Now it will be a surprise, perhaps a very great surprise, to some of my
genuine town friends, to learn that even a country parson--who after
all is a man and a brother--gets pretty much the same sort of letters
that other people do. He gets offers to assign to him shares in gold
mines; offers of three dozen and four, positively all that is left, of
that transcendental sherry; offers to make him a life governor of the
new college for criminals; invitations to be a steward at a public
dinner of the Society for Diminishing Felony; above all, he gets some
very elegant letters from gentlemen in very high positions in society
offering to lend him money. I do verily believe these scoundrels, who
invariably write a good hand on crested paper and express themselves
in a style which is above all praise, are in league with one of my
banker’s clerks. How else does it happen that, as sure as ever my
account is very low and that I am in mortal terror lest my last cheque
should be returned dishonoured, so sure am I to hear from one of these
diabolical tempters? There’s one scarlet Mephistopheles who _must_ know
all about my financial position. How else could he have thought of
sending me two of his gilt-edged seductions in a single week just when
my banking account was overdrawn? It is absurd to pretend that he keeps
a _medium_.
Moreover, proof sheets come by post even in this wilderness, and they
have to be corrected, too; and real letters that are not begging
letters come, some kind and comforting, some stern and uncompromising,
some with the oddest inquiries and criticisms. Sometimes, too,
anonymous letters come. What a queer state of mind a man must have got
himself into before he can sit down to write an anonymous letter! Does
any man in his senses ever _read_ an anonymous letter of four pages?
If he does, the _writer_ gets no fun out of it. I am inclined to think
that the practice of writing anonymous letters is dying out now that
the schoolmaster is abroad; and yet, they tell me, insanity is not
decreasing. Then, too, there are the newspapers. I could live without
butter--I shouldn’t like it, but I could submit to it; or without eggs,
though I dislike snow pancakes; or without sugar--and there are some
solids and some liquids that are insipid without that; but there is
one thing I could not do without--I could not do without the _Times_.
We have tried again and again to economize by having a penny paper,
but it has always ended in the same way. As _entremets_ they are all
delightful, but for a square meal give me the _Times_. Without it “the
appetite is distracted by the variety of objects, and tantalized by the
restlessness of perpetual solicitation,” till, when the day is done,
the mind wearies under “a feeling of satiety without satisfaction, and
of repletion without sustenance.”
On this particular morning we had adjourned from the library to the
breakfast-room, and were opening our letters in high spirits, spite[6]
of Nathan the wise, and notwithstanding the bitter wind and the snow,
when a hideous sound startled us. There, under the window, the snow
steadily falling, drawn up in single file, were four human creatures,
two males and two females, arrayed in outlandish attire, and every one
of them playing hideously out of tune. It was a German band!
A more lugubrious spectacle than is presented by a German band, droning
forth “Herz, mein Herz” in front of your window in a snowstorm it
would be difficult to imagine. We suffer much from German bands, but
we have only ourselves to thank. I love music, and I am possessed
by the delusion that it is my duty to encourage the practice of
instrumental execution. Five or six years ago there was a band of
eight or nine performers who perambulated Norfolk, and they came to me
at least once a month. Whenever they appeared I went out to them and
gave them a shilling, airing my small modicum of German periodically,
and receiving flattering compliments upon my pronunciation, which
gratified me exceedingly. These people disappeared at last, but they
were succeeded by another band, and a very inferior one, and I took
but little notice of them. There were seven of these performers, a
cornet and two clarionets being prominent--very. However, they got
their shilling, and vanished. Three days after their departure came
another band: this time there were only four. I thought that rather
shabby, but I was busy, did not take much notice of them, and again
gave them a shilling. The cornet player was really quite respectable.
Next day came four more, and there was no cornet, only the abominable
clarionet. It was insufferable. I said I really must restrict myself
to sixpence, and that was fourpence more than they were worth. Two
days after their departure came a single solitary performer; he had a
pan-pipe fastened under his chin, a peal of bells on his head, which
he caused to tinkle by his nods, a pair of cymbals attached to his
elbows, a big drum which he beat by the help of a crank that he worked
with one of his feet, and a powerful concertina which he played with
his hands. He led off with a dolorous chorale in a minor key. It was
really more than flesh and blood could bear. “Send him away, Jemima.
Send him away!--instantly! Tell him I am _sehr krank_. Send him away!”
The fellow smiled with unctuous complacency. But when he got only
twopence, his face fell. “Ach, nein! You plaize, ze professor, he geeve
one sheeling to ze band--I am ze band. He geeve ze band only twopence.
He do not understand I am ze band! You plaise tell him I am ze band!”
“No! You’re to go away. Master’s sore and kranky!” Ze band loitered
for half a minute; then it took itself to pieces and went its way. But
the fellow’s hint about the shilling was significant, and led to an
investigation. Then it turned out that the band of seven or eight which
was going its rounds that year, split itself up when it came into my
neighbourhood, and, in view of my shilling, presented itself in two
detachments, each of which reckoned on my shilling, and several times
carried it off. Now I give one penny for each performer, and only when
there is a cornet do I send out coffee to the instrumentalists.
It was, however, not in flesh and blood to withhold the shilling
from the players of that quartette on that bitter morning. It was
heart-rending to think of their having at the peril of their lives
staggered through three miles of snowdrifts. It was inhuman to send
them away without coffee. And they had it accordingly. Poor things!
poor things! Where were they going? They were going back to the “Red
Lion,” a stone’s throw off, where they had slept the night before,
and where they meant to spend this night in delighting the hearts
of the rustics by waltzes and polkas, and gathering not such a bad
harvest for the nonce. “Lor, sir!” said Mr. Style, “to hear that there
trombone a _sole_ing ‘Rule Britannia’! That made you feel he was a real
musician--that it did!”
So you see we began the day with a band of music. That does not sound
so bad. But the band being dismissed, we finish our breakfast and
retire to the library.
We do not go empty-handed. Each of us carries a plate piled up high
with bread cut up for the birds that are waiting to be fed. A space
under the window is swept clear from snow, and there the birds are,
ready for their breakfast. Sparrows by the score, robins that will
hardly wait till the window is opened, chaffinches and tomtits,
dunnocks, blackbirds and thrushes, linnets and--jackdaws, yes! and,
watching very warily for a chance, a dozen or so of rooks in the trees
in yonder plantation, very much excited, very restless, very shy, but
ready to come down and gobble up the morsels if we keep ourselves out
of sight. As to the robins, there is no _mauvaise honte_ about them;
they will almost fly on to the plate. Sometimes I send a shower of
morsels quite over the robins, and they greatly enjoy the fun. One
saucy little fellow last week laughed out loud at me. “Laughed?” Yes,
laughed! I’ve known a robin laugh convulsively. But then it was not
under a street lamp.
It is one of the laws of this palace that we do not begin real work
before half-past nine. And before that time arrives there is usually
a good half-hour for reading aloud by the Lady Shepherd. What is
the Shepherd doing meanwhile? He is not going to tell you anything
more than this, that he is devoting himself during that half-hour to
preventing the ravages of moths and bookworms. You people who suppose
we poor country folk must be horribly dull and depressed may as well
understand that this library in which I am sitting is an apartment that
for a country parsonage may be regarded as palatial. Pray haven’t I a
right to have one good room in my house? One thing I know, and that
is that I am rated as if I lived in a house of £430 a year, and if I
must pay rates on that amount I may as well have something to show for
it. Also I would have you to know that the walls of this library are
lined with books from floor to ceiling. Then there are flowers all
about--grown on the premises, mind you--none of your bought blossoms
stuck on to a bit of stick with a bit of wire, but live flowers that
turn and look at you--at any rate, they certainly do turn and look out
at the window if you give them a chance. Moreover, they are not under
the dominion of a morose stipendiary, for the sufficient reason that
the head gardener is the Lady Shepherd, and the under gardener only
comes three times a week, and Jabez has his hands full, and Ishmael is
no servant of ours, but the servant of the maids in the kitchen; and
when you’re snowed up Ishmael must give his life to the solemn duties
of a stoker and filler of coal-scuttles, and to shovelling away the
snow, and to running errands. There is no doubt about the seriousness
of that boy. He is oppressed by the sense of his responsibility, and
convinced that he occupies the position of the divine being in Plato’s
_Theœtetus_. As long as τὸ ὄν kept his hand upon the world it went
round all right; when he took it off, the world straightway spun round
the wrong way. That being Ishmael’s view, he is naturally grave. When
the maids shriek at him he exhibits a terror-stricken alacrity, but
when I tell him to do this or that, he looks at me with a cunning
expression as if he would say, “Do you really mean that? Well, you must
take the consequences.” Then he glides off. From Ishmael not much is to
be expected in the greenhouse. But when half-past nine strikes I roll
my table into position and set to work, my head gardener puts on her
apron and gathers up her skirts, and starts forth with her basket on
her arm, equipped for _her_ day’s work.
Now, if a man has four good hours in the morning which he may call his
own, it’s a great deal more than most men have, and there’s no saying
what may be done in such hours as these. But if you allow morning
callers to disturb you, then it’s--I was going to say a bad word!
I had just settled myself to work in earnest when Jemima’s head
appeared. “Please, sir, Tinker George wants to see you.” “Tell your
mistress.” And I thought no more about it, but went on with what I was
doing. If Tinker George had been one of my parishioners I should have
jumped up and heard him patiently, but Tinker George does not belong to
me, but to the next parish, and as his usual object in coming to see
me is to show me his poetry, I passed him on this time, knowing very
certainly that he would not be the worse for my not seeing him. An hour
later I got up to warm myself. “May I speak?” said the Lady Shepherd.
“I let Tinker George go away, but I’m afraid you’ll be sorry I did.
I think you would have liked to see him.” “What’s the matter?” “He’s
been writing to the dear Queen” (the Lady Shepherd always speaks of
“the _dear_ Queen”) “and he came to show you the letter, and to ask
what address he should put on it.”
Tinker--George--writing to--the--Queen! What _did_ the man want? He
wanted to be allowed to keep a dog without paying tax for it. George
goes about with a wheel, and he calls for broken pots and pans.
Sometimes he finds the boys extremely annoying, they will persist
in turning his wheel when his back is turned and he has gone into a
house for orders. Now, you see, if he had a dog of spirit and ferocity
chained to his wheel, George might leave that wheel in charge of that
dog; but then a dog is an expensive luxury when there is the initial
outlay of seven shillings and sixpence for the tax. So he wrote to the
Queen, and he put it into the post, and I never saw it. This was just
one of those things which cause a man lifelong regret, all the more
poignant because so vain. The Lady Shepherd is the most passionately
loyal person in England, and she firmly believes that there will come a
holograph reply from her Majesty in the course of a few days addressed
to Tinker George, promptly and graciously granting him his very
reasonable request. “I’ve promised Tinker George,” she added, “to give
him a sovereign for the letter when it comes, and it shall have a box
all to itself among my autographs.”
Be pleased to observe that it was only just noon, and two events of
some interest had happened already, though we were snowed up. But at
this point I must needs inform you who _we_ are. In the first place
there are the Shepherd and the Lady Shepherd; in the second place there
are the Shepherd’s dogs. No shepherd can live without dogs--it would
not be safe. No _man_ ever pulled another man out of the snow: it is
perfectly well known that men don’t know how to do it. Till lately we
had three of these protectors. But--_eheu fugaces!_--we have only two
now; one a blue Skye, silky, surly, and exceptionally stubborn; and a
big colley, to whom his master is the Almighty and the All-wise. I do
not wish to claim more for my friends than is due to them. Ours are
only average dogs; but they _are_ average dogs. And if any one will
have the hardihood to assert that he holds the average man to be equal
to the average dog in morals, manners, and intelligence, I will not
condescend to argue with that purblind personage. I will only say that
he knows no more about dogs than I do about moles, and I never kept a
tame mole.
Nothing perplexes some of my friends more than to hear that I do not
belong to a single London club. Not belong to a club? One man was
struck dumb at the intelligence; he looked at me gravely--suspicion
in every wrinkle of his face, perplexity in the very buttons of his
waistcoat. He was working out the problem mentally. I saw into his
brain. I almost heard him say to himself, “Not belong to a club?
Holloa! Ever been had up for larceny? Been a bankrupt? Wonder why they
all blackballed him?--give it up!” He evidently wanted to ask what it
meant--there must be something wrong which he did not like to pry into:
a skeleton in the cupboard, in fact.
“I said a _London_ club!” I added, to relieve his embarrassment.
“Of course I do belong to a club _here_--the Arcadian Club. It’s a
very select club, too, and we can introduce strangers, which is an
advantage, as you may perhaps yourself have felt if you have ever been
kept for ten minutes stamping on the door-mat of the Athenæum with
the porter watching you while that arch boy was sauntering about,
pretending to carry your card to your friend upstairs. We are rational
beings in our club, and I’ll introduce you at once--Colonel Culpepper,
Toby! Colonel Culpepper, Mr. Bob.” Neither Toby nor Mr. Bob took the
least notice of the gallant colonel, who seemed rather shy himself.
“They’re dangerous dogs are colleys, so I’m told. In London it does
not so much matter, because, you see, they must go about with a muzzle.
And this is really all the club you belong to?”
Yes. This and no other; the peculiarities of our club being that false
witness, lying, and slandering were never so much as known among the
members. There is a house dinner every day, music every evening, no
sneering, no spite, no gossip, no entrance fee, no annual subscription,
no blackballing, no gambling, no betting, and no dry champagne or
dry anything. Show me a club like that, my dear colonel, and I’ll
join it to-morrow, whether in Pall Mall or in the planet Jupiter. At
the present moment I know of only one such club, and it is here--the
Arcadian Club! Enjoy its privileges while you may, and be grateful.
Seriously, I defy any club in England or anywhere else to produce
me fifty per cent. of its members so entirely courteous, cordial,
and clubbable--so graceful, intelligent, and generous--such thorough
gentlemen, and so entirely guiltless of talking nonsense, as our
friends Toby and Mr. Bob. Of course there are the infirmities which all
flesh is heir to, and jealousy is one of these. But put the case that
you should say to a little _man_, “You may sleep inside that door on a
cushion by the fire,” and say to a big _man_, “You’re to sleep outside
that same door on the mat!” and put the case that each of those _men_
knew he was a member of the same club to which the fire, the cushion,
and the mat belonged:--and pray what _modus vivendi_ could be found
between the big _man_ and the little _man_ on this side the grave?
But to return. The snow had ceased falling, but in the bleak distance
as far as the eye could see, the road was blocked by ugly-looking
drifts, in which a man on horseback might very easily be buried and
flounder hopelessly till he sank exhausted never to rise again. There
was nothing stirring except the birds, looking fluffy, cold, and
starving. So I turned my chair to my table again and resumed my task.
Hark! Actually a ring at the front-door bell. The dogs growled and
sniffed, but there was no fierce barking. Confound these tramps! That
trombone has gone back to the “Red Lion,” and the rogues are oozing
out to practise upon our weakness. “That’s not a tramp,” said the Lady
Shepherd. “Toby didn’t bark.” She was right, as she always is. For
Toby has quite an unerring discernment of the proximity of a tramp.
His gift in this line is inexplicable. How the great Darwin would have
delighted to observe that dog! If it was not a tramp, who could it be?
“I believe it’s Polus!” said the Lady Shepherd. “Only Polus could have
the ferocity to come here in defiance of the snowdrifts.” Right again.
It _was_ Polus. She had given him the name because he was eager to get
into the County Council.--Poor man! He only got three votes.--There
was no reference to the young gentleman in the _Gorgias_ who bore that
name--only a desire to indicate that he was the man who _went to the
Poll_.
It was hardly more than noon; we were snowed up, and yet already we
had had music; poetry as represented by Tinker George; a flood of
literature; and now there was discussion imminent on the profoundest
questions of politics, philosophy, and law.
Enter Polus! What in the world had brought him hither this dreadful
day? What had he been doing? whither was he going? Should we put him to
bed? To send for a doctor was out of the question. But we could soon
get him a mustard poultice and a hot bath. Polus laughed the hearty
laugh of rude health and youth. “You, dear old people, you forget I’m
only thirty-five. I’ve had a pleasant walk from Tegea--greased my boots
well--only rolled over twice. I’ve come for a talk. Dear me! dear me!
Didn’t I see a moth there on the curtains? Curious that they should
come out in such numbers when you’re snowed up! May I help you to get
rid of the pests?”
The man had come to show his defiance of the laws of nature and
ordinary prudence. In fact, he had come for mere _cussedness_! Also
he had come for a conference. What was the subject to be this time?
“Anything but the education question,” said I; “we must draw the line
somewhere. Woman’s rights, Man’s wrongs. Agricultural depression. The
People’s Palace. The Feudal System. The Bacon-Shakespeare--anything you
please in reason--but Education! No! Not for worlds.” It was not long
before the cat jumped out of the bag. Polus was bent on floating a most
magnificent new International League. His ideas were a trifle mixed,
but so are those of many men in our times. Polus makes the mistake of
_bottling_ his grand schemes and laying them down, as it were, when
they ought to be kept _on draught_. The result is that there’s always
a superabundance of froth--or shall we call it foam?--that we have to
plunge into before we can taste of that pleasant draught; and when
you have drunk about half your fill, there’s a wholly unnecessary
and somewhat disagreeable sediment at the bottom, which interferes
with your enjoyment. Thus the new League was to be so comprehensive a
League, for effecting so many desirable objects, that it was difficult
to discover what the main object was--or, in fact, if the main object
did not resolve itself into an assemblage of objects, each of which was
struggling with the rest for prominence and supremacy.
On this occasion Polus had the effrontery to begin by assuring me that
I was in honour and conscience bound to join the League, for the idea
of it had been first suggested to him by a pregnant and suggestive
saying of mine some months before. “What! when you were so hot for
the abolition of the punishment by death?” Oh dear no. He’d changed
his mind about that long ago. “Was it when you were advocating the
desirability of the labourers having the cows and the landlords keeping
the land?” “No, no! I’ve improved greatly upon that. Haven’t you heard?
I’m for letting the landlord keep the cows, but giving the labourers
the calves only; that appears to me the equitable adjustment of a
complex question.” I thought a little, and Polus gave me time. What was
it? What could it have been that we had been talking about? Enfantin’s
hullucinations and the dual priesthood (_couple-prêtre_)? Fourrier’s
Phalanstery? It must have been an _obiter dictum_ which dropped from
me as he laid down the law about Proudhon. I shook my head. “Don’t you
remember? Entails!”
Then it appeared that the great League was to be started for the
abolition of everything in the shape of entails. In our last conference
I had let fall the remark that for every acre of land tied up in strict
entail there was a thousand pounds sterling tied up in much stricter
entail. If you are going to deal with the one, why not with the other?
Polus was putting on his hat when I gave him that parting dig, and I
thought I had silenced him for ever. So far from it, I had but sown a
new seed in his soul, and now he came to show me the baby.
Polus meanwhile had plunged into the heaving billows of statistics.
He had discovered, to his own satisfaction, that 500 millions of
the National Debt was strictly entailed; that 217 millions belonged
prospectively to babes unborn; that the British people were paying
“enormous taxes, sir!” not only for the sins and extravagances of their
forefathers, but for enriching of their hypothetical progeny. That it
was a state of things altogether outrageous, irrational, monstrous, and
a great many other epithets. Would I join the League? Of course I’d
join a league for the extinction of nasal catarrh or the annihilation
of stupidity--gladly, but upon conditions. I must first know how the
thing is to be effected. Your object may be heroic, but the means for
carrying out this glorious reform? the machinery, my dear Polus? Let me
hear more about _that_. A new _voyage en Icarie_ implies that you are
going to embark upon some safe vessel. By the way, how did Cabet get to
his enchanting island?