No. XVIII.--TO FAILURE.
SIR,--Hitherto, I seem to have been submitting to you examples that
cannot properly be described as failures. This was not my purpose.
I wished rather to describe one or two characters whose ruin, to a
greater or smaller degree, you have compassed by your influence.
But some sprite seemed to take possession of my pen; my efforts were
unsuccessful, and I was led away from my original purpose. Perhaps
that is one of the penalties of addressing you. We shall see! In any
case let me proceed with my task as best I may.
It happened to me once--the date is immaterial--that after a
considerable absence, I returned to London. You know, perhaps, how it
fares with those who, for any length of time, become exiles from their
native land. All the institutions, the small no less than the great,
that go to make up our varied social life at home, become glorified as
it were, and loom larger through the mist of absence. They become part
and parcel of a traveller's patriotism, even if in his home-life he
took no part in them. I was due to return at the end of May, in time
for the Derby-day. I am not a racing-man. I had never seen the Derby
run, chiefly, I fancy, because I had never had any desire to see it.
But I remember that amongst my brother-exiles, I was being eternally
congratulated on the good luck that took me home in time for this
great national event. "What, you are going to be back by the end of
May," one of them would say; "why you'll be able to go to the Derby?"
So that in time, I came to accept this possibility as a specially
enviable feature of my home-coming. From that, to making up my mind to
go to the Derby was but a step, I took it, and on the great day I made
one of the mighty crowd on Epsom Downs. I don't remember much about
the race. I met many friends who asked me, as is common in such cases,
if I was back already; a question to which it seems difficult to find
a suitable reply, if one's bodily presence is not to be accepted as a
sufficient evidence of the fact. Many others volunteered to put me
on to various absolute certainties, and one man chilled my newly-born
racing-patriotism by observing, that he would as soon have thought of
seeing FRED ARCHER at a meeting of the British Association.
[Illustration]
I don't mean to describe the scene on the Downs. One crowd is much
like another; and, when you have said something of the proverbial
good-nature of a British crowd, you have done all that can be justly
required of you, after seeing a hunted wretch all but torn in pieces
by a mob of blackguards worse than himself. However, I think I enjoyed
myself well enough. Others enjoyed themselves more, and amongst these
was a party of roystering, jovial fellows, who ate a hearty luncheon,
and drank much champagne, on the top of a hired drag. One of them
particularly attracted my attention. Somewhere, I knew, I had seen
that curious, clean-shaved, bull-frog face before. It was perfectly
familiar to me, but, for the life of me, I couldn't recall the
circumstances in which I had previously set eyes on it. He appeared
to be the leader of the revels, and kept his companions in fits of
laughter at his sallies. I beat my brains to remember him, but all
in vain. All that I could arrive at was a sense of incongruity, an
impression of the unexpected in the spectacle I had witnessed.
In the evening I went to the "Frivolity," to see the latest rays of
the lamp of burlesque. That scene, at any rate, was familiar.
There, in all their spotless panoply of expressionless face, and
irreproachable shirt-front, sat the golden lads of the Metropolis
in their rows, images of bored stupidity, stiffly cased in black
and white. There too, were to be seen the snowy shoulders and the
sparkling jewels of the ladies both of the smart and of the higher
half world, with here and there an extensive dowager to add weight and
decorum to the throng. The curtain drew up on one of the usual scenes
of rejoicing. Shapely ladies, in tights, chorused their delight at the
approaching nuptials of a great lord's daughter. Then the contented
peasantry of the surrounding district stepped forward to swell the
joyful strains, and to be regaled with draughts of sparkling
emptiness from the inexhaustible beaker wielded by the landlord of
the neighbouring inn. And there, under the broad hat of one of these
rejoicing peasants, I recognised the bull-frog face that had puzzled
me that day at Epsom. In a flash I remembered him and all the scenes
in which he had played a humble part. Far back from the dimness of
some of my earliest theatrical experiences, up to the present moment,
I followed him on his career, simulating joint merriment, bearing one
of many banners, carrying a pike or a halberd in an army similarly
armed, conspiring in a mantle, draining a brimming goblet, but
never--at least within my recollection--taking a part of any
individuality, or one that gave him a chance of singing or speaking a
single line by himself. He had been one of the ruck when I had first
seen him, and now, after at least twenty years, the ruck still claimed
him for its own. I remember I had woven a sort of romance about him.
There, I had thought to myself, is a man who, no doubt, began his
stage career with high aspirations, and noble ambitions. It cannot
have been his aim to figure for ever merely as one of a crowd. And I
had pictured him gradually losing hope, and wearing his heart out
in the bitterness of deferred ambition as he walked gloomily through
life, with the stamp of failure on his brow. The picture was a
pathetic one, you must admit, worthy to take its place on the line
with the well-known fancy sketch of the Clown who, after making the
masses split their sides, goes home to a private life of penury and
despair.
Well, that day I had seen a piece of my friend's private life
at Epsom. Nothing could have been farther removed from misery. A
light-hearted gaiety reigned in his face and ruled his every gesture.
His companions seemed to bow to him, as to their leading humorist and
mirth-maker. I was stimulated by the collapse of my elaborate illusion
to make inquiries about him. I found that he had been born almost on
the stage, and had taken part in stage-life from his earliest years.
He never had any ambition: so long as he could be on the stage,
and take part in its life, his desires were satisfied. He lived an
absolutely contented life, smoked infamous tobacco out of clay-pipes,
and was in high repute amongst his intimates as a singer of jovial
songs, and a teller of brisk theatrical anecdotes. There was not a
spark of envy in his nature. He honoured the great actors, and was
always ready to do all he could to smooth the path of any nervous
youngster with excellent advice and cheerful help. He is still acting.
Anybody who wishes can see him on any night, helping to troll forth
the chorus of a song of Mexican warriors in the great spectacular
drama of _Montezuma_. There is no more perfectly-satisfied being in
existence. On that I am prepared to stake my life. Let this tale then
be a warning to those who are over-hasty to construct romances of
pathetic contrast on an insufficient foundation. One hugs such stories
to one's heart, and it is something of a wrench to have to give them
up in the light of a fuller knowledge.
And here I am, having all but reached the limits of my appointed
space, without apparently having gone one step nearer to the
fulfilment of the task on which I set out. I can only ask you to
take the will for the deed in the meantime. And after all, if this
unambitious actor had only been what I imagined him to be, I could not
have produced an apter example. But he had the impertinence to live
his life in his own way, and that did not happen to accord with the
theories I had been led to form about it. Shall I never be able to
come to the point? I have not yet given up all hope?
Yours as usual,