Shakespeare that he can come to Paxton on Saturday. As you say that he
can't get away until the later train I will have Perkins meet him from
the village. I don't suppose he rides, but I can't mount him anyhow. I
hope there is no trouble about Church on Sunday.
_From Mrs. Myers to Lady Clogg_
One thing I _am_ looking forward to, dear, is this little coon
Shakespeare. Victoria told me about him. She says sometimes he will
play and sometimes he won't play. But _she_ says he's quiet in harness
just now. It seems that sometimes he talks all of a sudden. And one
can get him to _sing_! Anyhow I _do_ want to see what he's like.
(_The rest of this letter is about other matters._)
_From Messrs. Hornbull and Sons to William Shakespeare Esq._
SIR,--We have now sent in our account three times, and the last time
with a pressing recommendation that you should settle it, but you have
not honoured us by any reply. We regret to inform you that if we do not
receive a cheque by Wednesday the 22nd inst. we shall be compelled to
put the matter into other hands.
_From John Shakespeare to his mother, Mrs. Shakespeare_
DEAREST MAMMA,--I am afraid Billie really can't pay that money this
week. He was awfully apologetic about it and I gave him a good talking
to, but if he hasn't got it he hasn't. After all it isn't absolutely
necessary until the 30th.
_From Jonathan Truelove Esq. to William Shakespeare Esq._
DEAR OLD CHAP,--I am going to do something very unconventional, but
we know each other well enough I think. Can you let me have the £5 I
lent you two years ago? I have to get in every penny I can this week,
suddenly. If you can't don't bother to answer, I am not going to press
you.
_From Sir Henry Portman, Attorney General, to the Secretary of the
Crown Prosecutor_
DEAR JIM,--No, I can't manage to get round to the Ritz this evening.
Mary says that she wants Johnnie to leave Dresden. What inconceivable
rubbish! Why can't she let him stay where he is? You might as well
drown yourself as leave Dresden. What on earth could it lead to?
By the way, do choke off that silly ass Bates, if he is still worrying
about Shakespeare. No one wants anything done, and No. 1 would be
awfully angry if there was a prosecution. Rather than allow it I would
find the money myself.
Yours, H. P.
_From James Jevons and Co. Publishers, to William Shakespeare Esq._
DEAR SIR,--Our attention has been called to your work by our
correspondent in Edinburgh, and he asks us whether we think you could
see your way to something dealing with Scottish history. He does not
want it cast in the form of a play, for which he says there will be
no sale with the Scottish public, seeing the exceedingly English cast
of your work, but if you could throw it into Ballad form he thinks
something could be done with it.
Of course such things can never be remunerative at _first_. The
Edinburgh firm for whom he writes propose to buy sheets at 4½d. or 5d.
and to give a royalty of 10 per cent. to be equally divided between
our firm and yourself. They could not go beyond 500 copies for the
first edition. It may be worth your while, in spite of the trifling
remuneration, to consider this offer in order to secure copyright and
to prevent any pirating of future editions in Scotland. Pray advise.
We are,
Your obedient servants,
JAMES JEVONS AND CO.
_From Messrs. Firelight, Agents, to William Shakespeare Esq._
DEAR MR. SHAKESPEARE,--We have had a proposal from Messrs. Capon in
the matter of your collected Poems. As you know, verse is not just now
much in demand with the public, and they could not manage an advance on
royalties. They propose 10 per cent. on a 5s. book after the first 250
copies sold. The honorarium is, of course, purely nominal, but it might
lead to more business later on. Could you let us know your views upon
the matter?
Very faithfully yours,
_pro_ FIRELIGHT AND CO.
C. G.
_From Clarence de Vere Chalmondeley to William Shakespeare Esq._
DEAR SIR,--Having certain sums free for investment, I am prepared to
lend, not as a money-lender but as a private banker, sums from £10 to
£50,000, on note of hand alone, without security. No business done with
minors.
Very faithfully yours,
CLARENCE DE VERE CHALMONDELEY.
_From William Shakespeare to Sir John Fowless_ (_scribbled hastily in
pencil_)
I will try and come if I can, but it's something awful. I only got my
proofs read by 2 o'clock in the night; I had to do my article for _The
Owl_ before 10 this morning, then I have got to go and meet the Church
Defence League people on my way to the station, and catch a train to a
place where Mrs. Blake wants me to go somewhere in the Midlands, about
5. I think I can look in on my way to the station.
That man you asked me to see about the brandy is a fraud. Would you,
like a good fellow, tell Charlie _not to forget to mention in his
article that "Hamlet" will only be played on Tuesdays and Fridays in
the afternoon, matinées_. Don't forget this because people want to know
when it is going to be. There was a very good notice in _The Jumper_. I
do feel so ill.
W. S.
_From S. Jennings, Secretary, to George Mountebank Esq._
DEAR SIR,--Mr. Shakespeare is at present away from home and will return
upon Thursday, when I will immediately lay your MSS. before him.
I am,
Very faithfully yours,
S. JENNINGS, Secretary.
_From Mr. Mustwrite of Warwick to William Shakespeare Esq._
DEAR MR. SHAKESPEARE,--I have never met you, and perhaps you will think
it a great impertinence on my part to be writing as I do. But I must
write to tell you the deep and sincere pleasure I have received from
your little brochure "Venus and Adonis," which the Rev. William Clarke,
our Clergyman, lent me only yesterday. I read it through at a sitting
and I could not rest until I had written to tell you the profound
spiritual consolation I derived from its perusal.
I am, dear Mr. Shakespeare,
Very much your admirer,
GEORGE MUSTWRITE.
_To William Shakespeare Esq._ (_unsigned, and written in capital
letters rather irregularly_)
No doubt you think yourself a fine fellow and the friend of the working
man--I don't think! Some of us know more about you than you think we
do. I erd you at the Queen's Hall and you made me sick. You aren't fit
to black the boots of the man you talked against.
_To William Shakespeare Esq._, O.H.M.S. (_printed_)
SIR,--In pursuance with the provisions of Her Majesty's Benevolent Act,
you are hereby required to prepare a true and correct statement of your
emoluments from all forms of (in writing) literary income, duly signed
by you within 21 days from this date. If, however, you elect to be
assessed by the District Commissioners under a number or a letter, &c.
&c. &c.
_From the Earl of Essex to W. Shakespeare Esq._ (_lithographed_)
DEAR SIR,--I have undertaken to act as Chairman this year of the
Annual Dinner of the League for the Support of Insufficiently Talented
Dramatic Authors. You are doubtless acquainted with the admirable
objects of &c. &c. I hope I may see your name among the stewards
whose position is purely honorary, and is granted upon payment of five
guineas, &c. &c. This laudable &c. &c.
Very faithfully yours,
ESSEX.
_From Mrs. Parxinson to William Shakespeare Esq._
DEAR MR. SHAKESPEARE,--Can you come and talk for our Destitute Pick
Pockets Association on Thursday the 18th? I know you are a very busy
man, but I always find it is the most busy men, who somehow manage to
find time for charitable objects. If you can manage to do so I would
send my motor round for you to Pilbury Row, and it would take you out
to Rickmansworth where the meeting is to be. I am afraid it cannot take
you back, but there is a convenient train at 20 minutes to 8, which
gets you into London a little after 9 for dinner, or, if that is too
late you might catch the 6.30, which gets you in at 8.15, only that
will be rather a rush. My daughter tells me how much she admired your
play, _Macduff_, and very much wants to see you.
_From the Duchess of Dump to William Shakespeare Esq._
DEAR MR. SHAKESPEARE,--I want to ask you a really _great_ favour. Could
you come to my Animals Ball on the 4th of June dressed up as a gorilla?
I _do_ hope you can. We have to tell people what costumes they are to
wear for fear that they should duplicate. Now _don't_ say no. It's
years since we met. Last February wasn't it?
Yours ever,
CAROLINE DUMP.
_Printed on Blue Paper with the Royal Arms_
In the name of the Queen's grace, OYEZ!
WHEREAS there has appeared before Us Henry Holt a Commissioner of the
Queen's, &c. &c.
AND WHEREAS the said Henry Holt maketh deposition that he has against
you (_in writing_) _William Shakespeare_, a claim for the sum of (_in
writing_) _£27 2s. 1d._, now we hereby notify you that you are summoned
to appear before us, &c. &c., upon (_in writing_) _Wednesday the 25th
of May_ in the Year of Our Lord (_in writing_) _1601_, given under the
Common Seal this (_in writing_) _second day of May 1601_.
HENRY HOLT, a Commissioner of the Queen's &c. &c.
XXIII
ON ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE GREAT
It is generally recognised in this country that an acquaintance more
or less familiar with the Great, that is, with the very wealthy,
and preferably with those who have been wealthy for at least one
generation, is the proper entry into any form of public service.
I am in a position to advance for the benefit of younger men of my own
social rank, certain views which I think will not be unprofitable to
them in this matter.
I will suppose my reader to be still upon the right side of thirty; to
be the son of some professional man; to have been kept, at the expense
of some anxiety to his parents, for five years or so at a public
school, and to have proceeded to the University upon a loan.
With such a start he cannot fail, if he is in any way lively or
amiable, to have made the acquaintance by the age of twenty-two of a
whole group of men whose fathers may properly be called "The Great,"
and who themselves will inherit a similar distinction, unless they die
prematurely of hard living or hereditary disease.
After such a beginning, common to many of my readers, the friendship
and patronage of these people would seem to be secure; and yet we know
from only too many fatal instances that it is nothing of the kind, and
that of twenty young men who have scraped up acquaintance with their
betters at Winchester or Magdalen (to take two names at random) not two
are to be found at the age of forty still familiarly entering those
London houses, which are rated at over £1000 a year.
The root cause of such failures is obvious enough.
The advantage of acquaintance with wealthy or important people would,
so far as general opportunities go, be lost if one did not advertise
it; and here comes in a difficulty which has wrecked innumerable lives.
For by a pretty paradox with which we are all of us only too well
acquainted, the wealthy and important are particularly averse to the
recitation of acquaintance with themselves.
Formerly--about seventy years ago--your man who would succeed recited
upon the slightest grounds, in public and with emphasis, his friendship
with the Great. It was one of Disraeli's methods of advancement. The
Great discovered the crude method, denounced it, vilified it, and
towards the year 1860 it had already become impossible. William tells
me he remembers his dear father warning me of this.
Those who would advance in the next generation were compelled to
abandon methods so simple and to take refuge in allusion. Thus a young
fellow in the late sixties, the seventies, and the very early eighties
was helped in his career by professing a profound dislike for such and
such a notability and swearing that he would not meet him. For to
profess dislike was to profess familiarity with the world in which that
notability moved.
Or, again, to analyse rather curiously, and, on the whole,
unfavourably, the character of some exceedingly wealthy man, was a
method that succeeded well enough in hands of average ability. While a
third way was to use Christian names, and yet to use them with a tone
of indifference, as though they belonged to acquaintances rather than
friends.
But the Great are ever on the alert, and this habit of allusion was
in its turn tracked down by their unfailing noses; so that in our own
time it has been necessary to invent another. I do not promise it any
long survival, I write only for the moment, and for the fashions of my
time, but I think a young man is well advised in this second decade of
the twentieth century to assume towards the Great an attitude of silent
and sometimes weary familiarity, and very often to pretend to know them
less well than he does.
Thus three men will be in a smoking room together. The one, let us
say, will be the Master of the King's Billiard Room, an aged Jew who
has lent money to some Cabinet Minister; the second a local squire,
well-to-do and about fifty years of age; the third is my young reader,
whose father, let us say, was a successful dentist. The Master of the
King's Billiard Room will say that he likes "Puffy." The squire will
say he doesn't like him much because of such and such a thing; he will
ask the young man for his opinion. Now, in my opinion, the young man
will do well at this juncture to affect ignorance. Let him deliberately
ask to have it explained to him who Puffy is (although the nickname may
be familiar to every reader of a newspaper), and on hearing that it is
a certain Lord Patterson he should put on an expression of no interest,
and say that he has never met Lord Patterson.
Something of the same effect is produced when a man remains silent
during a long conversation about a celebrity, and then towards the end
of it says some really true and intimate thing about him, such as, that
he rides in long stirrups, or that one cannot bear his double eyelids
or that his gout is very amusing.
Another very good trick, which still possesses great force, is to
repudiate any personal acquaintance with the celebrity in question, and
treat him merely as some one whom one has read of in the newspapers;
but next, as though following a train of thought, to begin talking of
some much less distinguished relative of his with the grossest possible
familiarity.
A common and not ineffective way (which I mention to conclude the
list) is to pretend that you have only met the Great Man in the way of
business, at large meetings or in public places, where he could not
possibly remember you, and to pretend this upon all occasions and very
often. But this method is only to be used when, as a matter of fact,
you have not met the celebrity at all.
As for letting yourself be caught unawares and showing a real and naïf
ignorance of the Great, that is not only a fault against which I will
not warn you, for I believe you to be incapable of it, but it is also
one against which it is of no good to warn any one, for whoever commits
it has no chance whatsoever of that advancement which it is the object
of these notes to promote.
When you are found walking with the Great in the street (a thing which,
as a rule, they feel a certain shyness in doing, at least in company
with people of your position), it is as well, if your companion meets
another of his own Order, to stand a little to one side, to profess
interest in the objects of a neighbouring shop window, or the pattern
of the railings. Such at least is the general rule to be laid down for
those who have not the quickness or ability to seize at once the better
method, which is as follows:
Catch if you can the distant approach of the Other Great before your
Great has spotted him, then, upon some pretext, preferably accompanied
by the pulling out of your watch, depart: for there is nothing that
so annoys the Great during the conference of any two of them, as the
presence of a third party of your station.
Since my remarks must be put into a brief compass (though I have much
more to say upon this all-important subject) I will conclude with what
is perhaps the soundest piece of advice of all.
Never under any occasion or temptation, bestow a gift even of the
smallest value, upon the Great. Never let yourself be betrayed into
a generous action, nor, if you can possibly prevent it, so much as a
generous thought in their regard. They are not grateful. They think
it impertinent. And it looks odd. There is a note of equality about
such things (and this particularly applies to unbosoming yourself in
correspondence) which is very odious and offensive. Moreover, as has
been proved in the case of countless unhappy lives, when once a man of
the middle class falls into the habit of asking the Great to meals,
of giving them books or pictures or betraying towards them in any
fashion a spirit of true companionship, he bursts; and that, as a rule,
after a delay quite incredibly short. Some men of fair substance have
to my knowledge been wholly ruined in this manner within the space of
one parliamentary session, a hunting season, or even a single week at
Cowes, in the Isle of Wight; from which spot I send these presents,
and where, by the way, at the time of writing, the stock of forage in
the forecastle is extremely low, with no supplies forthcoming from the
mainland.
God bless you!
XXIV
ON LYING
He that will set out to lie without having cast up his action and
judged it this way and that, will fail, not in his lie, indeed, but in
the object of it; which is, _imprimis_, to deceive, but _in ultimis_
or fundamentally, to obtain profit by his deceit, as Aristotle and
another clearly show. For they that lie, lie not vainly and wantonly
as for sport (saving a very few that are habitual), but rather for
some good to be got or evil to be evaded: as when men lie of their
prowess with the fist, though they have fought none--no, not even
little children--or in the field, though they have done no more than
shoot a naked blackamoor at a furlong. These lie for honour. Not so our
stockers and jobbers, who lie for money direct, or our parliament men,
who lie bestraught lest worse befall them.
Lies are distinguished by the wise into the Pleasant and the Useful,
and again into the Beautiful and the Necessary. Thus a lie giving
comfort to him that utters it is of the Lie Pleasant, a grateful thing,
a cozening. This kind of lies is very much used among women. This
sort will also make out good to the teller, evil to the told, for the
pleasure the cheat gives; as, when one says to another that his worst
actions are now known and are to be seen printed privately in a Midland
sheet, and bids him fly.
The lie useful has been set out _ut supra_, which consult; and may be
best judged by one needing money. Let him ask for the same and see how
he shall be met; all answers to him shall be of this form of lie. It is
also of this kind when a man having no purse or no desire to pay puts
sickness on in a carriage, whether by rail or in the street, crying
out: "Help! help!" and wagging his head and sinking his chin upon his
breast, while his feet patter and his lips dribble. Also let him roll
his eyes. Then some will say: "It is the heat! The poor fellow is
overcome!" Others, "Make way! make way!" Others, men of means, will
ask for the police, whereat the poorer men present will make off. But
chiefly they that should have taken the fare will feel kindly and will
lift the liar up gently and convey him and put him to good comfort
in some waiting place or other till he be himself--and all the while
clean forget his passage. For such is the nature of their rules. Lord
Hincksey, now dead, was very much given to this kind of lie, and
thought it profitable.
You shall lie at large and not be discovered; or a little, and for
once, and yet come to public shame, as it was with Ananias and his
good wife Sapphira in Holy Scripture, who lied but once and that was
too often. While many have lied all their lives long and come to no
harm, like John Ade, of North-Chapel, for many years a witness in the
Courts that lied professionally, then a money-lender, and lastly a
parliament-man for the county: yet he had no hurt of all this that any
man could see, but died easily in another man's bed, being eighty-three
years of age or thereabouts, and was very honourably buried in Petworth
at a great charge. But some say he is now in Hell, which God grant!
There is no lie like the winsome, pretty, flattering, dilating
eyelid-and-lip-and-brow-lifting lie such as is used by beauty
impoverished, when land is at stake. By this sort of lie many men's
estates have been saved, none lost, and good done at no expense save to
holiness. Of the same suit also is the lie that keeps a parasite in a
rich man's house, or a mixer attendant upon a painter, a model upon a
sculptor, and beggars upon all men.
Fools will believe their lies, but wise men also will take delight in
them, as did the Honourable Mr. Gherkin, for some time His Majesty's
Minister of State for the Lord Knows What, who, when policemen would
beslaver him, and put their hands to their heads and pay court in a
low way, told all that saw it what mummery it was; yet inwardly was
pleased. The more at a loss was he when, being by an accident in the
Minories too late and his hat lost, his coat torn and muddy, he made to
accost an officer, and civilly saying, "Hi----" had got no further but
he took such a crack on the crown with a truncheon as laid him out for
dead, and he is not now the same as he was, nor ever will be.
Ministers of religion will both show forth to the people the evil
of lying and will also lie themselves in a particular manner, very
distinct and formidable: as was clear when one denounced from the
pulpit the dreadful vice of hypocrisy and false seeming, whereat a
drunkard not yet sober, hearing him say, "Show me the hypocrite!" rose
where he was, full in church, and pointed to the pulpit, so that he
was thrust out for truth-telling by gesture in that sacred place; as
was that other who, when the preacher came to "Show me the drunkard,"
jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the parson's wife: a very
mutinous act. But to Lying.
He that takes lying easily will take life hardly; as the saw has it,
"Easy lying makes hard hearing," but your constructed and considered,
your well-drafted lie--that is the lie for men grown, men discreet
and fortunate. To which effect also the poet Shakespeare says in his
_Sonnets_--but no matter! The passage is not for our ears or time,
dealing with a dark woman that would have her Will: as women also must
if the world is to wag, which leads me to that sort of lie common
to all the sex of which we men say that it is the marvellous, the
potent, the dextrous, the thorough, or better still, the mysterious,
the uncircumvented and not explainable, the stopping-short and
confounding-against-right-reason lie, the triumphant lie of Eve our
mother: Iseult our sister: Judith, an aunt of ours, who saved a city,
and Jael, of holy memory.
But if any man think to explain that sort of lie, he is an ass for
his pains; and if any man seek to copy it he is an ass sublimate or
compound, for he attempts the mastery of women.
Which no man yet has had of God, or will.
Amen.
XXV
THE DUPE
The Dupe is an honest creature, and such honesty is the noblest work
of God. The Dupe is not the servant of the Knave, but his ally. The
Dupe does not, as too simple a political philosophy would have it,
serve only for a material on which the Knave shall work; he is also the
moral support of the Knave, strengthening and comforting the Knave's
most inward soul and lending lubrication to the friction of public
falsehood. For the Knave is of many sorts, and the Dupe helps them all.
The plumb Knave, or Knave Absolute, finds in the Dupe such an honest
creature as does not revile him, and it is good to know that one is
loved by some few honest souls. Thus the Knave Absolute is foolish
indeed when he lets the Dupe see by gesture or tone that he thinks him
a fool, for the Dupe is very sensitive and touchy in all weathers.
The Knave Qualified (in his many incarnations) must have the Dupe about
him or perish. Thus the Knave who would save his soul by self-deception
feeds, cannibal-like, upon the straightforwardness of the Dupe, and
says to himself: "How can I be such a Knave after all, since these good
Dupes here heartily agree with me?"