Large Parties by Arrangement.
It would ease the burden of parenthood enormously. It might even "Save
the Children." Maybe they would thank their mother from the bottom of
their hearts because she took them to see these living examples of
youthful folly instead of lugging them to a dull lecture on hygiene.
For half the silly things we do, we do because we don't realise the
consequences. The man who _knows everything_ would gladly give up all
his knowledge if he could turn back the hands of the clock, and,
instead of studying the origin of Arabic, learn to recognise a pair of
damp sheets when he got in between them; while a Woman of a Thousand
Love Affairs would forego the memory of nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine of
these if she could return to the early days and drink a glass of hot
water between every meal! For, as I said before, Love leaves us and
enthusiasms die; but Old Age which can sit down to a good dinner and
thoroughly enjoy it without having to have a medical bulletin stuck up
outside its bedroom door for days afterwards, is an Old Age which no
one can call really unhappy. To eat is, at last, about the only joy
which is left to us. The "romantic" will shudder at my philosophy, I
know; but the "romantic" have generally such a lot to live for beside
their meals. Old Age hasn't. That is why elderly people who can begin
to look forward to their dinner--say at five o'clock in the
afternoon--can be said to have reached the "ripe old age" of the
Scriptures. If they _can't_?--well, over-ripe to _rottenness_ is the
only description.
_It's oh, to be out of England--now that spring is here!_
I don't know if you, fair reader, find that in the spring your fancy
turns to thoughts of love--I know mine doesn't! On the contrary, it
turns to thoughts of sulphur tablets and camomile tea and other sickly
or disagreeable circumventions of the "creakiness" of the human body.
For among the things I could teach Nature is that, when she made man,
she did not permit him to "flower" in the spring and start each year
with something at least resembling his pristine vigour--if he ever had
any. But, whereas the spring gives a new glory to birds, and trees,
and plants, she only gives to us--built in the image of God--spots, a
disordered liver, and a muddy complexion. It seems a piece of gross
mismanagement, doesn't it? It would be so delightful if, once a year,
we were filled with extra energy; if our hair sprouted once more in the
colour with which we were born; if the old skin shed itself and a new
one came on so beautiful as to ruin the business of all the "Mrs.
Pomeroys" of this world. But Nature seems, once having made us, to
leave us severely alone; to let us wither on our stalks, as it were,
until we drop off them and are swept away into the dustbin of the worms
and weeds. The mind is a far kinder ally. Oh, no; say what you will
in the praise of spring, to all those who, as it were, have commenced
the "bulge" of anno domini, it is a very trying season. Besides--here
in England anyway--it is as uncertain as a flirt. Sometimes it
suddenly comes upon us in the early days of March or lets mid-winter
pay us a visit in the lengthening days of May. One never quite knows
what spring is going to do. One never knows what kind of clothes to
wear to please it. So often one sallies forth arrayed in winter
underwear, because the morning awoke so coldly, only to spend the rest
of the day eating ices to keep the body calm and cool. Or, again, the
spring morning greets us with the warmth of an August day; we jump up
gaily, deck ourselves out in muslin, sally forth, take a sudden
"chill," and spend the rest of the week in bed!
One is always either too hot or too cold. It is the season of the
unaccountable draught. True, it often turns the fancy towards sweet
thoughts of love--but the fancy usually ends with an influenza cold
through indulging in sentimental dalliance upon the grass. On the
whole, I always think that spring in England is nicer to sing about
than experience. It is delightful as a season of "promise"--but, like
humanity, it often treats its promises like pie-crusts. Still, it _is_
spring, and--although the body rarely recognises the fact except to
ruin by biliousness the romance which is surging in its heart--summer
is, as it were, knocking at the door. And from June to mid-July--that
surely is the glory of the year! After July, summer becomes a little
dusty at the hem. Still, dusty, or even dirty, it makes life worth
living. Nevertheless, I only wish that it were greedier and stole
three months away from winter. For winter is too long, and spring is
too uncertain, and autumn too full of "Farewell."
But summer never palls. And we have five summers to make up for,
haven't we? For no one could really enjoy anything during the war
except the war news--when it was favourable. But now we can--well, if
not enjoy ourselves, at least lie back, just whispering to ourselves
that, when the sun shines the world is a lovely place, and, so far as
England is concerned, there is at any rate a kind of camouflaged peace.
And so we have to be very very old if we cannot feel in our hearts a
breath of youth and spring. After all, when the sun shines, we are, or
feel we are, of any age--or of no age whatever. And if we cannot burst
into flower like the roses, we can at least enjoy the beauty of the
rose when it blooms--which other roses cannot do. Thus, with a few
small mercies, life is very good when the sun shines, isn't it?
_Bad-tempered People_
I would sooner live with an immoral man or woman than a bad-tempered
one. An immoral person can often be a very charming companion, quite
easy to live with--if you take the various excuses for sudden absences
at their face value, and don't probe too deeply into the business; in
fact, if you are not in love with the absentee. A bad-tempered person
in the house may have the morality of the angels--but life with him is
a daily "hell," like always living with strangers, or a mad dog, or in
a room full of those ornaments which belong, almost exclusively, to
lodging-houses everywhere. Briefly, he is always _there_--ready to
burst into flames at any moment, ready to misunderstand everything
anybody does or says, a perpetual bugbear; and not even the emotional
repentances, which are often the only partially saving grace of
bad-tempered people, can atone for the atmosphere of disturbance which
they always inflict. And the man or woman who loses his temper
whenever anything goes in the slightest bit wrong--well, from them may
the Lord deliver me for ever, Amen! They carry their ill-nature about
with them all day and under all circumstances. Sometimes they seem to
imagine that their spirit of disagreeableness is a sign of the
super-man, or of that dominating personality of which Caesar and
Napoleon are historical examples. They frequent restaurants and harry
the already over-harried waiters. It is such a very easy victory--the
victory over a paid servant. But the conquerors stamp themselves for
ever and for ever among Nature's "cads" nevertheless. Anybody who is
rude enough can give a quelling performance of "God Almighty" before
menials. Some people delight to do so, apparently. They possess
everything except an instinctive respect for a man and woman, however
lowly, who are earning their own living. And the lack of it places
them among the inglorious army of the "bounders" for all time. When
there is no "inferior" upon whom to vent the outbursts of their own
supreme egoism, they find their wives extremely useful. In the days
when the divorce laws are "sensible," freedom will be granted for
perpetual bad temper sooner than for occasional unfaithfulness.
Of course, we all have our days when we are like nothing so much as
gunpowder looking for a match. We can't be perfect and serene all the
time. And if ever, as I have just hinted, we do wake up in the morning
feeling as if we could get up and quarrel with a bee because it buzzes,
a Beecham pill will probably soon put us in a regular "click" of a
humour. ("Mr. Carter" never offered me anything; nor did Sir Thomas
Beecham. But being fond of grand opera, I mention the pills "worth a
guinea a box" for preference. Besides, they tell us a "Beecham at
night makes you sing with delight!" So there!) That is one of the
reasons why I always advocate a "silence room" in every household which
otherwise is large enough to put the biggest room aside to play
billiards in. I would have it quite small, and decorated in restful,
neutral tints, with the finest view from the window thereof that the
house could supply. I would also have a little window cut out of the
door, through which food could be pushed in to the sufferer without him
having to tell the domestic that it is a fine day and that he hopes her
bunion's better. This little room would be devoted to those inmates of
the house who got up on the wrong side of the bed because both sides
were "wrong sides" that morning. There he, or she, would stay until
the world seemed to be bright again. And they would come forth in
their new and serener state of mind, blessing the idea with all their
hearts. For if, as they have to do now, they had come downstairs in
the mood in which they woke up, the whole house would have known of it
to curse it, and most of its members would not be on polite speaking
terms for days afterwards. Of course, the idea could be recommended
also for those people whose temper is always in a state of uproar. The
only difficulty, however, would be, then--they might live in the
silence room all their lives and die there--beloved, because _unseen_.
But that is the only thing to do with an habitually disagreeable
person--_lock him up_, and, if you be wise, _take away the key of the
dungeon with you_!
_Polite Masks_
You never really know anybody--until you have either lived with them,
travelled with them, or drunk a glass of port with them quietly over
the fireside. In almost every other instance, what you become
acquainted with is one of a variety of _masks_! And everyone has a
fine assortment of these, haven't they? For the most part you don them
unconsciously--or rather, you have got so used to assuming them
suddenly that you have lost all consciousness of effort. But they are
_masks_, nevertheless--and a mask always hides the truth, doesn't it?
Not that I am one of those, however, who dislike camouflage because it
_is_ camouflage. In fact, most of the time I thank Heaven for it--my
own and other people's! The "assumed" is so often so much more
agreeable than the natural, and nine times out of ten all you require
of men and women is that they should at least _look_ pleasant. You've
got to get through this life day after day somehow, and time passes
ever so much quicker for everyone if the hypocrite be a smiling
hypocrite at all times. At every moment of the everyday--preserve me
from the _sour_-visaged saint.
After all, only love and friendship and the law demand the truth and
nothing but the truth. Among acquaintances, among all the many
thousands you meet through life only to discuss the weather and your
own influenza symptoms--all you ask of them is that they should bring
out their smiling mask as readily as you struggle to assume your own.
Only, as I said before, in love and friendship and the courts of law is
the mask an insult, a tragic disillusion and a sham. In every other
circumstance it is usually a blessing. Without it society, as a social
entertainment, would become impossible. For society is but a
collection of men and women wearing masks, each one vying with the
others to make his mask the most attractive, and, at the same time, the
most concealing. But the worst of wearing masks is, that we become
tired at last of holding them in front of our features. This makes the
entertainment of watching the truth peering through the camouflage one
of the most amusing among the many unpremeditated amusements of the
social world. After all, as I said before, so long as your lover and
your friend, and the witnesses you have subpoenaed on behalf of your
own case, show you _truth_--all you ask of the others is the most
agreeable mask they can put on for the occasion. But even lovers and
friends may deceive you, while some witnesses' idea of the truth in the
law courts hasn't that semblance of reality possessed by the Medium's
description of life in the world beyond. That is what makes matrimony
often such a gamble with loaded dice, and holidays so often more
tedious than work. To be in the company of one's lover for one
ecstatic hour tells one nothing of what he will be when, day after day,
one has to live with him in deadly intimacy until death doth part us
both.
Neither do you really know how much, or how little, your friend means
to you, until you have been with her on a cold railway station for
hours, when fate has done its best to make you both lose your tempers
and your luggage. Only a very _real_ love can survive smiling through
that period when, from almost maudlin appreciation, a husband gradually
sinks into the commonplace mood of taking his soul's mate "for
granted." Only _real_ friendship can live through the disillusionment
of irritable temper, lack of imagination, and boredom so often revealed
while travelling in the company of friends. More than half the mutual
life of lovers and friends is spent behind masks--for masks are
sometimes necessary to keep love and friendship great and true. But
one must, nevertheless, know _something_ of the real man and woman
_behind the mask_--even though that which lies behind it may prove
disappointing--before you can prove that your love is _real_ love, that
your friendship is _real_ friendship, that you love your lover or your
friend, not only for what they are, but also in spite of what they are
_not_.
_The Might-Have-Been_
It is rare to come across anybody with very definite ideas; it is rarer
still to meet a man and woman brave enough to put their ideas into
practice. The hardest battle in life--and one of the longest--is the
battle to live your own life. No one realises what fighting really
means until they stand in battle-array face to face with relations.
But most of us have to fight this battle sooner or later, and if we
fight and yet make a "hash" of the victory we gain, is it not better
so? Relations always think they know what is best for you. Well,
perhaps they do, if the "best" be a circumspect kind of goodness. But
they rarely know what you _want_, and, until you have got what you
really want, even though you find it is "Dead Sea fruit" after all, the
thought always haunts the disappointed Present by visions of the
glorious Might-Have-Been.
Relatives always seem to imagine that, when you say you want to lead
your own life, it is always a "bad" life you want to lead. They seem
to think that a girl leading her own life is a girl entertaining men
friends, until goodness knows what hour of the night, alone in her
bachelor flat, they picture a man leading his own life as a man whose
memoirs would send shudders down a really nice woman's spine. They
never realise that there is happiness in personal freedom and
liberty--happiness which is happy merely in the independent feeling of
self-respect which this freedom and liberty gives. They would like
boys and girls to continue to maturity the same life which they led
when they were children, subject to the same restrictions, bowing to
the same parental point of view. No one knows of what he is capable
until he has begun the battle of life in the world of men, independent
and on his own. Better make a "hash" of everything; better suffer and
endure and grow old in disappointment, than live in a gilded cage with
clipped wings, while kind-hearted people feed you to repletion through
the bars.
A girl or boy, who has no occupation, other than the occupation of mere
amusement, who has no Ideal; who has no interest other than the
interest of passing the time, is not only useless, but detestable as a
member of human society, while his old age is of unhappiness the most
unhappy. For what is Old Age worth if it has no "memories"; and what
are "memories" worth if they are not memories of having lived one's
life to the full? To me, to live one's own life is to live--or,
perhaps I ought to say, to strive to live--all those ideals which
Reflection has shown you to be good, and Nature has given you the power
to accomplish. That to me is the fight to live your own life--the
fight to realise yourself, to live the "best" that is in you. For a
man and woman must be able to hold up their heads high, not only face
to face with the world, but face to face with their own selves, before
they can say that Life is happy, that Life has been worth while. The
tragic cases are those who cannot live their own lives because the
lives of other people demanded their sacrifice, a sacrifice which
cannot be withheld without loss of self-respect, of that good
fellowship with your own "soul" which some people call Conscience.
This sacrifice is generally a woman's sacrifice. You may see the
victims of it in any church, in any town, at almost any hour of the
day. They are grey-haired, and sad, and grim, and they hold the more
tenaciously to the promise of happiness in After Life because they have
sacrificed, or permitted to pass by, the happiness of this. To a great
extent it is a "Victorian" sacrifice. They are victims of that passing
Belief which was convinced that a girl of gentle birth ought to
administer to her parents, pay calls, uphold the Church, and do a
little needlework all her life, unless some man came along to marry her
and give her emancipation. The happiness which goes with a career,
even if that career fails, is saving daughters from this parentally
imposed "atrophy." They are learning that to live one's own life is
not necessarily to live a "bad" life, but a "fuller" life. Thus the
young are teaching the Old People wisdom--the knowledge that youth has
its Declaration of Rights no less than Middle Age.
_Autumn Sowing_
I sometimes think the man who first said that "the road to hell is paved
with good intentions" must have said it in November. The autumn is full
of good intentions--just as spring is full of holiday and hope, and
summer of heat and _dolce far niente_. But, just as the first warm day
in June fills you with a physical vitality which you feel convinced that
you must live for ever, so autumn makes you realise that life is fleeting
and the mind has not yet reached its full development, nor intellectual
ambition its complete fruition. Perhaps it is the touch of winter in the
air which braces your mind and soul and gives you the impression that,
given the long autumn evenings over the fire undisturbed, your brain will
soon be capable of tackling the removal of mountains. If you are
unutterably silly (as so many of us are--alas! for the world's sanity;
but thank heaven for the world's humour!) you will plan a whole
curriculum of intellectual labour for the quiet evenings over the
fireside. Oh, the books--good books, I mean--you will read! Oh, the
subjects you will study! Perhaps you will learn Russian, or maybe
something strange and out-of-the-ordinary, like Arabic! You dream of the
moment when, speaking quite casually, you will inform your friends that
you are reading the whole of the novels of Balzac; that you are studying
for the law and hope to pass your "Final" "just for the fun of the
thing"; that you are learning Persian, and intend to retranslate the
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and discover other Eastern philosophers. In
fact, there is no end to the things you intend to do in the autumn
evenings over the fireside when your labours of the day are over.
Briefly, you are going to "cultivate your mind"; and when people talk
about "cultivating their minds," they usually regard the mind as a kind
of intellectual allotment which anyone can till--given determination, an
easy-chair near a big fire, and the long, long autumn evenings.
_What You Really Reap_
But alas! all you do . . . all you _really_ do, is . . . Well, as I said
before, the man who first said that "the way to hell is paved with good
intentions," must have said it in the autumn, or perhaps, in the spring,
when he realised how few of the good intentions he had lived up to.
Well, maybe the most enjoyable part of going to hell is paving the way
with, as it were, your back turned to your eventual goal. And sometimes
I rather fancy, in spite of all the moralist may say, the paving-stones
of good intent that you have laid on your way to perdition will be
counted in your favour, and the Recording Angel will place them to your
credit--which she can't do if, metaphorically speaking, you have not
paved a way anywhere, but just been content to live snugly on the little
plot upon which Fate planted you at the beginning, and you were too dully
inert either to cultivate hot-house orchids thereon or even let it become
overgrown with wild oats and roses. And I think sometimes that on good
intentions we eventually mount to heaven. I certainly know that the good
intentions of the early autumn make me very nearly forgive the cycle of
the seasons which robs me of summer and its joys. And after all, there
is always this to be said for a good intention, nobody knows, yourself
least of all, if you may not one day fulfil it. That is what makes
dreaming so exciting. In your dreams you _have_ learnt Russian; you
_have_ read all the novels of Balzac; you _will_ be able to understand
Sir Oliver Lodge when he leaves the realms of spiritualism and talks
about the stars. And maybe--who knows?--by the time that your dreams
have materialised into reality and spring has just arrived, you _will_ be
able to tell Lenin, if you happen to meet him, that you have "seen the
daughters of the lawyer and lost the pen of your aunt"; and you _will_
have read the books of Paul de Kock because you couldn't struggle through
Balzac; and you _will_ know the composition of the moon and the
impossibility of there being a man in it--which, after all, is a far
greater achievement than having played countless games of bridge, learnt
sixty-two steps of the tango, evolved a racing system, and arrived at
loving the Germans, isn't it?
_Autumn Determination_
But unless your determination be something Napoleonic, you won't have
achieved very much more than this. It has all been so invigorating and
delightful to contemplate; and the way of your decline has been so cosy
and so comfortable, and it has so often ended in a glass of hot "toddy"
and so to bed. You had stage-managed your self-education so beautifully.
You had brought the most comfortable easy-chair right up to the fire; you
had put on your "smoking"--not that garment almost as uncomfortable as
evening-dress, but that coat which is made of velvet, or flannel, softly
lined with silk and deliciously padded: you had brought out all your
books--the "First Steps to Russian," "How to appreciate Balzac,"
"Introduction to Astronomy"--put your feet on the fender, cut the end of
your best cigar. Everything simply invited peace and comfort and an
intellectual feast. Then, just _one more_ glimpse at the evening
paper--and you would begin . . . oh yes! you _would begin_! And so you
read about the threatened strike; the murder in East Ham; the leading
article, the marriage of Lady Fitzclarence-Forsooth to--well, whoever she
married, the funny remark the drunken woman made to the judge when he
fined her two-and-six for kissing a policeman; Mr. Justice Darling's
latest _mot_; the racing, the forthcoming fashions; the advertisement of
Back-Ache Pills; Mr. C. B. Cochran's praise of his own productions, Mr.
Selfridge's praise of his own shop; the "Wants," the "Situations Vacant,"
the . . . Then somebody woke you up to ask if you were asleep . . .
which, of course, you _weren't_ . . . Well . . . well . . . It is past
midnight! So what can one do now? What _can_ one do? Why, go to bed,
of course. Another autumn evening is over. But then, there are plenty
more . . . oh, plenty more. "Good-night."
_Two Lives_