people can talk and enjoy what they eat. I always envy them. Many an
excellent dinner have I lost to all intents and purposes because my
companion insisted on being "lively," and expected a "certain liveliness"
on my front at the same moment. If you _must_ eat in company--then two
is an ideal number. But don't place your companion opposite you. Many a
"sweet nothing" has been lost in bitterness because the person to whom it
was addressed saw inevitably a morsel of caviare preparing to become
nourishment. No, the best place for a solitary companion at meals is,
either on the right or on the left, never immediately in front. I have
sat opposite some of the most handsome people, and wished all the time
that I could have changed them into a "view of sheep"--even one of a
brick wall would have been better than nothing. When you are talking to
someone at your side, you can turn your face in their direction for the
first few words, and then look at something else for the rest of the
sentence. But if you turn your head away while talking to someone
immediately in front of you--if not necessarily rude, it gives at least
the impression that you are merely talking because to talk is expected of
you, otherwise you are slightly bored. I know that the popular picture
of an Ideal Dinner for Two is one of an exquisitely gowned woman sitting
so close to the man-she-loves that only a spiral table decoration
prevents their noses from rubbing; with a quart bottle of champagne
reclining in a drunken attitude in a bucket of ice, and a basket of
choice fruit untouched on the table. But if you examine that picture of
the ideal, you will always discover that the artist has missed the ugly
foundations of his fancy, as it were, by jumping over the soup and fish,
the joint, the entrée, and the sweet, and has got his lovers to the
coffee, the cigar-and-liqueur stage, when, if the truth be known, all the
hurdles over which the "horse of disillusion" may come a nasty cropper
have been passed. So, if you be wise, sit on the side of your
best-beloved until the nourishing part of your gastronomic "enfin seul"
is over; and then, if you must gaze into his eyes and he into yours, move
your seat round--and your evening will probably end by both of you being
in the same infatuated state in which you began it. It is only by the
strictest attention to the most minor among the minor details of life,
that a clever woman is able to keep up the reputation of charm and beauty
among her closest intimates. She realises that Nature has given to very
few people a "sneeze" which is not something of an offence, and that not
even one possessing the loveliness of Ninon de l'Enclos can look anything
but a monstrous spectacle when a crumb "goes down the wrong way." But
there are other "pitfalls" which it is in the power of all of us to
avoid, and the "pitfall" of eating ungracefully is not the least among
them.
_Modern Clothes_
I often think that, if those "Old walls only could speak"--as the
"tripper" yearns for them to do, because he can't think of anything else
to remark at the moment--all they would say to him would be the words,
"For God's sake, you guys, CLEAR OUT!" As a matter of fact, it is just
as well that old walls can't talk, or they might tell us what they
thought of us; and you can't knock out a stone wall--at least, not with
any prospect of success--in a couple of rounds. For we must look very
absurd in the eyes of those who have watched mankind get more absurd and
more absurd-looking throughout the ages. Take, for example, our clothes.
No one could possibly call them comfortable, and, were we not so used to
seeing them ourselves, we should probably call them ugly as well. In the
autumn of 1914 we suddenly woke up to the fact that we belonged to a very
good-looking nation. It was, of course, the cut of the uniform which
effected this transformation. It not only showed off a man's figure, but
it often showed it up--and that is the first and biggest step towards a
man improving it. Sometimes it gave a man a figure who before possessed
merely elongation with practically no width. But the days of khaki are
over--thank God for the cause, but aesthetically it's a pity. We have
returned to the drab and shoddy days of dress before the war, and men
look more shoddy and more drab than ever.
Surely clothes are designed, apart from their warmth, to make the best
show of the body which is in them. Having discovered that style in which
the average man or woman looks his very best, it seemed so needlessly
ridiculous to keep changing it. Beauty and comfort--that surely is the
_raison d'être_ of apparel--apart from modesty, which, however, a few fig
leaves can satisfy. Fashion opens the gate, as it were, and we pass
through it, one by one, like foolish sheep--without a sheep's general
utility. Mr. Smith, who is short, fat, and podgy, dresses exactly like
Mr. Brown, who is tall, muscular, and well proportioned. Mr. Smith would
not look so dreadful if he wore a coat well "skirted" below the waist,
with tight-fitting knickerbockers and stockings. Mr. Brown's muscles and
fine proportions are very nearly lost in a coat and trousers, which only
make his muscular development look like fat and his fine proportions
merely breadth without much shape. Mrs. Smith, who is modelled on the
lines of Venus, bares her back at the dictates of some obscure couturiere
in Paris, and the result gives a certain aesthetic pleasure. Mrs. Brown,
determined also to be in the fashion, valiantly strips herself, and looks
like a bladder of not particularly fresh lard! Were she to wear a
modified fashion of the mode 1760 she would probably look almost charming.
And so we might go on citing examples and improvements until we had
tabulated and docketed every human being. For an absolute proof that the
present mode of dressing for both men and women is generally wrong, is,
that the men and women who look best in it are those who possess bones
without flesh, length with just that one suggestion of a curve common to
all humanity. And think how much more interesting the world would be
were each of us to dress in that style which showed our good points to
advantage. For, after all, what is the object of clothes, apart from
modesty and warmth--which a blanket and a few safety pins could
satisfy--if it be not to create an effect pleasant to the eye. And why,
when once we have discovered a style which certainly makes the majority
of people look their best, should we wilfully discard it and return to
the unimaginative and drab? We complain that the world of to-day,
whatever may be said in its favour, cannot possibly be called
picturesque. Well let us _make_ it picturesque! And having made it more
beautiful--for Heaven's sake let us _KEEP_ it beautiful. Let it be a
sign of cowardice--not one of the greatest signs of courage of the
age--to fail to put on overalls, if we look our best in them! After all,
every reform is in our own hands. But most people seem so entirely
helpless to do anything but, metaphorically speaking, flick a fly off
their own noses, that they leave reformation to God, and look upon their
own unbeautiful effect and the unbeautiful effect of other men as an act
of blind destiny. So we, as it were, sigh "Kismet"--in front of garments
which a monkey, with any logic or reason in his composition, would not
deign to wear. Yes, certainly, if "these old walls could only speak,"
they would tell us a few home truths. Our ears would surely burn at
their eloquence.
_A Sense of Universal Pity_
Nearly everybody can "feel sorry"--some, extremely so! Lots of people
can exclaim, "How ghastly!" in front of a mangled corpse--and then pass
shudderingly on their way with a prayer in their hearts that the dead
body isn't their own, nor one belonging to their friends and
acquaintances. But very few people, it seems to me, possess what I will
call a sense of universal pity, which is the intuition to know and
sympathise with people "who have never had a chance"; with men and women
who have never had "their little day"; with the poor, and hungry, and
needy; with those whom the world condemns, and the righteous consider
more worthy of censure than of pity. That is to say, while nearly
everybody can sympathise with a tragedy so palpable that a dog could
perceive it, there are very few people who can sympathise with the misery
which lies behind a smiling face, that sorrow of the "soul" which would
sooner die than be found out. They can realise the tragedy of a broken
back, but they cannot realise the tragedy of a broken heart, still less
of a broken spirit. And if that heart and that spirit struggle to hide
their unshed tears behind a mask of cheerfulness, or bravado, or
assumed--and sometimes very real--courage, they neither can perceive it
nor realise it, and the well-spring of their sympathy, should it be
pointed out to them, is a very faint and uncertain trickle indeed. Most
of us like to take the sorrows of other people merely at their face
value, and if the face be cheerful our imagination does not pierce behind
that mask to take, as it were, the secret sorrow in its all-loving arms.
But personally, to my mind, the easiest sorrows of all to bear are the
sorrows which need not be hidden, which, maybe, cannot be hidden, and
which bring all our friends and neighbours around us in one big echoing
wail. The sorrows which are the real tragedies are the sorrows which we
carry in our hearts every hour of our lives, which stalk beside us in our
days of happy carelessness, and add to the misery of our days of woe. We
do not speak of them--they are too personal for that. We could not well
describe them--their history would be to tell the whole story of our
lives. But we know that they are there nevertheless. And the men or
women who are our intimates, if they do not perceive something of this
shadow behind our smiles, can never call themselves our friends, although
we may live in the same house with them and exist side by side on the
most friendly terms. That is why, if we probe deep down into the hearts
of most men and women, we discover that, in spite of all their gaiety and
all their outward courage, inside they are very desolate, and in their
hearts they are indescribably lonely.
_The Few_
But just a few people seem to be enabled to see beneath the surface of
things. Around them they seem to shed an extraordinary kind of
understanding sympathy. They are not entirely the "people in trouble"
who appeal to them; rather they seem able to perceive the misery of a
"state of life"--something which obtains no sympathy because people
either condemn it or fail to realise the steps which led up to it--in the
long, long ago. To them, everybody unfortunate--whether it be by their
own fault or by the economic, moral, or social laws of the
country--arouses their sympathy. It would seem as if Nature had given
them the gift of intuition into another's sorrow--especially when that
sorrow is not apparent to the outside world. You will find these people
working, for the most part, among the poor and needy, in the slums of big
cities, in the midst of men and women whose life is one long, hard
struggle to keep both ends meeting until death releases them from the
treadmill which is their life. They do not advertise themselves nor
their philanthropy. One often never hears of them at all--until they are
dead. They do not seek to hide their light under a bushel, because to
them all self-advertisement is indecent. They do not realise that what
they do is "light" at all. But the world does not realise all that it
owes to these unknown men and women, whose sympathies are so wide, so
all-absorbing, that they can give up their lives to minister to the
sorrows and hardships of others--and, in succouring them, find their only
reward. I have known one or two of these people in my life, and they
have given me a clearer insight into the nobility inherent in human
nature than all the saints whose virtues were ever chronicled, than all
the wealthy philanthropists whose gifts and generosity were ever
overpraised.
_The Great and the Really Great_
I always think that one of the most amusing things (to watch), in all
life, is what I term the "Kaiser-spirit" in individuals. Nearly everyone
mistakes the trimmings of greatness for the real article, and most people
would sooner expire than not be able to flaunt these wrappings, or the
rags or them, before somebody's eyes. And this spirit exists in
individuals in almost every grade of society; until you get to the rock
bottom of existence, when the immediate problems of life are so menacing
that men and women dare not play about with the gilded imitations. This
"Kaiser-spirit"--or the spirit which, if it can't inspire homage, will
buy the "props" of it and sit among the hired gorgeousness in the full
belief that their own individual greatness has deserved it--is
everywhere. Very few men and women are content to be simply men and
women. They all seek strenuously to be mistaken for Great Panjandrums.
The woman who takes a little air in the park in the afternoon with two
full-grown men sitting up, straight-backed and impassive, on the box of
the carriage, is one example of this. The chatelaine of a jerry-built
villa, who is pleased to consort with anybody except servants and the
class below servants, is another. The majority of people need money, not
in order to live and be happy, but in order to impress the crowd that
they are of more value than those who are thereby impressed. The drama
which goes on around and around the problem of whom to "call upon" and
whom to "cut," fills the lives of more men and women than the problem of
how to make the best of life and pave one's way to the hereafter. If
Christ came back to earth, He would have to choose one set or
another--Belgravia, Bayswater, or Brixton.
_Love "Mush"_
I was standing outside a music shop the other day, gazing through the
windows at the songs "everybody is singing." Their titles amused me.
Not a single one promised very much real sense. They were all what I
will call love "mush"--"If you were a flowering rose," and "Come to my
garden of love," were two typical examples. The remainder of the
verses--with which the suburban sopranos will doubtless break the
serenity of the suburban nights this summer--were of a "sloppy"
sentimentality combined with a kind of hypersexual idiocy unparalleled
except in an English ballad of the popular order. On such belief, I said
to myself, are young lovers brought up. Well, I suppose it would be
difficult for a youthful soprano to put "her soul" into a song which
asked, "What shall I give my dear one every morning for his breakfast?"
or, "Who'll soothe your brow when the Income Tax is due, dear?" And yet,
sooner or later, she will be faced with some such problems, and then her
beloved won't ask her if she be a flowering rose or invite her into his
garden of love unless she can find an answer which will carry them both
over to the next difficulty fairly successfully. But to live in an
eternal state of love-mush is what young people are brought up to regard
as matrimony. The plain facts of matrimony are carefully hidden from
them, as either being too "prosaic" or too indelicate. The most
responsible position in all life for a man and a woman is entered upon by
them with an ignorance and an irresponsibility which are neither
dignified nor likely to be satisfactory. A woman goes in for several
years' training before she can become a cook; a worker in every grade of
life has to go through a long period of initiation before she can be said
to be really fit for her "job." But any girl thinks she is fit to become
a wife, with no other qualification except that she is a woman, and can
return endearment for endearment when required. She is not expected to
know or do anything else. But her husband expects many and more
important things from her if he is not to live to regret his bargain. He
may not know it when he is asking her to live with him in his garden of
love, but he will realise it a few years later, especially if she has
turned that garden of love into a wilderness of expensive weeds.
_Wives_
The wife of a poor man really can be a helpmate, but the wife of a rich
man is so often only asked to be a mistress who can bear her husband
legitimate children. Everything which a woman can do, a rich woman pays
other women to do for her, while she graces the results of their labour
with a studied charm which receives its triumph in the envy of her
husband's male friends. No wonder there are so many wild and
discontented wives among the middle and upper classes. Where a man or a
woman has no "ideal," where they have nothing to do which is really worth
doing, they always approach the primitive in morals. We may pretend to
spurn the _cocotte_--but to look as nearly as she looks, to live as
nearly as she lives, to resemble her and yet to place that resemblance on
a legal and, consequently, secure foundation, is becoming more and more
the life-work of that feminine "scum" which the war stirred up and peace
has caused to overflow. Beneath it all I know there is a strata of the
Magnificent, but the surface-ground is weedier than ever. I am not a
prude (I think!), but the eternally amusement-seeking and irresponsible
lives led by many of the rich, and the really appalling looseness of
morals now being led by girls without a qualm, bode very seriously ill
for the future of that New World which we were promised the war would
make safe for--well, I believe we were told it was to be Democracy, but
the Government official and the profiteer still seem the most firmly dug
in of us all. I go to the fashionable West-end haunts, and I see the
crowds of wealthy women getting as near the nude as they and their
dressmakers can manage; I go to the poor parts of London, and I am really
shocked by the immense number of girls, some only children, who are
practically and _voluntarily_ on the streets. These may only be the
minority of women and girls, I admit, but they are a minority which is
having, and is going to have, a very sinister influence on the
future--and the peace and beauty of that future. For the out-and-out
prostitute one can feel understanding, and with understanding there is a
certain respect; but these amateur "syrens" are a menace and a disgrace
to the "homes" which breed them so carelessly, and look after them so ill.
_Children_
I suppose the most absurd fetish of modern so-called democratic politics
is that fetish of the liberty of the subject. In theory it is ideal--let
there be complete liberty of ideas by all means; but when that liberty,
as is nearly always the case, means that the liberty of one man is gained
by the sacrifice of another--then it is the enemy of humanity as well as
of nature. I always consider that, in the really Socialistic state,
children will not entirely belong to their parents, but will also be
guarded and looked after as an asset to the world. This will, of course,
give complete liberty to _good_ parents, but it will prevent _bad_
parents from wrecking the lives of their children, as is the case to-day,
unless the parents' wickedness is so disgracefully bad that they come
under the eye of the N.S.P.C.C. But the law always shields the
wrong-doer. We are far more concerned that mothers and fathers should
have complete control of their children even when they have proved
themselves unfit to bring up children, than that the children themselves
should be protected. We are far more concerned that the drunkard should
be given complete freedom to go out and get drunk than that the misery
which his drunkenness causes to innocent people should be punished, or
prevented. The helpless must always suffer for the selfishness of other
people--that is one of the "divine" laws of civilisation. The liberty of
the subject is not only a farce, but a crime, when the liberty
jeopardises the lives of the minority. The liberty to harm others will
be a "liberty" punishable by law in the state which is anything more than
democratic, except as a political catchword.
_One of the Minor Tragedies_
One of the minor tragedies of life (or is it one of the _major_?) is the
way we grow out of things--often against our will, sometimes against our
better judgment. I don't mean only that we grow out of clothes--that,
after all, is nothing very serious, unless you have no younger brother to
whom to hand them on; but we also grow out of desires, out of books, out
of pictures, out of places, friendships, even love itself--oh, yes, most
often out of love itself. You never seem to be able to say to yourself
and the world: "There! this is what I yearn for; this is what I desire;
this is what I adore; this is what I shall never tire of--shall always
appreciate, to which I shall always show my devotion." Or rather, you
_do_ say this in all sincerity _at the moment_. Only the passing of time
shows you that you were wrong. You seem to grow out of everything which
is within your reach, and are only faithful to those things which have
just eluded your grasp. It is human nature, I suppose; but it is a
dreadful bore, all the same! It would seem as if the brain could not
stand the same mental impression for very long; it becomes wearied,
eventually seeking to throw off the impression altogether. They tell us
that everything we do, or hear, or say--every thought, in fact--is
photographed, as it were, on the brain as a definite picture. And if
this be true, the same impression must affect the same part of the
brain--that part of the brain which becomes tired of this same impress,
until it eventually seeks to throw it off as the body throws off disease.
Take a very simple instance--that of a popular song. Experience has
taught you to realise that, although the melody haunts you deliciously at
first, you will eventually grow to hate it, and the tune which once sent
you swaying to its rhythm will at last bore you to the point of
anaesthesia. I often wonder why that is so? The answer must be
physical, since the melody is just the same always--and, if it be really
physical, then that surely is the answer to the weariness which always
comes with repetition of even the greatest blessings of life in both
people as well as things. If only we understood the psychology of
boredom we might attain the eternal delight of never being bored, and
what we loved once we should always love, until the end of our life's
short chapter. And that would simplify problems exceedingly, wouldn't it?
The "Glorious Dead"