AN ADDRESS.
On Saturday evening I called for Frances. We were going to hear the man
she would call the Wonderful Person of Wapping.
‘We shall have to drive right through London,’ I told her. ‘You will
see first the trade end of the West; then the lane of the country
visitors, called the Strand; then the lane of the printers; then the
merchants’ quarters, silent and deserted; and then the place where the
people live who do all the work; the city of the thousand industries.
And then you will see these people you are going forth to see.’
‘So long as you don’t take me to see the places with associations, I
don’t mind. I was looking over a book about London the other day; it
was full of associations. Dear me! What does it matter to me where
Milton lived? And why should I want to see the place where Shakespeare
had a theatre?’
‘You are curiously impatient about the past, Frances.’
‘I like the world just exactly as it is, George; the order of it and
the ways of it; and the flow of the stream--I like to feel that I am in
the swim. And if ever I marry again, I shall be a great deal more in
the swim.’
‘The man you will hear to-night likes the world as it ought to be.’
‘Well, why not? So long as we don’t change anything. Now, Master
Craftsman, my gloves are on.’
‘You look very fine to-night, Frances. It will please our friends at
Shadwell, seeing a lady among them, that she is a real lady. They
resemble your friends in one respect--these men of the gutter, as you
kindly called them on a recent occasion--they like to see a woman well
dressed.’
It is a long drive from Piccadilly to High Street, Shadwell, which,
as everybody knows, is a continuation of Ratcliffe Highway. The whole
journey was as unknown to Lady Frances as China or Peru. For the City
she cared nothing; memories of Gresham and Whittington moved her not;
this evening, of course, the offices and warehouses were closed, and
the streets deserted; she only began to take interest when we came out
on Tower Hill, and drove past the gray old fortress into the highway
sacred to the memory of sailors and to riverside thieves and to crimps,
and to Moll and Poll and Doll. Indeed, ghosts of the departed sinners
are still allowed regretfully to hover around the swinging doors of
these old taverns, and to linger about the pavement where they were
wont to roll and sing and dance and fight. Oh, the brave old days!
And they acknowledge that the game is still kept up, and with spirit,
though, perhaps, with less heart in it than of old. The fighting has
gone off sadly; the singing is still good, but that, too, shows signs
of deterioration; the dancing, however, shows the old spirit--legs are
loose, heel and toe are true to time; and the drinking is still free
and generous. As for Moll and her friends, they continue to lend the
charm of woman’s society to Mercantile Jack.
‘Men and women!’ said Lady Frances. ‘And by their appearance not among
the strictest moralists. Show me men and women, George, and not tall
black warehouses, where something once stood, or grimy churches, where
something once happened. Give me men and women. Give me the present.
Ouf! what a reek from that door!’
The carriage stopped for a moment; a little crowd assembled, seeing
that most unaccustomed appearance, a carriage and pair with a coachman
and a footman in liveries. The open door belonged to a tavern full
of sailors drinking and smoking, so that the air which came forth in
waves was charged with the fragrance of rum, gin, beer and tobacco. The
carriage moved on slowly. There came another kind of fragrance. The
first knocked one down like a club, the second cut one like a knife.
‘It is fried fish,’ I explained. ‘This is the staple food of the women
and work-girls. There are differences in the matter of food. For my own
part I should never get over a prejudice against this form of---- Do
get on a little faster, if you can,’ I called to the coachman.
We passed into another street, really the same, but called by a
different name, where there were no sailors and no sailors’ friends. It
was, however, filled with people walking about; among them were lads
smoking cigarettes, girls with immense yellow feathers in their hats
and bright blue blouses, walking arm-in-arm, laughing loudly; working
men leaning about with pipes, women with children in arms, children
everywhere tumbling about the road and the gutter.
‘Behold the people!’ I said. ‘Concentrated people. Pure extract of
people.’
‘I recognise them,’ said Frances, ‘though I do not seem to have seen
them before. On the whole they look harmless.’
‘As for their power of harm, I have my own opinion. But it is quite
certain that at present they don’t want to do any harm.’
‘It is curious to think that all of us have come out of this mass. Here
and there, I suppose, one disengages himself and leaves his friends,
and gets up a bit over their heads, and prepares the way for founding
a family. That is the way we all began, perhaps. The Earls and Barons
of the future have got their fathers and mothers in this crowd. But
no one, except you, George, ever wanted to go back again. Oh! most
remarkable of men! Unique Man! You wanted to go back again.’
The carriage stopped at the entrance of a hall; gas-lights flamed over
the open doors; people, nearly all men, were streaming in, and in the
lobby men were standing about disputing and arguing in earnest tones;
everyone looked as if he came on private business--which was the first
thing remarkable.
I spoke to an attendant doorkeeper, who conducted us upstairs and along
the back of the gallery to a private box overlooking the stage. Lady
Frances looked round. By the decorations, the footlights, the stage,
the place for the orchestra, the gallery which ran all round the room,
the large room itself, and the close atmosphere, it was evident that
the place was habitually used for entertainments.
‘This is the Siren Music-hall,’ I explained. ‘It is named, not after
the Sisters Three, of whom the proprietor and baptizer never heard, but
after the new-fashioned steam-whistle which you may hear all day long
upon the river. And it is hired for these meetings.’
‘They are not going to have, I hope, a music-hall entertainment?’
‘Not quite. You are going to hear a political speech. Meantime, look
round and watch the people. You say you want men and women. Very well.
There are your men and women all gathered together, especially the men.’
They were nearly all men--working men. Frances looked down upon the
crowded hall; the faces she gazed upon shone white and shiny in the
glare of the gas; they were serious faces, they were hard faces; the
impression produced by the collective face was one of honesty and
slow powers of perception, but with determination. Most of them sat
in silence, leaning back contentedly, and in no hurry. The men who
work actively with the bodily limbs all day for their wage are never
in a hurry so long as they can wait sitting. When they talked it was
seriously and with earnestness, conducting their argument on the
approved lines, in which one man advances an array of alleged facts
which he cannot prove, and the other contradicts the allegations,
though he cannot disprove them. This is the argument of the taproom,
the bar-parlour, and the smoking-room. The more carefully we adhere to
the old-fashioned, well-tried method, the more animated, spirited, and
convincing is the conversation. Imperfect knowledge is most clearly
indicated by frequent interruptions and noisy denials. Now, these men
were arguing on the constitution of the country, being ignorant of
what it is, how it has grown, whence it came, or what it means. And
they wanted to change it, being ignorant of what these changes would
mean, or how they were to be effected, and how other members of the
community would receive them. There were Socialists among them, men who
look forward to the time when every man, for the sake of every other
man, and not for himself at all, will gladly do a hard day’s work and
get no payment or profit but only the equal ration, the same garb, the
same warmth, and the same roof; and they think that the levelling up
or down to the same unbroken plane will create, for the first time in
history, happiness complete. ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who was
then the gentleman?’ Alas! it is the same old, old story. There was
then no gentleman, but in the third or fourth generation after Adam
there was founded the first family of gentlefolk--they were, I believe,
Welsh. There were also in the crowd Anarchists--a kindly race who want
to sweep away all laws, with the police and the lawyers, and the judges
and the prisons, and to leave everybody to work out his own redemption
for himself. And there was among them the common Radical who desires
nothing more than the abolition of the Crown, the Church, and the
Lords, after which no one certainly can expect or desire anything more.
And there were many of that numerous class, the Wobblers, who incline
this way and that, being unable to balance the advantages of any one
plan against any other. Mostly, however, being poor and dependent,
they desire change. Some of the women came with their husbands and
brought their work with them, the business of the evening being quite
below their own attention. The British matron, who is a practical and
keen-eyed person, is seldom able to understand that the abolition of
the House of Lords will give her husband better pay, or herself more
housekeeping money. Here and there one saw a white woman’s face, with
set lips and furrowed brow. She was that rare woman who can see the
wickedness of things, and the imperfection of things, and the injustice
and cruelty and uncertainty of things; and she ceases to believe in
the powers that be, or in the doctrines of Church, of teacher, and of
preacher, and longs to shuffle the cards and try a new deal, if haply
that may bring a remedy to the evils of the time.
Lady Frances looked down upon this crowd watching and wondering,
interested merely by the sight of the lines of faces below her, line
behind line, row behind row; while I told her the things that are
written down above.
‘I am glad I came,’ she murmured. ‘Oh! I am very glad I came. George, I
like to see them. Give me, I said, men and women. I say it again--men
and women.’
‘And the thoughts of men and women--what they think about the world and
themselves and your class, Frances. It is useful knowledge, even if it
does not help you to play the game.’
‘So long as I am not compelled to associate with them I have no
objection to looking at them, or to reading about them. It would be as
a branch of natural history, except for the fact that these people may
interfere with us. Their thoughts, I suppose, are mostly discontented;
and their intentions, if they had any, would be revolutionary. But they
are interesting, and I am glad I came.’
By this time the Hall was full to overflowing: the people were crammed
in the galleries; they stood on the back-benches; they filled up the
gangways; they climbed over the orchestra partition and stood, a mass
of young men, in that capacious pew; they crowded the doors; they were
packed tight on the stairs: there was no more room left to put in an
umbrella.
‘It is seven o’clock,’ I said. ‘Time’s up. The man you are going to
hear to-night, Frances--the strong man--the man who has ambitions such
as you would like me to have----’
‘I never thought you ought to be a local demagogue, George.’
‘He is coming out immediately. He knows the people pretty well, and
they know him. This evening he will pronounce one of a series of
orations he has delivered on the questions of the day. The Captain
tells me that he has set the people thinking and talking in a very
surprising way. You see how they are discussing things. All these
discussions are on the text of his last address.’
‘The Wonderful Person of Wapping. I await him with interest.’
Then the orator appeared, stepping out from the wings, and walked
quietly to his place beside a small table, which, with a decanter
and tumbler, formed the only furniture of the stage. The background,
representing a rural scene, with woods, and a lake and a bridge, did
not, somehow, seem incongruous with an address bristling with hard
facts and practical conclusions. A bright country landscape, sunny and
beautiful, is really far more appropriate to an address which uplifts
the heart than a picture of a mean street, or of men and women toiling
over mean and ill-paid labour.
There was no chairman. At the outset one had been proposed, but the
lecturer scoffed at the suggestion, said that he could very well
introduce himself, and propose for himself a vote of thanks. He
therefore stood alone. In his hand he bore a bundle of papers, which he
carefully placed in order on the table for reference.
Then he stood upright, facing his audience, and bowed slightly to the
round of applause which greeted him.
Lady Frances saw a tall, broad-shouldered, and singularly handsome
young man, with a broad square forehead--the light fell full upon
it--clear eyes, hair in very short brown curls--such curls as denote
strength--a serious face--too serious for his time of life; but,
then, it is only your light comedian, your touch-and-go comic man,
who can face an audience with a grin, and it is only a ballet-girl
who can appear with a smile. There was not, however, the slightest
touch of embarrassment or stage fright about him. He stood easily, in
an assured attitude, standing well apart from the table, so that his
figure was practically the only thing to be seen upon the stage. He
was dressed in faultless evening clothes, with a white flower in his
buttonhole. This was the man who, a few weeks before, scoffed at the
observance of evening dress, and sneered at the niminy-piminy ways of
the fine gentleman.
‘Why,’ whispered Lady Frances, ‘the man is dressed like a gentleman.
What does he do that for? He is only talking to workpeople. Look at
his face, George; it says as plain as if he were speaking, “I am not
afraid--I am a better man than anybody here.”’
The orator held up his hand. Everybody settled in his place; everybody
adjusted his feet--mostly under the benches; every other person cleared
his throat; the women who had come with their husbands looked up at the
orator and round the room; then they took up their knitting again, and
abstracted their thoughts into some useful line, such as boots and the
acquisition of boots. The people on the stairs loudly besought those
within to make room for them; one might as well implore the sardines
to lie a little closer in their box. So they wailed aloud, like the
foolish virgins, because they could not enter. And then the orator
began.
I am profoundly sorry that I cannot, in this place, give you even
the heads of this discourse; because his words and his facts were
forcible and convincing, and I am sure, dear reader, you would like to
be hammered with facts and convinced with reasons. I cannot, however,
do so, for the simple reason that the laws of copyright forbid. The
orations are now published, and everybody can get them and read them.
He began, however, with a personal point.
‘I told you,’ he said, ‘at the outset, that I am here because I
propose to represent this borough at the next General Election. The
reason why I have taken the trouble to address you is that you will be
my constituents, and it is always best when a man has got opinions of
his own that he should instruct his constituents upon them. Mine are
not opinions: they are convictions; and my convictions, as I have shown
you so far, are simple truths. You are all the better, I am quite sure,
for having learned those truths; you will talk much less nonsense, and
you will advocate much more sensible measures. So much, of course, you
will acknowledge. Now, the next General Election is said to be close
upon us. No one can possibly know for certain how close it is, but we
may expect it any day. Therefore it is well that I have educated you to
support my candidature.
‘I also told you at the outset that I mean to enter the House as an
Independent Member. I am informed that no Independent Member is of any
importance in the House; that he cannot influence votes that belong to
this party or that party; that the House is divided into this flock
of sheep and that flock of sheep, which follow their leaders when the
bell rings. Very good. My friend, I don’t want to influence votes in
the House. I want to influence you--you--you--not the House at all. I
care nothing about the House. It is through the House that one speaks
to the country, nay, to the world, if one is strong enough. I desire to
speak the truth about things that I know, the exact plain truth, which
they do not hear in the House--the forces which drive us; the way we
are driven; the thing that has to be done. I want to speak out to the
whole world by speaking in the House. Oh, I am not afraid! Men will
laugh at such a confession. It is a worthy and noble ambition, and, my
constituents, I mean to prove myself, yes, myself, worthy of that noble
ambition. Very well. Now, remember that when I am elected I am not
going to call myself your servant, nor shall I have the hypocrisy to
pretend that I am sent to the House with a mandate from you. Why, you
don’t think I am going to accept any instructions from anybody here,
do you? You to give me--ME--instructions? My dear people, understand
that your collective wisdom is no more than the wisdom of the best man
among you, and your best man isn’t a tenth part of the man that I am in
knowledge, or in ability either. Do not make any mistake. You may be
my servants if you please; it is the best thing in the world for you
to learn of me, to question me, to elect me, but I shall never be your
servant. You can teach me nothing, but I can teach you a great deal.
Understand, then, I shall be an Independent Member in every sense--free
of interference of party, free of interference of constituents. So you
had better make up your mind at once to turn out one of your present
members--I do not in the least care which--and to put me in his place.
But, by the Lord, I tell you, I promise you, I will make you proud of
your member!’
He stopped. This was only the prologue--the forewords. He drank a
little water and took up his papers.
The people, so far from resenting this plainness of speech, clapped and
applauded mightily.
‘His assurance becomes him,’ said Lady Frances. ‘A more arrogant speech
I never heard. After that, they are bound to elect him.’
And then he turned to his subject. He had at least the gift of oratory,
and the first and the most important part of this gift is the power of
clear and orderly arrangement; he knew how to select his points, and
to present them so that a child might understand; he knew how to repeat
them; to present them again in another form, yet still so as to be
intelligible to all; he knew how to present them a third time, so that
there should be no chance of forgetting them. He had a flexible, rich,
and musical voice, which rolled in thunder in the roof, or dropped to
the soft strains of a silver flute. He knew when to stir the people’s
hearts, and when to make them follow to a cold chain of reason; when
to make them laugh, and when to make them cry. The man played with
his audience; and if you watched him, as Lady Frances did, you would
observe that he rejoiced in his power; there were moments when he used
this power wantonly--for his own pleasure when it was not wanted. Now
and then, when he trampled upon some pet prejudice and exposed some
cherished illusion, there were sounds of disagreement, but faintly
expressed and quickly hushed. Thus he spoke of Socialism:
‘Do not,’ he said, ‘be led away by theories of what may be or might
be. We are concerned with what is, not with what may be. Man is born
alone--absolutely alone in the world; he grows up alone; he learns
alone; he works alone; he has his diseases alone; he thinks alone; he
lives alone; he dies alone. The only thing that seems to take away his
loneliness is his marriage. Then, because he has another person always
in the house with him, he feels perhaps that he is not quite so lonely
as he thought. It is illusion, but it cheers him up. Every man is quite
alone. Remember that. Everything that he has is his alone; he cannot
give it away if he wishes. His face belongs to himself alone--there is
no other face like his in the whole world, and there never has been. In
the Resurrection of the millions and millions of the long-forgotten
dead there will be no face like any other face--no man like any other
man. Quite alone. He cannot part with his gifts, his hereditary powers
and weaknesses, his learning, his skill of hand and eye; his thoughts,
his memory, his history, his doings, his follies--nothing that he has
can he impart to any other living creature. It all belongs to him. He
is alone in the world.
‘Quite alone--he and his property. Remember this, and when you hear
men talk of things equal and things equally divided, ask how the most
important property of all is to be divided--a man’s strength and skill
and ability. For you are not equal; there is no equality. Nature--the
Order of Creation--screams it loudly to you; she proclaims it from the
mountain-tops, she whispers it in the rustling of the leaves, in the
flow of the water, and in the breath of the spring. You are not equal.
Nothing that was ever made is the equal of any other thing. You are all
unequal; you have diversities of gifts; one is a giant and one is a
dwarf; one can make and one can only destroy; you are all unequal. That
is the voice of Nature. What follows? We who are individual and unequal
have to provide for ourselves. Man is still a creature who hunts and
lives by the chase. The rest shapes itself; the strong man tramples
down the weak; we associate ourselves together so that the strong
man may not too much oppress the weak; wages, hours, work, holidays,
prices--all rest upon the will of the strong man, and he is ruled by
the will of one stronger than himself. You who are strong, preserve
your strength, learn to use it. You will form combinations for your
protection against the stronger man. Good: if your strength is greater
than his, you will get what you want; if his is greater than yours,
you will lose. Above all things, be strong. All the systems, all the
experiments, that the world has ever seen, terminate in the victory of
the strong man, to whom belongs, and ever will belong, the round world
and all that therein is.’
This was only a bit out of the middle of the oration. You will find
plenty of pages in the printed book as strong as this passage.
He concluded at last, amid a storm of cheers and shouting.
At the door, as we went out, we met Captain Dering. I introduced him
briefly.
‘I saw you in the private box,’ said the Captain, taking off his hat to
Lady Frances. ‘What did I tell you? He winds ’em about like a bit o’
string; he does what he likes with ’em. They’re afraid of him, and yet
they can’t help coming to hear him. They’ll go away--a whole lot of the
chaps are rank Socialist scum’--the old sailor called them ‘scum’: did
one ever know a Socialist sailor?--‘they’ll go away and curse him. But
they’ll come again, all the same.’
‘And will they vote for him?’ asked Lady Frances.
‘They will. To a man. Because he isn’t afraid to have a mind of his
own, and to speak it out, and to let ’em know what he thinks about
their collective wisdom. Lord! their wisdom! Look here, now. With
permission, Madam.’ The Captain was courtesy itself with a lady
passenger. ‘It’s the same all the world over. And if you want to see
what all the world wants, go and look for it aboard ship, because a
ship is a world by itself. Very good. What do the sailors want? A man
who palavers and pretends to take their advice? Not a bit of it. A man
who talks about their wisdom? Not a bit of it. They know they’ve got no
wisdom. They can’t even pretend to navigate a ship. They want a man
to take the command; a skipper who will say, “Go there; do this, ----
you!” begging your pardon, Madam. Ask their advice! I’d like to see a
sailor’s face if his captain asked his advice.’
‘You like a strong man everywhere, Captain Dering,’ said Lady Frances.
‘So do I.’
‘It’s the same everywhere. They talk about this and that. They ask
questions and pretend to know. And the candidate, he just pretends to
ask their advice humble-like, and promises to take their advice when
he’s got it, and goes to the House with his tongue in his cheek. What
all the world wants, Madam, is a captain to give the word of command
and to navigate the vessel.’
‘Then, you do think he will get in? I hope he will. He should have a
thousand votes if I had them.’
‘If he doesn’t, he’ll just take and knock their silly heads together.’
‘George,’ said Lady Frances, as we drove away, ‘I have had a most
delightful evening. Thank you, ever so much, for bringing me here. Your
orator is a very strong man indeed. He speaks like a gentleman, yet he
called himself a Master Craftsman--I suppose from some proud humility.
“We are all working men,” I heard the Archbishop say once. I thought it
was rather humbug.’
‘This man is indeed a Master Craftsman. He understands honest work with
his hands as well as any working man present. In fact, better.’
‘He appeared in evening dress. Do Master Craftsmen habitually wear
evening dress?’
‘The garb proclaimed the difference between his audience and himself.
He does not appear before them as a workman, but as their master in
every sense. The evening clothes are an allegory, you see. He told them
pretty plainly that he is their master.’
‘He did indeed.’
‘Seeking election, not in order to carry out any views of theirs, you
see, but to advance his own views. I think he was quite right to put on
the dress-coat.’
‘He certainly speaks like a man who knows things.’
‘The things that man knows, Frances, would sink a three-decker. And the
things he does not know couldn’t float a canoe.’
‘Your metaphors are mixed, George; but you mean well.’
‘You perceived, of course, that he is not a scholar. These self-taught
men never are. He lacks the literary phrase, except, perhaps, when he
comes to personal appeal. But the literary phrase may come. He acquires
everything with amazing ease the moment he learns that it is necessary.’
‘Necessary? For what?’
‘For his personal ambition. Frances, you have seen to-night the
chrysalis. Very soon, I believe, you will see the--the other
creature--which comes out of the chrysalis. This man--you have heard
what he says--means to become a power in the House--that is the
ambition which most pleases you. He will, he calmly prophesies, be
invited in a few years to become a Cabinet Minister; after that, Prime
Minister; then--perhaps--Protector of the Realm. He is as determined
as Cromwell; as clear-headed and as able--as ruthless, perhaps; and
perhaps, also, as selfish.’
‘If he can debate as well as he can speak he ought to get on. A man
like that always begins as a Radical. He wants to pull down the Church
and the Lords, of course.’
‘On the contrary, he would pull down neither Church nor Lords. He
would, I believe, enlarge the borders of both. You heard him say that
he was going to be an Independent Member?’
‘Then, George, speaking as the daughter of a Prime Minister, I say that
he will dig his own grave. Tell him that he must belong to a Party, if
he would get on. He must--tell him he must! If he does not, he would do
far better to remain outside.’
‘I have told him so over and over again. But he is as obstinate as a
Western mule.’
‘And he is--your cousin! I had forgotten that. Why, it accounts for
the strange resemblance. I was haunted all the time by his likeness. I
could not think what likeness. It is you, George; he is strangely like
you. Only bigger, I think.’
‘Yes; bigger all over, and more ambitious, Frances.’
‘Oh! and he is teaching you his trade. And what have you taught him,
George?’
‘Nothing worth speaking of. You see, a man brought up at Wapping, which
is only a little isolated slip of ground between dock and river--a kind
of island--has very few chances of acquiring the air of society.’
‘George, you have taught your cousin manners--I know you have. And you
are going to introduce him about. Do you think that he will not betray
himself?’
‘I hope he will, because there will be no pretence. But in all
essentials he will be fit for presentation in your own drawing-room,
Frances, where I hope to bring him with your permission.’
‘Bring him, by all means. It is always a happiness to meet a strong and
clever man. I think your cousin, to look at him and to listen to him,
must be as clever as he is strong. George, give him, if you can, a
lighter style. It is all very well to be intensely earnest at certain
points--especially the weakest in an address--but he must not be
intensely earnest all through. Make him cultivate repartee and epigram.
Teach him to laugh a little, and to smile a little. A man nowadays,
even a man who is going to pull down the House of Commons by the two
pillars, should laugh and smile a little beforehand. But he is a strong
man, George, and a very interesting man.’