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.
* * *
Ah! how delicious it is to turn over and go to sleep again: "just
for five minutes." Is there any human being, I wonder, besides the hero
of a Sunday-school "tale for boys," who ever gets up willingly? There are
some men to whom getting up at the proper time is an utter impossibility.
If eight o'clock happens to be the time that they should turn out, then
they lie till half-past. If circumstances change and half-past eight
becomes early enough for them, then it is nine before they can rise.
They are like the statesman of whom it was said that he was always
punctually half an hour late. They try all manner of schemes. They buy
alarm-clocks (artful contrivances that go off at the wrong time and alarm
the wrong people). They tell Sarah Jane to knock at the door and call
them, and Sarah Jane does knock at the door and does call them, and they
grunt back "awri" and then go comfortably to sleep again. I knew one man
who would actually get out and have a cold bath; and even that was of no
use, for afterward he would jump into bed again to warm himself.
I think myself that I could keep out of bed all right if I once
got out. It is the wrenching away of the head from the pillow that I find
so hard, and no amount of over-night determination makes it easier. I say
to myself, after having wasted the whole evening, "Well, I won't do any
more work to-night; I'll get up early to-morrow morning;" and I am
thoroughly resolved to do so--then. In the morning, however, I feel less
enthusiastic about the idea, and reflect that it would have been much
better if I had stopped up last night. And then there is the trouble of
dressing, and the more one thinks about that the more one wants to put it
off.
It is a strange thing this bed, this mimic grave, where we stretch
our tired limbs and sink away so quietly into the silence and rest. "0
bed, 0 bed, delicious bed, that heaven on earth to the weary head," as
sang poor Hood, you are a kind old nurse to us fretful boys and girls.
Clever and foolish, naughty and good, you take us all in your motherly lap
and hush our wayward crying. The strong man full of care--the sick man
full of pain--the little maiden sobbing for her faithless lover--like
children we lay our aching heads on your white bosom, and you gently
soothe us off to by-by.
Our trouble is sore indeed when you turn away and will not comfort
us. How long the dawn seems coming when we cannot sleep! Oh! those
hideous nights when we toss and turn in fever and pain, when we lie, like
living men among the dead, staring out into the dark hours that drift so
slowly between us and the light. And oh! those still more hideous nights
when we sit by another in pain, when the low fire startles us every now
and then with a falling cinder, and the tick of the clock seems a hammer
beating out the life that we are watching.
But enough of beds and bedrooms. I have kept to them too long,
even for an idle fellow. Let us come out and have a smoke. That wastes
time just as well and does not look so bad. 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. But if the other fellow broke _his_
head--not his own, you know, but the other fellow's--the other fellow to
the second fellow, that is, because of course the other fellow would only
be the other fellow to him, not the first fellow who--well, if he broke
his head, then _his_ girl--not the other fellow's, but the fellow who
_was_ the-- Look here, if A broke B's head, then A's girl was a pretty
girl; but if B broke A's head, then A's girl wasn't a pretty girl, but B's
girl was. That was their method of conducting art criticism.
Nowadays we light a pipe and let the girls fight it out among
themselves.
They do it very well. They are getting to do all our work. They
are doctors, and barristers, and artists. They manage theaters, and
promote swindles, and edit newspapers. I am looking forward to the time
when we men shall have nothing to do but lie in bed till twelve, read two
novels a day, have nice little five-o'clock teas all to ourselves, and tax
our brains with nothing more trying than discussions upon the latest
patterns in trousers and arguments as to what Mr. Jones' coat was made of
and whether it fitted him. It is a glorious prospect--for idle fellows.
* * *
No, we never sicken with love twice. Cupid spends no second arrow
on the same heart. Love's handmaids are our life-long friends. Respect,
and admiration, and affection, our doors may always be left open for, but
their great celestial master, in his royal progress, pays but one visit
and departs. We like, we cherish, we are very, very fond of--but we never
love again. A man's heart is a firework that once in its time flashes
heavenward. Meteor-like, it blazes for a moment and lights with its glory
the whole world beneath. Then the night of our sordid commonplace life
closes in around it, and the burned-out case, falling back to earth, lies
useless and uncared for, slowly smoldering into ashes. Once, breaking
loose from our prison bonds, we dare, as mighty old Prometheus dared, to
scale the Olympian mount and snatch from Phoebus' chariot the fire of the
gods. Happy those who, hastening down again ere it dies out, can kindle
their earthly altars at its flame. Love is too pure a light to burn long
among the noisome gases that we breathe, but before it is choked out we
may use it as a torch to ignite the cozy fire of affection.
* * *
Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is
the sting. It is not cold that makes a man without a great-coat hurry
along so quickly. It is not all shame at telling lies--which he knows
will not be believed--that makes him turn so red when he informs you that
he considers great-coats unhealthy and never carries an umbrella on
principle. It is easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. No; if it
were men wouldn't be ashamed of it. It's a blunder, though, and is
punished as such. A poor man is despised the whole world over; despised
as much by a Christian as by a lord, as much by a demagogue as by a
footman, and not all the copy-book maxims ever set for ink stained youth
will make him respected. Appearances are everything, so far as human
opinion goes, and the man who will walk down Piccadilly arm in arm with
the most notorious scamp in London, provided he is a well-dressed one,
will slink up a back street to say a couple of words to a seedy-looking
gentleman. And the seedy-looking gentleman knows this--no one better--and
will go a mile round to avoid meeting an acquaintance. Those that knew
him in his prosperity need never trouble themselves to look the other way.
He is a thousand times more anxious that they should not see him than they
can be; and as to their assistance, there is nothing he dreads more than
the offer of it. All he wants is to be forgotten; and in this respect he
is generally fortunate enough to get what he wants.
All is vanity and everybody's vain. Women are terribly vain. So
are men--more so, if possible. So are children, particularly children.
One of them at this very moment is hammering upon my legs. She wants to
know what I think of her new shoes. Candidly I don't think much of them.
They lack symmetry and curve and possess an indescribable appearance of
lumpiness (I believe, too, they've put them on the wrong feet). But I
don't say this. It is not criticism, but flattery that she wants; and I
gush over them with what I feel to myself to be degrading effusiveness.
Nothing else would satisfy this self-opinionated cherub. I tried the
conscientious-friend dodge with her on one occasion, but it was not a
success. She had requested my judgment upon her general conduct and
behavior, the exact case submitted being, "Wot oo tink of me? Oo peased
wi' me?" and I had thought it a good opportunity to make a few salutary
remarks upon her late moral career, and said: "No, I am not pleased with
you." I recalled to her mind the events of that very morning, and I put
it to her how she, as a Christian child, could expect a wise and good
uncle to be satisfied with the carryings on of an infant who that very day
had roused the whole house at five AM.; had upset a water-jug and tumbled
downstairs after it at seven; had endeavored to put the cat in the bath at
eight; and sat on her own father's hat at nine thirty-five.
What did she do? Was she grateful to me for my plain speaking?
Did she ponder upon my words and determine to profit by them and to lead
from that hour a better and nobler life?
No! she howled.
That done, she became abusive. She said:
"Oo naughty--oo naughty, bad unkie--oo bad man--me tell MAR."
And she did, too.
* * *
Dear little souls, they hate flattery, so they tell you; and when
you say, "Ah, darling, it isn't flattery in your case, it's plain, sober
truth; you really are, without exaggeration, the most beautiful, the most
good, the most charming, the most divine, the most perfect human creature
that ever trod this earth," they will smile a quiet, approving smile, and,
leaning against your manly shoulder, murmur that you are a dear good
fellow after all.
By Jove! fancy a man trying to make love on strictly truthful
principles, determining never to utter a word of mere compliment or
hyperbole, but to scrupulously confine himself to exact fact! Fancy his
gazing rapturously into his mistress' eyes and whispering softly to her
that she wasn't, on the whole, bad-looking, as girls went! Fancy his
holding up her little hand and assuring her that it was of a light drab
color shot with red; and telling her as he pressed her to his heart that
her nose, for a turned-up one, seemed rather pretty; and that her eyes
appeared to him, as far as he could judge, to be quite up to the average
standard of such things!
A nice chance he would stand against the man who would tell her
that her face was like a fresh blush rose, that her hair was a wandering
sunbeam imprisoned by her smiles, and her eyes like two evening stars.
* * *
But then not one novelist in a thousand ever does tell us the real
story of their hero. They linger for a dozen pages over a tea-party, but
sum up a life's history with "he had become one of our merchant princes,"
or "he was now a great artist, with the world at his feet." Why, there is
more real life in one of Gilbert's patter-songs than in half the
biographical novels ever written. He relates to us all the various steps
by which his office-boy rose to be the "ruler of the queen's navee," and
explains to us how the briefless barrister managed to become a great and
good judge, "ready to try this breach of promise of marriage." It is in
the petty details, not in the great results, that the interest of
existence lies.
* * *
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.
And let them not imagine, either--as they are also fond of
doing--that they are very wise and philosophical and that it is a very
artful thing to be contented. It may be true that "a contented mind is
happy anywhere," but so is a Jerusalem pony, and the consequence is that
both are put anywhere and are treated anyhow. "Oh, you need not bother
about him," is what is said; "he is very contented as he is, and it would
be a pity to disturb him." And so your contented party is passed over and
the discontented man gets his place.
If you are foolish enough to be contented, don't show it, but
grumble with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great
deal. Because if you don't you won't get any. In this world it is
necessary to adopt the principle pursued by the plaintiff in an action for
damages, and to demand ten times more than you are ready to accept. If you
can feel satisfied with a hundred, begin by insisting on a thousand; if
you start by suggesting a hundred you will only get ten.
It was by not following this simple plan that poor Jean Jacques
Rousseau came to such grief. He fixed the summit of his earthly bliss at
living in an orchard with an amiable woman and a cow, and he never
attained even that. He did get as far as the orchard, but the woman was
not amiable, and she brought her mother with her, and there was no cow.
Now, if he had made up his mind for a large country estate, a houseful of
angels, and a cattle-show, he might have lived to possess his kitchen
garden and one head of live-stock, and even possibly have come across that
_rara-avis_--a really amiable woman.
What a terribly dull affair, too, life must be for contented
people! How heavy the time must hang upon their hands, and what on earth
do they occupy their thoughts with, supposing that they have any? Reading
the paper and smoking seems to be the intellectual food of the majority of
them, to which the more energetic add playing the flute and talking about
the affairs of the next-door neighbor.
They never knew the excitement of expectation nor the stern
delight of accomplished effort, such as stir the pulse of the man who has
objects, and hopes, and plans. To the ambitious man life is a brilliant
game--a game that calls forth all his tact and energy and nerve--a game to
be won, in the long run, by the quick eye and the steady hand, and yet
having sufficient chance about its working out to give it all the glorious
zest of uncertainty. He exults in it as the strong swimmer in the heaving
billows, as the athlete in the wrestle, the soldier in the battle.
And if he be defeated he wins the grim joy of fighting; if he lose
the race, he, at least, has had a run. Better to work and fail than to
sleep one's life away.
* * *
They don't give you time to open or shut your umbrella in an
English April, especially if it is an "automaton" one--the umbrella, I
mean, not the April.
I bought an "automaton" once in April, and I did have a time with
it! I wanted an umbrella, and I went into a shop in the Strand and told
them so, and they said:
"Yes, sir. What sort of an umbrella would you like?"
I said I should like one that would keep the rain off, and that
would not allow itself to be left behind in a railway carriage.
"Try an 'automaton,'" said the shopman.
"What's an 'automaton'?" said I.
"Oh, it's a beautiful arrangement," replied the man, with a touch
of enthusiasm. "It opens and shuts itself."
I bought one and found that he was quite correct. It did open and shut
itself. I had no control over it whatever. When it began to rain, which
it did that season every alternate five minutes, I used to try and get the
machine to open, but it would not budge; and then I used to stand and
struggle with the wretched thing, and shake it, and swear at it, while the
rain poured down in torrents. Then the moment the rain ceased the absurd
thing would go up suddenly with a jerk and would not come down again; and
I had to walk about under a bright blue sky, with an umbrella over my
head, wishing that it would come on to rain again, so that it might not
seem that I was insane.
When it did shut it did so unexpectedly and knocked one's hat off.
I don't know why it should be so, but it is an undeniable fact
that there is nothing makes a man look so supremely ridiculous as losing
his hat. The feeling of helpless misery that shoots down one's back on
suddenly becoming aware that one's head is bare is among the most bitter
ills that flesh is heir to. And then there is the wild chase after it,
accompanied by an excitable small dog, who thinks it is a game, and in the
course of which you are certain to upset three or four innocent
children--to say nothing of their mothers--butt a fat old gentleman on to
the top of a perambulator, and carom off a ladies' seminary into the arms
of a wet sweep.
After this, the idiotic hilarity of the spectators and the
disreputable appearance of the hat when recovered appear but of minor
importance.
* * *
The spring of life and the spring of the year were alike meant to
be cradled in the green lap of nature. To us in the town spring brings
but its cold winds and drizzling rains. We must seek it among the
leafless woods and the brambly lanes, on the heathy moors and the great
still hills, if we want to feel its joyous breath and hear its silent
voices. There is a glorious freshness in the spring there. The scurrying
clouds, the open bleakness, the rushing wind, and the clear bright air
thrill one with vague energies and hopes. Life, like the landscape around
us, seems bigger, and wider, and freer--a rainbow road leading to unknown
ends. Through the silvery rents that bar the sky we seem to catch a
glimpse of the great hope and grandeur that lies around this little
throbbing world, and a breath of its scent is wafted us on the wings of
the wild March wind.
Strange thoughts we do not understand are stirring in our hearts.
Voices are calling us to some great effort, to some mighty work. But we
do not comprehend their meaning yet, and the hidden echoes within us that
would reply are struggling, inarticulate and dumb.
We stretch our hands like children to the light, seeking to grasp
we know not what. Our thoughts, like the boys' thoughts in the Danish
song, are very long, long thoughts, and very vague; we cannot see their
end.
It must be so. All thoughts that peer outside this narrow world
cannot be else than dim and shapeless. The thoughts that we can clearly
grasp are very little thoughts--that two and two make four-that when we
are hungry it is pleasant to eat--that honesty is the best policy; all
greater thoughts are undefined and vast to our poor childish brains. 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.
* * *
A shy man's lot is not a happy one. The men dislike him, the
women despise him, and he dislikes and despises himself. Use brings him
no relief, and there is no cure for him except time; though I once came
across a delicious recipe for overcoming the misfortune. It appeared
among the "answers to correspondents" in a small weekly journal and ran as
follows--I have never forgotten it: "Adopt an easy and pleasing manner,
especially toward ladies."
Poor wretch! I can imagine the grin with which he must have read
that advice. "Adopt an easy and pleasing manner, especially toward
ladies," forsooth! Don't you adopt anything of the kind, my dear young
shy friend. Your attempt to put on any other disposition than your own
will infallibly result in your becoming ridiculously gushing and
offensively familiar. Be your own natural self, and then you will only be
thought to be surly and stupid.
* * *
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. A man rarely
carries his shyness past the hobbledehoy period. Even if his own inward
strength does not throw it off, the rubbings of the world generally smooth
it down. You scarcely ever meet a really shy man--except in novels or on
the stage, where, by the bye, he is much admired, especially by the women.
There, in that supernatural land, he appears as a fair-haired and
saintlike young man--fair hair and goodness always go together on the
stage. No respectable audience would believe in one without the other.
I knew an actor who mislaid his wig once and had to rush on to play the
hero in his own hair, which was jet-black, and the gallery howled at all
his noble sentiments under the impression that he was the villain.
He--the shy young man--loves the heroine, oh so devotedly (but only in
asides, for he dare not tell her of it), and he is so noble and unselfish,
and speaks in such a low voice, and is so good to his mother; and the bad
people in the play, they laugh at him and jeer at him, but he takes it all
so gently, and in the end it transpires that he is such a clever man,
though nobody knew it, and then the heroine tells him she loves him, and
he is so surprised, and oh, so happy! and everybody loves him and asks him
to forgive them, which he does in a few well-chosen and sarcastic words,
and blesses them; and he seems to have generally such a good time of it
that all the young fellows who are not shy long to be shy. But the really
shy man knows better. He knows that it is not quite so pleasant in
reality. He is not quite so interesting there as in the fiction. He is a
little more clumsy and stupid and a little less devoted and gentle, and
his hair is much darker, which, taken altogether, considerably alters the
aspect of the case.
The point where he does resemble his ideal is in his faithfulness.
I am fully prepared to allow the shy young man that virtue: he is
constant in his love. But the reason is not far to seek. The fact is it
exhausts all his stock of courage to look one woman in the face, and it
would be simply impossible for him to go through the ordeal with a second.
He stands in far too much dread of the whole female sex to want to go
gadding about with many of them. One is quite enough for him.
* * *
His friends and relations make matters still more unpleasant for
the poor boy (friends and relations are privileged to be more disagreeable
than other people). Not content with making fun of him among themselves,
they insist on his seeing the joke. They mimic and caricature him for his
own edification. One, pretending to imitate him, goes outside and comes
in again in a ludicrously nervous manner, explaining to him afterward that
that is the way he--meaning the shy fellow--walks into a room; or, turning
to him with "This is the way you shake hands," proceeds to go through a
comic pantomime with the rest of the room, taking hold of every one's hand
as if it were a hot plate and flabbily dropping it again. And then they
ask him why he blushes, and why he stammers, and why he always speaks in
an almost inaudible tone, as if they thought he did it on purpose. Then
one of them, sticking out his chest and strutting about the room like a
pouter-pigeon, suggests quite seriously that that is the style he should
adopt. The old man slaps him on the back and says: "Be bold, my boy.
Don't be afraid of any one." The mother says, "Never do anything that you
need be ashamed of, Algernon, and then you never need be ashamed of
anything you do," and, beaming mildly at him, seems surprised at the
clearness of her own logic. The boys tell him that he's "worse than a
girl," and the girls repudiate the implied slur upon their sex by
indignantly exclaiming that they are sure no girl would be half as bad.
They are quite right; no girl would be. There is no such thing as
a shy woman, or, at all events, I have never come across one, and until I
do I shall not believe in them. I know that the generally accepted belief
is quite the reverse. All women are supposed to be like timid, startled
fawns, blushing and casting down their gentle eyes when looked at and
running away when spoken to; while we man are supposed to be a bold and
rollicky lot, and the poor dear little women admire us for it, but are
terribly afraid of us. It is a pretty theory, but, like most generally
accepted theories, mere nonsense. The girl of twelve is self-contained
and as cool as the proverbial cucumber, while her brother of twenty
stammers and stutters by her side. A woman will enter a concert-room
late, interrupt the performance, and disturb the whole audience without
moving a hair, while her husband follows her, a crushed heap of
apologizing misery.
* * *
By some mysterious law of nature you invariably guess wrong, and
are thereupon regarded by all the relatives and friends as a mixture of
fool and knave, the enormity of alluding to a male babe as "she" being
only equaled by the atrocity of referring to a female infant as "he".
Whichever sex the particular child in question happens not to belong to is
considered as beneath contempt, and any mention of it is taken as a
personal insult to the family.
And as you value your fair name do not attempt to get out of the
difficulty by talking of "it."
There are various methods by which you may achieve ignominy and
shame. By murdering a large and respected family in cold blood and
afterward depositing their bodies in the water companies' reservoir, you
will gain much unpopularity in the neighborhood of your crime, and even
robbing a church will get you cordially disliked, especially by the vicar.
But if you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and
hatred that a fellow human creature can pour out for you, let a young
mother hear you call dear baby "it."
Your best plan is to address the article as "little angel." The
noun "angel" being of common gender suits the case admirably, and the
epithet is sure of being favorably received. "Pet" or "beauty" are useful
for variety's sake, but "angel" is the term that brings you the greatest
credit for sense and good-feeling. The word should be preceded by a short
giggle and accompanied by as much smile as possible. And whatever you do,
don't forget to say that the child has got its father's nose. This
"fetches" the parents (if I may be allowed a vulgarism) more than
anything. They will pretend to laugh at the idea at first and will say,
"Oh, nonsense!" You must then get excited and insist that it is a fact.
You need have no conscientious scruples on the subject, because the
thing's nose really does resemble its father's--at all events quite as
much as it does anything else in nature--being, as it is, a mere smudge.
Do not despise these hints, my friends. There may come a time
when, with mamma on one side and grand mamma on the other, a group of
admiring young ladies (not admiring you, though) behind, and a bald-headed
dab of humanity in front, you will be extremely thankful for some idea of
what to say. A man--an unmarried man, that is--is never seen to such
disadvantage as when undergoing the ordeal of "seeing baby." A cold
shudder runs down his back at the bare proposal, and the sickly smile with
which he says how delighted he shall be ought surely to move even a
mother's heart, unless, as I am inclined to believe, the whole proceeding
is a mere device adopted by wives to discourage the visits of bachelor
friends.
It is a cruel trick, though, whatever its excuse may be. The bell
is rung and somebody sent to tell nurse to bring baby down. This is the
signal for all the females present to commence talking "baby," during
which time you are left to your own sad thoughts and the speculations upon
the practicability of suddenly recollecting an important engagement, and
the likelihood of your being believed if you do. Just when you have
concocted an absurdly implausible tale about a man outside, the door
opens, and a tall, severe-looking woman enters, carrying what at first
sight appears to be a particularly skinny bolster, with the feathers all
at one end. Instinct, however, tells you that this is the baby, and you
rise with a miserable attempt at appearing eager. When the first gush of
feminine enthusiasm with which the object in question is received has died
out, and the number of ladies talking at once has been reduced to the
ordinary four or five, the circle of fluttering petticoats divides, and
room is made for you to step forward. This you do with much the same air
that you would walk into the dock at Bow Street, and then, feeling
unutterably miserable, you stand solemnly staring at the child. There is
dead silence, and you know that every one is waiting for you to speak.
You try to think of something to say, but find, to your horror, that your
reasoning faculties have left you. It is a moment of despair, and your
evil genius, seizing the opportunity, suggests to you some of the most
idiotic remarks that it is possible for a human being to perpetrate.
Glancing round with an imbecile smile, you sniggeringly observe that "it
hasn't got much hair has it?" Nobody answers you for a minute, but at
last the stately nurse says with much gravity:
"It is not customary for children five weeks old to have long
hair." Another silence follows this, and you feel you are being given a
second chance, which you avail yourself of by inquiring if it can walk
yet, or what they feed it on.
By this time you have got to be regarded as not quite right in
your head, and pity is the only thing felt for you. The nurse, however,
is determined that, insane or not, there shall be no shirking and that you
shall go through your task to the end. In the tones of a high priestess
directing some religious mystery she says, holding the bundle toward you:
"Take her in your arms, sir." You are too crushed to offer any
resistance and so meekly accept the burden. "Put your arm more down her
middle, sir," says the high-priestess, and then all step back and watch
you intently as though you were going to do a trick with it.
What to do you know no more than you did what to say. It is
certain something must be done, and the only thing that occurs to you is
to heave the unhappy infant up and down to the accompaniment of
"oopsee-daisy," or some remark of equal intelligence. "I wouldn't jig
her, sir, if I were you," says the nurse; "a very little upsets her." You
promptly decide not to jig her and sincerely hope that you have not gone
too far already.
At this point the child itself, who has hitherto been regarding
you with an expression of mingled horror and disgust, puts an end to the
nonsense by beginning to yell at the top of its voice, at which the
priestess rushes forward and snatches it from you with "There! there!
there! What did ums do to ums?" "How very extraordinary!" you say
pleasantly. "Whatever made it go off like that?" "Oh, why, you must have
done something to her!" says the mother indignantly; "the child wouldn't
scream like that for nothing." It is evident they think you have been
running pins into it.
The brat is calmed at last, and would no doubt remain quiet
enough, only some mischievous busybody points you out again with "Who's
this, baby?" and the intelligent child, recognizing you, howls louder than
ever.
Whereupon some fat old lady remarks that "it's strange how
children take a dislike to any one." "Oh, they know," replies another
mysteriously. "It's a wonderful thing," adds a third; and then everybody
looks sideways at you, convinced you are a scoundrel of the blackest dye;
and they glory in the beautiful idea that your true character, unguessed
by your fellow-men, has been discovered by the untaught instinct of a
little child.
* * *
They say--people who ought to be ashamed of themselves do--that
the consciousness of being well dressed imparts a blissfulness to the
human heart that religion is powerless to bestow. I am afraid these
cynical persons are sometimes correct. I know that when I was a very
young man (many, many years ago, as the story-books say) and wanted
cheering up, I used to go and dress myself in all my best clothes. If I
had been annoyed in any manner--if my washerwoman had discharged me, for
instance; or my blank-verse poem had been returned for the tenth time,
with the editor's compliments "and regrets that owing to want of space he
is unable to avail himself of kind offer;" or I had been snubbed by the
woman I loved as man never loved before--by the way, it's really
extraordinary what a variety of ways of loving there must be. We all do
it as it was never done before. I don't know how our great-grandchildren
will manage. They will have to do it on their heads by their time if they
persist in not clashing with any previous method.
* * *
Xantippe's life must have been one long misery, tied to that
calmly irritating man, Socrates. Fancy a married woman doomed to live on
from day to day without one single quarrel with her husband! A man ought
to humor his wife in these things.
Heaven knows their lives are dull enough, poor girls. They have
none of the enjoyments we have. They go to no political meetings; they
may not even belong to the local amateur parliament; they are excluded
from smoking-carriages on the Metropolitan Railway, and they never see a
comic paper--or if they do, they do not know it is comic: nobody tells
them.
Surely, with existence such a dreary blank for them as this, we
might provide a little row for their amusement now and then, even if we do
not feel inclined for it ourselves. A really sensible man does so and is
loved accordingly, for it is little acts of kindness such as this that go
straight to a woman's heart. It is such like proofs of loving
self-sacrifice that make her tell her female friends what a good husband
he was--after he is dead.
Yes, poor Xantippe must have had a hard time of it. The bucket
episode was particularly sad for her. Poor woman! she did think she would
rouse him up a bit with that. She had taken the trouble to fill the
bucket, perhaps been a long way to get specially dirty water. And she
waited for him. And then to be met in such a way, after all! Most likely
she sat down and had a good cry afterward. It must have seemed all so
hopeless to the poor child; and for all we know she had no mother to whom
she could go and abuse him.
What was it to her that her husband was a great philosopher?
Great philosophy don't count in married life.
There was a very good little boy once who wanted to go to sea.
And the captain asked him what he could do. He said he could do the
multiplication-table backward and paste sea-weed in a book; that he knew
how many times the word "begat" occurred in the Old Testament; and could
recite "The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" and Wordsworth's "We Are
Seven."
"Werry good--werry good, indeed," said the man of the sea, "and
ken ye kerry coals?"
It is just the same when you want to marry. Great ability is not
required so much as little usefulness. Brains are at a discount in the
married state. There is no demand for them, no appreciation even. Our
wives sum us up according to a standard of their own, in which brilliancy
of intellect obtains no marks. Your lady and mistress is not at all
impressed by your cleverness and talent, my dear reader--not in the
slightest. Give her a man who can do an errand neatly, without attempting
to use his own judgment over it or any nonsense of that kind; and who can
be trusted to hold a child the right way up, and not make himself
objectionable whenever there is lukewarm mutton for dinner. That is the
sort of a husband a sensible woman likes; not one of your scientific or
literary nuisances, who go upsetting the whole house and putting everybody
out with their foolishness.
* * *
For everything looms pleasant through the softening haze of time.
Even the sadness that is past seems sweet. Our boyish days look very
merry to us now, all nutting, hoop, and gingerbread. The snubbings and
toothaches and the Latin verbs are all forgotten--the Latin verbs
especially. And we fancy we were very happy when we were hobbledehoys and
loved; and we wish that we could love again. We never think of the
heartaches, or the sleepless nights, or the hot dryness of our throats,
when she said she could never be anything to us but a sister--as if any
man wanted more sisters!
* * *
It is this glamour of the past, I suppose, that makes old folk
talk so much nonsense about the days when they were young. The world
appears to have been a very superior sort of place then, and things were
more like what they ought to be. Boys were boys then, and girls were very
different. Also winters were something like winters, and summers not at
all the wretched-things we get put off with nowadays. As for the
wonderful deeds people did in those times and the extraordinary events
that happened, it takes three strong men to believe half of them.
I like to hear one of the old boys telling all about it to a party
of youngsters who he knows cannot contradict him. It is odd if, after
awhile, he doesn't swear that the moon shone every night when he was a
boy, and that tossing mad bulls in a blanket was the favorite sport at his
school.
It always has been and always will be the same. The old folk of
our grandfathers' young days sang a song bearing exactly the same burden;
and the young folk of to-day will drone out precisely similar nonsense for
the aggravation of the next generation. "Oh, give me back the good old
days of fifty years ago," has been the cry ever since Adam's fifty-first
birthday. Take up the literature of 1835, and you will find the poets and
novelists asking for the same impossible gift as did the German
Minnesingers long before them and the old Norse Saga writers long before
that. And for the same thing sighed the early prophets and the
philosophers of ancient Greece. From all accounts, the world has been
getting worse and worse ever since it was created. All I can say is that
it must have been a remarkably delightful place when it was first opened
to the public, for it is very pleasant even now if you only keep as much
as possible in the sunshine and take the rain good-temperedly.