excellent people who are kind enough to label themselves as "Society,"
for I have had quite enough experience of them at one time and another,
and my impressions are not of a peculiarly reverential kind. "Company"
among the set who regard themselves as the cream of England's--and
consequently of the world's--population is something so laborious, so
useless, so exhausting that I cannot imagine any really rational person
attending a "function" (that is the proper name) if Providence had left
open the remotest chance of running away; at any rate, the rational
person would not endure more than one experience. For, when the
clear-seeing outsider looks into "Society," and studies the members who
make up the little clique, he is smitten with thoughts that lie too deep
for tears--or laughter. A perfectly fresh mind, when brought to bear on
the "Society" phenomenon, asks, "What are these people? What have they
done? What are they particularly fitted for? Is there anything noble
about them? Is their conversation at all charming? Are any of them
really happy?" And to all of these queries the most disappointing
answers must be returned. Take the men. Here is a marquis who is a
Knight of the Garter. He has held offices in several Cabinets; he can
control the votes spread over a very large slice of a county, and his
income amounts to some trifle like one hundred and eighty thousand
pounds per year. We may surely expect something of the superb
aristocratic grace here, and surely a chance word of wit may drop from a
man who has been in the most influential of European assemblies! Alas!
The potentate crosses his hand over his comfortable stomach, and his
contributions to the entertainment of the evening amount to occasional
ejaculations of "Ugh! Ugh!" "Hah!" "Hey!" "Exactly!" "Ugh! Ugh!" In the
higher spheres of intellect and breeding I have no doubt but that "Ugh!
Ugh!" "Hah!" "Hey!" may have some profound significance; but, to say the
least, it is not obviously weighty. The marchioness is sweet in manner,
grave, reposeful, and with a flash of wit at disposal--not too obvious
wit--that would offend against the canon which ordains restraint; but
she might, one thinks, become tiresome in an hour. No one could say that
her manners were anything but absolutely simple, yet the very simplicity
is so obviously maintained as a sort of gymnastic effort that it tires
us only to study it. Then here is a viscount, graceful, well-set, easy
in his pose, talking with a deep voice, and lisping to the faintest
degree. He has owned some horses, caused some scandals, waltzed some
waltzes, and eaten a very large number of good dinners: he has been
admired by many, hated by many, threatened by many, and he would not be
admitted to any refined middle-class home; yet here he is in his
element, and no one would think of questioning his presence. He never
uttered a really wise or helpful word in his life, he never did anything
save pamper himself--his precious self--and yet he is in "Society," and
reckoned as rather an authority too! These are only types, but, if you
run through them all, you must discover that only the sweet and splendid
girls who have not had time to be spoilt and soured are worth thinking
about. If there is dancing, it is of course carried out with perfect
grace and composure; if there is merely an assembly, every one looks as
well as possible, and every one stares at every one else with an air as
indifferent as possible. But the child of nature asks in wild
bewilderment, "Where on earth does the human companionship come in?"
Young girls are nowadays beginning to expect bright talk from their
partners, and the ladies have a singularly pretty way of saying the most
biting things in a smooth and unconcerned fashion when they find a dunce
beginning to talk platitudes or to patronize his partner; but the middle
generation are unspeakably inane; and the worst is that they regard
their inanity as a decided sign of distinction. A grave man who adds a
sense of humour to his gravity may find a sort of melancholy
entertainment if he listens to a pair of thorough-paced "Society"
gentry. He will learn that you do not go to a "function" to please
others or to be pleased yourself; you must not be witty--that is bad
form; you must not be quietly in earnest--that is left to literary
people; you must not speak plain, direct truth even in the most
restrained fashion--that is to render yourself liable to be classified
as a savage. No. You go to a "function" in order, firstly, to see who
else is there; secondly, to let others see you; thirdly, to be able to
say to absentees that you saw they were not there; fourthly, to say,
with a liquid roll on the "ll," "She's looking remarkably wellll."
These are the great and glorious duties of the Society person. A little
funny creature was once talking to a writer of some distinction. The
little funny man would have been like a footman if he had been eight
inches taller, for his manners savoured of the pantry. As it was, he
succeeded in resembling a somewhat diminutive valet who had learnt his
style and accent from a cook. The writer, out of common politeness,
spoke of some ordinary topic, and the valet observed with honest pride,
"_We_ don't talk about that sort of thing." The writer smiled grimly
from under his jutting brows, and he repeated that valet's terrific
repartee for many days. The actual talk which goes on runs in this way,
"Quite charming weather!" "Yes, very." "I didn't see you at Lady Blank's
on Tuesday?" "No; we could hardly arrange to suit times at all." "She
was looking uncommonly well. The new North-Country girl has come out."
"So I've heard." "Going to Goodwood?" "Yes. We take Brighton this time
with the Sendalls." And so on. It dribbles for the regulation time, and,
after a sufficient period of mortal endurance, the crowd disperse, and
proceed to scandalize each other or to carry news elsewhere about the
ladies who were looking "remarkably well-l-l."
As for the dreadful crushes, what can one say? The absurd rooms where
six hundred people try to move about in a space meant for three hundred;
the staircase a Black-Hole tempered by flowers; the tired smile of the
hostess; the set simper of long-recked shaven young men; the patient,
tortured hypocrisy of hustled and heated ladies; the babble of scrappy
nothings; the envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness; the
magnificence turned into meanness; the lack of all feeling of home, and
the discontented dispersal of ungrateful people--are these the things to
occupy life? Are these the things to interest any manly man who is free
to act for himself? Hardly.
But our "company" refers to the meeting of human souls and hearts, and
not to the meeting of a fortuitous concourse of male and female
evening-dresses. I have now before me a very brilliant published account
of a reception at George Eliot's house. Those assemblies were company,
and company of the finest kind. The exaggerated fuss made by the sibyl's
husband in order to secure silence while she was speaking sometimes
became a little embarrassing when men of a humorous turn were there; but
nevertheless the best in England met in that drawing-room, and all that
was highest in literature, science, and art was talked over in graceful
fashion. The sniffing drawl of Society and the impudent affectation of
cynicism were not to be found; and grave men and women--some of them
mournful enough, it may be--agreed to make the useful hours fleet to
some profit. No man or woman in England--or in Europe for that
matter--was unwilling to enter that modest but brilliant assemblage, and
I wish some one could have taken minute notes, though that of course
would have been too entirely shocking. When I think of that little
deep-voiced lady gathering the choicest spirits of her day together, and
keeping so many notes in tuneful chime, I hardly know whether to use
superlatives of admiration about her or superlatives of contempt about
the fribbles who crush each other on staircases and babble like parrots
in an aviary. If we cast back a little, we have another example of an
almost perfect company. People have talked of Johnson, Burke, Boswell,
Beauclerc, and Goldsmith until the subject is growing a thought stale;
but, unless a reader takes Boswell and reads the book attentively after
he has come to maturity, he can hardly imagine how fine was that
admirable company. They were men of high aims and strong sense; they
talked at their very best, and they talked because they wished to attain
clear views of life and fate. The old gladiator sometimes argued for
victory, but that was only in moments of whim, and he was always ready
to acknowledge when he was in error. Those men may sometimes have drunk
too much wine; they may have spoken platitudes on occasion; but they
were good company for each other, and the hearty, manly friendship which
all but poor Goldsmith and Boswell felt for every one else was certainly
excellent. Assemblies like the Club are impossible nowadays; but surely
we might find some modification suited even to our gigantic intellects
and our exaggerated cleverness! I have defined bad company; I may define
good company as that social intercourse which tends to bring out all
that is best in man. I have said my bitter word about the artificial
society of the capital; but I never forget the lovely quiet circles
which meet in places far away from the blare of the city. In especial I
may refer to the beautiful family assemblies which are almost
self-centred. The girls are all at home, but the boys are scattered.
Harry writes from India, with all sorts of gossip from Simla, and many
longings for home; a neighbour calls, and the Indian letter gives matter
for pleasant half-melancholy chat. Then the quiet evening passes with
books and placid casual talk; the nerves from the family stretch perhaps
all over the world, but all the threads converge on one centre. This
life is led in many places, and the folk who so live are good company
among themselves, and good company for all who meet them.
The very thought of the men who are usually described in set slang
phrases is enough to arouse a shudder. The loud wit who cracks his
prepared witticisms either at the head of a tavern-table or in private
society is a mere horror. The tavern men of the commercial traveller
class are very bad, for their mirth is prepared; their jokes have run
the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, and they are not always
prepared to sacrifice the privilege of being coarse which used to be
regarded as the joker's prerogative. In moving about the world I have
always found that the society of the great commercial room set up for
being jolly, but I could never exactly perceive where the jollity
entered. Noise, sham gentility, the cackle of false laughter were there;
but the strong, sincere cheerfulness of friendly men--never! Yet the
tavern humourist, or even the club joker, is as nothing compared with
the true professional wit. Who can remember that story about Theodore
Hook and the orange? Hook wrote a note to the hostess, saying, "Ask me
at dinner if I will venture on an orange." The lady did so, and then the
brilliant wit promptly made answer, "I'm afraid I should tumble off." A
whole volume of biography is implied in that one gruesome and vulgar
anecdote. In truth, the professional wit is no company at all; he has
the effect of a performing monkey suddenly planted on the table, and
his efforts are usually quite on a level with the monkey's.
Among the higher Bohemian sets--Bohemian they call themselves, as if
there ever was a Bohemian with five hundred a year!--good company is
common. I may say, with fear and much trembling, that the man of
letters, the man who can name you all the Restoration comedies or tell
you the styles of the contemporaries of Alan Chartier is a most terrible
being, and I should risk sharks rather than remain with him on a
desolate island; but a mixed set of artists, musicians, verse-makers,
novelists, critics--yea, even critics--contrive usually to make an
unusually pleasant company. They are all so clever that the professional
wit dares not raise his voice lest some wielder of the bludgeon should
smite him; no long-winded talk is allowed, and, though a bore may once
be admitted to the company, he certainly will never be admitted more
than once. The talk ranges loosely from point to point, and yet a
certain sequence is always observed; the men are freed from conventions;
they like each other and know each other's measure pretty well; so the
hours fly in merry fashion, and the brethren who carried on the
symposium go away well pleased with themselves and with each other.
There can be no good company where the capacity for general agreement is
carried too far in any quarter. Unity of aim, difference of
opinion--those are the elements that make men's conversations valuable.
Last of all, I must declare that there can be no good company unless
women are present. The artists and authors and the rest are all very
well in their way, but the dexterous unseen touch of the lady is
needed; and no man can reckon himself fit to converse at all unless he
has been taught by women's care, and gently reproved by women's
impalpable skill. Young men of our day are beginning to think it
childish or tedious to mix much in women's society; the consequence is
that, though many of them go a long way toward being gentlemen, too many
are the merest cubs that ever exhibited pure loutishness in
conversation. The subtle blending, the light give-and-take of chat
between men and women is the true training which makes men graceful of
tongue, kindly in the use of phrases, and, I believe, pure in heart.
_October, 1888._
_GOING A-WALKING._
One of the most pestilent of all social nuisances is the athlete who
must be eternally performing "feats," and then talking about them. He
goes to the Alps, and, instead of looking at the riot of sunset colour
or the immortal calm of the slumbering peaks, he attempts performances
which might be amusing in a circus of unlimited size, but which are not
in the least interesting when brought off on the mighty declivities of
the great hills. One of these gentlemen takes up a quarter of a volume
in telling us how he first of all climbed up a terrible peak, then fell
backwards and slid down a slope of eight hundred feet, cutting his head
to the bone, and losing enough blood to make him feel faint The same
gentleman had seen two of his companions fly into eternity down the grim
sides of the same mountain; but he must needs climb to the top, not in
order to serve any scientific purpose, or even to secure a striking
view, but merely to say he had been there. After an hour on the summit
of the enormous mass of stone, he came down; and I should have liked to
ask him what he reckoned to be the net profit accruing to him for his
little exploit. Wise men do not want to clamber up immense and dangerous
Alps; there is a kind of heroic lunacy about the business, but it is not
useful, and it certainly is not inviting. If a thoughtful man goes even
in winter among the mountains, their vast repose sinks on his soul; his
love of them never slackens, and he returns again and again to his
haunts until time has stiffened his joints and dulled his eyes, and he
prepares to go down into the dust of death. But the wise man has a
salutary dislike of break-neck situations; he cannot let his sweet or
melancholy fancies free while he is hanging on for dear life to some
inhospitable crag, so he prefers a little moderate exercise of the
muscles, and a good deal of placid gazing on scenes that ennoble his
thoughts and make his imagination more lofty. One of the
mountain-climbing enthusiasts could not contrive to break his neck in
Europe, so, with a gallantry worthy of a better cause, he went to South
America and scaled Chimborazo. He could not quite break his neck even in
the Andes, but he no doubt turned many athletic friends yellow with
envy. Yet another went to the Caucasus, and found so many charming and
almost deadly perils there that he wants numbers of people to go out and
share his raptures.
The same barren competitive spirit breaks out in other directions. Men
will run across the North Sea in a five-ton boat, though there are
scores of big and comfortable steamers to carry them: they are cramped
in their tiny craft; they can get no exercise; their limbs are pained;
they undergo a few days of cruel privation--and all in order that they
may tell how they bore a drenching in a cockboat. On the roads in our
own England we see the same disposition made manifest. The bicyclist
tears along with his head low and his eyes fixed just ahead of the tyre
of his front wheel; he does not enjoy the lovely panorama that flits
past him, he has no definite thought, he only wants to cover so many
miles before dark; save for the fresh air that will whistle past him,
thrilling his blood, he might as well be rolling round on a cinder track
in some running-ground. But the walker--the long-distance walker--is the
most trying of all to the average leisurely and meditative citizen. He
fits himself out with elaborate boots and ribbed stockings; he carries
resin and other medicaments for use in case his feet should give way;
his knapsack is unspeakably stylish, and he posts off like a spirited
thoroughbred running a trial. His one thought is of distances; he gloats
over a milestone which informs him that he is going well up to five and
a half miles per hour, and he fills up his evening by giving spirited
but somewhat trying accounts of the pace at which he did each stage of
his pilgrimage. In the early morning he is astir, not because he likes
to see the diamond dew on the lovely trees or hear the chant of the
birds as they sing of love and thanksgiving--he wants to make a good
start, so that he may devour even more of the way than he did the day
before. In any one lane that he passes through there are scores of
sights that offer a harvest to the quiet eye; but our insatiable athlete
does not want to see anything in particular until the sight of his
evening steak fills him with rapture. If the most patient and urbane of
men were shut up with one of these tremendous fellows during a storm of
rain, he would pray for deliverance before a couple of hours went by;
for the competitive athlete's intelligence seems to settle in his
calves, and he refers to his legs for all topics which he kindly
conceives to possess human interest. Of course the swift walker may
become a useful citizen should we ever have war; he will display the
same qualities that were shown by the sturdy Bavarians and
Brandenburgers who bore those terrible marches in 1870 and swept
MacMahon into a deadly trap by sheer endurance and speed of foot; but he
is not the ideal companion.
Persons who are wise proceed on a different plan; they wish to make the
most of every moment, and, while they value exercise, they like to make
the quickened currents of their blood feed a receptive and perhaps
somewhat epicurean brain. To the judicious man our lovely country
affords a veritable harvest of delights--and the delights can be gained
with very little trouble. I let the swift muscular men hurry away to the
Tyrol or the Caucasus or the Rocky Mountains, or whithersoever else they
care to go, and I turn to our own windy seashore or quiet lanes or
flushed purple moorlands. I do not much care for the babble of talk at
my elbow; but one good companion who has cultivated the art of keeping
silent is a boon. Suppose that you follow me on a roundabout journey.
Say we run northward in the train and resolve to work to the south on
foot; we start by the sea, and foot it on some fine gaudy morning over
the springy links where the grass grows gaily and the steel-coloured
bent-grass gleams like the bayonets of some vast host. The fresh wind
sings from the sea and flies through the lungs and into the pores with
an exhilarating effect like that of wine; the waves dance shoreward,
glittering as if diamonds were being pelted down from the blue arch
above; the sea-swallows sweep over the bubbling crests like flights of
silver arrows. It is very joyous. You have set off early, of course, and
the rabbits have not yet turned into their holes for their day-long
snooze. Watch quietly, and you may perhaps see how they make their fairy
rings on the grass. One frolicsome brown rogue whisks up his white tail,
and begins careering round and round; another is fired by emulation and
joins; another and another follow, and soon there is a flying ring of
merry little creatures who seem quite demented with the very pleasure of
living. One bounds into the air with a comic curvet, and comes down with
a thud; the others copy him, and there is a wild maze of coiling bodies
and gleaming white tails. But let the treacherous wind carry the scent
of you down on the little rascals and you will see a change. An old
fellow sits up like a kangaroo for an instant, looking extremely wise
and vigilant; he drops and kicks the ground with a sharp thud that can
be heard a long way off; the terror of man asserts itself in the midst
of that pure, peaceful beauty, and the whole flock dart off in agitated
fashion till they reach their holes; then they seem to look round with a
sarcastic air, for they know that you could not even raise a gun to your
shoulder in time to catch one of them before he made his lightning dive
into the darksome depths of the sand-hill. How strange it is that
meditative men like to watch the ways of wild things! White of Selborne
did not care much for killing anything in particular; he enjoyed himself
in a beautiful way for years, merely because he had learned to love the
pretty creatures of fen and meadow and woodland. Mr. Russell Lowell can
spend a happy day in watching through his glass the habits of the birds
that haunt his great garden; he does not want a gun; he only cares to
observe the instincts which God has implanted in the harmless children
of the air. On our walking tour we have hundreds of chances to see the
mystic mode of life pursued by the creatures that swarm even in our
crowded England; and if we use our eyes we may see a score of genuine
miracles every day.
On the pleasant "links" there is always something new to draw the eye.
Out on the flashing sea a ship rolls bravely away to north or south; her
sails are snowy in certain lights, and then in an instant she stands up
in raiment of sooty black. You may make up a story about her if you are
fanciful. Perhaps she is trailing her way into the deep quiet harbour
which you have just left, and the women are waiting until the rough
bearded fellows come lumbering up the quay. Perhaps she was careering
over the rushing mountain waves to the southward of the desolate Horn
only a few weeks ago, and the men were counting the days wearily, while
the lasses and wives at home sighed as the wind scourged the sea in the
dreary night and set all the rocks thundering with the charges of mad
surges. A little indulgence of the fancy does you no harm even though
you may be all wrong; very likely the skipper of the glad-looking vessel
is tipsy, maybe he has just been rope's-ending his cabin-boy or engaging
in some equally unpoetic pursuit; still no one is harmed by idealizing a
little, and so, by your leave, we will not alter our crude romance of
the sailor-men. Meantime, as you go on framing poetic fancies, there is
a school of other poets up above you, and they are composing their
fantasies at a pretty rate. The modest brown lark sits quietly amid the
sheltering grass, and will hardly stir, no matter how near her you may
go; but her mate, the glorious singer, is far away up toward the sun,
and he shouts in his joyous ecstasy until the heaven is full of his
exquisite joyance. Imagine how he puts his heart into his carol! He is
at least a mile above you, and you can hear him over a radius of half a
mile, measured from the place where he will drop. The little poets chant
one against the other, and yet there is no discord, for the magic of
distance seems to harmonize song with song, and the tumult soothes
instead of exciting you. Who is the poet who talks of "drawing a thread
of honey through your heart"? It is a quaint, conceited phrase, and yet
somehow it gives with absurd felicity some idea of the lark's song. They
massacre these innocents of the holy choir by thousands, and put them in
puddings for Cockneys to eat. The mere memory of one of those beatified
mornings makes you want to take the blood of the first poulterer whom
you find exposing a piteous string of the exquisite darlings. But we
must not think of blood, or taxes, or German bands, or political
speeches, or any other abomination, for our walk takes us through
flowery regions of peace.
Your muscles tighten rarely as you stump on over the elastic herbage;
two miles an hour is quite enough for your modest desires, especially as
you know you can quicken to four or five whenever you choose. As the day
wears on, the glorious open-air confusion takes possession of your
senses, your pulses beat with spirit, and you pass amid floating visions
of keen colour, soft greenery, comforting shades. The corn rustles on
the margin where the sandy soil ceases; the sleepy farmhouses seem to
'give you a lazy greeting, and the figures of the labourers are like
natural features of the landscape. Everything appears friendly; it may
be that the feeling of kindness and security arises from your physical
well-being, but it is there all the same, and what can you do more than
enjoy? Perhaps in the midst of your confused happiness your mind begins
acting on its own account, and quite disregards its humble companion,
the body. Xavier de Maistre's mind always did so, and left what Xavier
called the poor _bête_ of a carcass to take care of itself; and all of
us have to experience this double existence at times. Then you find the
advantages of knowing a great deal of poetry. I would not give a rush
for a man who merely pores over his poets in order to make notes or
comments on them; you ought to have them as beloved companions to be
near you night and day, to take up the parable when your own independent
thought is hazy with delight or even with sorrow. As you tramp along the
whistling stretches amid the blaze of the ragworts and the tender
passing glances of the wild veronica, you can take in all their
loveliness with the eye, while the brain goes on adding to your pleasure
by recalling the music of the poets. Perhaps you fall into step with the
quiver and beat of our British Homer's rushing rhymes, and Marmion
thunders over the brown hills of the Border, or Clara lingers where
mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying. Perhaps the wilful brain
persists in crooning over the "Belle Dame Sans Merci;" your mood
flutters and changes with every minute, and you derive equal
satisfaction from the organ-roll of Milton or the silvery flageolet
tones of Thomas Moore. If culture consists in learning the grammar an
etymologies of a poet's song, then no cultured man will ever get any
pleasure from poetry while he is on a walking tour; but, if you absorb
your poets into your being, you have spells of rare and unexpected
delight.
The halt is always pleasant. On our sand-hills the brackens grow to an
immense height, and, if you lie down among them, you are surrounded by a
pale green gleam, as if you had dived beneath some lucent sun-smitten
water. The ground-lark sways on a frond above you; the stonechat lights
for an instant, utters his cracking cry, and is off with a whisk; you
have fair, quiet, and sweet rest, and you start up ready to jog along
again. You come to a slow clear stream that winds seaward, lilting to
itself in low whispered cadences. Over some broad shallow pool paven
with brown stones the little trout fly hither and thither, making a weft
and woof of dark streaks as they travel; the minnows poise themselves,
and shiver and dart convulsively; the leisurely eel undulates along, and
perhaps gives you a glint of his wicked eye; you begin to understand the
angler's fascination, for the most restive of men might be lulled by the
light moan of that wimpling current. Cruel? Alas, yes!
That quaint old cruel coxcomb in his gullet
Should have a hook, with a small trout to pull it.
That was the little punishment which Byron devised for Izaak Walton. But
of course, if you once begin to be supersensitive about cruelty, you
find your way blocked at every cross-road of life, and existence ceases
to be worth having.