How to be Healthy and Unhappy.
"They do say," remarked Mrs. Wilkins, as she took the cover off the dish
and gave a finishing polish to my plate with the cleanest corner of her
apron, "that 'addicks, leastways in May, ain't, strictly speaking, the
safest of food. But then, if you listen to all they say, it seems to me,
we'd have to give up victuals altogether."
"The haddock, Mrs. Wilkins," I replied, "is a savoury and nourishing
dish, the 'poor man's steak' I believe it is commonly called. When I was
younger, Mrs. Wilkins, they were cheaper. For twopence one could secure
a small specimen, for fourpence one of generous proportions. In the
halcyon days of youth, when one's lexicon contained not the word failure
(it has crept into later editions, Mrs. Wilkins, the word it was found
was occasionally needful), the haddock was of much comfort and support to
me, a very present help in time of trouble. In those days a kind friend,
without intending it, nearly brought about my death by slow starvation. I
had left my umbrella in an omnibus, and the season was rainy. The kind
rich friend gave me a new umbrella; it was a rich man's umbrella; we made
an ill-assorted pair. Its handle was of ivory, imposing in appearance,
ornamented with a golden snake.
The unsympathetic Umbrella.
"Following my own judgment I should have pawned that umbrella, purchased
one more suited to my state in life, and 'blued' the difference. But I
was fearful of offending my one respectable acquaintance, and for weeks
struggled on, hampered by this plutocratic appendage. The humble haddock
was denied to me. Tied to this imposing umbrella, how could I haggle
with fishmongers for haddocks. At first sight of me--or, rather, of my
umbrella--they flew to icy cellars, brought up for my inspection soles at
eighteenpence a pound, recommended me prime parts of salmon, which my
landlady would have fried in a pan reeking with the mixed remains of pork
chops, rashers of bacon and cheese. It was closed to me, the humble
coffee shop, where for threepence I could have strengthened my soul with
half a pint of cocoa and four "doorsteps"--satisfactory slices of bread
smeared with a yellow grease that before the days of County Council
inspectors they called butter. You know of them, Mrs. Wilkins? At sight
of such nowadays I should turn up my jaded nose. But those were the days
of my youth, Mrs. Wilkins. The scent of a thousand hopes was in my
nostrils: so they smelt good to me. The fourpenny beefsteak pie,
satisfying to the verge of repletion; the succulent saveloy, were not for
the owner of the ivory-handled umbrella. On Mondays and Tuesdays,
perhaps, I could enjoy life at the rate of five hundred a year--clean
serviette a penny extra, and twopence to the waiter, whose income must
have been at least four times my own. But from Wednesday to Saturday I
had to wander in the wilderness of back streets and silent squares
dinnerless, where there were not even to be found locusts and wild honey.
"It was, as I have said, a rainy season, and an umbrella of some sort was
a necessity. Fortunately--or I might not be sitting here, Mrs. Wilkins,
talking to you now--my one respectable acquaintance was called away to
foreign lands, and that umbrella I promptly put 'up the spout.' You
understand me?"
Mrs. Wilkins admitted she did, but was of opinion that twenty-five per
cent., to say nothing of the halfpenny for the ticket every time, was a
wicked imposition.
"It did not trouble me, Mrs. Wilkins," I replied, "in this particular
instance. It was my determination never to see that umbrella again. The
young man behind the counter seemed suspicious, and asked where I got it
from. I told him that a friend had given it to me."
"'Did he know that he had given it to you?" demanded the young man.
"Upon which I gave him a piece of my mind concerning the character of
those who think evil of others, and he gave me five and six, and said he
should know me again; and I purchased an umbrella suited to my rank and
station, and as fine a haddock as I have ever tasted with the balance,
which was sevenpence, for I was feeling hungry.
"The haddock is an excellent fish, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "and if, as you
observe, we listened to all that was said we'd be hungrier at forty, with
a balance to our credit at the bank, than ever we were at twenty, with
'no effects' beyond a sound digestion."
A Martyr to Health.
"There was a gent in Middle Temple Lane," said Mrs. Wilkins, "as I used
to do for. It's my belief as 'e killed 'imself worrying twenty-four
hours a day over what 'e called 'is 'ygiene. Leastways 'e's dead and
buried now, which must be a comfort to 'imself, feeling as at last 'e's
out of danger. All 'is time 'e spent taking care of 'imself--didn't seem
to 'ave a leisure moment in which to live. For 'alf an hour every
morning 'e'd lie on 'is back on the floor, which is a draughty place, I
always 'old, at the best of times, with nothing on but 'is pyjamas,
waving 'is arms and legs about, and twisting 'imself into shapes
unnatural to a Christian. Then 'e found out that everything 'e'd been
doing on 'is back was just all wrong, so 'e turned over and did tricks on
'is stomach--begging your pardon for using the word--that you'd 'ave
thought more fit and proper to a worm than to a man. Then all that was
discovered to be a mistake. There don't seem nothing certain in these
matters. That's the awkward part of it, so it seems to me. 'E got
'imself a machine, by means of which 'e'd 'ang 'imself up to the wall,
and behave for all the world like a beetle with a pin stuck through 'im,
poor thing. It used to give me the shudders to catch sight of 'im
through the 'alf-open door. For that was part of the game: you 'ad to
'ave a current of air through the room, the result of which was that for
six months out of the year 'e'd be coughing and blowing 'is nose from
morning to night. It was the new treatment, so 'e'd explain to me. You
got yourself accustomed to draughts so that they didn't 'urt you, and if
you died in the process that only proved that you never ought to 'ave
been born.
"Then there came in this new Japanese business, and 'e'd 'ire a little
smiling 'eathen to chuck 'im about 'is room for 'alf an hour every
morning after breakfast. It got on my nerves after a while 'earing 'im
being bumped on the floor every minute, or flung with 'is 'ead into the
fire-place. But 'e always said it was doing 'im good. 'E'd argue that
it freshened up 'is liver. It was 'is liver that 'e seemed to live
for--didn't appear to 'ave any other interest in life. It was the same
with 'is food. One year it would be nothing but meat, and next door to
raw at that. One of them medical papers 'ad suddenly discovered that we
were intended to be a sort of wild beast. The wonder to me is that 'e
didn't go out 'unting chickens with a club, and bring 'em 'ome and eat
'em on the mat without any further fuss. For drink it would be boiling
water that burnt my fingers merely 'andling the glass. Then some other
crank came out with the information that every other crank was
wrong--which, taken by itself, sounds natural enough--that meat was fatal
to the 'uman system. Upon that 'e becomes all at once a raging, tearing
vegetarian, and trouble enough I 'ad learning twenty different ways of
cooking beans, which didn't make, so far as I could ever see, the
slightest difference--beans they were, and beans they tasted like,
whether you called them _ragout a la maison_, or cutlets _a la
Pompadour_. But it seemed to please 'im.
He was never pig-headed.
"Then vegetarianism turned out to be the mistake of our lives. It seemed
we made an error giving up monkeys' food. That was our natural victuals;
nuts with occasional bananas. As I used to tell 'im, if that was so,
then for all we 'ad got out of it we might just as well have stopped up a
tree--saved rent and shoe leather. But 'e was one of that sort that
don't seem able to 'elp believing everything they read in print. If one
of those papers 'ad told 'im to live on the shells and throw away the
nuts, 'e'd have made a conscientious endeavour to do so, contending that
'is failure to digest them was merely the result of vicious
training--didn't seem to 'ave any likes or dislikes of 'is own. You
might 'ave thought 'e was just a bit of public property made to be
experimented upon.
"One of the daily papers interviewed an old gent, as said 'e was a
'undred, and I will say from 'is picture as any'ow 'e looked it. 'E said
it was all the result of never 'aving swallowed anything 'ot, upon which
my gentleman for a week lives on cold porridge, if you'll believe me;
although myself I'd rather 'ave died at fifty and got it over. Then
another paper dug up from somewhere a sort of animated corpse that said
was a 'undred and two, and attributed the unfortunate fact to 'is always
'aving 'ad 'is food as 'ot as 'e could swallow it. A bit of sense did
begin to dawn upon 'im then, but too late in the day, I take it. 'E'd
played about with 'imself too long. 'E died at thirty-two, looking to
all appearance sixty, and you can't say as 'ow it was the result of not
taking advice."
Only just in time.
"On this subject of health we are much too ready to follow advice," I
agreed. "A cousin of mine, Mrs. Wilkins, had a wife who suffered
occasionally from headache. No medicine relieved her of them--not
altogether. And one day by chance she met a friend who said: 'Come
straight with me to Dr. Blank,' who happened to be a specialist famous
for having invented a new disease that nobody until the year before had
ever heard of. She accompanied her friend to Dr. Blank, and in less than
ten minutes he had persuaded her that she had got this new disease, and
got it badly; and that her only chance was to let him cut her open and
have it out. She was a tolerably healthy woman, with the exception of
these occasional headaches, but from what that specialist said it was
doubtful whether she would get home alive, unless she let him operate on
her then and there, and her friend, who appeared delighted, urged her not
to commit suicide, as it were, by missing her turn.
"The result was she consented, and afterwards went home in a four-wheeled
cab, and put herself to bed. Her husband, when he returned in the
evening and was told, was furious. He said it was all humbug, and by
this time she was ready to agree with him. He put on his hat, and
started to give that specialist a bit of his mind. The specialist was
out, and he had to bottle up his rage until the morning. By then, his
wife now really ill for the first time in her life, his indignation had
reached boiling point. He was at that specialist's door at half-past
nine o'clock. At half-past eleven he came back, also in a four-wheeled
cab, and day and night nurses for both of them were wired for. He also,
it appeared, had arrived at that specialist's door only just in time.
"There's this appendy--whatever they call it," commented Mrs. Wilkins,
"why a dozen years ago one poor creature out of ten thousand may possibly
'ave 'ad something wrong with 'is innards. To-day you ain't 'ardly
considered respectable unless you've got it, or 'ave 'ad it. I 'ave no
patience with their talk. To listen to some of them you'd think as
Nature 'adn't made a man--not yet: would never understand the principle
of the thing till some of these young chaps 'ad shown 'er 'ow to do it."
How to avoid Everything.
"They have now discovered, Mrs. Wilkins," I said, "the germ of old age.
They are going to inoculate us for it in early youth, with the result
that the only chance of ever getting rid of our friends will be to give
them a motor-car. And maybe it will not do to trust to that for long.
They will discover that some men's tendency towards getting themselves
into trouble is due to some sort of a germ. The man of the future, Mrs.
Wilkins, will be inoculated against all chance of gas explosions, storms
at sea, bad oysters, and thin ice. Science may eventually discover the
germ prompting to ill-assorted marriages, proneness to invest in the
wrong stock, uncontrollable desire to recite poetry at evening parties.
Religion, politics, education--all these things are so much wasted
energy. To live happy and good for ever and ever, all we have to do is
to hunt out these various germs and wring their necks for them--or
whatever the proper treatment may be. Heaven, I gather from medical
science, is merely a place that is free from germs."
"We talk a lot about it," thought Mrs. Wilkins, "but it does not seem to
me that we are very much better off than before we took to worrying
ourselves for twenty-four 'ours a day about 'ow we are going to live.
Lord! to read the advertisements in the papers you would think as 'ow
flesh and blood was never intended to 'ave any natural ills. 'Do you
ever 'ave a pain in your back?' because, if so, there's a picture of a
kind gent who's willing for one and sixpence halfpenny to take it quite
away from you--make you look forward to scrubbing floors, and standing
over the wash-tub six 'ours at a stretch like to a beanfeast. 'Do you
ever feel as though you don't want to get out of bed in the morning?'
that's all to be cured by a bottle of their stuff--or two at the outside.
Four children to keep, and a sick 'usband on your 'ands used to get me
over it when I was younger. I used to fancy it was just because I was
tired.
The one Cure-All.
"There's some of them seem to think," continued Mrs. Wilkins, "that if
you don't get all you want out of this world, and ain't so 'appy as
you've persuaded yourself you ought to be, that it's all because you
ain't taking the right medicine. Appears to me there's only one doctor
as can do for you, all the others talk as though they could, and 'e only
comes to each of us once, and then 'e makes no charge."