Chapter IV: Part 4

Little Joseph's entry into college life abundantly fulfilled the expectations held of him. The head of his college wrote to his great-aunt (the wife of the Under Secretary of State) "... he has something in him of what men of Old called prophecy and we term genius ...", old Dr. Biddlecup the Dean asked the boy to dinner, and afterwards assured his father that little Joseph was the image of William Pitt, whom he falsely pretended to have seen in childhood, and to whom the Duggletons were related through Mrs. Duggleton's grandmother, whose sister had married the first cousin of the Saviour of Europe.

Dr. Biddlecup was an old man and may not have been accurate in his historical pretensions, but the main truth of what he said was certain, for Joseph resembled the great statesman at once in his physical appearance, for he was sallow and had a turned-up nose: in his gifts: in his oratory which was ever remarkable at the social clubs and wines--and alas! in his fondness for port.

Indeed, little Joseph had to pay the price of concentrating in himself the genius of three generations, he suffered more than one of the temptations that assault men of vigorous imagination. He kept late hours, drank--perhaps not always to excess but always over-frequently--and gambled, if not beyond his means, at least with a feverish energy that was ruinous to his health. He fell desperately ill in the fortnight before his schools, but he was granted an _aegrotat_, a degree equivalent in his case to a First Class in Honours, and he was asked by one or other of the Colleges to compete for a Fellowship; it was, however, given to another candidate.

After this failure he went home, and on his father's advice, attempted political work; but the hurry and noise of an election disgusted him, and it is feared that his cynical and highly epigrammatic speeches were another cause of his defeat.

Sir William Mackle, who had watched the boy with the tenderest interest and listened to his fancied experiences with a father's patience, ordered complete rest and change, and recommended the South of France; he was sent thither with a worthless friend or rather dependent, who permitted the lad to gamble and even to borrow money, and it was this friend to whom Sir William (in his letter to the Honourable Mr. Duggleton acknowledging receipt of his cheque) attributed the tragedy that followed.

"Had he not," wrote the distinguished physician, "permitted our poor Joseph to borrow money of him; had he resolutely refused to drink wine at dinner; had he locked Joseph up in his room every evening at the opening hour of the Casino, we should not have to deplore the loss of one of England's noblest." Nor did the false friend make things easier for the bereaved father by suggesting ere twelve short months had elapsed that the sums Joseph had borrowed of him should be repaid.

Joseph, one fatal night, somewhat heated by wine, had heard a Frenchman say to an Italian at his elbow certain very outrageous things about one Mazzini. The pair were discussing a local bookmaker, but the boy, whose passion for Italian unity is now well known, imagined that the Philosopher and Statesman was in question; he fell into such a passion and attacked these offensive foreigners with such violence as to bring on an attack from which he did not recover: his grave now whitens the hillside of the Monte Resorto (in French Mont-resort).

He left some fifty short poems in the manner of Shelley, Rossetti and Swinburne, and a few in an individual style that would surely have developed with age. These have since been gathered into a volume and go far to prove the truth of his father's despairing cry: "Joseph," the poor man sobbed as he knelt by the insanitary curtained bed on which the body lay, "Joseph would have done for the name of Duggleton in literature what my Uncle did for it in politics."

His portrait may be found in _Annals of the Rutlandshire Gentry_, a book recently published privately by subscriptions of two guineas, payable to the gentleman who produced that handsome volume.

ON A LOST MANUSCRIPT

If this page does not appal you, nothing will.

If these first words do not fill you with an uneasy presentiment of doom, indeed, indeed you have been hitherto blessed in an ignorance of woe.

It is lost! What is lost? The revelation this page was to afford. The essay which was to have stood here upon page 127 of my book: the noblest of them all.

The words you so eagerly expected, the full exposition which was to have brought you such relief, is not here.

It was lost just after I wrote it. It can never be re-written; it is gone.

Much depended upon it; it would have led you to a great and to a rapidly acquired fortune; but you must not ask for it. You must turn your mind away. It cannot be re-written, and all that can take its place is a sort of dirge for departed and irrecoverable things.

"Lugete o Veneres Cupidinesque," which signifies "Mourn oh! you pleasant people, you spirits that attend the happiness of mankind": "et quantum est hominum venustiorum," which signifies "and you such mortals as are chiefly attached to delightful things." _Passer_, etc., which signifies my little, careful, tidy bit of writing, _mortuus est_, is lost. I lost it in a cab.

It was a noble and accomplished thing. Pliny would have loved it who said: "Ea est stomachi mei natura ut nil nisi merum atque totum velit," which signifies "such is the character of my taste that it will tolerate nothing but what is absolute and full." ... It is no use grumbling about the Latin. The nature of great disasters calls out for that foundational tongue. They roll as it were (do the great disasters of our time) right down the emptiness of the centuries until they strike the walls of Rome and provoke these sonorous echoes worthy of mighty things.

It was to have stood here instead of this, its poor apologist. It was to have filled these lines, this space, this very page. It is not here. You all know how, coming eagerly to a house to see someone dearly loved, you find in their place on entering a sister or a friend who makes excuses for them; you all know how the mind grows blank at the news and all nature around one shrivels. It is a worse emptiness than to be alone. So it is with me when I consider this as I write it, and then think of That Other which should have taken its place; for what I am writing now is like a little wizened figure dressed in mourning and weeping before a deserted shrine, but That Other which I have lost would have been like an Emperor returned from a triumph and seated upon a throne.

Indeed, indeed it was admirable! If you ask me where I wrote it, it was in Constantine, upon the Rock of Cirta, where the storms come bowling at you from Mount Atlas and where you feel yourself part of the sky. At least it was there in Cirta that I blocked out the thing, for efforts of that magnitude are not completed in one place or day. It was in Cirta that I carved it into form and gave it a general life, upon the 17th of January, 1905, sitting where long ago Massinissa had come riding in through the only gate of the city, sitting his horse without stirrups or bridle. Beside me, as I wrote, an Arab looked carefully at every word and shook his head because he could not understand the language; but the Muses understood and Apollo, which were its authors almost as much as I. How graceful it was and yet how firm! How generous and yet how particular! How easy, how superb, and yet how stuffed with dignity! There ran through it, half-perceived and essential, a sort of broken rhythm that never descended to rhetoric, but seemed to enliven and lift up the order of the words until they were filled with something approaching music; and with all this the meaning was fixed and new, the order lucid, the adjectives choice, the verbs strong, the substantives meaty and full of sap. It combined (if I may say so with modesty) all that Milton desired to achieve, with all that Bacon did in the modelling of English.... And it is gone. It will never be seen or read or known at all. It has utterly disappeared nor is it even preserved in any human memory--no, not in my own.

I kept it for a year, closely filing, polishing, and emending it until one would have thought it final, and even then I continued to develop and to mould it. It grew like a young tree in the corner of a fruitful field and gave an enduring pleasure. It never left me by night or by day; it crossed the Pyrenees with me seven times and the Mediterranean twice. It rode horses with me and was become a part of my habit everywhere. In trying to ford the Sousseyou I held it high out of the water, saving it alone, and once by a camp fire I woke and read it in the mountains before dawn. My companions slept on either side of me. The great brands of pine glowed and gave me light; there was a complete silence in the forest except for the noise of water, and in the midst of such spells I was so entranced by the beauty of the thing that when I had done my reading I took a dead coal from the fire and wrote at the foot of the paper: "There is not a word which the most exuberant could presume to add, nor one which the most fastidious would dare to erase." All that glory has vanished.

I know very well what the cabman did. He looked through the trap-door in the top of the roof to see if I had left anything behind. It was in Vigo Street, at the corner, that the fate struck. He looked and saw a sheet or two of paper--something of no value. He crumpled it up and threw it away, and it joined the company which men have not been thought worthy to know. It went to join Calvus and the dreadful books of the Sibyl, and those charred leaves which were found on the floor where Chatterton lay dead.

I went three times to Scotland Yard, allowing long intervals and torturing myself with hope. Three times my hands thought to hold it, and three times they closed on nothingness. A policeman then told me that cabmen very rarely brought him written things, but rather sticks, gloves, rings, purses, parcels, umbrellas, and the crushed hats of drunken men, not often verse or prose; and I abandoned my quest.

There are some reading this who may think me a trifle too fond and may doubt the great glory to which I testify here. They will remember how singularly the things we no longer possess rise upon the imagination and enlarge themselves, and they will quote that pathetic error whereby the dead become much dearer to us when we can no longer smile into their faces or do them the good we desire. They will suggest (most tenderly) that loss and the enchantment of memory have lent a thought too much of radiance and of harmony to what was certainly a noble creation of the mind, but still human and shot with error.

To such a criticism I cannot reply, I have no longer, alas! the best of replies, the Thing Itself, the Achievement: and not having that I have nothing. I am without weapons. Who shall convince of personality, of beauty, or of holiness, unless they be seen and felt? So it is with letters, and if I am not believed--or even if I am--it is of little moment, for the beloved object is rapt away.

Its matter--if one can say that anything so manifold and exalted had a mere subject--its matter was the effect of the piercing of the Suez Canal upon coastwise trade in the Mediterranean, but it is profane to bring before the general gaze a title which can tell the world nothing of the iridescence and vitality it has lost.

I will not console myself with the uncertain guess that things perished are in some way recoverable beyond the stars, nor hope to see and read again the artistry and the result whose loss I have mourned in these lines; but if, as the wisest men imagine, there is a place of repose for whatever most deserves it among the shades, there either I or others worthier may read what will never be read by living eyes or praised by living lips again. It may be so. But the loss alone is certain.

ON A MAN WHO WAS PROTECTED BY ANOTHER MAN

There was once a man called Mahmoud. He had other names, such as Ali, Akbar, and Shmaeil, and so forth, with which I will not trouble you, because in very short stories it is important not to confuse the mind. I have been assured of this by many authorities, some of whom make a great deal of money by short stories, and all of whom know a great deal about the way in which they ought to be written.

Now I come to think of it, I very much doubt whether this is a short story at all, for it has no plot so far and I do not see any plot developing. No matter. The thing is to say what one has to say humbly but fully. Providence will look after the rest.

So, as I was saying, there was a man called Mahmoud. He lived in a country entirely made of sand. There were hills which on the maps were called mountains, but when you came to look at them they were only a lot more sand, and there was nothing about them except an aspect of sand heaped up. You may say, "How, then, did Mahmoud build a house?" He did not. He lived in a tent. "But," you continue, "what did he do about drinking?" Well, it was Mahmoud's habit to go to a place where he knew that by scratching a little he would find bad water, and there he would scratch a little and find it, and, being an abstemious man, he needed but a drop.

The sun in Mahmoud's country was extremely hot. It stood right up above one's head and looked like the little thing that you get in the focus of a burning glass. The sun made it almost impossible to move, except in the early morning or at evening, and even during the night it was not particularly cool. It never rained in this place.

There were no rivers and no trees. There was no grass, and the only animal was a camel. The camel was content to eat a kind of scrub that grew here and there on the sand, and it drank the little water Mahmoud could afford it, and was permanently happy. So was Mahmoud. Beneath him the sand sloped down until it met the sea, which was tepid on account of the great heat, and in which were a lot of fish, pearls, and other things. Every now and then Mahmoud would force a son or domestic of his to go down and hoick out a pearl, and this pearl he would exchange for something that he absolutely needed, such as a new tent or a new camel, and then he went on living the way he had been living before.

Now, one day there came to this part of the world a man called Smith. He was dressed as you and I are, in trousers and a coat and boots, and he had a billycock hat on. He had a foolish, anxious face. He did not keep his word particularly; and he was exceedingly fond of money. He had spent most of his life accumulating all sorts of wealth in a great bag, and he landed with this bag in Mahmoud's country, and Mahmoud was as polite to him as the heat would allow. Then Mahmoud said to him:

"You appear to be a very rich man."

And Smith said:

"I am," and opened his bag and showed a great quantity of things. So Mahmoud was pleased and astonished, and fussed a good deal considering the climate, and got quite a quantity of pearls out of the sea, and gave them to Smith, who let him have a gun, but a bad one; and he, Smith, retained a good rifle. Then Smith sat down and waited for about six months, living on the provisions he had brought in his bag, until Mahmoud said to him:

"What have you come to do here?"

And Smith said:

"Why, to tell you the honest truth, I have come to protect you."

So Mahmoud thought a long time, smoking a pipe, because he did not understand a word of what Smith had said. Then Mahmoud said:

"All right, protect away," and after that there was a silence for about another six months, and nothing had happened.

Mahmoud did not mind being protected, because it made no difference to him, and after a certain time he had got all he wanted out of Smith, and was tired of bothering about the pearls. So he and Smith just lived side by side doing nothing in particular, except that Smith went on protecting and that Mahmoud went on being protected. But while Mahmoud was perfectly content to be protected till Doomsday, being an easy-going kind of fellow, Smith was more and more put out. He was a trifle irritable by nature. The climate did not suit him. He drank beer and whisky and other things quite dangerous under such a sun, and he came out all over like the measles. He tried to pass the time riding on a camel. At first he thought it great sport, but after a little he got tired of that also. He began to write poetry, all about Mahmoud, and as Mahmoud could not read it did not much matter. Then he wrote poetry about himself, making out Mahmoud to be excessively fond of him, and this poetry he read to himself, and it calmed him; but as Mahmoud did not know about this poetry, Smith got bored with it, and, his irritation increasing, he wrote more poetry, showing Mahmoud to be a villain and a serf, and showing himself, Smith, to be under a divine mission.

Now, just when things had come to this unpleasant state Mahmoud got up and shook himself and began skipping and dancing outside the door of his tent and running round and round it very fast, and waving his hands in the air, and shouting incongruous things.

Smith was exceedingly annoyed by this. He had never gone on like that himself, and he did not see why Mahmoud should. But Mahmoud had lived there a good deal longer than Smith had, and he knew that it was absolutely necessary. There were stories of people in the past who had felt inclined to go on like this and had restrained themselves with terrible consequences. So Mahmoud went on worse than ever, running as fast as he could out into the sand, shouting, leaping into the air, and then running back again as fast as he could, and firing off his gun and calling upon his god.

Smith, whose nerves were at the last stretch, asked Mahmoud savagely what he was about. To this Mahmoud gave no reply, save to twirl round rapidly upon one foot and to fall down foaming at the mouth. Smith, therefore, losing all patience, said to Mahmoud:

"If you do not stop I will shoot you by way of protecting you against yourself."

Mahmoud did not know what the word protected meant, but he understood the word shoot, and shouting with joy, he blew off Smith's hat with his gun, and said:

"A fight! a fight!"

For he loved fighting when he was in this mood, while Smith detested it.

Smith, however, remembered that he had come there to protect Mahmoud; he set his teeth, aimed with his rifle, fired at Mahmoud, and missed.

Mahmoud was so surprised at this that he ran at Smith, and rolled him over and over on the ground. Then they unclenched, both very much out of breath, and Smith said:

"Will you or will you not be protected?"

Mahmoud said he should be delighted. Moreover, he said that he had given his word that he would be protected, and that he was not a man to break his word.

After that he took Smith by the hand and shook it up and down for about five minutes, until Smith was grievously put out.

When they were friends again. Smith said to Mahmoud:

"Will you not go down into the sea and get me some more pearls?"

"No," said Mahmoud, "I am always very exhausted after these attacks."

Then Smith sat down by the seashore and began to cry, thinking of his home and of the green trees and of the North, and he wrote another poem about the burden that he had borne, and of what a great man he was and how he went all over the world protecting people, and how brave he was, and how Mahmoud also was very brave, but how he was much braver than Mahmoud. Then he said:

"Mahmoud, I am going away back to my distant home, unless you will get me more pearls."

But Mahmoud said:

"I cannot get you any more pearls because it is too hot, and if only you will stop you can go on doing some protecting, which, upon my soul, I do like better than anything in the world."

And even as he said this he began jumping about and shouting strange things and waving his gun, and Smith at once went away.

Then Mahmoud sat down sadly by the sea, and thought of how Smith had protected him, and how now all that was passed and the old monotonous life would begin again. But Smith went home, and all his neighbours asked how it was that he protected so well, and he wrote a book to enlighten them, called _How I Protected Mahmoud_. Then all his neighbours read this book and went out in a great boat to do something of the same kind. And Smith could not refrain from smiling.

Mahmoud, however, by his lonely shore, regretted more and more this episode in his dull life, and he wept when he remembered the fantastic Smith, who had such an enormous number of things in his bag and who had protected him; and he also wrote a poem, which is rather difficult to understand in connection with the business, but which to him exactly described it. And the poem went like this; having no metre and no rhyming, and being sung to three notes and a quarter in a kind of wail:

"When the jackal and the lion meet it is full moon; it is full moon and the gazelles are abroad."

"Why are the gazelles abroad when the jackal and the lion meet: when it is full moon in the desert and there is no wind?"

"There is no wind because the gazelles are abroad, the moon is at the full, and the lion and the jackal are together."

"Where is he that protected me and where is the great battle and the shouts and the feasting afterwards, and where is that bag?"

"But we dwell in the desert always, and men do not visit us, and the lion and the jackal have met, and it is full moon, O gazelles!"

Mahmoud was so pleased with this song that he wrote it down, a thing he only did with one song out of several thousands, for he wrote with difficulty, but I think it a most ridiculous song, and I far prefer Smith's, though you would never know it had to do with the same business.

ON NATIONAL DEBTS (WHICH ARE IMAGINARIES AND TRUE NOTHINGS OF STATE)

One day Peter and Paul--I knew them both, the dear fellows: Peter perhaps a trifle wild, Paul a little priggish, but that is no matter--one day, I say, Peter and Paul (who lived together in rooms off Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, a very delightful spot) were talking over their mutual affairs.

"My dear Paul," said Peter, "I wish I could persuade you to this expenditure. It will be to our mutual advantage. Come now, you have ten thousand a year of your own and I with great difficulty earn a hundred; it is surprising that you should make the fuss you do. Besides which you well know that this feeding off packing-cases is irksome; we really need a table and it will but cost ten pounds."

To all this Paul listened doubtfully, pursing up his lips, joining the tips of his fingers, crossing his legs and playing the solemn fool generally.

"Peter," said he, "I mislike this scheme of yours. It is a heavy outlay for a single moment. It would disturb our credit, and yours especially, for your share would come to five pounds and you would have to put off paying the Press-Cutting agency to which you foolishly subscribe. No; there is an infinitely better way than this crude idea of paying cash down in common. I will lend the whole sum of ten pounds to our common stock and we will each pay one pound a year as interest to myself for the loan. I for my part will not shirk my duty in the matter of this interest and I sincerely trust you will not shirk yours."

Peter was so delighted with this arrangement that his gratitude knew no bounds. He would frequently compliment himself in private on the advantage of living with Paul, and when he went out to see his friends it was with the jovial air of the Man with the Bottomless Purse, for he did not feel the pound a year he had to pay, and Paul always seemed willing to undertake similar expenses on similar terms. He purchased a bronze over-mantel, he fitted the rooms with electric light, he bought (for the common use) a large prize dog for £56, and he was for ever bringing in made dishes, bottles of wine and what not, all paid for by this lending of his. The interest increased to £20 and then to £30 a year, but Paul was so rigorously honest, prompt and exact in paying himself the interest that Peter could not bear to be behindhand or to seem less punctual and upright than his friend. But so high a proportion of his small income going in interest left poor Peter but a meagre margin for himself and he had to dine at Lockhart's and get his clothes ready made, which (to a refined and sensitive soul such as his) was a grievous trial.

Some little time after a Fishmonger who had attained to Cabinet rank was married to the daughter of a Levantine and London was in consequence illuminated. Paul said to Peter in his jovial way, "It is imperative that we should show no meanness upon this occasion. We are known for the most flourishing and well-to-do pair of bachelors in the neighbourhood, and I have not hesitated (for I know I had your consent beforehand) to go to Messrs. Brock and order an immense quantity of fireworks for the balcony on this auspicious occasion. Not a word. The loan is mine and very freely do I make it to our Mutual Position."

So that night there was an illumination at their flat, and the centre-piece was a vast combination of roses, thistles, shamrocks, leeks, kangaroos, beavers, schamboks, and other national emblems, and beneath it the motto, "United we stand, divided we fall: Peter and Paul," in flaming letters two feet high.

Peter was after this permanently reduced to living upon rice and to mending his own clothes; but he could easily see how fair the arrangement was, and he was not the man to grumble at a free contract. Moreover, he was expecting a rise in salary from the editor of the _Hoot_, in which paper he wrote "Woman's World", and signed it "Emily".

At the close of the year Peter had some difficulty in meeting the interest, though Paul had, with true business probity, paid his on the very day it fell due. Peter therefore approached Paul with some little diffidence and hesitation, saying:

"Paul: I trust you will excuse me, but I beg you will be so very good as to see your way, if possible, to granting me an extension of time in the matter of paying my interest."

Paul, who was above everything regular and methodical, replied:

"Hum, chrm, chrum, chrm. Well, my dear Peter, it would not be generous to press you, but I trust you will remember that this money has not been spent upon my private enjoyment. It has gone for the glory of our Mutual Position; pray do not forget that, Peter; and remember also that if you have to pay interest, so have I, so have I. We are all in the same boat, Peter, sink or swim; sink or swim...." Then his face brightened, he patted Peter genially on the shoulder and added: "Do not think me harsh, Peter. It is necessary that I should keep to a strict, business-like way of doing things, for I have a large property to manage; but you may be sure that my friendship for you is of more value to me than a few paltry sovereigns. I will lend you the sum you owe to the interest on the Common Debt, and though in strict right you alone should pay the interest on this new loan I will call half of it my own and you shall pay but £1 a year on it for ever."

Peter's eyes swam with tears at Paul's generosity, and he thanked his stars that his lot had been cast with such a man. But when Paul came again with a grave face and said to him, "Peter, my boy, we must insure at once against burglars: the underwriters demand a hundred pounds," his heart broke, and he could not endure the thought of further payments. Paul, however, with the quiet good sense that characterised him, pointed out the necessity of the payment and, eyeing Peter with compassion for a moment, told him that he had long been feeling that he (Peter) had been unfairly taxed. "It is a principle" (said Paul) "that taxation should fall upon men in proportion to their ability to pay it. I am determined that, whatever happens, you shall in future pay but a third of the interest that may accrue upon further loans." It was in vain that Peter pointed out that, in his case, even a thirtieth would mean starvation; Paul was firm and carried his point.

The wretched Peter was now but skin and bone, and his earning power, small as it had ever been, was considerably lessened. Paul began to fear very seriously for his invested funds: he therefore kept up Peter's spirits as best he could with such advice as the following:--

"Dear Peter, do not repine; your lot is indeed hard, but it has its silver lining. You are the member of a partnership famous among all other bachelor-residences for its display of fireworks and its fine furniture. So valuable is the room in which you live that the insurance alone is the wonder and envy of our neighbours. Consider also how firm and stable these loans make our comradeship. They give me a stake in the rooms and furnish a ready market for the spare capital of our little community. The interest WE pay upon the fund is an evidence of our social rank, and all London stares with astonishment at the flat of Peter and Paul, which can without an effort buy such gorgeous furniture at a moment's notice."

But, alas! these well-meant words were of no avail. On a beautiful spring day, when all the world seemed to be holding him to the joys of living, Peter passed quietly away in his little truckle bed, unattended even by a doctor, whose fees would have necessitated a loan the interest of which he could never have paid.

Paul, on the death of Peter, gave way at first to bitter recrimination. "Is this the way," he said, "that you repay years of unstinted generosity? Nay, is this the way you meet your sacred obligations? You promised upon a thousand occasions to pay your share of the interest for ever, and now like a defaulter you abandon your post and destroy half the revenue of our firm by one intempestive and thoughtless act! Had you but possessed a little property which, properly secured, would continue to meet the claims you had incurred, I had not blamed you. But a man who earns all that he possesses has no right to pledge himself to perpetual payment unless he is prepared to live for ever!"

Nobler thoughts, however, succeeded this outburst, and Paul threw himself upon the bed of his Departed Friend and moaned. "Who now will pay me an income in return for my investments? All my fortune is sunk in this flat, though I myself pay the interest never so regularly, it will not increase my fortune by one farthing! I shall as I live consume a fund which will never be replenished, and within a short time I shall be compelled to work for my living!"

Maddened by this last reflection, he dashed into the street, hurried northward through-the-now-rapidly-gathering-darkness, and drowned himself in the Regent's Canal, just where it runs by the Zoological Gardens, under the bridge that leads to the cages of the larger pachyderms.

Thus miserably perished Peter and Paul, the one in the thirtieth, the other in the forty-seventh year of his age, both victims to their ignorance of _Mrs. Fawcett's Political Economy for the Young_, the _Nicomachean Ethics_, Bastiat's _Economic Harmonies, The Fourth Council of Lateran on Unfruitful Loans and Usury, The Speeches of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Mr. Brodrick (now Lord Midleton), The Sermons of St. Thomas Aquinas_, under the head "Usuria," Mr. W. S. Lilly's First _Principles in Politics_, and other works too numerous to mention.

ON LORDS

"_Saepe miratus sum_," I have often wondered why men were blamed for seeking to know men of title. That a man should be blamed for the acceptance of, or uniformity with, ideals not his own is right enough; but a man who simply reveres a Lord does nothing so grave: and why he should not revere such a being passes my comprehension.

The institution of Lords has for its object the creation of a high and reverend class; well, a man looks up to them with awe or expresses his reverence and forthwith finds himself accused! Get rid of Lords by all means, if you think there should be none, but do not come pestering me with a rule that no Lord shall be considered while you are making them by the bushel for the special purpose of being considered--_ad considerandum_ as Quintillian has it in his highly Quintillianarian essay on I forget what.

I have heard it said that what is blamed in snobs, _snobinibus quid reatumst_, is not the matter but the manner of their worship. Those who will have it so maintain that we should pay to rank a certain discreet respect which must not be marred by crude expression. They compare snobbishness to immodesty, and profess that the pleasure of acquaintance with the great should be so enjoyed that the great themselves are but half-conscious of the homage offered them: this is rather a subtle and finicky critique of what is in honest minds a natural restraint.

I knew a man once--Chatterley was his name, Shropshire his county, and racing his occupation--who said that a snob was blamed for the offence he gave to Lords themselves. Thus we do well (said this man Chatterley) to admire beautiful women, but who would rush into a room and exclaim loudly at the ladies it contained? So (said this man Chatterley) is it with Lords, whom we should never forget, but whom we should not disturb by violent affection or by too persistent a pursuit.

Then there was a nasty drunken chap down Wapping way who had seen better days; he had views on dozens of things and they were often worth listening to, and one of his fads was to be for ever preaching that the whole social position of an aristocracy resided in a veil of illusion, and that hands laid too violently on this veil would tear it. It was only by a sort of hypnotism, he said, that we regarded Lords as separate from ourselves. It was a dream, and a rough movement would wake one out of it. Snobbishness (he said) did violence to this sacred film of faith and might shatter it, and hence (he pointed out) was especially hated by Lords themselves. It was interesting to hear as a theory and delivered in those surroundings, but it is exploded at once by the first experience of High Life and its solid realities.

There is yet another view that to seek after acquaintance with men of position in some way hurts one's own soul, and that to strain towards our superiors, to mingle our society with their own, is unworthy, because it is destructive of something peculiar to ourselves. But surely there is implanted in man an instinct which leads him to all his noblest efforts and which is, indeed, the motive force of religion, the instinct by which he will ever seek to attain what he sees to be superior to him and more worthy than the things of his common experience. It seems to be proper, therefore, that no man should struggle against the very natural attraction which radiates from superior rank, and I will boldly affirm that he does his country a good service who submits to this force.

The just appetite for rank gives rise to two kinds of duty, one or the other of which each of us in his sphere is bound to regard. There is first for much the greater part of men the duty of showing respect and deference to men of title, by which I do not mean only Lords absolute (which are Barons, Viscounts, Earls, Marquises and Dukes), but also Lords in gross, that is the whole body of lords, including lords by courtesy, ladies, their wives and mothers, honourables and cousins--especially heirs of Lords, and to some extent Baronets as well. Secondly, there is the duty of those few within whose power it lies to become Lords, Lords to become, lest the aristocratic element in our Constitution should decline. The most obvious way of doing one's duty in this regard if one is wealthy is to purchase a peerage, or a Baronetcy at the least, and when I consider how very numerous are the fortunes to which a sum of twenty or thirty thousand pounds is not really a sacrifice, and how few of their possessors exercise a tenacious effort to acquire rank by the disbursement of money, I cannot but fear for the future of the country! It is no small sign of our times that we should read so continually of large bequests to public charities made by men who have had every opportunity for entering the Upper House but who preferred to remain unnoted in the North of England and to leave their posterity no more dignified than they were themselves.

There is a yet more restricted class to whom it is open to become Lords by sheer merit. The one by gallant conduct in the field, another by a pretty talent for verse, a third by scientific research. And if any of my readers happen to be a man of this kind and yet hesitate to undertake the effort required of him, I would point out that our Constitution in its wisdom adds certain very material advantages to a peerage of this kind. It is no excuse for a man of military or scientific eminence to say that his income would not enable him to maintain such a dignity. Parliament is always ready to vote a sufficient grant of money, and even were it not so, it is quite possible to be a Lord and yet to be but poorly provided with the perishable goods of this world, as is very clearly seen in the case of no fewer than eighty-two Barons, fourteen Earls, and three dukes, a list of whom I had prepared for printing in these directions but have most unfortunately mislaid.

Again, even if one's private means be small, and if Parliament by some neglect omit to endow one's new splendour, the common sense of England will come to the help of any man so situated if he is worth his salt. He will with the greatest ease obtain positions of responsibility and emolument, notably upon the directorate of public companies, and can often, if he finds his salary insufficient, persuade his fellow-directors to increase it, whether by threatening them with exposure or by some other less drastic and more convivial means.

If after reading these lines there is anyone who still doubts the attitude that an honest man should take upon this matter, it is enough to point out in conclusion how Providence itself appears to have designed the whole hierarchy of Lords with a view to tempting man higher and ever higher. Thus, if some reader of this happens to be a baron, he might think perhaps that it is not worth a further effort to receive another grade of distinction. He would be wrong, for such an advance gives a courtesy title to his daughters; one more step and the same benefit accrues to his sons. After that there is indeed a hiatus, nor have I ever been able to see what advantage is held out to the viscount who desires to become a marquis--unless, indeed, it be marquises that become viscounts. Anyhow, it is the latter title which is the less English and the less manly and which I am glad to hear it is proposed to abolish by a short, one-clause bill in the next Session of Parliament. Above these, the dukes in the titles of their wives and the mode in which they are addressed stand alone. There is, therefore, no stage in a man's upward progress upon this ancient and glorious ladder where he will not find some great reward for the toil of ascending. In view of these things, I for my part hope, in common with many another, that the foolish pledge given some years ago when the Liberal Party was in opposition, that it would create no more Lords, will be revised now that it has to consider the responsibilities of office; a revision for which there is ample precedent in the case of other pledges which were as rashly made but of which a reconsideration has been found necessary in practice.

NOTE.--_I find I am wrong upon Viscounts, but as I did not discover this until my book was in the press I cannot correct it. The remainder of the matter is accurate enough, and may be relied on by the student._

ON JINGOES: IN THE SHAPE OF A WARNING

BEING

The sad and lamentable history of Jack Bull, son of the late John Bull, India Merchant, wherein it will be seen how this prosperous merchant left an heir that ran riot with 'Squires, trainbands, Black men, and Soldiers, and squandered all his substance, so that at last he came to selling penny tokens in front of the Royal Exchange in Threadneedle Street, and is now very miserably writing for the papers.

John Bull, whom I knew very well, drove a great trade in tea, cotton goods, and bombazine, as also in hardware, all manner of cutlery, good and bad, and especially sea-coal, and was very highly respected in the City of London, of which he was twice Sheriff and once Lord Mayor. When he went abroad some begged of him, and to these he would give a million or so at a time openly in the street, so that a crowd would gather and cry, "Lord! what a generous fellow is this Mr. Bull!" Some, again, of better station would pluck his sleeve and take him aside into Broad Street Corner or Mansion House Court, and say, "Mr. Bull, a word in your ear. I have more paper about than I care for in these hard times, and I could pay you handsomely for a short loan." These always found Mr. Bull willing and ready, sure and silent, and, withal, cheaper at a discount than any other. For buying cloth all came to Bull; and for buying other wares his house was preferred to those of Frog and Hans and the rest, because he was courteous and ready, always to be found in his office (which was near the Wool-pack in Leaden Hall Street, next to Mr. Marlow's, the Methodist preacher), and moreover he was very attentive to little things. This last habit he would call the soul of business. In such fashion Mr. Bull had accumulated a sum of five hundred thousand million pounds, or thereabouts, and when he died the neighbours said this and that spiteful thing about his son Jack whom he had trained up to the business, making out that _they knew more than they cared to say_, that _Jack was not John_, that _they had heard of Pride going before a fall_, and so much tittle-tattle as jealousy will breed. But they were very much disappointed in their malice, for this same Jack went sturdily to work and trod in his father's steps, so that his wealth increased even beyond what he had inherited, and he had at last more risks upon the sea in one way and another than any other merchant in the City. And if you would know how Jack (who was, to tell the truth, more flighty and ill-informed than his father) came to go so wisely, it was thus: Old John had left him a few directions writ up in pencil on the mantelpiece, which ran in this way:---

1. Never go into an adventure unless the feeling of your neighbours be with you.

2. Spend no more than you earn--nay, put by every year.

3. Put out no money for show in your business but only for use, save only on the occasion of the Lord Mayor's Show, your taking of an office, or on the occasion of public holidays, as, when the King's wife or daughter lies in.

4. Live and let live, for be sure your business can only thrive on the condition that others do also.

5. Vex no man at your door; buy and sell freely.

6. Do not associate with Drunkards, Brawlers and Poets; and God's blessing be with you.

Now when Jack was grown to about thirty years old, he came, most unfortunately, upon a certain Sir John Snipe, Bart., that was a very scandalous young squire of Oxfordshire, and one that had published five lyrics and a play (enough to warn any Bull against him), who spoke to him somewhat in this fashion:---

"La! Jack, what a pity you and I should live so separate! I'll be bound you're the best fellow in the world, the very backbone of the country. To be sure there's a silly old-fashioned lot of Lumpkins in our part that will have it you're no gentleman, but I say, 'Gentle is as Gentle does,' and fair play's a jewel. I will enter your counting-house as soon as drink to you, as I do here."

Whereat Jack cried--

"God 'a' mercy, a very kind gentleman! Be welcome to my house. Pray take it as your own. I think you may count me one of you? Eh? Be seated. Come, how can I serve you?": and at last he had this Jackanapes taking a handsome salary for doing nothing.

When Jack's friends would reproach him and say, "Oh, Jack, Jack, beware this fine gentleman; he will be your ruin," Jack would answer, "A plague on all levellers," or again, "What if he be a gentleman? So that he have talent 'tis all I seek," or yet further, "Well, gentle or simple, thank God he's an honest Englishman." Whereat Jack added to the firm, Isaacs of Hamburg, Larochelle of Canada, Warramugga of Van Dieman's Land, Smuts Bieken of the Cape of Good Hope, and the Maharajah of Mahound of the East Indies that was a plaguey devilish-looking black fellow, pock-marked, and with a terrible great paunch to him.

So things went all to the dogs with poor Jack, that would hear no sense or reason from his father's old friends, but was always seen arm in arm with Sir John Snipe, Warra Mugga, the Maharajah and the rest; drinking at the sign of the "Beerage," gambling and dicing at "The Tape," or playing fisticuffs at the "Lord Nelson," till at last he quarrelled with all the world but his boon companions and, what was worse, boasted that his father's brother's son, rich Jonathan Spare, was of the company. So if he met some dirty dog or other in the street he would cry, "Come and sup to-night, you shall meet Cousin Jonathan!" and when no Jonathan was there he would make a thousand excuses saying, "Excuse Jonathan, I pray you, he has married a damned Irish wife that keeps him at home"; or, "What! Jonathan not come? Oh! we'll wait awhile. He never fails, for we are like brothers!" and so on; till his companions came to think at last that he had never met or known Jonathan; which was indeed the case.

About this time he began to think himself too fine a gentleman to live over the shop as his father had done, and so asked Sir John Snipe where he might go that was more genteel; for he still had too much sense to ask any of those other outlandish fellows' advice in such a matter. At last, on Snipe's bespeaking, he went to Wimbledon, which is a vastly smart suburb, and there, God knows, he fell into a thousand absurd tricks so that many thought he was off his head.

He hired a singing man to stand before his door day and night singing vulgar songs out of the street in praise of Dick Turpin and Molly Nog, only forcing him to put in his name of Jack Bull in the place of the Murderer or Oyster Wench therein celebrated.

He would drink rum with common soldiers in the public-houses and then ask them in to dinner to meet gentlemen, saying "These are heroes and gentlemen, which are the two first kinds of men," and they would smoke great pipes of tobacco in his very dining-room to the general disgust.

He would run out and cruelly beat small boys unaware, and when he had nigh killed them he would come back and sit up half the night writing an account of how he had fought Tom Mauler of Bermondsey and beaten him in a hundred and two rounds, which (he would add) no man living but he could do.

He would hang out of his window a great flag with a challenge on it "to all the people of Wimbledon assembled, or to any of them singly," and then he would be seen at his front gate waving a great red flag and gnawing a bone like a dog, saying that he loved Force only, and would fight all and any.

When he received any print, newspaper, book or pamphlet that praised any but himself, he would throw it into the fire in a kind of frenzy, calling God to witness that he was the only person of consequence in the world, that it was a horrible shame that he was so neglected, and Lord knows what other rubbish.