This is one of the most popular of the famous Roundabout Papers
written by Thackeray for the _Cornhill Magazine_, of which he was
the first editor.
Where have I just read of a game played at a country house? The party
assembles round a table with pens, ink, and paper. Some one narrates a
tale containing more or less incidents and personages. Each person of
the company then writes down, to the best of his memory and ability,
the anecdote just narrated, and finally the papers are to be read out.
I do not say I should like to play often at this game, which might
possibly be a tedious and lengthy pastime, not by any means so amusing
as smoking a cigar in the conservatory; or even listening to the young
ladies playing their piano-pieces; or to Hobbs and Nobbs lingering
round the bottle and talking over the morning's run with the hounds;
but surely it is a moral and ingenious sport. They say the variety of
narratives is often very odd and amusing. The original story becomes so
changed and distorted that at the end of all the statements you are
puzzled to know where the truth is at all. As time is of small
importance to the cheerful persons engaged in this sport, perhaps a
good way of playing it would be to spread it over a couple of years.
Let the people who played the game in '60 all meet and play it once
more in '61, and each write his story over again. Then bring out your
original and compare notes. Not only will the stories differ from each
other, but the writers will probably differ from themselves. In the
course of the year the incidents will grow or will dwindle strangely.
The least authentic of the statements will be so lively or so
malicious, or so neatly put, that it will appear most like the truth. I
like these tales and sportive exercises. I had begun a little print
collection once. I had Addison in his nightgown in bed at Holland
House, requesting young Lord Warwick to remark how a Christian should
die. I had Cambronne clutching his cocked hat, and uttering the
immortal _La Garde meurt et ne se rend pas_. I had the _Vengeur_ going
down, and all the crew hurraying like madmen. I had Alfred toasting the
muffin: Curtius (Haydon) jumping into the gulf; with extracts from
Napoleon's bulletins, and a fine authentic portrait of Baron
Munchausen.
What man who has been before the public at all has not heard similar
wonderful anecdotes regarding himself and his own history? In these
humble essaykins I have taken leave to egotize. I cry out about the
shoes which pinch me, and, as I fancy, more naturally and pathetically
than if my neighbour's corns were trodden under foot. I prattle about
the dish which I love, the wine which I like, the talk I heard
yesterday--about Brown's absurd airs--Jones's ridiculous elation when
he thinks he has caught me in a blunder (a part of the fun, you see, is
that Jones will read this, and will perfectly well know that I mean
him, and that we shall meet and grin at each other with entire
politeness). This is not the highest kind of speculation, I confess,
but it is a gossip which amuses some folks. A brisk and honest
small-beer will refresh those who do not care for the frothy
outpourings of heavier taps. A two of clubs may be a good handy little
card sometimes, and able to tackle a king of diamonds, if it is a
little trump. Some philosophers get their wisdom with deep thought, and
out of ponderous libraries; I pick up my small crumbs of cogitation at
a dinner-table; or from Mrs. Mary and Miss Louisa, as they are
prattling over their five-o'clock tea.
Well, yesterday at dinner, Jucundus was good enough to tell me a story
about myself, which he had heard from a lady of his acquaintance, to
whom I send my best compliments. The tale is this. At nine o'clock on
the evening of the 31st of November last, just before sunset, I was
seen leaving No. 96 Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, leading two little
children by the hand, one of them in a nankeen pelisse, and the other
having a mole on the third finger of his left hand (she thinks it was
the third finger, but is quite sure it was the left hand). Thence I
walked with them to Charles Boroughbridge's, pork and sausage man, No.
29 Upper Theresa Road. Here, whilst I left the little girl innocently
eating a polony in the front shop, I and Boroughbridge retired with the
boy into the back parlour, where Mrs. Boroughbridge was playing
cribbage. She put up the cards and boxes, took out a chopper and a
napkin, and we cut the little boy's little throat (which he bore with
great pluck and resolution), and made him into sausage-meat by the aid
of Purkis's excellent sausage-machine. The little girl at first could
not understand her brother's absence, but, under the pretence of taking
her to see Mr. Fechter in _Hamlet_, I led her down to the New River at
Sadler's Wells, where a body of a child in a nankeen pelisse was
subsequently found, and has never been recognized to the present day.
And this Mrs. Lynx can aver, because she saw the whole transaction with
her own eyes, as she told Mr. Jucundus.
I have altered the little details of the anecdote somewhat. But this
story is, I vow and declare, as true as Mrs. Lynx's. Gracious goodness!
how do lies begin? What are the averages of lying? Is the same amount
of lies told about every man, and do we pretty much all tell the same
amount of lies? Is the average greater in Ireland than in Scotland, or
_vice versâ_--among women than among men? Is this a lie I am telling
now? If I am talking about you, the odds are, perhaps, that it is. I
look back at some which have been told about me, and speculate on them
with thanks and wonder. Dear friends have told them of me, have told
them to me of myself. Have they not to and of you, dear friend? A
friend of mine was dining at a large dinner of clergymen, and a story,
as true as the sausage story above given, was told regarding me, by one
of those reverend divines in whose frocks sit some anile chatterboxes,
as any man who knows this world knows. They take the privilege of their
gown. They cabal, and tattle, and hiss, and cackle comminations under
their breath. I say the old women of the other sex are not more
talkative or more mischievous than some of these. "Such a man ought not
to be spoken to", says Gobemouche, narrating the story--and such a
story! "And I am surprised he is admitted into society at all." Yes,
dear Gobemouche, but the story wasn't true: and I had no more done the
wicked deed in question than I had run away with the Queen of Sheba.
I have always longed to know what that story was (or what collection of
histories), which a lady had in her mind to whom a servant of mine
applied for a place, when I was breaking up my establishment once, and
going abroad. Brown went with a very good character from us, which,
indeed, she fully deserved after several years' faithful service. But
when Mrs. Jones read the name of the person out of whose employment
Brown came, "That is quite sufficient", says Mrs. Jones. "You may go. I
will never take a servant out of _that_ house." Ah, Mrs. Jones, how I
should like to know what that crime was, or what that series of
villainies, which made you determine never to take a servant out of my
house! Do you believe in the story of the little boy and the sausages?
Have you swallowed that little minced infant? Have you devoured that
young Polonius? Upon my word you have maw enough. We somehow greedily
gobble down all stories in which the characters of our friends are
chopped up, and believe wrong of them without inquiry. In a late serial
work written by this hand, I remember making some pathetic remarks
about our propensity to believe ill of our neighbours--and I remember
the remarks, not because they were valuable, or novel, or ingenious,
but because, within three days after they had appeared in print, the
moralist who wrote them, walking home with a friend, heard a story
about another friend, which story he straightway believed, and which
story was scarcely more true than that sausage fable which is here set
down. _O mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!_ But though the preacher trips,
shall not the doctrine be good? Yea, brethren! Here be the rods. Look
you, here are the scourges. Choose me a nice, long, swishing, buddy
one, light and well-poised in the handle, thick and bushy at the tail.
Pick me out a whip-cord thong with some dainty knots in it--and now--we
all deserve it--whish, whish, whish! Let us cut into each other all
round.
A favourite liar and servant of mine was a man I once had to drive a
brougham. He never came to my house, except for orders, and once when
he helped to wait at dinner, so clumsily that it was agreed we would
dispense with his further efforts. The (job) brougham horse used to
look dreadfully lean and tired, and the livery-stable keeper complained
that we worked him too hard. Now, it turned out that there was a
neighbouring butcher's lady who liked to ride in a brougham; and
Tomkins lent her ours, drove her cheerfully to Richmond and Putney,
and, I suppose, took out a payment in mutton-chops. We gave this good
Tomkins wine and medicine for his family when sick--we supplied him
with little comforts and extras which need not now be remembered--and
the grateful creature rewarded us by informing some of our tradesmen
whom he honoured with his custom, "Mr. Roundabout? Lor' bless you! I
carry him up to bed drunk every night in the week". He, Tomkins, being
a man of seven stone weight and five feet high; whereas his employer
was--but here modesty interferes, and I decline to enter into the
avoirdupois question.
Now, what was Tomkin's motive for the utterance and dissemination of
these lies? They could further no conceivable end or interest of his
own. Had they been true stories, Tomkin's master would, and reasonably,
have been still more angry than at the fables. It was but suicidal
slander on the part of Tomkins--must come to a discovery--must end in a
punishment. The poor wretch had got his place under, as it turned out,
a fictitious character. He might have stayed in it, for of course
Tomkins had a wife and poor innocent children. He might have had bread,
beer, bed, character, coats, coals. He might have nestled in our little
island, comfortably sheltered from the storms of life; but we were
compelled to cast him out, and send him driving, lonely, perishing,
tossing, starving, to sea--to drown. To drown? There be other modes of
death whereby rogues die. Good-bye, Tomkins. And so the night-cap is
put on, and the bolt is drawn for poor T.
Suppose we were to invite volunteers amongst our respected readers to
send in little statements of the lies which they know have been told
about themselves: what a heap of correspondence, what an exaggeration
of malignities, what a crackling bonfire of incendiary falsehoods,
might we not gather together! And a lie once set going, having the
breath of life breathed into it by the father of lying, and ordered to
run its diabolical little course, lives with a prodigious vitality. You
say, _Magna est veritas et proevalebit_. Psha! great lies are as great
as great truths, and prevail constantly, and day after day. Take an
instance or two out of my own little budget. I sit near a gentleman at
dinner, and the conversation turns upon a certain anonymous literary
performance which at the time is amusing the town. "Oh," says the
gentleman, "everybody knows who wrote that paper: it is Momus's." I was
a young author at the time, perhaps proud of my bantling: "I beg your
pardon," I say, "it was written by your humble servant." "Indeed!" was
all that the man replied, and he shrugged his shoulders, turned his
back, and talked to his other neighbour. I never heard sarcastic
incredulity more finely conveyed than by that "Indeed". "Impudent
liar," the gentleman's face said, as clear as face could speak. Where
was Magna Veritas, and how did she prevail then? She lifted up her
voice, she made her appeal, and she was kicked out of court. In New
York I read a newspaper criticism one day (by an exile from our shores
who has taken up his abode in the Western Republic), commenting upon a
letter of mine which had appeared in a contemporary volume, and wherein
it was stated that the writer was a lad in such and such a year, and in
point of fact, I was, at the period spoken of, nineteen years of age.
"Falsehood, Mr. Roundabout," says the noble critic: "you were then not
a lad; you were six-and-twenty years of age." You see he knew better
than papa and mamma and parish register. It was easier for him to think
and say I lied, on a twopenny matter connected with my own affairs,
than to imagine he was mistaken. Years ago, in a time when we were very
mad wags, Arcturus and myself met a gentleman from China who knew the
language. We began to speak Chinese against him. We said we were born
in China. We were two to one. We spoke the mandarin dialect with
perfect fluency. We had the company with us; as in the old, old days,
the squeak of the real pig was voted not to be so natural as the squeak
of the sham pig. O Arcturus, the sham pig squeaks in our streets now to
the applause of multitudes, and the real porker grunts unheeded in his
sty!
I once talked for some little time with an amiable lady: it was for the
first time; and I saw an expression of surprise on her kind face which
said as plainly as face could say, "Sir, do you know that up to this
moment I have had a certain opinion of you, and that I begin to think I
have been mistaken or misled?" I not only know that she had heard evil
reports of me, but I know who told her--one of those acute fellows, my
dear brethren, of whom we spoke in a previous sermon, who has found me
out--found out actions which I never did, found out thoughts and
sayings which I never spoke, and judged me accordingly. Ah, my lad!
have I found _you_ out? _O risum teneatis_. Perhaps the person I am
accusing is no more guilty than I.
How comes it that the evil which men say spreads so widely and lasts so
long, whilst our good kind words don't seem somehow to take root and
bear blossom? Is it that in the stony hearts of mankind these pretty
flowers can't find a place to grow? Certain it is that scandal is good
brisk talk, whereas praise of one's neighbour is by no means lively
hearing. An acquaintance grilled, scored, devilled, and served with
mustard and cayenne pepper, excites the appetite; whereas a slice of
cold friend with currant jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat.
Now, such being the case, my dear worthy Mrs. Candour, in whom I know
there are a hundred good and generous qualities: it being perfectly
clear that the good things which we say of our neighbours don't
fructify, but somehow perish in the ground where they are dropped,
whilst the evil words are wafted by all the winds of scandal, take root
in all soils, and flourish amazingly--seeing, I say, that this
conversation does not give us a fair chance, suppose we give up
censoriousness altogether, and decline uttering our opinions about
Brown, Jones, and Robinson (and Mesdames B., J., and R.) at all. We may
be mistaken about every one of them, as, please goodness, those
anecdote-mongers against whom I have uttered my meek protest have been
mistaken about me. We need not go to the extent of saying that Mrs.
Manning was an amiable creature, much misunderstood; and Jack Thurtell
a gallant unfortunate fellow, not near so black as he was painted; but
we will try and avoid personalities altogether in talk, won't we? We
will range the fields of science, dear madam, and communicate to each
other the pleasing results of our studies. We will, if you please,
examine the infinitesimal wonders of nature through the microscope. We
will cultivate entomology. We will sit with our arms round each other's
waists on the _pons asinorum_, and see the stream of mathematics flow
beneath. We will take refuge in cards, and play at "beggar my
neighbour", not abuse my neighbour. We will go to the Zoological
Gardens and talk freely about the gorilla and his kindred, but not talk
about people who can talk in their turn. Suppose we praise the High
Church? we offend the Low Church. The Broad Church? High and Low are
both offended. What do you think of Lord Derby as a politician? And
what is your opinion of Lord Palmerston? If you please, will you play
me those lovely variations of "In a cottage near a wood"? It is a
charming air (you know it in French, I suppose? _Ah! te dirai-je,
maman?_) and was a favourite with poor Marie Antoinette. I say "poor",
because I have a right to speak with pity of a sovereign who was
renowned for so much beauty and so much misfortune. But as for giving
any opinion on her conduct, saying that she was good or bad, or
indifferent, goodness forbid! We have agreed we will not be censorious.
Let us have a game at cards--at _écarté_, if you please. You deal. I
ask for cards. I lead the deuce of clubs....
What? there is no deuce! Deuce take it! What? People _will_ go on
talking about their neighbours, and won't have their mouths stopped by
cards, or ever so much microscopes and aquariums? Ah, my poor dear Mrs.
Candour, I agree with you. By the way, did you ever see anything like
Lady Godiva Trotter's dress last night? People _will_ go on chattering,
although we hold our tongues; and, after all, my good soul, what will
their scandal matter a hundred years hence?