Let us talk about--well, anything you will. Goldfish, for
instance.
Goldfish are a symbol of old-world tranquillity or mid-Victorian
futility according to their position in the home. Outside the
home, in that wild state from which civilization has dragged
them, they may have stood for dare-devil courage or constancy or
devotion; I cannot tell. I may only speak of them now as I find
them, which is in the garden or in the drawing-room. In their
lily-leaved pool, sunk deep in the old flagged terrace, upon
whose borders the blackbird whistles his early-morning song, they
remind me of sundials and lavender and old delightful things. But
in their cheap glass bowl upon the three- legged table, above
which the cloth-covered canary maintains a stolid silence, they
remind me of antimacassars and horsehair sofas and all that is
depressing. It is hard that the goldfish himself should have so
little choice in the matter. Goldfish look pretty in the terrace
pond, yet I doubt if it was the need for prettiness which brought
them there. Rather the need for some thing to throw things to. No
one of the initiate can sit in front of Nature's most wonderful
effect, the sea, without wishing to throw stones into it, the
physical pleasure of the effort and the aesthetic pleasure of the
splash combining to produce perfect contentment. So by the margin
of the pool the same desires stir within one, and because ants'
eggs do not splash, and look untidy on the surface of the water,
there must be a gleam of gold and silver to put the crown upon
one's pleasure.
Perhaps when you have been feeding the goldfish you have not
thought of it like that. But at least you must have wondered why,
of all diets, they should prefer ants' eggs. Ants' eggs are, I
should say, the very last thing which one would take to without
argument. It must be an acquired taste, and, this being so, one
naturally asks oneself how goldfish came to acquire it.
I suppose (but I am lamentably ignorant on these as on all other
matters) that there was a time when goldfish lived a wild free
life of their own. They roamed the sea or the river, or whatever
it was, fighting for existence, and Nature showed them, as she
always does, the food which suited them. Now I have often come
across ants' nests in my travels, but never when swimming. In
seas and rivers, pools and lakes, I have wandered, but Nature has
never put ants' eggs in my way. No doubt--it would be only right-
-the goldfish has a keener eye than I have for these things, but
if they had been there, should I have missed them so completely?
I think not, for if they had been there, they must have been
there in great quantities. I can imagine a goldfish slowly
acquiring the taste for them through the centuries, but only if
other food were denied to him, only if, wherever he went, ants'
eggs, ants' eggs, ants' eggs drifted down the stream to him.
Yet, since it would seem that he has acquired the taste, it can
only be that the taste has come to him with captivity--has been
forced upon him, I should have said. The old wild goldfish (this
is my theory) was a more terrible beast than we think. Given his
proper diet, he could not have been kept within the limits of the
terrace pool. He would have been unsuited to domestic life; he
would have dragged in the shrieking child as she leant to feed
him. As the result of many experiments ants' eggs were given him
to keep him thin (you can see for yourself what a bloodless diet
it is), ants' eggs were given him to quell his spirit; and just
as a man, if he has sufficient colds, can get up a passion even
for ammoniated quinine, so the goldfish has grown in captivity to
welcome the once-hated omelette.
Let us consider now the case of the goldfish in the house. His
diet is the same, but how different his surroundings! If his bowl
is placed on a table in the middle of the floor, he has but to
flash his tail once and he has been all round the drawing-room.
The drawing-room may not seem much to you, but to him this
impressionist picture through the curved glass must be amazing.
Let not the outdoor goldfish boast of his freedom. What does he,
in his little world of water-lily roots, know of the vista upon
vista which opens to his more happy brother as he passes jauntily
from china dog to ottoman and from ottoman to Henry's father? Ah,
here is life! It may be that in the course of years he will get
used to it, even bored by it; indeed, for that reason I always
advocate giving him a glance at the dining-room or the bedrooms
on Wednesdays and Saturdays; but his first day in the bowl must
be the opening of an undreamt of heaven to him.
Again, what an adventurous life is his. At any moment a cat may
climb up and fetch him out, a child may upset him, grown-ups may
neglect to feed him or to change his water. The temptation to
take him up and massage him must be irresistible to outsiders.
All these dangers the goldfish in the pond avoids; he lives a
sheltered and unexciting life, and when he wants to die he dies
unnoticed, unregretted, but for his brother the tears and the
solemn funeral.
Yes; now that I have thought it out, I can see that I was wrong
in calling the indoor goldfish a symbol of mid-Victorian
futility. An article of this sort is no good if it does not teach
the writer something as well as his readers. I recognize him now
as the symbol of enterprise and endurance, of restlessness and
Post-Impressionism. He is not mid-Victorian, he is Fifth
Georgian.
Which is all I want to say about goldfish.