CHAPTER I.--THE COACH.

Transcribed from the 1892 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email

ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

INTERLUDES

BEING

TWO ESSAYS, A STORY, AND SOME VERSES

BY

HORACE SMITH

London

MACMILLAN AND CO

AND NEW YORK

1892

ESSAYS.

I. ON CRITICISM.

Criticism is the art of judging. As reasonable persons we are called

upon to be constantly pronouncing judgment, and either acting upon such

judgment ourselves or inviting others to do so. I do not know how

anything can be more important with respect to any matter than the

forming a right judgment about it. We pray that we may have "a right

judgment in all things." I am aware that it is an old saying that

"people are better than their opinions," and it is a mercy that it is so,

for very many persons not only are full of false opinions upon almost

every subject, but even think that it is of no consequence what opinions

they hold. Whether a particular action is morally right or wrong, or

whether a book or a picture is really good or bad, is a matter upon which

they form either no judgment or a wrong one with perfect equanimity. The

secret of this state of mind is, I think, that it is on the whole too

much bother to form a correct judgment; and it is so much easier to let

things slide, and to take the good the gods provide you, than to

carefully hold the scales until the balance is steady. But can anybody

doubt that this abdication of the seat of judgment by large numbers of

people is most hurtful to mankind? Does anyone believe that there would

be so many bad books, bad pictures, and bad buildings in the world if

people were more justly critical? Bad things continue to be produced in

profusion, and worse things are born of them, because a vast number of

people do not know that the things are bad, and do not care, even if they

do know. What sells the endless trash published every day? Not the

_few_ purchasers who buy what is vile because they like it, but the

_many_ purchasers who do not know that the things are bad, and when they

are told so, think there is not much harm in it after all. In short,

they think that judging rightly is of no consequence and only a bore.

But I think I shall carry you all with me when I say that this society,

almost by its very _raison d'etre_, desires to form just and proper

judgments; and that one of the principal objects which we have in view in

meeting together from time to time is to learn what should be thought,

and what ought to be known; and by comparing our own judgments of things

with those of our neighbours, to arrive at a just modification of our

rough and imperfect ideas.

Although criticism is the act of judging in general, and although I shall

not strictly limit my subject to any particular branch of criticism, yet

naturally I shall be led to speak principally of that branch of which

we--probably all of us--think at once when the word is mentioned, viz.,

literary and artistic criticism. I think if criticism were juster and

fairer persons criticized would submit more readily to criticism. It is

certain that criticism is generally resented. We--none of us--like to be

told our faults.

"Tell Blackwood," said Sir Walter Scott, "that I am one of the Black

Hussars of Literature who neither give nor take criticism." Tennyson

resented any interference with his muse by writing the now nearly

forgotten line about "Musty, crusty Christopher." Byron flew into a

rhapsodical passion and wrote _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_--

"Ode, Epic, Elegy, have at you all."

He says--

"A man must serve his time to every trade

Save censure. Critics all are ready made.

Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote,

With just enough of learning to misquote;

A mind well skilled to find or forge a fault;

A turn for punning--call it Attic salt;

To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet,--

His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet;

Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a sharper hit;

Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit;

Care not for feeling--pass your proper jest,--

And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd."

Lowell retorted upon his enemies in the famous _Fable for Critics_.

Swift, in his _Battle of the Books_, revenges himself upon Criticism by

describing her. "She dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain in Nova

Zembla. There Momus found her extended in her den upon the spoils of

numberless volumes, half devoured. At her right hand sat Ignorance, her

father and husband, blind with age; at her left Pride, her mother,

dressing her up in the scraps of paper herself had torn. About her

played her children Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Pedantry and

Ill-manners. The goddess herself had claws like a cat. Her head, ears,

and voice resembled those of an ass." Bulwer (Lord Lytton) flew out

against his critics, and was well laughed at by Thackeray for his pains.

Poets are known as the _genus irritabile_, and I do not know that prose

writers, artists, or musicians are less susceptible. Most of us will

remember Sheridan's _Critic_--

Sneer: "I think it wants incident."

Sir Fretful: "Good Heavens, you surprise me! Wants incident! I am only

apprehensive that the incidents are too crowded."

Dangle: "If I might venture to suggest anything, it is that the interest

rather falls off in the fifth act."

Sir Fretful: "Rises, I believe you mean, sir."

Mrs. Dangle: "I did not see a fault in any part of the play from the

beginning to the end."

Sir Fretful: "Upon my soul the women are the best judges after all."

In short, no one objects to a favourable criticism, and almost every one

objects to an unfavourable one. All men ought, no doubt, to be thankful

for a just criticism; but I am afraid they are not. As a result, to

criticize is to be unpopular. Nevertheless, it is better to be unpopular

than to be untruthful.

"The truth once out,--and wherefore should we lie?--

The Queen of Midas slept, and so can I."

I am going to do a rather dreadful thing. I am going to divide criticism

into six heads. By the bye, I am not sure that sermons now-a-days are

any better than they used to be in the good old times, when there were

always three heads at least to every sermon. Criticism should be--1.

Appreciative. 2. Proportionate. 3. Appropriate. 4. Strong. 5. Natural.

6. _Bona fide_.

1. _Criticism should be appreciative_.

By this I mean, not that critics should always praise, but that they

should understand. They should see the thing as it is and comprehend it.

This is the rock upon which most criticisms fail--want of knowledge. In

reading the lives of great men, how often are we struck with the want of

appreciation of their fellows. Who admired Turner's pictures until

Turner's death? Who praised Tennyson's poems until Tennyson was quite an

old man? Nay, I am afraid some of us have laughed at those who

endeavoured to ask our attention to what we called the daubs of the one

or the doggerel of the other. {5}This, I think, should teach us not even

to attempt to criticize until we are sure that we appreciate. Yet what a

vast amount of criticism there is in the world which errs (like Dr.

Johnson) from sheer ignorance. When Sir Lucius O'Trigger found fault

with Mrs. Malaprop's language she naturally resented such ignorant

criticism. "If there is one thing more than another upon which I pride

myself, it is the use of my oracular tongue and a nice derangement of

epitaphs." It was absurd to have one's English criticized by any

Irishman. It is said that "it's a pity when lovely women talk of things

that they don't understand"; but I am afraid that men are equally given

to the same vice. I have heard men give the most confident opinions upon

subjects which they don't in the least understand, which nobody expects

them to understand, nor have they had any opportunity for acquiring the

requisite knowledge. But I suppose an Englishman is nothing if he is not

dictatorial, and has a right to say that the pictures in the Louvre are

"orrid" or that the Colosseum is a "himposition." "I don't know what

they mean by Lucerne being the Queen of the Lakes," said a Yankee to me,

"but I calc'late Lake St. George is a doocid deal bigger." The criticism

was true as far as it went, but the man had no conception of beauty.

"Each might his several province well command

Would all but stoop to what they understand."

The receipt given for an essay on Chinese Metaphysics was, look out China

under the letter C and metaphysics under the letter M, and combine your

information. "Would you mind telling me, sir, if the Cambridge boat

keeps time or not to-day?" said a man on the banks of the Thames to me.

He explained that he was a political-meeting reporter on the staff of a

penny paper, and the sporting reporter was ill. Sometimes the want of

appreciation appears in a somewhat remarkable manner, as where a really

good performance is praised for its blemishes and not for its merits.

This may be done from a desire to appear singular or from ignorance. The

popular estimate is generally wrong from want of appreciation. The

majority of people praise what is not worthy of praise and dislike what

is. So that it is almost a test of worthlessness that the multitudes

approve. Baron Bramwell, in discharging a prisoner at the Old Bailey,

made what he thought some appropriate observations, which were followed

by a storm of applause in the crowded court. The learned judge, with

that caustic humour which distinguishes him, looked up and said, "Bless

me! I'm afraid I must have said something very foolish." An amusing

scene occurred outside a barrister's lodgings during the Northampton

Assizes. Two painters decorating the exterior of the lodgings were

overheard as follows:--"Seen the judge, Bill?" "Ah, I see him. Cheery

old swine!" "See the sheriff too?" "Yes, I see him too. I reckon he

got that place through interest. Been to church; they tell me the judge

preached 'em a long sarmon. Pomp and 'umbug I call that!" This was no

doubt genuine criticism, but it was without knowledge. These men were

probably voters for Bradlaugh, and the judge and the sheriff were to them

the embodiment of a hateful aristocracy. These painters little knew how

much the judge would like to be let off even listening to the sermon, and

how the sheriff had resorted to every dodge to escape from his onerous

and thankless office.

It is recorded in the Life of Lord Houghton that Prince Leopold, being

recommended to read Plutarch for Grecian lore, got the British Plutarch

by mistake, and laid down the Life of Sir Christopher Wren in great

indignation, exclaiming there was hardly anything about Greece in it.

I am sure, too, that in order to understand the work of another we must

have something more than knowledge; we must have some sympathy with the

work. I do not mean that we must necessarily praise the execution of it;

but we must be in such a frame of mind that the success of the work would

give us pleasure. I am sure someone says somewhere that a man whose

first emotion upon seeing anything good is to undervalue it will never do

anything good of his own. It argues a want of genius in ourselves if we

fail to see it in others; unless, indeed, we do really see it, and only

_say_ we don't out of envy. This is very shameful. I had rather do like

some amiable people I have known, disparage the work of a friend in order

to set others praising it.

Criticism should therefore be appreciative in two ways. The critic

should bring the requisite amount and kind of knowledge and the proper

frame of mind and temper.

2. _Criticism should be proportionate_.

By this I mean that the language in which we speak of anything should be

proportioned to the thing spoken of. If you speak of St. Paul's Church,

Beckenham, as vast, grand, magnificent, you have no language left

wherewith to describe St. Paul's, London. If you call Millais' Huguenots

sublime or divine, what becomes of the Madonna St. Sisto of Raphael? If

you describe Longfellow's poetry as the feeblest possible trash, the

coarsest and most unparliamentary language could alone express your

contempt of Martin Tupper.

"What's the good of calling a woman a Wenus, Samivel?" asked the elder

Weller. What indeed! The elder Weller probably perceived that the

language would be out of all proportion to the object of Samivel's

affections. Of course, something may be allowed to a generous

enthusiasm, and, with regard to this fault in criticism, it should

perhaps be said that exaggerated praise is not so base in its beginning

or so harmful in the end as exaggerated blame. From the use of the

former Dr. Johnson defended himself with his usual vigour. Boswell

presumed to find fault with him for saying that the death of Garrick had

eclipsed the gaiety of nations. Johnson: "I could not have said more,

nor less. It is the truth. His death did eclipse, it was like a storm."

Boswell: "But why nations? Did his gaiety extend further than his own

nation?" Johnson: "Why, sir, some exaggeration must be allowed. Besides,

'nations' may be said--if we allow the Scotch to be a nation, and to have

gaiety,--which they have not."

But there is more in this matter of proportion than at first meets the

eye. How often do we converse with a man whose language we wonder at and

cannot quite make out. It is somehow unsatisfactory. We do not quite

like it, yet there is nothing particular to dislike. Suddenly we

perceive that there is a want of perspective, or perhaps a want of what

artists call value. His mountains are mole-hills, and his mole-hills are

mountains. His colouring is so badly managed that the effect of

distance, light, and shade are lost. Thus a man will so insist upon the

use of difficult words by George Elliot that a person unacquainted with

her writings would think that the whole merit or demerit of that author

lay in her vocabulary. A man will so exalt the pathos of Dickens or

Thackeray that he will throw their wit and humour into the background.

Some person's only remark on seeing Turner's Modern Italy will be that

the colours are cracked, or, upon reading Sterne, that he always wrote

"you was" instead of "you were." "Did it ever strike you," said a friend

of mine, "that whenever you hear of a young woman found drowned she

always is described as having worn elastic boots?" Such persons look at

all things through a distorting medium. Important things become

unimportant and _vice versa_. The foreground is thrust back, the

distance brought forward, and the middle distance is nowhere. The effect

of an exaggerated praise generally is that an unfair reaction sets in.

Mr. Justin M'Carthy, in his _History of Our Own Times_, points out how

much the character of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe has suffered from the

absurd devotion of Kinglake. Kinglake writes (he says) of Lord Stratford

de Redcliffe "as if he were describing the all-compelling movements of

some divinity or providence." What nonsense has been talked about

Millais' landscapes, Whistler's nocturnes, Swinburne poetry--all

excellent enough in their way, and requiring to be praised according to

their merits, with a reserve as to their faults. The practice of puffing

tends to destroy all sort of proportion in criticism. When single

sentences or portions of sentences of apparently unqualified praise are

detached from context, and heaped together so as to induce the public to

think that all praise and no blame has been awarded, of course all

proportion is lost. Macaulay lashed this vice in his celebrated essay on

Robert Montgomery's poems. "We expect some reserve," he says, "some

decent pride in our hatter and our bootmaker. But no artifice by which

notoriety can be obtained is thought too abject for a man of letters.

Extreme poverty may indeed in some degree be an excuse for employing

these shifts as it may be an excuse for stealing a leg of mutton."

Upon the other hand, how unfair is exaggerated blame. I am not speaking

here of that which is intentionally unfair, but of blame fairly meant and

in some degree deserved, but where the language is out of all proportion

to the offence.

Ruskin so belaboured the poor ancients about their landscapes that when I

was a youth he had taught me to believe that Claude and Ruisdael were

mere duffers. So when he speaks of Whistler, as we shall presently see,

his blame is so exaggerated that it produces a revulsion in the mind of

the reader. He said Whistler's painting consisted in throwing a pot of

paint in the public's face. Well! we may say Whistler is somewhat

sketchy and careless or wanting in colour, but it is quite possible to

keep our tempers over it.

"This salad is very gritty," said a gentleman to Douglas Jerrold at a

dinner party. "Gritty," said Jerrold, "it's a mere gravel path with a

few weeds in it." That was very unfair on the salad.

3. _Criticism should be appropriate_.

I mean by this something different from proportionate. Sometimes the

language of criticism is not that of exaggeration, but yet it is quite as

inappropriate. The critic may have taken his seat too high or too low

for a proper survey, or he may, by want of education or by carelessness,

use quite the wrong words to express his meaning. You will hear a man

say, "I was enchanted with the Biglow Papers," or "I was charmed with the

hyenas at the Zoological Gardens." I think one of the distinguishing

characteristics of a gentleman, and what makes the society of educated

gentlemen so pleasant, is that their language is appropriate without

effort. "'What a delicious shiver is creeping over those limes!' said

Lancelot, half to himself. The expression struck Argemone; it was the

right one." This is what makes some people's conversation so

interesting. It is full of appropriate language. This is perhaps even

more the case with educated ladies. I think it is Macaulay who says that

the ordinary letter of an English lady is the best English style to be

found anywhere.

"It would be bad _grammar_," said Cobbett, "to say of the House of

Commons, 'It is a sink of iniquity, and they are a set of rascally

swindlers.'" Of course, the bad grammar is almost immaterial. The

expression is either a gross libel or a lamentable fact. "If a man,"

said Sydney Smith, "were to kill the minister and churchwardens of his

parish nobody would accuse him of want of taste. The Scythians always

ate their grandfathers; they behaved very respectfully to them for a long

time, but as soon as their grandfathers became old and troublesome, and

began to tell long stories, they immediately ate them; nothing could be

more _improper_ and even _disrespectful_ than dining off such near and

venerable relations, yet we could not with any propriety accuse them of

bad taste." This is very humorous. To say that it is improper or

disrespectful is as absurd as to say that it is bad taste. It is

properly described as cruel, revolting, and abominable.

Not being at all a French scholar, and coming suddenly in view of Mont

Blanc, I ventured to say to my guide, "_C'est tres joli_." "_Non_,

_Monsieur_," said he, "_ce n'est pas joli_, _mais c'est curieux a voir_."

I think we were both of us rather out of it that time.

I remember an old lady of my acquaintance pointing to her new chintz of

peonies and sunflowers, and asking me if I did not think it was very

"chaste." I should like to have said, "Oh, yes, very, quite rococo," but

I daren't.

The wife of a clergyman, writing to the papers about the "Penge Mystery,"

said that certain of the parties (whom most right-minded people thought

had committed most atrocious crimes, if not actual murder) had been

guilty of a breach of "les convenances de societe." This is almost equal

to De Quincey's friend, who committed a murder, which at the time he

thought little about. Keble said to Froude, "Froude, you said you

thought Law's _Serious Call_ was a clever book; it seemed to me as if you

had said the Day of Judgment will be a pretty sight."

I ought here to mention the use, or rather misuse, of words which are

often called "slang," such as "awfully jolly," "fearfully tedious,"

"horribly dull," or the expression "quite alarming," which young ladies,

I think, have now happily forgotten, and the equally silly use of the

word "howling" by young men. Such expressions mean absolutely nothing,

and are destructive of intelligent conversation. A man was being tried

for a serious assault, and had used a violent and coarse expression

towards the prosecutor. "You must be careful not to be misled by the bad

language reported to have been used by the prisoner," said the judge.

"You will find from the evidence that he has applied the same expression

to his best friend, to a glass of beer, to his grandmother, his boots,

and his own eyes."

4. _Criticism should be strong_.

I hope from the remarks I have previously made it will not be supposed

that I think all criticism should be of a flat, neutral tint, or what may

be called the washy order. On the contrary, if criticism is not strong

it cannot lift a young genius out of the struggling crowd, and it cannot

beat down some bumptious impostor. If the critic really believes that a

new poet writes like Milton, or a new artist paints like Sir Joshua, let

him say so; or if he thinks any work vile or contemptible, let him say

so; but let him say so well. Mere exaggerated language, as we have seen,

is not strength; but if there is real strength in the criticism, and it

is proportionate and appropriate, it will effect its purpose. It will

free the genius, or it will crush the humbug. A good critic should be

feared:

"Good Lord, I wouldn't have that man

Attack me in the _Times_,"

was said of Jacob Omnium.

"Yes, I am proud, I own it, when I see

Men not afraid of God afraid of me,"

Pope said, and I can fancy with what a stern joy an honest critic would

arise and slay what he believed to be false and vicious. In no time was

the need of strong criticism greater than it is at present. The press is

teeming with rubbish and something worse. Everybody reads anything that

is published with sufficient flourish and advertisement, and those who

read have mostly no power of judging for themselves, nor would they be

turned from the garbage which seems to delight them by any gentle

persuasion. It is therefore most necessary that the critic should speak

out plainly and boldly, though with temper and discretion. I suppose we

have all of us read Lord Macaulay's criticism upon Robert Montgomery's

poems. The poems are, of course, forgotten; but the essay still lives as

a specimen of the terribly slashing style. This is the way one couplet

is dealt with--

"The soul aspiring pants its source to mount,

As streams meander level with their fount."

"We take this on the whole to be the worst similitude in the world. In

the first place, no stream meanders, or can possibly meander, level with

its fount. In the next place, if streams did meander level with their

founts, no two motions can be less like each other than that of

meandering level and that of mounting upwards. After saying that

lightning is designless and self-created, he says, a few lines further

on, that it is the Deity who bids

'the thunder rattle from the skiey deep.'

His theory is therefore this, that God made the thunder but the lightning

made itself." Of course, poor Robert Montgomery was crushed flat, and

rightly. Yet before this essay was written his poems had a larger

circulation than Southey or Coleridge, just as in our own time Martin

Tupper had a larger sale than Tennyson or Browning. Fancy if Tupper had

been treated in the same vein how the following lines would have fared:--

"Weep, relentless eye of Nature,

Drop some pity on the soil,

Every plant and every creature

Droops and faints in dusty toil."

What do the plants toil at? I thought we knew they toil not, neither do

they spin. It goes on--

"Then the cattle and the flowers

Yet shall raise their drooping heads,

And, refreshed by plenteous showers,

Lie down joyful in their beds."

Whether the flowers are to lie down in the cattle beds or the cattle are

to lie down in the flower beds does not perhaps distinctly appear, but I

venture to think that either catastrophe is not so much to be desired as

the poet seems to imagine.

In the Diary of Jeames yellowplush a couplet of Lord Lytton's _Sea

Captain_ is thus dealt with--

"Girl, beware,

The love that trifles round the charms it gilds

Oft ruins while it shines."

"Igsplane this men and angels! I've tried everyway, back'ards, for'ards,

and in all sorts of tranceposishons as thus--

The love that ruins round the charms it shines

Gilds while it trifles oft,

or

The charm that gilds around the love it ruins

Oft trifles while it shines,

or

The ruin that love gilds and shines around

Oft trifles while it charms,

or

Love while it charms, shines round and ruins oft

The trifles that it gilds,

or

The love that trifles, gilds, and ruins oft

While round the charms it shines.

All which are as sensable as the fust passidge."

Dryden added coarseness to strength in his remarks when he wrote of one

of Settle's plays:--"To conclude this act with the most rumbling piece of

nonsense spoken yet--

'To flattering lightning our feigned smiles conform,

Which, backed with thunder, do but gild a storm.'

Conform a smile to lightning, make a smile imitate lightning; lightning

sure is a threatening thing. And this lightning must gild a storm; and

gild a storm by being backed by thunder. So that here is gilding by

conforming, smiling lightning, backing and thundering. I am mistaken if

nonsense is not here pretty thick sown. Sure the poet writ these two

lines aboard some smack in a storm, and, being sea-sick, spewed up a good

lump of clotted nonsense at once." Dryden wrote in a fit of rage and

spite, and it is not necessary to be vulgar in order to be strong; but it

is really a good thing to expose in plain language the meandering

nonsense which, unless detected, is apt to impose upon careless readers,

and so to encourage writers in their bad habits.

A young friend of mine imagined that he could make his fame as a painter.

Holding one of his pictures before his father, and his father saying it

was roughly and carelessly done, he said, "No, but, father, look; it

looks better if I hold it further off." "Yes, Charlie, the further you

hold it off the better it looks." That was severe, but strong and just.

The young man had no real genius for painting, and his father knew it.

It must be remembered that criticism cannot be strong unless it be the

real opinion of the writer. If the critic is hampered by endeavouring to

make his own views square with those of the writer, or the publisher, or

the public, he cannot speak out his mind, but is half-hearted in his

work.

5. _Natural_.

Criticism should be natural, that is, not too artificial. This is a

somewhat difficult matter upon which to lay down any rules; but one often

feels what a terrible thing it is when one wants to admire something to

be told, "Oh, but the unities are not preserved," or this or that is

quite inadmissible by all the rules of art.

"Hallo! you chairman, here's sixpence; do step into that bookseller's

shop, and call me a day-tall critic. I am very willing to give any of

them a crown to help me with his tackling to get my father and my uncle

Toby off the stairs, and to put them to bed."

"And how did Garrick speak the soliloquy last night?" "Oh, against all

rule, my lord, most ungrammatically! Betwixt the substantive and the

adjective, which should agree together in number, case, and gender, he

made a breach thus--stopping as if the point wanted settling; and betwixt

the nominative case, which your lordship knows should govern the verb, he

suspended his voice a dozen times, three seconds, and three fifths, by a

stop watch, my lord, each time." Admirable grammarian! "But, in

suspending his voice, was the sense suspended likewise? Did no

expression of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm? Was the eye

silent? Did you narrowly look?" "I looked only at the stop watch, my

lord." Excellent observer!" And what about this new book that the whole

world makes such a rout about?" "Oh, it is out of all plumb, my lord,

quite an irregular thing! Not one of the angles at the four corners was

a right angle. I had my rule and compasses, my lord, in my pocket."

Excellent critic! "And for the epic poem your lordship bid me look at;

upon taking the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them

at home upon an exact scale of Bossu's, 'tis out, my lord, in every one

of its dimensions." Admirable connoisseur! "And did you step in to take

a look at the grand picture on your way back." "It is a melancholy daub!

my lord, not one principle of the pyramid in any one group; there is

nothing of the colouring of Titian, the expression of Rubens, the grace

of Raphael, the purity of Domenichino, the corregiescity of Corregio, the

learning of Poussin, the airs of Guido, the taste of the Caraccis, or the

grand contour of Angelo." "Grant me patience, just heaven! Of all the

cants which are canted in this canting world, though the cant of

hypocrites may be the worst--the cant of criticism is the most

tormenting! I would go fifty miles on foot, for I have not a horse worth

riding on, to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up

the reins of his imaginations into his author's hands; be pleased, he

knows not why, and cares not wherefore. Great Apollo! if thou art in a

giving humour, give me--I ask no more--but one stroke of native humour

with a single spark of thy own fire along with it, and send Mercury with

the rules and compasses if he can be spared, with my compliments, to--no

matter."

This is all very amusing, and I don't know that the case upon that side

could be better stated, except that it is overstated; for, if this be

true, there ought to be no such thing as criticism at all, and all rules

are worse than useless. Everybody may do as he pleases. And yet we know

that not only is there a right way and a wrong of painting a picture,

writing a book, making a building, or composing a symphony, but there are

rules which, if disobeyed, will destroy the work. These rules,

apparently artificial, have their foundation in nature, and were first

dictated by her. Only we must be careful still to appeal constantly to

her as the source and fountain of our rules.

"First follow nature, and your judgment frame

By her just standard, which is still the same,

Unerring nature, still divinely blight,

One clear, unchanged, and universal light,

Life, force, and beauty must to all impart,

At once the source, and end, and test of art."

By too much attention to theory, by too close a study of books, we may

become narrow-minded and pedantic, and gradually may become unable to

appreciate natural beauties, our whole attention being concentrated on

the defects in art. We want to listen to the call of the poet,

"Come forth into the light of things,

Let nature be your teacher."

It is nature that mellows and softens the distance, and brings out

sharply the lights and shadows of the foreground, and the artist must

follow her if he would succeed. It is nature who warbles softly in the

love notes of the bird, and who elevates the soul by the roar of the

cataract and the pealing of the thunder. To her the musician and the

poet listen, and imitate the great teacher. It is nature who, in the

structure of the leaf or in the avenue of the lofty limes, teaches the

architect how to adorn his designs with the most graceful of

embellishments, to rear the lofty column or display the lengthening vista

of the cathedral aisle. It is nature who is teaching us all to be

tender, loving, and true, and to love and worship God, and to admire all

His works. Let us then in our criticism refer everything first of all to

nature. Is the work natural? Does it follow nature? Secondly, does it

follow the rules of art? If it passes the first test, it is well worth

the courteous attention of the critic. If it passes both tests, it is

perfect. But if only the second test is passed, it may please a few

pedants, but it is worthless, and cannot live.

6. _Criticisms should be bona fide_.

You will be rather alarmed at a lawyer beginning this topic, and will

expect to hear pages of "Starkie on Libel," or to have all the

perorations of Erskine's speeches recited to you. For one terrible

moment I feel I have you in my power; but I scorn to take advantage of

the position. I don't mean to talk about libel at all, or, at least, not

more than I can help. I have been endeavouring to show what good

criticism should be like. If criticism is so base that there is a

question to be left to a jury as to what damages ought to be paid for the

speaking or writing of it, one may say at once that it is unworthy of the

name of criticism at all. Slander is not criticism. But there is a

great deal of criticism which may be called not _bona fide_, which is yet

not malicious. It is biassed perhaps, even from some charitable motive,

perhaps from some sordid motive, perhaps from indolence, from a desire to

be thought learned or clever, or what not--in fact, from one or other of

those thousand things which prevent persons from speaking fairly and

straightforwardly. When you take up the _Athenaeum_ or the _Spectator_,

and read from those very able reviews an account of the last new novel,

do you think the writer has written simply what he truly thinks and feels

about the matter? No! he has been told he has been dull of late. He

feels he must write a spicy review. He has a cold in his head, he is

savage accordingly. A friend of his tells him he knows the author, or he

recognizes the name of a college friend--he will be lenient. The book is

on a subject which he meant to take up himself; and, without knowing it,

he is jealous. I need not multiply further these suggestions which will

occur to anyone. We all remember the dinner in Paternoster Row given by

Mrs. Bungay, the publisher's wife. Bungay and Bacon are at daggers

drawn; each married the sister of the other, and they were for some time

the closest friends and partners. Since they have separated it is a

furious war between the two publishers, and no sooner does one bring out

a book of travels or poems, but the rival is in the field with something

similar. We all remember the delight of Mrs. Bungay when the Hon. Percy

Popjoy drives up in a private hansom with an enormous grey cab horse and

a tiger behind, and Mrs. Bacon is looking out grimly from the window on

the opposite side of the street. "In the name of commonsense, Mr.

Pendennis," Shandon asked, "what have you been doing--praising one of Mr.

Bacon's books? Bungay has been with me in a fury this morning at seeing

a laudatory article upon one of the works of the odious firm over the

way." Pen's eyes opened wide with astonishment. "Do you mean to say,"

he asked, "that we are to praise no books that Bacon publishes; or that

if the books are good we are to say that they are bad?" Pen says, "I

would rather starve, by Jove, and never earn another penny by my pen,

than strike an opponent an unfair blow, or if called upon to place him,

rank him below his honest desert."

There was a trial in London in December, 1878, which illustrates the

subject I am upon. It was an action for libel by the well-known artist,

Mr. Whistler, against Mr. Ruskin, the most distinguished art critic of

the age. The passage in the writing of Mr. Ruskin, of which Mr. Whistler

complained, contains, I think, almost every fault which, according to my

divisions, a criticism can contain. The passage is as follows:--"For Mr.

Whistler's own sake no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir

Coutts Lindsey ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which

the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of

wilful imposture. I have seen and heard much of cockney impudence before

now, but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask 200 guineas for flinging a

pot of paint in the public's face."

The Attorney-General of the day, as counsel for Mr. Ruskin, said that

this was a severe and slashing criticism, but perfectly fair and _bona

fide_.

Now, let us see. First, there is the expression, "the ill-educated

conceit of the artist nearly approached the aspect of wilful imposture."

That may be severe and slashing, but is it fair? If there _was_ a wilful

imposition, why not say so; but, of course, there was not, and could not

be; but it is most unfair to insinuate that there nearly was. The truth

is, the words "wilful imposture" are a gross exaggeration. The jury,

after retiring, came into court and asked the judge what was the meaning

of wilful imposture, and, being told that it meant nothing in particular,

they returned a verdict of damages one farthing, which meant to say that

they thought equally little of Whistler's picture and of Ruskin's

criticism. Next we come to "Cockney impudence" and "coxcomb." Surely

these terms must be grossly inappropriate to the subject in hand, which

is Whistler's painting, and not his personal qualities. Next, it seems

that Mr. Ruskin thinks it is an offence to ask 200 guineas for a picture,

but where the offence lies we are not told. It might be folly to _give_

200 guineas for one of Whistler's pictures, but why should he be abused

for asking it? The insinuation is that it is a false pretence, and such

an insinuation is not _bona fide_. Lastly, we are told that Mr. Whistler

has been flinging a pot of paint in the public's face. In the first

place, this is vulgar. In the next place, it is absurd. When Sydney

Smith said that someone's writing was like a spider having escaped from

the inkstand and wandered over the paper, it was an exaggerated

criticism, but it was appropriate. But if Mr. Whistler flung a pot of

paint anywhere, it was upon his own canvas, and not into the face of the

public. Now, let anybody think what is the effect of such criticism. Is

one enabled by the light of it to see the merits or faults of Whistler's

painting? And yet this was written by the greatest art critic in this

country, by the man who has done more to reveal the secrets of Nature and

of Art to us all than any man living, and, I had almost said, than any

living or dead. But passion and arrogance are not criticism; and, in the

sense in which I have used the term, such criticism is not _bona fide_.

Well may Mr. Matthew Arnold say, speaking of Mr. Ruskin's criticism upon

another subject, that he forgets all moderation and proportion, and loses

the balance of his mind. This, he says, "is to show in one's criticism

to the highest excess the note of provinciality."

There was, once upon a time, a very strong Court of Appeal. It was

universally acknowledged to be so, and the memory of it still remains,

and very old lawyers still love to recall its glories. It was composed

of Lord Chancellor Campbell and the Lords Justices Knight-Bruce and

Turner. Bethell (afterwards Lord Westbury) was an ambitious and aspiring

man, and was always most caustic in his criticisms. He had been arguing

before the above Court one day, and upon his turning round after

finishing his argument, some counsel in the row behind him asked, "Well,

Bethell, how will their judgment go?" Bethell replied, in his softest

but most cutting tones, "I do not know. Knight-Bruce is a jack-pudding.

Turner is an old woman. And no human being can by any possibility

predict what will fall from the lips of that inexpressibly fatuous

individual who sits in the middle." This is funny, but it is vulgar, and

it is not given in good faith. It is the offspring of anger and spite

mixed with a desire to be clever and antithetical.

I gather from Mr. Matthew Arnold's essays on criticism that the endeavour

of the critic should be to see the object criticized "as in itself it

really is," or as in another passage he says, "Real criticism obeys an

instinct prompting it to know the best that is known and thought in the

world." "In order to do or to be this, criticism," he says, in italics,

"ought to be _disinterested_." He points out how much English criticism

is not disinterested. He says, "We have the _Edinburgh Review_, existing

as an organ of the old Whigs, and for as much play of mind as may suit

its being _that_; we have the _Quarterly Review_, existing as an organ of

the Tories, and for as much play of mind as may suit its being that; we

have the _British Quarterly Review_, existing as an organ of the

political Dissenters, and for as much play of mind as may suit its being

that; we have the _Times_ existing as an organ of the common satisfied

well-to-do Englishman, and for as much play of mind as may suit its being

that. . . . Directly this play of mind wants to have more scope, and to

forget the pressure of practical considerations a little, it is checked,

it is made to feel the chain. We saw this the other day in the

extinction so much to be regretted of the _Home and Foreign Review_;

perhaps in no organ of criticism was there so much knowledge, so much

play of mind; but these could not save it. It must needs be that men

should act in sects and parties, that each of these sects and parties

should have its organ, and should make this organ subserve the interest

of its action; but it would be well too that there should be a criticism,

not the minister of those interests, nor their enemy, but absolutely and

entirely independent of them. No other criticism will ever attain any

real authority, or make any real way towards its end,--the creating a

current of true and fresh ideas."

This, it must be remembered, was written in 1865. Would Mr. Matthew

Arnold be happier now with the _Fortnightly_ and the _Nineteenth Century_

and others? There is, I think, a good deal of truth in the passage I

have just quoted. I think he might have allowed that, among so many

writers, each advocating his own view or the view of his party or sect,

we ought to have some chance of forming a judgment. A question seems to

get a fair chance of being

"Set in all lights by many minds

To close the interests of all."

But, as I said, there is a good deal in what the writer says. The _Daily

News_ says the Government is all wrong, and the _Daily Telegraph_ says it

is all right; and if any paper ventured to be moderate it would go to the

wall in a week. I think what he says is true, but there is no occasion

to be so angry about it. We really are very thankful for such men as

Carlyle, Ruskin, and Matthew Arnold, and I can't help thinking they have

had their proper share of praise, and have had their share of influence

upon their age. The air of neglected superiority, which they assume,

detracts not a little from the pleasure with which one always reads them.

Perhaps some of my conservative friends will regret the good old times in

which criticism was really criticism, when a book had to run the gauntlet

of a few well established critics of _the_ club, or a play was applauded

or damned by a select few in the front row of the pit. I agree to lament

a past which can never return, but, on the whole, I think we are the

gainers. Also, I very much incline to think that the standard of

criticism is higher now than in the very palmy days when Addison wrote;

or when the _Edinburgh_ or _Quarterly_ were first started. I incline to

agree with Leslie Stephen in his _Hours in a Library_, that, if most of

the critical articles of even Jeffrey and Mackintosh were submitted to a

modern editor, he would reject them as inadequate; but I think that

perhaps they excel our modern efforts in a certain reserve and dignity,

and in a more matured thoughtfulness.

If criticism is an art, such as I have described it, and is subject to

certain rules and conditions; if good criticism is appreciative,

proportionate, appropriate, strong, natural, and _bona fide_, and bad

criticism is the reverse of all this, why, you will ask, cannot the art

be taught by some School or Academy; and if criticism is so important a

matter as you say, surely the State might see to it? I must own I am

against it. Mr. Matthew Arnold, who is much in favour of founding an

academy, which is not only to judge of original works but of the

criticisms of others upon them, states the matter very fairly. He says,

"So far as routine and authority tend to embarrass energy and inventive

genius, academies may be said to be obstructive to energy and inventive

genius; and, to this extent, to the human spirit's general advance. But

then this evil is so much compensated by the propagation on a large scale

of the mental aptitudes and demands, which an open mind and a flexible

intelligence naturally engender; genius itself in the long run so greatly

finds its account in this propagation, and bodies like the French Academy

have such power for promoting it, that the general advance of the human

spirit is perhaps, on the whole, rather furthered than impeded by their

existence."

But I do not accede to this opinion. It is under the free open air of

heaven, in the wild woods and the meadows that the loveliest and sweetest

flowers bloom, and not in the trim gardens or the hot-houses, and even in

our gardens in England we strive to preserve some lingering traits of the

open country. I believe that just as the gift of freedom to the masses

of our countrymen teaches them to use that freedom with care and

intelligence, just as the abolition of tests and oaths makes men loyal

and trustworthy, so it is well to have freedom in literature and

criticism. Mistakes will be made and mischief done, but in the long run

the effect of a keen competition, and an advancing public taste will

tell. I don't hesitate to assert, without fear of contradiction, that

critical art has improved rapidly during the last twenty years in this

country, where a man is free to start a critical review, and to write

about anybody, or anything, and in any manner, provided he keeps within

the law. He is only restrained by the competition of others, and by the

public taste, which are both constantly increasing. No doubt an author

will write with greater spirit, and with greater decorum, if he knows

that his merits are sure to be fairly acknowledged, and his faults

certain to be accurately noted. But this object may be attained, I

believe, without an academy. On the other hand, what danger there is in

an academy becoming cliquey, nay even corrupt. We have an academy here

in the painting art, but except that it collects within its walls every

year a vaster number of daubs than it is possible for any one ever to see

with any degree of comfort, I don't know what particular use it is of. As

a school or college it may be of use, but as a critical academy it does

very little.

I have thus endeavoured to show what I mean by my six divisions of

criticism, and I have no doubt you will all of you have divined that my

six divisions are capable of being expressed in one word, Criticism must

be _true_. To be true, it must be appreciative, or understanding, it

must be in due proportion, it must be appropriate, it must be strong, it

must be natural, it must be _bona fide_. There is nothing which an

Englishman hates so much as being false. Our great modern poet, in one

of his strongest lines, says--

"This is a shameful thing for men to lie."

And he speaks of Wellington--

"Truth teller was our England's Alfred named,

Truth lover was our English Duke."

Emerson notices that many of our phrases turn upon this love of truth,

such as "The English of this is," "Honour bright," "His word is as good

as his bond."

"'Tis not enough taste, learning, judgment join;

In all you speak let truth, and candour shine."

I am certain that if men and women would believe that it is important

that they should form a true judgment upon things, and that they should

speak or write it when required, we should get rid of a great deal of bad

art, bad books, bad pictures, bad buildings, bad music, and bad morals. I

am further certain that by constantly uttering false criticisms we

perpetuate such things. And what harm we are doing to our own selves in

the meantime! How habitually warped, how unsteady, how feeble, the

judgment becomes, which is not kept bright and vigorous through right

use. How insensibly we become callous or indolent about forming a

correct judgment. "It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and see the

ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle

and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is

comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not

to be commanded and where the air is always clear and serene) and to see

the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below, so

always that this prospect be with pity and not with swelling or pride.

Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity,

rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth."

In conclusion, I am aware that I have treated the subject most

inadequately, and that others have treated the same subject with much

more power; but I am satisfied of the great importance of a right use of

the critical faculty, and I think it may be that my mode of treatment may

arrest the attention of some minds which are apt to be frightened at a

learned method, and may induce them to take more heed of the judgments

which they are hourly passing on a great variety of subjects. If we

still persist in saying when some one jingles some jig upon the piano

that it is "charming," if we say of every daub in the Academy that it is

"lovely," if every new building or statue is pronounced "awfully jolly,"

if the fastidious rubbish of the last volume of poetry is "grand," if the

slip-shod grammar of the last new novel is "quite sweet," when shall we

see an end of these bad things? And observe further, these bad things

live on and affect the human mind for ever. Bad things are born of bad.

Who can tell what may be the effect of seeing day by day an hideous

building, of hearing day by day indifferent music, of constantly reading

a lot of feeble twaddle? Surely one effect will be that we shall

gradually lose our appreciation of what is good and beautiful. "A thing

of beauty is a joy for ever." Ah! but we must have eyes to see it. This

springtime is lovely, if we have the eyes to see it; but, if we have not,

its loveliness is nothing to us, and if we miss seeing it we shall have

dimmer eyes to see it next year and the next; and if we cannot now see

beauty and truth through the glass darkly, we shall be unable to gaze on

them when we come to see them face to face.

II. ON LUXURY.

An eminent lawyer of my acquaintance had a Socratic habit of interrupting

the conversation by saying, "Let us understand one another: when you say

so-and-so, do you mean so-and-so, or something quite different?" Now,

although it is intolerable that the natural flow of social intercourse

should be thus impeded, yet in writing a paper to be laid before a

learned and fastidious society one is bound to let one's hearers a little

into the secret, and to state fairly what the subject of the essay really

is. I suppose we shall all admit that bad luxury is bad, and good luxury

is good, unless the phrase good luxury is a contradiction in terms. We

must try to avoid disputing about words. The word luxury, according to

its derivation, signifies an extravagant and outrageous indulgence of the

appetites or desires. If we take this as the meaning of the word, we

shall agree that luxury is bad; but if we take luxury to be only another

name for the refinements of civilization, we shall all approve of it. But

the real and substantial question is not what the word means, but, what

is that thing which we all agree is bad or good; where does the bad begin

and the good end; how are we to discern the difference; and how are we to

avoid the one and embrace the other. In this essay, therefore, I intend

to use the word luxury to denote that indulgence which interferes with

the full and proper exercise of all the faculties, powers, tastes, and

whatever is good and worthy in a man. Enjoyments, relaxations, delights,

indulgences which are beneficial, I do not denominate "luxury." All

indulgences which fit us for our duties are good; all which tend to unfit

us for them are bad; and these latter I call luxuries. Some one will

say, perhaps, that some indulgences are merely indifferent, and produce

no appreciable effect upon body or mind; and it might be enough to

dismiss such things with the maxim, "_de minimis non curat lex_." But

the doctrine is dangerous, and I doubt if anything in this world is

absolutely immaterial. De Quincey mentions the case of a man who

committed a murder, which at the time he thought little about, but he was

led on from that to gambling and Sabbath breaking. Probably in this

weary world any indulgence or pleasure which is not bad is not

indifferent, but absolutely good. The world is not so bright, so

comfortable, so pleasant, that we can afford to scorn the good the gods

provide us. In Mr. Reade's book on _Study and Stimulants_, Matthew

Arnold says, a moderate use of wine adds to the agreeableness of life,

and whatever adds to the agreeableness of life, adds to its resources and

powers. There cannot be a doubt that the bodily frame is capable of

being wearied, and that it needs repose and refreshment, and this is a

law which a man trifles with at his peril. The same is true of the

intellectual and moral faculties. They claim rest and refreshment; they

must have comfort and pleasure or they will begin to flag. It must also

be always remembered that in the every-day work of this world the body

and the mind have to go through a great deal which is depressing and

taxing to the energy, and a certain amount of "set off" is required to

keep the balance even. We must remember this especially with respect to

the poor. Pipes and cigars may be a luxury to the idle and rich, but we

ought not to grudge a pipe to a poor man who is overworked and miserable.

Some degree of comfort we all feel to be at times essential when we have

a comfortless task to perform. With good food and sleep, for instance,

we can get through the roughest work; with the relaxation of pleasant

society we can do the most tedious daily work. If, on the other hand, we

are worried and uncomfortable, we become unfitted for our business. We

all have our troubles to contend against, and we require comfort,

relaxation, stimulation of some sort to help us in the battle. There are

certain duties which most of us have to perform, and which, to use a

common expression, "take it out of us." Thus most of us are compelled to

travel more or less. An old gentleman travelling by coach on a long

journey wished to sleep off the tediousness of the night, but his

travelling companion woke him up every ten minutes with the inquiry,

"Well, sir, how are you by this." At last the old gentleman's patience

was fairly tired out. "I was very well when I got into the coach, and

I'm very well now, and if any change takes place I'll let you know." I

was coming from London to Beckenham, and in the carriage with me was a

gentleman quietly and attentively reading the newspaper. A lady opposite

to him, whenever we came to a station, cried out, "Oh, what station's

this, what station's this?" Being told, she subsided, more or less, till

the next station. The gentleman's patience was at last exhausted. "If

there is any _particular_ station at which you wish to alight I will

inform you when we arrive."

Such are some of the annoying circumstances of travel. Then, at the end

of the journey, are we sure of a comfortable night's rest? It was a rule

upon circuit that the barristers arriving at an inn had the choice of

bedrooms according to seniority, and woe betide the junior who dared to

infringe the rule and endeavour to secure by force or fraud the best

bedroom. The leaders, who had the hardest work to do, required the best

night's rest. A party of barristers arrived late one night at their

accustomed inn, a half-way house to the next assize town, and found one

of the best bedrooms already occupied. They were told by some wag that

it was occupied by a young man just joined the circuit. There was a rush

to the bedroom. The culprit was dragged out of bed and deposited on the

floor. A venerable old gentleman in a nightcap and gown addressed the

ringleader of his assailants, Serjeant Golbourne, "Brother Golbourne,

brother Golbourne, is this the way to treat a Christian judge?" I should

not have liked to have been one of those who had to conduct a cause

before him next day. Who can be generous, benevolent, kindly, and even-

tempered if one is to be subjected to such harassing details as I have

above narrated? and I have no doubt that a fair amount of comfort is

necessary to the exercise of the Christian virtues. I am not at all sure

that pilgrims prayed any better because they had peas in their shoes, and

it is well known that soldiers fight best when they are well fed. A

certain amount of comfort and pleasure is good for us, and is refreshing

to body and spirit. Such things, for instance, as the bath in the

morning; the cup of warm tea or coffee for breakfast; the glass of beer

or wine and variety of food at dinner; the rest or nap in the arm-chair

or sofa; an occasional novel; the pipe before going to bed; the change of

dress; music or light reading in the evening; even the night-cap

recommended by Mr. Banting; games of chance or skill; dancing;--surely

such things may renovate, soothe, and render more elastic and vigorous

both body and mind.

While, therefore, I have admitted fully that we all require "sweetness

and light," that some indulgence is necessary for the renovation of our

wearied souls and bodies; yet it very often will happen that the thing in

which we desire to indulge does not tend at all in this direction, or it

may be that, although a moderate indulgence does so tend, an immoderate

use has precisely the reverse effect. My subject, therefore, divides

itself, firstly, into a consideration of those luxuries which are _per

se_ deleterious, and those which are so only by excessive use.

I suppose you will not be surprised to hear that I think we are in

danger, in the upper and middle classes at all events, of going far

beyond the point where pleasures and indulgences tend to the improvement

of body and mind. Surely there are many of us who can remember when the

habits of our fathers were less luxurious than they are now. In a

leading article in a newspaper not long ago the writer said, "All classes

without exception spend too much on what may be called luxuries. A very

marked change in this respect has been noticed by every one who studies

the movements of society. Among people whose fathers regarded champagne

as a devout Aryan might have regarded the Soma juice--viz., as a beverage

reserved for the gods and for millionaires--the foaming grape of Eastern

France is now habitually consumed. . . ." He goes on, "The luxuries of

the poor are few, and chiefly consist of too much beer, and of little

occasional dainties. What pleasures but the grossest does the State

provide for the artisan's leisure?" "It does not do," says the writer,

"to be hard upon them, but it is undeniable that this excess of

expenditure on what in no sense profits them is enormous in the mass."

Not long ago a great outcry was heard about the extravagance and luxury

of the working man. It was stated often, and certainly not without

foundation, that the best of everything in the markets in the way of food

was bought at the highest prices by workmen or their wives; and although

the champagne was not perhaps so very freely indulged in, nor so pure as

might be wished, yet, that the working men indulged themselves in more

drink than was good for their stomachs, and in more expensive drinks than

was good for their purses, no man can doubt.

If this increase of luxury is observable in the lower classes, how much

more easily can it be discerned in the middle classes. Take for instance

the pleasures of the table. I do not speak of great entertainments or

life in palaces or great houses, which do not so much vary from one age

to another, but of the ordinary life of people like ourselves. Spenser

says:--

"The antique world excess and pryde did hate,

Such proud luxurious pomp is swollen up of late."

How many more dishes and how many more wines do we put on the table than

our ancestors afforded. Pope writes of Balaam's housekeeping:--

"A single dish the week day meal affords,

An added pudding solemnized the Lord's."

Then when he became rich:--

"Live like yourself was soon my lady's word,

And lo, two puddings smoked upon the board!"

Then his description of his own table is worth noting:--

"Content with little, I can manage here

On brocoli and mutton round the year,

'Tis true no turbots dignify my boards,

But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords.

To Hounslow Heath I point, and Banstead Down;

Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own,

From yon old walnut tree a show'r shall fall,

And grapes, long lingering on my only wall,

And figs from standard and espalier join--

The deuce is in you if you cannot dine."

Now, however, the whole world is put under contribution to supply our

daily meals, and the palate is being constantly stimulated, and in some

degree impaired by a variety of food and wine. And I am sure that the

effect of this is to produce a distaste for wholesome food. I daresay we

have all heard of the Scotchman who had drunk too much whisky. He said,

"I can't drink water; it turns sae acid on the stomach." This increase

of the luxuries of the table, beyond what was the habit of our fathers,

is shown chiefly, I think, when we are at home and alone; but if one is

visiting or entertaining others, how often is one perfectly bored by the

quantity of food and drink which is handed round. Things in season and

out of season, perhaps ill assorted, ill cooked, cold, and calculated to

make one extremely ill, but no doubt costing a great deal of money, time,

and anxiety to the givers of the feast. Then we fall to grumbling, and

are discontented with having too much, but having acquired a habit of

expecting it we grumble still more if there is not as much as usual

provided.

"He knows to live, who keeps the middle state,

And neither leans on this side or on that;

Nor stops, for one bad cork, his butler's pay;

Swears, like Albutius, a good cook away;

Nor lets, like Nevius, every error pass--

The musty wine, foul cloth, or greasy glass."

But what is the modern idea of a dinner?--

"After oysters Sauterne; then sherry, champagne,

E'er one bottle goes comes another again;

Fly up, thou bold cork, to the ceiling above,

And tell to our ears in the sounds that they love,

How pleasant it is to have money,

Heigh ho;

How pleasant it is to have money!

Your Chablis is acid, away with the hock;

Give me the pure juice of the purple Medoc;

St. Peray is exquisite; but, if you please,

Some Burgundy just before tasting the cheese.

So pleasant it is to have money,

Heigh ho;

So pleasant it is to have money!

Fish and soup and omelette and all that--but the deuce--

There were to be woodcocks and not Charlotte Russe,

And so suppose now, while the things go away,

By way of a grace, we all stand up and say--

How pleasant it is to have money,

Heigh ho;

How pleasant it is to have money!

This, of course, is meant to be satirical; but no doubt many persons

regard the question of "good living" as much more important than "high

thinking." "My dear fellow," said Thackeray, when a dish was served at

the Rocher de Cancalle, "don't let us speak a word till we have finished

this dish."

"'Mercy!' cries Helluo. 'Mercy on my soul!

Is there no hope? Alas!--then bring the jowl.'"

A great peer, who had expended a large fortune, summoned his heir to his

death-bed, and told him that he had a secret of great importance to

impart to him, which might be some compensation for the injury he had

done him. The secret was that crab sauce was better than lobster sauce.

"Persicos odi," "I hate all your Frenchified fuss."

"But a nice leg of mutton, my Lucy,

I prithee get ready by three;

Have it smoking, and tender, and juicy,

And, what better meat can there be?

And when it has served for the master,

'Twill amply suffice for the maid;

Meanwhile I will smoke my canaster,

And tipple my ale in the shade."

Can anything be more awful than a public dinner--the waste, the

extravagance, the outrageous superfluity of everything, the enormous

waste of time, the solemn gorging, as if the whole end and aim of life

were turtle and venison. I do not know whether to dignify such

proceedings by the name of luxury. But what shall I say of gentlemen's

clubs. They are the very hotbed of luxury. By merely asking for it you

obtain almost anything you require in the way of luxury. I am aware that

many men at clubs live more carefully and frugally, but I am aware also

that a great many acquire habits of self-indulgence which produce

idleness and selfish indifference to the wants of others. In a still

more pernicious fashion, I think that refreshment bars at railway

stations minister to luxury; at least I am sure they foster a habit of

drinking more than is necessary, or desirable; and that is one form of

luxury, and a very bad one. The fellows of a Camford college are

reported to have met on one occasion and voted that we do sell our chapel

organ; and the next motion, carried _nem. con_., was that we do have a

dinner. As to ornaments for the dinner table what affectation and

expense do we see. But in the days of Walpole it was not amiss. "The

last branch of our fashion into which the close observation of nature has

been introduced is our desserts. Jellies, biscuits, sugar plums, and

creams have long since given way to harlequins, gondoliers, Turks,

Chinese, and shepherdesses of Saxon china. Meadows of cattle spread

themselves over the table. Cottages in sugar, and temples in barley

sugar, pigmy Neptunes in cars of cockle shells trampling over oceans of

looking glass or seas of silver tissue. Gigantic figures succeed to

pigmies; and it is known that a celebrated confectioner complained that,

after having prepared a middle dish of gods and goddesses eighteen feet

high, his lord would not cause the ceiling of his parlour to be

demolished to facilitate their entree. "_Imaginez-vous_," said he, "_que

milord n'a pas vouler faire oter le plafond_!"

To show how much luxurious living has increased during the present

century I propose to quote a portion of that wonderfully brilliant third

chapter of Macaulay's _England_ which we all know. Speaking of the

squire of former days, he says, "His chief serious employment was the

care of his property. He examined samples of grain, handled pigs, and,

on market days, made bargains over a tankard with drovers and hop

merchants. His chief pleasures were commonly derived from field sports

and from an unrefined sensuality. His language and pronunciation were

such as we should now expect to hear only from the most ignorant clowns.

His oaths, coarse jests, and scurrilous terms of abuse were uttered with

the broadest accent of his province. It was easy to discern from the

first words which he spoke whether he came from Somersetshire or

Yorkshire. He troubled himself little about decorating his abode, and,

if he attempted decoration, seldom produced anything but deformity. The

litter of a farm-yard gathered under the windows of his bed-chamber, and

the cabbages and gooseberry bushes grew close to his hall door. His

table was loaded with coarse plenty; and guests were cordially welcomed

to it. But as the habit of drinking to excess was general in the class

to which he belonged, and as his fortune did not enable him to intoxicate

large assemblies daily with claret or canary, strong beer was the

ordinary beverage. The quantity of beer consumed in those days was

indeed enormous. For beer was then to the middle and lower classes not

only what beer is now, but all that wine, tea, and ardent spirits now

are. It was only at great houses or on great occasions that foreign

drink was placed on the board. The ladies of the house, whose business

it had commonly been to cook the repast, retired as soon as the dishes

were devoured, and left the gentlemen to their ale and tobacco. The

coarse jollity of the afternoon was often prolonged till the revellers

were laid under the table."

I quote again from another portion of the same chapter in

Macaulay:--"Slate has succeeded to thatch, and brick to timber. The

pavements and the lamps, the display of wealth in the principal shops,

and the luxurious neatness of the dwellings occupied by the gentry,

would, in the seventeenth century, have seemed miraculous." Speaking of

watering-places he says:--"The gentry of Derbyshire and of the

neighbouring counties repaired to Buxton, where they were crowded into

low wooden sheds and regaled with oatcake, and with a viand which the

hosts called mutton, but which the guests strongly suspected to be dog."

Of Tunbridge Wells he says--"At present we see there a town which would,

a hundred and sixty years ago, have ranked in population fourth or fifth

among the towns in England. The brilliancy of the shops and the luxury

of the private dwellings far surpasses anything that England could then

show." At Bath "the poor patients to whom the waters had been

recommended, lay on straw in a place which, to use the language of a

contemporary physician, was a covert rather than a lodging. As to the

comforts and luxuries to be found in the interior of the houses at Bath

by the fashionable visitors who resorted thither in search of health and

amusement, we possess information more complete and minute than generally

can be obtained on such subjects. A writer assures us that in his

younger days the gentlemen who visited the springs slept in rooms hardly

as good as the garrets which he lived to see occupied by footmen. The

floors of the dining-room were uncarpeted, and were coloured brown with a

wash made of soot and small beer in order to hide the dirt. Not a

wainscot was painted. Not a hearth or chimney piece was of marble. A

slab of common freestone, and fire-irons which had cost from three to

four shillings, were thought sufficient for any fireplace. The best

apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuff, and were furnished with

rush-bottomed chairs."

Of London Macaulay says:--"The town did not, as now, fade by

imperceptible degrees into the country. No long avenues of villas,

embowered in lilacs and laburnum, extended from the great source of

wealth and civilization almost to the boundaries of Middlesex, and far

into the heart of Kent and Surrey." In short, there was nothing like the

Avenue and the Fox Grove, Beckenham, in old times, and we who live there

ought to be immensely grateful for our undeserved blessings. "At

present," he says, "the bankers, the merchants, and the chief shopkeepers

repair to the city on six mornings of every week for the transaction of

business; but they reside in other quarters of the metropolis or suburban

country seats, surrounded by shrubberies and flower gardens." Again, "If

the most fashionable parts of the capital could be placed before us, such

as they then were, we should be disgusted by their squalid appearance,

and poisoned by their noisome atmosphere. In Covent Garden a filthy and

noisy market was held close to the dwellings of the great. Fruit women

screamed, carters fought, cabbage stalks and rotten apples accumulated in

heaps at the thresholds of the Countess of Berkshire and of the Bishop of

Durham."

Well, you will say, all this proves what a vast improvement we have

achieved. Yes; but we must remember that Macaulay was writing on that

side of the question. Are we not more self-indulgent, more fond of our

flowers, villas, carriages, etc., than we need be; less hard working and

industrious; more desirous of getting the means of indulgence by some

short and ready way--by speculation, gambling, and shady, if not

dishonest dealing--than our fathers were? I need not follow at further

length Macaulay's description of these earlier times--of the black

rivulets roaring down Ludgate Hill, filled with the animal and vegetable

filth from the stalls of butchers and greengrocers, profusely thrown to

right and left upon the foot-passengers upon the narrow pavements; the

garret windows opened and pails emptied upon the heads below; thieves

prowling about the dark streets at night, amid constant rioting and

drunkenness; the difficulties and discomforts of travelling, when the

carriages stuck fast in the quagmires; the travellers attacked by

highwaymen. He narrates how it took Prince George of Denmark, who

visited Petworth in wet weather, six hours to go nine miles. Compare

this to a journey in a first-class carriage or Pullman car upon the

Midland Railway, and think of the luxuries demanded by the traveller on

his journey if he is going to travel for more than two or three hours:

the dinner, the coffee, the cigar, the newspaper and magazine, etc., etc.

There is a passage in the beginning of _Tom Brown's School Days_ in which

the author ridicules the quantity of great coats, wrappers, and rugs

which a modern schoolboy takes with him, though he is going to travel

first class, with foot-warmers. Then, in our houses, what stoves and hot-

water pipes and baths do we not require! How many soaps and powders,

rough towels and soft towels! Sir Charles Napier, I think, said that all

an officer wanted to take with him on a campaign was a towel, a tooth-

brush, and a piece of yellow soap. The great excuse for the bath is that

if it is warm it is cleansing; if it is cold, it is invigorating; but

what shall we say to Turkish Baths? Surely there is more time wasted

than enough, and, unless as a medical cure, it may become an idle habit.

I have seen private Turkish Baths in private houses. What are we coming

to? We used to be proud of our ordinary wash-hand basins, and make fun

of the little saucers that we found provided for our ablutions upon the

Continent. At the time of the great Exhibition of 1851 _Punch_ had a

picture of two very grimy Frenchmen regarding with wonder an ordinary

English wash-stand. "_Comment appelle-t'on cette machine la_," says one;

to which the other replies, "_Je ne sais pas_, _mais c'est drole_." A

great advance has been made in the furniture of our houses. We fill our

rooms, especially our drawing-rooms or boudoirs, with endless arm-chairs

and sofas of various shapes--all designed to give repose to the limbs;

but I am sure they tend towards lazy habits, and very often interfere

with work. Surely there has lately risen a custom of overdoing the

embellishment and ornamentation of our houses. We fill our rooms too

full of all sorts of knick-knacks, so much so that we can hardly move

about for fear of upsetting something. "I have a fire [in my bedroom]

all day," writes Carlyle. "The bed seems to be about eight feet wide. Of

my paces the room measures fifteen from end to end, forty-five feet long,

height and width proportionate, with ancient, dead-looking portraits of

queens, kings, Straffords and principalities, etc., really the

uncomfortablest acme of luxurious comfort that any Diogenes was set into

in these late years." Thoreau's furniture at Walden consisted of a bed,

a table, a desk, three chairs, a looking-glass three inches in diameter,

a pair of tongs, a kettle, a frying-pan, a wash-bowl, two knives and

forks, three plates, one cup, one spoon, a jug for oil, a jug for

molasses, and a japanned lamp. There were no ornaments. He writes, "I

had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find

that they required to be dusted daily, and I threw them out of the window

in disgust."

"Our cottage is quite large enough for us, though very small," wrote Miss

Wordsworth, "and we have made it neat and comfortable within doors; and

it looks very nice on the outside, for though the roses and honeysuckle

which we have planted against it are only of this year's growth, yet it

is covered all over with green leaves and scarlet flowers, for we have

trained scarlet beans upon threads, which are not only exceedingly

beautiful, but very useful, as their produce is immense. We have made a

lodging room of the parlour below stairs, which has a stone floor,

therefore we have covered it all over with matting. We sit in a room

above stairs, and we have one lodging room with two single beds, a sort

of lumber room, and a small, low, unceiled room, which I have papered

with newspapers, and in which we have put a small bed. Our servant is an

old woman of 60 years of age, whom we took partly out of charity." Here

Miss Wordsworth and her brother, the great poet, lived on the simplest

fare and drank cold water, and hence issued those noble poems which more

than any others teach us the higher life.

"Blush, grandeur, blush; proud courts, withdraw your blaze;

Ye little stars, hide your diminished rays."

"I turned schoolmaster," says Sydney Smith, "to educate my son, as I

could not afford to send him to school. Mrs. Sydney turned

schoolmistress to educate my girls as I could not afford a governess. I

turned farmer as I could not let my land. A man servant was too

expensive, so I caught up a little garden girl, made like a milestone,

christened her Bunch, put a napkin in her hand, and made her my butler.

The girls taught her to read, Mrs. Sydney to wait, and I undertook her

morals. Bunch became the best butler in the country. I had little

furniture, so I bought a cartload of deals; took a carpenter (who came to

me for parish relief) called Jack Robinson, with a face like a full moon,

into my service, established him in a barn, and said, 'Jack, furnish my

house.' You see the result."

Then what shall I say of the luxury of endless daily papers, leading

articles, short paragraphs, reviews, illustrated papers,--are not these

luxuries? Are they not inventions for making thought easy, or rather for

the purpose of relieving us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves.

May I also, without raising a religious controversy, observe that in

religious worship we are prone to relieve ourselves from the trouble of

deep and consecutive thought by surrounding our minds with a sort of mist

of feeling and sentiment; by providing beautiful music, pictures, and

ornaments, and so resting satisfied in a somewhat indolent feeling of

goodness, and not troubling ourselves with too much effort of reason. A

love of the beautiful undoubtedly tends to elevate and refine the mind,

but the follies of the false love and the dangers of an inordinate love

are numerous and deadly. It is absurd that a man should either be or

pretend to be absolutely absorbed in the worship of a dado or a China tea

cup so as to care for nothing else, and to be unable to do anything else

but stare at it with his head on one side. With most people the whole

thing is the mere affectation of affected people, who, if they were not

affected in one way, would be so in another. Boswell was a very affected

man. He says, "I remember it distressed me to think of going into

another world where Shakespeare's poetry did not exist; but a lady

relieved me by saying, 'The first thing you will meet in the other world

will be an elegant copy of Shakespeare's works presented to you.'"

Boswell says he felt much comforted, but I suspect the lady was laughing

at him. I like the "elegant copy" very much. It is certain that in this

world there is a deal of rough work to be done, and I feel that,

attractive and beautiful as so many things are, too much absorption of

them has a weakening and enervating effect.

I have spoken of the luxuries of the table, of the house, of travel, and

of a love of ease and beautiful surroundings. There are, however, some

people who are very luxurious without caring much for any of these

things. Their main desire appears to be to live a long time, and to

preserve their youth and beauty to the last. For this purpose they

surround themselves with comfort, they decline to see or hear of anything

which they don't like for fear it should make their hair grey and their

faces wrinkled, and their whole talk is of ailments and German waters.

Swift somewhere or other expresses his contempt for this sort of person.

"A well preserved man is," he says, "a man with no heart and who has done

nothing all his life." Old ruins look beautiful by reason of the rain

and the wind, the heat of August and the frost of January, and I am sure

I have often seen in men--aye, and in women too--far more beauty where

the tempests have passed over the face and brow, than where the life has

been more sheltered and less interesting.

But I must notice before I conclude this part of my subject one of the

principal causes of a fatal indulgence in luxury, and that is a

despairing sense of the futility of attempting to do anything worth

doing, and of inability to strive against what is going on wrong. This

is the meaning of that rather vulgar phrase, "Anything for a quiet life";

and this is the reason why with many people everything and everybody is

always a "bore." Here, too, is the secret of that suave, polished, soft-

voiced manner so much affected nowadays by highly-educated young men, and

that somewhat chilly reserve in which they wrap themselves up. "Pray

don't ask us to give an opinion, or show an interest, or discuss any

serious view of things."

"For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were more

Than to walk all day, like the Sultan of old, in a garden of spice."

"Let us surround ourselves with every luxury; let us cease to strive or

fret; let us be elegant, refined, gentle, harmless, and, above all,

undisturbed in mind and body." "We have had enough of motion and of

action we." "Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil." "Let us

get through life the best way we can, and though there is not much that

can delight us, let us achieve as much amelioration of our lot as is

possible for us."

These, then, are some of the forms which luxury takes in the present

century, and these are some of the outcomes of an advanced, and still

rapidly advancing, civilization. These, too, seem to be the invariable

accompaniments of such an advance. A very similar picture of Rome in the

days of Cicero and Caesar is drawn by Mr. Froude in his _Caesar_. He

says: "With such vividness, with such transparent clearness, the age

stands before us of Cato and Pompey, of Cicero and Julius Caesar; the

more distinctly because it was an age in so many ways the counterpart of

our own, the blossoming period of the old civilization. It was an age of

material progress and material civilization; an age of civil liberty and

intellectual culture; an age of pamphlets and epigrams, of salons and of

dinner parties, of sensational majorities and electoral corruption. The

rich were extravagant, for life had ceased to have practical interest,

except for its material pleasures; the occupation of the higher classes

was to obtain money without labour, and to spend it in idle enjoyment.

Patriotism survived on the lips, but patriotism meant the ascendancy of

the party which would maintain the existing order of things, or would

overthrow it for a more equal distribution of the good things, which

alone were valued. Religion, once the foundation of the laws and rule of

personal conduct, had subsided into opinion. The educated, in their

hearts, disbelieved it. Temples were still built with increasing

splendour; the established forms were scrupulously observed. Public men

spoke conventionally of Providence, that they might throw on their

opponents the odium of impiety; but of genuine belief that life had any

serious meaning, there was none remaining beyond the circle of the

silent, patient, ignorant multitude. The whole spiritual atmosphere was

saturated with cant--cant moral, cant political, cant religious; an

affectation of high principle which had ceased to touch the conduct and

flowed on in an increasing volume of insincere and unreal speech. The

truest thinkers were those who, like Lucretius, spoke frankly out their

real convictions, declared that Providence was a dream, and that man and

the world he lived in were material phenomena, generated by natural

forces out of cosmic atoms, and into atoms to be again resolved."

Next I am going, as I promised, to consider those indulgences which

become luxuries by excessive use, and in this I shall be led also to

consider the effects of luxury. It has become a very trite saying that

riches do not bring happiness; and certainly luxury, which riches can

command, does not bring content, which is the greatest of all pleasures.

On the contrary, the moment the body or mind is over-indulged in any way,

it immediately demands more of the same indulgence, and even in stronger

doses. Who does not know that too much wine makes one desire more? Who,

after reading a novel, does not feel a longing for another?

The rich and poor dog, as we all know, meet and discourse of these things

in Burns's poem--

"Frae morn to e'en it's naught but toiling

At baking, roasting, frying, boiling,

An', tho' the gentry first are stechin,

Yet e'en the hall folk fill their pechan

With sauce, ragouts, and sic like trashtrie,

That's little short of downright wastrie.

An' what poor cot-folk pit their painch in

I own it's past my comprehension."

To which Luath replies--

"They're maistly wonderful contented."

Caesar afterwards describes the weariness and ennui which pursue the

luxurious--

"But human bodies are sic fools,

For all their colleges and schools,

That, when nae real ills perplex 'em,

They make enow themselves to vex 'em.

They loiter, lounging lank and lazy,

Though nothing ails them, yet uneasy.

Their days insipid, dull, and tasteless;

Their nights unquiet, lang, and restless,

An' e'en their sports, their balls and races,

Their gallopin' through public places,

There's sic parade, sic pomp, an' art,

The joy can scarcely reach the heart."

After this description the two friends

"Rejoiced they were not men, but dogs."

An Italian wit has defined man to be "an animal which troubles himself

with things which don't concern him"; and, when one thinks of the

indefatigable way in which people pursue pleasure, all the while deriving

no pleasure from it, one is filled with amazement. "Life would be very

tolerable if it were not for its pleasures," said Sir Cornewall Lewis,

and I am satisfied that half the weariness of life comes from the vain

attempts which are made to satisfy a jaded appetite.

There are many things which are not luxuries _per se_, but become so if

indulged in to excess. Take, for instance, smoking and drinking. One

pipe a day and one glass of wine a day are not luxuries, but a great many

a day are luxuries. So lying in bed five minutes after you wake is not a

luxury, but so lying for an hour is. The man who is fond precociously of

stirring may be a spoon, but the man who lies in bed half the day is

something worse. Then it must be remembered that a single indulgence in

one luxury produces scarcely any effect on the mind or body, but a habit

of indulging in that luxury has a great effect.

"The sins which practice burns into the blood,

And not the one dark hour which brings remorse

Will brand us after of whose fold we be."

I am surely right in noticing that the rich man is said to have fared

sumptuously _every_ day, as though faring sumptuously might have no

significance, but the constantly faring sumptuously was what had degraded

and debased the man below the level of the beggar at his gate. I feel

that to be luxurious occasionally is no bad thing, if we can keep our

self-control, and return constantly to simple habits. There is something

very natural in the prayer which a little child was overheard to

make--"God, make me a good little girl, but"--after a pause--"naughty

sometimes." It is the habit of being naughty which is pernicious. Can

anyone doubt that the man who, on the whole, leads a hardy and not over-

indulgent life will be more capable of performing any duty which may

devolve upon him than a man who "had but fed on the roses and lain in the

lilies of life."

Sydney Smith, in his sketches of Moral Philosophy, notices that habits of

indulgence grow on us so much that we go through the act of indulgence

without noticing it or feeling the pleasure of it; yet, if some accident

occurs to rob us of our accustomed pleasure, we feel the want of it most

keenly. Speaking of Hobbes, the philosopher, he says that he had twelve

pipes of tobacco laid by him every night before he began to write.

Without this luxury "he could have done nothing; all his speculations

would have been at an end, and without his twelve pipes he might have

been a friend to devotion or to freedom, which in the customary tenour of

his thoughts he certainly was not."

In Fielding's _Life of Jonathan Wild_ Mr. Wild plays at cards with the

Count. "Such was the power of habit over the minds of these illustrious

persons that Mr. Wild could not keep his hands out of the Count's pockets

though he knew they were empty, nor could the Count abstain from palming

a card though he was well aware Mr. Wild had no money to pay him."

If we are curious to know who is the most degraded and most wretched of

human beings, look for the man who has practised a vice so long that he

curses it and clings to it. Say everything for vice which you can say,

magnify any pleasure as much as you please; but don't believe you can

keep it, don't believe you have any secret for sending on quicker the

sluggish blood and for refreshing the faded nerve.

There is no doubt that habits of luxury produce discontent, the more we

have the more we want. The sin of covetousness is not (curiously enough)

the sin of the poor, but of the rich. It is the rich man who covets

Naboth's vineyard. I knew an old lady who had a beautiful house facing

Hyde Park, and lived by herself with a companion, and certainly had room

enough and to spare. Her house was one of a row, and the next house

being an end house projected, so that all the front rooms were about a

foot longer than those of the old lady. "Ah," she used to sigh, "he's a

dear good man, the old colonel, but I should like to have his

house--please God to take him!" This showed a submission to the will of

Providence, and a desire for the everlasting welfare of her neighbour

which was truly edifying; but covetousness was at the root of it, and a

longing to indulge herself.

The effect of habits of luxury upon the brute creation is easily seen.

How dreadfully the harmless necessary cat deteriorates when it is over-

fed and over-warmed. It may, for all I know, become more humane, but it

becomes absolutely unfit to get its own living. What is more despicable

than a lady's lap-dog, grown fat and good for nothing, and only able to

eat macaroons! Even worms, according to Darwin, when constantly fed on

delicacies, become indolent and lose all their cunning.

I will note next that habits of self-indulgence render us careless of the

misfortunes of others. Nero was fiddling when Rome was burning. And

upon the other hand privations make us regardful of others. In Bulwer's

_Parisians_ two luxurious bachelors in the siege of Paris, one of whom

has just missed his favourite dog, sit down to a meagre repast, on what

might be fowl or rabbit; and the master of the lost dog, after finishing

his meal, says with a sigh, "Ah, poor Dido, how she would have enjoyed

those bones!" Probably she would have done so, in case they had not been

her own. Of course we all know Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_, and that

it is all about luxury. It is, however, very poetical poetry (if I may

say so), and I don't know that it gives much assistance to a sober,

prosaic view of the subject like the present. "O Luxury, thou curst by

heaven's decree," sounds very grand; but I have not the least idea what

it means. The pictures drawn in the poem of simple rural pleasures, and

of gaudy city delights, are very pleasing; and the moral drawn from it

all, viz., that nations sunk in luxury are hastening to decay, may be

true enough; but what strikes one most is that, if Goldsmith thought that

England was hastening to decay when he wrote, what would he think if he

were alive now.

Well then, if the pleasures of luxury bring nothing but pain and trouble

in the pursuit of them, to what end do they lead?

"Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend,

And see what comfort it affords our end.

In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,

The floors of plaister, and the walls of dung;

On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw,

With tape-ty'd curtains never meant to draw;

The George and Garter dangling from that bed,

Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red;--

Great Villers lies--alas, how changed from him,

That life of pleasure and that soul of whim.

Gallant and gay in Clieveden's proud alcove,

The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;

No wit to flatter, left of all his store;

No fool to laugh at, which he valued more;

There victor of his health, of fortune, friends,

And fame; this lord of useless thousands ends."

If these be the effects of luxuries, why is it that we continue to strive

to increase them with all our might? I have already insisted that I am

not speaking of such things as are beneficial to body and soul, but such

as are detrimental. But it will be said, you are spending money, and to

gratify your longings labourers of different sorts have been employed,

and the wealth of the world is thereby increased. But we must consider

the loss to the man who is indulging himself, and therefore the loss to

the community; and further, that his money might have gone in producing

something necessary, and not noxious, something in its turn reproductive.

In Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is this passage, "Johnson as usual

defended luxury. You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to

the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury; you

make them exert industry, whereas by giving it you keep them idle. I own

indeed there may be more virtue in giving it immediately in charity, than

in spending it in luxury." He was then asked if this was not

Mandeville's doctrine of "private vices are public benefits." Of course

this did not suit him, and he demolished it. He said, "Mandeville puts

the case of a man who gets drunk at an alehouse, and says it is a public

benefit, because so much money is got by it to the public. But it must

be considered that all the good gained by this through the gradation of

alehouse-keeper, brewer, maltster, and farmer, is overbalanced by the

evil caused to the man and his family by his getting drunk."

Perhaps you will say, what is a man to do with his money, if he may not

spend it in luxury? If, as Dr. Johnson says, and as we all of us find

out occasionally, it is worse spent if given in charity, are we to hoard

it? No, surely this is more contemptible still. "What is the use of all

your money," said one distinguished barrister to another, "you can't live

many more years, and you can't take it with you when you go? Besides, if

you could, it would all melt where you're going." This hoarding of

wealth, this craving for it, is only another form of luxury, the luxury

of growing rich. Some like to be thought rich, and called rich, and

treated with a fawning respect on account of their riches; others love to

hide their riches, but to hug their money in secret, and seem to enjoy

the prospect of dying rich. I was engaged in a singular case some time

ago, in which an old lady who had starved herself to death, and lived in

the greatest squalor, had secreted 250 pounds in a stocking under the

mattress of her bed. It was stolen by one nephew, who was sued for it by

another, and all the money went in law expenses. If then we are not to

spend our money upon luxuries, and if we are not to hoard it, what are we

to do with it if we have more than we can lay out in what is useful. I

have not time (nor is the question a part of my subject) to discuss what

should be done with the money hitherto spent in idle luxury. We know,

however, that we have the poor always with us, and that we can always

learn the luxury of doing good. In one way or another we ought to see

that our superfluous wealth should drain from the high lands into the

valleys; not indeed to make the poor luxurious, but to provide them with

comfort, to give them health, strength, and enjoyment. I think then that

if we are wise men, seeing that we are placed in a world of care,

trouble, and hard work, from which no man can escape; and seeing that,

upon the other hand, we are living in a country and in an age when we are

surrounded with all that makes life pleasant and enjoyable, we shall

endeavour to find out some mode of harmonizing these different chords. It

need hardly be said how far removed luxury is from the spirit of

Christianity, and from the life of its Founder; yet it may reverently be

remembered that on more than one occasion He showed His tender regard for

the weakness of human nature by stamping with His approval the pleasures

of convivial festivity.

What then is the remedy against luxury? I would say shortly,--in work. A

busy man has no time for luxury, and there is no reason why every man

should not have enough to do, if he will only do it. And I am sure the

same rule applies to the ladies, although a very busy man once wrote of

his wife--

"In work, work, work, in work alway

My every day is past;

I very slowly make the coin--

She spends it very fast."

But speaking seriously, I am sure that in some sort of work lies the

antidote to luxury. When Orpheus sailed past the beautiful islands

"lying in dark purple spheres of sea," and heard the songs of the idle

and luxurious syrens floating languidly over the waters, he drowned their

singing in a paean to the gods. Religion often affords a great incentive

to work for the good of others; and, in working for others, we have

neither the time, nor the inclination, to be over indulgent of ourselves.

So, the desire to obtain fame and renown has often produced men of the

austere and non-indulgent type, as the Duke of Wellington and many

others:--

"Fame is the spur which the clear spirit doth raise,

That last infirmity of noble mind,

To scorn delights and live laborious days."

Nay, even the desire to obtain riches, and the strife after them, will

leave a man little room for luxury. To be honest, to be brave, to be

kind and generous, to seek to know what is right, and to do it; to be

loving and tender to others, and to care little for our comfort and ease,

and even for our very lives, is perhaps to be somewhat old-fashioned and

behind the age; but these are, after all, the things which distinguish us

from the brute beasts which perish, and which justify our aspirations

towards eternity.

A STORY.

THE READING PARTY.

CHAPTER I.--THE COACH.

Charles Porkington, M.A., sometime fellow of St. Swithin, was born of

humble parents. He was educated, with a due regard for economy, in the

mathematics by his father, and in the prevailing theology of the district

by his mother. The village schoolmaster had also assisted in the

completion of his education by teaching him a little bad Latin. He was

ultimately sent to college, his parents inferring that he would make a

success of the study of books, because he had always shown a singular

inaptitude for anything else. At college he had read hard. The common

sights and sounds of University life had been unheeded by him. They

passed before his eyes, and they entered into his ears, but his mind

refused to receive any impression from them. After taking a high degree,

and being elected a fellow, he had written a novel of a strongly

melodramatic cast, describing college life, and showing such an intimate

acquaintance with the obscurer parts of it, that a great many ladies

declared that "they always thought so;--it was just as they supposed."

The novel, however, did not meet with much success, and he then turned to

the more lucrative but far less noble occupation of "coaching." He could

not be said to be absolutely unintellectual. As he had not profited by

the experience of life, so he had not been contaminated by it. He was

moral, chiefly in a negative sense, and was not inclined to irreligion.

The faith of his parents sat, perhaps, uncomfortably upon him; and he had

not sufficient strength of mind to adopt a new pattern. He was in short

an amiable mathematician, and a feeble classic; and I think that is all

that could be said of him with any certainty. There seemed to be an

absence of character which might be called characteristic, and a

feebleness of will so absolute as to disarm contempt.

A portion of Porkington's hard earned gains was transmitted regularly to

his two aged parents, while he himself, partly from habit and partly from

indifference, lived as frugally as possible.

"Bless me!" cried Mrs. Porkington, within six months of her marriage, "To

think that you should have squandered such large sums of money upon

people who seem to have got on very well without them."

"My dear," replied he, "they are very poor, and in want of many

comforts."

"Of course I am sorry they cannot have them now," retorted she, "and it

is therefore a pity they ever should have had them."

Porkington sighed slightly, but had already learned not to contend, if he

could remember not to do so. Mrs. Porkington was of large stature and

majestic carriage; and had moreover a voice sufficiently powerful to keep

order in an Irish brigade, or to command a vessel in a storm without the

assistance of a trumpet. Mr. Porkington, on the other hand, was a

little, dry, pale, plain man, with an abstracted and nervous manner, and

a voice that had never grown up so as to match even the little body from

which it came, but was a sort of cracked treble whisper. Moreover, when

Mrs. Porkington wished to speak her mind to her husband, she would

recline upon a sofa in an impressive manner, and fix her eyes upon the

ceiling. Mr. Porkington, on these occasions, would sit on the very edge

of the most uncomfortable chair, his toes turned out, his hands embracing

his knees, and his eyes tracing the patterns upon the carpet, as though

with a view of studying some abstruse theory of curves. On which side

the victory lay under these circumstances it is easy to guess.

Mrs. Porkington felt the advantage of her position and followed it up.

"I never, my dear, mention any subject to you, but you immediately fling

your parents at me."

Mr. Porkington would as soon have thought of throwing St. Paul's

Cathedral.

After a honeymoon spent in the Lake district the happy pair went to pay a

visit to the parents of the bridegroom, and Porkington had so brightened

and revived during his stay there, and had expressed himself so happy in

their society, that Mrs. Porkington could not forgive him. In the

company of his wife's father, on the contrary, he relapsed into a state

bordering upon coma; and no wonder, for that worthy retired tallow

merchant was a perfect specimen of ponderous pomposity, and had

absolutely nothing in common with the shy scholar who had become his son-

in-law. Mr. Candlish had lost the great part of the money he had made by

tallow, and by consequence had nothing to give his daughter; but she

behaved herself as a woman should whose father might at one time have

given her ten thousand pounds. "My papa, my dear, was worth at least

40,000 pounds when he retired," was the form in which Mrs. Porkington

flung her surviving parent at the head of her husband, and crushed him

flat with the missile. To the world at large she spoke of her father as

"being at present a gentleman of moderate means." Now, as a gentleman of

moderate means cannot be expected to provide for a sister of no means at

all; and as Mrs. Porkington, not having been blessed with children by her

marriage, required a companion, her aunt tacked herself on to Mr.

Porkington's establishment, and became a permanent and substantial

fixture. Fat, ugly, and spiteful when she dared, she became a thorn in

the side of the poor tutor, and supported on all occasions the whims and

squabbles of her niece. Whenever the "coach" evinced any tendency to

travel too fast, Mrs. Porkington put the "drag" on, and the vehicle

stopped.

Mr. and Mrs. Porkington had now been married three years; and, as the

long vacation was at hand, it became necessary to arrange their plans for

a "Reading Party."

"If I might be allowed to suggest," said Mrs. Porkington, reclining on

her sofa, with her eyes fixed upon the ceiling, "I think a continental

reading party would be the most beneficial to the young men. The air of

the continent, I have always found (Mrs. Porkington had crossed the

channel upon one occasion) is very invigorating; and, though I know you

don't speak French, my dear, yet you should avail yourself of every

opportunity of acquiring it."

"But, my love," he replied, "we must consider. Many parents have an

objection to the expense, and--"

"Oh, of course!" she interrupted, "if ever I venture, which I seldom do,

to propose anything, there are fifty objections raised at once. Pray,

may I ask to what uncomfortable quarter of the globe you propose to take

me? Perhaps to the Gold Coast--or some other deadly spot--quite likely!"

"Well, my love," said the Coach, "I thought of the Lakes."

"Thought of the Lakes!" slowly repeated his wife. "Since I have had the

honour of being allied with you in marriage, I believe you have never

thought of anything else!"

There was some truth in this, and the tutor felt it. "Then, my dear,"

said he mildly, "I really do not know where we should go."

Thereupon his wife ran through the names of several likely places, to

each of which she stated some clear and decided objection. Ultimately

she mentioned Babbicombe as being a place she might be induced to regard

with favour; the truth being that she had made up her mind from the first

not to be taken anywhere else. "Babbicombe by all means let it be," said

he, "since you wish it."

"I do not wish it at all," she cried, "as you know quite well, my dear;

and it is very hard that you should always try to make it appear that I

wish to do a thing, when I have no desire at all upon the subject. Have

you noticed, aunt, how invariably Charles endeavours to take an unfair

advantage of anything I say, and tries to make out I wish a thing which

he has himself proposed?"

The Drag said she had noticed it very often, and wondered at it very

much. She thought it was very unfair indeed, and showed a domineering

spirit very far from Christian in her opinion, though, of course,

opinions might differ.

Porkington took a turn in his little back garden, and smoked a pipe,

which seemed to console him somewhat; and, after a few more skirmishes,

the coach, harness, drag, team and all arrived at Babbicombe.