Music and the Savage.
I never visit a music-hall without reflecting concerning the great future
there must be before the human race.
How young we are, how very young! And think of all we have done! Man is
still a mere boy. He has only just within the last half-century been put
into trousers. Two thousand years ago he wore long clothes--the Grecian
robe, the Roman toga. Then followed the Little Lord Fauntleroy period,
when he went about dressed in a velvet suit with lace collar and cuffs,
and had his hair curled for him. The late lamented Queen Victoria put
him into trousers. What a wonderful little man he will be when he is
grown up!
A clergyman friend of mine told me of a German _Kurhaus_ to which he was
sent for his sins and his health. It was a resort, for some reason,
specially patronized by the more elderly section of the higher English
middle class. Bishops were there, suffering from fatty degeneration of
the heart caused by too close application to study; ancient spinsters of
good family subject to spasms; gouty retired generals. Can anybody tell
me how many men in the British Army go to a general? Somebody once
assured me it was five thousand, but that is absurd, on the face of it.
The British Army, in that case, would have to be counted by millions.
There are a goodish few American colonels still knocking about. The
American colonel is still to be met with here and there by the curious
traveller, but compared with the retired British general he is an extinct
species. In Cheltenham and Brighton and other favoured towns there are
streets of nothing but retired British generals--squares of retired
British generals--whole crescents of British generals. Abroad there are
_pensions_ with a special scale of charges for British generals. In
Switzerland there has even been talk of reserving railway compartments
"For British Generals Only." In Germany, when you do not say distinctly
and emphatically on being introduced that you are not a British general,
you are assumed, as a matter of course, to be a British general. During
the Boer War, when I was residing in a small garrison town on the Rhine,
German military men would draw me aside and ask of me my own private
personal views as to the conduct of the campaign. I would give them my
views freely, explain to them how I would finish the whole thing in a
week.
"But how in the face of the enemy's tactics--" one of them would begin.
"Bother the enemy's tactics," I would reply. "Who cares for tactics?"
"But surely a British general--" they would persist. "Who's a British
general?" I would retort, "I am talking to you merely as a plain
commonsense man, with a head on my shoulders."
They would apologize for their mistake. But this is leading me away from
that German _Kurhaus_.
Recreation for the Higher clergy.
My clergyman friend found life there dull. The generals and the
spinsters left to themselves might have played cards, but they thought of
the poor bishops who would have had to look on envious. The bishops and
the spinsters might have sung ballads, but the British general after
dinner does not care for ballads, and had mentioned it. The bishops and
the generals might have told each other stories, but could not before the
ladies. My clergyman friend stood the awful solemnity of three evenings,
then cautiously felt his way towards revelry. He started with an
intellectual game called "Quotations." You write down quotations on a
piece of paper, and the players have to add the author's name. It roped
in four old ladies, and the youngest bishop. One or two generals tried a
round, but not being familiar with quotations voted the game slow.
The next night my friend tried "Consequences." "Saucy Miss A. met the
gay General B. in"--most unlikely places. "He said." Really it was
fortunate that General B. remained too engrossed in the day before
yesterday's _Standard_ to overhear, or Miss A. could never have again
faced him. "And she replied." The suppressed giggles excited the
curiosity of the non-players. Most of the bishops and half the generals
asked to be allowed to join. The giggles grew into roars. Those
standing out found that they could not read their papers in comfort.
From "Consequences" the descent was easy. The tables and chairs were
pushed against the walls, the bishops and the spinsters and the generals
would sit in a ring upon the floor playing hunt the slipper. Musical
chairs made the two hours between bed and dinner the time of the day they
all looked forward to: the steady trot with every nerve alert, the ear
listening for the sudden stoppage of the music, the eye seeking with
artfulness the likeliest chair, the volcanic silence, the mad scramble.
The generals felt themselves fighting their battles over again, the
spinsters blushed and preened themselves, the bishops took interest in
proving that even the Church could be prompt of decision and swift of
movement. Before the week was out they were playing Puss-in-the-corner;
ladies feeling young again were archly beckoning to stout deans, to whom
were returning all the sensations of a curate. The swiftness with which
the gouty generals found they could still hobble surprised even
themselves.
Why are we so young?
But it is in the music-hall, as I have said, that I am most impressed
with the youthfulness of man. How delighted we are when the long man in
the little boy's hat, having asked his short brother a riddle, and before
he can find time to answer it, hits him over the stomach with an
umbrella! How we clap our hands and shout with glee! It isn't really
his stomach: it is a bolster tied round his waist--we know that; but
seeing the long man whack at that bolster with an umbrella gives us
almost as much joy as if the bolster were not there.
I laugh at the knockabout brothers, I confess, so long as they are on the
stage; but they do not convince me. Reflecting on the performance
afterwards, my dramatic sense revolts against the "plot." I cannot
accept the theory of their being brothers. The difference in size alone
is a strain upon my imagination. It is not probable that of two children
of the same parents one should measure six foot six, and the other five
foot four. Even allowing for a freak of nature, and accepting the fact
that they might be brothers, I do not believe they would remain so
inseparable. The short brother would have succeeded before now in losing
the long brother. Those continual bangings over the head and stomach
would have weakened whatever affection the short brother might originally
have felt towards his long relation. At least, he would insist upon the
umbrella being left at home.
"I will go for a walk with you," he might say, "I will stand stock still
with you in Trafalgar Square in the midst of the traffic while you ask me
silly riddles, but not if you persist in bringing with you that absurd
umbrella. You are too handy with it. Put it back in the rack before we
start, or go out by yourself."
Besides, my sense of justice is outraged. Why should the short brother
be banged and thumped without reason? The Greek dramatist would have
explained to us that the shorter brother had committed a crime against
the gods. Aristophanes would have made the longer brother the instrument
of the Furies. The riddles he asked would have had bearing upon the
shorter brother's sin. In this way the spectator would have enjoyed
amusement combined with the satisfactory sense that Nemesis is ever
present in human affairs. I present the idea, for what it may be worth,
to the concoctors of knockabout turns.
Where Brotherly (and Sisterly) Love reigns supreme.
The family tie is always strong on the music-hall stage. The acrobatic
troupe is always a "Family": Pa, Ma, eight brothers and sisters, and the
baby. A more affectionate family one rarely sees. Pa and Ma are a
trifle stout, but still active. Baby, dear little fellow, is full of
humour. Ladies do not care to go on the music-hall stage unless they can
take their sister with them. I have seen a performance given by eleven
sisters, all the same size and apparently all the same age. She must
have been a wonderful woman--the mother. They all had golden hair, and
all wore precisely similar frocks--a charming but _decolletee_
arrangement--in claret-coloured velvet over blue silk stockings. So far
as I could gather, they all had the same young man. No doubt he found it
difficult amongst them to make up his mind.
"Arrange it among yourselves," he no doubt had said, "it is quite
immaterial to me. You are so much alike, it is impossible that a fellow
loving one should not love the lot of you. So long as I marry into the
family I really don't care."
When a performer appears alone on the music-hall stage it is easy to
understand why. His or her domestic life has been a failure. I listened
one evening to six songs in succession. The first two were sung by a
gentleman. He entered with his clothes hanging upon him in shreds. He
explained that he had just come from an argument with his wife. He
showed us the brick with which she had hit him, and the bump at the back
of his head that had resulted. The funny man's marriage is never a
success. But really this seems to be his own fault. "She was such a
lovely girl," he tells us, "with a face--well, you'd hardly call it a
face, it was more like a gas explosion. Then she had those wonderful
sort of eyes that you can see two ways at once with, one of them looks
down the street, while the other one is watching round the corner. Can
see you coming any way. And her mouth!"
It appears that if she stands anywhere near the curb and smiles, careless
people mistake her for a pillar-box, and drop letters into her.
"And such a voice!" We are told it is a perfect imitation of a motor-
car. When she laughs people spring into doorways to escape being run
over.
If he will marry that sort of woman, what can he expect? The man is
asking for it.
The lady who followed him also told us a sad story of misplaced trust.
She also was comic--so the programme assured us. The humorist appears to
have no luck. She had lent her lover money to buy the ring, and the
licence, and to furnish the flat. He did buy the ring, and he furnished
the flat, but it was for another lady. The audience roared. I have
heard it so often asked, "What is humour?" From observation, I should
describe it as other people's troubles.
A male performer followed her. He came on dressed in a night-shirt,
carrying a baby. His wife, it seemed, had gone out for the evening with
the lodger. That was his joke. It was the most successful song of the
whole six.
The one sure Joke.
A philosopher has put it on record that he always felt sad when he
reflected on the sorrows of humanity. But when he reflected on its
amusements he felt sadder still.
Why was it so funny that the baby had the lodger's nose? We laughed for
a full minute by the clock.
Why do I love to see a flabby-faced man go behind curtains, and, emerging
in a wig and a false beard, say that he is now Bismarck or Mr.
Chamberlain? I have felt resentment against the Lightning Impersonator
ever since the days of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. During that
summer every Lightning Impersonator ended his show by shouting, while the
band played the National Anthem, "Queen Victoria!" He was not a bit like
Queen Victoria. He did not even, to my thinking, look a lady; but at
once I had to stand up in my place and sing "God save the Queen." It was
a time of enthusiastic loyalty; if you did not spring up quickly some
patriotic old fool from the back would reach across and hit you over the
head with the first thing he could lay his hands upon.
Other music-hall performers caught at the idea. By ending up with "God
save the Queen" any performer, however poor, could retire in a whirlwind
of applause. Niggers, having bored us with tiresome songs about coons
and honeys and Swanee Rivers, would, as a last resource, strike up "God
save the Queen" on the banjo. The whole house would have to rise and
cheer. Elderly Sisters Trippet, having failed to arouse our enthusiasm
by allowing us a brief glimpse of an ankle, would put aside all
frivolity, and tell us of a hero lover named George, who had fought
somebody somewhere for his Queen and country. "He fell!"--bang from the
big drum and blue limelight. In a recumbent position he appears to have
immediately started singing "God save the Queen."
How Anarchists are made.
Sleepy members of the audience would be hastily awakened by their
friends. We would stagger to our feet. The Sisters Trippet, with eyes
fixed on the chandelier, would lead us: to the best of our ability we
would sing "God save the Queen."
There have been evenings when I have sung "God save the Queen" six times.
Another season of it, and I should have become a Republican.
The singer of patriotic songs is generally a stout and puffy man. The
perspiration pours from his face as the result of the violent
gesticulations with which he tells us how he stormed the fort. He must
have reached it very hot.
"There were ten to one agin us, boys." We feel that this was a
miscalculation on the enemy's part. Ten to one "agin" such wildly
gesticulating Britishers was inviting defeat.
It seems to have been a terrible battle notwithstanding. He shows us
with a real sword how it was done. Nothing could have lived within a
dozen yards of that sword. The conductor of the orchestra looks nervous.
Our fear is lest he will end by cutting off his own head. His
recollections are carrying him away. Then follows "Victory!"
The gas men and the programme sellers cheer wildly. We conclude with the
inevitable "God save the King."