VILLADOM.
"There is less inconvenience in being mad with the mad than by
being wise by oneself."
DIDEROT.
"It is among the respectable classes of this vast and happy empire
that the greatest profusion of snobs is to be found."
THACKERAY.
"I sojourned perforce for a long while in Villadom," says an enemy
of Respectability; "and I came away with some of its froust about my
person." You can't bide there without getting harm; but the worst of
it is, we have no option, many of us; we have to live in Villadom at
some time or another in our lives. Thackeray, Guy de Maupassant, George
Gissing, and George Moore have given us some clever studies of the
kind of folk who live in those genteel residences in the suburbs. Mr.
Moore's picture of Ashbourne Crescent, in the last chapter of "A Drama
in Muslin," is about the finest of the sort I have met with in fiction.
It is so good a description of the region that I am tempted beyond
resistance to steal parts of it.
"In Ashbourne Crescent there is neither dissent nor Radicalism,
but general aversion to all considerations which might disturb
belief in all the routine of existence, in all its temporal and
spiritual aspects, as it had come amongst them. The fathers
and the brothers go to the City every day at nine, the young
ladies play tennis, read novels, and beg to be taken to dances
at the Kensington Town Hall. On Sunday the air is alive with
the clanging of bells, and, in orderly procession, every family
proceeds to church, the fathers in all the gravity of umbrellas
and prayer-books, the matrons in silk mantles and clumsy,
ready-made elastic sides; the girls in all the gaiety of their
summer dresses, with lively bustles bobbing; the young men in
frock-coats which show off their broad shoulders, as from time to
time they pull their tawny moustaches. Each house keeps a cook and
housemaid, and on Sunday afternoons, when the skies are flushed
with sunset, and the outlines of this human warren grow harshly
distinct--black lines upon pale red--these are seen walking
arm-in-arm away towards a distant park with their young men....
And that Ashbourne Crescent, with its bright brass knockers, its
white-capped maidservants, and spotless oilcloths, will in the
dim future pass away before some great tide of revolution that is
now gathering strength far away, deep down and out of sight in
the heart of a nation, is probable enough; but it is certainly
now, in all its cheapness and vulgarity, more than anything else
representative, though the length and breadth of the land be
searched, of the genius of Empire that has been glorious through
the long tale that nine hundred years have to tell."
I have conceived of a suburban colony of houses where a man might
live and be natural and healthy-minded among his neighbours; where
he might, if he chose, walk about in cool, backwoods dress, a shirt,
breeks, and wide-brimmed hat--or no hat--in hot weather, without
inciting derision, or becoming a pariah. But Villadom cares nothing
for naturalness, nor liberty of opinion and conduct; and, unconscious
of the madness of its severe conventionality, it deems those insane
who cultivate ideas and try to live up to them. What! is there one man
in ten in this great sheep-pen who would like to be seen blacking his
own boots or sweeping the snow from the front of his house? No, they
prefer to ill-pay some man's daughter to do all their irksome and dirty
work. What does Villadom read, talk of, and think upon? The fathers
read the newspapers, the mothers and daughters peruse "John Halifax,"
and such like literature of the Pap-boat and Pumplighter sort; and
the talk is of money, the neighbours, and the back-parlour window
curtains and carpets--all good themes enough in their season, but not
the only things in life of vast importance. The denizens of Villadom
tell you that they have their livings to earn, dinners to cook, and
houses to control; therefore there is no time for cultivating their
intellects, and developing their sense of the beautiful in nature and
art. No time! It is the old plea of the men and women who squander
hours in tittle-tattle and loafing. Gerald Massey, a bargeman's son,
and a fag in a factory; Elihu Burritt, a blacksmith; Thomas Edward,
a shoemaker; Walt Whitman, a compositor; Bradlaugh, a soldier, and
afterwards a clerk; James Hosken, a postman, not to mention a hundred
other hard-working men, found time to read, and think, and improve
themselves. It is the _will_, and not the leisure, that is lacking in
Villadom, the will to be something better than mere Respectables in the
eyes of society.
The foppery and frippery of Villadom are miserable outlets for human
energy. If this is the end of civilised beings, give me rather the
wildest life of primitive barbarians, for they, at least, wish to
learn higher arts of living. No past civilisation presents this
picture of Philistine apathy to the nobler interests of life. Karl
Pearson says truly that the two most pitiful illustrations of our
pseudo-civilisation may be seen in the main streets of the West End
of London. In the afternoon you see crowds of idle, shallow women
standing, rapt in the admiration of bits of ribbon in the windows of
the drapery stores. A few hours later, when the shops are closed,
another army of women parade the pavements, ogling and smirking in
their nightly quest for the bread of prostitution. The "ladies"
of the afternoon promenade are mostly the wives and daughters of
Villadom. They do not know how largely responsible they are for that
nocturnal orgy of the streets when they are snug in their luxurious
drawing-rooms. It is the fetish-worship of Respectability that makes
thousands of women redundant, drives some to the streets, and condemns
others to withered celibacy. Men realise that the Respectable daughters
of Villadom are luxuries that they cannot afford to maintain, in early
life, at least; and the _demi-monde_ know this, too. As Mr. W. R. Greg
wrote: "While the _monde_ has been deteriorating, the _demi-monde_ has
been improving; as the one has grown stupider and costlier, the other
has grown, more attractive, more decorous, and more easy. The ladies
_there_ are now often as clever and amusing, usually more beautiful,
and not infrequently (in external demeanour, at least,) as modest, as
their rivals in more recognised society."
This writer, rightly or wrongly, affirms that the way to set things
straight in this anomaly of polyandry for thousands of women, and
celibacy for thousands of their sisters is by the respectable ladies
emulating the manners, and attaining the charms of the hetæræ, in
"cheerfulness and kindliness of demeanour," "economy of style," and
"ease and simplicity."
I know the advanced women--some of them, at any rate--will tell me that
men are not worth winning at this expense, and that they prefer to go
their own ways alone. So be it. There is no coercion to matrimony for
such as elect to remain in single independence. On the other hand, we
have not yet killed the sexual attraction and the maternal instinct in
all our emancipated women. And, as for the girls of Villadom, _they_,
at all events, look upon marriage as their destiny. Then, I say, let
them get rid of this spurious virtue of Respectability, which costs
so much to maintain, and is worth nothing after all their pains.
Villadom exists principally for women. Bachelor men do not, as a rule,
need domestic whim-whams and nick-nacks to make them happy in their
"diggings." Villadom has been built and embellished for the fair sex;
they reign almost supreme there, and it is their part to refine the
atmosphere of their domain.