It must have been the novelty of the thing which brought people
flocking to the hall I hired for the exhibition of Tim Gorman’s new
cinematograph. I was aware, in a vague way, that my invitations had been
very generally accepted; but I made no list of my expected guests, and
I did not for a moment suppose that half the people who said they were
coming would actually arrive. I have some experience of social life and
I have always found that it is far easier to accept invitations than to
invent plausible excuses for refusing them. I do not consider that I
am in any way bound by my acceptance in most cases. Dinners are
exceptional. It is not fair to say that you will dine at a house
unless you really mean to do it. But the givers of miscellaneous
entertainments, of dances, receptions, private concerts and such things
are best dealt with by accepting their invitations and then consulting
one’s own convenience. That is what I thought people were doing to me.
I had no reason to expect any other treatment. I was not offering food
or wine in large quantities or of fine kind. I was not a prominent
figure in London society. My party was of no importance from a political
or a financial point of view and I could scarcely expect the scientific
world to take a cinematograph seriously. Yet I found myself the host of
a number of very distinguished guests, many of whom I did not even know
by sight.
Three Cabinet Ministers arrived, looking, as men immersed in great
affairs ought to look, slightly absent-minded and rather surprised to
find themselves where they were. They were Cabinet Ministers of a minor
kind, not men in the first flight. I owed their presence to Gorman’s
exertions in the House of Commons. He told me that he intended to
interest the Government in Tim’s invention on the ground that it
promised an opportunity of popularising and improving national
education. I had a seat kept for Ascher beside the Cabinet Ministers. I
did not suppose that he would particularly want to talk to them, but I
was sure that they would like to spend the evening in the company of one
of our greatest financiers.
No less than five members of the Royal Society came, bringing their
wives and a numerous flock of daughters. They were men of high
scientific attainments. One of them was engaged in some experiments with
pigs, experiments which were supposed to lead to important discoveries
in the science of eugenics. I cannot even imagine why he came to see
a cinematograph. Another of them had written a book to expound a new
theory of crystallisation. I have never studied crystallisation, but I
believe it is a process by which particles of solid matter, temporarily
separated by some liquid medium, draw together and coalesce. My
scientists and their families afforded a good example of the process.
They arrived at different times, went at first to different parts of the
hall, got mixed up with all sorts of other people, but long before the
entertainment began they had drawn together and formed a solid block
among my guests.
Two Royal Academicians, one of them a well-known portrait painter,
arrived a little late. They were men whom I knew pretty well and liked.
They have urbane and pleasant manners, and are refreshingly free from
affectations and fads. In my opinion they both paint very good pictures.
I introduced them to Mrs. Ascher; but this, as I should have known if
I had stopped to think, was a mistake. Mrs. Ascher regards the Royal
Academy as the home of an artistic Antichrist and Academicians as the
deadliest foes of art. Not even the suave courtesy of my two friends
saved them from the unpleasant experience of hearing the truth about
themselves. Mrs. Ascher was not, of course, bluntly rude to them, and
did not speak with offensive directness. She poked the truth at them
edgeways, the truth that is, as she saw it.
The church did not support me very well. I distinctly remember inviting
six bishops. Only one came and he was Irish. However, he wore silk
stockings and a violet coat of aggressively ecclesiastical cut, so he
looked quite as well as if he had had a seat in the House of Lords. I
introduced him to the eugenic pig breeder, but they did not seem to hit
it off together. After a few remarks, probably about the weather, they
separated. The eugenist is rather a shaggy man to look at. That may
have prejudiced the bishop against him. I imagine that most bishops feel
shagginess to be embarrassing.
Lady Kingscourt brought a large party, chiefly women in very splendid
attire. There were, I think, eight of them altogether, and they had only
one man with them, a subaltern in a Guards regiment. He slipped away
almost at once, telling me as he passed out, that he wanted to telephone
to a friend and that he would be back in a few minutes. I do not think
he came back at all. He probably went to his club. I do not know what
was said to him the next day by the ladies he deserted. I thanked Lady
Kingscourt for coming. I really think it was very good of her to come.
She had fair warning that Gorman was going to make a speech and she knew
that all Gorman’s political friends, probably Gorman himself, regarded
her as an abandoned woman who played fast and loose with the morals of
military officers and undermined their naturally enthusiastic loyalty to
Liberal Governments. By way of acknowledgment of my quite sincere thanks
Lady Kingscourt squeezed my hand.
“I always make a point,” she said, “of encouraging any movement for the
good of the masses. They are such deserving dear things, aren’t they?”
It is impossible to guess at what Lady Kingscourt thought we were doing;
but her heart was warm and kind. If ever class hatred comes to play
an important part in English life it will not be the fault of the
aristocracy. I doubt whether any labourer would sacrifice his evening’s
leisure to encourage a movement for the good of Lady Kingscourt. Nor
would the kindliest Socialist speak of women of the upper classes as
“deserving dear things.” The nicest term used by progressive people to
describe these ladies is “parasites,” and they often, as we had just
been learning, call them worse names than that.
Lady Kingscourt and her party represented the highest layer of
fashionable life. I had, besides her, a large number of women of
slightly dimmer glory who were yet quite as finely dressed as Lady
Kingscourt, and were, I am sure, equally eager for the good of the
masses. My hall, not a very large one, was well filled before nine
o’clock. I had every reason to congratulate myself on the success of my
party, so far. It remained to be seen whether Gorman would make a good
speech and whether Tim’s ghosts would exhibit themselves satisfactorily.
Between the speech and the ghosts my guests would have an opportunity
of drinking tea and champagne cup, handed round by twelve nice looking
girls wearing black and white dresses, hired out to me (both the girls
and the dresses) for the evening by the firm which had undertaken to
manage the refreshments.
According to my time table, Gorman ought to have begun his speech at nine
o’clock. Instead of doing so he came to me and whispered that he would
give late-comers ten minutes law.
“Nothing more unpleasant for an audience,” he said, “than having their
toes trodden on by people who come in late, just as they are beginning
to get interested in what is going on.”
Nothing, I imagine, is more unpleasant for a speaker than to have his
audience looking round to see who the newcomers are, just as he is
beginning to warm to his subject. I gathered from his anxiety about the
audience, that Gorman intended to make a great effort. I looked forward
to his speech. Gorman, at his best, is really a very fine speaker.
At ten minutes past nine Gorman mounted the platform, the narrow
strip of platform left for him in front of the pits occupied by Tim’s
apparatus. The clatter of general conversation ceased, and the Cabinet
Ministers, sitting in the front row with Ascher, clapped their hands.
The rest of the audience, realising that applause was desirable, also
clapped their hands. Gorman bowed and smiled.
Then my elbow was jerked sharply. I looked round and saw Jack Heneage.
Jack is a nice boy, the son of an old friend of mine. I have known him
ever since he first went to school. About six months ago his father
and I between us secured a very nice appointment for the boy, a sort
of private secretaryship or something of that sort. I understood at the
time that Jack’s business was to run messages for an important man’s
wife; and that the appointment would lead on to something good in the
political world. I was surprised to see him standing beside me for I had
not asked him to my party and he was not wearing evening clothes. Jack
would never go anywhere, willingly, unless he were properly dressed.
“Sit down,” I said, “and don’t talk. Mr. Gorman is just going to make a
speech.”
“Is Ascher here?” said Jack.
“He is; in the front row.”
“Thank God. I’ve been chasing him all over London. Office, club, private
house, tearing round in a taxi for hours. My Chief wants him.”
“Your chief can’t get him now,” I said. “Not for half an hour, perhaps
three quarters. Gorman isn’t likely to stop under three quarters. Till
he does you can’t get Ascher.”
“I must,” said Jack. “I simply must. It’s--it’s frightfully important.”
Gorman began his speech. I did not hear what he said because I was
trying to restrain Jack Heneage, but the audience laughed, so I suppose
he began with a joke. Jack shook off my hold on his arm and walked right
up to the front of the hall. I saw Gorman scowling at him but Jack did
not seem to mind that in the least. He handed a note to Ascher. Gorman
said something about the very distinguished audience before him, a
remark plainly intended to fill in the time while Jack and Ascher were
finishing their business. Ascher read the note, rose from his seat and
came towards me. Everybody looked at him and at Jack who was following
him. Gorman repeated what he had said about the distinguished audience.
“I find,” Ascher said to me, “that I am obliged to leave you. I am very
sorry.”
“I have a taxi outside,” said Jack, pushing Ascher towards the door.
Ascher lingered, looking at me wistfully. “I may not be able to return,”
he said. “If I cannot will you bring my wife home? The car will be here
and can drive you back to your rooms afterwards.”
I was a little surprised at the request. Mrs. Ascher is, I should think,
pretty well able to take care of herself.
“I think we ought to start, sir,” said Jack Heneage, taking Ascher by
the arm.
“Perhaps,” said Ascher to me, “if you are kind enough to see my wife
home you will wait in my house till I get back. I may have something to
say to you. It is possible that I shall reach the house before you do,
but I may be late. I do not know. Will you wait for me?”
“Won’t you come on, sir?” said Jack.
I noticed, then, that Jack was excited and nervous. I do not ever
remember having seen him excited or nervous before, not even when he
went in second wicket down in the Eton and Harrow match with seventy
runs to make and an hour left to play. I held Ascher’s coat for him and
watched them get into the taxi together.
When I got back to the hall Gorman was well into his speech and had
captured the attention of his audience. I was able to pick up the thread
of what he was saying almost at once. He was discoursing on the arts of
peace, contrasting them with the arts of war. In past ages, so Gorman
said, the human intellect had occupied itself mainly in devising means
for destroying life and had been indifferent to the task of preserving
it. Gunpowder was invented long before the antitoxin for diphtheria was
discovered. Steel was used for swords ages before any one thought of
making it into motor cars. These were Gorman’s illustrations. I should
not have thought that motor cars actually preserve life; but Gorman is a
good orator and a master in the art of concealing the weak points of
his argument. His hearers were quite ready to ignore the mortality
statistics of our new motor traffic. The pig-breeding scientist led a
round of applause.
Gorman developed his theme. The intellect of the modern world, he said,
was not only occupied with the problems of preserving life, but was bent
on making life more convenient and happier, especially the life of the
toiling masses of our people. The mediaeval world built cathedrals, fine
castles, Doge’s palaces and such things. We have supplied mankind with
penny postage stamps. Which, Gorman asked, is the greater achievement:
to house a Doge or two in a building too big for them or to enable
countless mothers--sorrowing and lonely women--to communicate by letter
with the children who had left the maternal home?
After dwelling for some time on the conveniences Gorman passed on to
speak of the pleasures of modern life. He said that pleasures were more
important than work, because without pleasures no work could be really
well done. When he reached that point I began to see how he meant to
work up to the cinematograph and Tim’s invention. I tried to get a
glimpse of Mrs. Ascher’s face. I wanted to find out how she was taking
this glorification of Tim’s blasphemy against art. Unfortunately I could
only see the back of her head. I moved along the side of the hall as
much as I dared in the hope of getting a sight of her face from some
angle. I failed. To this day I do not know whether Mrs. Ascher admired
Gorman’s art as an orator enough to make her forgive the vile purpose
for which it was used.
When I began to listen to the speech again Gorman had reached his
peroration.
The arts of war, he said, were the natural fruits of the human intellect
in a society organised on an aristocratic basis. The development of the
arts of peace and pleasure followed the birth of democracy. Tyrants and
robber barons in old days loved to fight and lived to kill. The common,
kindly men and women of our time, the now at length sovereign people,
lived to love and desire peace above all things.
“The spirit of democracy,” said Gorman, “is moving through the world.
Its coming is like the coming of the spring, gentle, kindly, gradual. We
see it not, but in the fields and hedgerows of the world, past which
it moves, we see the green buds bursting into leaf, the myriad-tinted
flowers opening their petals to the sunlight. We see the lives of humble
men made glad, and our hearts are established with strong faith; faith
in the spirit whose beneficence we recognise, the spirit which at last
is guiding the whole wide world into the way of peace.”
I gathered from these concluding remarks that all danger of war had
passed from the horizon of humanity since the Liberal Government muzzled
the House of Lords.
Gorman did not mention this great feat in plain words. He suggested it
in such a way that the Cabinet Ministers in front of him understood what
he meant, while Lady Kingscourt and her friends thought he was referring
to a revolution in China or Portugal or the establishment of some kind
of representative government in Thibet. Thus everyone was pleased and
Gorman climbed down from the platform amid a burst of applause.
Lady Kingscourt clapped her pretty hands as loudly as any one. Her
husband is a territorial magnate. Her brothers are soldiers. But she is
prepared to welcome democracy and universal peace as warmly as any of
us. Perhaps what attracted her in Gorman’s programme was the prospect of
a great increase in the pleasures of life.
We drank tea, ate sandwiches, cheered our hearts with champagne cup,
chattered loudly, and, the men of the party, stretched our legs for half
an hour. Then we settled down again to gape at Tim’s moving figures. The
new mirrors were well worth the money I spent on them. The thing worked
better, far better, than when I saw it in the barn. I think the audience
was greatly pleased. Everybody said so to me when the time came for
escape from the hall.
Mrs. Ascher and I drove back to Hampstead together. I told her how
Ascher had left the hall and that it might be late before he got home.
She sat silent beside me and I thought that she was wondering what had
happened to her husband. Just before we reached the house she spoke, and
I discovered that she had all the time been thinking of something else,
not Ascher’s absence.
“I was wrong,” she said, “in condemning the cinematograph and this new
invention. It is--at present it is vile beyond words, vile as I thought
it; but I see now that there are possibilities.”
“May I tell Tim that?” I said. “It would cheer him greatly. The poor
boy has never really got over what you said to him in New York, about
blasphemy, you know.”
“You may tell him,” said Mrs. Ascher, “that his invention is capable of
being used for the ends of art; that he has created a mechanical body
and that _we_, the artists, must breathe into it the breath of life.”
We reached the house.
“I am coming in, if I may,” I said. “Mr. Ascher asked me to see him
to-night if possible. I promised to wait for him even if he does not get
home till very late.”
“I shall not sit up with you,” said Mrs. Ascher. “I want to be alone to
think. I want to discover the way in which art is to take possession of
mechanics, how it is to inspire all new discoveries, to raise them from
the level of material things up and up to the mountain tops of beautiful
emotion.”
“I shall tell Tim that,” I said. “He’ll be awfully pleased.”
Mrs. Ascher held my hand, bidding me an impressive good-night.
“There is a spirit,” she said, “which moves among the multitudinous
blind gropings of humanity. It moves all unseen and unknown by men,
guiding their pitiful endeavours to the Great End. That End is Duty.
That spirit is Art. To recognise it is Faith.”
The Irish bishop who attended my party is a liberal and highly educated
churchman. He once told me about a Spirit which moves very much as Mrs.
Ascher’s does. Its aim was goodness and the bishop called it God. His
definition of faith was, except for the different object, precisely Mrs.
Ascher’s.
Gorman propounds a somewhat similar philosophy of life, and occasionally
talks about faith in the same rapt way. I do not suppose that he
actually holds the faith he preaches, certainly not as Mrs. Ascher and
the bishop hold theirs. No Irishman is, or ever can be, a Liberal after
the English fashion; but Gorman does talk about the spirit of democracy
and says he looks forward to its guiding Humanity to a great end,
universal peace.
I made my way into Ascher’s study, wondering how long I should have to
wait for him.
I wondered where he was and what he was doing. Who sent Jack Heneage
to search for Ascher? I could not remember whose private secretary Jack
was. Mrs. Ascher was thinking of art and beauty, the bishop, no doubt
about God and goodness. Gorman was turning over in his mind nice new
phrases about democracy and peace. What was Ascher doing?