LONG, long ago, when you and I, dear Reader, were young, when the fairies
dwelt in the hearts of the roses, when the moonbeams bent each night
beneath the weight of angels’ feet, there lived a good, wise man. Or
rather, I should say, there had lived, for at the time of which I speak
the poor old gentleman lay dying. Waiting each moment the dread summons,
he fell a-musing on the life that stretched far back behind him. How
full it seemed to him at that moment of follies and mistakes, bringing
bitter tears not to himself alone but to others also. How much brighter
a road might it have been, had he been wiser, had he known!
“Ah, me!” said the good old gentleman, “if only I could live my life
again in the light of experience.”
Now as he spoke these words he felt the drawing near to him of a
Presence, and thinking it was the One whom he expected, raising himself a
little from his bed, he feebly cried,
“I am ready.”
But a hand forced him gently back, a voice saying, “Not yet; I bring
life, not death. Your wish shall be granted. You shall live your life
again, and the knowledge of the past shall be with you to guide you. See
you use it. I will come again.”
Then a sleep fell upon the good man, and when he awoke, he was again a
little child, lying in his mother’s arms; but, locked within his brain
was the knowledge of the life that he had lived already.
So once more he lived and loved and laboured. So a second time he lay an
old, worn man with life behind him. And the angel stood again beside his
bed; and the voice said,
“Well, are you content now?”
“I am well content,” said the old gentleman. “Let Death come.”
“And have you understood?” asked the angel.
“I think so,” was the answer; “that experience is but as of the memory of
the pathways he has trod to a traveller journeying ever onward into an
unknown land. I have been wise only to reap the reward of folly.
Knowledge has ofttimes kept me from my good. I have avoided my old
mistakes only to fall into others that I knew not of. I have reached the
old errors by new roads. Where I have escaped sorrow I have lost joy.
Where I have grasped happiness I have plucked pain also. Now let me go
with Death that I may learn..”
Which was so like the angel of that period, the giving of a gift,
bringing to a man only more trouble. Maybe I am overrating my coolness
of judgment under somewhat startling circumstances, but I am inclined to
think that, had I lived in those days, and had a fairy or an angel come
to me, wanting to give me something—my soul’s desire, or the sum of my
ambition, or any trifle of that kind I should have been short with him.
“You pack up that precious bag of tricks of yours,” I should have said to
him (it would have been rude, but that is how I should have felt), “and
get outside with it. I’m not taking anything in your line to-day. I
don’t require any supernatural aid to get me into trouble. All the worry
I want I can get down here, so it’s no good your calling. You take that
little joke of yours,—I don’t know what it is, but I know enough not to
want to know,—and run it off on some other idiot. I’m not priggish. I
have no objection to an innocent game of ‘catch-questions’ in the
ordinary way, and when I get a turn myself. But if I’ve got to pay every
time, and the stakes are to be my earthly happiness plus my future
existence—why, I don’t play. There was the case of Midas; a nice, shabby
trick you fellows played off upon him! making pretence you did not
understand him, twisting round the poor old fellow’s words, just for all
the world as though you were a pack of Old Bailey lawyers, trying to trip
up a witness; I’m ashamed of the lot of you, and I tell you so—coming
down here, fooling poor unsuspecting mortals with your nonsense, as
though we had not enough to harry us as it was. Then there was that
other case of the poor old peasant couple to whom you promised three
wishes, the whole thing ending in a black pudding. And they never got
even that. You thought that funny, I suppose. That was your fairy
humour! A pity, I say, you have not, all of you, something better to do
with your time. As I said before, you take that celestial ‘Joe Miller’
of yours and work it off on somebody else. I have read my fairy lore,
and I have read my mythology, and I don’t want any of your blessings.
And what’s more, I’m not going to have them. When I want blessings I
will put up with the usual sort we are accustomed to down here. You know
the ones I mean, the disguised brand—the blessings that no human being
would think were blessings, if he were not told; the blessings that don’t
look like blessings, that don’t feel like blessings; that, as a matter of
fact, are not blessings, practically speaking; the blessings that other
people think are blessings for us and that we don’t. They’ve got their
drawbacks, but they are better than yours, at any rate, and they are
sooner over. I don’t want your blessings at any price. If you leave one
here I shall simply throw it out after you.”
I feel confident I should have answered in that strain, and I feel it
would have done good. Somebody ought to have spoken plainly, because
with fairies and angels of that sort fooling about, no one was ever safe
for a moment. Children could hardly have been allowed outside the door.
One never could have told what silly trick some would-be funny fairy
might be waiting to play off on them. The poor child would not know, and
would think it was getting something worth having. The wonder to me is
that some of those angels didn’t get tarred and feathered.
I am doubtful whether even Cinderella’s luck was quite as satisfying as
we are led to believe. After the carpetless kitchen and the black
beetles, how beautiful the palace must have seemed—for the first year,
perhaps for the first two. And the Prince! how loving, how gallant, how
tender—for the first year, perhaps for the first two. And after? You
see he was a Prince, brought up in a Court, the atmosphere of which is
not conducive to the development of the domestic virtues; and she—was
Cinderella. And then the marriage altogether was rather a hurried
affair. Oh yes, she is a good, loving little woman; but perhaps our
Royal Highness-ship did act too much on the impulse of the moment. It
was her dear, dainty feet that danced their way into our heart. How they
flashed and twinkled, eased in those fairy slippers. How like a lily
among tulips she moved that night amid the over-gorgeous Court dames.
She was so sweet, so fresh, so different to all the others whom we knew
so well. How happy she looked as she put her trembling little hand in
ours. What possibilities might lie behind those drooping lashes. And we
were in amorous mood that night, the music in our feet, the flash and
glitter in our eyes. And then, to pique us further, she disappeared as
suddenly and strangely as she had come. Who was she? Whence came she?
What was the mystery surrounding her? Was she only a delicious dream, a
haunting phantasy that we should never look upon again, never clasp again
within our longing arms? Was our heart to be for ever hungry, haunted by
the memory of—No, by heavens, she is real, and a woman. Here is her dear
slipper, made surely to be kissed. Of a size too that a man may well
wear within the breast of his doublet. Had any woman—nay, fairy, angel,
such dear feet! Search the whole kingdom through, but find her, find
her. The gods have heard our prayers, and given us this clue. “Suppose
she be not all she seemed. Suppose she be not of birth fit to mate with
our noble house!” Out upon thee, for an earth-bound, blind curmudgeon of
a Lord High Chancellor. How could a woman, whom such slipper fitted, be
but of the noblest and the best, as far above us, mere Princelet that we
are, as the stars in heaven are brighter than thy dull old eyes! Go,
search the kingdom, we tell thee, from east to west, from north to south,
and see to it that thou findest her, or it shall go hard with thee. By
Venus, be she a swineherd’s daughter, she shall be our Queen—an she deign
to accept of us, and of our kingdom.
Ah well, of course, it was not a wise piece of business, that goes
without saying; but we were young, and Princes are only human. Poor
child, she could not help her education, or rather her lack of it. Dear
little thing, the wonder is that she has contrived to be no more ignorant
than she is, dragged up as she was, neglected and overworked. Nor does
life in a kitchen, amid the companionship of peasants and menials, tend
to foster the intellect. Who can blame her for being shy and somewhat
dull of thought? not we, generous-minded, kind-hearted Prince that we
are. And she is very affectionate. The family are trying, certainly;
father-in-law not a bad sort, though a little prosy when upon the subject
of his domestic troubles, and a little too fond of his glass;
mamma-in-law, and those two ugly, ill-mannered sisters, decidedly a
nuisance about the palace. Yet what can we do? they are our relations
now, and they do not forget to let us know it. Well, well, we had to
expect that, and things might have been worse. Anyhow she is not
jealous—thank goodness.
So the day comes when poor little Cinderella sits alone of a night in the
beautiful palace. The courtiers have gone home in their carriages. The
Lord High Chancellor has bowed himself out backwards. The
Gold-Stick-in-Waiting and the Grooms of the Chamber have gone to their
beds. The Maids of Honour have said “Good-night,” and drifted out of the
door, laughing and whispering among themselves. The clock strikes
twelve—one—two, and still no footstep creaks upon the stair. Once it
followed swiftly upon the “good-night” of the maids, who did not laugh or
whisper then.
At last the door opens, and the Prince enters, none too pleased at
finding Cinderella still awake. “So sorry I’m late, my love—detained on
affairs of state. Foreign policy very complicated, dear. Have only just
this moment left the Council Chamber.”
And little Cinderella, while the Prince sleeps, lies sobbing out her poor
sad heart into the beautiful royal pillow, embroidered with the royal
arms and edged with the royal monogram in lace. “Why did he ever marry
me? I should have been happier in the old kitchen. The black beetles
did frighten me a little, but there was always the dear old cat; and
sometimes, when mother and the girls were out, papa would call softly
down the kitchen stairs for me to come up, and we would have such a merry
evening together, and sup off sausages: dear old dad, I hardly ever see
him now. And then, when my work was done, how pleasant it was to sit in
front of the fire, and dream of the wonderful things that would come to
me some day. I was always going to be a Princess, even in my dreams, and
live in a palace, but it was so different to this. Oh, how I hate it,
this beastly palace where everybody sneers at me—I know they do, though
they bow and scrape, and pretend to be so polite. And I’m not clever and
smart as they are. I hate them. I hate these bold-faced women who are
always here. That is the worst of a palace, everybody can come in. Oh,
I hate everybody and everything. Oh, god-mamma, god-mamma, come and take
me away. Take me back to my old kitchen. Give me back my old poor
frock. Let me dance again with the fire-tongs for a partner, and be
happy, dreaming.”
Poor little Cinderella, perhaps it would have been better had god-mamma
been less ambitious for you, dear; had you married some good, honest
yeoman, who would never have known that you were not brilliant, who would
have loved you because you were just amiable and pretty; had your kingdom
been only a farmhouse, where your knowledge of domestic economy, gained
so hardly, would have been useful; where you would have shone instead of
being overshadowed; where Papa would have dropped in of an evening to
smoke his pipe and escape from his domestic wrangles; where you would
have been _real_ Queen.
But then you know, dear, you would not have been content. Ah yes, with
your present experience—now you know that Queens as well as little
drudges have their troubles; but _without_ that experience? You would
have looked in the glass when you were alone; you would have looked at
your shapely hands and feet, and the shadows would have crossed your
pretty face. “Yes,” you would have said to yourself—“John is a dear,
kind fellow, and I love him very much, and all that, but—” and the old
dreams, dreamt in the old low-ceilinged kitchen before the dying fire,
would have come back to you, and you would have been discontented then as
now, only in a different way. Oh yes, you would, Cinderella, though you
gravely shake your gold-crowned head. And let me tell you why. It is
because you are a woman, and the fate of all us, men and women alike, is
to be for ever wanting what we have not, and to be finding, when we have
it, that it is not what we wanted. That is the law of life, dear. Do
you think as you lie upon the floor with your head upon your arms, that
you are the only woman whose tears are soaking into the hearthrug at that
moment? My dear Princess, if you could creep unseen about your City,
peeping at will through the curtain-shielded windows, you would come to
think that all the world was little else than a big nursery full of
crying children with none to comfort them. The doll is broken: no longer
it sweetly squeaks in answer to our pressure, “I love you, kiss me.” The
drum lies silent with the drumstick inside; no longer do we make a brave
noise in the nursery. The box of tea-things we have clumsily put our
foot upon; there will be no more merry parties around the three-legged
stool. The tin trumpet will not play the note we want to sound; the
wooden bricks keep falling down; the toy cannon has exploded and burnt
our fingers. Never mind, little man, little woman, we will try and mend
things to-morrow.
And after all, Cinderella dear, you do live in a fine palace, and you
have jewels and grand dresses and—No, no, do not be indignant with _me_.
Did not you dream of these things _as well as_ of love? Come now, be
honest. It was always a prince, was it not, or, at the least, an
exceedingly well-to-do party, that handsome young gentleman who bowed to
you so gallantly from the red embers? He was never a virtuous young
commercial traveller, or cultured clerk, earning a salary of three pounds
a week, was he, Cinderella? Yet there are many charming commercial
travellers, many delightful clerks with limited incomes, quite
sufficient, however, to a sensible man and woman desiring but each
other’s love. Why was it always a prince, Cinderella? Had the palace
and the liveried servants, and the carriages and horses, and the jewels
and the dresses, _nothing_ to do with the dream?
No, Cinderella, you were human, that is all. The artist, shivering in
his conventional attic, dreaming of Fame!—do you think he is not hoping
she will come to his loving arms in the form Jove came to Danae? Do you
think he is not reckoning also upon the good dinners and the big cigars,
the fur coat and the diamond studs, that her visits will enable him to
purchase?
There is a certain picture very popular just now. You may see it,
Cinderella, in many of the shop-windows of the town. It is called “The
Dream of Love,” and it represents a beautiful young girl, sleeping in a
very beautiful but somewhat disarranged bed. Indeed, one hopes, for the
sleeper’s sake, that the night is warm, and that the room is fairly free
from draughts. A ladder of light streams down from the sky into the
room, and upon this ladder crowd and jostle one another a small army of
plump Cupids, each one laden with some pledge of love. Two of the Imps
are emptying a sack of jewels upon the floor. Four others are bearing,
well displayed, a magnificent dress (a “confection,” I believe, is the
proper term) cut somewhat low, but making up in train what is lacking
elsewhere. Others bear bonnet boxes from which peep stylish toques and
bewitching hoods. Some, representing evidently wholesale houses, stagger
under silks and satins in the piece. Cupids are there from the
shoemakers with the daintiest of _bottines_. Stockings, garters, and
even less mentionable articles, are not forgotten. Caskets, mirrors,
twelve-buttoned gloves, scent-bottles and handkerchiefs, hair-pins, and
the gayest of parasols, has the God of Love piled into the arms of his
messengers. Really a most practical, up-to-date God of Love, moving with
the times! One feels that the modern Temple of Love must be a sort of
Swan and Edgar’s; the god himself a kind of celestial shop-walker; while
his mother, Venus, no doubt superintends the costume department. Quite
an Olympian Whiteley, this latter-day Eros; he has forgotten nothing,
for, at the back of the picture, I notice one Cupid carrying a rather fat
heart at the end of a string.
You, Cinderella, could give good counsel to that sleeping child. You
would say to her—“Awake from such dreams. The contents of a pawnbroker’s
store-room will not bring you happiness. Dream of love if you will; that
is a wise dream, even if it remain ever a dream. But these coloured
beads, these Manchester goods! are you then—you, heiress of all the
ages—still at heart only as some poor savage maiden but little removed
above the monkeys that share the primeval forest with her? Will you sell
your gold to the first trader that brings you _this_ barter? These
things, child, will only dazzle your eyes for a few days. Do you think
the Burlington Arcade is the gate of Heaven?”
Ah, yes, I too could talk like that—I, writer of books, to the young lad,
sick of his office stool, dreaming of a literary career leading to fame
and fortune. “And do you think, lad, that by that road you will reach
Happiness sooner than by another? Do you think interviews with yourself
in penny weeklies will bring you any satisfaction after the first
halfdozen? Do you think the gushing female who has read all your books,
and who wonders what it must feel like to be so clever, will be welcome
to you the tenth time you meet her? Do you think press cuttings will
always consist of wondering admiration of your genius, of paragraphs
about your charming personal appearance under the heading, ‘Our
Celebrities’? Have you thought of the Uncomplimentary criticisms, of the
spiteful paragraphs, of the everlasting fear of slipping a few inches
down the greasy pole called ‘popular taste,’ to which you are condemned
to cling for life, as some lesser criminal to his weary tread-mill,
struggling with no hope but not to fall! Make a home, lad, for the woman
who loves you; gather one or two friends about you; work, think, and
play, that will bring you happiness. Shun this roaring gingerbread fair
that calls itself, forsooth, the ‘World of art and letters.’ Let its
clowns and its contortionists fight among themselves for the plaudits and
the halfpence of the mob. Let it be with its shouting and its surging,
its blare and its cheap flare. Come away, the summer’s night is just the
other side of the hedge, with its silence and its stars.”
You and I, Cinderella, are experienced people, and can therefore offer
good advice, but do you think we should be listened to?
“Ah, no, my Prince is not as yours. Mine will love me always, and I am
peculiarly fitted for the life of a palace. I have the instinct and the
ability for it. I am sure I was made for a princess. Thank you,
Cinderella, for your well-meant counsel, but there is much difference
between you and me.”
That is the answer you would receive, Cinderella; and my young friend
would say to me, “Yes, I can understand _your_ finding disappointment in
the literary career; but then, you see, our cases are not quite similar.
_I_ am not likely to find much trouble in keeping my position. _I_ shall
not fear reading what the critics say of _me_. No doubt there are
disadvantages, when you are among the ruck, but there is always plenty of
room at the top. So thank you, and goodbye.”
Besides, Cinderella dear, we should not quite mean it—this excellent
advice. We have grown accustomed to these gew-gaws, and we should miss
them in spite of our knowledge of their trashiness: you, your palace and
your little gold crown; I, my mountebank’s cap, and the answering laugh
that goes up from the crowd when I shake my bells. We want everything.
All the happiness that earth and heaven are capable of bestowing.
Creature comforts, and heart and soul comforts also; and, proud-spirited
beings that we are, we will not be put off with a part. Give us only
everything, and we will be content. And, after all, Cinderella, you have
had your day. Some little dogs never get theirs. You must not be
greedy. You have _known_ happiness. The palace was Paradise for those
few months, and the Prince’s arms were about you, Cinderella, the
Prince’s kisses on your lips; the gods themselves cannot take _that_ from
you.
The cake cannot last for ever if we will eat of it so greedily. There
must come the day when we have picked hungrily the last crumb—when we sit
staring at the empty board, nothing left of the feast, Cinderella, but
the pain that comes of feasting.
It is a naïve confession, poor Human Nature has made to itself, in
choosing, as it has, this story of Cinderella for its leading moral:—Be
good, little girl. Be meek under your many trials. Be gentle and kind,
in spite of your hard lot, and one day—you shall marry a prince and ride
in your own carriage. Be brave and true, little boy. Work hard and wait
with patience, and in the end, with God’s blessing, you shall earn riches
enough to come back to London town and marry your master’s daughter.
You and I, gentle Reader, could teach these young folks a truer lesson,
an we would. We know, alas! that the road of all the virtues does not
lead to wealth, rather the contrary; else how explain our limited
incomes? But would it be well, think you, to tell them bluntly the
truth—that honesty is the most expensive luxury a man can indulge in;
that virtue, if persisted in, leads, generally speaking, to a six-roomed
house in an outlying suburb? Maybe the world is wise: the fiction has
its uses.
I am acquainted with a fairly intelligent young lady. She can read and
write, knows her tables up to six times, and can argue. I regard her as
representative of average Humanity in its attitude towards Fate; and this
is a dialogue I lately overheard between her and an older lady who is
good enough to occasionally impart to her the wisdom of the world—
“I’ve been good this morning, haven’t I?”
“Yes—oh yes, fairly good, for you.”
“You think Papa _will_ take me to the circus to-night?”
“Yes, if you keep good. If you don’t get naughty this afternoon.”
A pause.
“I was good on Monday, you may remember, nurse.”
“Tolerably good.”
“_Very_ good, you said, nurse.”
“Well, yes, you weren’t bad.”
“And I was to have gone to the pantomime, and I didn’t.”
“Well, that was because your aunt came up suddenly, and your Papa
couldn’t get another seat. Poor auntie wouldn’t have gone at all if she
hadn’t gone then.”
“Oh, wouldn’t she?”
“No.”
Another pause.
“Do you think she’ll come up suddenly to-day?”
“Oh no, I don’t think so.”
“No, I hope she doesn’t. I want to go to the circus to-night. Because,
you see, nurse, if I don’t it will discourage me.”
* * * * *
So, perhaps the world is wise in promising us the circus. We believe her
at first. But after a while, I fear, we grow discouraged.