I CAN remember—but then I can remember a long time ago. You, gentle
Reader, just entering upon the prime of life, that age by thoughtless
youth called middle, I cannot, of course, expect to follow me—when there
was in great demand a certain periodical ycleped _The Amateur_. Its aim
was noble. It sought to teach the beautiful lesson of independence, to
inculcate the fine doctrine of self-help. One chapter explained to a man
how he might make flower-pots out of Australian meat cans; another how he
might turn butter-tubs into music-stools; a third how he might utilize
old bonnet boxes for Venetian blinds: that was the principle of the whole
scheme, you made everything from something not intended for it, and as
ill-suited to the purpose as possible.
Two pages, I distinctly recollect, were devoted to the encouragement of
the manufacture of umbrella stands out of old gaspiping. Anything less
adapted to the receipt of hats and umbrellas than gas-piping I cannot
myself conceive: had there been, I feel sure the author would have
thought of it, and would have recommended it.
Picture-frames you fashioned out of ginger-beer corks. You saved your
ginger-beer corks, you found a picture—and the thing was complete. How
much ginger-beer it would be necessary to drink, preparatory to the
making of each frame; and the effect of it upon the frame-maker’s
physical, mental and moral well-being, did not concern _The Amateur_. I
calculate that for a fair-sized picture sixteen dozen bottles might
suffice. Whether, after sixteen dozen of ginger-beer, a man would take
any interest in framing a picture—whether he would retain any pride in
the picture itself, is doubtful. But this, of course, was not the point.
One young gentleman of my acquaintance—the son of the gardener of my
sister, as friend Ollendorff would have described him—did succeed in
getting through sufficient ginger-beer to frame his grandfather, but the
result was not encouraging. Indeed, the gardener’s wife herself was but
ill satisfied.
“What’s all them corks round father?” was her first question.
“Can’t you see,” was the somewhat indignant reply, “that’s the frame.”
“Oh! but why corks?”
“Well, the book said corks.”
Still the old lady remained unimpressed.
“Somehow it don’t look like father now,” she sighed.
Her eldest born grew irritable: none of us appreciate criticism!
“What does it look like, then?” he growled.
“Well, I dunno. Seems to me to look like nothing but corks.”
The old lady’s view was correct. Certain schools of art possibly lend
themselves to this method of framing. I myself have seen a funeral card
improved by it; but, generally speaking, the consequence was a
predominance of frame at the expense of the thing framed. The more
honest and tasteful of the framemakers would admit as much themselves.
“Yes, it is ugly when you look at it,” said one to me, as we stood
surveying it from the centre of the room. “But what one feels about it
is that one has done it oneself.”
Which reflection, I have noticed, reconciles us to many other things
beside cork frames.
Another young gentleman friend of mine—for I am bound to admit it was
youth that profited most by the advice and counsel of _The Amateur_: I
suppose as one grows older one grows less daring, less industrious—made a
rocking-chair, according to the instructions of this book, out of a
couple of beer barrels. From every practical point of view it was a bad
rocking-chair. It rocked too much, and it rocked in too many directions
at one and the same time. I take it, a man sitting on a rocking-chair
does not want to be continually rocking. There comes a time when he says
to himself—“Now I have rocked sufficiently for the present; now I will
sit still for a while, lest a worse thing befall me.” But this was one
of those headstrong rocking-chairs that are a danger to humanity, and a
nuisance to themselves. Its notion was that it was made to rock, and
that when it was not rocking, it was wasting its time. Once started
nothing could stop it—nothing ever did stop it, until it found itself
topsy turvy on its own occupant. That was the only thing that ever
sobered it.
I had called, and had been shown into the empty drawing-room. The
rocking-chair nodded invitingly at me. I never guessed it was an amateur
rocking-chair. I was young in those days, with faith in human nature,
and I imagined that, whatever else a man might attempt without knowledge
or experience, no one would be fool enough to experiment upon a
rocking-chair.
I threw myself into it lightly and carelessly. I immediately noticed the
ceiling. I made an instinctive movement forward. The window and a
momentary glimpse of the wooded hills beyond shot upwards and
disappeared. The carpet flashed across my eyes, and I caught sight of my
own boots vanishing beneath me at the rate of about two hundred miles an
hour. I made a convulsive effort to recover them. I suppose I over-did
it. I saw the whole of the room at once, the four walls, the ceiling,
and the floor at the same moment. It was a sort of vision. I saw the
cottage piano upside down, and I again saw my own boots flash past me,
this time over my head, soles uppermost. Never before had I been in a
position where my own boots had seemed so all-pervading. The next moment
I lost my boots, and stopped the carpet with my head just as it was
rushing past me. At the same instant something hit me violently in the
small of the back. Reason, when recovered, suggested that my assailant
must be the rocking-chair.
Investigation proved the surmise correct. Fortunately I was still alone,
and in consequence was able, a few minutes later, to meet my hostess with
calm and dignity. I said nothing about the rocking-chair. As a matter
of fact, I was hoping to have the pleasure, before I went, of seeing some
other guest arrive and sample it: I had purposely replaced it in the most
prominent and convenient position. But though I felt capable of
schooling myself to silence, I found myself unable to agree with my
hostess when she called for my admiration of the thing. My recent
experiences had too deeply embittered me.
“Willie made it himself,” explained the fond mother. “Don’t you think it
was very clever of him?”
“Oh yes, it was clever,” I replied, “I am willing to admit that.”
“He made it out of some old beer barrels,” she continued; she seemed
proud of it.
My resentment, though I tried to keep it under control, was mounting
higher.
“Oh! did he?” I said; “I should have thought he might have found
something better to do with them.”
“What?” she asked.
“Oh! well, many things,” I retorted. “He might have filled them again
with beer.”
My hostess looked at me astonished. I felt some reason for my tone was
expected.
“You see,” I explained, “it is not a well-made chair. These rockers are
too short, and they are too curved, and one of them, if you notice, is
higher than the other and of a smaller radius; the back is at too obtuse
an angle. When it is occupied the centre of gravity becomes—”
My hostess interrupted me.
“You have been sitting on it,” she said.
“Not for long,” I assured her.
Her tone changed. She became apologetic.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “It looks all right.”
“It does,” I agreed; “that is where the dear lad’s cleverness displays
itself. Its appearance disarms suspicion. With judgment that chair
might be made to serve a really useful purpose. There are mutual
acquaintances of ours—I mention no names, you will know them—pompous,
self-satisfied, superior persons who would be improved by that chair. If
I were Willie I should disguise the mechanism with some artistic drapery,
bait the thing with a couple of exceptionally inviting cushions, and
employ it to inculcate modesty and diffidence. I defy any human being to
get out of that chair, feeling as important as when he got into it. What
the dear boy has done has been to construct an automatic exponent of the
transitory nature of human greatness. As a moral agency that chair
should prove a blessing in disguise.”
My hostess smiled feebly; more, I fear, from politeness than genuine
enjoyment.
“I think you are too severe,” she said. “When you remember that the boy
has never tried his hand at anything of the kind before, that he has no
knowledge and no experience, it really is not so bad.”
Considering the matter from that point of view I was bound to concur. I
did not like to suggest to her that before entering upon a difficult task
it would be better for young men to _acquire_ knowledge and experience:
that is so unpopular a theory.
But the thing that _The Amateur_ put in the front and foremost of its
propaganda was the manufacture of household furniture out of egg-boxes.
Why egg-boxes I have never been able to understand, but egg-boxes,
according to the prescription of _The Amateur_, formed the foundation of
household existence. With a sufficient supply of egg-boxes, and what
_The Amateur_ termed a “natural deftness,” no young couple need hesitate
to face the furnishing problem. Three egg-boxes made a writing-table; on
another egg-box you sat to write; your books were ranged in egg-boxes
around you—and there was your study, complete.
For the dining-room two egg-boxes made an overmantel; four egg-boxes and
a piece of looking-glass a sideboard; while six egg-boxes, with some
wadding and a yard or so of cretonne, constituted a so-called “cosy
corner.” About the “corner” there could be no possible doubt. You sat
on a corner, you leant against a corner; whichever way you moved you
struck a fresh corner. The “cosiness,” however, I deny. Egg-boxes I
admit can be made useful; I am even prepared to imagine them ornamental;
but “cosy,” no. I have sampled egg-boxes in many shapes. I speak of
years ago, when the world and we were younger, when our fortune was the
Future; secure in which, we hesitated not to set up house upon incomes
folks with lesser expectations might have deemed insufficient. Under
such circumstances, the sole alternative to the egg-box, or similar
school of furniture, would have been the strictly classical, consisting
of a doorway joined to architectural proportions.
I have from Saturday to Monday, as honoured guest, hung my clothes in
egg-boxes.
I have sat on an egg-box at an egg-box to take my dish of tea. I have
made love on egg-boxes.—Aye, and to feel again the blood running through
my veins as then it ran, I would be content to sit only on egg-boxes till
the time should come when I could be buried in an egg-box, with an
egg-box reared above me as tombstone.—I have spent many an evening on an
egg-box; I have gone to bed in egg-boxes. They have their points—I am
intending no pun—but to claim for them cosiness would be but to deceive.
How quaint they were, those home-made rooms! They rise out of the
shadows and shape themselves again before my eyes. I see the knobbly
sofa; the easy-chairs that might have been designed by the Grand
Inquisitor himself; the dented settle that was a bed by night; the few
blue plates, purchased in the slums off Wardour Street; the enamelled
stool to which one always stuck; the mirror framed in silk; the two
Japanese fans crossed beneath each cheap engraving; the piano cloth
embroidered in peacock’s feathers by Annie’s sister; the tea-cloth worked
by Cousin Jenny. We dreamt, sitting on those egg-boxes—for we were young
ladies and gentlemen with artistic taste—of the days when we would eat in
Chippendale dining-rooms; sip our coffee in Louis Quatorze drawing-rooms;
and be happy. Well, we have got on, some of us, since then, as Mr.
Bumpus used to say; and I notice, when on visits, that some of us have
contrived so that we do sit on Chippendale chairs, at Sheraton
dining-tables, and are warmed from Adam’s fireplaces; but, ah me, where
are the dreams, the hopes, the enthusiasms that clung like the scent of a
March morning about those gim-crack second floors? In the dustbin, I
fear, with the cretonne-covered egg-boxes and the penny fans. Fate is so
terribly even-handed. As she gives she ever takes away. She flung us a
few shillings and hope, where now she doles us out pounds and fears. Why
did not we know how happy we were, sitting crowned with sweet conceit
upon our egg-box thrones?
Yes, Dick, you have climbed well. You edit a great newspaper. You
spread abroad the message—well, the message that Sir Joseph Goldbug, your
proprietor, instructs you to spread abroad. You teach mankind the
lessons that Sir Joseph Goldbug wishes them to learn. They say he is to
have a peerage next year. I am sure he has earned it; and perhaps there
may be a knighthood for you, Dick.
Tom, you are getting on now. You have abandoned those unsaleable
allegories. What rich art patron cares to be told continually by his own
walls that Midas had ass’s ears; that Lazarus sits ever at the gate? You
paint portraits now, and everybody tells me you are the coming man. That
“Impression” of old Lady Jezebel was really wonderful. The woman looks
quite handsome, and yet it is her ladyship. Your touch is truly
marvellous.
But into your success, Tom—Dick, old friend, do not there creep moments
when you would that we could fish up those old egg-boxes from the past,
refurnish with them the dingy rooms in Camden Town, and find there our
youth, our loves, and our beliefs?
An incident brought back to my mind, the other day, the thought of all
these things. I called for the first time upon a man, an actor, who had
asked me to come and see him in the little home where he lives with his
old father. To my astonishment—for the craze, I believe, has long since
died out—I found the house half furnished out of packing cases, butter
tubs, and egg-boxes. My friend earns his twenty pounds a week, but it
was the old father’s hobby, so he explained to me, the making of these
monstrosities; and of them he was as proud as though they were specimen
furniture out of the South Kensington Museum.
He took me into the dining-room to show me the latest outrage—a new
book-case. A greater disfigurement to the room, which was otherwise
prettily furnished, could hardly be imagined. There was no need for him
to assure me, as he did, that it had been made out of nothing but
egg-boxes. One could see at a glance that it was made out of egg-boxes,
and badly constructed egg-boxes at that—egg-boxes that were a disgrace to
the firm that had turned them out; egg-boxes not worthy the storage of
“shop ’uns” at eighteen the shilling.
We went upstairs to my friend’s bedroom. He opened the door as a man
might open the door of a museum of gems.
“The old boy,” he said, as he stood with his hand upon the door-knob,
“made everything you see here, everything,” and we entered. He drew my
attention to the wardrobe. “Now I will hold it up,” he said, “while you
pull the door open; I think the floor must be a bit uneven, it wobbles if
you are not careful.” It wobbled notwithstanding, but by coaxing and
humouring we succeeded without mishap. I was surprised to notice a very
small supply of clothes within, although my friend is a dressy man.
“You see,” he explained, “I dare not use it more than I can help. I am a
clumsy chap, and as likely as not, if I happened to be in a hurry, I’d
have the whole thing over:” which seemed probable.
I asked him how he contrived. “I dress in the bath-room as a rule,” he
replied; “I keep most of my things there. Of course the old boy doesn’t
know.”
He showed me a chest of drawers. One drawer stood half open.
“I’m bound to leave that drawer open,” he said; “I keep the things I use
in that. They don’t shut quite easily, these drawers; or rather, they
shut all right, but then they won’t open. It is the weather, I think.
They will open and shut all right in the summer, I dare say.” He is of a
hopeful disposition.
But the pride of the room was the washstand.
“What do you think of this?” cried he enthusiastically, “real marble
top—”
He did not expatiate further. In his excitement he had laid his hand
upon the thing, with the natural result that it collapsed. More by
accident than design I caught the jug in my arms. I also caught the
water it contained. The basin rolled on its edge and little damage was
done, except to me and the soap-box.
I could not pump up much admiration for this washstand; I was feeling too
wet.
“What do you do when you want to wash?” I asked, as together we reset the
trap.
There fell upon him the manner of a conspirator revealing secrets. He
glanced guiltily round the room; then, creeping on tip-toe, he opened a
cupboard behind the bed. Within was a tin basin and a small can.
“Don’t tell the old boy,” he said. “I keep these things here, and wash
on the floor.”
That was the best thing I myself ever got out of egg-boxes—that picture
of a deceitful son stealthily washing himself upon the floor behind the
bed, trembling at every footstep lest it might be the “old boy” coming to
the door.
One wonders whether the Ten Commandments are so all-sufficient as we good
folk deem them—whether the eleventh is not worth the whole pack of them:
“that ye love one another” with just a common-place, human, practical
love. Could not the other ten be comfortably stowed away into a corner
of that! One is inclined, in one’s anarchic moments, to agree with Louis
Stevenson, that to be amiable and cheerful is a good religion for a
work-a-day world. We are so busy _not_ killing, _not_ stealing, _not_
coveting our neighbour’s wife, we have not time to be even just to one
another for the little while we are together here. Need we be so
cocksure that our present list of virtues and vices is the only possibly
correct and complete one? Is the kind, unselfish man necessarily a
villain because he does not always succeed in suppressing his natural
instincts? Is the narrow-hearted, sour-souled man, incapable of a
generous thought or act, necessarily a saint because he has none? Have
we not—we unco guid—arrived at a wrong method of estimating our frailer
brothers and sisters? We judge them, as critics judge books, not by the
good that is in them, but by their faults. Poor King David! What would
the local Vigilance Society have had to say to him? Noah, according to
our plan, would be denounced from every teetotal platform in the country,
and Ham would head the Local Vestry poll as a reward for having exposed
him. And St. Peter! weak, frail St. Peter, how lucky for him that his
fellow-disciples and their Master were not as strict in their notions of
virtue as are we to-day.
Have we not forgotten the meaning of the word “virtue”? Once it stood
for the good that was in a man, irrespective of the evil that might lie
there also, as tares among the wheat. We have abolished virtue, and for
it substituted virtues. Not the hero—he was too full of faults—but the
blameless valet; not the man who does any good, but the man who has not
been found out in any evil, is our modern ideal. The most virtuous thing
in nature, according to this new theory, should be the oyster. He is
always at home, and always sober. He is not noisy. He gives no trouble
to the police. I cannot think of a single one of the Ten Commandments
that he ever breaks. He never enjoys himself, and he never, so long as
he lives, gives a moment’s pleasure to any other living thing.