for granted in the whole set that every female member of it must
inevitably be divorced, if the catastrophe had not occurred already;
and one man asked Walpole, "Who's your proctor?" just as he would have
asked, "Who's your tailor?" An unspeakable society--a hollow,
heartless, callous, wicked brood. Compare that crew of furious
money-grabbers with our modern gentlemen and ladies! We have our
faults--crime and vice flourish; but, from the Court down to the
simplest middle-class society in our provincial towns, the spread of
seemliness and purity is distinctly marked. Some insatiable grumblers
will have it that our girls and women are deteriorating, and we are
informed that the taste for objectionable literature is keener than it
used to be. It is a distinct libel. No one save a historian would now
read the corrupting works of Mrs. Aphra Behn; and yet it is a fact
that those novels were read aloud among companies of ladies. A man
winces now if he is obliged to turn to them; the girls in the "good
old times" heard them with never a blush. Wherever we turn we find the
same steady advance. Can any creature be more dainty, more sweet, more
pure, than the ordinary English girl of our day? Will any one bring
evidence to show that the girls of the last century, or of any other,
were superior to our own maidens? No evidence has been produced from
literature, from journals, from family correspondence, and I am pretty
certain that no evidence exists. Practically speaking, the complaints
of the decline of morality are merely uttered as a mode of showing the
talker's own superiority.
XVI.
"RAISING THE LEVEL OF AMUSEMENTS."
It is really most kind on the part of certain good people to
reorganise the amusements of the people; but, as each reorganiser
fancies himself to be the only man who has the right notion, it
follows that matters are becoming more and more complicated. For
example, to begin with literature, a simple person who has no taste
for profundities likes to read the old sort of stories about love's
pretty fever; the simple person wants to hear about the trials and
crosses of true lovers, the defeat of villains--to enjoy the kindly
finish where faith and virtue are rewarded, and where the unambitious
imagination may picture the coming of a long life of homely toil and
homely pleasure. Perhaps the simple personage has a taste for dukes--I
know of one young person aged thirteen who will not write a romance of
her own without putting her hero at the very summit of the peerage--or
wicked baronets, or marble halls. These tastes are by no means
confined to women; sailors in far-away seas most persistently beguile
their scanty leisure by studying tales of sentiment, and soldiers are,
if possible, more eager than seamen for that sort of reading. The
righteous organiser comes on the scene, and says, "We must not let
these poor souls fritter away any portion of their lives on
frivolities. Let us give them less of light literature and more of the
serious work which may lead them to strive toward higher things." The
aggressively righteous individual has a most eccentric notion of what
constitutes "light" literature; he never thinks that Shakspere is
decidedly "light," and I rather fancy that he would regard
Aristophanes as heavy. If one were to suggest, on his proposing to
place the Irving Shakspere on the shelves of a free library, that the
poet is often foolish, often a buffoon of a low type, often a mere
quibbler, and often ribald, he might perhaps have a fit, or he might
inquire if the speaker were mad--assuredly he would do something
impressive; but he would not scruple to deliver an oration of the
severest type if some sweet and innocent story of love and tenderness
and old-fashioned sentiment were proposed. As for the lady who
dislikes "light" literature, she is a subject for laughter among the
gods. To see such an one present a sensible workman with a pamphlet
entitled "Who Paid for the Mangle?--or, Maria's Pennies," is to know
what overpowering joy means. Yet the severe and strait-laced censors
are not perhaps so much of a nuisance as the sternly-cultured and
emotional persons who "yearn" a great deal. The "yearnest" man or
woman always has an ideal which is usually the vaguest thing in the
cloudland of metaphysics. I fancy it means that one must always be
hankering after something which one has not and keeping a look of
sorrow when one's hankering is fruitless. The feeling of pity with
which a "yearnest" one regards somebody who cares only for pleasant
and simple or pathetic books is very creditable; but it weighs on the
average human being. Why on earth should a girl leave the tenderness
of "The Mill on the Floss" and rise to "Daniel Deronda's" elevated but
barren and abhorrent level? There are people capable of advising girls
to read such a literary production as "Robert Elsmere"; and this
advice reveals a capacity for cruelty worthy of an inquisitor. Then we
are bidden to leave the unpolished utterances of frank love and
jealousy and fear and anger in order that we may enjoy the peculiar
works of art which have come from America of late. In these
enthralling fictions all the characters are so exceedingly refined
that they can talk only by hints, and sometimes the hints are very
long. But the explanations of the reasons for giving the said hints
are still longer; and, when once the author starts off to tell why
Crespigny Conyers of Conyers Magna, England, stumbled against the
music-stool prepared for the reception of Selina Fogg, Bones Co.,
Mass., one never knows whether the fifth, the twelfth, or the fortieth
page of the explanation will bring him up. There is no doubt but that
these things are refined in their way. The British peer and the
beautiful American girl hint away freely through three volumes; and it
is understood that they either go through the practical ceremony of
getting married at the finish, or decline into the most
delicately-finished melancholy that resignation, or more properly,
renunciation can produce. Yet the atmosphere in which they dwell is
sickly to the sound soul. It is as if one were placed in an orchid
house full of dainty and rare plants, and kept there until the quiet
air and the light scents overpowered every faculty. In all the doings
of these superfine Americans and Frenchmen and Britons and Italians
there is something almost inhuman; the record of a strong speech, a
blow, a kiss would be a relief, and one young and unorthodox person
has been known to express an opinion to the effect that a naughty word
would be quite luxurious. The lovers whom we love kiss when they meet
or part, they talk plainly--unless the girls play the natural and
delightful trick of being coy--and they behave in a manner which human
beings understand. Supposing that the duke uses a language which
ordinary dukes do not affect save in moments of extreme emotion, it is
not tiresome, and, at the worst, it satisfies a convention which has
not done very much harm. Now on what logical ground can we expect
people who were nourished on a literature which is at all events
hearty even when it chances to be stupid--on what grounds can the
organisers of improvement expect an English man or woman to take a
sudden fancy to the diaphanous ghosts of the new American fiction? I
dislike out-of-the-way words, and so perhaps, instead of "diaphanous
ghosts," I had better say "transparent wraiths," or "marionettes of
superfine manufacture," or anything the reader likes that implies
frailty and want of human resemblance. It all comes to the same thing;
the individuals who recommend a change of literature as they might
recommend a change of air do not know the constitutions of the
patients for whom they prescribe. It has occurred to me that a
delightful comedy scene might be witnessed if one of the badgered folk
who are to be "raised" were to say on a sudden, "In the name of
goodness, how do you know that my literature is not better than yours?
Why should I not raise you? When you tell me that these nicely-dressed
ladies and gentlemen, who only half say anything they want to say and
who never half do anything, are polished and delightful, and so on, I
grant that they are so to you, and I do not try to upset your
judgment. But your judgment and my taste are two very different
things; and, when I use my taste, I find your heroes and heroines very
consummate bores; so I shall keep to my own old favourites." Who could
blame the person who uttered those very awkward protests? The question
to me is--Who need most to be dealt with--those who are asked to learn
some new thing, or those who have learned the new thing and show signs
that they would be better if they could forget it? I should not have
much hesitation in giving an answer.
Then, as to public amusements, we have to look quite as closely and
distrustfully at the action of the reformers as we have at the action
of the kind gentlefolk who are going to give us "Daniel Deronda" and
the highly entertaining works of Mr. William Deans Howells in place of
the dear welcome stories that pass away the long hours. Let it be
understood that I do not wish to say one word likely to be construed
into a jeer at real culture; but I must, as a matter of mercy, say
something in defence of those who cannot understand or win emotions
from such things as classical music or the "advanced" drama. Pray, in
pity's name, what is to be said against the commonplace man who hears
an accomplished musician play Beethoven, Bach, or Chopin in his--the
commonplace one's--drawing-room, and who says in agony, "Very fine!
Very deep! Very profound--profound indeed, sir! Full of breadth and
symmetry and that sort of thing! Now do you think we might vary that
noble masterpiece with a waltz?" Can we blame the poor fellow? Wagner
represents a noise to him, and the awful scorn and despair of the
first movement in the "Moonlight Sonata" only lead him to say, "Heavy
play with that left hand. Can't he go faster over the treble, or
whatever they call it?" He wants intelligible musical ideas, and we
have no right to begin "level-raising" with the unhappy and
remonstrant man. The music halls in London are now under strict
supervision, and some of them used to need it very much in days gone
by. Personally I should suppress the male comic singer who tries to
win a laugh from degraded listeners by unseemly means, and I should
not scruple to draft a short Act ensuring imprisonment for such as he;
but, so long as the entertainment remains inoffensive to the general
good sense of the community, we need not weep greatly if it is
sometimes just a trifle stupid. No one who does not know the inner
life of the working-classes can imagine how restricted are their
interests. Moreover, I shall venture on making a somewhat startling
statement which may surprise those who look on the surface of things
as indicated in the newspapers. The working-classes of a certain grade
cherish a certain convention regarding themselves, but they do not
understand their own set at all. If they heard a real mechanic or
labourer spouting sentiment in the shop or the club, they would
silence him very summarily; but the stage working-man, the stage
hawker, the stage tinker may utter any claptrap that he likes, and the
audience try to believe that they might possibly have been able to
talk in the same way but for circumstances. It is not at any time
pleasant to see people going on under a delusion; but, supposing the
delusion is no worse than that of the man who thinks himself handsome
or witty or fascinating while he is really plain or silly or a bore,
what can the mistake matter to anybody? We smile at the little vanity,
and perhaps pride ourselves a little on our own remarkable
superiority, and there the business may very well end. The men of the
music hall live, as I have said, entirely in a dull convention; and,
if a set of thorough artists were to portray them exactly, no one
would be more surprised than the folk whose portraits were taken. The
gentlemen who are resolved to regenerate the music-hall stage persist
in not considering the audience; and yet, when all is said and done,
the poor stupid audience should be considered a little. If we played
Browning's "Strafford" for them, how much would they be "raised"? They
would not laugh, they would not yawn; they would be stupefied, and a
trifle insulted. Give them a good silly swinging chorus about some
subject connected with the tender affections, and let the refrain run
to a waltz rhythm or to a striking drawl, and they are satisfied in
mind and rejoice exceedingly. The finer class of people in the
East-end of London seem to enjoy the very noblest and even the most
abstruse of sacred music at the Sunday concerts; but it will be long
before the music-hall audiences are educated up even to the standard
of those crowds who come off the Whitechapel pavements to hear Handel.
We cannot hurry them: why try? Their lives are very hard, and, when
the brief gleam comes on the evening of evenings in the week, we
should be content with ensuring them decency, safety, order, and let
them enjoy their own entertainment in their own way. A thoroughly
prosaic and logical preacher might say to those poor souls with
perfect truth, "Why do you waste time in coming here to see things
which are done much better in the streets? You roar and cheer and
stamp when you see a real cab-horse come across from the wings, and
yet in an hour you might watch a hundred cabs pass you in the street
and you would not cheer the least bit. You hear a costermonger on the
stage say, 'Give me my 'umble fireside, and let my good old missus
'and me my cup o' tea and my 'ard-earned bit o' bread, and all the
dooks and lords in Hengland ain't nothin' to me!'--you hear that, and
you know quite well that no costermonger on this goodly earth ever
talked in that way, and still you cheer. You like only what is unreal,
and, when you are shown a character which is supposed in some
mysterious way to resemble you, you are more than delighted, and you
applaud a thing which is either a silly caricature or an utterly
foolish libel." The poor and lowly personage thus hailed with cutting
denunciation and logic might say, "Please mind your own business. Do
you pay my sixpence for the gallery? No; I find it myself, and I come
to have my bit of fun with my own money, in my own place, at my own
price. I have enough of workshops and streets and what you call real
things; so, when I come out to the play, I want them all unreal, and
as unreal as possible. Monday morning's time enough to go back to
reality." As often as ever fussy reformers try to do more than ensure
propriety in theatres, so often will they be beaten; and I am quite
sure that, if any attempt is made to go too far, we may have on any
day a repetition of the O.P. riots, which almost ended in the wrecking
of the patent playhouses. Let us be treated like grown beings, and not
as if we were still in short baby-frocks. Men resent many things, but
they resent being made ridiculous more than all. The committees before
which many theatrical managers were obliged to appear a few years
since have done good in a few instances; but they have often played
the most ridiculous pranks, and they have roused grave fears in minds
unused to know fear of any kind. The peculiar prying questions, the
successful attempts made to interfere with concerns which should not
on any account be public property, the disposition to treat the
people, whose mature wisdom is proclaimed from all political
platforms, as little children, all combine to make the aspect of the
general question not a little alarming. Would it not be better then,
in sum, to abstain from raising levels to such a mighty extent, and to
strive after improving all the amusements on a less heroic scale?
XVII.
A LITTLE SERMON ON FAILURES.
If we study the history of men with patience, it becomes evident that
no great work has ever been done in the world save by those who have
met with bitter rebuffs and severe trials at the beginning of their
career. It seems as though the ruling powers imposed an ordeal on
every human being, in order to single out the strong and the worthy
from the cowardly and worthless. The weakling who meets with trouble
uplifts his voice in complaint and ceases to struggle against
obstacles; the strong man or woman remains silent and strives on
indomitably until success is achieved. It is strange to see how many
complaining weaklings are living around us at this day, and how
querulous and unjust are the outcries addressed to Fate, Fortune, and
Providence. We are the heirs of the ages; we know all about the brave
souls that suffered and strove and conquered in days gone by, and yet
many who possess this knowledge, and who have the gift of expression
at its highest, spend their time in one long tiresome whimper. Half
the poetry of our time is rhythmic complaint; young men who have
hardly had time to look round on the splendid panorama of life profess
to crave for death, and young women who should be thinking only of
work and love and brightness prefer to sink into languor. There is no
curing a poet when once he takes to being mournful, for he hugs his
own woe with positive pleasure, and all his musical pathos is simply
self-pity.
When Napoleon said, "You must not fear Death, my lads. Defy him, and
you drive him into the enemy's ranks!" he uttered a truth which
applies in the moral world as on the battle-field. The sudden panic
which causes battalions of troops to hesitate and break up in
confusion is paralleled by the numbing despair which seems to seize on
the forces of the soul at times. Brave men gaze calmly on the trouble
and think within themselves, "Now is the hour of trial; it is needful
to be strong and audacious;" weak men drop into hopeless lassitude,
and the few who happen to be foolish as well as weak rid themselves of
life. I dare say that hardly one of those who read these lines has
escaped that one awful moment when effort appears vain, when life is
one long ache, and when Time is a creeping horror that seems to lag as
if to torture the suffering heart. We need only turn to the vivid
chapter of modern life to see the utter folly of "giving in." Let us
look at the life-history of a statesman who died some years ago in our
country, after wielding supreme power and earning the homage of
millions. When young Benjamin D'Israeli first entered society in
London, he found that the proud aristocrats looked askance at him. He
came of a despised race, he had no fortune, his modes of acting and
speaking were strange to the cold, self-contained Northerners among
whom he cast his lot, and his chances looked far from promising. He
waited and worked, but all things seemed to go wrong with him; he
published a poem which was laughed at all over the country; he strove
to enter Parliament, and failed again and again; middle age crept on
him, and the shadows of failure seemed to compass him round. In one
terrible passage which he wrote in a flippant novel called "The Young
Duke" he speaks about the woful fate of a man who feels himself full
of strength and ability, and who is nevertheless compelled to live in
obscurity. The bitter sadness of this startling page catches the
reader by the throat, for it is a sudden revelation of a strong man's
agony. At last the toiler obtained his chance, and rose to make his
first speech in the House of Commons. He was then long past thirty
years of age; but he had the exuberance and daring of a boy. All the
best judges in the Commons admired the opening of the oration; but the
coarser members were stimulated to laughter by the speaker's strange
appearance. D'Israeli had dressed himself in utter defiance of all
conventions; he wore a dark green coat which came closely up to his
chin, a gaudy vest festooned with chains, and glittering rings. His
ringlets were combed in a heavy mass over his right shoulder; and it
is said that he looked like some strange actor. The noise grew as he
went on; his finest periods were lost amid howls of derision, and at
last he raised his arms above his head, and shouted, "I sit down now;
but the time will come when you will hear me!" A few good men consoled
him; but most of his friends advised him to get away out of the
country that his great failure might be forgotten. Now here was cause
for despair in all conscience; the brilliant man had failed
disastrously in the very assembly which he had sworn to master, and
the sound of mockery pursued him everywhere. His hopes seemed
blighted; his future was dim, he was desperately and dangerously in
debt, and he had broken down more completely than any speaker within
living memory. Take heart, all sufferers, when you hear what follows.
For eleven long years the gallant orator steadily endeavoured to
repair his early failure; he spoke frequently, asserted himself
without caring for the jeers of his enemies, and finally he won the
leadership of the House by dint of perseverance, tact, and intellect.
We cannot tell how often his heart sank within him during those weary
years; we know nothing of his forebodings; we only know that outwardly
he always appeared alert, vigorous, strenuously hopeful. At last his
name was known all over the world, and, after his death, a traveller
who rode across Asia Minor was again and again questioned by the wild
nomads--"Is your great Sheikh dead?" they asked. The rumour of our
statesman's power had traversed the earth. Men of all parties
acknowledge the indomitable courage of this man who refused to resign
the struggle even when the very Fates seemed to have decreed his ruin.
Take a man of another stamp, and observe how he met the first blows of
Fortune. Thomas Carlyle had dwelt on a lonely moorland for six years.
He came to London and employed himself with feverish energy on a book
which he thought would win him bread, even if it did not gain him
fame. Writing was painful to him, and he never set down a sentence
without severe labour. With infinite pains he sought out the history
of the French Revolution and obtained a clear picture of that
tremendous event. Piece by piece he put his first volume together and
satisfied himself that he had done something which would live. He
handed his precious manuscript to Stuart Mill, and Mill's servant lit
the fire with it. Carlyle had exhausted his means, and his great work
was really his only capital. Like all men who write at high pressure,
he was unable to recall anything that he had once set down, and, so
far as his priceless volume went, his mind was a blank. Years of toil
were thrown away; time was fleeting, and the world was careless of the
matchless historian. The first news of his loss stunned him, and, had
he been a weak man, he would have collapsed under the blow. He saw
nothing but bitter poverty for himself and his wife, and he had some
thoughts of betaking himself to the Far West; but he conquered his
weakness, forgot his despair in labour, and doggedly re-wrote the
masterpiece which raised him to instant fame and caused him to be
regarded as one of the first men in Britain. In the whole wide history
of human trials I cannot recall a more shining instance of fortitude
and triumphant victory over obstacles. Let those who are cast down by
some petty trouble think of the lonely, poverty-stricken student
bending himself to his task after the very light of his life had been
dimmed for a while.