you can see we are very careful in this city to make men as happy as
may be. We are happy ourselves, and we love to confer happiness upon
others, strangers and travellers who honour us with their presence. But
we find--I am very sorry to say we find ... that is, we find from time
to time that their _complete_ happiness, no matter with what we may
provide them, is dashed by certain forms of anxiety, the chief of which
is anxiety with regard to their future receipts of money."
My friend started.
"Nay," said his host hastily, "do not misunderstand me. I do not mean
that preoccupations of business are alone so alarming. What I mean is
that sometimes, yes, and I may say often (horrible as it seems to us!),
our guests are in an active preoccupation about the petty business of
finance. Some few have debts, it seems, in the wretched society from
which they come, and of which, frankly, I know nothing. Others, though
not indebted, feel insecure about the future. Others though wealthy
are oppressed by their responsibilities. Now," he continued firmly, "I
must tell you once and for all that we have a custom here upon which we
take no denial: _no denial whatsoever_. Every man who enters this city,
who _honours_ us by entering this city, is made free of _that_ sort of
nonsense, thank God!" And as he said this, my friend's host breathed
a great sigh of relief. "It would be intolerable to us to think," he
continued, "that our welcome and dear companions were suffering from
such a tawdry thing as money-worry in our presence. So the matter is
plainly this: whether you like it or whether you do not, the sum of
£10,000 is already set down to your credit in the public bank of the
city; whether you use it or not is your business; if you do not it is
our custom to melt down an equivalent sum of gold and to cast it into
the depths of the river, for we have of this metal an unfailing supply,
and I confess we do not find it easy to understand the exaggerated
value which other men place upon it."
"I do not know that I shall have occasion to use so magnificent a
custom," said my friend with an extraordinary relief in his heart, "but
I certainly thank you very kindly for its intention, and I shall not
hesitate to use any sum that may be necessary for my continuing the
great happiness which this city appears to afford."
"You have spoken well," said his host, seizing both his hands, "and
your frankness compels me to another confession: We have at our
disposal a means of discovering exactly how any one of our guests may
stand: the responsibilities of the rich, the indebtedness of the
embarrassed, the anxiety of those whose future may be precarious. May I
tell you without discourtesy, that your own case is known to me and to
two trustees, who are public officials--absolutely reliable--and whom,
for that matter, you will not meet."
My friend must have looked incredulous, but his host continued firmly:
"It is so, we have settled your whole matter, I am glad to say, on
terms that settle all your liabilities and leave a further £50,000 to
your credit in the public bank. But the size of the sum is in this city
really of no importance. You may demand whatever you will, and enjoy,
I hope, a complete security during your habitation here. And that
habitation, both the Town Council and the National Government, beg you,
through me, to extend to the whole of your life."
* * * * *
"Imagine," said my friend, "how I felt.... The oysters were now upon
the table, and before them, ready for consumption, the caviar.
The Barsac in its original bottle, cooled (need I say!) to exactly
thirty-eight degrees, stood ready...."
At this point he stopped and gazed into the fire.
"But, my dear fellow," said I, "if you are coming to me for sympathy
and simply succeed in making me hungry and cross...."
"No," said my friend with a sob, "you don't understand!" And he
continued to gaze at the fire.
"Well, go _on_," said I angrily.
"There isn't any _on_," he said; "I woke!"
We both looked into the fire together for perhaps three minutes before
I spoke and said:
"Will you have some wine?"
"No thank you," he answered sadly, "not _that_ wine." Then he got up
uneasily and moved for his umbrella and his galoshes, and the passage
and the door. I thought he muttered, "You might have helped me."
"How could I help you?" I said savagely.
"Well," he sighed, "I thought you could ... it was a bitter
disappointment. Good night!" And he went out again into the rain and
over the clay.
X
ON OMENS
Only the other day there was printed in a newspaper (what a lot of
things they print in newspapers!) five lines which read thus:
"Calcutta, Thursday.
"An hour before the Viceroy left Calcutta on Wednesday for the
last time lightning struck the flag over Government House, tearing
it to shreds. This is considered to be an omen by the natives."
The Devil they did! A superstitious chap, your native, and we have
outgrown such things. But it is really astonishing when you come
to think of it how absurdly credulous the human race has been for
thousands of years about omens, and still is--everywhere except here.
And by the way, what a curious thing it is that only in one country,
and only in one little tiny circle of it should this terrible vice have
been eradicated from the human mind! If one were capable of paradox one
would say that the blessing conferred upon us few enlightened people
in England was providential; but that would be worse superstition than
the other. There seems to be a tangle somewhere. Anyhow, there it is:
people have gone on by the million and for centuries and centuries
believing in omens. It is an illusion. It is due to a frame of mind.
That which the enlightened person easily discovers to be a coincidence,
the Native, that is, the person living in a place, thinks to be in some
way due to a Superior Power. It is a way Natives have. Nothing warps
the mind like being a Native.
The Reform Bill passed in 1832 and destroyed not only the
Pot-Wallopers, but also the ancient Constitution of the country. From
that time onwards we have been free. When the thing was thoroughly
settled (and the old Poor Law was being got rid of into the bargain),
the old House of Lords, and the old House of Commons, they caught
fire, "and they did get burnt down to the ground." Those are the very
words of an old man who saw it happen and who told me about it. The
misfortune was due to the old tallies of the Exchequer catching fire,
and this silly old man, who saw it happen (he was a child of six at
the time), has always thought it was an Omen. It has been explained to
him, not only by good, kind ladies who go and visit him and see that
he gets no money or beer, but also from the Pulpit of St. Margaret's
Church, Westminster (where he regularly attends Divine Service by kind
permission of the Middle Class, and in the vain hope of cadging alms),
that there is no such thing as Providence, and that if he lets his mind
dwell on Omens he will end by believing in God. But the old man is much
too old to receive a new idea, so he goes on believing that the burning
of old St. Stephen's was an Omen.
Not so the commercial traveller, who told me in an hotel the other
day the story of the market-woman of Devizes, to exemplify the gross
superstitions of our fathers.
It seems that the market-woman, sometime when George III was King, had
taken change of a sovereign on market-day, from a purchaser, when there
were no witnesses, and then, in the presence of witnesses, demanded
the change again. The man most solemnly affirmed that he had paid her,
to which she replied: "If I have taken your money may God strike me
dead." The moment these words were out of the market-woman's lips, an
enormous great jagged, forked, fiery dart of lightning, three miles
long, leapt out of a distant cloud, and shrivelled her up. "Whereupon,"
ended the commercial traveller, "the people of Devizes _in those days_
were so superstitious that they thought it was a judgment, they did!
And they put up a plate in commemoration. Such foolishness!" It is sad
to think of the people of Devizes and their darkness of understanding
when George III was King. But, upon the other hand, it is a joy to
think of the fresh, clear minds of the people of Devizes to-day. For
though, every Sunday morning, about half an hour after Church time,
every single man and woman who had shirked Church, Chapel, Mosque or
Synagogue, each according to his or her creed should fall down dead of
no apparent illness, and though upon the forehead of each one so taken,
the survivors returning from their services, meetings or what-not,
should find clearly written in a vivid blue the Letters of Doom.
None the less the people of Devizes would, it is to be hoped, retain
their mental balance, and distinguish between a coincidence (which
is the only true explanation of such things) and fond imaginings of
supernatural possibilities.
There is an old story and a good one to teach us how to fight against
any weakness of the sort, which is this. Two old gentlemen who had
never met before were in a first-class railway carriage of a train that
does not stop until it gets to Bristol. They were talking about ghosts.
One of them was a parson, the other was a layman. The layman said he
did not believe in ghosts. The parson was very much annoyed, tried to
convince him, and at last said, "After all, you'd have to believe in
one if you saw one."
"No, I shouldn't," said the layman sturdily. "I should know it was an
illusion."
Then the old parson got very angry indeed, and said in a voice shaking
with self-restraint:
"Well, you've got to believe in ghosts now, for I am one!" Whereat he
immediately vanished into the air.
The old layman, finding himself well rid of a bad business, shook
himself together, wrapped his rug round his knees, and began to read
his paper, for he knew very well that it was an illusion.
Of the same sturdy sense was Isaac Newton, when a lady came to him who
had heard he was an astrologer, and asked him where she had dropped
her purse, somewhere between Shooter's Hill and London Bridge. She
would not believe that the Baronet (or knight, I forget which) could
be ignorant of such things, and she came about fourteen times. So to
be rid of her Newton, on the occasion of her last visit, put on an
old flowered dressing-gown, and made himself a conical paper hat, and
put on great blue goggles, and drew a circle on the floor, and said
"Abracadabra!" "The front of Greenwich Hospital, the third great window
from the southern end. On the grass just beneath it I see a short devil
crouched upon a purse of gold." Off went the female, and sure enough
under that window she found her purse. Whereat, instead of hearing the
explanation (there was none) she thought it was an Omen.
Remember this parable. It is enormously illuminating.
XI
THE BOOK
This is written to dissuade all rich men from queering the pitch of
us poor litteratoors, who have to write or starve. It is about a Mr.
Foley: a Mr. Charles Foley, a banker and the son of a banker, who in
middle life, that is at forty, saw no more use in coming to his office
every day, but began to lead the life of a man of leisure. Next, being
exceedingly rich he was prompted, of course, to write a book. The thing
that prompted him to write a book was a thought, an idea. It took him
suddenly as ideas will, one Saturday evening as he was walking home
from his Club. It was a fine night and the idea seemed to come upon him
out of the sky. This was the idea: that men produce such and such art
in architecture and society and so forth, on account of the kind of
climate they live in. Such a thought had never come to him before and
very probably to no other man. It was simple like a seed--and yet, as
he turned it over, what enormous possibilities.
He lay awake half the night examining it. It spread out like a great
tree and explained every human thing on earth; at least if to climate
one added one or two other things, such as height above the sea and
consequent rarity of the air and so forth--but perhaps all these could
be included in climate.
Hitherto every one had imagined that nations and civilisations had each
their temperament and tendency or genius, but those words were only
ways of saying that one did not know what it was. _He_ knew: Charles
Foley did. He had caught the inspiration suddenly as it passed. He
slept the few last hours of the night in a profound repose, and next
day he was at it. He was writing that book.
He was a business-man--luckily for him. He did not speak of the great
task until it was done. He was in no need of money--luckily for him.
He could afford to wait until the last pages had satisfied him. Life
had taught him that one could do nothing in business unless one had
something in one's hands. He would come to the publisher with something
in his hands, to wit, with this MSS. He had no doubt about the title.
He would call it "MAN AND NATURE." The title had come to him
in a sort of flash after the idea. Anyhow, that was the title, and he
felt it to be a very part of his being.
He had fixed upon his publisher. He rang him up to make an appointment.
The publisher received him with charming courtesy. It was the publisher
himself who received him; not the manager, not the secretary, nor any
one like that, but the real person, the one who had the overdraft at
the Bank.
He treated Mr. Charles Foley so well that Mr. Foley tasted a new joy
which was the joy of sincere praise received. He was in the liberal
arts now. He had come into a second world. His mere wealth had never
given him this. When the publisher had heard what Mr. Charles Foley
had to say, he scratched the tip of his nose with his forefinger, and
suggested that Mr. Foley should pay for the printing and the binding of
the book, and that then the publisher should advertise it and sell it,
and give Mr. Foley so much.
But Mr. Foley would have none of this. He was a business man and he
could see through a brick wall as well as any one. So the publisher
made this suggestion and that suggestion and talked all round about
it. He was evidently keen to have the book. Mr. Foley could see that.
At last the publisher made what Mr. Foley thought for the first time a
sound business proposition, which was that he should publish the book
in the ordinary way and then that he and Mr. Foley should share and
share alike. If there was a loss they would divide it, but if there was
a profit they would divide that. Mr. Foley was glad that he came to a
sensible business decision at last, and closed with him. The date of
publication also was agreed upon: it was to be the 15th of April. "In
order," said the publisher, "that we may catch the London season."
Mr. Charles Foley suggested August, but the publisher assured him that
August was a rotten time for books.
Only the very next day Mr. Foley entered upon the responsibilities
which are inseparable from the joys of an author. He received a letter
from the publisher, saying that it seemed that another book had been
written under the title "Man and Nature," that he dared not publish
under that title lest the publishers of the other volume should apply
for an injunction.
Mr. Foley suffered acutely. He left his breakfast half finished; ran
into town in his motor, as agonized in every block of the traffic as
though he had to catch a train; was kept waiting half an hour in the
publisher's office because the principal had not yet arrived, and,
when he did arrive, was persuaded that there was nothing to be done.
The Courts wouldn't allow "Man and Nature," the publisher was sure of
that. He kept on shaking his great big silly head until it got on Mr.
Foley's nerves. But there was no way out of it, so Mr. Foley changed
the title to "ART AND ENVIRONMENT"--it was the publisher's
secretary who suggested this new title.
He got home to luncheon, to which he now remembered he had asked a
friend--a man who played golf. Mr. Foley did not want to make a fool
of himself, so he led up very cautiously at luncheon to his great
question, which was this: "How does the title 'Art and Environment'
sound?" He had a friend, he said, who wanted to know. On hearing this
Mr. Foley's golfing friend gave a loud guffaw, and said it _sounded_
all right; so did the _Origin of Species_. It would come out about the
same time, and then he spent three or four minutes trying to remember
who the old johnny was who wrote it, but Mr. Foley was already at the
telephone in the hall. He was not happy; he had rung up the publisher.
The publisher was at luncheon. Mr. Foley damned the publisher. Could he
speak to the manager? To the secretary? To one of the clerks? To the
little dog? In his anger he was pleased to be facetious. He heard the
manager's voice:
"Yes, is that Mr. Foley?"
"Yes, about that title."
"Oh, yes, I thought you'ld ring up. It's impossible, you know, it's
been used before; and there's no doubt at all that the University
printers would apply for an injunction."
"Well, I can't wait," shouted Mr. Foley into the receiver.
"You can't what?" said the manager. "I can't hear you, you are talking
too loud."
"I can't wait," said Mr. Foley in a lower tone and strenuously.
"Suggest something quick."
The manager could be heard thinking at the end of the live wire. At
last he said, "Oh, anything." Mr. Foley used a horrible word and put
back the receiver.
He went back to his golfing friend who was drinking some port steadily
with cheese, and said: "Look here, that friend of mine I have just
been telephoning to says he wants another title."
"What for?" said the golfing friend, his mouth full of cheese.
"Oh, for his book of course," said Mr. Foley sharply.
"Sorry, I thought it was politics," answered his friend, his mouth
rather less full. Then a bright thought struck him.
"What's the book about?"
"Well, it's about art and ... climate, you know."
"Why, then," said the friend stolidly, "why not call it 'Art and
Climate'?"
"That's a good idea," said Mr. Foley, stroking his chin.
He hurried indecently, turned the poor golfing friend out, hurried
up to town in his motor in order to make them call the book "Art and
Climate." When he got there he found the real publisher, who hummed and
hawed and said: "All this changing of titles will be very expensive,
you know." Mr. Foley could not help that, it had to be done, so the
book was called "Art and Climate," and then it was printed, and seventy
copies were sent out to the Press and it was reviewed by three papers.
One of the papers said:
"Mr. Charles Foley has written an interesting essay upon the
effect of climate upon art, upon such conditions as will affect
it whether adversely or the contrary. The point of view is an
original one and gives food for thought."
Mr. Foley thought this notice quite too short and imperfect.
The second paper had a column about it, nearly all of which was made
out of bits cut right out of the book, but without acknowledgment or in
inverted commas. In between the bits cut out there were phrases like,
"Are we however to believe that ..." and "Some in this connection would
decide that...." But all the rest were bits cut out of his book.
The third review was in _The Times_, and in very small type between
brackets. All it did was to give a list of the chapters and a sentence
out of the preface.
Mr. Foley sold thirty copies of his book, gave away seventy-four and
lent two. The publisher assured him that books like that did not have a
large immediate sale as a novel did; they had a slow, steady sale.
It was about the middle of May that the publisher assured him of this.
In June the solicitors of a Professor at Yale acting for the learned
man in this country, threatened an action concerning a passage in the
book which was based entirely upon the Professor's copyright work.
Mr. Foley admitted his high indebtedness to the Professor, and wore a
troubled look for days. He had always thought it quite legitimate in
the world of art to use another person's work if one acknowledged it.
At last the thing was settled out of court for quite a small sum, £150
or £200, or something like that.
Then everything was quiet and the sales went very slowly. He only sold
a half-dozen all the rest of the summer.
In the autumn the publisher wrote him a note asking whether he might
act upon Clause 15 of the contract. Mr. Foley was a business man. He
looked up the contract and there he saw these words:
"If after due time has elapsed in the opinion of the publisher,
a book shall not be warrantable at its existing price, change of
price shall be made in it at the discretion of the publisher or of
the author, or both, or each, subject to the conditions of Clause
9."
Turning to Clause 9, Mr. Foley discovered the words:
"All questions of price, advertisements, binding, paper, printing,
etc., shall be vested in Messrs. Towkem Bingo and Platt,
hereinafter called the Publishers."
He puzzled a great deal about these two clauses, and at last he
thought, "Oh, well, they know more than I do about it," so he just
telegraphed back, "Yes."
On the first of the New Year Mr. Foley got a most astonishing document.
It was a printed sheet with a lot of lines written in red ink and an
account. On the one side there was "By sales £18," then there was
a long red line drawn down like a Z, and at the bottom, "£241 17s.
4½d.," and in front of this the word "Balance," then the two were added
together and made £259 17s. 4½d. Under this sum there were two lines
drawn.
On the other side of the document there was a whole regiment of items,
one treading upon another's heels. There was paper, and printing, and
corrections, binding, warehousing, storage, cataloguing, advertising,
travelling, circularizing, packing, and what I may call with due
respect to the reader, "the devil and all." The whole of which added
up to no less than the monstrous sum of £519 14s. 9d. Under this was
written in small letters in red ink, "Less 50% as per agreement," and
then at the bottom that nasty figure, "£259 17s. 4½d.," and there was
a little request in a round hand that the balance of £241 17s. 4½d.
should be paid at Mr. Foley's convenience.
Mr. Foley, white with rage, acted as a business man always should. He
wrote a short note refusing to pay a penny, and demanding the rest of
the unsold copies. He got a lengthier and stronger note from Messrs.
Towkem and Thingummebob, referring to his letter, to Clause 9 and to
Clause 15, informing him that the remainder of the stock had been sold
at a penny each to a firm of papermakers in the North of England, and
respectfully pressing for immediate payment.
Mr. Foley put the matter in the hands of his solicitors and they ran
him up a bill for £37 odd, but it was well worth it because they
persuaded him not to go into court, so in the long run he had to pay
no more than £278 17s. 4½d., unless you count the postage and the
travelling.
Now you know what happened to Mr. Foley and his book, and what will
happen to _you_ if you are a rich man and poach on my preserves.
XII
THE SERVANTS OF THE RICH
Do you mark there, down in the lowest point and innermost funnel of
Hell Fire Pit, souls writhing in smoke, themselves like glowing smoke
and tortured in the flame? You ask me what they are. These are the
Servants of the Rich: the men who in their mortal life opened the doors
of the Great Houses and drove the carriages and sneered at the unhappy
guests.
Those larger souls that bear the greatest doom and manifest the more
dreadful suffering, they are the Butlers boiling in molten gold.
"What!" you cry, "is there then, indeed, as I once heard in childhood,
justice for men and an equal balance, and a final doom for evil
deeds?" There is! Look down into the murky hollow and revere the awful
accomplishment of human things.
These are the men who would stand with powder on their heads like
clowns, dressed in fantastic suits of gold and plush, with an ugly
scorn upon their faces, and whose pleasure it was (while yet their time
of probation lasted) to forget every human bond and to cast down the
nobler things in man: treating the artist as dirt and the poet as a
clown; and beautiful women, if they were governesses or poor relations
or in any way dependents, as a meet object for silent mockery. But now
their time is over and they have reaped the harvest which they sowed.
Look and take comfort, all you who may have suffered at their hands.