readers how entirely lovable a man he is, and I do not know why I should
differ from every one else, for, in this case at all events, what every
one says is true. There are few actors, either in the past or present,
who have so thoroughly succeeded in placing themselves upon a footing of
the most friendly and cordial nature with their audience as Mr. John
Lawrence Toole. And not only has he succeeded in establishing such
relations between himself and his audience, but he has been to the full
as successful in endowing the characters he has undertaken with those
same lovable qualities which have endeared him both to the public and to
his own private friends. Few actors so entirely breathe into their parts
the very spirit of their nature and essence of their being as Mr. Toole
breathes into his. With high and low, rich and old, young and poor
alike, he is a never-failing favourite, and the moment his kindly face
appears upon the stage, and the familiar voice once again awakens the
memories of bygone years, a burst of affectionate applause breaks out in
welcome of the dear old favourite of our English stage. No matter where
a man has been; in the Great Republic over the water, or in the burning
lands of India, or in the New World under our feet; when he returns,
after years of absence, to the old country, and the familiar faces have
passed away, and all things have become new, yet there is still one face
that is the same, one voice in which there is still the old familiar
ring, and to many such a wanderer old "Johnny Toole" becomes the one
connecting line between the dear old past and the cold new present. And
who does not know the aspect of the man himself--the short, sturdy
figure, the slight limp in his walk, the kind, pleasant face with the
mobile mouth and the eyeglass screwed in the smiling eye, and the hair,
now sprinkled with grey, brushed back from the broad open forehead? The
genial, pleasant manner, the entire ease of the man, and the utter
absence of all that detestable putting on of "side" which is too often
characteristic of the young actor of the present day, how all these
things go towards the explanation of his universal popularity! A great
sorrow has overshadowed the latter years of his life, a sorrow from
which he will never shake himself free, but which has only deepened the
tenderness of the nature which is so characteristic of the man. I spent
a morning with him very recently in his house at Maida Vale. As he
entered the room and I asked him how he was, he replied, "Oh, well, I am
pretty middling, thanks; an actor's is such a hard life, you know," he
went on, confidentially, as he pushed me into a chair and took one
himself upon the opposite side of the hearthrug. "I have just been
reading a whole bundle of manuscript plays, and you never saw such
rubbish in your life. And then"--he went on, plaintively enough--"I lose
the things, you know; put 'em into a drawer, or with a lot of other
manuscripts and papers, and I can't lay my hands on 'em when they are
sent for, and then, oh, goodness! there's the deuce and all to pay; for
I can assure you that no mother thinks more of her first-born baby than
a young author thinks of his first play, and if you are not of the same
opinion he regards you as the biggest idiot in the world." "Well, but,"
I ventured to remark--"why on earth do you bother about the things?"
"Oh, well," said he--"you know I can't help myself; you never can get
away from them. For instance, I go out to a harmless evening party, and
a country parson comes up to me, the most unlikely man in all the world,
you'd think, and he'll say to me, 'My brother has just written a play,
Mr. Toole; I wish you'd just cast your eye over it.' And I can't say No,
Mr. Blathwayt, I can't say No. Well, now you're here," he went on after
a moment, "you'll like to have a look round, won't you? I've got lots of
interesting things here. Come into what I call my study--although,"
continued he, with a laugh, "I am afraid I don't get through much study.
I am too busy to write, you know," he rambled on in a voice and manner
that was amusingly reminiscent of "Walker London." So into the study we
went, encountering on our way a big Australian black bird, which was
wandering about the house in an aimless and irresponsible fashion,
crooning to itself memories of its Antipodean home. Before we entered
the study, Mr. Toole drew my attention to a beautiful model of the
picturesque old Maypole Inn in "Barnaby Rudge," with a number of the
characters in the novel wandering about in front of the house. There was
Barnaby Rudge himself, there was his supernaturally wicked old raven;
old Joe Willet, the landlord, stood smoking in his shirt-sleeves, while
pretty Dolly Varden herself was tripping down to town. "There," said my
host, "isn't that clever? It stood for many years at the 'Hen and
Chickens' in Birmingham, and Dickens used to admire it very much when he
used to visit that town on his reading tours." Two little Japanese
figures, reposing upon the top of the case which contained this model,
looked down upon Mr. Toole as he stood beneath them. He set their arms
and heads moving, observing, as he did so, "Often, when I am studying a
part, I set those little figures going, they do for the public
applauding." In the study itself, the walls were thickly hung with
pictorial reminiscences--chiefly of the theatrical past. There were
portraits of Macready in character, with his small, neat writing
beneath; there was Charles Matthews in some character as a boy, and a
portrait of old John Reeve, a celebrated comedian in his day; there was
Mr. Toole as _Paw Clawdian_; there was Liston as _Paul Pry_; there were
any amount of portraits of his dear old friend Henry Irving. I was much
interested in an old theatrical bill of 1813 announcing Edmund Kean's
appearance as _Hamlet_. And then Mr. Toole brought in a large framed
letter which hung up in the hall. It was a letter from Thackeray to
Charles Matthews when he was lessee of Covent Garden Theatre, and it was
written on the occasion of the Queen's first state visit to Covent
Garden after her marriage in 1840. A pen and ink sketch by Thackeray
adorned a large half of the page, in which he had represented Her
Majesty with an enormous crown upon her head, and two or three queer
sceptres in her hand, talking to the Prince Consort, who sat with her in
the royal box, in the rear of which stood the members of the royal
suite. In another corner of the hall there hung a letter, carefully
framed, which bore the signature of "Nelson and Brontë," and close
beside it there was a clever pencil sketch by George Cruikshank,
representing a London 'bus full of people of that period, and with the
price, one shilling, marked up in large figures outside it--a curious
glimpse of bygone days. In Mr. Toole's dining room we found that clever
lady artist, Folkard, who some time ago painted so faithful a likeness
of old Mrs. Keeley, engaged in giving the finishing touches to an
equally admirable portrait of my genial host himself. The dining room,
no less than the other room, was crammed with "virtuous and bigoted
articles." There was some beautiful old china which had once belonged to
Charles Dickens, and some handsome ivory elephants which Mr. Toole had
brought with him from Columbo stood upon the sideboard. A very lovely
oil painting by Keeley Halswelle, not in the least in his usual style,
represented a far stretch of country, over the blue sky of which vast
cumuli were massing themselves in snowy piles. There was a portrait, by
Clint, of Stephen Kemble, who, like Mark Lemon, used to play _Falstaff_
without padding. A painting of Joseph Jefferson, the celebrated American
Rip Van Winkle, reminded me of a splendid picture of his which I always
used to admire so much in the "Players' Club" in New York, and I
observed, as Mr. Toole pointed out a clever sketch by Mr. Weedon
Grossmith, that it was curious to notice how many actors were also good
painters. "Why, yes," replied Toole with a quizzical smile, "I have
painted a good many years myself." "Oh, indeed," said I--not immediately
catching his meaning--"may I ask what you have painted?" "My face," said
he, with an amused chuckle of much enjoyment at having caught me. Mr.
Toole then pointed out to me James Wallack, the father of the celebrated
American actor, Lester Wallack, in his favourite character of _The
Brigand_. "Ah!" said Mr. Toole, "that reminds me of an anecdote that's
told about James Wallack, and which ought to be a warning to actors
never to make speeches from the stage. Wallack was playing _The Brigand_
one night, and he was in the midst of his great dying scene, when an old
gentleman, who was sitting in the stalls, got up and put on his hat,
tied a scarf round his neck, and buttoned up his coat with great
deliberation. Wallack got very irritated, and just as the old gentleman
was going out, he called out to him, 'The piece is not finished yet,
sir.' The old gentleman, who was not in the least disconcerted, replied,
'Thank you, Mr. Wallack, I have seen _quite_ enough.'" When we returned
to the drawing room, into which I had first been shown, having specially
noted on my way through the hall Keeley Halswelle's sketch of Mr. Toole
as _The Artful Dodger_ in 1854, and a few pages from Thackeray's MSS. of
"Philip" which hung upon the wall, Mr. Toole took out an enormous
photographic album which contained the portraits of all the celebrities,
big and little--and some of them were very big indeed, and some of them
were very small--who had been present at a great banquet which was given
in Mr. Toole's honour before he left England for his Australian tour.
Everyone was there--noblemen, journalists, and actors; legal luminaries
and ecclesiastical dignitaries, people of social prominence and
scientific fame; all the principal figures, indeed, that go to the
making of this vast body politic. "I told a gentleman on board ship,"
humorously remarked Mr. Toole, "that these were all the members of my
company. I don't know if he believed me or not." Then came albums full
of autographs, old playbills, portraits of celebrated actors long since
crumbled into the dust, letters the writing of which was fast fading
away, a characteristic letter from Charles Dickens acknowledging a
beautiful paper knife which Toole had sent him.
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE AND HIS "RAVEN."]
[Illustration: MR. J. L. TOOLE.]
[Illustration: THE HALL.]
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE IN "ARTFUL CARDS."]
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE AND HIS JAPANESE AUDIENCE.]
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE IN "OFF THE LINE."]
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE AS "THE DON."]
One of the letters which Mr. Toole most prizes, and the prayer of which,
with Mr. Hollingshead's assistance, he was delighted to grant, is the
following characteristic epistle:--
"Belle Vue Mansions, Brighton, August 6th, 1873.
"My dear Toole,--Were you ever in a mess? If you never were I can
explain it to you, having been in several; indeed, I don't mind
confessing to you that I am in one now, and, strange to say, you are
perhaps the only man who can get me out of it. You need not button
up your pockets, it isn't a pecuniary one. Only fancy! after thirty
years' practice and experience I have made a mistake in my dates,
and for the first time in my life find myself engaged to two
managers at the same time. Now, they say a man cannot serve two
masters, but I CAN if they will come one after the other, only one
at a time, one down, t'other come on; but to play at Bristol and the
Gaiety on the same night (and keep it up for a week) I don't see my
way to accomplish. In a moment of enthusiasm I engaged to begin with
Chute on September 29th, and I had scarcely done so when
Hollingshead reminded me that I was booked to begin with him on that
date, and that it could not be altered. Conceive my dismay. Chute
holds fast--'can't be altered.' So does Hollingshead--'can't be
altered.' Now, Toole--_dear_ Toole, BELOVED Toole--can't you stay a
week longer at the Gaiety? CAN'T you let me begin there on Monday,
October 6th (as I thought I did), and get me out of my dilemma?
Can't you make this sacrifice to friendship, and put three or four
hundred more into your pocket? Virtue is not its own reward, but an
extra week of fine business is. Now, Toole--adored Tooley--the best
of men--first of comedians--most amiable of your sex--burst into
tears--throw your arms and sob out, 'Do with me as thou wilt--play
me another week--pay me another three hundred, and be happy.'
Breathless with anxiety, yet swelling with hope, I must await your
answer. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, and even telegraph
'Yes,' rather than keep me in suspense. What's a week to an
able-bodied low comedian? Child's play! Why, you'll be wanting to
throw in morning performances as well to keep you from rusting. It
really is a _chance_ for you. Avail yourself of it and bless me, and
I'll bless _you_, and Hollingshead will bless us both, and Chute
will bless us all.
"With my intermediate blessing, ever faithfully yours,
"C. J. MATTHEWS."
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE AS "IBSEN."]
This letter Mr. Toole read to me, exactly mimicking the tone and manner
of his old friend whom he still misses. I laughed heartily. "Well, now,
Mr. Toole," said I, as we settled down for a conversation on the art he
loves so well and has served so faithfully, "has the public taste
altered much since you first started in your theatrical career?" "No,"
he replied, "upon my word I don't think it has very much. My dear old
friend Irving, however, has effected as great a change as any man, and
his influence has always been for good." "And what of the other Henry?"
said I, "Hendrik Ibsen?" "Henry _Gibson_?" said Toole, looking up; "why,
I never heard of him." "No! _Ibsen_," I explained, "_Ibsen_," smiling as
I mentally contrasted the great Norwegian physiologist and social
Reformer, and the simple-minded, homely, old-fashioned Englishman whom
we all love so well. "Oh! Ibsen, Ibsen," said Mr. Toole, "I didn't catch
what you said; I thought you said Gibson, and I couldn't think who on
earth you meant. Well," he said, "I don't like his work myself. It's so
unwholesome, you know. It seems to me such a vitiated taste. They put it
down to my ignorance; but if you ask me what I think," he went on
confidentially, "I should say there are very few who really care about
him. He happens to be the fashion just at present. I played _Ibsen_ in
'Ibsen's Ghost,'" he continued, "and they said it was a beautiful
make-up. I don't know what the old gentleman would have thought of it
himself. Have you seen Irving's _Lear_?" he suddenly remarked, after a
moment of silence. "I can remember many _Lears_, but I have never seen
anything like his. I have been tremendously moved by it; but it is far
too great a strain for him." Mr. Toole then drifted into eulogy of his
almost life-long friend, upon whose generosity and the beauty of whose
character he never wearies of expatiating. "And how do you think the
comedy of to-day compares with that of past years, Mr. Toole?" said I.
"Oh, well," he replied; "I don't think things have altered much. It is
true that there was a great gap when Keeley, Buxton, Benjamin Webster,
Sothern, and Charles Matthews all passed away within a few years of each
other. But we've lots of good comedians now, to say nothing of the vast
increase in the number of theatres, which, of course, gives far more
opportunities to new men than was the case in my early days. For my own
part, though I almost invariably play low comedy parts, yet, as a rule,
I prefer pathos, I think." And, as he spoke, Mr. Toole handed me a
photograph which represented him in that very pathetic character _Caleb
Plummer_ in "Dot." "There," said he, "that's one of my favourite
characters, but people come to see me for fun, they don't look much for
pathos in me, except, perhaps, in the provinces. Ah! I like the
provinces," he continued. "I have many friends in them. The Scotch are a
splendid people to play to, but then English people, by which I mean
English and Scotch alike, are very clannish, and very tender to an old
friend. I always feel when I appear upon the stage that I am in the
presence of friends. I don't think that French actors are so much
regarded as English actors. We feel the affection of our people so much.
But, then, we go in and out as private friends amongst the people, more
than the Frenchmen do. Their best actors go out to a party, and they act
for money, just as they would in the theatre. I think that is very
_infra dig._ myself. It seems to me that as soon as the curtain is down
the actor's work is over for the night, and when you go out to a man's
party you are his guest, but you cease to be so if you take his money.
With singers, however, the case is quite different. Some say I am over
fastidious, but, mind you," went on Mr. Toole, very earnestly, "I think
it would be very snobbish not to join in the fun that is going on as a
friend, and help to make everything go pleasantly. As a rule, however, I
consider that on this account the English actor's social position is
higher than that of a French actor. You ask me about criticism," said
Mr. Toole a little later, as we wandered on through different fields of
thought, over our wine and cigars. "Well," he continued, "it is very
difficult to say whether it has improved or not during late years. In
the old days, you know, we had some very good men; there was Oxenford,
there was Bayle Bernard, there was Laman Blanchard, all very good men
indeed. In the present day, Clement Scott is exceedingly clever, of
course; but some of the young men are too much up in the clouds for
me--they are very smart, I daresay, but I don't know what they're
driving at, you know; all the same, I don't think criticism has any more
influence than it had of old, in some cases not so much." And then,
branching off on another line, Mr. Toole said--"Did you notice those
remarks in the paper the other day about Fanny Kemble's father, and how
he came to grief as a theatrical manager? I smiled when I read them. I
knew well enough how it was; it was that infamous 'order' system. Kemble
actually gave 11,000 orders in one season. It's altogether a rotten, bad
system. Hundreds apply to me every week for orders who haven't the
slightest claim upon me, and especially wealthy people, who are
invariably the greatest offenders in this respect, and yet, when they
are refused orders, they at once book seats for the play. Of course
there are certain people who are thoroughly entitled to orders, and I am
only too glad to give them in such cases, but I draw the line at giving
them to _any_ one who chooses to ask me. _I_ can't go into a restaurant
and get a dinner for nothing--I wish I could; a tailor won't make me a
coat for nothing--why should I play to people for nothing? They cannot
have any idea how much it costs to keep up a theatre, or perhaps they'd
have a little more consideration for one. It's a rotten, bad system, and
it ought to be done away with." Later on in the evening Mr. Toole and I
drove down to the theatre together, and we resumed our conversation in
his very interesting little dressing-room. I congratulated him on the
long run which "Walker London" was having; "but don't long runs tend to
artificiality?" I asked. "No," said Mr. Toole; "a new audience every
evening saves you from that, to a great extent, especially with an
earnest man. Earnestness is everything in an actor, but if you're
apathetic you're lost. Still, I sometimes look at _Paul Pry's_
umbrella," continued Mr. Toole, pointing to the quaint, queer, green old
article that answered to that description, and which stood by itself in
a corner of the room, "and wish I could play _Paul Pry_ again, but I
don't see much chance of that at present. Why, it will soon be
'Walker's' first birthday. I suppose they'll want me to make a speech.
And speech-making always bothers me, for I am very nervous. But I
daresay I shall 'gammon' through somehow." I observed, "Well, I must say
you 'gammon' through very well, for I always think you are one of the
easiest speakers of the day." To which Mr. Toole replied, "Well, for my
part, I think repose is everything. Quiet humour is always much more
telling than noisy fun, and to feel your part deeply is far more than
mere elocution." "Do you think that the training that young people on
the stage get, now-a-days, is as thorough as it was in your early days,
Mr. Toole?" "Well," he said, "I don't think that young actors get so
much practice as they did in the old days when Irving and I used to be
for years together on a stock company in Edinburgh. He and I and Helen
Faucit have played all the parts in Shakespeare together. But travelling
companies have altered all that now-a-days. Still I think I must say
that I've got a very fairly good _répertoire_ for my people. Did you
ever hear how I took to the stage?" he continued. "I used to be clerk in
a wine merchant's office, and I was also a member of the City Histrionic
Club. Well, one night I went to the Pavilion; one of the actors who used
to give imitations of popular favourites didn't turn up, and so I was
persuaded by a man, who knew that I had been in the habit of giving
imitations myself to our little club, to take his place. It was then
that I first tasted the sweets of an actor's life. It was then I
resolved to quit the merchant's desk for the stage. Do you see that
playbill?" he continued, pointing up to an old time-stained paper which
hung upon the wall. "There," said he, "that's the first time my name
ever appeared on a London playbill. I appeared on that occasion for 'one
night only' at the Haymarket Theatre, where a benefit was being given
for Mr. Fred Webster, in July, 1852." I glanced round the little room,
in which are gathered so many memories of the picturesque past, and in
which so many of the best known men of the present day are so frequently
to be found having a chat with "Dear Old Johnny Toole." There was an
amusing photograph of Toole up to his waist in a hot lake in New Zealand
surrounded by a number of Maoris. There was a portrait of himself in his
first part in "My Friend the Major." Charles Matthews, in "My Awful
Dad," smiled across the room at Paul Bedford and Toole, who were
standing within a picture frame together. There was a quaint old
coloured print representing Grimaldi--for whom Mr. Toole has a great
admiration, and whose snuff-box he regards as quite a treasure--in
private life, and in his clown's costume. But to enumerate further the
interesting pictures that hang upon the walls of his little
dressing-room would be to far exceed my allotted space. I happened on
the following night to be delivering a lecture at the Playgoers' Club on
the Church and Stage, and before I left I asked Mr. Toole his opinion on
the subject. "Why," he said, "I think that the Church and the Stage have
a great deal in common, and I think that they ought to be great friends,
but I don't see that we need reforming any more than any other branches
of the community. For my own part, I have the greatest respect for the
clergy, and a great many friends amongst them, and I always go to church
when I can. I am very fond of going to Westminster Abbey. I like the
music; it's so solemn, you know--it always stirs me. I was very much
amused at an incident which occurred to me the other day. I was playing
in York, so on Sunday I went to the Minster as usual; on the following
day, a man I knew came up to me and said, quite in good faith, 'Why, I
saw you in church yesterday, and you were behaving quite quietly!' Just
as though he had expected me to go in costume, and behave as though I
were on the stage. But that is one of the ridiculous ideas that people
get into their heads about actors. Still, I think, all that kind of
thing is dying down now-a-days."
[Illustration: TOOLE AND IBSEN.]
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE AS CALEB PLUMMER IN "DOT."]
[Illustration: THE LIBRARY.]
[Illustration: "IT'S A ROTTEN SYSTEM."]
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE IN HIS DRESSING ROOM.]
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE AS "PAUL PRY."]
[Illustration: THE DINING ROOM.]
[Illustration: MR. TOOLE AS "REV. AMINADAB SLEEK."]
[Illustration]
NOVEL NOTES.
BY JEROME K. JEROME. ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. GÜLICH.
-----
PART XII.
How much more of our--fortunately not very valuable--time we devoted to
this wonderful novel of ours I cannot exactly say. Turning the
dogs'-eared leaves of the dilapidated diary that lies before me, I find
the record of our later gatherings confused and incomplete. For weeks
there does not appear a single word. Then comes an alarmingly
business-like minute of a meeting at which there were--"Present:
Jephson, MacShaugnassy, Brown, and Self"; and at which the "Proceedings
commenced at 8.30." At what time the "proceedings" terminated, and what
business was done, the chronicle, however, sayeth not; though, faintly
pencilled in the margin of the page, I trace these hieroglyphics:
"3·14·9--2·6·7," bringing out a result of "1·8·2." Evidently an
unremunerative night.
[Illustration: "TEARS STREAMING DOWN."]
On September thirteenth, we seem to have become suddenly imbued with
energy to a quite remarkable degree, for I read that we "Resolved to
start the first chapter at once"--"at once" being underlined. After this
spurt, we rest until October fourth, when we "Discussed whether it
should be a novel of plot or of character," without--so far as the diary
affords indication--arriving at any definite decision. I observe that on
the same day, "Mac told story about a man who accidentally bought a
camel at a sale." Details of the story are, however, wanting, which,
perhaps, is fortunate for the reader.
(Copyrighted in the United States of America by Jerome K. Jerome.)
On the sixteenth, we were still debating the character of our hero; and
I see that I suggested "a man of the Charley Buswell type."
Poor Charley, I wonder what could have made me think of him in
connection with heroes; his lovableness, I suppose--certainly not his
heroic qualities. I can recall his boyish face now (it was always a
boyish face), the tears streaming down it as he sat in the schoolyard
beside a bucket, in which he was drowning three white mice and a tame
rat. I sat down opposite and cried too, while helping him to hold a
saucepan lid over the poor little creatures, and thus there sprang up a
friendship between us, which grew.
Over the grave of these murdered rodents, he took a solemn oath never to
break school rules again, by keeping either white mice or tame rats, but
to devote the whole of his energies for the future to pleasing his
masters, and affording his parents some satisfaction for the money being
spent upon his education.
Seven weeks later, the pervadence throughout the dormitory of an
atmospheric effect more curious than pleasing led to the discovery that
he had converted his box into a rabbit hutch. Confronted with eleven
kicking witnesses, and reminded of his former promises, he explained
that rabbits were not mice, and seemed to consider that a new and
vexatious regulation had been sprung upon him. The rabbits were
confiscated. What was their ultimate fate, we never knew with certainty,
but three days later we were given rabbit-pie for dinner. To comfort him
I endeavoured to assure him that these could not be his rabbits. He,
however, convinced that they were, cried steadily into his plate all the
time that he was eating them, and afterwards, in the playground, had a
stand-up fight with a fourth form boy who had requested a second
helping.
That evening he performed another solemn oath-taking, and for the next
month was the model boy of the school. He read tracts, sent his spare
pocket-money to assist in annoying the heathen, and subscribed to "The
Young Christian" and "The Weekly Rambler, an Evangelical Miscellany"
(whatever that may mean). An undiluted course of this pernicious
literature naturally created in him a desire towards the opposite
extreme. He suddenly dropped "The Young Christian" and "The Weekly
Rambler," and purchased penny dreadfuls; and, taking no further interest
in the welfare of the heathen, saved up and bought a second-hand
revolver and a hundred cartridges. His ambition, he confided to me, was
to become "a dead shot," and the marvel of it is that he did not
succeed.
Of course, there followed the usual discovery and consequent trouble,
the usual repentance and reformation, the usual determination to start a
new life.
Poor fellow, he lived "starting a new life." Every New Year's Day he
would start a new life--on his birthday--on other people's birthdays. I
fancy that, later on, when he came to know their importance, he extended
the principle to quarter days. "Tidying up, and starting afresh," he
always called it.
[Illustration: "A DEAD SHOT."]
I think as a young man he was better than most of us. But he lacked that
great gift which is the distinguishing feature of the English-speaking
race all the world over, the gift of hypocrisy. He seemed incapable of
doing the slightest thing without getting found out; a grave misfortune
for a man to suffer from, this.
Dear simple-hearted fellow, it never occurred to him that he was as
other men--with, perhaps, a dash of straightforwardness added; he
regarded himself as a monster of depravity. One evening I found him in
his chambers engaged upon his Sisyphean labour of "tidying up." A heap
of letters, photographs, and bills lay before him. He was tearing them
up and throwing them into the fire.
I came towards him, but he stopped me. "Don't come near me," he cried,
"don't touch me. I'm not fit to shake hands with a decent man."
It was the sort of speech to make one feel hot and uncomfortable. I did
not know what to answer, and murmured something about his being no worse
than the average.
"Don't talk like that," he answered excitedly; "you say that to comfort
me, I know; but I don't like to hear it. If I thought other men were
like me I should be ashamed of being a man. I've been a blackguard, old
fellow, but, please God, it's not too late. To-morrow morning I begin a
new life."
He finished his work of destruction, and then rang the bell, and sent
his man downstairs for a bottle of champagne.
"My last drink," he said, as we clicked glasses. "Here's to the old life
out, and the new life in."
He took a sip and flung the glass with the remainder into the fire. He
was always a little theatrical, especially when most in earnest.
For a long while after that I saw nothing of him. Then, one evening,
sitting down to supper at a restaurant, I noticed him opposite to me in
company that could hardly be called doubtful.
He flushed and came over to me. "I've been an old woman for nearly six
months," he said, with a laugh. "I find I can't stand it any longer.
[Illustration: "IN COMPANY THAT COULD HARDLY BE CALLED DOUBTFUL."]
"After all," he continued, "what is life for but to live? It's only
hypocritical to try and be a thing we are not. And do you know"--he
leant across the table, speaking earnestly--"honestly and seriously, I'm
a better man--I feel it and know it--when I am my natural self than when
I am trying to be an impossible saint."
That was the mistake he made; he always ran to extremes. He thought that
an oath, if it were only big enough, would frighten away Human Nature,
instead of serving only as a challenge to it. Accordingly, each
reformation was more intemperate than the last, to be duly followed by a
greater swing of the pendulum in the opposite direction.
Being now in a thoroughly reckless mood, he went the pace rather hotly.
Then, one evening, without any previous warning, I had a note from him.
"Come round and see me on Thursday. It is my wedding eve."
I went. He was once more "tidying up." All his drawers were open, and on
the table were piled packs of cards, betting books, and much written
paper, as before, all in course of demolition.