When Lord Reggie asked Lady Locke to come with him into the yew tree
walk that Sunday afternoon, he fully intended to tell her that he would
be glad to marry her. It seemed to him that Sunday was a very
appropriate day for such a confession, and would give to his remarks a
solemnity that they might otherwise lack. But somehow the conversation
became immediately unmanageable, as conversations have a knack of doing,
and turned into channels which had less than nothing to do with
marriage. By a series of ingenious modulations Lord Reggie might
doubtless have contrived eventually to arrive at the key in which he
wanted to breathe out his love song; but the afternoon was too sultry
for ingenuities, and so they talked about the influence of Art on
Nature, and his anthem, until it was time to dress for dinner.
Lady Locke was a woman, and so it may be taken for granted that she
divined her companion's original intention, and was perhaps a little
amused at his failure to carry it into an act. But she manifested no
consciousness, and disappeared to her bedroom without displaying either
disappointment or triumph. She did, however, in fact know that Lord
Reggie meant to ask her the fateful question, and she had quite decided
now how she meant to answer it.
She had fallen into a curious sort of fondness for this tired, unnatural
boy, whom she considered as twisted as if he had been an Egyptian
cripple, zigzagging along a sandy track on his hands with his legs tied
round his neck; and two or three days ago she had even thought seriously
what she would say to him if he asked her to join lives with him
permanently. The motherly feeling had verged on something else, very
different; and when one day he carelessly touched her hand she had felt
her heart beating with a violence that was painfully natural. But now,
more than one incident that had since occurred had forged links in a new
chain of resolution that held her back from a folly. Although possibly
she hardly knew it, the scrap of conversation that she had chanced to
overhear between Lord Reggie and Tommy had really decided her to meet
the former with a refusal if he asked her to be his wife. It had opened
her eyes, and shown her in a flash the influence that a mere pose may
have upon others who are not posing. Her mother's heart flushed with a
heat of anger at the idea of Tommy, her dead soldier's son, developing
into the sort of young man whom she chose to christen "Modern"; and as
her heart flushed, unknown to her her mind really decided. She still
fancied that Lord Reggie was nothing more than a whimsical _poseur_,
bitten by the tarantula of imitation that preys upon weak natures. She
still fancied what she hoped. But incertitude strengthened resolve, and
she never intended to be Lady Reggie Hastings. Yet she meant Lord Reggie
to propose to her. She liked him so well that, womanlike, she could not
quite forbear the pleasure of hearing him even pretend that he loved
her--she supposed he would feel bound to pretend so much; and his
proposal would give to her an opportunity of saying one or two things to
him--of preaching that affectionate sermon, in fact, that she had long
ago written in her thoughts.
Sweet women love to preach to those whom they like, and Lady Locke liked
Lord Reggie very much, and wished strongly to have the chance of telling
him so.
But he said nothing that night, and she had to wait for a while. The
weather, which had certainly shown the most graceful politeness to the
Surrey week, was still in a complaisant frame of mind when Monday
morning dawned, and the tents were put up for the school children, and
the Aunt Sallies and other instruments of amusement were posed in their
places about the garden, without any fear arising lest the rain should
prevent their being used. Esmé Amarinth spent the morning in reflecting
upon his address, and constructing pale paradoxes; and the rest of the
party at the "Retreat" did nothing with all the quiet ingenuity that
seems inbred in the English race.
At four o'clock the sound of lusty singing in the dusty distance
announced the approach of the expected guests, who, under the direction
of Mr. Smith, expressed their youthful feelings of anticipation and
excitement in a processional hymn, whose words dealt with certain
ritualistic doctrines in a spirit of serene but rather incompetent
piety, and whose tune was remarkable for the Gounod spirit that pervaded
its rather love-lorn harmonies. As Mr. Amarinth said, it sounded like a
French apostrophe to a Parisian Eros, and was tinged with the amorous
music colour of Covent Garden.
Mrs. Windsor received the party with weary grace, and a general salute
that might have included all the national schools in the kingdom, so
wide and so impersonal was its manner. She impressed the children as
much as Madame Valtesi frightened them by examining them with a stony
and sphinx-like gravity through her tortoise-shell eyeglass. The
teachers conducted the programme of games--in which, however, Lady
Locke, Tommy, and Lord Reggie fitfully took part; and after tea had been
munched with trembling delight in the largest of the tents, and more
games had been got through, Mr. Smith distributed small presents to all
the children, some of whom were quite unstrung by the effort they had to
make not to seem too happy in the presence of "the quality." The curate
then took his leave, as he was obliged to visit a sick parishioner, and,
as the sun was evidently on the point of beginning to imitate Turner's
later pictures, Mrs. Windsor directed that the children should be
assembled under the great cedar tree on the lawn, to hear Esmé
Amarinth's promised address.
The picture that the garden presented at this moment was quite a pretty
one. The sun, as I have said, was declining towards the West in a manner
strongly suggestive of a scene at the Lyceum Theatre after many
rehearsals with a competent lime-light man. The monstrous yew trees cast
gross misshapen shadows across the smooth, velvet lawns. The air was
heavy with the scents of flowers. Across the gleaming yellow of the sky
a black riband of homeward passing rooks streamed slowly towards the
trees they loved. Under the spreading branches of the cedar stood the
big motley group of flushed and receptive children, flanked by their
more staid teachers, and faced by Bung, who sat upon his tail before
them, and panted serenely, with his tongue hanging out sideways nearly
to the ground. Dotted about upon creaking garden chairs were Mrs.
Windsor, Madame Valtesi, Lady Locke, and Lord Reggie, while Tommy in a
loose white sailor suit scampered about from one place to another,
simmering in perfect enjoyment. And the central figure of all was Esmé
Amarinth, who stood leaning upon an ebony stick with a silver knob,
surveying his audience with the peculiar smile of humourous
self-satisfaction that was so characteristic of his large-featured face.
Just before he began his address Mrs. Windsor fluttered up to him, and
whispered in his ear--
"Don't make any classical allusions, will you, Esmé? I promised Mr.
Smith there should be nothing of that kind. He thinks classical
allusions corrupting. Of course he's wrong--good people always are--but
perhaps we ought to humour him, as he is the curate, you know."
Esmé assented with a graceful bend of his crimpled head, and in a clear
and deliberate voice began to speak.
"The art of folly," he said, "that is to say, the art of being
consciously foolish beautifully, has been practised to some extent in
all ages, and among all peoples, from the pale, clear dawn of creation,
when, as we are told, the man Adam, in glorious nudity, walked perfectly
among the perfect glades of Eden, down to the golden noontide of this
nineteenth century, in which we subtly live and subtly suffer. Always
throughout the circling ages the soul of man has to some slight extent
aspired after folly, as Nature aspires after Art, and as the old and
learned aspire after the wonderful ignorance that lies hidden between
the scarlet covers of the passionate book of youth. Always there have
been in the world earnest men and earnest women striving with a sacred
wisdom to compass the highest forms of folly, seeking with a manifold
persistence to sound the depths of that violet main in which the souls
of the elect rock to and fro eternally. But although, even in the
morning of the world, there were earnest seekers after lies, the pursuit
of ignorance has never been carried on with such unswerving fidelity and
with so much lovely unreason as is the case to-day. We are beginning,
only beginning, to understand some of the canons of the beautiful art of
folly."
Here Esmé changed his ebony stick into his other hand, and glanced round
at Lord Reggie, with a delicate smile of self-approbation. Then he
proceeded, without clearing his throat.
"The mind of man has, however, always clung with a poetic persistence to
certain fallacies which have greatly interfered with the proper progress
of folly, and have terribly hindered the evolution of disorder out of
order, and of unreason out of reason. To give only a few instances. For
centuries upon centuries we have been told by those unenlightened beings
called philosophers, sages, and thinkers, that children should obey
their parents, that the old should direct the young, that Nature is the
mother of beauty, and that wisdom is the parent of true greatness. For
centuries upon centuries we have had instilled into us the malign
conception that in renunciation we shall find peace, and in starvation
the most satisfying plenty. Men and women have lived to be dumb, instead
of living to speak; have stopped their ears to the alluring cries of
folly; have gone to the grave with all their sublime absurdities still
in them, unuttered, unexpressed, unimpressed upon the wildly sensible
people by whom they have been surrounded and environed. The art of folly
has been trampled in the dust by the majority; while poor reasonable
human beings have been offering up sacrifices to propriety,
respectability, common sense, and a thousand grotesque idols, whose very
names fall as unmelodiously upon the ear as the shrill and monotonous
discords of the nightingales that torture us with their murmurings
towards the latter end of May--whose very names, when written down upon
smooth paper, or, as formerly, graved upon tablets of wax with
instruments of ivory, are as disagreeable to the eye as the crude
colouring of the Atlantic Ocean, or the unimaginable ugliness of a fine
summer's day in the midland counties of England. But at last there seems
to be a prospect of better things, the flush of a wonderful dawn in the
hitherto shadowy sky. A star with a crimson mouth has arisen in the East
to guide wise men and women out of the straight and narrow way down
which they have been stumbling so long. I believe, I tremblingly dare to
believe, that a bright era of undisciplined folly is about to dawn over
the modern world, and therefore I speak to you, beautiful pink children,
and I ask you to recognise your youth, and your exquisite potentiality
for foolishness. For in youth, only in delicate, delicious youth, can we
acquire the rudiments of the beautiful art of folly. When we are old we
are so crusted with the hideous lichen of wisdom and experience, so
gnarled with thought, and weather-beaten with knowledge, that we can
only teach. We have lost the power to learn, as all teachers infallibly
do."
At this point in Esmé's address the face of the national schoolmaster, a
grey person, rather conceited in his own wisdom than wise in his own
conceit, began to present--as a magic lantern presents pictures upon a
sheet--various expressions, all of which partook of uneasiness and
indignation. He glanced furtively around, stared defiantly at the
children, and shifted from one foot to the other like a boy who is being
lectured. Esmé observed his disquietude with considerable satisfaction.
"People teach in order to conceal their ignorance, as people smile in
order to conceal their tears, or sin, too often, merely to draw away a
curious observation from the amplitude and endurance of their virtue.
The beautiful falling generation are learning to do things for their own
sake, and not for the sake of Mrs. Grundy, who will soon sit alone in
her dowdy disorder, a chaperon bereft of her débutante, the hopeless and
frowsy leader of a lost and discredited cause. Yes, wisdom has nearly
had its day, and the stars are beginning to twinkle in the violet skies
of folly.
"It is not, alas! given to all of us to be properly foolish. The custom
of succeeding ages has rendered wisdom a hereditary habit with thousands
upon thousands of us, and even the destructive influence of myself, of
Lord Reginald"--here he indicated Reggie, with one plump, white
hand--"and of a few, a very few others, among whom I can include Mr.
Oscar Wilde, has so far failed to uproot that pestilent plant from its
home in the retentive soil of humanity. What was bad enough for our
ridiculous fathers is still bad enough for too many of us. We are still
content with the old virtues, and still timorous of the new vices. We
still fear to clasp the radiant hands of folly, and drown our good
impulses in the depths of her enchanted eyes. But many of us are
comparatively elderly, and, believe me, the elderly quickly lose the
divine power of faculty of disobedience. If it were my first word to
you, children, I would say to you--learn to disobey. To know how to be
disobedient is to know how to live."
The national schoolmaster at this point planted his feet in the first
position with sudden violence, and gave vent to a hem that was a
revelation of keen though inarticulate emotion. Esmé indicated that he
had heard the sound by slightly elevating his voice.
"Learn," he said, "to disobey the cold dictates of reason; for reason
acts upon life as the breath of frost acts upon water, and binds the
leaping streams of the abnormal in the congealing and icy band of the
normal. All that is normal is to be sedulously avoided. That is what the
modern pupil will teach in the future his old-fashioned masters. That is
what you may, if you will have the courage, impress upon the pastors and
masters, who must learn to look to you for guidance."
Extreme disorder of mind was now made manifest in the fantastic postures
assumed by the entire staff of teachers, who began to turn their feet
in, to construct strange patterns with their fingers, and in all other
known ways to mutely express the dire forebodings of those who feel that
their empire is passing away from them.
"It has hitherto been the privilege of age to rule the world. In the
blessed era of folly that privilege will be transferred to youth. Never
forget, therefore, to be young, to be young, and, if possible,
consciously foolish."
The expressions of the children at this point indicated intelligent
acquiescence, and Esmé's face was irradiated with a tranquil smile.
"It is very difficult to be young, especially up to the age of thirty,"
he continued, "and very difficult to be properly foolish up to any age
at all; but we must not despair. Genius is the art of not taking pains,
and genius is more common than is generally supposed. If we do not take
proper pains, there is no reason why even the cleverest among us should
not in time learn to practise beautifully the beautiful art of folly. It
is always well to be personal, and as egoism is scarcely less artistic
than its own brother, vanity, I shall make no apology for now alluding,
in as marked a manner as possible, to myself. I"--he spoke here with
superb emphasis--"I am absurd. For years I have tried in vain not to
hide it. For years I have striven to call public attention to my
exquisite gift, to impress its existence upon a heartless world, to lift
it up as a darkness that all may see, and for years I have practically
failed. I have practically failed, but I am not without hope. I believe
that my absurdity is at last beginning to obtain a meed of recognition.
I believe that a few fine spirits are beginning to understand that
artistic absurdity, the perfection of folly, has a bright and glorious
future before it. I am absurd, and have been so for very many years,
and in very many ways. I have been an æsthete. I have lain upon
hearth-rugs and eaten passion-flowers. I have clothed myself in breeches
of white samite, and offered my friends yellow jonquils instead of
afternoon tea. But when æstheticism became popular in Bayswater--a part
of London built for the delectation of the needy rich--I felt that it
was absurd no longer, and I turned to other things. It was then, one
golden summer day, among the flowering woods of Richmond, that I
invented a new art, the art of preposterous conversation. A middle-class
country has prevented me from patenting my exquisite invention, which
has been closely imitated by dozens of people much older and much
stupider than myself; but nobody so far has been able to rival me in my
own particular line of business, and my society 'turns' at luncheon
parties, dances, and dinners are invariably received with an applause
which is almost embarrassing, and which is scarcely necessary to one so
admirably conceited as myself."
At this point, Esmé, whose face had been gradually assuming a pained and
irritated expression, paused, and looking towards the West, which was
barred with green and gold, and flecked with squadrons of rose-coloured
cloudlets, exclaimed in a voice expressive of weakness--
"That sky is becoming so terribly imitative that I can hardly go on. Why
are modern sunsets so intolerably true to Turner?"
He looked round as if for an answer; but, since nobody had anything to
say, he passed one hand over his eyes, as if to shut out some dreadful
vision, and continued with rather less vivacity--
"For the true artist is always conceited, just as the true Philistine is
always fond of going to the Royal Academy. I have brought the art of
preposterous conversation to the pitch of perfection; but I have been
greatly handicapped in my efforts by the egregious wisdom of a world
that insists upon taking me seriously. There is nothing that should be
taken seriously, except, possibly, an income or the music halls, and I
am not an income or a music hall, although I am intensely and strangely
refined. Yet I have been taken seriously throughout my career. My
lectures have been gravely discussed. My plays have been solemnly
criticised by the amusing failures in literature who love to call
themselves 'the gentlemen of the press.' My poems have been boycotted by
prurient publishers; and my novel, 'The Soul of Bertie Brown,' has
ruined the reputation of a magazine that had been successful in shocking
the impious for centuries. Bishops have declared that I am a monster,
and monsters have declared that I ought to be a bishop. And all this has
befallen me because I am an artist in absurdity, a human being who dares
to be ridiculous. I practise the exquisite art of folly, an art that
will in the future take rank with the arts of painting, of music, of
literature. I was born to be absurd. I have lived to be absurd. I shall
die to be absurd; for nothing can be more absurd than the death of a man
who has lived to sin, instead of having lived to suffer. I married to be
absurd; for marriage is one of the most brilliant absurdities ever
invented by a prolific imagination. We are all absurd; but we are not
all artists, because we are not all self-conscious. The artist must be
self-conscious. If we marry seriously, if we live solemnly, and die with
a decent gravity, we are being absurd; but we do not know it, and
therefore our absurdity has no value. I am an artist, because I am
consciously absurd; and I wish to impress upon you to-day, that if you
wish to live improperly, you must be consciously absurd too. You must
commit follies; but you must not be under the impression that you are
performing sensible acts, otherwise you will take rank with sensible
people, who are invariably and hopelessly middle class."
An interruption occurred here--one of the smallest children who was
stationed in the front of the group under the cedar tree suddenly
bursting into a flood of tears, and having to be led, shrieking, away to
a distant corner of the garden. Esmé followed its convulsed form with
his eyes, and then remarked--
"That child is being absurd; but that child is not an artist, because it
is not conscious of its absurdity. Remember, then, to be self-conscious,
to set aside the normal, to be young, and to be eternally foolish. Take
nothing seriously, except yourselves, if possible. Do not be deceived
into thinking the mind greater than the face, or the soul grander than
the body. Strike the words virtue and wickedness out of your
dictionaries. There is nothing good and nothing evil. There is only art.
Despise the normal, and flee from everything that is hallowed by custom,
as you would flee from the seven deadly virtues. Cling to the abnormal.
Shrink from the cold and freezing touch of Nature. One touch of Nature
makes the whole world commonplace. Forget your Catechism, and remember
the words of Flaubert and of Walter Pater, and remember this, too, that
the folly of self-conscious fools is the only true wisdom! And now sing
to us your hymn, sing to us under the cedar tree self-consciously, and
we will listen self-consciously, even as Ulysses listened to----"
But here a gentle and penetrating "Hush!" broke from the lips of Mrs.
Windsor, and Esmé paused.
"Sing to us," he said, "and we will listen as the old listen to the
voices of youth, as the nightingale listens to the properly trained
vocalist, as Nature listens to Art. Sing to us, beautiful rose-coloured
children, until we forget that you are singing a hymn, and remember only
that you are young, and that some day, in the long-delayed fulness of
time, you will be no longer innocent."
He uttered the last words in a tone so soft and so seductive that it was
like honey and the honeycomb, and then stood with his eyes fixed
dreamily upon the children, who had been getting decidedly red and
fidgety, unaccustomed to be directly addressed, and in so fantastic a
manner. The relief of the teachers at the cessation of Amarinth's
address was tumultuously obvious. They once more turned out their toes.
The anguished expression died away from their faces, and they ceased to
twist their fingers into curious patterns suggestive of freehand
drawings. The national schoolmaster, unlocking his countenance, and
delightedly assuming his wonted air of proud authority, stepped forward
and called for the Old Hundredth; and in the gentle evening air the
well-known tune ascended like incense to the darkening heavens. Shrilly
the youthful voices rose and fell, until the amen came as a full stop.
Then the little troop was marshalled two and two, made a collective
obeisance to Mrs. Windsor and her guests, and wheeled out of the garden
into the drive at a quick step, warbling poignantly, "Onward, Christian
Soldiers." Gradually the sound decreased in volume, decreased in a long
diminuendo, and at last faded away into silence.
Mrs. Windsor sighed.
"Children are very sticky," she remarked. "I am glad I never had any."
"Yes," said Madame Valtesi; "they are as adhesive as postage-stamps.
What time do we dine to-day?"
"Not till half-past eight."
"I shall go in, and sit down quietly and try to feel old. Youth is quite
terrible, in spite of what Esmé says. Esmé, youth is not passionate; it
is merely sticky and excited."
"What a pity it is not self-consciously sticky," he murmured,
accompanying her into the house.
"Why?"
"Then perhaps it might be induced to wash occasionally. I wonder if I
can find a hock and seltzer. I feel like a volume of sermons--so very
dry."