"Then again, I find it a good idea to take up some craze or topic of the

moment. 'The Drama on Crutches' I wrote when the craze first arose

amongst the aristocracy for going on the stage. One of the sketches

which you will find outlined in that little notebook is entitled, 'Is

Music a Failure?' and I endeavoured to answer the question by showing

how popular it is among all classes of the community." I will quote

pretty freely from this outlined sketch, as it will give my readers an

idea, better than anything else would do, of the manner in which Mr.

Grossmith prepares his delightful sketches.

"I am not going to treat the subject seriously," he writes, "but in my

own particular, impertinent way. The question often arises--are we a

musical nation? The foreigners think we are not. But where in the wide,

wide world is there a country where you will hear so many organs and

German bands? Where is the country, excepting ours, that can appreciate

the concertina? Where, except in England, can you hear that delightful

combination of harp and cornet outside a house of refreshment? The

prejudice of other nations is distressing; and as for their ignorance,

why, I don't suppose Italy and Germany have even heard of the ocarino

and the Jew's harp."

And so the sketch runs on, until, in speaking of the universal manner in

which music is appreciated in England by all classes, Mr. Grossmith goes

on to say: "We have made rapid strides, so have our servants. They don't

know how to dust the piano, but they can play it. Everybody plays the

piano, from the Peerage to the School Board. Then look how music has

crept into our homes and social circles. Besides the piano, the mother

and daughters play the banjo, the son plays the first fiddle, and the

father the second fiddle--as usual. I know of a Lord Mayor who plays the

trombone, a clergyman who plays the big drum--that's a nice

unpretentious, giddy instrument!--and I know of any number of members of

Parliament who blow their own trumpets!!" And so the notes go brightly

on through many pages.

[Illustration: THE STUDY.]

[Illustration: MR. WEEDON GROSSMITH.]

"This," explained my host, "is a fair specimen of the method I employ in

preparing a drawing-room sketch. As a rule, my audiences of that class

are capital. I always love a well-dressed audience, it is so cheerful.

You mayn't perhaps get as much applause as you do from the sixpenny

gallery, but then applause often spoils your point. Once, however, I

remember singing at a private house in the country to an odd assortment

of people. I was informed that the party followed a wedding which had

taken place in the morning. If it had followed a funeral it could not

have been more gloomy and depressed than it was. I played the piano and

the fool for three-quarters of an hour, and anything more dismal than

the result it would be impossible to conceive. A temptation seized me

suddenly, and I said: 'Ladies and gentlemen,--I am going to reveal to

you a secret. Pray don't let it go any further. This is supposed to be a

comic entertainment. I don't expect you to laugh at it in the least; but

if, during the next sketch, you would only once oblige me with a society

smile, it would give me a great deal of encouragement.' The audience for

a moment were dumbfounded. They first began to titter, then to laugh,

and actually to roar, and for a time I could not proceed with the

sketch. They were transformed into a capital and enthusiastic audience,

and the hostess told me that both her guests and herself were most

grateful to me. I am sometimes amused with the little eccentricities of

people who wish to secure my services for their parties. A gentleman

once wrote to me to entertain some friends of his, and, added he, 'I

trust that your sketches are strictly _comme il faut_, as I have several

young daughters.' I was so immensely tickled by this that, rightly or

wrongly, I replied that my entertainments _were_ as they should be, for

I was recently married, and hoped myself to have several young

daughters. He wrote thanking me for this assurance, and I was to

consider myself accordingly engaged. There is a story I tell in my book

which will bear repetition: A young gentleman once called upon me. He

explained that he was acting as a sort of ambassador for a friend of

his, Mrs. ----, of Mayfair, who wished me to dine at her house. I

replied that I had not the honour of the lady's acquaintance, and,

though appreciating her kind invitation, I did not see how I could very

well avail myself of it. He said that Prince Somebody or other and La

Comtesse de So-and-so would be dining there, and Mrs. ---- would be so

pleased if I would join the party, and sing a little song after dinner.

'Oh,' I said, 'if Mrs. ---- wishes to engage me professionally, that is

another matter, and if I am at liberty, I will come with much pleasure.'

'Well,' said the ambassador, 'I fancy Mrs. ---- is under the impression

that if she includes you in her dinner party it is an understood thing

that you sing afterwards.' 'I am afraid I do not understand that,' I

said. 'It would not pay me to do so. I only consume about ten shillings

worth of food and wine, and my terms are more than that.' There," said

Mr. Grossmith, "could you have believed that anyone would have been so

inconceivably mean and caddish?"

[Illustration: OLD ENGRAVINGS.]

[Illustration: MR. GEORGE GROSSMITH.]

[Illustration: MR. GEO. GROSSMITH, JUN.]

"I have had some curious experiences on tour," he went on. "That is hard

work, if you like. I have gone a four months' tour without missing a

night. It takes it out of one terribly. But it is very paying work. In

the South of England I have made as much as £300 a week. My friends

tried to frighten me as to the apathy of my Scotch audiences; as a

matter of fact, I have no better audiences anywhere. I like performing

to country audiences. I am never nervous as I am apt to be at St.

James's, where there are a number of my friends. And it is on my country

tours that I have many curious experiences. Amateurs invariably call at

the hotel to see me, and to ask my advice as to their powers of

recitation. Some are quite hopeless, and I haven't the heart to condemn

them utterly, or to go beyond 'I tell you quite candidly, since you ask

me, that I have heard better.' As a rule they are very quiet and modest,

but now and again one encounters some fearful specimens. I remember once

at a country town, which we will call Mudborough, a flashy young cad, in

a very loud suit, called to see me with a parcel under his arm. He had

come, he told me, to learn my opinion of his singing. He further

informed me that he was known as 'the Mudborough Grossmith.' He didn't

have the courtesy to take off his hat; he walked up and down my room,

whistling, singing, and handing me over now and again specimens of his

powers as a water-colour painter. I looked at them. At last, tired of

the idiot and his airs, I said, 'I hope your musical sketches are better

than you water-colour sketches.' Nothing, however, could snub this

fellow. He proceeded straightway to sing me an improved version of 'See

me Dance the Polka.' 'Do your audience like it?' I asked. 'I should

think they did,' he replied; 'I will let you have that last verse if you

like.' I thanked him sarcastically, and at last he withdrew. I have,

however, come across some real talent in this way. For instance, that

admirable actor and entertainer, Eric Lewis, is a _protégé_ of mine, and

you could not have a better man than he. Another amusing incident

occurred at Southsea. My secretary was in a shop one day, and he

overheard three ladies discussing the respective merits of Corney Grain

and myself. Two of them were for Corney Grain and one was for me.

Finding at last that the odds were too strong for her, she departed with

this final shot: 'Well, never mind, Mr. Corney Grain can't jump on to a

piano,' referring to my imitation of Minnie Palmer."

[Illustration: "A FLASHY YOUNG CAD, IN A VERY LOUD SUIT."]

Replying to a question I put to him as to his theatrical experiences,

Mr. Grossmith told me that it was in the November of 1877 that he

received the following letter:--

"Beefsteak Club,

"King William Street,

"Tuesday Night.

"Dear Mr. Grossmith,--Are you inclined to go on the stage for a time?

There is a part in the new piece I am doing with Gilbert which I think

you would play admirably. I can't find a good man for it. Let me have a

line, or come to Albert Mansions to-morrow, after 4; or Thursday,

before 2.30.

"Yours sincerely,

"ARTHUR SULLIVAN."

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

"This was a great moment in my life, although at the time my father,

whose good judgment I valued much, was of opinion that I was not very

successful as an actor. Sullivan, however, who had heard me give a

musical sketch at a dinner party, was of the contrary opinion, and felt

sure that I should suit him. It appears he and Arthur Cecil were both

writing letters at the Beefsteak, when the former said, 'I can't find a

fellow for this opera.' Cecil said, 'I wonder if Grossmith--' Before he

had finished the sentence, Arthur Sullivan said, 'The very man!' And so

I was engaged. I am much indebted to these two Arthurs," continued the

bright little man with a laugh. "I reverence the very name of Arthur. I

remember when Gilbert wanted to engage me for the part of _John

Wellington Wells_, though I saw the part would suit me to perfection, I

said to him, 'I should have thought you required a fine man with a fine

voice for the part of a magician.' I can still see Gilbert's humorous

expression as he replied, 'That is just what we _don't_ want.' I played

_Sir Joseph Porter_ in 'Pinafore' every night for nearly two years. Long

runs don't affect the nerves of the actors nearly as much as they affect

the performance. Constant repetition begets mechanism, and that is a

terrible enemy to contend against. I make a point of playing my best to

a bad house; for it is a monstrous thing to slur through one's work

because the stalls are empty, and thereby punish those who _have_ come

for the fault of those who _have not_. Still, I repeat it, constant

repetition is a dreadful thing. Fancy playing 'Pinafore,' as I did, for

700 nights without missing a single performance!"

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

As he said this Mr. Grossmith led the way out of the room in which we

had been talking, and which he told me was his own special sanctum,

"into which no one is ever allowed to come except my wife, for anyone

rushing in here when I was composing or thinking out a sketch would

inevitably drive every single idea from my head," and we went upstairs

together. Here in the drawing-room he set himself down to a spinet which

bore the date of 1770, and he struck a few exceedingly sweet-sounding,

if slightly tinkling, chords from it. "And this," said he, "is the

oldest _Broadwood_ in England. You can see for yourself the date--1795."

Downstairs he showed me a beautiful model of a steam engine, upon which

he was enabled to ride, and which he could drive himself. "I thoroughly

understand locomotives," said he, as he pointed to a shelf full of all

the works upon the subject which he had been able to discover.

* * * * *

A BLIND BEGGARMAN

BY FRANK MATHEW.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY F. PEGRAM.

"Left dark among mine enemies."

Long ago, the Fairies often stole children; they chose the prettiest,

and carried them to Fairyland--the Kingdom of Tyrnanoge,--leaving

hideous Changelings instead. In those days no man had call to be ashamed

of his offspring, since it a baby was deformed or idiotic it was known

to be a Changeling.

[Illustration: "THE PIG WAS A FRIENDLY ANIMAL."]

It is sixty years now since old Mike Lonergan, who lived in a hovel in

Moher Village, was robbed of his child. It was his wife first found out

the theft, for she had seen her unborn son in a dream, and he was

beautiful; so when she saw the sickly and ugly baby, she knew that he

was not hers, and that the Fairies had stolen the child of her dream.

Many advised her to roast the Changeling on the turf-fire, but the White

Witch of Moher said it would be safer to leave him alone. So the child

Andy grew up as a stranger in his father's hovel and had a dreary time

of it, he got little food and no kindness. The Lonergans gave him

neither offence nor welcome, hoping that he might see fit to go home to

Tyrnanoge and yet bear them no grudge. He grew up an odd wizened little

wretch, and everyone shunned him. The children loathed him because they

were afraid of him, so they hooted him from a distance, or stoned him

from behind walls.

Indeed, at this time his only ally was the pig that lived in one corner

of the hovel. The pig was a friendly animal, his front half was a dull

white and the other half black, and this gave him a homely look as if he

was sitting in his shirt-sleeves. Andy would shrink into the corner, and

sit cuddled there with one arm round the pig's neck. Old Mike Lonergan

took to drink, and spent every evening at the Shebeen--small blame to

him--for how could a man be expected to stay at home with a Changeling

sitting in a corner and staring at him?

When the pig was driven to the Fair at Ennistimon, Andy was left

friendless, and then--in all winds and weather--was to be found on the

Cliffs of Moher. Sometimes he stopped out all night, till hunger would

bring him back when the Lonergans were rejoicing at his disappearance.

He knew every inch of the Cliffs, and spent half his time lying on the

edge of the grey precipice, looking down at the sea, six hundred feet

below, or watching the clouds of sea-birds; he found new paths down the

cliff-side and clambered like a goat; he knew where the gulls nested,

but never robbed them, and the caves where the seals lived, and the

seals shouldered their way through the water close by him, looking at

him with soft eyes.

When he was about fourteen, the Famine Year came; fever and "The Hunger"

swept Clare. The fever took Lonergan and his wife, and they were buried

in the dead-pit at Liscannor; it left Andy, but it left him blind. Then

the neighbours began to have their doubts whether he was a Changeling

after all; for the Fairies are faithful, and who ever heard of a

Changeling being left blind and penniless? If he was only mortal he had

been cruelly treated, so to make amends they gave him the fiddle that

had belonged to the "Dark" Man--that is the blind man--of St. Bridget's

Well, who had lately starved. There was still a feeling that he was

unfit for a Holy Well, so he took up a post at the Liscannor

Cross-roads, and there levied a toll on passers with the professional

heart-broken cry:

"Remember the Dark Man! For God's sake, remember the Dark Man!"

* * * * *

For nearly twenty years Andy haunted the Cross-roads, he came to be

honoured as one of the institutions of Moher, though the folk considered

there was much that was uncanny about him, he was so silent, and he

hated the smell of whisky. Now those were the times when Cornelius

Desmond ruled Moher in the old open-handed haphazard way, never

troubling penniless tenants. But "Corney" died and the daisies grew over

him, so the estate was managed by an agent who made short work of

paupers, and evicted "Dark" Andy from his ancestral hovel. Andy did not

seem to know his misfortune. He spent the day of the eviction, as usual,

at the Cross-roads, and came back at night to a ruin. His neighbour,

Larry Ronan the blacksmith, was grieved to see that he took the change

as a matter of course, and that after groping in the four corners of the

cabin he sat on the window-ledge as if unaware that nothing was left of

his home but the walls.

Next day it was rumoured that Bridget McCaura, of Moher Farm, had

sheltered Dark Andy. Bridget was a warm woman, a "woman of three cows,"

a masterful old maid, who in her time had refused many a pretty fellow,

perhaps because she suspected them of hankering after her live stock,

her poultry, and her sixty acres of rocks. Then the old parish priest,

Father Peter Flannery, rode over to see her. Bridget was called out of

her house to speak to him; he was afraid to dismount. She stood in the

narrow gateway in front of her farm, with her arms akimbo, ready to

defend her home against all comers. Peter's heart trembled; he has a

great dread of angry women.

"Is it thrue?" he asked--and was so frightened that he looked even

sterner than usual--"is it thrue what I'm afther hearing, Bridget

McCaura, that ye've taken the Dark Man, Lonergan, to live with ye--to

live in the Farm?"

"Is it thrue? 'Tis so," said Bridget.

"But ye're not going to keep him, are ye now?"

"Keep him? I am that," said Bridget.

Peter screwed up his courage and told her warily, that though it was

well-meant of her, and "'tis you have the kind warm heart, Bridget me

dear," still, that propriety forbade it.

He was afraid to look at her as he spoke. Bridget was purple.

"What! a misfortnit ould omadhaun the likes of that?" she cried.

"I know, I know," said Peter (this is a pet phrase of his and usually

means that he does not know). "I know, I know, but 'tis because ye're a

lone woman, tell me now are ye listening to me? If ye'd been married

now, 'twould have been another thing."

"Married!" cried Bridget with infinite scorn--"Married! If that's all,

I'll marry the craythur to-morrow!"

And so Dark Andy was married to the richest woman in Moher. He seemed

indifferent; as for Bridget, she had made up her mind to shelter him,

and there was an end of it, she took pleasure in astounding her

neighbours.

[Illustration: "I'LL MARRY THE CRAYTHUR TO-MORROW!"]

There was never such excitement in Clare as when those banns were read.

Everyone saw that poor Bridget McCaura--"dacint woman"--had been

bewitched. All the old stories about Dark Andy came to life, there was

no room for doubt now, and the bravest unbelievers trembled before him.

There was many a woman would never hear his name without crossing

herself, and he got the credit of every misfortune between Kilkee and

Kinvarra, though some doubted whether a blind man could have the Evil

Eye. It was felt that he should be asked to give up his post by the

Cross-roads, since it was inconvenient for the neighbours to have to

climb two stone walls to avoid passing him. However, no one could be

found to suggest this to him, so he still sat there daily, for he liked

to feel that he was earning his own livelihood.

* * * * *

One rough afternoon during my first visit to Clare I was caught in a

storm of rain, and took refuge at the Liscannor Cross-roads under a

thick clump of trees that are stunted and bent eastward by cowering from

the sea-wind. As I reached them I heard a shrill cry, "Remember the Dark

Man!" Then I saw the blind beggarman sitting huddled in a ragged

great-coat so much too big for him that till he stood up I did not see

how tiny he was. He had a doleful peaked face, set in a shock of grey

hair. By him sat a little brown dog--the queerest of mongrels--with a

tin can tied round his neck.

Andy was friendly that day, and talked eagerly in a shrill, stammering

voice. I found later that he was wretched in still weather, and loved

the malicious rush of the rain; he was happiest when the wind rattled in

his ears and the rain whipped his face. "Call that rain?" he said, "sure

th' air is flooded, an' ye might as well swim as walk."

Many times after that I went out of my way on my long solitary walks to

pass the Cross-roads, but as often as not he was glum and silent, and

then Bonaparte, sharing his mood, would growl like a small thunderstorm.

The seat was well chosen, for the cowering trees are like a shed over

it, and there is a pleasant landscape in front (though that mattered

little to Andy), a landscape of dim green moors--with brown stains on

them where sedge grows and black shadows where bushes huddle in

clefts--chequered by a grey net of low walls, dotted with the white

gables of cabins, and framed by a wavering line of hills.

Sometimes I found him playing his fiddle to keep himself company, but he

stopped when he heard me, and, to tell the truth, I was glad of it, for

his playing was uncanny. Sometimes I met him shambling along the brink

of the Cliffs--a grotesque little figure, with his old shapeless hat,

his huge coat flapping behind him, and the mighty blackthorn he

carried--he knew the ground so well that he walked as if he could see

(indeed, he saw more than I could, for while to me the breakers were

only streaks of light, he spoke as if he was close to them on the wet

weedy rocks), or I came on him lying by the edge, listening to the

grumbling of the breakers and the cries of the gulls.

[Illustration: "LISTENING TO THE GRUMBLING OF THE BREAKERS AND THE CRIES

OF THE GULLS."]

Mostly he was unsociable, he shrank from his neighbours because they had

been cruel to him when they were children, and the dislike was more than

returned; yet I think that, but for the loneliness of his whole life, he

would have been friendly enough. No one knew more of folklore--I think

he half believed that he was a Changeling, and found comfort in the

thought of that former life when he was one of the merry "Little Good

People"--and sure old Mike Lonergan and his wife ought to have known

best. He knew the ways of every ghost in the county, and it was even

said that he was on speaking terms with the Headless Man who haunted

Liscannor. Of course he knew all about Fairies. When the fallen leaves

scurried past his feet he knew that the "Little Good People" were

playing football, when the wind whispered in the leaves overhead he

heard them chatting, and when it whined in the creaking bare branches,

heard the poor little folk crying with cold and bewailing the days when

they found shelter by snug firesides and sat there unseen but not

unwelcome. Once, before the world grew hard, they gathered in the

cabins, and the roughest fare grew pleasanter, the saddest hearts

lighter, from their good wishes; but no one cares for them now, and they

cannot rest in unfriendly houses.

[Illustration: "HE WAS ON SPEAKING TERMS WITH THE HEADLESS MAN OF

LISCANNOR."]

As he grew older, he talked more of them, grew more moody and restless,

could not sit quiet while the wind was up, and spent night after night

out of doors. My friend Father Peter Flannery, who is my chief authority

for this history, told me that often, riding on his sick calls in stormy

weather, he met Andy staggering along the rough roads.

Last year on November Eve--the night when the Fairies have power, and

the dead wake and dance reels with them--the blind beggarman started out

from the Farm. An Atlantic gale was shattering seas against the Cliffs,

the air was salt with foam, and throbbed with the pulse of the breakers.

Bridget tried in vain to stop him; he said the "Little Good People" were

calling him. She watched him disappear into the darkness, the whimpering

of his fiddle died into the shrieks of the wind. "'Tis a quare divil, he

is," she said, "God help him!"

Once in the night she thought she heard a snatch of the "Fairies' Reel";

but Andy never came back. Next morning they found Bonaparte whining on

the edge of the Cliffs; there was no sign of his master. He must have

gone over the Cliffs in the darkness, but the waves gave no token.

Some folk in Moher believe that the Fairies took back their child, and

that the old blind fiddler lives now in the Kingdom of Tyrnanoge, and

makes music for their dances in that enchanted country where the old

grow young and the blind see. Some say that he still haunts the

Cross-roads, and only a week ago, Larry Ronan, coming back at night from

Ennistimon Fair, saw a black shadowy figure under the black trees, and

heard a heart-broken voice cry "Remember the Dark Man!" Larry's natural

surprise at this accounted for his being found next morning asleep in

the ditch. But it is agreed in Moher that Andy left life on November

Eve, whether he became the playfellow of the Fairies or the plaything of

the waves.

* * * * *

CHURCH AND STAGE.

A REVIEW OF HENRY IRVING,

BY THE REV. DR. JOSEPH PARKER.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM F. BARNARD AND J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE.

[Illustration: MR. IRVING AS "HAMLET."

(_From the Portrait by EDWIN LONG._)]

[Illustration: MR. IRVING AS "DIGBY GRANT" IN "TWO ROSES."]

The innumerable reviews of Mr. Irving by literary and artistic experts

have left room enough for an amateur estimate by a man who is accustomed

to regard human life mainly from a religious standpoint. A complete

review of the Stage by the Pulpit could hardly be the work of a single

pen; for my own part, therefore, I can only make a very small

contribution to such a review by indicating a few points which have

occurred to me in the study of one particular actor. At once, however,

the question arises, Is Mr. Irving a man who can be thus summarily

characterised? In a dramatic sense, are there not many Mr. Irvings? When

a man can act "The Two Roses" and "The Dead Heart" with equal effect,

when he can at will be as vulgar as _Robert Macaire_, or as dignified as

_Cardinal Wolsey;_ when he can be either as young as Hamlet or as old as

Lear, the inquiry as to his plurality becomes natural and pertinent. For

my part, I rank Mr. Irving the comedian above Mr. Irving the tragedian,

just as I rank Nature above Art: each may be highest in its own way, yet

the one may have a charm which the other cannot boast. Mr. Irving's

tragedy sometimes requires working up, but his comedy is spontaneous and

immediate. The needful working up of tragedy is no fault of the actor.

Tragedy should hardly ever begin at once. The murder may come too soon.

Premature rage is followed by untimely laughter. _Digby Grant_ begins at

once, and can be his best self in the very first sentence, but _Macbeth_

must move towards his passion by finely-graded ascents. In Mr. Irving's

exquisite representation, _Macbeth's_ anxieties and perturbations, his

rapid alternations of courage and cowardice, make delicate but obvious

record of themselves in deepening the grey of his hair, and ploughing

more deeply the lines of his face. A comedy may be judged scene by

scene, almost sentence by sentence, but a tragedy can be truly estimated

only when viewed in final perspective.

[Illustration: "A LITTLE CHEQUE."

(MR. IRVING AS "DIGBY GRANT" IN "TWO ROSES.")]

Judged by this test, I have no hesitation in regarding Mr. Irving's

_King Lear_ as the finest creation of his genius. This is an instance in

which the actor creates the piece. Shakespeare is, as a poet and

playwright, at his worst in "King Lear." Yet his accessories are

wonderful in variety and suggestiveness. Only Shakespeare could have

created the heath, and have so ordered the old King's passion, as to

make his madness part of the very thunder and lightning. That was

Shakespeare's magnificent conception, and Mr. Irving's rendering is

worthy of its tempestuous grandeur. How to talk up to the storm, how to

pierce the tumult with the cries of human distress, how to escape the

ridiculous and the incongruous, how to be a King on the desolate heath,

and to make the royalty gleam through the angry darkness, were the

problems, and Mr. Irving solved them one and all, even with redundance

of faculty and skill. At the end of the heath scene the man is more

remembered than the storm. It has been objected that in the first scene

Mr. Irving's _Lear_ is too old and feeble. I venture to think otherwise.

I further venture to think that the King's age and the King's imbecility

have both been accurately appreciated. A man at eighty, a man athirst

for flattery, a man who would pay a kingdom in exchange for adulation,

must have outlived all that is best and strongest in human nature. He

comes upon the stage as a wreck. His vanity has eaten up his sagacity,

so that she, _Goneril_ or _Regan_, who can flatter most, can lie most,

and can play the devil best, shall fare most lavishly at his hands. Is

it not well partly to excuse these excesses of self-valuation by such

mitigations as can be found in the infirmity of old age? Even in an

elderly man they would have been treated with contempt; they could only

be endured in one whose eighty years had been doubled by the hardness of

his life lot.

In "Henry VIII." Mr. Irving had little to do. In that play the labour

and the glory fell upon another, to the infinite delight of the public.

In "Lear," Mr. Irving has everything to do. From beginning to end there

is only one character. Even the fascinating _Cordelia_ is but a silver

cloud on the far horizon. "The King is coming" is the cry of the play.

His madness is more, as to display and effect, than the sense of all the

others. The scene is stiff and cold until his wild hair is observed to

approach the front, and then the whole spectacle is alight with feeling

and purpose. The other actors are not to blame that, to a large extent,

they are thrown into the shade; indeed, they are to be warmly

congratulated upon their self-suppression and their passive sympathy. It

is a hard task to play the part of two heartless and treacherous

daughters, and a pitiful fate to have to represent the villainy of

_Edmund_, yet all this was admirably done. It cannot be an easy thing to

come forward to play the villain well, for the better the dramatic

villain is played the more is the actor compelled to recognise in his

execration the exact degree of his success. So admirably can Mr. Irving

himself play the villain, that it is difficult to believe that any

godparents ever, on his unconscious behalf, renounced the pomps and

vanities of this wicked world.

In many minor parts--or along the subsidiary lines of great parts--Mr.

Irving's subtlest power comes into effective play. Who, for example, can

be more gentle or more graceful with a little child? Who could hug the

"fool" more fondly than old _King Lear_? Then recall his wonderful

recognitions of old friends. When, in "The Dead Heart," he is liberated

from the Bastille, how old times slowly but surely dawn into

consciousness, and how quickly the dawn hastens into the noontide of the

tenderest fellowship and highest festival of joy. It is verily a

resurrection. After eighteen years' entombment this political Lazarus

comes forth to liberty, to leadership, to dominance.

In "Lear," there are two wonderful instances of recognition, the

recognition of _Gloster_ and of _Cordelia_. _Gloster_ is blind and

bandaged. _Cordelia_ has been long out of sight--if not in actual days

yet in depth of feeling--and the King himself is demented. Little by

little things shape themselves in the memory and fancy of the King.

There is something confusedly familiar in the voice of _Gloster_ which,

tone by tone, settles into recognition. In the case of _Cordelia_ the

father gradually subdues the King, and instinct takes the place of

reason; then, in a fine strain, comes the identification:

"Do not laugh at me,

For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia."

The utterance of these words by Mr. Irving is simply thrilling. The

tones, the glances, the approach, the embrace, lift up the words into

new light, keen and tender as the brightness of a summer morning. The

words themselves are by no means striking, are, indeed, the merest

commonplace, but, uttered with the natural pathos of a consummate actor,

they carry the play to its most subduing climax. The humanity and the

genius satisfy expectation in its most eager and jealous temper. Failure

at that point would have ruined the play. Which was better, _Lear_ or

_Cordelia_, in that critical action? We must first settle, Which is

better, the star of morning or the morning star?

[Illustration: MR. IRVING AS "KING LEAR." (FROM THE LYCEUM SOUVENIR.)]

* * * * *

As I opened this brief review with a reference to the religious

standpoint, it may be well now to ask how the Church is to regard the

Stage as an educational institution? The Stage cannot be put down. It

responds to an instinct which is ineradicable, and which need not be

ignoble. The parables of the New Testament are the sublimest recognition

of that instinct. The drama is older than the theatre. Much of the

greatest preaching has been dramatic, by which I mean that it has

touched human life through the medium of story and parable, coloured and

toned by a living fancy. Sometimes, too truly, the dramatic in preaching

has degenerated into impossible anecdotes, most of them originating in

the Far West of America, yet even such anecdotes testify to the

overpowering force of the dramatic instincts when limited to their most

vulgar conditions. My submission is, that a properly-conducted stage

might be the most powerful ally of the pulpit. I advance upon this

submission, and contend that the function of the preacher is infinitely

superior to the function of the actor. Whatever the preacher has to say

that is distinctive he can trace to what he believes to be a Divine and

authoritative origin. I hold the great preacher to be a spiritual

medium. In his next evolution he will simply tell the people whatever

may have been given him in the same hour to say. This does not mean that

indolence will supersede industry. Through the indolent man God sends no

messages. The true prophet will always be preparing himself. By

learning, by meditation, by self-discipline, the true prophet will

prepare his heart for the incoming of the Eternal Spirit, and the glory

of Heaven will be as a fire on the altar of the honest heart. Art

preachers we have had in too great abundance. Mechanical talkers have

brought upon the pulpit the disrepute of dulness. The age now waits for

the messenger in whose loving heart there is the glow and the radiance

of divinest sympathy. The great actor himself would be the first to

admit that the preacher cannot trace his own public secondariness to the

poverty of his themes. Where the preacher falls behind the actor, it is

because the preacher does not realise the majesty and the tenderness,

the vehemence and the urgency, of his own message.

* * * * *

THAT BEAST BEAUTY.

BY KIRBY HARE.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ERNEST M. JESSOP.

I was a man born to misfortune. In fact, my first misfortune, the death

of my father, happened three months before I came into the world. When I

did duly appear, and was giving a proper howl of disgust, a fresh

misfortune fell upon me; my mother departed to join my father, leaving

me in the lurch in a vale of unavailing tears. I should have preferred

going with my family to that blessed Utopia where there are neither

births, deaths, marriages, divorces, breaches of promise, nor return

tickets; only, unfortunately, I was not invited. So I became a

posthumous orphan, soothed by Daffy's elixir and the skim-milk of human

kindness. The milk was none too sweet, human kindness did not spare the

rod, and I firmly believe it was Daffy's elixir that turned my hair red.

However, I grew up at length into stand-up collars and tail coats, and

at the age of seventeen springs was adopted (on trial) by a maiden aunt

of seven-and-forty autumns. Like a gleam of sunshine hope flashed into

my loveless life, lighting up my path to fortune. But it was only the

glimmer of an _ignis fatuus_, which led me into a quicksand and snuffed

itself out in a fog.

[Illustration: A PROPER HOWL OF DISGUST.]

[Illustration: HIS MAIDEN AUNT.]

My relative had plenty of money, and plenty of other equally good

qualities in the long run, no doubt; but the period of my adoption was

too short to make sure of either the one or the other. If the wealthy

maiden was really a worthy soul she did not let her nephew know it.

Corporeally she was angular and iron-grey, with a summary tongue and

wintry temper, chastened by a fondness for feline favourites. Unluckily,

I was always falling foul of the latter, and my aunt continually fell

foul of me in consequence. Crabbed age and youth could not live together

in our case on account of cats. Age, as represented by the mature

virgin, adored the brutes; youth, in the shape of a sprouting

hobbledehoy, abhorred them altogether, and one evil minded black Tom in

particular. My aunt called him Beauty, in happy ignorance that all her

household called him a Beast. I admire beauty in the abstract; I also

like it in the concrete; and in the concreted form of youthful feminine

humanity I love it. But that feline black Beauty was the most outrageous

misnomer unhanged. I had tried to hang him several times, down in the

cellar in the dead of night; but his patent cast-iron neck set

suspensory science at defiance, and Beauty triumphantly refused to give

up the ghost. At first, he kicked and fought against it lustily, and

yelled murder with all his might; but after a little practice the

malefactor acted more philosophically, regarding the performance quite

as part of his nocturnal programme. He never allowed it to make him late

for breakfast, nor take away his appetite. Each morning, after

execution, the moment the bell rang for prayers, in marched Beauty with

a swollen head well on one side, growling anathemas from somewhere round

the corner all prayer-time; after which the escaped convict devoured

breakfast with the voracity of a stiffnecked cannibal.

[Illustration: ONE EVIL-MINDED BLACK TOM.]

[Illustration]

Finding the beast utterly unhangable, I determined to try drowning. My

nature is by no means a cruel one, quite the reverse; but Beauty's cup

of iniquity had long been full to the brim, and running over into the

saucer. He had gulped down my canaries like pills, poached my pigeons,

fricasseed my rabbits, and made himself an abominable beast generally;

and had now committed a crime that capped everything.

My cock bantam, which had won first prize at the Slocum-Pogis poultry

show, mysteriously disappeared. Jim, the gardener's boy, and I hunted

everywhere without finding any trace till we sighted Beauty. The beast

was seated on my verbena bed, with fearfully distended stomach, waving

my poor little bantam's tail feathers from between his teeth. Had I been

an ancient Egyptian high priest, and Beauty at the top of the tree of

holy cats, his diabolical godship should have been made into a mummy

instanter. As things were, he had to be drowned forthwith.

[Illustration: AT A CABINET COUNCIL IN THE COAL CELLAR.]

At a cabinet council in the coal cellar, composed of the cook, footman,

Jim, and myself, all the executive details were arranged; my aunt being,

of course, kept in happy ignorance of our intentions. As soon as my

respected relative uttered the preliminary snore of her afternoon

siesta, Beauty made an involuntary exit out of the house, all the lower

doors and windows having been carefully fastened. Then commenced a

silent cat-hunt, a serio-comic drama in dumb show, with a crowded

audience breathlessly gazing from the windows. The scenery was a series

of dissolving views, beginning on a flower-decked lawn, and ending at a

mill-pool a mile or so away from the audience. Beauty played leading

actor with considerable activity, notwithstanding the drawback of being

handicapped with an undigested bantam. He flew over dozens of

flower-beds, through all the outhouses, over the stable, out into the

park, up and down all the tallest trees, and all over the country, till

he took refuge in the deserted old mill. There we wriggled him into an

ancient sack, and tied him up in the harmonious company of a couple of

brickbats. Then we committed the body to the deep. The burial service

was short, but hearty. "One--two--three, and away!" sung out in unison,

was the special form for the occasion, accompanied by Beauty's farewell

blessing as we "awayed" him into the silent depths of the mill-dam.

There was a splash, a shrill cry from a frightened moorhen, a short

jubilate from Jim, to which I piously added "amen," and all was over.

Jim ran home with half-a-sovereign in his pocket, while I walked back to

dress for dinner. On the stairs I met my aunt, already in evening array,

and looking hungry. I knew the sign, and stealthily tried to

vanish, vainly.

[Illustration: IN THE DESERTED OLD MILL.]

"Late again, Samuel!" she remarked, with a freezing spectacle-gleam that

fixed me to the stair-carpet--my right foot two steps above the left.

"You have just come in, I suppose. Have you seen Beauty?"

[Illustration: "LATE AGAIN, SAMUEL!"]

Horror! Could she suspect anything? I felt my face growing the colour of

my hair, and my tongue frozen solid.

"Can't you answer?" she went on wrathfully. "And can't you stand up

straight?"

I pulled my legs together and commenced to stammer.

"I--I saw Beauty out--outside, aunt, in the garden," I managed to mutter.

"Which way was he going?"

"Why, I think he was running towards the house, aunt."

[Illustration: THIRTY MILES AN HOUR.]

And then the remembrance of how he _was_ running--thirty miles an hour,

with tail on end and ears flat to his head, with Jim and my long-legged

self racing in rear--made me choke with laughter I was forced to

swallow. But my aunt's eyes were on me, and her gold-rimmed barnacles

blazed through me, so I suffocated in silence.

"Don't stand making faces like an idiot. Go and dress, and be quick,"

snapped my loving relative, as she marched away downstairs and I flew to

the region above.

My bedroom door was partly open, and I dashed in hastily, pulling off my

things as I went.

[Illustration: DRESSING FOR DINNER.]

My evening clothes were laid out ready on the bed, and--what was that on

my shirt?--a black mass of--something moving!--some animal! Why, heavens

and earth, it was the ghost of--that beast Beauty! It was Beauty

himself! I ran for the poker; Beauty rushed out of the door. Confound

that rotten old sack!

I was late for dinner, and found Beauty seated in my chair, sleek and

dry, with a ravenously whetted appetite. My aunt was so pleased with her

favourite's improved appearance that she became quite affable, even to

me. I was informed that as I had not been looking well lately I might go

for a few days' change to the seaside; the salubrious air of

Muddiford-on-the-Ooze would just suit me. What a blessing! To have

escaped from those ice-gleaming spectacles and from that resuscitated

beast Beauty I would gladly have gone to Jericho, much more to

Muddiford-on-the-Ooze. Then my aunt continued her course of

instructions, with the nearest approach to a smile I had ever seen

on her face.

[Illustration: A SHOW AT MUDDIFORD-ON-THE-OOZE.]

"You will enjoy yourself, I am sure, Samuel, and you will also be able

to show what pains you can take to please me," she said, sipping her

first glass of Burgundy with approving relish. "There is to be a show at

Muddiford the day after to-morrow, at which I intend exhibiting, and you

will be able to manage everything for me; so mind you are careful to do

your best."

"I shall be most delighted," I declared gushingly. "What show is it? And

what can I have the pleasure of taking charge of for you, my dear aunt?"

"It's the Grand All-England Cat Show, and you will take Beauty; and I

shall be greatly disappointed if you do not bring me back the first

prize. So be on your best behaviour, Samuel, or perhaps you may live to

regret it."

My jaw dropped, and I thought I should have slid under the table. Good

heavens! It was that beast Beauty who was to go for a holiday, while I

was to act as the infernal fiend's keeper! O my prophetic soul--my aunt!

But there was no help for it; I was bound in bonds of gold.

On the following day, Beauty and I were duly driven to the station, the

former being luxuriously nested in a small hamper specially furnished

for the occasion. About half-way on the road, just as we had mounted a

long, steep hill, the cat managed to roll his residence from the stern

of the dog-cart and trundle himself half-way home again. Luckily, he

screeched blue murder at the tip-top of his voice, or we might not have

missed the beast. As it was, his cyclical retrogression made us just too

late for the train, and we had to wait two hours for the next. So I

seated myself on the hamper--like Patience on the proverbial

monument--and beheld the coachman depart homewards, with a sympathetic

hat-touching salute, leaving me with a gloomy conviction of coming

misfortune. The train, when it did arrive, was tolerably empty, and I

secured a vacant first-class. For a time all went happily; then the cat

commenced groaning.

[Illustration: SEATED MYSELF ON THE HAMPER.]

My aunt having solemnly ordered me to give the brute dinner, I now

prepared to stop his mouth with cold chicken. While I was cautiously

unfastening the hamper lid, Beauty remained quiet as a dormouse; and

then he proceeded personally to assist the unfastening, with a

vengeance. There was a bouncing volcanic eruption, a blood-curdling

howl, a mixed-up whirling round the carriage, and then--smash!--bang

through the window went Beauty!--leaving me doubled up on the seat,

holding out half a chicken. It was a forty-feline-power hurricane, while

it lasted; and drops of perspiration trickled down my nose on to the

chicken, at which I sat stupidly staring. After a dazed pause I

staggered to the broken window and looked out. There was Beauty, with a

perpendicular tail like a young fir-tree, going like great guns in

exactly the wrong direction. We had just come through a long tunnel, and

the last I saw of my aunt's pet demon was as he dived headlong into its

Hades-like mouth. And I had to take home first prize for him from the

Grand All-England Cat Show!

[Illustration: LEAVING THE RAILWAY CARRIAGE.]

[Illustration: INTO ITS HADES-LIKE MOUTH.]

[Illustration: INCIPIENT CATALEPSY.]

When the 4.40 down express arrived at Muddiford-on-the-Ooze station, an

auburn-haired youth limply emerged from a first-class carriage. In his

arms he bore a basket, and his grey-green eyes gleamed with incipient

catalepsy. Yes, such would undoubtedly have been my description had I

posed as the momentary hero of a penny novelette. I forgot all about my

luggage, imbecilely clinging to the late habitation of the lost beast

Beauty, wandering I knew not why nor whither. Outside the station, round

a quiet corner, my steps were arrested by the surprising sight

of--Beauty!--the very identical devil himself! There stood the

unhangable, undrownable, hurricane-creating beast, looking as serene as

a newly-born black cherub, washing his fiendish face! I approached on

tiptoe, breathlessly, with the basket behind my back and the half

chicken extended as a peaceable card of introduction. He scented it

instantly--my aunt always keeping Beauty's tit-bits until sufficiently

gamey to suit his highly epicurean taste.

[Illustration: WASHING HIS FIENDISH FACE!]

With a finishing toe-touch to his whiskers, he amicably trotted up to me

and--yes!--actually rubbed against my new trousers! What could have

happened to him! Had his run through the tunnel turned him out virtuous?

And how could he possibly have got here? Experience has shown that a

leopard can change his spots, and a negro can grow spotted; but could a

diabolical cat become even as a sucking dove and fly over twelve miles

all in the space of twenty minutes? Impossible! So I put on a pair of

folder-glasses and scrutinised this new arrival doubtingly. No; it was

_not_ Beauty--not nearly ugly enough. It was a twin, but larger,

blacker, sleeker, a million times more amiable, and very much fatter.

Ah!--ha, ha!--hurrah!--happy thought! Why not? I would. And, thereupon,

I instantly did it.

Placing the basket gently on the ground, I opened the lid and put in the

cold chicken, when lo! in jumped the amiable twin. Half an hour later

that basket, that heaven-descended twin, and that successful chicken,

were safely deposited in custody of the cat-show steward, with the

errant Beauty's entry ticket affixed. If the steward had never seen the

real original he would never discover the difference; and if he did

happen to be acquainted with the genuine article he could but think that

the beast was surprisingly improved, and might even award it first prize

for having turned over such a notable new leaf. And for the same reason,

my aunt ought to be highly delighted at her favourite's favourable

transformation. My heart was lightened of its oppressive troubles, as my

hands were free from their feline load. With a hearty appetite I ate an

excellent dinner at the hotel, went to the theatre, and turned into bed

thankful for all fortune's favours.

[Illustration: I ATE AN EXCELLENT DINNER.]

During the two following days, carefully steering clear of the cat-show,

I enjoyed my freedom gaily, and had--what our three-thousand-miles-

removed cousins would call--real good time. On the third morning a

letter arrived from my aunt, with an enclosure which for the first

moment I took to be a big cheque--a grateful offering, as I hoped, for

services skilfully performed. However, it proved to be merely a second

letter, in writing that was strange to me, and which with some curiosity

I proceeded to peruse. As I unfolded the sheet, a vision suddenly

crossed my mind of that savage beast Beauty; a chilly shiver shot

through my marrow, and I sent the waiter for soda and brandy. It was an

awful thought of what that unkillable cat might do! There he was,

rampaging over a civilised country populated with children and lambs,

and other unprotected innocents, half mad, perhaps, with hunger, where

neither canaries nor pigeons, rabbits or cold chicken were grabbable.

What desperate murders he might commit! And should I be held

responsible? Here the timely arrival of the waiter helped to raise my

spirits by a strong dose of B. and S., and I began the enclosed letter.

[Illustration: WHAT DESPERATE MURDERS HE MIGHT COMMIT!]

It was headed from the cat-show secretary's office. Why, of course, that

charming twin had got first prize, no doubt. Let us see. "Dear Madam,"

so ran the official note, "I beg to call your attention to what I

imagine must, in some way, have been an oversight. Your cat, described

on the entrance form as 'a black male, named Beauty,' which was, on the

evening of its arrival, placed in the class pertaining to the

descriptive form, was found this morning to have presented us with four

remarkably fine kittens. This, of course, necessitated the family's

removal from the male cat class. I have much pleasure in being able to

inform you that both mother and kittens are in the best of health, and

will be carefully attended upon. If you will kindly forward your

instructions respecting their disposal, I shall be greatly obliged."

That was the note, and wildly did the letters dance before my eyes.

[Illustration: FOUR REMARKABLY FINE KITTENS.]

[Illustration: GASPING FOR BREATH.]

Having saved myself from fainting by finishing the B. and S., I sat for

some minutes gasping for breath. Then I rubbed my eyes and reread that

awful epistle. Yes--it was so--in solemn, sober black ink! Beauty's twin

had got four fine kittens! Great Jehoshaphat! How could I ever get over

those confounded kittens! It was too late to murder them. And my

aunt--but stop! Let me read her letter; it might suggest something--some

feline legerdemain method of conjuring four fine kittens into a first

prize black male cat. So here goes. And this is how it went: "I always

considered you to be a fool, Samuel, but nothing worse, until now.

Unless the enclosed letter is immediately fully explained, and the

matter set right, I shall plainly let you know what I do think of you

now, and act accordingly. See the secretary, and telegraph me the result

at once." Not much hope in that, worse luck; only a limited respite.

[Illustration: WENT FISHING.]

Away I went to the show, saw the secretary--from a safe distance--and

immediately telegraphed: "Have seen the secretary. Hard at work setting

matters right. Awfully sorry." Then I hired a boat, and went fishing for

the rest of the day. In the evening I wired: "Beauty must have got

changed. Cats now all going home. Found clue and am following up. All

right shortly." But my aunt's patience had expired. Next morning came a

curt note saying she would at once join me, and either rescue Beauty or

settle that secretary. How could I ever face those searching spectacles!

I fled. From a lonely spot on the wilds of Dartmoor I wired: "Am

following clue sharp. Getting close up. Good news next time." Back came

an answer: "Shall be with you to-morrow at noon." At noon next day, I

boarded the mail packet Tongariro, bound from Plymouth to New Zealand.

[Illustration: OFF TO NEW ZEALAND.]

* * * * *

PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET

BY SCOTT RANKIN.

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD.

[Illustration]

"You can do nothing by despising the past and its products; you

also can do nothing by being too much afraid of them.... Be

content to be a new 'sect,' 'conventicle,' or what not, so long

as you feel that you are _something_, with a life and purpose

of its own, in this tangle of a world."--_Robert Elsmere_.

* * * * *

THE IDLERS CLUB

Is Love a Practical Reality or a Pleasing Fiction?

[Sidenote: Mrs. Lynn Linton thinks there is no doubt as to Love's

reality.]

Of the desperate reality of the passion there is no doubt; of the

intrinsic value of the thing beloved there may be many. The passion for

which men and women have died stands like a tower four-square to all the

winds of heaven; but how far that tower has been self-created by fancy,

and how much is objectively real, who is the wise man that can

determine? What is Love? We know nothing of its source. Sense and sex

cannot wholly explain its mystery, else would there be no friendship

left among us; and elective affinity is but a dainty carving on the

chancel stalls. The loveliness which makes that special person the

veritable Rose of the World to us exists but in our imagination. It is

no rose that we adore--only at the best a bedeguar, of which the origin

is a disagreeable little insect. We believe in the exquisite harmony of

those atoms which have arranged themselves to form the thing we love.

And we marry our human ideal, expecting the unbroken continuance of that

harmony. But the discord comes; colours clash; the jarring note spoils

the chord; the idol once accepted as of gold and precious stones, proves

to be only common clay, thinly gilt. The diamonds are paste; the pearls

are beads of glass filled with shining fishes' scales; and the love

which we thought would be a practical reality for life, is nothing but a

pleasing fiction, good for its day, and now dead and done with. The

lover sees nothing as it is. Life is distorted between jealousy and

admiration, and the plain teaching of common-sense is as little

understood as the conditions of the fourth dimension or the poetic

aspirations of the Simian tongue. The adored is not a real person; the

happiness anticipated is not practical nor practicable. Both are on

all-fours with the substantiality of a cloud and the serviceable roadway

of a rainbow. Custom, familiarity, daily habits are the sole tests by

which the reality of the thing beloved can be tried--the reality of the

thing beloved and consequent validity of love. Before these tests are

applied, the whole affair is as a fairy dream born of the perfume and

the mystery of night. With the clear cold breath of morning the dream

vanishes, but--what is left? The sigh of the vanishing god?--a tear on

the cheek of Psyche?--the loathing of the man who finds Mélusine a

serpent rather than a woman?--or the peaceful joy of the child who

dreams of angels and wakes in its mother's arms?--of those who sleeping

on the ocean wake to find themselves safe in port?

* * * * *

[Sidenote: "Rita" thinks Love is beautiful and wise.]

At one period of life, love is simply an emotion--the outcome of

attraction, or the effect of that vague mystery which surrounds sex. In

this emotional stage the _feeling_ may be real enough, but the passion

is an illusion. A girl is often more in love with Love than with an

actual lover. The youth who beholds his ideal in the First Woman is in

love with the woman herself who for the time (usually very brief)

embodies that ideal. But to the girl and the youth comes an hour when

they are humiliatingly conscious of study wasted on a prettily-bound

work of fiction that for all use and purpose in life is quite valueless.

The edifice of romance is constructed much on the same plan as a child's

castle of cards, and deservedly shares the same fate. That is to say,

the topmost card overbalances the whole structure. It is usually the

hand of Reason that topples over Love's romantic tenement by crowning it

with the card of Common Sense. When we find Love has become a practical

reality, the discovery is often very unpleasant. We would rather not be

unhappy if we had the choice. Unfortunately, we haven't, and find

ourselves in that condition without exactly knowing how we drifted into

it. Drifters often discover Love to be a very practical reality, because

of unpleasant consequences. It is decidedly humiliating to find

ourselves in the toils of a siren the very reverse of our high ideal of

the personage who is to have the honour and glory of subjugating us.

This is one of Love's amusing little ways of proving that ideals are

really not important. The best and safest test of the reality of Love is

to ask yourself how much you have suffered on account of it. I don't

speak of such trifles as tears, heartaches, sleepless nights, fevers of

jealousy and despair, sacrifices, or discomforts, but of _real_ genuine

self-torment and mental torture which only this passion is capable of

inflicting on its victims. The most sceptical will acknowledge that its

powers in this line are only excelled by its apparent animosity. To

discover the life that completes and contents our own is not given to

many of us poor mortals. Here and there some fortunate individuals have

made that discovery--but they are rare--and not given to boasting on the

subject; yet though worldly wise folk scoff at love as a myth, I

question whether they could name any other passion of the heart which

has occupied so important a place in the world's history, which has

given life to all that is great and divine in art, or inspired such

deeds of heroism, self-sacrifice, and martyrdom. Before its patient

strength men have stood mute and wondering, and proud heads have bent in

reverence, and stern eyes grown dim. For Love is beautiful, despite

faults, and wise, despite follies. It alone of all human emotions can

lift our souls heavenwards, and make even life's thorny path a thing

of beauty.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: John Strange Winter's opinions.]

Love may be classed under several heads. The first, the great, the

unattainable, the one-sided, and the worn-out. They are all real! What

can be more real than the perhaps not very practical passion which first

makes young hearts ache? What agony it is to _her_ when _he_ dances

three times running with that horrid, stuck-up London girl, with her

fashionable jargon, her languorous movements, just a turn or two, and

then stop for as many minutes! First love is not often last love. _He_

thinks _her_ unreasonable to mind those dances, yet when a great love

comes into her life, making her think of him as "just a boy," he suffers

all, or nearly all, the pangs of a great passion. Unavailing pain! _She_

has cast the die of her life, and past loves are shadows compared with

the absorbing power that now grips her heart like a vice. Much may

happen to the great love, but it is very real! A great love may merge

into matrimony, and life may run on oiled wheels, and Darby and Joan may

pass through the world, loving faithfully, and without digression, to

the end. Or something may come between, and the great love may become

the unattainable! It will not be the less real for that.

[Sidenote: The Unattainable.]

The unattainable has more in it of pathos than despair. Romance sweetens

it, and the romance never dies. The tenderness of "what might have been"

gives balm to many a suffering soul! The wife may be unhappy, neglected,

heartsick, she may even loathe him whose name she bears, but she is

often upholden by the thought that _he_ would have been wholly

different! A husband may know that he has married the wrong woman, yet

he bears what is, because he cannot have _her_ who would have made life

all sunshine. Few pity the one-sided love, helpless, hopeless, and

without justification as it is; yet it is very real to the lonely soul.

The worn-out love is the very essence of sadness! It is heart-breaking

to watch the efforts of a foolish heart to keep a love dying or already

dead, to see love, which would once have made a paradise, poured out at

the feet of one who is only bored and not even touched by it. Nothing is

so dead as a dead love--yet, even _that_ is real!

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Miss May Crommelin takes a professional view]

Can any sensible novelist hesitate? Does a shoe-maker depreciate

leather? Would you saw off the tree-branch you sit on? Now, on this

subject, anybody's opinion (full-grown) is as good as another's. Let the

footman bring down word that love is the drawing-room topic, and the

cook will cry out, "What do they know more about it than _us_?" Is it

not a human feeling, call it instinct or no? Surely old Sally Jones has

simpler feelings than the Dowager Countess; as much experience in this.

Love is just as real as a rainbow on a wet day; as--as influenza. The

first may be a "pleysing payne": the latter must be a very displeasing

one. But there is little fiction about either to the victims. Well,

suppose love a mere brain-fantasm; an odd survival when sensible folk

have swept away beliefs in witchcraft, fairies, and the virtue of fire

and faggot for the wicked ones who don't say their prayers the same way

we do. _Still, was it not worth while to have invented it?_ However the

idea was evoluted, just consider the glamour it throws over thorns and

thistles, as we dig through life's long day of toil. As Trollope's stout

widow says, when choosing her second: "It's a whiff of the rocks and the

valleys." (So she had her marriage settlements tightly drawn up, to

enjoy her romance comfortably.) Consider this epitaph--a real one--

"Poorly lived, and poorly died;

Poorly buried, and _nobody cried_."

Broach this subject of love to a circle after dinner, round a good fire.

Everybody laughs! The young men and maidens look conscious. What they

feel is as real to them as pleasure in music they hear; in the taste of

wine. Yes, and far more--while it lasts. Some elders profess scorn,

because their minds are so choked with years' dust of daily cares they

have forgotten how they, too, once believed love real--while it lasted!

Ay! there's the rub. You are told--truthfully--that love is strong as

death: inconstant as every breeze. Some declare, for them--

"In the whole wide world there was but one."

Other as honest souls confess their hearts have known, since first love,

"many other lodgers." This seems clear, love is real to those who _give

it_! Only they who care more to _get it_, call it moonshine and naughty

names. Like figures on an Egyptian monument, each follows one who looks

at another. Never one scorned, but has rejected a third.

"As Pan loved Echo, Echo loved the satyr,

The satyr Lyda--and so the three went weeping."

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Miss Quiller Couch wishes Love were a pleasing fiction.]

"Pleasing fiction," forsooth; would that it were! It is a very real

game, and the rules thereof are practical. I know it, for verily I

myself have suffered. Let it not be understood, however, that it is _as_

a "practical, real lover" that I have suffered. Not at all. It is that

this order of beings walks abroad, and I am not of it, and I meet it,

and I am pained, and I feel sorry. Could Love be but a pleasing fiction,

how comfortable to sit aside and contemplate it--a trifle to talk of, a

dainty to dally with, a joy to the juvenescent, a blessing to the

book-writer, yet never an inconvenience. But it is a practical reality,

and it has great effects. Why, I have seen good, healthy people, quite

nice-tempered people, brought to a shadow by it and churned into so many

pounds of incompetent irritability; _so_ exacting about trifles, so

fidgetty about catching the mail, and so careless of the health of the

uninteresting majority. There was one man I knew down in a village, and

he fell in love with a pretty girl--they mostly do that--but she would

have nothing to say to him; and after every rejected proposal he went

straight home and made a three-legged stool (he was a carpenter by

trade, or perhaps it might have affected him differently). He was what

one might call an importunate man, for he proposed nineteen times in

all, and nineteen three-legged stools stood as silent witnesses of his

importunity. He changed houses after the twelfth, for he found a sad joy

in contemplating his handiwork as he sat at his lonely meals, and his

first sitting-room was only twelve feet by eight. Finally, either

because of his importunity, or because she disliked the thought that the

wordless witnesses might fall into unsympathetic hands, the girl married

the man, and scrubbed the stools nicely with soap and sand, and grew

quite fond of them. And only once did she regret her surrender; and that

was when it flashed across her one day that twenty would have been a

prettier number: but she stifled that pain as years went on, and grew

happy. Then there was Dante's love for Beatrice, which caused him to sit

down and write such a lot. Most remarkable persons seem to have produced

something rather excellent as the outcome of their love. I know a

naturally lazy and slightly dingy boy who endured a nice clean collar

every day, and it cut his neck, and his soul abhorred it, for he told me

so; and he spent from seventy-five to ninety minutes over his toilet

every morning, while he loved, and he knew he could dress in four

minutes and a quarter, for he had done it often. Love was a great

beautifier. In this case I must admit that the lover suffered more than

we outsiders, except that he became irritable in his cleanliness. Love

should not be scorned, even if it is real and sometimes uncomfortably

practical. It is very beautiful, and lovers make a pretty sight. What I

protest is, that all creatures should be lovers--or _none_. It is the

half-and-half state of the world which is irksome.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Morley Roberts hopes Love will some day be a pleasing

reality]

Ah, my gentle cocksure friends, how well you all know Love, and how

ready you are to say what it is, to cut it up, to carve it, to classify

it, and generally to spread it out. We live in a world of lies, and

conventions, the dead leavings of an ignorant past, bind us still. Some

day, perhaps, when men and women are free, Love will be a pleasing

reality. It can never be so in the majority of cases so long as we play

at make-believe, and teach nothing that we have learned. The good man

won't teach his sons; he leaves them to learn in the gutter. The good

woman keeps her daughters ignorant. As it stands it is an evil to love

anyone over-much. And when we love we love over-much, for Love has been

repressed till it has got savage in the race. "La privation radicale

d'une chose crée léxeés." All the trouble comes from this--that we men

have partially created women. But Nature had something to do with her

compounding. That is, perhaps, a pity from the social point of view. For

Nature can't be nice and comfortable. She is only kind when we go her

way. Let us remember that Love is the foundation of the world. The very

protoplasmic cells from which we sprang could love. The time will come,

perhaps, when, having chipped away the lies and faced the truth, we

shall find reality a thousand times more pleasing than any fiction. Love

is something real and wonderful, and in a natural world we shall have

passed through the blood-splashed gates of Passion and be calm. Now Love

is tortured, for we love ignorantly. We are like shipwrecked folk on

some strange land--we know not the fruits of the trees of it. We learn

the poisons by experiment, and we let others learn. This is Love the

Fiction. But some day when we awake we shall know what we now dream, and

Love will be always the most precious flower that grows in the garden of

the soul. It has the subtle fragrance of the heaven that is our own if

we walk bravely in the world, desiring truth. Under its influence we

discover ourselves. We build ships for new voyages, and burst into

unknown waters with our Viking shields of victory ablaze in the morning

sun. The air is sharp and keen, not foetid with poisonous lies; the

waters are blue and beautiful; there are shining shores about us, and

marvels of a new nature on every hand. We who were in the night, and of

it, become vivid with the sun. Our atheism banishes the worshipped gods

of evil that are no more extant in our dogmatic creed of joy. For Truth

and Beauty have guided us hand in hand, and all they ask of us is to

throw away the Law of Lies and to acknowledge that the two are one.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Zangwill reviews the evidence.]

The traces left by Love in life are so numerous and diverse that I am

almost tempted to the hypothesis that it really exists. There seems to

be no other way of accounting for the facts. When you start learning a

new language you always find yourself confronted with the verb "to

love"--invariably the normal type of the first conjugation. In every

language on earth the student may be heard declaring, with more zeal

than discretion, that he and you and they and every other person,

singular or plural, have loved, and do love, and will love. "To love" is

the model verb; expressing the archetype of activity. Once you can love

grammatically there is a world of things you may do without stumbling.

For, strange to say, "to love," which in real life is associated with so

much that is bizarre and violent, is always "regular" in grammar, and

this without barring accidence of any kind. For ancient and modern

tongues tell the same tale--from Hebrew to street-Arabic, from Greek to

the elephantine language that was "made in Germany." Not only is "to

love" deficient in no language (as _home_ is deficient in French, and

_Geist_ in English), but it is never even "defective." No mood or tense

is ever wanting--a proof of how it has been conjugated in every mood and

tense of life, in association with every variety of proper and improper

noun, and every pronoun at all personal. Not merely have people loved

unconditionally in every language, but there is none in which they would

not have loved, or might not have loved, had circumstances permitted;

none in which they have not been loved, or (for hope springs eternal in

the human breast) have been about to be loved. Even woman has an Active

Voice in the matter; indeed, "to love" is so perfect that, compared with

it, "to marry" is quite irregular. For, while "to love" is sufficient

for both sexes, directly you get to marriage you find in some languages

that division has crept in, and that there is one word for the use of

ladies and another for gentlemen only. Turning from the evidence

enshrined in language to the records of history, the same truth meets us

at any date we appoint. Everywhere "'Tis love that makes the world go

round," though more especially in ball-rooms. It is awful to think what

would have happened if Eve had not accepted Adam. What could have

attracted her if it was not love? Surely not his money, nor his family.

For these she couldn't have cared a fig-leaf. Unfortunately, the

daughters of Eve have not always taken after their mother. The

statistics of crime and insanity testify eloquently to the reality of

love, arithmetic teaching the same lesson as history and grammar.

Consider, too, the piles of love at Mudie's! A million story-tellers in

all periods and at all places cannot have told all stories, though they

have all, alas! told the same story. They must have had mole-hills for

their mountains, if not straw for their bricks. There are those who,

with Bacon, consider love a variety of insanity; but it is more often

merely a form of misunderstanding. When the misunderstanding is mutual,

it may even lead to marriage. As a rule Beauty begets man's love, Power

woman's. At least, so women tell me. But then, I am not beautiful. It

must be said for the man that every lover is a species of Platonist--he

identifies the Beautiful with the Good and the True. The woman's

admiration has less of the ethical quality; she is dazzled, and too

often feels, "If he be but true to me, what care I how false he be." The

Romantic Love of the poets and novelists was of late birth; the savage

and many civilisations knew it not, and philosophers explain that it

could not be developed till Roman Law had developed the conception of

Marriage as a Contract. Even to this day it is as rare as large paper

editions of the books about it. Roughly speaking, I should say it would

spring up here and there among all classes of the population, except

poets and novelists. Romantic Love is the rose Evolution has grown on

earthly soil. _Floreat!_

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Burgin thinks it all depends on the people who love.]

One morning the average man gets up, lights his pipe, roams round his

rooms in all the ease of unshaven countenance and dressing-gown-clad

form. Then he goes out, and meets _her_. There may be a hundred women in

the room, or park, or tennis ground, wherever the tragedy (Love is a

tragedy) commences. When the lights are low he comes back, and is low

also. Wonders how men can be such brutes as to want dinner; thinks his

life has been misspent; that he is unworthy to touch her hand; that he

has wallowed in the fleshpots, and here is a way out of them. And if the

man's nature be noble and sweet and true; if he has hitherto drifted

adown the stream of circumstance because his fellows have also drifted;

then, with the deepening tides of his passion, the old spirit of

knight-errantry descends upon him with its mystic mantle of white

samite. And slowly out of this deepening torrent of bewildered impulse

and devotion is born a new man--a man with a soul--a man who can dare

all things, do all things, endure all things, for the sake of the woman

he loves. At the baptism of her touch he becomes whole, and shapes his

life to noble ends. Even if he can't marry her, he is the better for his

passion. Such a love endures until the leaves of the Judgment Book

unroll; for it laughs to scorn the pitiful fools who boast of

infidelity, the "male hogs in armour," as Kingsley calls them, who look

upon women as toys, the sport of an idle moment, rather than the

spiritual force which leavens the world, and makes it an endurable and

joyous dwelling-place.

[Sidenote: And on the woman loved.]

Of course, I was speaking of good women. I once heard a story about a

bad woman--a woman of the world, who was very much amused at being taken

seriously by a boy who loved her. "Tell me all about it," she would say

to him. "Explain what you feel, why you love me, why you believe in me.

Don't you see I'm courted and admired--a social force--that men flock

round me everywhere I go?" "Oh, yes," said the boy, "I see all that. But

you're an angel of goodness, and can't help men liking you. If I lost

faith in you, I'd kill myself." "Ah," she rejoined, "that's what you all

say. You would doubt me, and live on." Then, one afternoon, he had good

cause to doubt, inasmuch as her engagement to another man was announced.

That evening she received a note from him: "Good-bye. If I lived on, I

might doubt; it's better to die and--believe!" They told her of the--the

accident that night, and she wrote a touching little paragraph about it

for the Society papers before dining out.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Gribble generaliseth confidently.]

In a sense, of course, Love is necessarily a fiction, whether pleasing

or otherwise; for illusion is of the essence of it. The lover, in fact,

is like the artist who sees things through a temperament, and, by

eliminating the irrelevant, builds up the ideal on the foundation of the

real. Tityrus sees more in Amaryllis than his brother shepherds see,

just as Mr. Whistler sees more in a November fog than is visible to the

eye of the casual wayfarer who gets lost in it, and mingles profanity

with his coughs, yet, granting this, the reality and completeness of the

illusion does not admit of doubt. On no alternative hypothesis can the

great majority of marriages be explained. If commonplace people saw each

other as others see them, surely they would remain single all their

lives. Yet most people are commonplace, and most people marry. The

reality--the controlling over-mastering reality--of Love has to be

assumed to make their behaviour intelligible.

[Sidenote: Having hasted from a wedding for the purpose.]

This point struck me forcibly the last time I was present at a wedding.

It was a Jewish wedding, celebrated at the little synagogue behind the

Haymarket. I had no acquaintance with anyone concerned in the ceremony,

but had dropped in quite casually, having heard that Jewish weddings

were picturesque. The one thing that impressed me more than anything

else was the decided undesirability of both the bridegroom and the

bride. That the bride was not comely goes for little. But her forehead

indicated a limited range and low ideals; the corners of her mouth spoke

of an irritable temper; her bearing was vulgar; her voice had a twang

that made one long to take her by the shoulders and shake her violently.

She was also escorted by gaudy female relatives, by looking at whom one

could anticipate the awful possibilities of her maturity. As for the

bridegroom, he was a Hebrew of the florid type. His waistcoat was

protuberant; he had a red face with red whiskers sprawling all over it;

he wore flash jewellery; his hair shone with pomatum; there was that in

his bearing which indicated that he followed some sordid calling, such

as pawnbroking, or the backing of horses on commission. Yet one could

see that these two unattractive persons were really attracted by each

other. A great and beautiful miracle had been performed; and the power

which had performed it was that Love in which some profess to

disbelieve.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Frank Mathew displays his Ignorance.]

Ignorance--says some wiseacre--is the mother of eloquence, and I take it

that the less one knows of Love the easier it is to write of it. I side

with those who hold that the Love described by poets and other wordy

people is mainly fanciful, a flattering picture, that the best school

for such writing is an unhappy affection, and that no man can want

better luck than to have his heart broken, and so be made proof against

lovesickness. An unrequited love runs no risk of being dulled by the

prose of life. A man so fortunate as to be jilted or rejected finds his

Beloved remaining beautiful and young to him when her husband sees her

an unwieldy and wearisome old woman. And when at times he grows

sentimental--a bachelor's privilege--he can feel again the old hopes

that he never found false, and see the old perfections that were never

disproved. He has a life-companion who comes only when she is wanted,

and then with a "smile on her face and a rose in her hair," whose voice

is always gentle, to whom wrinkles are not necessary and bills are

not known.

[Sidenote: And praises ugliness.]

I am one of those who prefer the luckless adorers in novels to the

conquering heroes; and hold that the quality an ideal lover needs most

is ugliness, so that he may honour beauty the more. Once I knew a boy

who was uglier than sin, and who wrote a story--in a sprawling hand and

on ruled paper--a wonderful story, telling how an unlovely but admirable

Knight, worshipping a Princess, rode out to win her by great deeds, and

how when he came back triumphant, the sight of her brought his

unworthiness home to him so that he dared not claim her. And I knew

another boy who was good-looking, and wrote a story (during study-time,

of course, and by stealth) about a handsome hero who went to Court in

fine clothes, and was worshipped by all the girls. I think now that he

was the manlier, but that the first would have made the more devout

lover. But the drawback of luckless adorers is that their constancy has

not been tried by the ordeal of success. Many a fellow who lived loyal

and heart-broken would have made an unfaithful husband.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 'Q.' is surprised at his sister.]

Love, no doubt, is a subject of popular interest, but a man is always

staggered to find his sister holding an opinion upon it. If I remember

rightly, in the days when Lilian Quiller Couch (then aged seven) did me

the honour of playing Juliet to my Romeo, the interest was mainly

acrobatic, Romeo descending the gardener's ladder head-foremost, while

Juliet tilted her body as far over the nursery window-sill as she could

manage without breaking her neck. We "cut" the love speeches. Two years

later, indeed, my sister schemed to marry me to our common governess.

There was no love on my side; so she turned over the Prayer-book, hoping

to find "A man may not marry his governess" in the table of Forbidden

Degrees. Such a prohibition (she well knew) would be a trumpet-call to

my native spirit of disobedience. But I am convinced that even then the

nature of true affection did not enter into her calculations. She merely

counted on my marital influence to end or mend the French irregular

verbs. I am delighted that, in these later days, she sees Love to be a

"practical reality." For my part, I want a definition. Popular custom

bestows the name of Love on a green sickness which is in fact a part of

Nature's wise economy. I will expound. Almost all young men, say between

the ages of nineteen and twenty-five, incline to consume much meat and

do next to no work. Were there no corrective, it is clear that in a few

years the face of the earth would be eaten bare as by locusts. But at

this season Nature by the simplest stroke--the flush of a commonplace

cheek, the warm touch of a commonplace hand--in a twinkling redresses

the balance. Forthwith the ideal devourer of crops and herbs not only

loses his appetite, but arising, smacks the earth with a hoe till the

clods fly and the fields laugh with harvest. Thereon he mops his

steaming brow, bedecks him with a bunch of white ribbons, and jogs

jovially to church arm in arm with the pretty cause of all this

beneficent disturbance. And the spectacle is mighty taking and

commendable; but you'll excuse me for holding that it is not Love. It

bears about the same relation to Love that Bumble-puppy bears to good

whist. Among the eccentricities that make up the Average Man I find none

more diverting than his complacent belief that he is, or has been, or

will certainly some day be, in love. As a matter of fact, the capacity

to love belongs to one man or woman in ten thousand. Listen to

Matthew Arnold:

"But in the world I learnt, what there

Thou wilt too surely one day prove,

That will, that energy, though rare,

Are yet far, far less rare than love."

I go further and believe it rarer even than Genius. Indeed, the capacity

to love, is a specialised form of genius. You understand that I am not

commending it. Its possessors are often disreputable and almost always

unhappy. Their recompense is that they, and they only, have seen the

splendours of the passion, and vibrated to the shaking inner music of

the sheep-boy's pipe.