On a foggy forenoon, two or three days ago, I wanted to make my way
quickly from Hengler’s Circus to Drury Lane Theatre, without losing
time which might be philosophically employed; and therefore afoot, for
in a cab I never can think of anything but how the driver is to get
past whatever is in front of him.
On foot, then, I proceeded, and accordingly by a somewhat complex
diagonal line, to be struck, as the stars might guide me, between
Regent Circus and Covent Garden. I have never been able, by the way, to
make any coachman understand that such diagonals were not always
profitable. Coachmen, as far as I know them, always possess just enough
geometry to feel that the hypothenuse is shorter than the two sides,
but I never yet could get one to see that an hypothenuse constructed of
cross streets in the manner of the line A C, had no advantage, in the
matter of distance to be traversed, over the simple thoroughfares A B,
B C, while it involved the loss of the momentum of the carriage, and a
fresh start for the cattle, at seventeen corners instead of one, not to
mention the probability of a block at half a dozen of them, none the
less frequent since underground railways, and more difficult to get out
of, in consequence of the increasing discourtesy and diminishing
patience of all human creatures.
Now here is just one of the pieces of practical geometry and dynamics
which a modern schoolmaster, exercising his pupils on the positions of
letters in the word Chillianwallah, would wholly despise. Whereas, in
St. George’s schools, it shall be very early learned, on a square and
diagonal of actual road, with actual loaded wheelbarrow—first
one-wheeled, and pushed; and secondly, two-wheeled, and pulled. And
similarly, every bit of science the children learn shall be directly
applied by them, and the use of it felt, which involves the truth of it
being known in the best possible way, and without any debating thereof.
And what they cannot apply they shall not be troubled to know. I am not
the least desirous that they should know so much even of the sun as
that it stands still, (if it does). They may remain, for anything I
care, under the most simple conviction that it gets up every morning
and goes to bed every night; but they shall assuredly possess the
applicable science of the hour it gets up at, and goes to bed at, on
any day of the year, because they will have to regulate their own
gettings up and goings to bed upon those solar proceedings.
Well, to return to Regent Street. Being afoot, I took the complex
diagonal, because by wise regulation of one’s time and angle of
crossing, one may indeed move on foot in an economically drawn line,
provided one does not miss its main direction. As it chanced, I took my
line correctly enough; but found so much to look at and think of on the
way, that I gained no material advantage. First, I could not help
stopping to consider the metaphysical reasons of the extreme gravity
and self-abstraction of Archer Street. Then I was delayed a while in
Prince’s Street, Soho, wondering what Prince it had belonged to. Then I
got through Gerrard Street into Little Newport Street; and came there
to a dead pause, to think why, in these days of division of mechanical
labour, there should be so little space for classification of
commodities, as to require oranges, celery, butchers’ meat, cheap
hosiery, soap, and salt fish, to be all sold in the same alley.
Some clue to the business was afforded me by the sign of the ‘Hotel de
l’Union des Peuples’ at the corner, “bouillon et bœuf à emporter;” but
I could not make out why, in spite of the union of people, the
provision merchant at the opposite corner had given up business, and
left his house with all its upper windows broken, and its door nailed
up. Finally, I was stopped at the corner of Cranbourne Street by a sign
over a large shop advising me to buy some “screwed boots and shoes.” I
am too shy to go in and ask, on such occasions, what screwed boots are,
or at least too shy to come out again without buying any, if the people
tell me politely, and yet I couldn’t get the question what such things
may be out of my head, and nearly got run over in consequence, before
attaining the Arcadian shelter of Covent Garden. I was but just in time
to get my tickets for Jack in the Box, on the day I wanted, and put
them carefully in the envelope with those I had been just securing at
Hengler’s for my fifth visit to Cinderella. For indeed, during the last
three weeks, the greater part of my available leisure has been spent
between Cinderella and Jack in the Box; with this curious result upon
my mind, that the intermediate scenes of Archer Street and Prince’s
Street, Soho, have become to me merely as one part of the drama, or
pantomime, which I happen to have seen last; or, so far as the
difference in the appearance of men and things may compel me to admit
some kind of specific distinction, I begin to ask myself, Which is the
reality, and which the pantomime? Nay, it appears to me not of much
moment which we choose to call Reality. Both are equally real; and the
only question is whether the cheerful state of things which the
spectators, especially the youngest and wisest, entirely applaud and
approve at Hengler’s and Drury Lane, must necessarily be interrupted
always by the woful interlude of the outside world.
It is a bitter question to me, for I am myself now, hopelessly, a man
of the world!—of that woful outside one, I mean. It is now Sunday;
half-past eleven in the morning. Everybody about me is gone to church
except the kind cook, who is straining a point of conscience to provide
me with dinner. Everybody else is gone to church, to ask to be made
angels of, and profess that they despise the world and the flesh, which
I find myself always living in, (rather, perhaps, living, or
endeavouring to live, in too little of the last). And I am left alone
with the cat, in the world of sin.
But I scarcely feel less an outcast when I come out of the Circus, on
week days, into my own world of sorrow. Inside the Circus, there have
been wonderful Mr. Edward Cooke, and pretty Mademoiselle Aguzzi, and
the three brothers Leonard, like the three brothers in a German story,
and grave little Sandy, and bright and graceful Miss Hengler, all doing
the most splendid feats of strength, and patience, and skill. There
have been dear little Cinderella and her Prince, and all the pretty
children beautifully dressed, taught thoroughly how to behave, and how
to dance, and how to sit still, and giving everybody delight that looks
at them; whereas, the instant I come outside the door, I find all the
children about the streets ill-dressed, and ill-taught, and
ill-behaved, and nobody cares to look at them. And then, at Drury Lane,
there’s just everything I want people to have always, got for them, for
a little while; and they seem to enjoy them just as I should expect
they would. Mushroom Common, with its lovely mushrooms, white and gray,
so finely set off by the incognita fairy’s scarlet cloak; the golden
land of plenty with furrow and sheath; Buttercup Green, with its flock
of mechanical sheep, which the whole audience claps because they are of
pasteboard, as they do the sheep in Little Red Riding Hood because they
are alive; but in either case, must have them on the stage in order to
be pleased with them, and never clap when they see the creatures in a
field outside. They can’t have enough, any more than I can, of the
loving duet between Tom Tucker and little Bo Peep: they would make the
dark fairy dance all night long in her amber light if they could; and
yet contentedly return to what they call a necessary state of things
outside, where their corn is reaped by machinery, and the only duets
are between steam whistles. Why haven’t they a steam whistle to whistle
to them on the stage, instead of Miss Violet Cameron? Why haven’t they
a steam Jack in the Box to jump for them, instead of Mr. Evans? or a
steam doll to dance for them, instead of Miss Kate Vaughan? They still
seem to have human ears and eyes, in the Theatre; to know there, for an
hour or two, that golden light, and song, and human skill and grace,
are better than smoke-blackness, and shrieks of iron and fire, and
monstrous powers of constrained elements. And then they return to their
underground railroad, and say, ‘This, behold,—this is the right way to
move, and live in a real world.’
Very notable it is also that just as in these two theatrical
entertainments—the Church and the Circus,—the imaginative congregations
still retain some true notions of the value of human and beautiful
things, and don’t have steam-preachers nor steam-dancers,—so also they
retain some just notion of the truth, in moral things: Little
Cinderella, for instance, at Hengler’s, never thinks of offering her
poor fairy Godmother a ticket from the Mendicity Society. She
immediately goes and fetches her some dinner. And she makes herself
generally useful, and sweeps the doorstep, and dusts the door;—and none
of the audience think any the worse of her on that account. They think
the worse of her proud sisters who make her do it. But when they leave
the Circus, they never think for a moment of making themselves useful,
like Cinderella. They forthwith play the proud sisters as much as they
can; and try to make anybody else, who will, sweep their doorsteps.
Also, at Hengler’s, nobody advises Cinderella to write novels, instead
of doing her washing, by way of bettering herself. The audience, gentle
and simple, feel that the only chance she has of pleasing her
Godmother, or marrying a prince, is in remaining patiently at her tub,
as long as the Fates will have it so, heavy though it be. Again, in all
dramatic representation of Little Red Riding Hood, everybody
disapproves of the carnivorous propensities of the Wolf. They clearly
distinguish there—as clearly as the Fourteenth Psalm, itself—between
the class of animal which eats, and the class of animal which is eaten.
But once outside the theatre, they declare the whole human race to be
universally carnivorous—and are ready themselves to eat up any quantity
of Red Riding Hoods, body and soul, if they can make money by them.
And lastly,—at Hengler’s and Drury Lane, see how the whole of the
pleasure of life depends on the existence of Princes, Princesses, and
Fairies. One never hears of a Republican pantomime; one never thinks
Cinderella would be a bit better off if there were no princes. The
audience understand that though it is not every good little housemaid
who can marry a prince, the world would not be the least pleasanter,
for the rest, if there were no princes to marry.
Nevertheless, it being too certain that the sweeping of doorsteps
diligently will not in all cases enable a pretty maiden to drive away
from said doorsteps, for evermore, in a gilded coach,—one has to
consider what may be the next best for her. And next best, or, in the
greater number of cases, best altogether, will be that Love, with his
felicities, should himself enter over the swept and garnished steps,
and abide with her in her own life, such as it is. And since St.
Valentine’s grace is with us, at this season, I will finish my Fors,
for this time, by carrying on our little romance of the Broom-maker, to
the place in which he unexpectedly finds it. In which romance, while we
may perceive the principal lesson intended by the author to be that the
delights and prides of affectionate married life are consistent with
the humblest station, (or may even be more easily found there than in a
higher one,) we may for ourselves draw some farther conclusions which
the good Swiss pastor only in part intended. We may consider in what
degree the lightening of the wheels of Hansli’s cart, when they drave
heavily by the wood of Muri, corresponds to the change of the English
highway into Mount Parnassus, for Sir Philip Sidney; and if the
correspondence be not complete, and some deficiency in the divinest
power of Love be traceable in the mind of the simple person as compared
to that of the gentle one, we may farther consider, in due time, how,
without help from any fairy Godmother, we may make Cinderella’s life
gentle to her, as well as simple; and, without taking the peasant’s
hand from his labour, make his heart leap with joy as pure as a king’s.
[12]
Well, said Hansli, I’ll help you; give me your bag; I’ll put it among
my brooms, and nobody will see it. Everybody knows me. Not a soul will
think I’ve got your shoes underneath there. You’ve only to tell me
where to leave them—or indeed where to stop for you, if you like. You
can follow a little way off;—nobody will think we have anything to do
with each other.