saw the whole of the room at once,
– the four
walls, the ceiling, and the floor at the same moment. It was a sort of
vision.
I saw the cottage piano upside down, and I again saw my own boots flash
past
me, this time over my head, soles uppermost. Never before had
I been in a
position where my own boots had seemed so all-pervading. The next
moment I lost
my boots, and stopped the carpet with my head just as it was rushing
past me.
At the same instant something hit me violently in the small of the
back.
Reason, when recovered, suggested that my assailant must be the
rocking-chair. Investigation
proved the surmise correct. Fortunately I was still alone, and in
consequence
was able, a few minutes later, to meet my hostess with calm and
dignity. I said
nothing about the rocking-chair.
As a matter of fact, I was
hoping to have the
pleasure, before I went, of seeing some other guest arrive and sample
it: I had
purposely replaced it in the most prominent and convenient position.
But though
I felt capable of schooling myself to silence, I found myself unable to
agree
with my hostess when she called for my admiration of the thing. My
recent experiences
had too deeply embittered me.
"Willie made it
himself," explained the fond mother. "Don't you think it was very
clever of him?"
"Oh, yes, it was
clever," I replied. "I am willing to admit that."
"He made it out of some
old beer barrels," she continued; she seemed proud of it.
My resentment, though I
tried to keep it under control, was mounting higher.
"Oh! did he? " I said; "I
should have thought he might have found something better to do with
them."
"What?" she asked.
"Oh! well, many
things," I retorted. "He might have filled them again with
beer."
My hostess looked at me
astonished. I felt some reason for my tone was expected.
"You see," I
explained, "it is not a wellmade chair. These rockers are too
short and
they are too curved, and one of them, if you notice, is higher than the
other
and of a smaller radius; the back is at too obtuse an angle, when it
is
occupied the centre of gravity becomes –"
My hostess interrupted me.
"You have been sitting
on it," she said.
"Not for long," I
assured her.
Her tone changed. She became
apologetic.
"I am so sorry,"
she said. "It looks all right."
"It does," I
agreed; "that is where the dear lad's cleverness displays itself. Its
appearance disarms suspicion, with judgment that chair might
be made to serve
a really useful purpose. There are mutual acquaintances of ours,
– I mention no
names, you will know them, – pompous,
self-satisfied, superior persons, who
would be improved by that chair. If I were Willie I should disguise the
mechanism
with some artistic drapery, bait the thing with a couple of
exceptionally
inviting cushions, and employ it to inculcate modesty and
diffidence. I defy
any human being to get out of that chair feeling as important as when
he got
into it. What the dear boy has done has been to construct an automatic
exponent
of the transitory nature of human greatness. As a moral agency, that
chair
should prove a blessing in disguise."
My hostess smiled feebly;
more, I fear, from politeness than genuine enjoyment.
"I think you are too
severe," she said. "When you remember that the boy has never tried
his hand at anything of the kind before, that he has no knowledge and
no
experience, it really is not so bad." Considering the matter from that
point of view, I was bound to concur. I did not like to suggest to her
that
before entering upon a difficult task it would be better for young men
to acquire knowledge
and experience: that
is so unpopular a theory.
But the thing that The Amateur put
in the
front and foremost of its propaganda was the manufacture of
household furniture out
of egg-boxes.
Why egg-boxes, I have never been able to understand, but
eggboxes, according
to the prescription of The
Amateur, formed
the foundation of household existence. With a sufficient supply of
eggboxes, and
what The
Amateur termed a "natural
deftness," no young couple need hesitate to face the furnishing
problem. Three
egg-boxes made a writing-table; another egg-box you sat to write; your
books
were ranged in egg-boxes around you, – and there was your
study, complete.
For the dining-room two
egg-boxes
made an over-mantel; four egg-boxes and a piece of looking-glass a
sideboard;
while six egg-boxes, with some wadding and a yard or so of cretonne,
constituted a so-called "cosy corner." About the "corner"
there could be no possible doubt. You sat on a corner; you leant
against a
corner; whichever way you moved you struck a fresh corner. The
"cosiness,"
however, I deny. Egg-boxes I admit can be made useful; I am even
prepared to
imagine them ornamental; but "cosy," no. I have sampled egg-boxes in
many shapes. I speak of years ago, when the world and we were younger,
when our
fortune was the Future; secure in which, we hesitated not to set up
house upon
incomes folks with lesser expectations might have deemed insufficient.
Under
such circumstances, the sole alternative to the egg-box, or
similar school of
furniture, would have been the strictly classical, consisting of a
doorway joined
to architectural proportions.
I have from Saturday to
Monday, as honoured guest, hung my clothes in egg-boxes. I
have sat on an egg-box
at an egg-box to take my dish of tea. I have made
love
on egg-boxes – aye, and to feel again the blood running
through my veins as then it ran, I would be content to sit only on
egg-boxes till
the time should come when I could be buried in an egg-box, with an
egg-box reared
above me as tombstone I have spent many an evening on an egg-box; I
have gone
to bed in egg-boxes. They have their points – I am intending
no pun – but to
claim for them cosiness would be but to deceive.
How quaint they were, those
home-made rooms! They rise out of shadows and shape themselves again
before my
eyes. I see the knobly sofa; the easy-chairs that might have been
designed by
the Grand Inquisitor himself; the dented settle that was a bed
by night; the
few blue plates purchased in the slums off Wardour Street; the
enamelled stool
to which one always stuck; the mirror framed in silk; the two Japanese
fans
crossed beneath each cheap engraving; the piano-cloth embroidered in
peacock's
feathers by Annie's sister; the tea-cloth worked by Cousin Jenny. We
dreamt,
sitting on these egg-boxes, – for we were young ladies and
gentlemen with
artistic taste, – of the days when we would eat in
Chippendale dining-rooms, sip
our coffee in Louis Quatorze
drawing-rooms, and be happy.
Well, we have got on,
some of us, since then, as Mr. Bumpus used to say; and I notice, when
on
visits, that some of us have contrived so that we do sit on
Chippendale
chairs, at Sheraton dining-tables, and are warmed from Adam's
fireplaces; but, ah, me,
where are the dreams, the hopes, the enthusiasms that clung like the
scent of a
March morning about those gimcrack second floors? In the dust-bin, I
fear, with
the cretonne-covered egg-boxes and the penny fans. Fate is so terribly
evenhanded.
As she gives she ever takes away. She flung us a few shillings and
hope, where
now she doles us out pounds and fears. Why did not we know how happy we
were,
sitting crowned with sweet conceit upon our eggbox thrones?
Yes, Dick, you have climbed
well. You edit a great newspaper. You spread abroad the message
– well, the
message that Sir Joseph Goldbug, your proprietor, instructs you to
spread
abroad. You teach mankind the lessons that Sir Joseph Goldbug wishes
them to
learn. They say he is to have a peerage next year. I am sure
he has earned it;
and perhaps there may be a knighthood for you, Dick.
Tom, you are getting on now.
You have abandoned those unsaleable allegories. What rich art patron
cares to
be told continually by his own walls that Midas had ass's ears; that
Lazarus sits
ever at the gate. You paint portraits now, and everybody tells me you
are the
coming man. That "Impression" of old Lady Jezebel was really
wonderful.
The woman looks quite handsome, and yet it is
her ladyship. Your touch is truly marvellous.
But into your success, Tom,
Dick, old friend, do not there creep moments when you would that we
could fish
up those old egg-boxes from the past, refurnish with them the dingy
rooms in
Camden Town, and find again there our youth, our loves, and our beliefs?
An incident brought back to
my mind, the other day, the thought of all these things. I called for
the first
time upon a man, an actor, who had asked me to come and see him in the
little
home where he lives with his old father. To my astonishment,
– for the craze, I
believe, has long since died out, – I found the house half
furnished out of packing-cases,
butter-tubs, and egg-boxes. My friend earns his twenty pounds a week,
but it
was the old father's hobby, so he explained to me, the making
of these monstrosities;
and of them he was as proud as though they were specimen furniture out
of the
South Kensington Museum.
He took me into the
dining-room
to show me the latest outrage, – a new bookcase. A greater
disfigurement to the
room, which was otherwise prettily furnished, could hardly be imagined.
There
was no need for him to assure me, as he did, that it had been made out
of
nothing but egg-boxes. One could see at a glance that it was made out
of egg-boxes,
and badly constructed egg-boxes at that, – egg-boxes that
were a disgrace to
the firm that had turned them out; eggboxes not worthy the
storage of "shop
'uns" at eighteen the shilling.
We went upstairs to my
friend's bedroom. He opened the door as a man might open the door of a
museum
of gems.
"The old boy," he
said, as he stood with his hand upon the door-knob, "made everything
you
see here, – everything," and we entered. He drew my attention
to the
wardrobe. "Now I will hold it up," he said, "while you pull the
door open; I think the floor must be a bit uneven; it wobbles if you
are not
careful." It wobbled notwithstanding, but by coaxing and
humouring we
succeeded without mishap. I was surprised to notice a very small supply
of
clothes within, although my friend is a dressy man.
"You see," he
explained, "I dare not use it more than I can help. I am a clumsy chap,
and as likely as not, if I happened to be in a hurry, I'd have the
whole thing
over:" which seemed probable.
I asked him how he
contrived. "I dress in the bath-room as a rule," he replied; "I
keep most of my things there. Of course the old boy doesn’t
know."
He showed me a chest of
drawers. One drawer stood half open.
"I’m bound to
leave
that drawer open," he said; "I keep the things I use in that. They
don't shut quite easily, these drawers; or rather, they shut all right,
but
then they won't open. It is the weather, I think. They will open and
shut all
right in the summer, I dare say." He is of a hopeful disposition.
But the pride of the room
was the washstand.
"What do you think of
this?" cried he, enthusiastically, "real marble top."
He did not expatiate
further. In his excitement he had laid his hand upon the
thing, with the
natural result that it collapsed. More by accident than
design, I caught the
jug in my arms. I also caught the water it contained. The basin rolled
on its
edge, and little damage was done, except to me and the soap-box.
I could not pump up much
admiration for this washstand; I was feeling too wet. "What do you do
when
you want to wash?" I asked, as together we reset the trap.
There fell upon him the
manner of a conspirator revealing secrets. He glanced guiltily
round the room;
then, creeping on tiptoe, he opened a cupboard behind the bed. Within
was a tin
basin and a small can.
"Don't tell the old
boy," he said. " I keep these things here, and wash on the
floor."
That was the best thing I
myself ever got out of egg-boxes, – that picture of a
deceitful son stealthily
washing himself upon the floor behind the bed, trembling at every footstep lest it might
be the "old boy" coming to the door.
One wonders whether the Ten
Commandments are so all-sufficient as we good folk deem them,
– whether the
eleventh is not worth the whole pack of them: "that ye love one
another"
with just a commonplace, human, practical love. Could not the other ten
be
comfortably stowed away into a corner of that? One is
inclined, in one's
anarchic moments, to agree with Louis, Stevenson, that to be amiable
and
cheerful is a good religion for a workaday world. We are so busy not
killing, not
stealing, not
coveting our neighbour's wife, we have
not time to be even just to one another for the little we are together
here.
Need we be so cocksure that our present list of virtues and vices is
the only
possibly correct and complete one? Is the kind, unselfish man
necessarily a
villain because he does not always succeed in suppressing his natural
instincts?
Is the narrow-hearted, sour-souled man, incapable of a generous thought
or act,
necessarily a saint because he has none? Have we not
– we unco' guid – arrived
at a wrong method of estimating our frailer brothers and sisters? We
judge
them, as critics judge books, not by the good that is in them, but by
their
faults. Poor King David! What would the local Vigilance Society have
had to say
to him? Noah, according to our plan, would be denounced from every
teetotal
platform in the country, and Ham would head the Local Vestry poll as a
reward
for having exposed him. And St. Peter! weak, frail St. Peter, how lucky
for him
that his fellow-disciples and their Master were not as strict in their
notions
of virtue as are we to-day!
Have we not forgotten the
meaning of the word "virtue"? Once it stood for the good that was in
a man, irrespective of the evil that might lie there also, as tares
among the
wheat. We have abolished virtue, and for it substituted virtues. Not
the hero –
he was too full of faults – but the blameless valet; not the
man who does any
good, but the man who has not been found out in any evil, is our modern
ideal.
The most virtuous thing in nature, according to this new
theory, should be the
oyster. He is always at home, and always sober. He is not noisy. He
gives no
trouble to the police. I cannot think of a single one of the Ten
commandments
that he ever breaks. He never enjoys himself, and he never, so
long as he
lives, gives a moment's pleasure to any other living thing.
I can imagine the oyster
lecturing a lion on the subject of morality.
"You never hear
me," the oyster might say, "howling round camps and villages, making
night hideous, frightening quiet folk out of their lives. Why don't you
go to
bed early, as I do? I never prowl round the oyster-bed, fighting other
gentlemen oysters, making love to lady oysters already married. I never
kill
antelopes or missionaries. Why can't you live as I do on salt
water and germs,
or whatever it is that I do live on! Why don't you try to be more like
me?"
An oyster has no evil
passions, therefore we say he is a virtuous fish. We never ask
ourselves, "Has
he any good passions?" A lion's behaviour is often such as no just man
could condone. Has he not his good points also?
Will the fat, sleeky,
"virtuous"
man be as welcome at the gate of heaven as he supposes?
"Well," St. Peter
may say to him, opening the door a little way and looking him
up and down,
"what is it now?"
"It's me," the
virtuous man will reply, with an oily, self-satisfied smile; "I should
say, I – I've come."
"Yes, I see you have
come; but what is your claim to admittance? What have you done with
your
threescore years and ten?"
"Done!" the
virtuous man will answer; "I have done nothing, I assure you."
"Nothing!"
"Nothing; that is my
strong point; that is why I am here. I have never done any wrong."
"And what good have you
done?"
"What good!"
"Aye, what good? Do not
you even know the meaning of the word? What human creature is the
better for
your having eaten and drunk and slept these years? You have done no
harm, – no
harm to yourself. Perhaps if you had you might have done some good with
it; the
two are generally to be found together down below, I remember. What
good have
you done that you should enter here? This is no mummy chamber; this is
the
place of men and women who have lived; who have wrought good
– and evil also,
alas! for the sinners who fight for the right, not the
righteous who run with
their souls from the fight."
It was not, however, to
speak of these things that I remembered The
Amateur
and its lessons. My
intention was but to lead up to the story of a certain small boy, who
in the
doing of tasks not required of him was exceedingly clever. I wish to
tell you
his story, because, as do most true tales, it possesses a moral; and
stories
without a moral I deem to be but foolish literature, resembling roads
that lead
to nowhere, such as sick folk tramp for exercise.
I have known this little boy
to take an expensive eight-day clock to pieces and make of it a toy
steamboat.
True, it was not, when made,
very much of a steamboat; but taking into consideration all the
difficulties –
the inadaptability of eight-day clock machinery to steamboat
requirements, the
necessity of getting the work accomplished quickly, before
conservatively-minded
people with no enthusiasm for science could interfere – a
good enough
steamboat. With merely an ironing-board and a few dozen meat-skewers,
he would
– provided the ironing-board was not missed in time
– turn out quite a
practicable rabbit-hutch. He could make a gun out of an umbrella and a
gas-bracket,
which, if not so accurate as a Martini-Henry, was at all events more
deadly.
With half the garden-hose, a copper scalding-pan out of the dairy, and
a few
Dresden china ornaments off the drawing-room mantel-piece, he
would build a
fountain for the garden. He could make book-shelves out of kitchen
tables, and
crossbows out of crinolines. He could dam you a stream so that all the
water
would flow over the croquet lawn. He knew how to make red paint and
oxygen gas,
together with many other such-like commodities handy to have about a
house.
Among other things he learned how to make fireworks, and after a few
explosions
of an unimportant character came to make them very well indeed. The boy
who can
play a good game of cricket is liked. The boy who can fight well is
respected.
The boy who can cheek a master is loved. But the boy who can make
fireworks is
revered above all others as a boy belonging to a superior order of
beings. The
fifth of November was at hand, and with the consent of an
indulgent mother he
determined to give to the world a proof of his powers. A large party of
friends, relatives, and schoolmates was invited, and for a fortnight
beforehand
the scullery was converted into a manufactory for fireworks. The female
servants went about in hourly terror of their lives, and the villa, did
we judge
exclusively by smell, one might have imagined had been taken over by
Satan, his
main premises being inconveniently crowded, as an annex. By the evening
of the
fourth all was in readiness, and samples were tested to make sure that
no contretemps
should occur the following
night. All was found to be perfect. The rockets rushed heavenward and
descended
in stars, the Roman candles tossed their fiery balls into the darkness,
the
Catherine wheels sparkled and whirled, the crackers cracked, and the
squibs banged.
That night he went to bed a proud and happy boy, and dreamed of fame.
He stood
surrounded by blazing fireworks, and the vast crowd cheered him. His
relations,
most of whom, he knew, regarded him as the coming idiot of the family,
were
there to witness his triumph; so too was Dickey Bowles, who
laughed at him
because he could not throw straight. The girl at the bun-shop, she also
was
there, and saw that he was clever.
The night of the festival
arrived, and with it the guests. They sat, wrapped up in shawls and
cloaks,
outside the hall door, – uncles, cousins, aunts, little boys
and big boys,
little girls and big girls, with, as the theatre posters say, villagers
and
retainers, some forty of them in all, and waited.
But the fireworks did not go
off. Why they did not go off I cannot explain; nobody ever could
explain. The laws of nature seemed to be suspended for that
night only. The
rockets fell down and died where they stood. No human agency seemed
able to
ignite the squibs. The crackers gave one bang and collapsed. The Roman
candles
might have been English rushlights. The Catherine wheels became mere
revolving
glow-worms. The fiery serpents could not collect among them the spirit
of a
tortoise. The set piece, a ship at sea, showed one mast and the
captain, and
then went out. One or two items did their duty, but this only served to
render
the foolishness of the whole more striking. The little girls giggled,
the
little boys chaffed, the aunts and cousins said it was beautiful, the
uncles
inquired if it was all over, and talked about supper and trains, the
"villagers
and retainers" dispersed laughing, the indulgent mother said, "Never
mind," and explained how well everything had gone off yesterday; the
clever little boy crept upstairs to his room, and blubbered his heart
out in
the dark.
Hours later, when the crowd
had forgotten him, he stole out again into the garden. He sat down amid
the
ruins of his hope, and wondered what could have caused the fiasco.
Still
puzzled, he drew from his pocket a box of matches, and, lighting one,
he held
it to the seared end of a rocket he had tried in vain to light four
hours ago.
It smouldered for an instant, then shot with a swish into the air, and
broke
into a hundred points of fire. He tried another and another
with the same
result. He made a fresh attempt to fire the set piece. Point by point
the whole
picture – minus the captain and one mast – came out
of the night, and stood
revealed in all the majesty of flame. Its sparks fell upon the piled-up
heap of
candles, wheels, and rockets that a little while before had obstinately
refused
to burn, and that, one after another, had been thrown aside as useless.
Now
with the night frost upon them, they leaped to light in one grand
volcanic
eruption. And in front of the gorgeous spectacle he stood with only one
consolation, – his mother's hand in his.
The whole thing was a
mystery to him at the time, but, as he learned to know life better, he
came to
understand that it was only one example of a solid but inexplicable
fact, ruling
all human affairs, – your
fireworks won't
go off while the crowd is around.
Our brilliant repartees do
not occur to us till the door is closed upon us and we are alone in the
street,
or, as the French would say, are coming down the stairs. Our
after-dinner oratory,
that sounded so telling as we delivered it before the
lookingglass, falls
strangely flat amidst the clinking of the glasses. The passionate
torrent of
words we meant to pour into her ear becomes a halting
rigmarole, at which –
small blame to her – she only laughs.
I would, gentle Reader, you
could hear the stories that I meant to tell you. You judge me, of
course, by
the stories of mine that you have read – by this sort of
thing, perhaps; but
that is not just to me. The stories I have not told you, that I am
going to
tell you one day, I would that you judge me by those. They are so
beautiful;
you will say so; over them you will laugh and cry with me.
They come into my brain
unbidden, they clamour to be written, yet when I take my pen in hand
they are
gone. It is as though they were shy of publicity, as though they would
say to
me: "You alone, you shall read us, but you must not write us; we are
too
real, too true. We are like the thoughts you cannot speak. Perhaps a
little
later, when you know more of life, then you shall tell us."
Next to these in merit I
would place, were I writing a critical essay on myself, the stories I
have
begun to write and that remain unfinished, why I cannot explain to
myself. They
are good stories, most of them; better far than the stories I have
accomplished. Another time, perhaps, if you care to listen, I will tell
you the
beginning of one or two, and you shall judge. Strangely. enough, for I
have
always regarded myself as a practical, common-sensed man, so
many of these still-born
children of my mind I find, on looking through the cupboard where their
thin
bodies lie, are ghost stories. I suppose the hope of ghosts is with us
all. The
world grows somewhat interesting to us heirs of all the ages. Year by
year,
science with broom and duster tears down the moth-worn tapestry, forces
the
doors of the locked chambers, lets light into the secret stairways,
cleans out
the dungeons, explores the hidden passage, – finding
everywhere only dust.
This echoing old castle, the world, so full of mystery in the days when
we were
children, is losing somewhat its charm for us as we grow older. The
king sleeps
no longer in the hollow of the hills. We have tunnelled through his
mountain
chamber. We have shivered his beard with our pick. We have driven the
gods from
Olympus. No wanderer through the moonlit groves now fears or hopes the
sweet, death-giving
gleam of Aphrodite's face. Thor's hammer echoes not among the peaks; 't
is but
the thunder of the excursion train. We have swept the woods of the
fairies. We
have filtered the sea of its nymphs. Even the ghosts are leaving us,
chased by
the Psychical Research Society.
Perhaps, of all the others,
they are the least, however, to be regretted. They were dull old
fellows,
clanking their rusty chains and groaning and sighing. Let them go.
And yet how interesting they
might be, if only they would! The old gentleman in the coat of mail,
who lived
in King John's reign, who was murdered, so they say, on the outskirts
of the
very wood I can see from my window as I write – stabbed in
the back, poor
gentleman, as he was riding home, his body flung into the moat that to
this day
is called Tor's tomb. Dry enough it is now, and the primroses love its
steep
banks; but a gloomy enough place in those days, no doubt, with its
twenty feet
of stagnant water. Why does he haunt the forest paths at
night, as they tell
me he does, frightening the children out of their wits, blanching the
faces and
stilling the laughter of the peasant lads and lasses, slouching home
from the
village dance? Instead, why does he not come up here and talk to me? He
should
have my easy-chair and welcome, would he only be cheerful and
companionable.
What brave tales could he not tell me. He fought in the first Crusade,
heard
the clarion voice of Peter, met the great Godfrey face to face, stood,
hand on swordhilt,
at Runnymede, perhaps. Better than a whole library of historical novels
would
an evening's chat be with such a ghost. What has he done with his eight
hundred
years of death? Where has he been? What has he seen? Maybe he has
visited Mars;
has spoken to the strange spirits who can live in the liquid fires of
Jupiter.
What has he learned of the great secret? Has he found the truth? or is
he, even
as I, a wanderer still seeking the unknown?
You, poor, pale grey nun,
they tell me that of midnights one may see your white face peering from
the
ruined belfry window, hear the clash of sword and shield among the
cedar-trees beneath.
It was very sad, I quite
understand, my dear lady. Your lovers both were killed, and you retired
to a
convent. Believe me, I am sincerely sorry for you, but why waste every
night
renewing the whole painful experience? Would it not be better
forgotten? Good
Heavens, madam, suppose we living folk were to spend our lives
wailing and
wringing our hands because of the wrongs done to us when we were
children? It
is all over now. Had he lived, and had you married him, you might not
have been
happy. I do not wish to say anything unkind, but marriages
founded upon the sincerest
mutual love have sometimes turned out unfortunately, as you must surely
know.
Do take my advice. Talk the
matter over with the young men themselves. Persuade them to
shake hands and be
friends. Come in, all of you, out of the cold, and let us have some
reasonable
talk.
Why seek you to trouble us,
you poor pale ghosts? Are we not your children? Be our wise friends.
Tell me,
how loved the young men in your young days? how answered the maidens?
Has the
world changed much, do you think? Had you not new women even then?
– girls who
hated the everlasting tapestry frame and spinningwheel. Your
father's
servants, were they so much worse off than the freemen who live in our
East-end
slums and sew slippers for fourteen hours a day at a wage of nine
shillings a
week? Do you think Society much improved during the last thousand
years? Is it
worse? is it better? or is it, on the whole, about the same, save that
we call
things by other names? Tell me, what have you
learned?
Yet might not familiarity
breed contempt, even for ghosts?
One has had a tiring day's
shooting. One is looking forward to one's bed. As one opens the door,
however,
a ghostly laugh comes from behind the bed-curtains, and one groans
inwardly,
knowing what is in store for one: a two or three hours' talk with rowdy
old Sir
Lanval, – he of the lance. We know all his tales by heart,
and he will shout
them. Suppose our aunt, from whom we have expectations, and who sleeps
in the
next room, should wake and overhear! They were fit and proper enough
stories,
no doubt, for the Round Table, but we feel sure our aunt would not
appreciate
them, that story about Sir Agravain and the cooper's wife! and he
always will
tell that story.
Or imagine the maid entering
after dinner to say, –
"Oh, if you please,
sir, here is the veiled lady."
"What, again?"
says your wife, looking up from her work.
"Yes, ma'am; shall I
show her up into the bedroom?"
"You had better ask
your master," is the reply. The tone is suggestive of an unpleasant
five minutes so soon as the girl shall have withdrawn; but what are you
to do?
"Yes, yes, show her
up," you say, and the girl goes out, closing the door.
Your wife gathers her work
together, and rises.
"Where are you going?"
you ask.
"To sleep with the
children," is the frigid answer.
"It will look so
rude," you urge. "we must be civil to the poor thing; and you see it
really is her room, as one might say. She has always haunted it."
"It is very
curious," returns the wife of your bosom, still more icily, "that she
never haunts it except when you are down here. Where she goes when you
are in
town I'm sure I don't know."
This is unjust. You cannot
restrain your indignation.
"What nonsense you
talk, Elizabeth!" you reply; "I am only barely polite to her."
"Some men have such
curious notions of politeness," returns Elizabeth. "But pray do not
let us quarrel. I am only anxious not to disturb you. Two are company,
you
know. I don't choose to be the third, that's all." With which she goes
out.
And the veiled lady is still
waiting for you upstairs. You wonder how long she will stop, also what
will
happen after she is gone.
I fear there is no room for
you ghosts in this our world. You remember how they came to Hiawatha,
– the
ghosts of the departed loved ones. He had prayed to them that
they would come
back to him to comfort him, so one day they crept into his wigwam, sat
in
silence round his fireside, chilled the air for Hiawatha, froze the
smiles of
Laughing Water.
There is no room for you,
oh, you poor, pale ghosts, in this our world. Do not trouble us. Let us
forget.
You stout elderly matron, your thin locks turning grey, your eyes grown
weak,
your chin more ample, your voice harsh with much scolding and
complaining,
needful, alas! to household management, I pray you leave me. I loved
you while you lived. How sweet, how beautiful you were! I see you now
in your
white frock among the apple-blossoms. But you are dead, and your ghost
disturbs
my dreams. I would it haunted me not.
You dull old fellow, looking
out at me from the glass at which I shave, why do you haunt me? You are
the
ghost of a bright lad I once knew well. He might have done much, had he
lived.
I always had faith in him. Why do you haunt me? I would rather think of
him as
I remember him. I never imagined he would make such a poor ghost.