_VIVACE_
_VIVACE_
[ I ]
A very different England, that of 1890, and yet curiously the same.
In some ways so fabulous, so remote from us; in others so near,
terrifyingly near and like us. An England morally buried in great foggy
wrappings of hypocrisy and prosperity and cheapness. The wealth of
that England, the maritime power of that England, its worse than R.
L. S. optimism, its righteous cant! Victoria, broad-bottomed on her
people’s will; the possessing class, heavy-bottomed on the people’s
neck. The working class beginning to heave restively, but still Moody
and Sankeyish, still under the Golden Rule of “ever remember, my dear
Bert, you may one day be manager of that concern.” The middle classes,
especially the traders, making money hand over fist, and still “praying
that our unexampled prosperity may last.” The aristocracy still
pretty flip, keeping its tail up. Still lots of respect for Rank and
Property—Dizzy not long dead, and his novels not yet grotesques, not
yet wholly a fossil parody. The intellectuals æsthetic and Oscarish, or
æsthetic and Burne-Morrisy, or Utilitarian and Huxley-Darwinish.
Come where the booze is cheaper.
Where I could live on a pound a week in lux-u-ry.
The world is so full of a number of things, I am _sure_ we should ALL
be as Happy as KINGS.
Consols over par.
Lord Claud Hamilton and White at the Admiralty, building, building,
building.
Building a majestic ruin.
George Moore, an elegant scandal in a hansom; Hardy a rural atheistic
scandal, not yet discovered to be an intolerable bore; Oscar prancing
negligently, O so clever, O so lah-di-dah.
Rummy old England. Pox on you, you old bitch, you’ve made worms’ meat
of us. (We’ve made worms’ meat of ourselves.) But still, let me look
back upon thee. Timon knew thee.
* * * * *
The Winterbournes were not gentry, but nourished vague and unfounded
traditions of past genteel splendours. They were, however, fairly
comfortable middle class. Worcestershire, migrated to Sheffield.
Methodist on female side; C. of E. on the Winterbourne side. Young
George Augustus—father of our George—was pretty comfortable. His
mother was a dominating old bitch who destroyed his initiative and
courage, but in the eighties hardly any one had the sense to tell
dominating bitch-mothers to go to hell. George Augustus didn’t.
At fifteen he wrote a Non-Conformist tract (which was published)
expressing nothing but his dear Mamma’s views. He became top of his
school, in conformity with dear Mamma’s views also. He did not go to
Oxford, as he wanted, because dear Mamma thought it unpractical. And he
did pass his examinations as a lawyer, because dear Mamma thought it so
eminently right that he should have a profession and that there should
be a lawyer in the family. George Augustus was a third son. The eldest
son became a Non-Conformist parson, because dear Mamma had prayed for
guidance on her marriage night and during her first pregnancy (only she
never mentioned such horrid occurrences, even to her husband, but—she
had “prayed for guidance”) and it had been revealed to her that her
first-born must take up The Ministry. And take it up, poor devil, he
did. The second son had a little bit of spunk, and his dear Mamma made
him a waster. Remained George Augustus, dear Mamma’s darling chick,
who prayed at her knee, and was flogged regularly once a month by dear
Papa, because the Scripture says: Spare the rod, spoil the child. Dear
Papa had never done anything in particular, lived on his “means,” was
generally rather in debt, and spent the last fifteen years of his life
praying to the C. of E. God in the garden, while dear Mamma prayed to
John Wesley’s God in her bedroom. Dear Mamma admired dear pious Mr.
Bright and grand Mr. Gladstone; but dear Papa collected and even read
all the works of the Right Hnble the Earl of Beaconsfield, K. G.
Still, George Augustus was pretty comfortable. The one thing he wanted
in life was to be pretty comfortable. After he became a full-blown
solicitor, at the age of twenty-four, a family council was held.
Present: Dear Mamma, dear Papa, George Augustus. Nothing formal, _of_
course, just a cosy little family gathering after tea, round the
blazing hearth (coal was cheap in Sheffield then), rep curtains drawn,
and sweet domestic peace. Dear Papa opened the proceedings:
“George, you are now come to man’s estate. At considerable sacrifice,
your dear Mamma and I have given you a Profession. You are an Admitted
Solicitor, and we are proud—I think we may say ‘proud,’ Mamma?—that
we have a legal luminary in the family....”
But dear Mamma could not even allow dear Papa the semblance of
authority, respected not even the forms of Limited Domestic Monarchy,
and cut in:
“Your Papa is right, George. The question is now, what are you going to
_do_ in your Profession?”
Did a feeble hope of escape cross the bright young mind of George
Augustus? Or was that supine love of being pretty comfortable added
to the terror of disobeying dear Mamma, already dominant? He murmured
something about “getting in with a respectable and old-established
firm in London.” At the word “London” dear Mamma bridled. Although
Mr. Gladstone spent much of his time in London, it was notorious in
Sheffield Non-Conformist circles that London was a haunt of vice,
filled with theatres and unmentionable women. Besides, dear Mamma was
not going to let George Augustus off so easily; she still meant he
should plough a deuce of a long furrow of filial obedience.
“I cannot hear of _London_, George. It would break my heart and bring
your dear Papa’s grey hairs” (dear Papa hated to be reminded that he
was bald) “in sorrow to the grave, if you went to the _bad_ in that
dreadful town. Think how we should feel if we heard you had visited a
_Theatre!_ No, George, we shall not fail in our duty. We have brought
you up to be a God-fearing Christian man... et patata et patati.”
The upshot was, of course, that dear George Augustus did not go to
London. He didn’t even get an office of his own in Sheffield. It was
agreed that George Augustus would never marry (except for a whore or
two, furtively and ineffectually possessed on furtive ineffectual
sprees in London, George Augustus was a virgin), but would spend his
life with dear Mamma, and (afterthought) dear Papa. So some structural
alterations were made in the house. Another entrance was made, with a
new brass plate engraved in copperplate: