A ROMAN HOLIDAY.
I was alone with the clouds, the ocean, and my note-book. I could
attend to the note-book, only by forgetting the ocean and the clouds;
so, after one last look at them, I retired to the back of the Cave, and
set to work.
NOTES FOR THE LECTURE.
‘_Old England and Old Rome; Parallel._--England, my friends, you are
to understand, is in the position of Old Rome after the conquest. She
is sitting down to enjoy the world she has won. She wants no more:
after dinner, the lion would not hurt a fly. She feels the lassitude of
digestion, especially in governing circles. Yet, somehow, the duties
of empire are still carried on. Rome fed all her children from the
subject realms, and they all grew lazy. England feeds only some of
hers, and, what with need and hunger, the watch of empire is duly kept.
The reliefs are sent out to the distant provinces; the pro-consuls come
home regularly to die of liver-complaint in ancestral halls. Take a
bird’s-eye view of our hemisphere, and you would see its main roads of
earth and ocean speckled with the foam or dust that marks the movements
of her legions. ’Tis a pretty sight!
‘_Holiday Preparations._--The public holidays in England are ordained
by law, and, three or four times a year, there is a general suspension
of work in this workshop of the world. It is a Sabbath of popular
festivity. One of its first signs is the general migration from town
of the select few. All who can possibly manage it get out of the
way--only, of course, to leave more room for the others. It is just
like them.
‘London is given up to its masses, with all its spacious environs. The
streets are theirs, the parks are theirs. Every lamp-post in the slums
is turned into a screw swing.
‘_Adaptiveness of the Race._--The diversions of infancy among the
English masses are of primitive simplicity. The youthful slummer
plays, as the mature savage wrought, with the rudest tools. His swing
is the knotted fragment of a clothes-line; and, in the national game,
he demands no more than a bundle of old coats for the wicket, with a
splinter of deal for the bat. This healthy contempt for “plant” shows
the adaptiveness of the race, its readiness in making the most of the
materials that come to hand. Waterloo was won in the playing fields of
Eton, and Australia in the playing fields of Seven Dials. Walk through
St. James’s Park on a public holiday, and you can no longer doubt it.
Cricket is contrived with the implements aforesaid; football, with an
old hat, or a broken kettle. The same adaptiveness is shown in all
the arrangements: the average of breech, to the extent of nakedness
it has to cover, may be put at about three-fifths. Yet there are no
glaring whites to mar the beauty of the landscape; and even the faces
are in a sort of keeping of pale green. Artists might picture this Bank
Holiday scene in the Park; it could hardly fail to attract attention
at Burlington House. The sicklier children, and the very young, play
in the alleys nearer home, where the dust is considerately left in
sufficient abundance to enable them to make their mud-pies. Many play
in the old graveyards adjacent to these alleys, recently opened to
them by the munificence of a public-spirited society. This is perhaps
the highest example of our national readiness to make the best of
circumstances.
‘_Note._--Sketch of Tom All Alone’s--real or supposed--on a public
holiday, as one of the most suggestive sights of the universe: “Tom All
Alone’s; with a few observations on Russell Court and Vinegar Yard.”
Ancient cemetery or native barrow of district, consisting of three
back-yards rolled into one; now a public playground, dedicated for
ever, etc., with becoming circumstance, as local “boon.” To get it into
focus, should be seen from the meadows about Eton College. So seen,
will inspire sentiments of devout gratitude to God for the mysteries of
patience, far surpassing the mysteries of faith, in the souls of men.
Tom All Alone’s, as something to be thankful for. Ha! ha! ha! (try to
laugh here). Oh, by what magic, by what magic, do we get them to take
this irreducible minimum in settlement of the human claim? (try not to
weep).
‘Same adaptability, too, in grown-up natives of region--veritable note
of our race. Require no costly machinery of enjoyment. Take a plank of
wood, put a row of taps and glasses on one side, and, on the other,
a kind of horse box in which fifteen or twenty people may manage to
stand upright, and you have “house of entertainment.” A young woman
turns taps, as fast as she can, and fills glasses; people in horse-box
empty them with equal dispatch; and public enjoyment is at its height.
Marble tables, public gardens, flowers, music, not indispensable. A
trough would be simpler still; but horses do not care for gin, and the
higher animal would object to it, as it implies the unsound principle
of community of goods.
‘Here, in these houses of entertainment, they exchange their artless
confidences, and settle their family affairs. Not inquisitive about
future; have learned to take short views. Whenever perplexed about
problems of destiny, and their own relations of joy to this joyous
world, they nod to young woman, who turns tap, and their perplexities
disappear.
‘_Note._--The beautiful modesty of their demand on life might teach
even shepherds a lesson in content. Their simple attainable standard in
wine, in woman, in music, in light, in joy. Their conversation--direct
and plain, free from tortuous refinements of studied wit; their
badinage, usually no more than the light play of the pewter on one
another’s heads. All their pleasures of the same simple description.
Will spend their leisure very contentedly in watching a dog worrying
a pitfull of rats, or two men beating each other into insensibility
with gloves that only seem to hurt. As childlike as the North American
Indians, and not unlike them in the race type--high cheek bones; a wide
mouth, massively lipped; slits for the eyes. See them on the great
public days, pouring out in myriads to a horse race, boat race, or Lord
Mayor’s Show; and own the wonders of a social and religious system that
has suffered them to find satisfaction in this state, or us to find
content.
‘Amplify admiration of the system, in the lyric vein--rhythmic prose,
etc.
‘_Their Women._--Like their North American sisters, fond of feathers
and bright hues. No gaudier thing in nature than the coster girl in
her holiday dress of mauve, with the cruel plume that seems to have
been dyed in blood. Relation of female to male, singular survival of
primitive state. Love-making always, in form at least, an abduction
of the virgin. A meeting at the street corner in the dusk, for the
beginning of the ceremony; then a chase round the houses, the heavy
boots after the light ones, with joyous shrieks to mark the line of
flight; after that, the seizure, the fight, with sounding slaps for
dalliance that might knock the wind out of a farrier of the Blues.
In the final clutch, skirts part in screeching rents, feathers strew
the ground. Then the panting pair return, hand in hand, to the street
corner, to begin again.
‘_A Night Piece._--Nightfall brings the whole slum together, at the
universal rendezvous, from every near or distant scene; men, and those
that were once maidens, mumbling age and swearing infancy, stand
six-deep before the slimy bar, till the ever flowing liquor damps down
their fiercest fires, and the great city is once more at rest. The
imagination of him that saw Hell could hardly picture the final scene.’
* * * * *
‘Are you ready?’
The voice came from the rock above, and it was hers.
‘Yes, pining for liberty--please let me out.’
‘Have you done your work?’
‘Yes.’
‘Word of honour?’
‘Word of honour!’
‘I am coming--you may come and look at me, if you like; but mind: don’t
you try to look down.’
I walked to the mouth of the Cave, and there, a few yards above me,
was the beautiful head peeping over the summit, the eyes smiling down
into mine. Only the face was visible; she must have been stretched full
length on the rock.
A few moments, and I was in soft delicious touch of her again, as we
crept along the ledge; and I kept touch, as we crossed the angle of the
slope on our way to the schoolhouse, for, though help was no longer
needed, Victoria still let me guard her hand. And so we walked through
the twilight, without wanting to speak a word.
That lecture was never delivered. When I saw all their happy faces
in the schoolroom, I felt that I could not spoil their holiday. I
accordingly chose another subject, while the Ancient was making his
introductory speech, and trusted to my star. The star was friendly. The
Ancient wasted a good deal of time; and, when he sat down, I was ready
for a spirited improvisation on the Benefits of the Printing Press,
with which they were perfectly content.
‘Light the torches, Reuben,’ said the old man when the applause had
subsided, ‘and let the youngsters go bird-nesting on the Ridge, for the
wind-up. Victoria, and all the girls that are good girls, will stay
behind and sing us a song. There is light enough on the Green.’