I went into a tailor's in the West End the other day to order some
clothes. My shadow rarely darkens a tailor's door, and this tailor's
door it had never darkened before. I was surprised therefore, when,
after the preliminaries of measurement were finished, the attendant, in
reply to a question about a deposit, said "No deposit is necessary.
The name is good enough." I confess I felt the compliment as an
agreeable shock. The request for a deposit always jars on me. I know
that "business is business" and that in this wilderness of London it is
no dishonour to be unknown and no discredit to be formally discredited;
but yet ... And here was a man I had never seen before and who had
never seen me, who was prepared to execute my order without any sordid
assurances of character on my side--simply on my name. Such a tribute
needed some recognition. "It will save trouble," said I, "if I pay the
account now." And I did so. I fancy the action was a little childish,
but I couldn't help it. I really couldn't. I simply had to do
something civil, and this was the only civil thing that occurred to me.
And then I went out of the shop feeling that I had come suddenly into
an unexpected and pleasing inheritance. I knew now something of the
emotion of Mr. Sholes, the eminent author:
Whenever down Fleet Street he strolls
The policemen look hurriedly up
And say "There's the great Mr. Sholes,
Who writes such delectable gup."
I might not be able to write such delectable gup as Mr. Sholes, but I
could write gup good enough to make that fellow in the shop trust me
for a six-guinea suit. I did not observe that the policeman took any
particular notice of me as I passed along. But--"Give me time," said
I, addressing the shade of Mr. Sholes. "Give me time. I have made a
start in the handicap of the famous. I am known to that excellent
shopman. I may yet be known (favourably and admiringly) to the police.
I may yet walk the Strand with a nimbus that will challenge Mr. Horatio
Bottomley and Mr. Pemberton Billing and the illustrious great. I may
yet have the agreeable consciousness that heads are turning in my
direction, and that the habitual Londoner is saying to his country
cousin: 'That, my dear Jane, is the eminent Mr. Alpha of the Plough who
writes those articles in _The Star_.' ... Give me time, Mr. Sholes.
Give me time."
But as I walked on and as that momentary flash of the limelight faded
from me I became less confident that I wanted to live in it. I became
sensible of the pleasures of obscurity. I strolled along untroubled by
the curious, and enjoyed the pageant of the pavement, the display of
dress, the diversity of faces, the play of light in the eyes, the
incidents of the streets. I paused in front of shops and fell into a
reverie before the window of the incomparable Mr. Bumpus--the window of
stately books in noble bindings. I was submerged in the tide of the
common life and felt the enfranchisement of the obscure. I could walk
which way I pleased and no one would remark me; pause when I liked and
be unobserved. But--why, here is Lord French of Ypres coming along.
See how heads are turning and fingers are pointing and tongues are
wagging--"That, my dear Jane..." What a nuisance this limelight must
be!
And if you are really conspicuous you cannot trust yourself out of
doors--unless you have the courage of John Burns, who does not care two
pins who sees him or talks about him. The King, poor man, could no
more walk along this pavement as I am doing, rubbing shoulders with the
people and enjoying the comedy of life, than he could write to the
newspapers, or address a crowd from the plinth of the Nelson Monument,
or go to a booking-office and take a ticket for the Tube, or into an
A.B.C. shop and ask for a cup of tea, or any of the thousand and one
things that I am at liberty to do and enjoy doing without let or
hindrance, comment or disturbance. He is the prisoner of publicity.
He is pursued by the limelight, as the fleeing soul of the poet was
pursued by the hound of heaven. He can't look in Bumpus's. He can't
go on to an allotment and dig undisturbed. You cannot have limelight
playing about an allotment. In fact, the more one thinks of it the
more impoverished his life seems, and so in a lesser degree with all
the eminent people who are pursued by the photographer, mobbed in the
streets, fawned on by their friends, slandered by their enemies,
exalted or defamed in the Press, and dissected in every club
smoking-room and bar parlour.
But, you will say, think of the glory of having your name handed down
to posterity. It is a very questionable privilege. I am not much
concerned about posterity. I respect it, as Wordsworth respected it.
"What has posterity done for me that I should consider it?" some one
said to him, and he replied, "No, but the past has done much for you."
It was a just reminder of our obligations. But it is a lean ambition
to pose for posterity. I cannot thrill to the vision of the trumpeter
Fame blowing my name down the corridors of time while I sleep on
unheeding in
My patrimony of a little mould
And entail of four planks.
I am not warmed by the idea of a marble image standing with
outstretched arm in the Abbey or sitting on a horse for ever in the
streets, wet or fine, or perched up on a towering column to be a
convenience to vagrant birds. If fame is often a nuisance to the
living, it is only an empty echo for the dead. Spare me marble
trappings, good friends, and give me the peace of forgetfulness.
By the time I had reached the end of my walk and my ruminations, I felt
less cordial towards that man in the shop. I wished, on the whole,
that he had asked for the deposit.