There is nothing like personal contact with a thing to make you
understand its reality, and when the revolution knocked my hat off into
the road I felt myself faced with no idle dream. There was something
about the top-hat of the common or garden clerk that angered the
revolutionists, and they did not seem to recognise in me a toiler like
themselves. Yet the only difference was that I worked a jolly sight
harder than most of them, and they little knew that at that moment I was
hurrying about among them simply to take mental notes in a highly
sympathetic and artistic spirit. Mine was not the only top-hat that
roused their ire; in fact, they regarded this hateful but honourable
head-covering as an embodiment of Capital; therefore they knocked it off
whenever they saw it among them. Legally this was assault, if not
battery, but they cared nothing for that, and in another and more
ferocious sort of upheaval, no doubt, they would have knocked off the
heads under the hats as well as the hats themselves. This, however, they
did not do; in fact, the revolution, taken piecemeal, which is the only
way a single pedestrian can take it, was an utter coward, for at the
word “copper,” whole gangs of twenty or thirty men would evaporate, only
to form again as soon as the guardians of the peace had disappeared.
Such, indeed, was the celerity of the revolution when threatened with
the law, that again and again the police charged thin air. Doubtless
this was the result of hunger, for had the people been well fed, they
would have been braver. But, of course, if they had been well fed, they
would not have revolted. In fact, a revolution is a very good example of
cause and effect.
My top-hat was knocked off for the third time in Oxford Street, and at
the same moment somebody grabbed at my watch-chain and tried to possess
themselves of my “Waterbury.” In fact, the top-hat was really a source
of danger, and, at the third loss, I ignored the hat, now much the worse
for wear, and left it for the younger members of the revolution to play
football with. I then went on bareheaded, until reaching a small shop in
a back street that had not been penetrated by the mob. Here I purchased
a cloth cap of dingy appearance and a brown muffler, and, thus
accoutered, I plunged into the fray once more.
The men in Oxford Street were armed with stones, and when a private
carriage passed down the way, they broke the windows. The hansom, the
harmless four-wheeler, and the groaning omnibus they did not molest; but
a private carriage awoke their worst passions, and they smashed the
windows, utterly regardless of the harm they might be doing to the
occupant—fair or otherwise.
Disguised as one of themselves with the cap and muffler, I was no
further molested, and spent an hour or two among the people, to find
that, as the day advanced, they began to cool down. It seemed as if the
fever of battle was burning itself out, and when there rose a rumour
that the troops had been called into the streets to help the police, a
great change came o’er the spirit of the scene. The revolution hated to
hear about the soldiers, because, of course, it was by no means ready
for any such violent measures. In fact, so far as I was concerned, the
incident was now at an end, and I returned home to Aunt Augusta full of
my great intelligence. She had been painting rather industriously all
day and had heard nothing of the peril that had threatened the
metropolis. We talked a great deal about it, and she much regretted my
top-hat and the events that had led to its destruction; but, womanlike,
a little personal trifle interested her far more than the calamity that
promised to shake the forces of Capital and Labour to the core, and very
likely convulse the civilised world; and this was the trifling accident
of my birthday.
I was, in fact, eighteen, and Aunt Augusta had already wished me many
happy returns of the day and given me a present of an original and very
beautiful water-colour drawing of the Thames at Westminster. But now she
returned to the subject, though I tried to choke her off it and
explained that after one reaches man’s estate these accidental
anniversaries are better forgotten.
“If you don’t remember anything that doesn’t matter,” I said to her,
“then you have all the more room in your memory for everything that
does.”
But she insisted on making a stir about my natal day, and since London
was too unsettled, in her opinion, to go to a theatre, she decided to
have a lively evening at home, beginning with a dinner of unusual
variety and style. She was rather a classy cook and had learned the
science when an art student in Paris; so she sent out Jane to get
supplies, and asked me if I thought I could venture out, too, and buy a
bottle of champagne. I felt secretly that, owing to the hunger and so on
of the masses, one ought not to be drinking champagne on a night like
this. It was that sort of callous indifference that caused the French
Revolution, and I told Aunt Augusta that if the proletariat knew what
she and I were up to, they might very likely swoop upon her flat and
ransack it, or set it on fire. But she answered, very truly, that the
proletariat would not know, and as to have argued further would have
laid me under suspicion of cowardice, I went out to buy the sparkling
beverage and bring it home. Luckily for the banquet, Aunt Augusta had
received rather a swagger commission for four of her etchings the day
before, and so she was out of sympathy with the sufferings of the people
and in sympathy with the anniversary of my birth.
We had a great time in a gastronomic sense. The meal embraced
mock-turtle soup, an omelette with herbs chopped up in it, a pheasant
and chipped potatoes, an apple tart and tinned apricots, anchovies on
toast, pears, and a pineapple—all, of course, washed down with the juice
of the grape and coffee.
Champagne is a most hopeful wine, which you can have sweet or dry, and
after drinking a full glass, I began to suggest plans for improving the
state of the proletariat, accompanied by a suspicion that their
condition was not so bad as they wanted us to think. I talked a great
deal to Aunt Augusta, and smoked a whole packet of cigarettes. She also
smoked and drank her coffee and listened to me intently.
Presently, I began to discuss myself and my career, and thanked her very
heartily for helping it forward to the best of her power, as she was
doing.
She was kind enough to say that I had brought a great deal of pleasure
into her life, and she didn’t know what she would do without me when I
started rooms on my own account. I allayed her fears in this matter and
promised I would not leave her for at least another year.
“From eighteen till nineteen you may count upon me,” I said, “though
after another year has passed, I don’t know what may happen, because
life is so full of surprises.”
I then retraced the year, from the day that Doctor Dunston had sent for
me to see him and I thought it was fireworks, up to the present moment
in the throes of the revolution. It seemed almost impossible that so
much could happen in the time; and as I smoked and indulged in a
retrospect, as the saying is, I felt that the battle of life had been
fought almost day and night. It had not yet been won, exactly, but there
seemed fair reason to expect that with luck it soon would be.
In fact, the champagne made me decidedly too pleased with all I had
done, and I believe, if the truth could have been known, that I talked
rather big to Aunt Augusta and was on better terms with myself than the
occasion demanded.
I began to sketch out my programme of life for my eighteenth year, and
there is no doubt that it was too ambitious. At any rate, Aunt Augusta
evidently felt that I was planning more than I could perform, and she
turned my thoughts into another channel.
“Of course all sorts of delightful new things will happen to you,” she
said, “but it would be a pity to forget the adventures you have already
had.”
“I shall never forget them,” I assured her; but she told me that memory
played tricks with the wisest people, and strongly advised me to spend
some few spare evenings in writing a diary of the past, while it was
fresh in mind.
“It would be of great help to your next brother,” she told me. “He’ll be
coming to London from Merivale in another eighteen months or so, and
he’d love to hear all that has happened to you.”
In fact, Aunt Augusta openly advised a diary founded upon the past, and
though my feeling is always to let the past bury the past and be pushing
forward to fresh fields and pastures new, as the poet has it, still,
there are many people—generally of the female sex—who take a great
interest in looking back to the time when they were younger, and
mourning their golden prime—though it probably wasn’t half as golden
really as it seems to them, looking back at it. Therefore, solely to
please my Aunt Augusta, I fell in with this suggestion and allowed
myself to retrace my first wavering steps in the worlds of art and
finance.
I set down the bare, unvarnished tale and told the simple truth as far
as I could remember it. I preserved the aloof attitude of the born
_raconteur_, and allowed my _dramatis personæ_ to flit across the page
in the habit in which they lived. I don’t think I forgot anybody, and
tried to deal impartially with them all. I told of my dinner with Mr.
Pepys and his sister, of the official life, enriched with the ripe
humanity of Mr. Westonshaugh, the generous friendship of Mr. Blades and
the various characteristics of Dicky Travers, the hero of the L.A.C.;
Bassett, the martial; Wardle, the musical; Tomlinson, the equine; and
Bent, the horticultural. I told of my experiences with the shady
customer, and on the cinder-path and the cricket-field. I retraced my
approach to the drama, and the grey-eyed girl, and Brightwin, and Mr.
Smith, and the others, crowned by the soaring figure of Mr. Montgomery
Merridew.
Then I chronicled the glad hour when I repaired to our West-End Branch
and was lifted to the friendship of Mr. Walter and Mr. Bright; and
lastly, I set down my earliest experience on the paths of literature, in
connection with tragic poetry and dramatic criticism.
By a happy thought, I presented the manuscript of this “crowded hour of
glorious life,” as the poet has it, to Aunt Augusta on her own birthday.
In fact, the thirty-eighth anniversary of that auspicious event was
gladdened for her by the gift of my diary.
I rejoice to say that it afforded her pleasure, but regret to add that
it was not the sort of pleasure I intended.
“Life, from the angle of seventeen, is so dreadfully funny—seen from the
angle of thirty-eight,” she assured me—though why it should be “funny”
she was not apparently able to explain.
“It may be interesting, but I don’t see anything particularly funny
about it, Aunt Augusta,” I answered, slightly hurt at the adjective.
She did not attempt to argue, but continued:
“You must promise me to write your eighteenth year, too,” she said. “It
will be something for your old aunt to look forward to. You must promise
faithfully.”
“That depends,” I answered rather coldly. “Life is life, and I find it a
serious thing, though it may seem ‘dreadfully funny’ to you, Aunt
Augusta. Anyhow, funny or not funny, I shall not butcher my eighteenth
year to make a Roman holiday, as they say. Important things _must_
happen to me in my eighteenth year. Nobody can get through their
eighteenth year without important events; but if you think———-”
“Forgive me,” she said. “I didn’t mean it for a moment. It’s a lovely
diary, and I shall always treasure it, and I wouldn’t have a word
altered—and it’s my birthday, so you mustn’t be cross.”
Well, I forgave her; because she’s really a jolly old thing, and of the
greatest assistance to me behind the scenes, so to speak. Besides,
everybody knows that the feminine sense of humour is merely dust and
ashes. No doubt, if I had written with badinage or pleasantry, in a
light and transient vein, enlivened by sparks of persiflage and
burlesque, she would have taken it in a tearful spirit and cried over
it.
But only a woman can laugh at the naked truth; men know it’s a jolly
sight too serious. To laugh at my diary was the act of the same woman
who drank champagne on the night of the revolution. We must remember
that they are not as we are, and treat them accordingly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s note:
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
4.10 careful [caligraphy] _sic_
28.13 He said that chiaro[ o]scuro Removed.
165.3 increasing satisfaction and happiness.[)] Added.