THE PALACE OF DELIGHT.
There lies on the west and southwest of Stepney Green a triangular
district, consisting of an irregular four-sided figure--what Euclid
beautifully calls a trapezium--formed by the Whitechapel Road, the
Commercial Road, Stepney Green, and High Street, or Jamaica Street, or
Jubilee Street, whichever you please to call your frontier. This favored
spot exhibits in perfection all the leading features which characterize
the great Joyless City. It is, in fact, the heart of the East End. Its
streets are mean and without individuality or beauty; at no season and
under no conditions can they ever be picturesque; one can tell, without
inquiring, that the lives led in those houses are all after the same
model, and that the inhabitants have no pleasures. Everything that goes
to make a city, except the means of amusement, is to be found here.
There are churches and chapels--do not the blackened ruins of
Whitechapel Church stand here? There are superior "seminaries" and
"academies," names which linger here to show where the yearning after
the genteel survives; there is a board school, there is the great London
Hospital, there are almshouses, there are even squares in it--Sidney
Square and Bedford Square, to wit--but there are no gardens, avenues,
theatres, art galleries, libraries, or any kind of amusement whatever.
The leading thoroughfare of this quarter is named Oxford Street, which
runs nearly all the way from the New Road to Stepney Church. It begins
well with some breadth, a church and a few trees on one side, and
almshouses with a few trees on the other. This promise is not kept; it
immediately narrows and becomes like the streets which branch out of it,
a double row of little two-storied houses, all alike. Apparently, they
are all furnished alike; in each ground-floor front there are the red
curtains and the white blind of respectability, with the little table
bearing something, either a basket of artificial flowers, or a big Bible
or a vase, or a case of stuffed birds from foreign parts, to mark the
gentility of the family. A little farther on, the houses begin to have
small balconies on the first floor, and are even more genteel. The
streets which run off north and south are like unto it but meaner. Now,
the really sad thing about this district is that the residents are not
the starving class, or the vicious class, or the drinking class; they
are well-to-do and thriving people, yet they desire no happiness, they
do not feel the lack of joy, they live in meanness and are content
therewith. So that it is emphatically a representative quarter and a
type of the East End generally, which is for the most part respectable
and wholly dull, and perfectly contented never to know what pleasant
strolling and resting-places, what delightful interests, what varied
occupation, what sweet diversions there are in life.
As for the people, they follow a great variety of trades. There are
"travelling drapers" in abundance; it is, in fact, the chosen _quartier_
of that romantic following; there are a good many stevedores, which
betrays the neighborhood of docks; there are some who follow the
mysterious calling of herbalist, and I believe you could here still buy
the materials for those now forgotten delicacies, saloop and tansy
pudding. You can at least purchase medicines for any disease under the
sun if you know the right herbalist to go to. One of them is a medium as
well; and if you call on him, you may be entertained by the artless
prattle of the "sperruts," of whom he knows one or two. They call
themselves all sorts of names--such as Peter, Paul, Shakespeare,
Napoleon, and Byron--but in reality there are only two of them, and they
are bad actors. Then there are cork-cutters, "wine merchants'
engineers"--it seems rather a grand thing for a wine merchant, above all
other men, to want an engineer; novelists do not want
engineers--sealing-wax manufacturers, workers in shellac and zinc,
sign-painters, heraldic painters, coopers, makers of combs, iron hoops,
and sun-blinds, pewterers, feather-makers--they only pretend to make
feathers; what they really do is to buy them, or pluck the birds, and
then arrange the feathers and trim them; but they do not really make
them--ship-modelers, a small but haughty race; mat-dealers, who never
pass a prison without using bad language, for reasons which many who
have enjoyed the comforts of a prison will doubtless understand. There
are also a large quantity of people who call themselves teachers of
music. This may be taken as mere pride and ostentatious pretence,
because no one wants to learn music in this country, no one ever plays
any music, no one has a desire to hear any. If any one called and asked
for terms of tuition, he would be courteously invited to go away, or the
professor would be engaged, or he would be out of town. In the same way,
a late learned professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge was
reported always to have important business in the country if an Arab
came to visit the colleges. But what a lift above the stevedores,
pewterers, and feather pretenders to be a professor of music!
Angela would plant her Palace in this region, the most fitting place,
because the most dreary; because here there exists nothing, absolutely
nothing, for the imagination to feed upon. It is, in fact, though this
is not generally known, the purgatory prepared for those who have given
themselves up too much to the enjoyment of roses and rapture while
living at the West End. How beautiful are all the designs of Nature!
Could there be, anywhere in the world, a more fitting place for such a
purgatory than such a city? Besides, once one understands the thing, one
is further enabled to explain why these grim and sombre streets remain
without improvement. To beautify them would seem, in the eyes of pious
and religious people, almost flying in the face of Providence. And yet,
not really so; for it may be argued that there are other places also
fitted for the punishment of these purgatorial souls--for instance,
Hoxton, Bethnal Green, Battersea, and the Isle of Dogs.
Angela resolved, therefore, that on this spot the Palace of Joy should
stand. There should be, for all who chose to accept it, a general and
standing invitation to accept happiness and create new forms of delight.
She would awaken in dull and lethargic brains a new sense, the new sense
of pleasure; she would give them a craving for things of which as yet
they knew nothing. She would place within their reach, at no cost
whatever, absolutely free for all, the same enjoyments as are purchased
by the rich. A beautiful dream! They should cultivate a noble
discontent; they should gradually learn to be critical; they should
import into their own homes the spirit of discontent; they should cease
to look upon life as a daily uprising and a down-sitting, a daily
mechanical toil, a daily rest. To cultivate the sense of pleasure is to
civilize. With the majority of mankind the sense is undeveloped, and is
chiefly confined to eating and drinking. To teach the people how the
capacity of delight may be widened, how it may be taught to throw out
branches in all manner of unsuspected directions, was Angela's ambition.
A very beautiful dream!
She owned so many houses in this district that it was quite easy to find
a place suitable for her purpose. She discovered upon the map of her
property a whole foursquare block of small houses, all her own, bounded
north, south, east, and west by streets of other small houses, similar
and similarly situated. This site was about five minutes west of Stepney
Green, and in the district already described. The houses were occupied
by weekly tenants, who would find no difficulty in getting quarters as
eligible elsewhere. Some of them were in bad repair; and what with
maintenance of roofs and chimneys, bad debts, midnight flittings, and
other causes, there was little or no income derived from these houses.
Mr. Messenger, indeed, who was a hard man, but not unjust, only kept
them to save them from the small owner like Mr. Bunker, whose
necessities and greed made him a rack-rent landlord.
Having fixed upon her site, Angela next proceeded to have
interviews--but not on the spot, where she might be recognized--with
lawyers and architects, and to unfold partially her design. The area on
which the houses stood formed a pretty large plot of ground, ample for
her purpose, provided that the most was made of the space and nothing
wasted. But a great deal was required; therefore she would have no
lordly staircases covering half the ground, nor great ante-rooms, nor
handsome lobbies. Everything, she carefully explained, was to be
constructed for use and not for show. She wanted, to begin with, three
large halls: one of them was to be a dancing-room, but it might also be
a children's play-room for wet weather; one was to be used for a
permanent exhibition of native talent, in painting, drawing, wood and
ivory-carving, sculpture, leather-work, and the like, everything being
for sale at low prices; the last was to be a library, reading and
writing room. There was also to be a theatre, which would serve as a
concert and music room, and was to have an organ in it. In addition to
these there were to be a great number of class-rooms for the various
arts, accomplishments, and graces that were to be taught by competent
professors and lecturers. There were to be other rooms where tired
people might find rest, quiet, and talk--the women with tea and work,
the men with tobacco. And there were to be billiard-rooms, a
tennis-court, a racket-court, a fives-court, and a card-room. In fact,
there was to be space found for almost every kind of recreation.
She did not explain to her architect how she proposed to use this
magnificent place of entertainment; it was enough that he should design
it and carry out her ideas; and she stipulated that no curious inquirers
on the spot should be told for what purpose the building was destined,
nor who was the builder.
One cannot get designs for a palace in a week: it was already late in
the autumn, after Harry had taken up his appointment, and was busy among
the legs of stools, that the houses began to be pulled down and the
remnants carted away. Angela pressed on the work; but it seemed a long
and tedious delay before the foundations were laid and the walls began
slowly to rise.
There should have been a great function when the foundation-stone was
laid, with a procession of the clergy in white surplices and college
caps, perhaps a bishop, Miss Messenger herself, with her friends, a lord
or two, the officers of the nearest Masonic Lodge, a few Foresters, Odd
Fellows, Buffaloes, Druids, and Shepherds, a flag, the charity children,
a dozen policemen, and Venetian masts, with a prayer, a hymn, a speech
and a breakfast--nothing short of this should have satisfied the
founder. Yet she let the opportunity slip, and nothing was done at all;
the great building, destined to change the character of the gloomy city
into a City of Sunshine, was begun with no pomp or outward
demonstration. Gangs of workmen cleared away the ignoble bricks; the
little tenements vanished; a broad space bristling with little
garden-walls gaped where they had stood; then the walls vanished; and
nothing at all was left but holes where cellars had been; then they
raised a hoarding round the whole, and began to dig out the foundation.
After the hoarding was put up, nothing more for a long time was visible.
Angela used to prowl round it in the morning, when her girls were all at
work, but fearful lest the architect might come and recognize her.
As she saw her palace begin to grow into existence, she became anxious
about its success. The first beatific vision, the rapture of
imagination, was over, and would come no more; she had now to face the
hard fact of an unsympathetic people who perhaps would not desire any
pleasure--or if any, then the pleasure of a "spree," with plenty of
beer. How could the thing be worked if the people themselves would not
work it? How many could she reckon upon as her friends? Perhaps two or
three at most. Oh, the Herculean task, for one woman, with two or three
disciples, to revolutionize the City of East London!
With this upon her mind, her conversations with the intelligent young
cabinet-maker became more than usually grave and earnest. He was himself
more serious than of old, because he now occupied so responsible a
position in the brewery. Their relations remained unchanged. They walked
together, they talked and they devised things in the drawing-room, and
especially for Saturday evenings.
"I think," he said, one evening when they were alone except for Nelly in
the drawing-room, "I think that we should never think or talk of
working-men in the lump, any more than we think of rich men in a lump.
All sorts and conditions of men are pretty much alike, and what moves
one moves all. We are all tempted in the same way; we can all be led in
the same way."
"Yes, but I do not see how that fact helps."
They were talking, as Angela loved to do, of the scheme of the palace.
"If the palace were built, we should offer the people of Stepney,
without prejudice to Whitechapel, Mile End Bow, or even Cable Street, a
great many things which at present they cannot get and do not desire.
Yet they have always proved extremely attractive. We offer the society
of the young for the young, with dancing, singing, music, acting,
entertainments--everything except, which is an enormous exception,
feasting; we offer them all for nothing; we tell them, in fact, to do
everything for themselves; to be the actors, singers, dancers, and
musicians."
"And they cannot do anything."
"A few can; the rest will come in. You forget, Miss Kennedy, the honor
and glory of acting, singing, and performing in public. Can there be a
greater reward than the applause of one's friends?"
"It could never be so nice," said Nelly, "to dance in a great hall among
a lot of people as to dance up here, all by ourselves."
The palace was not, in these days, very greatly in the young man's mind.
He was occupied with other things: his own work and position; the wisdom
of his choice; the prospects of the future. For surely, if he had
exchanged the old life and got nothing in return but work at a lathe all
day at tenpence an hour, the change was a bad one. Nothing more had
been said to him by Miss Kennedy about the great things he was to do,
with her, for her, among his people. Was he, then, supposed to find out
for himself these great things? And he made no more way with his wooing.
That was stopped, apparently, altogether.
Always kind to him; always well pleased to see him; always receiving him
with the same sweet and gracious smile; always frank and open with him;
but nothing more.
Of late he had observed that her mind was greatly occupied; she was
brooding over something; he feared that it might be something to do with
the Associated Dressmakers' financial position. She did not communicate
her anxieties to him, but always, when they were alone, wanted to go
back to their vision of the palace. Harry possessed a ready sympathy; he
fell easily and at once into the direction suggested by another's words.
Therefore, when Angela talked about the palace, he too took up the
thread of invention, and made believe with her as if it were a thing
possible, a thing of brick and mortar.
"I see," he went on this evening, warming to the work, "I see the
opening day, long announced, of the palace. The halls are furnished and
lit up; the dancing-room is ready; the theatre is completed, and the
electric lights are lit; the concert-rooms are ready with their
music-stands and their seats. The doors are open. Then a wonderful thing
happens."
"What is that?" asked Angela.
"Nobody comes."
"Oh!"
"The vast chambers echo with the footsteps of yourself, Miss Kennedy,
and of Nelly, who makes no more noise than a demure kitten. Captain
Sorensen and I make as much trampling as we can, to produce the effect
of a crowd. But it hardly seems to succeed. Then come the girls, and we
try to get up a dance; but, as Nelly says, it is not quite the same as
your drawing-room. Presently two men, with pipes in their mouths, come
in and look about them. I explain that the stage is ready for them, if
they like to act; or the concert-room, if they will sing; or the
dancing-room, should they wish to shake a leg. They stare and they go
away. Then we shut up the doors and go away and cry."
"O Mr. Goslett, have you no other comfort for me?"
"Plenty of comfort. While we are all crying, somebody has a happy
thought. I think it is Nelly."
She blushed a pretty rosy red. "I am sure I could never suggest
anything."
"Nelly suggests that we shall offer prizes, a quantity of prizes, for
competition in everything, the audience or the spectators to be judges;
and then the palace will be filled and the universal reign of joy will
begin."
"Can we afford prizes?" asked Angela the practical.
"Miss Kennedy," said Harry severely, "permit me to remind you that, in
carrying out this project, money, for the first time in the world's
history, is to be of no value."
If Newnham does not teach women to originate--which a thousand Newnhams
will never do--it teaches them to catch at an idea and develop it. The
young workman suggested her palace; but his first rough idea was a poor
thing compared with Angela's finished structure--a wigwam beside a
castle, a tabernacle beside a cathedral. Angela was devising an
experiment, the like of which has never yet been tried upon restless and
dissatisfied mankind. She was going, in short, to say to them: "Life is
full, crammed full, overflowing with all kinds of delights. It is a
mistake to suppose that only rich people can enjoy these things. They
may buy them, but everybody may create them; they cost nothing. You
shall learn music, and forthwith all the world will be transformed for
you; you shall learn to paint, to carve, to model, to design, and the
day shall be too short to contain the happiness you will get out of it.
You shall learn to dance, and know the rapture of the waltz. You shall
learn the great art of acting, and give each other the pleasure which
rich men buy. You shall even learn the great art of writing, and learn
the magic of a charmed phrase. All these things which make the life of
rich people happy shall be yours; and they _shall cost you nothing_.
What the heart of man can desire shall be yours, _and for nothing_. I
will give you a house to shelter you, and rooms in which to play; you
have only to find the rest. Enter in, my friends; forget the squalid
past; here are great halls and lovely corridors--they are yours. Fill
them with sweet echoes of dropping music; let the walls be covered with
your works of art; let the girls laugh and the boys be happy within
these walls. I give you the shell, the empty carcass; fill it with the
spirit of content and happiness."
Would they, to begin with, "behave according"? It was easy to bring
together half a dozen dressmakers: girls always like behaving nicely;
would the young men be equally amenable? And would the policeman be
inevitable, as in the corridors of a theatre? The police, however, would
have to be voluntary, like every other part of the institution, and the
guardians of the peace must, like the performers in the entertainments,
give their services for nothing. For which end, Harry suggested, it
would be highly proper to have a professor of the noble art of
self-defence, with others of fencing, single-stick, quarter-staff, and
other kindred objects.