murmuring; therefore of Thy goodness, be pleased to spare me from the
utterance of even one word in the presence of my peers, concerning any
Matter for the Advancement of Which I have been elected! For lo,--if
I said as much as “Yea,” it might be ill-advised; and yet again, if I
said “Nay,” it might be ill-timed! Inasmuch as I am compelled to rely
on the Journalist and Press-Reporter before mentioned, for whatsoever
knowledge of matters political I possess, and it is just possible
that he might,--through an extra dose of whisky-soda,--mislead me
by erroneous information! O Lord of Press-Agencies and Grub Street
Eating-Houses, if it be possible unto Thee, relieve me of this Man!
He charges more, so I am credibly informed, per Hundred Words than
any other Inventor of Original Eloquence in the pay of the Unlettered
and Inarticulate of the House! And it is much to be feared that he
does not always keep his own Counsel! Wherefore, gracious Deity, I
would be Released with all convenient Speed from the Exercise of
his Power! Rather than be constantly compelled to rely upon this
Journalistic Wretch for Advice and Instruction, it will more conduce
to my Comfort,--though possibly to my Fatigue,--to commit to Memory
such portions of long-forgotten speeches spoken by Defunct Members of
the House in the Past, as may be found suitable to the present needs
of the Rural Population. The Corn-growing and Cattle-breeding Electors
will not know from what Sources I derive my Inspiration, and the Editor
of the Local Newspaper has not yet taken a degree in Scholarship.
Moreover, the Dead are happily unable to send in any Claim for Damages
against the Theft of their Ideas, which are as free to Independent
Pilferers as the Original Plots of New and Successful Romances are
free to the Dramatizing Robbers in the Stage-Purlieus, thanks to the
Admirable Attitude of Dignified Indolence assumed by that Government to
which I, one Fool out of Many, have the honour to belong!
Finally, O Beneficent Lilliputian Deity which governeth matters
Parliamentary,--grant me such a sufficient amount of highly-respectable
Mendacity as shall enable me to pass successfully for what I am not, at
least, so far as Society in the Country is concerned! Fully aware am I,
O Lord, that a Simulation of Ability will not always meet with approval
in Town, though it has been occasionally known to do so! Therefore I am
well content to sit in the House as one MUM, thus representing through
myself an inaudible County! But in the County itself it shall seem
to the Uninitiated that my thoughts are too deep for speech; while I
retain in my own mind the knowledge of the Fact that my Humbug is too
great for Expression!
To Thee, gentle yet capricious Deity, I commend all my Desires,
praying Thee to keep the people whom I represent as Dumb and Inert as
myself in matters concerning their own Welfare, for if they should
chance to consider the Situation by the light of Common Sense,
and me by the shrewd Appreciation of a Native Wit, it might occur
to them to prefer a Man rather than a Wooden-headed Nonentity to
Proclaim their Existence to the King’s faithful Commons! Wherefore,
at the next General Election I should lose my Seat,--which would
be Disagreeable to me personally, as well as a Cause of Rage in my
Wife, to whom my present Condition of a Parliamentary Microbe is
much more important and advantageous than it is to the Country! And
Thou knowest, O Lord, that when my Wife is moved by the Impetuous
Persuasion of a difficult Temper, it is necessary for me, by reason
of her Superior Height, Size, and Aggressiveness, to retire from the
domestic Fighting-ground, considerably worsted in the unequal Combat.
Protect me, merciful Deity, from her Tongue!--which is as a Sword to
slay all thoughts of Peace! And, concerning the accursed, ubiquitous
Journalist-Reporter-Paragraphist-Correspondent-Attached-to-all-Newspapers
Man, who, for my sins, wrote my “speech to the Electors” at a high
charge, and agreed,--and therefore expects,--to write all my other
public utterances on the same terms, I beseech Thee, when he next waits
upon me with his Bill, ready to Counsel or to Command, grant me the
Strength and Courage to tell a more barefaced Lie than is habitual to
me, and to boldly say that I can do Without him!
AMEN!
THE THANKSGIVING OF THE SMALL COUNTRY M.P’s WIFE,
WHICH SHE OFFERETH WEEK-END-LY
To Thee, O Bland and Blessëd Deity of Surplus Cash and Social
Advancement, whose favours are never bestowed upon the Poor or the
Wise, but only on the Rich and the Foolish, I give praise, honour and
glory!
I thank Thee that Thou hast made of that Supreme Ass, my Husband, a
Member of the Government, so that, despite his utter Lack of Wit and
Hopeless Incompetency, he may at least pass muster for having Brains in
a particularly Brainless Constituency!
I acknowledge Thy mercy and goodness in permitting that for the
moderate cost of Two Thousand Pounds and upwards,--a sum not greatly
in excess of my dressmaker’s annual bill,--I may set my foot on the
two dumb and prostrate Letters of the Alphabet now attached to my said
Husband’s new calling and Election, and may mount thereon to those
heights of County Society where, ever since I was born I have eagerly
thirsted to be! For though County Society be often duller than the
fabled Styx, nevertheless the leaden weight of its Approval is as
necessary to my special comfort and welfare as the Gilded chain of
Office is to the swelling chest of a Provincial Mayor. Thou knowest,
O little Lord of Communities Narrow, Parochial and Politic, that I am
called, even by the Profanest of Press-Reporters, “a fine figure of a
woman,” and that I am deserving of Public Notice and Commendation, not
only for my Physical Attractions, but for my Social Qualifications,
which, despite the fact that Fate has wedded me to a Fool, have enabled
me to successfully represent the said Fool to his bovine Electors as
an Intelligent Personality! Great is the Tact which is needed to palm
off a Sparrow for an Eagle, a Mouse for an Elephant, or a Donkey for
a Statesman! But I swear to Thee, O Thou gracious Little Neptune who
ruleth that Limited Ocean called the “Society Swim” that I am equal
to all this and more! Thou seest me as I am, a Fashionable Feminine
Insincerity! Thou beholdest the subtle cleverness of my Social Smile,
which radiates sweetly upon the faces of such persons as I conceive
may be useful in Election times, but which fades into a Supercilious
Sneer when I discover, as I often do, that many of these persons are
unblushingly “of no political party,” and have no interest whatever in
keeping my Husband in His Seat! Now if my Husband were not in His Seat,
I should become that most deplorable of human beings, a Provincial
Nonentity! Hence arises my natural and lawful Desire that in His Seat
my Husband shall remain, inasmuch as were he left without a Seat, I
should be left without a “Set”!
But thanks be unto Thee, O Thou amiable and complaisant God of the
British Social Status, there seems to be at present no cause for
alarm that the Rustics whom my Husband, with unintelligent dumbness
represents in the House of Commons will ever Rise! Chiefly inspired
as they are by Drugged Beer, it is safe to presume that they will
not easily awaken from their Public-House Torpor, or in a species of
vulgar “horse-play” pull my Husband’s seat from under him,--even as
a lubberly child pulls away a chair from the Unsuspecting Visitor
who would fain sit down upon it,--and so precipitate my Husband
into the unenviable rank of Unimportant Provincials! I myself am
ready to guarantee,--always with Thy support, O Favourer of Paid
Parliamentary Press-Puffery,--that so dire a Catastrophe as this shall
not happen! For My weight,--which is both materially and mentally
Considerable,--would have to be thrown into the Balance,--whereby
the tottering Seat, even if partially overthrown, would, and
needs Must,--under the force of my impetuous Clutch,--regain the
Perpendicular!
Being by unredeemed nature a Stupid Woman, I acknowledge freely and
with gratitude Thy Omnipotent Guidance in Matters purely Snobbish! I
praise and bless Thee for showing me the quickest way out of Things
Intellectual into Things Conventional! I thank Thee for Thy unfailing
assistance afforded to me in the beaten paths of County Flunkeydom,
wherein I walk with virtuous circumspection, taking care to leave my
impressive Visiting-Cards and likewise those of my Husband, on Houses
only, and never on People! For People may be dangerous acquaintances,
while Houses never are. A Family Residence is always more respectable
than a Family!
I give Thee glory that I am made of such stubborn Flesh and Quality as
never to recognize that any other Woman exists who, by the Inconvenient
Attributes of Either Beauty, Wit or Intelligence, deserves to be
considered my Superior, and that when any such Intrusive and Obtrusive
Female is accidentally forced upon my Notice, I have the good sense
to diplomatically ignore Her. I am gratefully conscious that the
Meaningless Insipidity of my Manner has favourably impressed the
Uneducated Majority of my Husband’s Constituents. And also, that having
once obtained their Unreasoning Votes, their Bucolic Lethargy is such,
that I need do little further to retain their Credulous Admiration save
to put in an Occasional Well-Dressed Appearance at a “local” Bazaar,
or Charity Ball. Concerning any aims or hopes they may, in their
blundering Dulness, have ever entertained towards the Betterment of
their Condition, and the Representation of these Addle-pated desires to
His Majesty’s Government, I am as Profoundly Indifferent as my Husband
is Voluntarily Ignorant. For, as the larger number of the Faithful
Commons are aware, no Act is more fatal to the Social Prestige and
County Influence of a Member of the House, than that he should, when in
office, fulfil the Rash Promises made to his Electors during a Critical
state of the Poll! Inasmuch as the only Reasonable object to be
attained by the Purchase of the Letters M. and P. is the Betterment of
One’s Self and One’s Social Position on the lines of such Conventional
Hypocrisies as are agreeable to the Best County Houses. For the taking
of any bold or conspicuous part in any National Matter of Interest or
Importance has long been sagaciously avoided by every County Member
who desires to retain His Seat. And that one Man should do what his
Colleagues dare not attempt, would be a Heroism which, thanks unto
Thee, O Prudent Presiding Deity of Grandmotherly Westminster, is
fortunately not to be expected of my Husband!
Finally I thank Thee, O Wise and All-Discerning, for the Gracious
Consolation which Thou hast imparted unto me in the fact that though my
Husband is the Embodiment of county Vacuity, the Majority of the King’s
Faithful Commons are as Vacuous as He! For, as in the multitude of Ants
in an Anthill, One insect more industrious or intelligent than the
rest is not easily discovered, even so, in the goodly array of Stupid
Members, the Stupidest of them all may conveniently sit in his Seat
without public Comment.
And for the Constant Enjoyment of my own Admitted Position
among the Tea-Drinking, Fox-Hunting and Bucolic _élite_ of the
Neighbourhood,--for the graceful Ease with which I assume to be what
I am not, by reason of the Two Letters attached to my Husband’s
Name, which gives much more importance to Me than to Him,--and for
the general comfortable Self-Assertiveness in which I live and
move and have my being, I bless Thee, O Potent little Deity of the
Polling-Booth, and acknowledge Thy Manifold Mercies! May the Seat of my
Husband continue firm in Thy Sight, unmoved by any Popular Caprice of
the Vulgar, until such time as my eldest Hopeful Son, the very pattern
of His Father, shall slip into it Unopposed after Him, and so preserve
in those Unsophisticated Rural Districts whereby we are surrounded, the
Unblemished Honour of a Unique Reputation for Highly Educated Political
Incompetence in this Advanced and Enlightened Age!
AMEN!
THE VANISHING GIFT
The unseen rulers of human destiny are, on the whole, very kindly
Fates. They appear beneficently prone to give us mortals much more
than we deserve. Gifts of various grace and value are showered upon
us incessantly through our life’s progress,--gifts for which we are
too often ungrateful, or which we fail to appreciate at their true
worth. Apart from the pleasures of the material senses which we share
in common with our friends and fellows of the brute creation, the more
delicate and exquisite emotions of the mind are ministered to with
unfailing and fostering care. Music--Poetry, Art in all its brilliant
and changeful phases,--these things are offered for the delectation of
our thoughts and the refinement of our tastes; but the most priceless
boon of the Immortals is the talisman which alone enables us to
understand the beauty of life at its highest, and the perfection of
ideals at their best. I mean Imagination,--that wonderful spiritual
faculty which is the source of all great creative work in Art and
Literature. Some call it “Inspiration”; others, the Divine Fire; but
whatever its nature or quality, there is good cause to think--and to
fear--that it is gradually dwindling down and disappearing altogether
from the world of to-day.
The reasons for this are not very far to seek. We are living in
an age of feverish unrest and agitation. If we could picture a
twentieth century Satan appearing before the Almighty under the
circumstances described in the Book of Job, to answer the question,
“Whence comest thou?”--the same reply would suit not only his, but
our condition--“From going to and fro in the earth, and wandering up
and down within it.” We are always going to and fro in these days. We
are forever wandering up and down. Few of us are satisfied to remain
long in the same place, among the same surroundings--and in this way
the foundations of home life,--formerly so noble and firm a part of
our national strength--are being shaken and disorganized. A very
great majority of us appear to be afflicted with the chronic disease
of Hurry, which generally breeds a twin ailment--Worry. We have no
time for anything somehow. We seem to be always under the thrall of
an invisible policeman, commanding us to “Move on!” And we do move
on, like the tramps we are becoming. Moreover, we have decided that
we cannot get over the ground quickly enough on the limbs with which
Nature originally provided us--so we spin along on cycles, and dash
about on motor cars. And it is confidently expected that by-and-by
the mere earth will not be good enough for us, and that we shall
“scorch” through the air--when a great change may be looked for in
house accommodation. People will return, it is said, to the early
cave dwellings, in order to avoid the massacre likely to be caused by
tumbling air-ships over which the captains have lost control.
There is something humourous in all this modern hurry-skurry; something
almost grotesque in this desire for swift movement--this wish to save
time and to stint work;--but there is something infinitely pathetic
about it as well. It is as if the present Period of the world’s
civilization felt itself growing old--as if, like an individual human
unit, it knew itself to be past its prime and drawing nigh to death,
as if,--with the feeble restlessness of advancing age, it were seeking
to cram as much change and amusement as possible into the little time
of existence left to it. Two of the most notable signs of such mental
and moral decay are, a morbid craving for incessant excitement, and a
disinclination to think. It is quite a common thing nowadays to hear
people say, “Oh, I have no time to think!”--and they seem to be more
proud than ashamed of their loss of mental equilibrium. But it is very
certain that where there is no time to think, there is less time to
imagine--and where there is neither thought nor imagination, creative
work of a high and lasting quality is not possible.
We, in our day, are fortunate in so far that we are the inheritors
of the splendid work accomplished in the youth and prime of all that
we know of civilization. No doubt there were immense periods beyond
our ken, in which the entire round of birth, youth, maturity, age and
death, was fulfilled by countless civilizations whose histories are
unrecorded--but we can only form the faintest guess at this, through
the study of old dynasties which, ancient as they are, may perhaps be
almost modern compared to the unknown empires which have utterly passed
away beyond human recovery. But if we care to examine the matter, we
shall find among all nations, that as soon as a form of civilization
has emerged from barbarism, like a youth emerging from childhood, it
has entered on its career with a glad heart and a poetic soul,--full of
ideals, and richly endowed with that gift of the gods--Imagination. It
has invariably expressed itself as being reverently conscious of the
Highest source of all creation; and its utterance through all its best
work and achievement can be aptly summed up in Wordsworth’s glorious
lines:--
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting--
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s star
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar,--
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come,
From God who is our home!
While these “trailing clouds of glory” still cling to the soul, the
limits of this world,--the mere dust and grime of material things,--do
not and cannot satisfy it; it must penetrate into a realm which is
of its own idea and innate perception. There it must itself create a
universe, and find expression for its higher thought. To this resentful
attitude of the soul against mere materialism, we owe all art, all
poetry, all music. Every great artistic work performed outside the
needs of material and physical life may be looked upon as a spiritual
attempt to break open the close walls of our earthly prison-house and
let a glimpse of God’s light through.
As a matter of fact, everything we possess or know of to-day, is
the visible outcome of a once imagined possibility. It has been
very grandly said that “the Universe itself was once a dream in the
mind of God.” So may we say that every scientific law, every canon
of beauty--every great discovery--every splendid accomplishment was
once a dream in the mind of man. All the religions of the world, with
their deep, beautiful, grand or terrific symbols of life, death and
immortality, have had their origin in the instinctive effort of the
Soul to detach itself from the mere earthly, and to imagine something
better. In the early days, this strong aspiration of humanity towards
a greater and more lasting good than its own immediate interest,
was displayed in the loftiest and purest conceptions of art. The
thoughts of the “old-world” period are written in well-nigh indelible
characters. The colossal architecture of the temples of ancient
Egypt--and that marvellous imaginative creation, the Sphinx, with its
immutable face of mingled scorn and pity--the beautiful classic forms
of old Greece and Rome--these are all visible evidences of spiritual
aspiration and endeavour,--moreover, they are the expression of a
broad, reposeful strength,--a dignified consciousness of power. The
glorious poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures--the swing and rush of Homer’s
Iliad,--the stately simplicity and profundity of Plato,--these also
belong to what we know of the youth of the world. And they are still
a part of the world’s most precious possessions. We, in our day, can
do nothing so great. We have neither the imagination to conceive such
work, nor the calm force necessary to execute it. The artists of a
former time laboured with sustained and tireless, yet tranquil energy;
we can only produce imitations of the greater models with a vast amount
of spasmodic hurry and clamour. So, perchance, we shall leave to future
generations little more than an echo of “much ado about nothing.” For,
truly, we live at present under a veritable scourge of mere noise. No
king, no statesman, no general, no thinker, no writer, is allowed to
follow the course of his duty or work without the shrieking comments
of all sorts and conditions of uninstructed and misguided persons, and
under such circumstances it is well to remember the strong lines of our
last great poet Laureate:--
Step by step we gain’d a freedom, known to Europe, known to all,--
Step by step we rose to greatness,--through the _tonguesters_
we may fall!
But our chief disablement for high creative work,--and one that is
particularly noticeable at this immediate period of our history, is, as
I have said, the “vanishing of the gift”--the lack of Imagination. To
be wanting in this, is to be wanting in the first element of artistic
greatness. The poet, the painter, the sculptor, or the musician must
be able to make a world of his own and live in it, before he can make
one for others. When he has evolved such a world out of his individual
consciousness, and has peopled it with the creations of his fancy,
he can turn its “airy substance” into reality for all time. For the
things we call “imaginative” are often far more real than what we call
“realism.” All that we touch, taste and see, we call “real.” Now we
cannot touch, taste or see Honour--but surely it is real! We cannot
weigh out Courage in a solidified parcel--yet it is an actual thing.
So with Imagination--it shows us what we may, if we choose, consider
“the baseless fabric of a vision”--but which often proves as real and
practical in its results as Honour and Courage. Shakespeare’s world is
real;--so real that there are not wanting certain literary imposters
who grudge him its reality and strive to dispossess him of his own.
Walter Scott’s world is real--so real, that a shrine has been built for
him in Edinburgh, crowded with sculptured figures of men and women,
most of whom never existed, save in his teeming fancy. What a tribute
to the power of Imagination is the beautiful monument in the centre of
Princes Street, with all the forms evoked from one great mind, lifted
high above us, who consider ourselves “real” people! And now the lesser
world of thought is waiting for the discovery of a Cryptogram in the
Waverley Novels, which shall prove that King George the Fourth wrote
them with the assistance of Scott’s game-keeper, Tom Purdie,--and that
his Majesty gave Scott a baronetcy on condition that he should never
divulge the true authorship! For, according to the narrow material
limits of some latter-day minds, no one man could possibly have written
Shakespeare’s Plays. Therefore it may be equally argued that, as there
is as much actual work, and quite as many characters in the Waverley
Novels as in the plays of Shakespeare, they could not all have emanated
from the one brain of Sir Walter Scott. Come forward then with a
“Waverley cryptogram,” little mean starvelings of literature who would
fain attempt to prove a man’s work is not his own! There are sure to be
some envious fools always ready to believe that the great are not so
great,--the heroic not so heroic, and that after all, they, the fools,
may be wiser than the wisest men!