The Haverstocks lived in an old creeper-covered and slightly decrepit
house in the Spaniards' Road. It was without a bathroom until the
Haverstocks took possession of it, for it had been built in the days
when the middle-classes had not yet contracted the habit of frequently
washing their bodies. From the front windows of the house one saw
across Hampstead Heath towards London, and from the back windows one
saw across the Heath towards Harrow. The house, in spite of its slight
decrepitude and the clumsiness of its construction--the stairs were
obviously an afterthought of the architect--had that air of comfortable
kindliness which is only to be seen in houses which have been occupied
by several generations of human beings. Mr. Haverstock was vaguely
known as a sociologist. He investigated the affairs of poor people, and
was constantly engaged in inveigling labourers into filling large
_questionnaires_ with particulars of the wages they earned, the
manner in which they spent those wages, the food they ate, the number
of children they procreated, and other intimate and personal matters.
He was anxious to discover exactly how much proteid was necessary to
the maintenance of a labouring man in health and efficiency, and he
conducted the most elaborate experiments with beans and bananas for
that purpose. It was one of the most discouraging features of modern
civilisation, he often said, that the spirit of research and
disinterested enquiry was less prevalent among the labouring classes
than was desirable. He could not induce a labouring man to live
exclusively on beans and bananas for six months in order that he might
compare his physical condition at the end of that period with his
physical condition after a period spent in flesh-eating. He told sad
stories of the reception that had been accorded to some of his
assistants at the time that they were obtaining data from workmen on
the question of the limitation of the family!...
He was a kindly, solemn man, with large, astonished eyes, and he wore a
beard, less as a decoration than as a protest. The beard was really a
serious nuisance to him, for he had dainty manners and he disliked to
think of soup dribbling down it; but someone had convinced him that a
man who wore a beard early in life was definitely bidding defiance to
the conventions of the time, and so he sacrificed his sense of niceness
to his desire to _épater les bourgeois_. He said that a beard was
a sign of Virility!... Mrs. Haverstock and he were childless. Mrs.
Haverstock, a quick-witted and merry-minded American, had married her
husband in the days when she believed that a man who wrote books of
sufficient dullness must be a distinguished and desirable man; and
since she brought a considerable fortune to England with her, she
enabled him to write more dull books than he could otherwise have had
published. Much of her awe of her husband had disappeared in the course
of time, but it had, fortunately, been replaced by deep affection: for
his generosity and kindliness appealed to her increasingly as her
respect for his learning and solemnity declined. She often said of him
that he would do more for his friends than his friends would do for
themselves ... and indeed many of them were willing to allow him to do
anything and everything for them ... but so long as knight-errantry
with an entirely sociological intent made him happy, she did not mind
how he spent her money. He had many moments of dubiety about her
fortune ... he frequently threatened to cross the Atlantic in order to
discover whether the money was justly earned ... but he invariably
comforted himself with the reflection that even if the money were
ill-gained, he could at least put it to better use than anyone else; and
so he refrained from crossing the Atlantic, not without a sensation of
relief, for he was an unhappy sailor.
He loved discussions and arguments about Deep Things, and Mrs.
Haverstock had invented her series of At Homes in order that her
husband might get rid of some of his noble principles at them. She felt
that if he could dissipate part of them in argument with other very
high-minded men, life, between the At Homes, would be a little more
human and livable for her. She secured a regular supply of attendants
at these discussions by the simple method of supplying an excellent
supper to those who came to them.
"I first met Haverstock," Hinde said to John as they walked along the
Spaniards' Road, "during a strike at Canning Town. He was trying to
persuade the police to remember that the strikers were men and
brothers, and he was trying also to persuade the strikers that force
was no argument and that they ought to use constitutional means of
settling their disputes with their employers. And between the two, he
was in danger of getting his eye knocked out, until I hauled him out of
the crowd and shoved him into a cab and took him home. Mrs. Haverstock
was so grateful to me that she's invited me to her house ever since ...
but the people I meet there make me feel murderous. I like her, a
sensible, sonsy woman, and I like him too, although his solemn,
priggish airs make me tired, but I cannot bear the crowd they get round
them: all the cranks and oddities and smug, self-sufficient,
interfering people seem to get into their house, and they're all
reforming something or uplifting something else or generally bleating
against this country. Things done in England are always inferior to
things done elsewhere. English cooking is inferior to French cooking:
English organisation is inferior to German organisation. Whatever is
done in England is wrongly done. The English are hypocrites, the
English are sordid and materialistic, the English are everlastingly
compromising, the English are this, that and the other that is
unpleasant and objectionable!... I tell you, Mac, there's nobody makes
me feel so sick as the Englishman who belittles England!"
"Well, we make little of the English, don't we?" John protested.
"I know we do, and perhaps it is natural that we should, but it's a
poor, cheap thing at the best, and does very little credit to our
intelligence. The English ideal of life is as good an ideal as there is
in the world. I think it is far the finest ideal there is, chiefly
because it does not make impossible demands on human beings. When
everything that can be alleged against the English is alleged and
admitted, it remains true that they love freedom far more constantly
than other people, and that without them, freedom would have a very
thin time in the world. You ask any liberty-loving American which
country has more freedom, his country or this country, and he'll tell
you very quickly, England! Englishmen don't argue about freedom: they
just are free, and on the whole, they carry freedom with them. An
American will argue about liberty even while he is clapping you into
gaol for asserting your right to freedom!... Here's the house!"
They turned into the front garden of the Haverstocks' house as he
spoke.
"In a way," he said, as they walked along the gravel path leading to
the door, "the English Radical is the strongest testimony to the
English ideal of freedom that you could have. He is so jealous of his
country's good name that he is always ready to shout out if he is not
satisfied with her behaviour. That's a good sign, really! Only they're
so smug about it!..."
Most of the guests were already assembled when they entered the
drawing-room where Mr. and Mrs. Haverstock bade them welcome. Hinde
introduced John to them, mentioning that he had only lately arrived
from Ireland. Mrs. Haverstock smiled and hoped he would often come
to see them, and Mr. Haverstock looked pontifical and said, "Ah,
yes. Poor Ireland! _Poor_ Ireland! Tragic! Tragic!" He waved his
hand in a vague fashion, and then turned to greet the representative
of another distressed nation. John could hear him murmuring, "Ah,
yes. Poor Georgia! _Poor_ Georgia! Tragic! Tragic!" but was unable
to hear any more because Mrs. Haverstock led him up to a lean, staring
youth with goggle eyes who, she said, had promised to read several
of his poems to the guests and to open a discussion on Marriage. The
goggle-eyed poet informed John that Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton,
Shelley and Browning were comic old gentlemen who entirely misunderstood
the nature and function of poetry. He had founded a new school of poetry.
It appeared from his account of this school that the important thing
was not what was said in a poem, but what was left out of it. He
illustrated his meaning by allowing John to read the manuscript of one
of the poems he proposed to read that evening. It was entitled "Life,"
and it contained two lines!...