gallows-tree, and their last dying speeches are somewhat rare; but we
may be pretty certain, from the little we know, that each one of them
fancies himself an estimable person. Ivan of Russia, the ferocious
ruler, who had men torn to pieces before his eyes, the being who had
forty thousand men, women, and children massacred in cold blood,
regarded himself as the deputy of the Supreme Being. The mad Capet,
who fired the signal which started tho massacre of St. Bartholomew,
believed that he was fulfilling the demands of goodness and orthodoxy.
The deadly inquisitors who roasted unhappy fellow mortals wholesale
believed--or pretended to believe--that they were putting their
victims through a benign ordeal. The heretic was a naughty child;
roast him, and his sin was purged; while the frosty-blooded old men
who murdered him looked to heaven and returned thanks for their own
special allowance of virtue. Conqueror and inquisitor, burglar and
murderer, forger and wife-beater, brutal sea-captain and prowling
thief--all the scoundrels go about their business with a full faith in
their own blamelessness. I do not like to class them as automata,
though the wise and genial Mr. Huxley would undoubtedly do so. What
shall we do with them? Is it fair that a wearied world and a toil-worn
society should maintain them? My own idea is that sentiment, softness,
regrets for severity should be banished, and we should say to the
scoundrel, "Attend, rascal! You say that you are wronged, and that you
are driven to harm your fellow-creatures by the force of external
circumstances; that may be so, but we have nothing to do with the
matter. Take notice that you shall eat bitter bread on earth, no
matter how you may whine, when our just grip is on you; if you persist
in practising scoundrelism, we shall make your lot harder and harder
for you; and, if in the end we find that you will go on working evil,
we shall treat you as a dangerous wild beast, and put you out of the
world altogether."
XXI.
QUIET OLD TOWNS.
A rather popular writer, who first came into notice by dint of naming
a book of essays, "Is Life worth Living?" gave us not long ago a very
sweet description of an English country town; and he worked himself up
to quite a moving pitch of rapture as he described the admirable
social arrangements which may be perceived on a market-day. This
enthusiast tells us how the members of the great county families drive
in to do their shopping. The stately great horses paw and champ at
their bits, the neat servants bustle about in deft attendance, and the
shopkeeper, who has a feudal sort of feeling towards his betters,
comes out to do proper homage. The great landowner brings his wealth
into the High Street or the market place, and the tradesmen raise
their voices to bless him. We have all heard of institutions called
"stores"; but still it is a pity to carp at a pretty picture drawn by
a literary artist. I know that rebellious tradesmen in many of the
shires use violent language as they describe the huge packing-cases
which are deposited at various mansions by the railway vans. I know
also that the regulation saddler who airs his apron at the door of his
shop on market-days will inform the stranger that the gentry get
saddles, harness, and everything else nowadays from the abominable
"stores"; but I must not leave my artist, and shall let the saddler
growl to himself for the present. The polished writer goes on to speak
of the ruddy farmer who strolls round in elephantine fashion and hooks
out sample-bags from his plethoric and prosperous pockets; the dealers
drive a brisk trade, the small shopkeepers are encouraged by their
neighbours from the country, and everything is extremely idyllic and
pure and pretty and representative of England at her best. The old
church rears its quaint height above the quainter houses that cluster
near. In the churchyard the generations of natives sleep sound; one
may trace some families back for hundreds of years, and thus perceive
how firmly the love of the true townsman clings to his native place.
Perhaps a castle looms over the modest streets and squares--it is
converted into a prison in all probability; but the sight of it brings
memories of haughty nobles, or of untitled personages whose pride of
race would put monarchs to the blush. The river flows sweetly past the
sleepy lovely town, and sober citizens walk solemnly beside the
rippling watery highway when the day's toil is over. On Sunday, when
the bells chime their invitation, all sorts and conditions of men meet
in the dim romantic precincts of the ancient church, and there is much
pleasant gossiping when morning and evening worship are ended. Good
old solid England is put before us in miniature when we glance at such
of the community as choose to show themselves before the artistic
observer, and, as we drive away along the sound level roads, we
say--if we are very literary and enthusiastic--"Happy little town!
Happy little nation!" Now that is all very pretty; and yet the
conscientious philosopher is bound to admit that there is another
side--nay, several other sides--to the charming picture. I do not want
any students of the modern French school to prove that rural life in
small towns may be as base and horrible as the life of crowded
cities--I do not want any minute analysis of degradation; but I may
prick a windbag of conceit and do some little service if I try to show
that the state of things in some scores of these delightful old places
is base and corrupt enough to warm the heart of the most exacting
cynic that ever thought evil of his fellow-creatures.
Let us go behind the scenes and see what the idyllic prospect looks
like from the rear. We must proceed with great deliberation, and we
must take our rustic society stratum by stratum. First, then, there
are the idle men who have inherited or earned fortunes, and who like
to settle in luxurious houses away from great centres of population.
Such men are always in great force on the skirts of quiet old towns,
and they are much revered by the tradesmen. I cannot help thinking
that the fate of the average "retired" man must be not a little
dolorous, for I find that the typical member of that class conducts
himself in much the same way no matter where he pitches his habitation
in broad England. He is saved if he has a hobby; but, without a hobby,
he is a very poor creature, and his ways of living on from day to day
are the reverse of admirable. If such a revolutionary institution as a
club has been established in the town, he may begin his morning's
round there; or, in default of a club, there is the "select" room in
the principal hotel. If he is catholic in his tastes and hungry for
conversation, he may wander from one house of call to another, and he
meets a large and well-chosen assortment of hucksters who come to bind
bargains with the inevitable "drink"; he meets the gossip who knows
all the secrets of the township, he meets flashy persons who have a
manly thirst which requires perpetual assuagement. Then he converses
to his heart's content; and, alas, what conversation it is--what
intellectual exertion is expended by these forlorn gossips in the
morning round that takes up the time of many men in a quiet town!
There is a little slander, a good deal of peeping out of windows, a
little discussion of the financial prospects ascribed to various men
in the neighbourhood, and an impartial examination of everybody's
private affairs. The regular crew of gossips hold it as a duty to know
and talk about the most minute details of each other's lives, and,
when a man leaves any given room where the piquant chatter is going
on, he is quite aware that he leaves his character behind him. The
state of his banking account is guessed at, the disposition of his
will is courageously foretold, the amounts which he paid to various
shopkeepers are added up with reverence or scorn according to the
amount--and the company revel in their mean babble until it is time to
go to another place and pull the character and the financial accounts
of somebody else to pieces. By luncheon time most of these useful
beings are a little affected in complexion and speech by the trifling
potations which wash down the scandal; but no one is intoxicated. To
be seen mastered by "drink" in the morning would cause a man to lose
caste; and, besides, if he said too much while his tongue was loose,
he would not be believed when next he set down a savoury mess for the
benefit of the company. Through all the talk of these wretched
entities, be it observed that money, money runs as a species of
key-note; the men may be coarse and servile, but a shrewd eye can
detect every sign of purse-pride. Let a gentleman of some standing
walk past a window where the grievous crew are wine-bibbing and
blabbing, and some one will say, "Carries hisself high enough, don't
he? He ain't got a thousand to fly with. I bet a bottle on it! Why,
me, or Jimmy there, or even old Billy Spinks, leaving out Harry, and
let alone the Doctor--any one on us could buy him out twelve times
over, and then have a bit of roast or biled for Sunday's dinner!" This
remark is received as a wise and trenchant tribute to the power of the
assembly, and they have more "drink" by way of self-gratulation. Those
poor "retired" men, and "independent" men, often go deeper and deeper
down the incline towards mental and moral degradation until they
become surprisingly repulsive specimens of humanity. In all their
dreary perambulations they rarely speak or hear an intelligent word;
they are amazingly ignorant concerning their country's affairs, and
their conceptions of politics are mostly limited to a broad general
belief that some particular statesman ought to be hanged.
As to the government of these quiet old places, there is much to be
said that is depressing. While men prate about the decay of trade and
the advance of poverty, how few people reflect on the snug fortunes
which are amassed in out-of-the-way corners! We hear of jobbery in the
metropolis, and jobbery in Government departments, but I take it that
the corporations of some little towns could give lessons in jobbery to
any corrupt official that ever plundered his countrymen. Some town
councils may be very briefly and accurately described as nests of
thieves. The thieves wear good clothes, go to church, and do not go to
prison--at least, the cases of detection are rare--but they are
thieves all the same. As a rule, no matter what a man's trade or
profession may be, he contrives to gather profit pretty freely when
once he joins the happy band who handle the community's purse. In some
cases the robbery is so barefaced and open that the particulars might
as well be painted on a monster board and hung up at the town cross;
but tradesmen, workmen, and others who have their living to make in
the town are terrorised, and they preserve a discreet silence in
public however much they may speak evil of dignities in private. As a
general rule, a show of decorum is kept up; yet I should think it
hardly possible for the average vestry or council to meet without an
interchange of winks among the members. John favours Tommy's tender
when Tommy contracts to horse all the corporation's water-carts,
dust-carts, and so forth; then Tommy is friendly when John wants to
sell his row of cottages to the municipality. If Tommy employs two
horses on a certain work and charges for twenty, then John and some
other backers support the transaction. Billy buys land to a heavy
extent, and refuses to build on it; houses are risky property, and
Billy can wait. An astute company meet at William's house and take
supper in luxurious Roman style; then James casually suggests that the
east end of the town is a disgrace to the council. Until the block of
houses in Blank Street is pulled down and a broad road is run straight
to join the main street, the place will be the laughingstock of
strangers. James is eloquent. How curious it is that the new road
which is to redeem the town from shame must run right over Billy's
building plots, and how very remarkable it is to think that the
corporation pays a swinging price for the precious land! Billy looks
more prosperous than ever; he sets up another horse, reduces rivals to
silence by driving forth in a new victoria, and becomes more and more
the familiar bosom friend of the bank manager. I might go on to give a
score of examples showing how innocent rate-payers are fleeced by
barefaced robbers, but the catalogue would be only wearisome. Let any
man of probity venture to force his way into one of these dens of
thieves and see how he will fare! It is a comic thing that the gangs
of jobbers consider that they have a prescriptive right to plunder at
large, and their air of aggrieved virtue when they are challenged by a
person whom they call an "interloper" is among the most droll and
humiliating farces that may be seen in life. The whole crew will make
a ferocious dead set at the intruder who threatens to pull their
quarry away from them; he will be coughed down or interrupted by
insulting noises, and he may esteem himself highly fortunate if he is
not asked to step outside and engage in single combat. Everything that
mean malignity can do to balk him will be done, and, unless he is a
very strong man physically and morally, the opposition will tire him
out. There is usually one dominant family in such towns--for the
possibility of making a heavy fortune by a brewery or tannery or
factory in these quiet places is far greater than any outsider might
fancy. The members of the ruling family and their henchmen arise in
their might to crush the insolent upstart who wants to see accounts
and vouchers: the chairman will rise and say, "Let me tell Mr. X. that
me and my family were old established inhabitants in this ancient
borough long before he came, and we'll be here long after he has gone
bankrupt. We don't require no strangers: the people in this borough
has always managed their own affairs, and by the help of Providence
they'll go on in the good old way in spite of any swell that comes
a-sniffin' and a-smellin' and a-pryin' and a-askin' for accounts about
this and that and the other; and I tell the gentleman plain, the
sooner this council sees his back the better they'll be pleased; so,
if he's not too thick in the skin, let him take a friendly hint and
take himself off." A withering onslaught like this is received with
tumultuous applause, and other speakers follow suit. It is seldom that
a man has nerve enough to stand such brutality from his hoggish
assailants, and the ring of jobbers are too often left to work their
will unchecked. Are such people fit for political power? Ask the
wretched rich man who indirectly buys the seat, and hear his record of
dull misery if he is inclined to be confidential. He does not like to
leave Parliament, and yet he knows he is merely a mark for the
licensed pickpocket; he is not regarded as a politician--he is a donor
of sundry subscriptions, and nothing more. The men in manufacturing
centres will return a poor politician and pay his expenses; but the
people in some quiet towns have about as much sentiment or loyalty as
they have knowledge; and they treat their member of Parliament as a
gentleman whose function it is to be bled, and bled copiously. A sorry
sight it is!
One very remarkable thing in these homes of quietness is the
marvellous power possessed by drink-sellers. These gentry form the
main links in a very tough chain, and they hang together with touching
fidelity; their houses are turned into scandal-shops, and they prosper
so long as they are ready to cringe with due self-abasement before the
magistrates. No refined gentleman who keeps himself to his own class
and refrains from meddling with politics could ever by any chance
imagine the airs of broad-blown impudence which are sometimes assumed
by ignorant and stupid boors who have been endowed with a license; and
assuredly no one would guess the extent of their political power
unless he had something to do with election business. The landlord of
fiction hardly exists in the quiet towns; there is seldom a smiling,
suave, and fawning Boniface to be seen; the influential drink-seller
is often an insolent familiar harpy who will speak of his own member
of Parliament as "Old Tom," and who airily ventures to call gentlemen
by their surnames. The man is probably so benighted in mind that he
knows nothing positive about the world he lives in; his manners are
hideous, his familiarity is loathsome, his assumptions of manly
independence are almost comic in their impudence; but he has his uses,
and he can influence votes of several descriptions. Thus he asserts
himself in detestable fashion; and people who should know better
submit to him. One electioneering campaign in a quiet town would give
a salutary lesson to any politician who resolutely set himself to
penetrate into the secret life of the society whose suffrages he
sought; he would learn why it is that the agents of all the factions
treat the drink-seller with deference.
So the queer existence of the tranquil place moves on; petty scandal,
petty thieving, petty jobbery, petty jealousy employ the energies of
the beings who inhabit the "good old town"--the borough is always good
and old--and a man with a soul who really tried to dwell in the moral
atmosphere of the community would infallibly be asphyxiated. Nowhere
are appearances so deceptive; nowhere do the glamour of antiquity and
the beauty of natural scenery draw the attention away from so vile a
centre. I could excuse any man who became a pessimist after a long
course of conversations in a sleepy old borough, for he would see that
a mildew may attack the human intelligence, and that the manners of a
puffy well-clad citizen may be worse than those of a Zulu Kaffir. The
indescribable coarseness and rudeness of the social intercourse, the
detestable forms of humour which obtain applause, the low distrust and
trickery are quite sufficient to make a sensitive man want to hide
himself away. If any one thinks I am too hard, he should try spending
six whole weeks in any town which is called good and old; if he does
not begin to agree with me about the end of the fifth week I am much
in error.
XXII.
THE SEA.
Is there anything new to say about it? Alas, have not all the poets
done their uttermost; and how should a poor prose-writer fare when he
enters a region where the monarchs of rhythm have proudly trodden? It
is audacious; and yet I must say that our beloved poets seem somehow
to fail in strict accuracy. Tennyson wanders and gazes and thinks; he
strikes out some immortal word of love or despair when the awful
influence of the ocean touches his soul; and yet he is not the poet
that we want. One or two of his phrases are pictorial and decisive--no
one can better them--and the only fault which we find with them is
that they are perhaps a little too exquisite. When he says, "And white
sails flying on the yellow sea," he startles us; but his picture done
in seven words is absolutely accurate. When he writes of "the scream
of the maddened beach," he uses the pathetic fallacy; but his science
is quite correct, for the swift whirling of myriads of pebbles does
produce a clear shrill note as the backdraught streams from the shore.
But, when he writes the glorious passion beginning, "Is that enchanted
moan only the swell Of the long waves that roll-in yonder bay?" we
feel the note of falsity at once--the swell does not moan, and the
poet only wanted to lead up to the expression of a mysterious ecstasy
of love. Again, the most magnificent piece of word-weaving in English
is an attempted description of the sea by a man whose command of a
certain kind of verse is marvellous. Here is the passage--
"The sea shone
And shivered like spread wings of angels blown
By the sun's breath before him, and a low
Sweet gale shook all the foam-flowers of thin snow
As into rainfall of sea-roses, shed
Leaf by wild leaf in the green garden bed
That tempests still and sea-winds turn and plough;
For rosy and fiery round the running prow
Fluttered the flakes and feathers of the spray
And bloomed like blossoms cast by God away
To waste on the ardent water; the wan moon
Withered to westward as a face in swoon
Death-stricken by glad tidings; and the height
Throbbed and the centre quivered with delight
And the deep quailed with passion as of love,
Till, like the heart of a new-mated dove,
Air, light, and wave seemed full of burning rest"--
and so on. Superb, is it not? And yet that noble strain of music gives
us no true picture of our dear, commonplace, terrible sea; it reminds
us rather of some gaudy canvas painted for the theatre. The lines are
glorious, the sense of movement and swing is conveyed, and yet--and
yet it is not the sea. We fancy that only the prose-poets truly
succeed; and the chief of them all--the matchless Mr. Clark
Russell--gets his most moving effects by portraying the commonplace
aspects of the water in a way that reminds people of things which they
noticed but failed to admire promptly. Mr. Russell's gospel is plain
enough; he watches minutely, and there is not a flaw of wind or a
cross-drift of spray that does not offer some new emotion to his quick
and sensitive soul.
I want all those who are now dwelling amid the shrewd sweetness of the
sea-air to learn how to gain simple pleasure from gazing on the
incessant changes that mark the face of the sea. The entertainment is
so cheap, so fruitful of lovely thought, so exhilarating, that I can
hardly keep my patience when I see those wretched men who carry a
newspaper to the beach on a glad summer morning, and yawn in the face
of the Divine spectacle of wave and cloud and limpid sky. Let no one
think that I picture the sea as always gladsome. Ah, no! I have seen
too much of storm and stress for that. On one awful night long ago, I
waited for hours watching waves that reared and thundered as if they
would charge headlong through the streets of the town. The white
crests nickered like flame, and below the crests the dreadful inky
bulge of each monster rolled on like doom--like death. Throughout the
mad night of tempest the guns from many distressed vessels rang out,
and I could see the violent sweep of the ships' lights as they were
hurled in wild arcs from crest to crest. Many and many a corpse lay
out on those sands in the morning; the bold, bronzed men stared with
awful glassy stare at the lowering sky; the little cabin-boy clasped
his fragment of wreckage as though it had been a toy, and smiled--oh,
so sweetly!--in spite of the cruel sand that filled his dead eyes.
There was turmoil enough out at sea, for the steadily northerly drift
was crossed by a violent roll from the east, and these two currents
were complicated in their movement by a rush of water that came like a
mill-race from the southward. Imagine a great city tossed about by a
monstrous earthquake that first dashes the streets against each other,
and then flings up the ruins in vast rolls; that may give some idea of
that memorable storm. One poor, pretty girl saw her husband gallantly
trying to make the harbour. Long, long had she waited for him, and day
by day had she tried to track the vessel's course; the smart barque
had gone round the Horn, and escaped from the perils of the Western
Ocean in dead winter, and now she was heaving convulsively as she
strove to run into harbour at home. Right and left the grey billows
hit her, and we could see her keel sometimes when the wan light of the
morning broke. The girl stared steadily, and her face was like that of
a corpse. The barque swung southward, and with the speed of a railway
engine rushed on to the stones; the pretty girl moaned, "Oh me!--oh
me!" She never saw her lad again until his battered body was in the
dead-house of the pier. A commonplace red-haired woman was in a
dreadful state of mind when she saw a large fishing-boat trying to run
for the harbour. Her husband and two sons were aboard, she said, so
she had reasons for anxiety. The boat was pitched about like a cork;
and presently one fearful sea fairly smashed her. The red-haired woman
fell down upon the sand, and lay there moaning.